Heart of a Dove

by Abbie Williams

  Despite my teasing I rode near the wagon, thrilled to be mounted on Whistler, whose gait was already familiar to me, whose dancing steps created the sense that her hooves scarcely touched the ground. She was Sawyer’s and she loved him, it was obvious. I stroked her neck, patting her, again and again. Malcolm and Angus rode ahead a piece to look for buffalo, at Malcolm’s insistence, while Boyd stuck near me for a time, and he and Sawyer entertained me with stories of their shared childhood.

  “Sawyer, you recall the night we tried to sleep in the cave near the Bledsoe holler?” Boyd asked.

  “I remember that night well, thank you,” Sawyer responded. I had to angle my chin upwards to look at him from under my hat brim, and finally, since the sky was dismally gray, slipped the hat from my head and rode to tuck it in the back of the wagon.

  “Sawyer an’ me was maybe twelve or so, I’d say,” Boyd began as I led Whistler back between him and Sawyer. “An’ just like boys that age, rarin’ to do something dangerous. I recall that week James an’ Ellen, an’ your grandfolks, was riding into Nashville, an’ so you an’ the twins was staying with us. Them days. I can’t believe we survived them.”

  “Your poor mother was taking care of seven boys?” I asked, recalling the other two Carter brothers. I had heard so much about Clairee that I felt I had known her too.

  Boyd laughed. “She made us all sleep in the barn anyway. Aw, Mama. She was a true lady, with hair that went right to her feet. She never wore it down, less it was night though. Pretty hair, honey-colored, much like yours, Lorie. But she had a right temper, to match Daddy’s.”

  “She whacked our knuckles a time or two,” Sawyer said. “But we always deserved it. When we stole those blackberry tarts, for instance, of an early morning. Or when Beau and me put a garter snake in yours and Grafton’s bed. I can’t believe the thing stayed there, coiled up, all afternoon until bedtime.”

  Boyd was already laughing. “Sheee-it. Graf screamed like a sissy girl and we clobbered heads trying to get away. I think you just about pissed yourself laughing.”

  “Were you the eldest?” I asked Boyd.

  He shook his head. “Beaumont was eldest, then me, then Grafton and finally Malcolm.”

  I looked back at Sawyer and asked, “All of this happened on one visit?”

  “Well, we were there a week,” he defended, grinning. “And the cave wasn’t my idea. If you recall, Boyd, that was yours.”

  “Aw yes, that was mine. We planned to sneak out come midnight, and walk the mile to the cave and sleep ’til just one hour before dawn. I figured we’d wake an’ head home before anyone had even known we were gone. I had it all planned out, just me an’ Sawyer an’ Beau, the three toughest and biggest.”

  I was giggling already.

  “But of course the others caught wind—”

  “Maybe because you wouldn’t shut up about it,” Sawyer teased him, with affection. “About all the weapons we’d need to bring with.”

  “An’ we armed ourselves right good, if you’ll recall. Knives, our slingshots and pouches of slinging stones. We was armed to the teeth.”

  “What were you planning to fight?” I asked.

  “Oh, who knew?” Boyd asked. “Outlaws, robbers, horse thieves, perhaps Crazy Mary Sutter’s ghost, not to mention a pile a critters we’d find in our path. It was a dangerous walk, to be sure.” He winked at me.

  “The moon was high by the time we talked ourselves into going,” Sawyer remembered. “We’d used mud to paint our faces, in stripes and slashes, to represent…represent…” He was laughing too hard to continue.

  Boyd filled in, importantly, “Our manhood, a-course. Our young an’ virtuous manhood. An’ here we all were, me an’ Sawyer an’ all our brothers. Had Malcolm been a touch older, he’d a-begged to join us.”

  I vividly imagined them as young warriors. How incredible to think they’d been but miles from me on my father’s ranch in Lafayette, all of our childhoods, and we’d never crossed paths until now.

  Boyd continued, “So we trooped over the fields, all seven of us in a line, though no one exactly wanted to be at the back of the line. Took all I had to talk Jere into it, an’ a-course Beau took the lead, as eldest.”

  “That cave by day was strange enough,” Sawyer said. “But at night it was downright frightening. And then, what do you know, Graf dropped the lantern and snuffed out the candle.”

  “The only one we’d brought,” Boyd said. “We all stood there at the mouth an’ peered in. The moon was waning, puttin’ on a grim face for us. Ain’t one of us brave enough to venture in there.”

