With her promise to marry Grayson echoing through her heart, Abbie reached over and squeezed his hand as he guided the wagon toward home. Dusk was settling in, and it somehow seemed appropriate that they would tell the children of their impending marriage shortly after they gathered around Grayson to hear him read.
When they had arrived at Elizabeth ’s, she had been overjoyed to see the children greet Grayson with as much enthusiasm as they’d bestowed upon her. She could not imagine that there was anything more difficult than raising another man’s children, but she thought Grayson was up to the task. Indeed, the children knew more of him than they knew of their own father.
She heard the children moving about in the back of the wagon. She would have admonished them if Grayson hadn’t chosen that moment to thread his fingers through hers, bring her hand to his lips, and press a kiss against her knuckles. His eyes darkened as her fingers tightened on his.
“By the end of the month, Abbie?” he asked, his voice a low caress.
Her heart leapt with unbridled joy. She knew he was referring to their marriage. By the end of the month, he would no longer sleep in the barn. He would sleep in her bed every night, and she’d awaken in his arms every morning. “Shhh. You’ll spoil the surprise.”
“What surprise, Mama?” Lydia asked as she rose to her knees in the back of the wagon.
Abbie shot Grayson a warning glare. The rogue had the audacity to drop his head back and laugh. How she loved his laughter.
“We’ll tell you after supper,” Abbie promised, not certain she could wait that long to impart the news. She wanted to shout it to the world. Not telling Elizabeth had been one of the hardest things she’d ever done, but she wanted the children to know first.
Lydia brought herself to her feet. “Who’s that, Mama?”
Following Lydia ’s pointing finger, Abbie turned her attention toward the fields. A man stood between the rows of stripped cotton, the plants hiding much of him, his hat shadowing his face as he looked down. She had seen him before, working the fields…
He removed his hat, revealing hair the same shade as Johnny ’s. Gladness swept through her. She’d never thought to see him again.
He bent down, disappearing within the crops. Abbie’s heart slammed against her ribs as stark reality crushed the joy, and she squeezed her eyes closed. It couldn’t be…He couldn’t be…Her breath came in short little gasps. Her imagination was running rampant, seeing someone who no longer existed. He was just a soldier on his way home, stopping a moment in her fields—
“Abbie?”
Despite the blood pounding between her ears, she heard Grayson’s voice, tranquil and soothing. He always remained serene, calming her in the process. How she needed him.
She opened her eyes, bestowing upon him a quivering smile. Impatiently, Lydia nudged her shoulder. “Who is it, Mama?”
Abbie looked back toward the fields. The man was visible again, strolling between the rows as though he owned the very land upon which he walked.
Which he did.
“It’s impossible,” she whispered hoarsely.
“Who is it, Abbie?” Grayson asked.
The words clogged her throat, threatening to suffocate her.
Grayson drew the horses to a halt. “If you don’t know the fellow, then I’ll advise him to leave.”
“No.” Shaking her head, she released his hand and pressed her fingers against her lips. Stinging tears welled in her eyes. With a slight limp, the man walked beyond the fields and toward the wagon, his hands balled into fists.
“Then you do know him?” Grayson asked.
A warm tear slid along her cheek. “He’s my husband.”
Grayson felt as though someone had just slammed a hammer into his chest. His throat tightened and a knot rose up to nearly choke him. “I thought he was dead.”
Woodenly, she nodded. “So did I.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Children, stay in the wagon.”
She stood, the first indication Grayson had that she intended to get out of the wagon. He pushed her back down. “Let me help you.”
He leapt to the ground and hurried around to help her clamber down. With his hands on her waist, he felt the small tremors rippling through her. “What are you going to say?”
She shook her head, her voice a raspy whisper. “I don’t know. I’m having a hard time believing this.”
He followed her, his hand on the small of her back as she walked jerkily toward the man who’d come to a stop at the edge of the fields. The man’s brown gaze darted to the fields as though he were contemplating returning to them.
