Nate (The Rock Creek Six)

by Handeland, Lori

  Nate put Fiona in bed and told her favorite story about how the Rock Creek Six vanquished El Diablo and saved the town from destruction. A less violent version, but an adventure nevertheless. All the children loved to hear about the days before their daddies were daddies, and Nate had a soft spot that wouldn't die for children.

  Probably because his own children had died so long ago.

  A burning pain began deep in his belly. The food he'd consumed fed the bonfire, rolling around like embers blazing. Only whiskey would put out the flame.

  In his room he poured a pitcher of water over his head. It didn't help. Maybe one sip would.

  In the back of his closet he kept an emergency bottle. He chuckled a bit as he dug out the hidden supply, his belly already lighter and cooler with anticipation. One never knew when an emergency might occur. Which was what made them emergencies.

  His hand closed around the glass and he let out a breath heavy with relief. Sitting on the bed, he removed the cap, took a whiff, let his head go light with the aroma.

  As he tipped the bottle to his lips, his door swung open an inch. "Unca Nate?"

  Hurriedly, he set the bottle behind the bed. Why, he had no idea. Fiona had seen him with a bottle a hundred times before. She'd never cared and neither had he. What was wrong with him now?

  He was embarrassed. Strange. He hadn't felt shame since he'd held his dying wife in his arms.

  "I'm here," he called.

  Fiona shot across the room and jumped onto the bed, bouncing a few times with a giggle.

  "Aren't you supposed to be asleep?" His voice must have been harsher than he intended, for her eyes got huge and she froze, staring at him.

  Nate fought the urge to curse. He was so big and gruff, so unaccustomed to worrying about what he said and did. He wasn't certain how to behave in a world of hard edges when he was used to one soft, fuzzy, and elusive.

  "What's the matter?" he asked more gently.

  She crawled into his lap without invitation. She'd never needed one. Nate didn't know why this child loved him, or for that matter why he loved her. She wasn't his. She reminded him of no one. But in his heart, Fiona held a special place and always would.

  "Daddy gone," she whispered.

  "He'll be back soon."

  "He don't go away. Not like you and Cash. Where you go when you go?"

  What should he say to that? When he and Cash went they did things she had no business knowing about. Perhaps it was best to ignore the question.

  "We always come back. So will your daddy."

  "Mommy havin' another baby." In the way of children, she switched topics quicker than rabbits switched locations.

  "I noticed."

  "I won't be the baby no more."

  Aha.

  "You'll always be my baby, Fiona."

  "Really?"

  "Who else?"

  "Maybe you have a baby sometime. A little girl with pretty eyes. Blue like you. A little boy with black hair, no white."

  "I doubt that."

  His voice went hoarse as memories flickered. God, he was thirsty. His hand itched to reach for the bottle hidden in the shadows of the bed. Fiona wouldn't care. Fiona wouldn't even notice. Holding her close with one arm, he reached for oblivion with the other.

  She turned her face into his neck and sniffed. "Smell good. Not like before."

  His fingers brushing the glass, Nate stilled. "Before?"

  "You smelled like Aunt Lily's cellar, or worse. Like Unca Cash's house on a Saturday night."

  "When were you at Cash's place on a Saturday night?"

  "Once Daddy came lookin' for you and I follow 'cause I miss you. You weren't in your room for two seeps. Daddy saw me." She shook her head mournfully. "Can't sneak up on Daddy."

  "Nobody can, baby."

  For too many years it had been Sullivan's job to make sure no one got close to him or his friends. Now no one got close to his family or Rock Creek, as well.

  "He catch me outside. Inside you seepin' in the corner, right on the floor." Nate winced. "I want to cover you up, but Daddy say no. I cry that night 'cause I knew you were cold in that corner."

  Nate's fingers slipped off the bottle. He curled that hand around Fiona and hugged her tight. "I'll try not to sleep there any more, okay?"

  " 'kay." She hugged him back. While the burn in his belly and the dust in his mouth didn't disappear, they were far easier to bear than the thought of Fiona's tears in the night.