  “What happened?” I asked, taking a moment to remove Sawyer’s leather gloves, as my hands were hot and my current grip on the reins was gentle. I set them between the saddle horn and my legs.

  “Well, there was someone already in the cave,” Boyd said. “To this day I don’t know who exactly, maybe a drifter, or some such.”

  “But there was no sign of a fire, or a horse nearby,” Sawyer added. “As we stood there looking in, there came the sound of footsteps from inside, from somewhere in the cave.”

  “An’ Beau called out, trying to make his voice deep, ‘Who’s there?’ an’ the footsteps stopped right quick. Then there came the sound of a pistol bein’ cocked.”

  “What?” I cried. “One of you had a pistol?”

  “No, not us,” Sawyer said. “From inside the cave. I can still remember the chill that went over me at that sound.”

  “Well, as you can rightly imagine, we ran hell for leather,” Boyd said. “Hollerin’ loud enough to wake the dead.”

  “Only I stepped wrong and got my boot stuck between two rocks before I’d even gotten out of the cave,” Sawyer said.

  “What happened? Didn’t anyone see that you weren’t with?” I asked.

  “Not ’til we’d reached the house an’ found Daddy a-sitting on the front porch, calm as milk pudding, whittling with his pocket knife,” Boyd answered. “An’ then,” and he chuckled. “An’ then Jere an’ Graf was both crying because they’d realized Sawyer weren’t with us, an’ surely shot through the heart, back at the cave. I have to admit I had me a cold chill, old friend, at the thought of that. I woulda blamed myself.”

  “What happened?” I demanded.

  Sawyer looked down at me and his expression was so tender, so full of something I could hardly begin to conceive of or hope for, even in my wildest imaginings, and I knew exactly what Boyd had meant last night, when they’d been whispering outside my tent. I looked back at him with the same things blooming in my eyes. I shivered at the intensity of it, as our gazes intertwined and curled together.

  At last he said, “I tugged and yanked, but my foot was stuck fast. I was scared as hell, my hands all sweaty. I wouldn’t have admitted it at the time, but I was crying and all that mud I’d caked on my face was making a mess. I was sure that someone would come from the gloom and shoot me dead, and I’d never see my family again. But there was only silence. Finally I managed to get my foot out of the boot and I hightailed back to the Carters’, fast as I could run with only one shoe. Hit a patch of brambles on the way, too.”

  “Gets there just in time to find all of us bent over in a line near the porch, as Daddy dealt out a belt-strap to each of us, for running away in the night an’ then scaring the bejeezus outta Mama when she woke to feed Malcolm an’ found us gone,” Boyd said, and as I looked at him I could almost hear his thoughts, recalling what he’d warned Sawyer last night, though none of that was conveyed in his tone as he finished, “An’ poor Sawyer, outta breath an’ his one foot all scraped to hell, had to take his strapping too. An’ then Jere and Graf was crying with relief. Them two was softhearted,” Boyd added, as though to explain their concern.

  “Then in the morning I went back to retrieve my boot, and do you know,” Sawyer’s voice yet held a not
e of wonder at the memory. “It was sitting right at the mouth of the cave, no longer stuck, like it was waiting for me. I had such a chill, and then—”

  A grumble of thunder sounded in the distance, cutting short his words, before another absolutely exploded, almost above our heads. The sky had darkened as we’d been engrossed in the story, and I was startled to notice the sickly greenish cast to the clouds on the far western horizon. Malcolm and Angus had not been in sight for the past half hour, and worry snaked into my stomach. Juniper shied and snorted, and Sawyer turned his attention back to the horse, steadying him with firm motions. Boyd turned up his collar and settled his hat low, then said, “I’ll ride up an’ see what Angus wants us to do. Looks like it may turn to lightning right quick!”

  He and Fortune pounded away as thunder shattered the heavens again and a shudder jolted up my spine, startling Whistler. She nickered and tossed her head, dancing to the side, and Sawyer drew back on the lead lines, instantly halting Juniper. He leaped down and came at once to my side, catching the left rein and gently stilling Whistler’s movements with his calm, steady hands. Then he reached and caught me around the waist. My hands went instinctively to his shoulders as he lifted me down, the shock of this contact rippling all through me.

  Once on the ground, alone between Whistler and the wagon, beneath the ever-increasingly frightening sky, we stood facing one another. His hands remained on my waist, so very warm through the thin material of Malcolm’s muslin shirt that it seemed he was touching my bare flesh. My hands slipped down as he lowered me from Whistler’s back and rested now against his chest. His heart was beating out of control, just as mine was; I could feel it beneath my right palm.

