Wild Flower

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  “Yes. Something happened. Maybe. I don’t know. I thought…” Her voice trailed off. Grey had never seen her indecisive before. It didn’t bode well. She put a distracted hand to her temple, frowned, felt for her hat on her head, and then looked around for it.

  Grey spied it by his feet and snatched it up, handing it to her. Such a simple gesture for a man who was dying a thousand deaths inside, each one with her name on it. “Where’d you go, Taylor? And why? What happened?”

  She looked at him as if she hadn’t understood him or couldn’t decide what to answer first. “My uncle,” she said. “I met my uncle. He was at my father’s.”

  Grey’s muscles tensed. “Your father’s? But he was—”

  “With you. I know. Estes told me. And then my Uncle Stanley was there. At the gate by Red Sky. And he…” Again her voice trailed off. She looked confused and indeed gestured helplessly with her hands.

  “If he so much as put a hand on you, Taylor, I swear I will—”

  “If he had, there would be no need for you to do so. I would have killed him myself,” she haughtily assured him, sounding more like her confident self again. “Why would you think he would harm me?”

  Grey scrutinized Taylor. If Stanley James hadn’t told her the truth, then Grey certainly wasn’t going to. He agreed with Charles on that score. And since Taylor didn’t appear to know at this point, Grey decided to hedge his answer. “I didn’t think he would, Taylor. Maybe it was the way you said it. But what did your uncle do … exactly?”

  She shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe her own words or her own experience. “He … hugged me and kissed me on my cheek. And then he left. I thought he meant to harm me. But then, it was as if he couldn’t. At first he spoke meanly to me of when I was a child. He seemed evil. When I saw him from a distance, I saw a great blackness around him. A bad thing that was a part of him, but then it was gone.”

  Grey gasped. He heard another one behind him and whipped around to see Bentley and Mrs. Scott crowded into the open doorway. His housekeeper’s eyes were rounded. She hurriedly crossed herself. Grey’s gaze locked with Bentley’s frightened one.

  Taylor recaptured Grey’s attention when she cried out, “Is that what the man-bird saw? The evil blackness surrounding my uncle?”

  “Yes, it is.” There was no sense denying it, Grey knew.

  Taylor spared Grey no more than a glance before she sought Bentley’s form in the doorway. “It’s true, Miss James. I saw it. In the dining room mirror. But what I didn’t get to tell Mr. Talbott yet is what I did next. I … I thought good thoughts. I prayed. I called upon goodness to dispel the blackness. I … well, I tried to protect you, miss. And it worked. I know it sounds silly—”

  “No,” Grey cut in. “It doesn’t sound silly. It sounds perfect, Bentley.” He turned to Taylor. “I will never again doubt you. Never. I have doubted you from the moment you arrived. But never again, Taylor. From now on, you have my undying support and my unflagging faith. They are yours.”

  For a space of two heartbeats, Taylor did not respond. Then she said, “I have always had them, Grey. And I cherish them in my heart.”

  The evening air seemed to warm, yet a shiver slipped over Grey’s skin as he stared into Taylor’s sincere face. She was all he could see. They’d just stepped across some threshold together. Their relationship had passed onto another level, another plane. It was more a sense, a certainty, than it was a tangible something he could hold in his hand. It was beautiful … and it was the worst thing that had ever happened to Grey.

  Keeping his sadness to himself, Grey held his hand out to Taylor. She stared at it, then at him. He suspended thought, not wanting to know if he hoped she would take it or if she wouldn’t. Then, as if she’d been prodded physically from behind, she rushed toward him, grabbing for his hand as if it were a lifeline. His fingers closed around hers and squeezed. A tingling energy raced up Grey’s arm, an energy that caught at his breath … and his heart. She was utter magic. And for the first time, she trusted him.

  To Grey, this was heaven and this was hell. She trusted him. She was opening up to him—or would soon. And all he could do was lie to her from here on out in an effort to preserve her. It was so unfair. He’d already promised her father that he would do his best to ensure that Taylor did not find out the truth of her life. Grey recalled his pact that he would work with Charles to get Taylor to leave here and never come back. Grey had agreed, even knowing his promise meant giving up the one woman he would always love, the only one who could save him from himself.