  With sobriety came a conscience, it appeared. No wonder he'd stayed drunk for the past thirteen years.

  "Take me back to bed and stay. Daddy always sit with me till I seep."

  "Sure."

  After tugging him down the hall to her room, Fiona crawled beneath the covers, smiled sweetly, and slept the sleep of the innocent. Nate stood next to her bed for quite a while listening to her breathe. He touched the tiny hand that had rested so trustingly in his and wondered for perhaps the hundredth time why she loved him so.

  But then love had no reason. Angela could have married any man in the state of Kentucky. Instead she'd married a poor preacher with nothing to offer but a love for her as deep and abiding as his faith in God. Funny how his love and his faith had become all tangled up so that when one died, so did the other. Or maybe not so funny after all.

  The thirst flared. He shouldn't be thinking about Angela. He never did unless he was drunk. But since that night in Soledad, she'd been on his mind more than usual, which was saying quite a lot.

  Nate's parents had been farmers. Nate had been born with an insatiable craving for knowledge and a spirit that wanted to soar far beyond the land. Luckily he'd also been born the fifth son. While most men would have mourned that there would be little land left for him, Nate couldn't wait to move on.

  As a child he'd done his chores, then taught himself to read, devouring every book and newspaper he could beg or borrow. By the time there was a school nearby, Nate already knew more than the teacher. When a church was built and a preacher hired, Nate went to work cleaning, fixing, and building in exchange for more knowledge. The preacher passed on when Nate was twenty, and he'd taken over without a hitch.

  Angela's family had been members of the church. Her father was a wealthy horse breeder, her mother the reigning belle of Louisville before her marriage, the queen of small town society after—or at least she had been until war was declared and society went into hibernation.

  The two had wanted better for their daughter than Nate Lang. But they'd also enjoyed showing him off at parties—introducing their son-in-law, the reverend, and pointing out that he was an educated man.

  Angela had lived in a mansion all her life. She'd been unprepared for the responsibilities and hardships of being a preacher's wife. She'd had difficulty coping with her role, uncertain of how to help people so desperately in need, unable to counsel those with whom she'd had absolutely nothing in common.

  Nate couldn't fault her for that. Angela had been gentle, sweet, and fragile, her face that of the angel that had given rise to his pet name for her.

  But she'd loved him, and her love had gotten her killed.

  A moan escaped, and Nate worried he might wake Fiona. However, the child was so deeply asleep, nothing would do that except the sun.

  His mind drifted back fourteen years, when the path he was on now had veered off from the one he'd been on then, and he hadn't even seen it coming.

  Although a slave state, Kentucky declared its neutrality when the war broke out. As Lincoln had said, "I hope to have God on my side, but I must have Kentucky. I think to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game."

  He'd been right. Both sides jockeyed for position, the Union winning the state in 1862 at the bloody Battle of Perryville and retaining control for the rest of the war.

  That didn't stop southern sympathizers from taking up arms against them. Confederate guerrilla bands from Missouri often fled to Kentucky. The infamous leader Quantrill had died there.

  Nat
e entered the war as a pastor of the Confederacy. Not that he'd agreed with slavery. He'd found the entire practice nauseating. But most of his congregation wore gray, and he went where he was needed the most. It didn't take long for the Confederacy to need spiritual comfort quite badly.

  It took even less time for Nate to need comfort more. For him, as them, there was none to be had. He'd picked up a gun. Fighting for a lost cause should have been the quickest way to an early grave. Instead, he'd fought so viciously he'd earned a place with Reese's team by virtue of his skill with a gun, his insolence in the face of death, and that his entire company had been wiped out while he remained standing.

  Folks started to call him lucky. They couldn't have been farther from the truth.

  Nate crept to his room. He replaced the bottle in the closet. Then he spent the rest of the night struggling against the urge to pull it back out.