Abbie stumbled to a stop. “J-John?”
Grayson saw her fingers tremble as she reached out and touched the man’s gaunt cheek. The man studied her as though he’d never seen her before. Grayson found himself filled with an irrational hope that perhaps Abbie was wrong. Perhaps this man was not who she thought he was.
“ John ? It’s me…Abbie,” she said softly, as though she spoke to a child.
The man clenched his jaw and nodded. Grayson wondered if perhaps he’d lost his ability to speak. He knew the harshness of war had a tendency to age a man, but even with the effects of battle taken into consideration, Westland was much older than Grayson had ever imagined him. A scraggly beard, streaked with white, covered his face. His gray uniform—one Abbie had no doubt sewn for him years before—hung loosely from stooped shoulders so he more closely resembled a scarecrow than a man.
Westland extended his large scarred hands and unfurled thick fingers to reveal several tufts of cotton nestled within his palms. “You left too much cotton.”
Stunned, Grayson could do no more than stare at the man. He’d been to war, thought dead, hadn’t seen his wife in years and his first words of greeting revolved around the damn cotton? Abbie looked at his hands as though she couldn’t remember what cotton was.
“We filled four wagons,” Abbie said quietly, almost apologetically, as though all their efforts amounted to nothing.
“Should have been five. Maybe more.” John Westland jerked his head toward Grayson. “Who is this?”
Abbie turned to Grayson, and he saw that the tears were gone—along with the joy. Her eyes reflected acceptance. “This is Grayson Rhodes . He’s been helping with the fields.”
“Not doing a good job of it from what I can see. We’ll start picking at first light.” He turned his back on them.
Incensed at the man’s treatment of Abbie, Grayson took a step forward. “We heard you were dead.”
Westland turned, narrowing his eyes. “Well, I ain’t. Where you been staying?”
“In the barn,” Abbie said hastily. “Seven of the families boarded a worker.”
“He can stay.” He gave his head a quick jerk toward the wagon. “Are those the children?”
“Yes.”
Abbie looked incredibly lost and confused. Grayson fought the urge to take her in his arms and comfort her. After all, she was little more than his betrothed while she was Westland ’s wife. What in God’s name had possessed her to marry this man who had not even asked how she was?
“ Johnny , bring your brother and sister here,” Abbie called.
Grayson looked toward the wagon. The children were standing, eyes wide. The children—children he had begun to think of as his. He watched them scramble out of the wagon and hesitantly approach the stranger—their father. Grayson clearly recognized the man’s features in the eldest boy. He prayed to God that he never saw his mannerisms.
Abbie skirted quickly behind the children, placing her arms around the three of them, drawing them near the way a hen protected her young. “Children, this is your father.”
Feeling like an intruder but unable to force his feet to move from the spot, Grayson watched as Westland swallowed.
“You’ve grown, Johnny,” Westland said, his voice thick with emotion, but his expression revealing nothing of what he might be thinking.
Knowing what it was to be overlooked, Grayson i
nterjected, “I imagine they’ve all grown since you’ve been away.”
Westland nodded, and Grayson saw his throat working as though this moment was not as easy for him as he wanted it to appear. He wished he could be glad that the man had risen from the dead, but the truth of the matter was that the man’s presence was a damn inconvenience.
“How come you ain’t dead?” Johnny asked. “Ma said you was dead.”
“Your name was on one of the lists we received,” Abbie said, her voice laced with an agonizing apology.
“Things were confused for a while,” Westland murmured. “See about getting supper on the table, woman.” With a slight limp, he walked toward the house.
Grayson watched him disappear within the waning twilight and wondered if perhaps he were in the midst of a nightmare. He turned to Abbie. “Woman? He hasn’t seen you in four, five years—”
She shook her head vigorously and crouched in front of her children.
“I don’t like him,” Micah announced in his deep, throaty voice.