  But it was too late. In order to save her, he would have to destroy himself. How laughable and how stupidly noble. “Come, Taylor,” Grey said, smiling at her, but sad on the inside with the irony of it all. He signaled, with a nod of his head, for Calvin to take Red Sky to the barn, then turned his attention back to Taylor. “It’s time we all went inside.”

  * * *

  Later that night, clad in a ridiculously feminine white cotton bed gown trimmed in pink satin and with her heart in her throat, Taylor padded barefoot through the adjoining dressing room and opened the door to Grey’s bedroom. The room was dark. She started to back out but stopped, instantly chiding herself for such weakness. She was Taylor Christie James, daughter of Tennie Nell Christie and Charles Edward James. Half-breed. Outlaw. A killer of men. And she wasn’t afraid of anything—not even of what she was about to do. Bare her heart and soul to a man.

  She was lying. She was terrified. But still, she drew in a deep breath, forcing it past the tightening in her chest. “Grey?” she softly called out.

  She heard bed linens rustling. Then, in a whisper that was not sleepy, that said he’d been lying here awake, he called out, “Taylor? Is that you? What are you doing?”

  “Grey…” She fiddled with the doorknob, calling herself fourteen kinds of coward. “I … I would lay with you.”

  Silence met her words. Seconds ticked by ponderously. Then she heard a chuckle … but not of mirth. It sounded tortured. “Taylor, don’t do this. Please. Go back to bed.”

  She could not understand. Why would he not want her? He had declared himself only a few hours ago out in the coach yard. And she had given him her hand. They were as one. And now he sent her away? Feeling foolish for being turned down became sudden vexation inside her. She stepped fully into his room and shut the door behind her. She stood in the pitch-black, her back against the closed door. She heard Grey sigh as if he was relieved. He thought she’d left.

  “No. I will not go away,” she said loudly.

  A sudden thrashing around of linens mixed with Grey’s startled outburst. “Son of a—Taylor! You scared the hell out of me.” The room was suddenly flooded with light. He’d lit the lamp beside his bed. He turned the wick down until the room was in gray shadows and then propped himself up on an elbow, giving her his attention. His muscled chest was bared to her. A sheet covered his lower half. His expression was a mishmash of emotions … vexation, sadness, a crushing desire. Want. Need.

  An answering desire flared in Taylor, puckering her nipples, causing a tingling tightness low in her belly. It made her bold. She stepped away from the door and turned to face him. She’d never done this before, this consciously seducing a man. Always before, she had simply agreed or had made a mere gesture … and the man had taken her. She had enjoyed their time together and then she had left, her heart and her emotions intact.

  But this time and this man were different because for the first time she was giving herself. She was offering up so much more than her body. She was pulling away the armor that encased her heart. For the first time she understood risk in a way she never had before. She caught a glimpse of the awful vulnerability that came with intimacy, with a baring of one’s self to another. The risk that one could give all of one’s self … and still lose. She was taking a chance and staking her heart … and still, he may not want her.

  With her heart pounding, with her limbs weak, and feeling as if she stood on shifting sa
nds instead of a solid floor, Taylor … silently, holding Grey’s gaze … undid the laces that held her gown. He watched her every move intently. With a single motion, Taylor shrugged out of her garment. The gown pooled at her feet, showing to him that she was naked underneath.

  Grey sucked in a breath, which almost immediately left him in a gasp. “Oh, Taylor, don’t. Please. I beg you. It would be so wrong.”

  Taylor shook her head, swishing her black silky-feeling hair over the bare skin of her shoulders and breasts. “No. It will be right. I will make it so.” She stepped out of the pool of fabric at her feet and slowly, with gliding steps, walked toward him. Then she stood beside his bed, looking down at him. His heart was in his eyes. He wanted her very much; she could see that. He couldn’t look away from her. Then why did he tell her no? Was it because of what he’d said this morning, about needing her to give him her heart, as well as her body?

  “Grey,” she began, reaching out to softly, sensually stroke the planes and angles of his face, “do you remember this morning when I left your bed, when you told me we could not do this again?”