  Chapter 9

  Jo didn't sleep well. Her bed loomed cold and empty. She tossed and turned, reaching for Nate, coming awake with a start and a gasp each time her hands closed upon nothing.

  How could she have gotten accustomed to having him near in the space of a few days?

  She'd lived alone for a long time now, both in Indian Territory and in the months since she'd returned to Rock Creek. Being alone had never bothered her in the past.

  But a knock on her door before the sun was full up reminded Jo that though her life was lonely, it was rarely boring. There were so many people who needed her help that her days in Rock Creek were full, even busy.

  She took care of a colicky baby so the mother could sleep, then listened to a young woman's tears over unkind words and advised her not to take a fool's utterings to heart. Women knew they could come to Jo when they desired to talk, if they searched for advice, or just needed a shoulder.

  Throughout the day as Jo did what she did best, she kept an ear cocked for the sound of hoofbeats, cries of welcome, even a familiar footfall. But when the sun set, the men were not back, and she had not seen Nate at all.

  In times gone by, whenever Nate was in town he helped Eden with her brood and her business. But according to Eden, the hotel was enjoying an uncommon period of emptiness, perhaps as a result of the spring rains that had bogged many of the stages in mud along the routes.

  The slow period was convenient for Eden, since she could use the rest. These days the older children took care of the younger ones, and with the addition of Reese's and Rico's kids, there was always someone with whom to play. Jo had seen the lot of them shooting marbles on the front porch for most of the afternoon.

  A few years ago, Nate would have been in the thick of their game, competing with the older children, keeping the marbles out of the baby's mouths. Jo remembered many a time watching as he rolled around on the ground with them, wishing at least one of those children was hers, if not his, hoping always for something that could never be.

  As she ate her solitary dinner, then washed her single plate, cup, and fork, Jo wondered where Nate was today and fought the urge to find out. For a change, she'd let Nate come to her. A snort of derision escaped at the thought.

  How many nights had she sat on the porch, hoping he would do just that? Back then, girlish fantasies had abounded. Reality dashed every one. Nate had never come to her. He hadn't truly needed her. Not as much as she'd needed him.

  No cause to worry, though. If he left, she would hear about it. If he was passed out drunk again, she'd rather not know. The town was small. She'd run into him eventually or discover why she had not.

  Exhausted from the events of the previous week and not willing to sit in the rectory and stare at the walls for yet another evening, Jo donned her nightdress and slipped into bed. Where she stared at the ceiling and remembered things best forgotten.

  When the muffled tap drifted from the front of the house, she sprang from bed and hurried to answer. Anything to distract her from the lingering taste of Nate's skin, the aching awareness left by his touch, and the echo of his voice through her mind. Now that she knew what she was missing, she missed it all of the time.

  Uncaring that she wore a flimsy white nightdress—her visitor was likely Mrs. Renawaski and her colic-ridden baby again—Jo paused only to turn up the lamp before yanking open the door. Nate leaned against the porch post, staring at the shadows that shrouded Rock Creek.

  He turned, and his gaze drifted from her no doubt tousled hair to her bare feet. A cool breeze fluttered the hem at her ankles, but Jo was too hot to mind.

  Voices sounded on the street, and Nate's head jerked in that direction. Before she knew what he was about, he'd crossed the porch, crowding her back inside and shutting the door behind them.

  Unsteady at the sudden movement, Jo stumbled. His hand shot out, palm to the curve of her waist. With nothing but delicate cotton between his skin and hers, the heat of him seared through the material. She'd thought she was hot, but she'd been wrong. Compared to him, she was a flake of snow falling into a flame.

  She swayed closer. Her hip bumped his thigh. He drew in a sharp breath, and she tilted her head so she could see his face. In the semidarkness his eyes shone bright blue—like a molten pool of mountain water in the midst of winter, bubbling heat beneath the ice.

  Jo sighed. As distractions went, this wasn't going to work.

