14
G rayson stepped through the swinging doors of the saloon. Several men turned and gave him a brusque nod of acknowledgment. Working in the fields beside them had established a bond he wasn’t expecting.
Eyeing Kit and Harry sitting at a corner table, he strode across the saloon. He dropped his satchel at his feet and took the chair. Without a word, he grabbed the drink Harry poured him, tipped his head, and threw the contents of the glass to the back of his mouth.
He immediately regretted his action as the liquid fire burned its way down his throat. Coughing, with tears springing to his eyes, he dug his fingers into the edge of the table. Harry slapped his back, doing more harm than good.
“Sorry. Thought you’d remember that these Texans like their liquor strong,” Harry said.
“I did. Pour me another one,” Grayson commanded, his voice sounding parched.
Harry chuckled as he tipped the bottle and the amber contents splashed into the glass. “I do find a certain sense of accomplishment to withstanding the baptism by fire.”
With a bit more caution, Grayson brought the glass to his lips.
“Thought you’d be with your future wife this evening,” Kit said.
“She’s not my future wife,” Grayson ground out.
“Sorry to hear that,” Harry said. “What changed her mind?”
Grayson tossed back the whiskey, this time relishing the igniting of hell within him. “Her husband.”
Kit leaned forward. “I thought she was a widow.”
“Yes, well, so did she until we returned home this evening and found her husband resurrected.”
Harry refilled his glass. “So how did that come about? Him being thought dead when he wasn’t?”
Grayson took the glass, downing the contents in one long swallow. “I don’t know.”
“You might want to take care with that stuff,” Harry suggested. “It’s not only strong, but potent. It can put you under the table in no time.”
“Which is exactly where I want to be.” Placing his elbows on the table, he leaned forward. “He didn’t even ask her how she was. He just told her that she’d left too much cotton in the fields.”
“Sounds like a caring fellow,” Kit said.
“She touched his cheek, but he stood there like a stone statue. He never touched her. They never hugged or kissed—”
“Some people aren’t comfortable expressing their emotions in front of strangers,” Kit said.
“By God, if I’d been away from her for four years, I bloody well wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off her.”
“How is Abbie holding up to her husband’s return?” Kit asked.
“I think she’s in shock. Her eyes were glazed, vacant. I probably should have stayed—” He fought to keep the stiff upper lip for which his fellow countrymen were famous. “It’s just as well he didn’t touch her. I might have killed him.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“He wants the rest of the cotton picked. He thinks there’s at least one more wagonload left in the fields.”
Harry snorted. “Good luck to him then, but I’m not picking anymore.” He fanned out the cards. “I’ve nearly ruined my hands. Can hardly distinguish the feel of the cards.”
Grayson smiled slightly. “Must make it incredibly difficult to cheat.”
“I never cheat. I simply manipulate the cards so they are to my liking.”
“And clean out our pockets in the process.”
“Not yours. I have no need for lint.”
Grayson helped himself to another shot of whiskey. The burning was less, but still satisfactory. “I’m going to take a room here.”
“We’ve done the same,” Kit said. “We thought to leave for Galveston at the end of the month.”
Although the words were not spoken, Grayson heard them echoing clearly though between them—after your wedding.
“I suppose there’s no reason to delay now,” Harry added.
“No reason,” Grayson said as he stood. “Except I’m not ready to leave.” He picked up his satchel and the half-empty bottle of whiskey. “If you gentlemen will excuse me, I’m in the mood to quietly get drunk.”
Neither said anything as Grayson walked away to see about securing a room for the night where he could drink himself into oblivion and drive away the unrelenting litany that was beating through his mind: Abbie was lying in bed with another man.
Abbie stepped into her bedroom, and the horror of her situation slammed into her unmercifully. She stared at the blankets piled on the floor, the rumpled sheets on the bed, and the indention in the pillows where two heads had rested so closely together as to be one.
Was it only yesterday morning that she had awoken in Grayson’s arms? They had made love long before the sun came up. Laughing and happy, she had left this room anticipating the time when he would lie in bed with her every night.
She rushed across the room, snatched up the pillow where he had laid his head, and began to fluff it, mash it, reshape it, destroying the evidence that he had been here.
She buried her face in it, tears scalding her eyes as his scent wafted around her—along with the musky fragrance of their lovemaking. It was faint, like a memory that might fade over time, but would never be completely forgotten.
She tossed the pillow on the bed and began to slap her hands over the wrinkled sheets, trying to erase Grayson’s presence. She jerked the sheets up to the head of the bed and grabbed the blankets, spreading them over the mattress, trying to make everything look normal when she knew in her heart that nothing would ever be normal again.
When she was finished, she changed into her nightgown. Sitting down, she brushed her hair. Faint chilly tremors cascaded through her body. She would have thought it was the dead of winter instead of the tail end of summer.
No words were spoken after Grayson walked out of the house. No one exchanged smiles or laughter. No one brought a story to life. She set her brush aside, parted her hair into thirds, and began to twine the thick strands together, wondering how she would survive this night.