  He closed his eyes, swallowing hard, a look of tortured rapture on his face as she brushed his full and firm lips with her fingertips. “Yes,” he rasped out.

  “And do you remember that just before I left you, I spoke to you in Cherokee?”

  He opened his eyes and captured her fingers, putting them to his lips, holding them there, and nodding.

  “I said then—and I’ve never said this before to any other man—that I love you.” She felt him freeze, his gaze locked with hers. Some deep fire lit his brown eyes, emboldening Taylor. “It does not matter that we have only met this week. Time is nothing to the heart. I loved you before I ever met you. I prayed all my life to find you. I dreamed of you. I knew your touch before I knew your name. I gave you my heart before I knew your face. I was yours before I ever came here. It is written on the wind. My mother did not send me here to my father, as she thinks, Grey. I know that now. She sent me here to find you. And now that I have, you cannot send me away. I may choose to go when it is time, but you cannot send me away. Even should I go, my heart will rest with yours.”

  “Taylor.” It was all he said. But it was there in his voice. The love he felt for her … and the awful something that tortured him.

  Still, Taylor pulled the sheet from him, seeing his nakedness and the evidence of his desire. She smiled at him and lifted the sheet, slipping into his bed, absolutely certain that she could make that tortured look leave his eyes forever … if only he would love her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “In this place will I make my stand. I will not leave here. You will stop trying to give me money and telling me to go. I will not. There are dangers here to me; I know this. But I will stay and I will face them. To leave now would be the way of the coward. That is not my way. And were I to leave, these dangers … they would follow me and for the same reasons they stalk me here. Someone wants me dead. So all my life, if I left here, I would be looking over my shoulder. I will not live so. And so I say, if he wants me, he will find me here. In this place I will fight him. This person who would harm me—though I do not know his name—he is close to me. I feel that. I believe also that he shares my blood. And so I say … let him show himself.”

  That speech of Taylor’s was given in Grey’s and her father’s presence. She’d given them no recourse but to deal with her stubborn determination to see the secrets that surrounded her exposed—as well as the person behind them. But it was the strangest thing. After that, nothing remotely threatening happened. A week passed. Two. Indolent days lengthened, leaching the dark from the shortened nights. And still no angry confrontations erupted. Not even the barest hint of danger surfaced. It was as if Taylor’s giving her heart and her trust to Grey, as well as her brave words of courage, held at bay the old wounds and the ancient resentments. Could it be that easy? No one truly believed it could. But since nothing happened and there was no one to accuse or confront, life was forced to proceed as if nothing were wrong. Go on with life, but stay vigilant. Let sleeping dogs lie. And that was what they did.

  Even Mother Earth seemed to applaud Taylor’s courage. She gave her approval by bestowing the colors of summer on St. Louis. The greens and reds and yellows and blues of the flowers and the shrubs were almost too bright to the eye. And though commerce bustled, life along the Mississippi River, just like its waters, slowed, became sluggish. The spring rains ceased and the sun smiled warmly on the citizens. The winds blew soft and sweet. Butterflies flitted and birds sang.

  And nerves were stretched taut. The question arose … what to do about Taylor? Either present her to society or hide her unfairly. A decision was finally reached that satisfied both the political and social ramifications of having a half-breed outlaw in one’s family. Taylor’s father, with the wholehearted endorsement of the prominent Talbotts, would proudly present her to society and dare anyone to say different. This was a good plan because the truth was that it was not the public who posed the danger to Taylor’s life. Sadly, as she’d realized, the threat to her lay closer to home. But if they all needed to be out and about, then she needed to be out and about with them. How better to protect her?

  Taylor saw the sense in the plan, but still it surprised her to be celebrated instead of denied, made known instead of hidden. With Grey constantly at her side, she found herself swept up in the whirlwind activities that were so foreign to her. Civic commitment. Charitable responsibility. Social prominence. She hated it … at first. But guided by Aunt Camilla and Amanda, she was nevertheless thrust into the forefront of her white family’s lives. Life, then, with all its undercurrents, did indeed go on. There were committees to organize, money to be raised, speeches to be written, and debates to be attended. Banners to be printed and hung, ribbons and buttons and slogans to adopt for Franklin Talbott’s election campaign. And, too, this summer, on July Fourth, would see America’s centennial celebration.