  * * *

  Nate stood just inside Jo's doorway and fought a nearly insurmountable urge to kiss her. Against his will, his thumb stroked the spike of her hip; his hand kneaded the curve. The slide of cotton along silky skin mesmerized him. The warmth of her against the chill of him made it seem as if he'd come in from the cold at last.

  Images flickered—kisses, touches, murmurs in the night. Were they real or imagined? Did he remember Jo or his wife? Nate shook his head, and the pictures danced, then died.

  What if he recalled their night together? Then he would no longer be able to deny the horrible thing he'd done. So far he'd done an excellent job of pretending, most of the time, that he had never ruined the one woman too perfect to be touched.

  He yanked away his hands, holding them up, clenching them against temptation. When in hell had Jo become his temptation?

  "What's the matter?" she asked, her big blue eyes wide in her tiny, pale face.

  "I—uh—" He lowered his arms, glanced over her head, around the room, anywhere but at her. The flickering light of the lamp made her gown transparent. The shape of her legs, the shade of her nipples, the slight weight of her breasts were all starkly visible to his treacherous gaze.

  He licked his lips and tasted her. How could he? He hadn't kissed her.

  Lately.

  Nate wiped the sweat from his brow, moved back, bumped against the door and turned around to hide. His body reacted even as his mind screamed for it to stop. He didn't want her to see him like this, even though she'd seen it all before.

  Jo touched his shoulder. The heat of her warmed him all the way to the cold center of his heart. He wanted to lean against her, or have her lean against him.

  "Is everything all right?" she asked. "Why are you here?"

  "I'm leaving."

  Her fingers jerked then retreated. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. But couldn't you at least hold off until the others come back?"

  She thought he was abandoning them all to their fate. Well, he hadn't given her cause to think him any kind of hero. But he wasn't quite the bastard she assumed him to be, and that hurt, though he'd never let her know it.

  "I'm going out to look for them. I'm sure they're halfway home by now, but I can't just sit and wait any longer."

  He couldn't bear to languish in Rock Creek with nothing to do but glare at anyone who murmured Jo's name funny. Having no one to talk to but the children all day and nothing to listen to but that damn bottle whispering his name from the closet all night had made Nate as loco as a bee-stung steer.

  Whenever the two of them had been in Rock Creek, there hadn't been a night that they hadn't sat together in his room and talked. Selfish as it
was, Nate wanted those nights back. So he'd come to her hoping for a return to what they'd had, knowing deep down such a thing was impossible. But he hadn't realized just how impossible until he'd touched her and lust flared.

  He was so shocked he didn't know what to do. In all their years of friendship, he had never hungered for Jo. She had been a gentle voice in his harsh world, peace at the center of his chaos. Without warning she was chaos amid his peace, the very sound of her voice arousing him. How could one night that he did not remember change everything?

  "Do you hate me now?"

  He spun, shocked. "How could you ask such a thing? You should hate me."

  A gentle smile curved her lips. "I couldn't."

  "Of course not. You couldn't hate anyone, even when they deserve it. Hate isn't in you."

  "I'm not so sure about that. There's a lot in me that you don't know about. But you, Nate?" She shook her head. "Never you."

  Her surety warmed him, even as his damn eyes were drawn to the shadowy curves beneath the pristine white.

  "Come over here." He held out his hand. She took it, gliding out of the lantern's glow to stand at his side. "How could you ever believe I might hate you?"

  "I almost killed you trying to help you. I'm sorry."

  "Considering I've been doing my best to die for years, that you almost killed me isn't a problem. That you didn't quite manage it is."

  She pulled her hand away. His went cold without it. "Would you stop talking like that? At least around me."

  He sighed. He was so used to being sarcastic, to treating death flippantly, to wishing for it openly, he'd never considered how hearing about it must have hurt those who cared for him. He hadn't considered a lot of things while under the influence of a bottle.

  "All right," he agreed. "If you do me a favor."

  "Anything."

  Unable to resist, he ran his hand over her short cap of hair. She didn't even know what he wanted yet her answer was "anything." The woman astounded him.

  "I need you to keep an eye on things here until we get back."