Knowing what she now knew of passion, how would she endure her husband’s touch? No, it was more than the passion. It was the intimacy, the intimacy that went deeper than joined bodies. A closeness that allowed them to talk during and after, to laugh, to take joy in each other.
The door opened with a resounding click, and she nearly leapt out of her skin. Favoring his right leg, John walked into the room and came to stand beside her.
Don’t touch me. Please don’t touch me .
A silly request when she knew he would not touch her. Not here, not outside the confines of the bed. Before Grayson, she had not realized how distant her relationship with her husband was. Four years had widened the chasm.
He trailed his blunt-tipped fingers over Ivanhoe before turning back the cover. “Tell me about this Englishman.”
Panic clawed at her throat, and she wondered how much he had seen as they’d driven up in the wagon—before they had seen him. How much he might have guessed.
“He’s a hard worker. Kind to the children.”
“And to you?”
He loved me . But she held the words close to her heart because they weren’t the sort of words a woman should throw at her husband to welcome him from a war. “He was kind to everyone. He read to us in the evening.”
His gaze did not stray from the book. “You read.”
“Yes, but his words are spoken almost as if they were a song. I reckon it’s his accent. It fit the story well.”
With a nod, he turned away. “I haven’t slept in a bed in years.”
“If you prefer, I could sleep with Lydia —”
“No. You’re my wife. You sleep with me.” He turned, meeting her gaze directly. “You are my wife, aren’t you?”
She balled her hands into fists within her lap, the vows she had spoken at sixteen resounding through her head. “Yes.”
The bed groaned as he lowered his weigh
t to it. “Get into bed.”
She rose slowly. She had forgotten how much she dreaded the walk from her vanity to the bed, how the apprehension would crawl up her spine like a thousand ants. “They told me you were dead,” she said quietly.
He stared at his large clasped hands resting between his spread knees.
“I’m grateful you aren’t dead, but I’ve been on my own for four years, and I’m not quite comfortable with the idea that you are home. I need time, John .”
“Are you regretting the vows you took?” he asked solemnly.
Oh, God, but her heart ached—for him, for her, for Grayson. Without realizing it, they had woven a tangled web, and she feared none of them would escape unscathed.
“No, I don’t regret the vows I took,” she said softly. When she was sixteen, there was no Grayson Rhodes to save her. There had only been John Westland . “You were always larger than life to me. You still are.”
She walked across the room and slid beneath the blankets. John turned down the flame in the lamp until darkness descended in the room. She felt the bed shift as he stretched out on his side beside her, his back to her. His silhouette had always reminded her of a mountain range, formidable, unmovable. They lay with nothing to surround them but the blackness of the night and memories gathered before the war.
“Do you regret marrying me?” she asked softly.
“No. I never could have made this farm prosper without you. And nature would have reclaimed it while I was away if you hadn’t been here.”
It always came back to the farm with them. She felt the solitary tear trail across her temple. Her husband was home…and she’d never felt more alone.
She rolled onto her side, stirring Grayson’s scent to life. Torn between inhaling deeply and holding her breath, she hoped John didn’t notice the unmistakable presence of another man.
“ John ,” she whispered, wondering if the better part of valor wouldn’t be to simply keep quiet. “What happened? Were you wounded? Captured—”
“Wounded.”
She eased forward a tiny bit. She reached out for him, but stopped, her hand hovering inches from his shoulder. Slowly, she brought her hand back. “I notice you limp now. Did you get shot in the leg?”
“Yes. Head, too. Not shot there. Hit…Don’t remember.”
“Are you in pain now?”
“No. Sometimes my head hurts. Couldn’t…couldn’t remember nothing.”
His voice had grown thick, raspy, and she felt a slight trembling of the mattress beneath her. Without thought, she did what she’d never done before he went to war. She scooted across the mattress, pressed her cheek to his back, and slipped her arm around him, offering her comfort and strength. He grabbed her hand and tucked it against his chest. She felt the tremors coursing through him and realized that he was crying. “It’s all right, John .”
“Couldn’t remember nothing but the fields. Knew they’d be waiting for me.”
His hand tightened painfully around hers, but she remained quiet, stoic, lost in her own grief.
How much simpler life would be if she’d waited as well.
Abbie stepped onto the porch in the gray light of dawn. This morning she would warm water so her husband could shave on the back porch. She would launder his clothes, make his bed, prepare his meals. Guilt gnawed at her because she found no joy in tending to his needs and realized with startling clarity that she never had.
She truly was grateful that he hadn’t perished. She simply wished he hadn’t returned home. But then at the end of the month she would have become guilty of bigamy.
She saw a movement in the fields and her heart hammered against her chest. Grayson. She had feared he would be well on his way to Galveston with his friends by now. She flew off the porch and raced across the yard, her bare feet kicking up the dirt, creating a cloud of dust around her. She stumbled to a halt in front of him, thinking she had never seen a more welcome sight.
His face in need of a shave, his eyes red-rimmed and swollen, he looked as though he had slept little the night before. She had slept not at all.
She reached out to touch his bristled cheek, but drew her hand away just short of its destination. “You came back.”