  Despite her usually aloof self, Taylor was finally affected by the excitement of it all. This was what it was like to be accepted, to be a part of a thriving family. It was indeed an enchanted time, but not one free of the implied danger. She always looked over her shoulder. And yet … nothing happened. Life went on unimpeded. Its very serenity somehow seemed sinister after a point. Like waiting for water to boil. A watched pot never seemed to do so … but you knew it would—the moment you looked away.

  Taylor, and everyone else, was forced repeatedly to look away. The round of parties, soirees, and receptions for Amanda James and Franklin Talbott, preceding their upcoming nuptials at the end of June, had everyone in a dither. It was hard not to get caught up. Taylor was no exception. Publicly, she was the honored and cherished visiting relative. Publicly, she was a celebrated sidelight to the giddiness of the summer of 1876 in St. Louis, Missouri. Privately, those closest to her worried and watched … and waited.

  While they did, Taylor carried on as exactly who she was … the daughter of Mr. Charles James, niece of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley James, and cousin to the lovely Amanda James, fiancée to Mr. Franklin Talbott. While Grey hadn’t had to implement his plan to present Taylor as his affianced, he did let it be known—in no uncertain terms—that the lady’s affections were spoken for. That in itself—Greyson Talbott making a commitment—was fodder enough for the gossips. They spoke in low and excited tones behind their fans as their gazes sought the happy couple dancing or strolling along the path in a moonlit garden.

  But there was more. There was the titillating scandal—one no one dared voice to the Jameses or the Talbotts—of Charles’s long-ago indiscretion and of the resulting young lady’s bloodlines. Add to that her residing unchaperoned in Mr. Greyson Talbott’s town house, instead of in her father’s home as propriety demanded, and one had all the necessary elements of a long day’s gossip into night. “That Grey,” they said, “he is such a charming villain.” Why, the girl was ruined now. All she could hope for was a quick marriage a
nd the short memories of the people who mattered. But far from being ostracized and her family alienated, she was—to her utter disbelief—much in demand. No dinner, no party, no tea, no soiree, was complete or any hostess deemed a success unless Mr. Greyson Talbott escorted the lovely Cherokee maiden Miss Taylor Christie James to her event.

  But Taylor was not fooled. She knew she was an oddity to these people. Yes, they were kind enough to her face and even in the newspaper stories printed about her. Her every coming and going was reported. On the street, men doffed their hats. And young women imitated her style of dress, thereby scandalizing their mothers by abandoning corsets and other underpinnings. Why, if Miss Taylor Christie James deemed them unnecessary, then they were. Half the girls had adopted a tiny braid like hers adorned with a feather. Taylor tried not to be insulted by their imitation. Grey assured her the young ladies meant it as a compliment and not a mockery. Though not convinced, she allowed it to pass.

  But beneath it all … the social whirl, the acceptance, the friendships, the notoriety … Taylor knew that everything was not as it seemed. She couldn’t deny the undercurrent, like a river’s strong undertow, of danger that lurked just around a corner, just behind a smile. To her, it still seemed that the shadow of threat crept closer and closer with each bright and happy day that dawned. She couldn’t put a finger on it, or give it a face or a name. Grey did not discount her fears. Neither did Bentley. Grey told her to suspect trouble, but he didn’t really have to—it was all she’d ever known. Of most concern to Taylor was that Grey knew something—something he wasn’t telling her. She could see it in his eyes. He watched her like a hawk, most especially during family gatherings.

  And so, she stayed prepared. She did not lower her guard, not even in this city of swirling skirts and formal top hats. She watched over her shoulder, even while dancing—she was getting better at that, by the way. She no longer crushed her partner’s toes. But still, under the ball gowns Grey had purchased for her she kept her knife secured to her calf, and she kept her gun in her reticule … a silly velvet handbag with drawstrings. She may become civilized, she told herself and Grey—whose eyebrows had raised at the sight of her startling accessories, as Mrs. Scott termed them—but she would not become soft. She would not be caught unaware. And she had her suspicions.