Smart lad . Grayson didn’t much like Westland either.
Abbie brushed the dark locks of hair off Micah’s furrowed brow. “You don’t really know him. He’s a stranger. You were just a baby when he left, but he’s your father and we should be…grateful that he’s home and that he wasn’t killed.”
“Why did they say he was dead if he wasn’t?” Johnny asked.
A good question, lad. I’m wondering the same thing myself . But Grayson held his silence for he could not imagine this moment was easy on Abbie. Her hands had yet to stop trembling. He resented like the devil that her husband had left her to handle the children alone, as though they were not his concern, his responsibility. Westland had held the damn cotton in his hands, but not his wife or his children.
Abbie licked her thumb and rubbed a spot of dirt off Johnny ’s face. “I don’t know. I don’t imagine war is very orderly, and someone made a mistake is all.”
Is all ? Someone’s mistake was on the verge of bringing untold grief to those Grayson cared about. He watched Abbie force a smile that came nowhere close to touching her eyes.
“Go be with your father while Rhodes and I put the wagon away. Then I’ll be in to fix supper.”
As one, the children jerked their gazes to him as though they hoped he had the power to save them from a fate worse than death. If only he could.
Crouching before them, he clasped his hands between his spread thighs. “Remember when you told me what a brave soldier your father was?”
Johnny scrunched up his nose. “I mighta been wrong. He don’t look brave.”
“Bravery doesn’t show on the outside of a man, lad,” he said quietly. “It’s tucked away on the inside. Here.” He touched the tip of his finger to the center of Johnny ’s chest. “Being brave is doing something that you know has to be done—even though you don’t want to do it.”
“Are you being brave?” Micah croaked.
“I’m trying, lad.” But he was so damn tempted to hoist Abbie and the children back onto the wagon and ride toward the sunset. He would have done it if he thought Abbie would never look back, but he knew her reverence for honor wouldn’t allow it. “I think your mother is trying as well, so why don’t you set a good example for her and show her how it’s done—with your chins up.”
The children set their mouths into grim lines of determination and jerked up their chins. Grayson was hard-hit with an unrelenting truth: he loved these children more than his very life.
They scuffled away, warily glancing over their shoulders from time to time. Grayson unfolded his body and took a step toward Abbie. She quickly held up a hand.
“Thank you for explaining things to the children, but please don’t say anything else right now…or do anything.” She wrapped her fingers around the lead horse’s harness. “We need to get the horses unhitched.”
He fell into step beside her. Light spilled out of the house as lamps were lit inside…lit by her husband.
Her husband!
Good God, but he had never felt such impotent rage.
“Abbie?”
“Not yet.”
Glancing over at her, he saw the tears shimmering within her eyes, the stiffness in her shoulders, the tightness in her jaw. With her head held high, she marched forward as though she was being led to the gallows.
Once inside the cavernous barn, she stumbled to a stop, her gaze darting from the stalls to the loft to the doorway as though she weren’t quite sure where she was. Grayson unfurled her stiff fingers from around the harness. Her hands were as cold as a river in the dead of winter. “Abbie?”
She snapped her gaze to his. “The report said he was dead.”
Wrapping his arms around her, he drew her into his embrace. He felt her fingers clutching his sides, her tears dampening his shirt, the tiny tremors coursing through her.
“He’s not dead,” she whispered hoarsely.
He pressed his cheek to the top of her head, unable to find any words to ease her pain or change the truth of the situation. “I know.”
He ignored the pain as she dug her fingers into his ribs.
“I’m married,” she rasped, as though the reality had just slapped her in the face. “Oh, dear God, I’m still married.”
She broke away from him and wrapped her arms around her middle, staring at him with the tears streaming down her face. “I dishonored my vows, myself—”
“No!” he growled. “You thought he was dead. You did nothing wrong.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Nothing wrong?” She opened her eyes to reveal her despair. “I fell in love with you—”
“Do you still love me?”