He stuffed the tuft of cotton into the sack slung over his shoulder. “It was my understanding we had not done an adequate job of clearing the fields.”
“ John always took pride in stripping the fields clean. He’s as bad as a locust when it comes to leaving nothing behind.” Throwing caution to the wind, she touched his cheek. He closed his eyes, and she watched him swallow as though he fought a battle to prevent himself from returning the gesture.
“You don’t look like you slept,” she said.
He opened his eyes. “I slept. Drank myself into a stupor. It was only pride that had me stumbling out of my room in the darkness before dawn. All I could think about was him reaching for you in the darkness of the night—”
“He never reached for me.”
Although she had held him, John had never turned to her, had finally drifted to sleep with his back to her. She watched surprise flit across Grayson’s face before relief settled in.
“I don’t know what to make of him, Abbie. I would have made love to you all night if I had not been in your company for four years. I’m torn between wishing things were different between the two of you and rejoicing because he kept his hands to himself.” His eyes filled with despair. “I thought I would go mad last night thinking of him—”
She watched his throat work as he swallowed. She wanted to hold him to her breast, console him, and love him. “We got married because he needed someone to tend his house and I needed to leave my parents’ house. I liked to feel needed. I didn’t know there was a difference between being needed and being wanted. Not until you.”
“I am a selfish bastard, Abbie, wanting you to find no pleasure in your husband’s bed so you’ll come back to me.”
“If it was only a matter of pleasure, I would have left with you last night. But there’s more at stake. Honor, commitment, vows that bind me to John .”
“ Abigail !”
She jerked her head around to see John standing on the porch, suspenders dangling at his sides.
“You need to see to breakfast!”
“I’ll be there in a minute!” She turned back to Grayson. “Will you join us?”
He shook his head. “No. I’m not even certain I’ll be able to stay in the fields all day, to look at you, and not touch you.”
“ Abigail !”
She flinched. “I have to go.”
“If he harms you at all…” he ground out.
She shook her head vigorously. “He won’t.” At least not with physical blows. As she raced toward the house, the litany from a song she’d sang as a child rang through her mind. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
Only now, as an adult, did she realize that the song was based on a lie, for words could kill a soul, strangle a heart. Her husband had remembered the fields, but he hadn’t remembered her.
Grayson didn’t know how word spread, but by mid-morning neighbors were crawling along the rows beneath John Westland ’s watchful eye. They all seemed genuinely glad that he’d returned home and Grayson caught snippets of conversation. Everyone was anticipating next year’s crop.
Westland would know the exact day and hour when the seeds should be planted. He would know when the picking would begin, how much yield, how much loss they would have. The fields would flourish under his care.
Grayson thought it a shame that no one seemed to notice the same could be said for the man’s wife. They were all here working the fields because of all she’d done during her husband’s absence.
He carried his full sack to the wagon at the end of the row and snatched an empty sack from the stack on the bench. With sweat rolling down his back and gathering in the hollows of his body, he strode through the fields toward Abbie.
Her back was curved benea
th the weight of a sack that was only half full. “Swap sacks with me.”
Slowly she straightened and wiped the back of her hand against her brow. She gave him a soft smile that left little doubt that deep within him he had a heart and dreams, dreams she had awakened.
“Now why would I do that?” she asked.
“Because the cotton is so scattered that we’re having to carry the sacks farther than we did before, and this one is lighter.”
“But it’ll get heavy.”
“Until it does, your back won’t hurt as much.” Before she could protest further, he slipped his hand between the strap and her shoulder and pulled the bag from her. He could almost see the relief wash over her face.
“I don’t allow cheatin’ in my fields,” a deep voice rumbled.
Grayson looked past Abbie to where Westland stood, legs akimbo, eyes narrowed into an icy glare. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw other people stop their labors and stare.
“I beg your pardon?” Grayson asked, unable to prevent the haughtiness from creeping into his voice.
“I pay my workers two bits for each sack they pick. Taking a sack that’s half-full is cheatin’.”
“Two bits?”
“A quarter,” Abbie explained.
Grayson met Westland ’s accusing glare. “I am not one of your workers. The only reason I’m picking your damn cotton is because I want Abbie out of the fields as quickly as possible.”
“I won’t pay you for the half-filled sacks you take from her.”
Grayson slipped the empty sack onto Abbie’s shoulder. She put her hand over his.
“Don’t be a fool. If he’s not going to pay you—”
“I don’t want the money, Abbie. I never did.”
“No one works a cotton field for nothing.”
“If my working the fields gets you out of them sooner, then I didn’t do it for nothing.”
He felt John Westland ’s gaze boring into him as he headed toward a section where the cotton was a bit more abundant. The sooner he filled his sack, the sooner he could hand an empty one off to Abbie.
The day was the longest of his life. The heat was unbearable. His fingers bled, swelled, ached, and cramped, but the most painful part of all was shutting off his emotions. He was torn between confronting John Westland and honoring the man’s return.
Rogues in Texas 01- A Rogue In Texas Page 20