“I can’t—”
“Do you love me?”
She shook her head slightly. “Do you know what I first thought when I recognized him? That I was glad…glad he wasn’t dead.”
She raced out of the barn, her words echoing around him, ripping into his heart.
The homecoming of John Westland in no way resembled that of James Morgan . Grayson sat at the table, surrounded by the deafening silence, moving his food from one side of his plate to the other, his gaze constantly drifting to Abbie who warily watched her husband. No touches. No tears of happiness. No smiles of unrestrained joy.
John Westland was so absorbed in shoveling food into his mouth that he didn’t seem to notice that everyone else was eating little. The gentleman within Grayson acknowledged that the man was probably starving, if the loose clothing was any indication of how much weight he’d lost.
But the rogue inside him was tempted to announce, Say, old man, while you were away, your wife and I fell in love. As a matter of fact, we’d planned to be married shortly. It would be rather sporting of you to step aside and let us continue with our lives.
Abbie’s gaze occasionally darted to him with an appeal that seemed to indicate she knew what he was contemplating and wanted him to keep quiet. So against his better judgment, he held his silence. He would not hurt or embarrass her for the world. Besides, holding his silence was the least he could do when it appeared he would never again hold her.
His chair scraped across the floor as he stood. All eyes came to bear on him. “I appreciate the meal, Westland . It’s as delicious as always, but I must beg my leave as I’ve decided to go into town for the evening.”
“Ain’t you gonna read to us tonight?” Johnny asked, desperation edging his voice.
Regretting his answer, Grayson attempted to deliver it with kindness. “No, lad, I’m not.”
“We’ve got cotton yet to pick,” Westland grumbled.
“I shall be here at dawn.”
Before anyone could speak another word, he strode from the house. He was in the loft, stuffing the last of his belongings into his satchel when he heard the creak of the ladder. He glanced over his shoulder and watched Abbie perch on the top rung.
“Don’t leave,” she pleaded quietly.
The thought of lying in the loft knowin
g she was lying in bed with her husband was unbearable. His heart felt as though it had been flayed. He much preferred not having a heart. “I can’t stay. Why in God’s name didn’t he write you?”
“He can’t write. Working the fields was more important to him than going to school.”
“And if he can’t write, then he can’t read,” Grayson murmured.
“He may have never known he was listed as dead,” Abbie admitted.
“So in all these years, you’ve never heard from him?”
“Not once.”
“I would have found someone to pen a letter for me.” He shoved the last of his clothing into the satchel, snapped it closed, and picked up his treasured book. He crossed the loft, crouched before her, and extended the book. “For you and the children.”
She took his gift and pressed it against her breast, to the place where he dearly wanted to bury his face and forget the realities of the world.
“You aren’t coming back, are you?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know. I can’t stand the thought…” His fingers tightened their hold on the satchel. “I don’t suppose you’d consider running away with me.”
“I’m his wife…in his eyes and in the eyes of God and the law.”
“And in your heart?”
Tears welled in her eyes as she touched her palm to his cheek. “Earlier I said I was glad he wasn’t dead. I am, but I’m not sure that I’m glad he came home. I love you. I’ll always love you.”
“Then come with me.”
“What of the children? I can’t take his children from him.”
“I am more their father than he is and you damn well know it.”
She shook her head. “I can’t abandon him the moment he returns home from the war. He gave me a roof over my head and food in my belly when I needed them. I can’t take his family away when he needs that.”
“I can’t stay knowing that you are lying in his bed.”
She dropped her hand to her lap. “Know that if you don’t return, I understand.”
She turned to go down the ladder. He snaked out his hand, grabbed the back of her head, and brought her mouth to his, the kiss a desperate, but futile attempt to hold back time, to create one last memory that he could carry with him until the day he died.
Rogues in Texas 01- A Rogue In Texas Page 19