  His eyes burned into mine, flashing even in the gloom of the storm and the shadow of his hat brim. I fisted my fingers around the material of his shirt before I knew I had done it, holding him tightly, needing to feel his frantic heartbeat that was keeping rhythm with mine. He had survived countless dangers, horrific battles, the War itself, as I had survived Ginny’s, to be here under this sky with me. I could hardly breathe, wanting him so desperately, though it went far beyond that, far beyond the physical. Touching him, feeling him beneath my hands, only solidified our connection, the sense of rightness and the recognition of it.

  Sawyer took my face between his hands and I made a small sound of pure need, my arms immediately gliding around his neck. He held me securely to his chest, where our hearts were pressed tightly together at last, and kissed me. His mouth had been made for mine, and mine alone. I kissed him with utter abandon, his sweet, sensuous lips, his tongue stroking me as I tasted him and struggled to get even closer, to hold him even harder. Our heads slanted one way and then the other in effort to deepen the kiss. I curled my fingers over the back of his neck, crushed against him and only wanting more, and then more.

  He drew back just a fraction, his breath rushing against my cheek, his eyes intent, almost fierce. He pressed heated kisses to my cheeks, my forehead, the corner of my lips.

  “Lorie, oh God, Lorie,” he said, his eyes closing and his voice harsh with intensity, and again a small sound came from deep in my throat as I breathed against him, inhaling his scent, which I knew, and would know anywhere. I kissed his jaw, his neck, loving the texture of his skin, the taste of him under my tongue. I clung to him, terrified that any moment we’d be forced to draw apart, be forced to stop touching. And I never wanted to be out of his arms, or away from him, ever again.

  “Sawyer,” I moaned.

  “Lorie, mo mhuirnín mhilis,” he murmured, before reclaiming my mouth with his kisses, hot, stroking kisses, until I was nearly beyond all sense.

  Thunder burst above us, a brief preface to the rain which absolutely sheeted down. Behind us the wagon lurched as Juniper tried to run. Sawyer reacted at once, shouting above the storm, “Don’t move!” and then he worked swiftly, grabbing a rope from the wagon and using it to hobble Juniper. I looked to Whistler, standing near, and I knew she would never bolt and leave us; she was too well-behaved, and she loved Sawyer. In an instant he came back to me and I reached for him through the streaking rain.

  He caught me close, taking one of my hands and kissing the palm before tucking me against his chest and then kneeling with me, angling us for as much shelter as the wagon might provide.

  “Come here to me,” he murmured against my ear, kissing my temple, and I clung to his chest under a sky that was nearly as dark as night.

  Thunder resounded again, powerful enough that the ground trembled beneath us; I half expected to see the sky falling in great, crackling chunks. We were soaked through and yet I was burning with desire for him. He sensed my thoughts and his fingertips lifted my chin into his kiss yet again, as I moaned and leaned against the utter strength of him, kissing him as though to do so was to save us both from torture. I drew back just enough to touch his face, to trace my fingers over the planes of his cheeks, his jaws, my thumbs along his lips. He smiled then, his arms holding me tightly to his heart, and ignited my own heart all over again.

  “Sawyer,” I murmured, overcome, clutching his jaws and covering him with small soft kisses, his eyes, closing them briefly, his cheekbones and his chin. I traced the tip of my tongue over the scar on his jaw, lightly, as he shivered and caught me even closer, pulling my lips back to his, taking my bottom lip into his mouth and drawing on it, suckling me. Heat skimmed down my throat, into my belly and then lower as he closed his teeth gently around my lip and I moaned again, shuddering. Had I been standing, my knees would have given out in that instant.

  Boyd was suddenly there, leaning down from Fortune and yelling, “Are you plumb crazy, you two? Gus an’ Malcolm are coming!”

  Abruptly I came to my senses, realizing we’d have to stop touching, stop acknowledging what flamed and leaped between us. Sawyer did not release his hold on me. He looked deeply into my eyes, reassuring me; he kissed me softly on the lips one last time, before settling me gently against his side. Boyd was just barely visible through the downpour, and lightning seared the sky behind him, great lancing arcs. He dismounted just as Angus and Malcolm came riding up, soaked to the skin. I was still tucked against Sawyer, though it seemed for all outward appearances that he was simply acting as a gentleman. Malcolm leaped from Aces’ back and, holding the lead line, came hurrying to Sawyer and me, where he burrowed against my other side, his arms going around my waist and encountering Sawyer’s. Boyd and Angus pulled their horses near, forming a sort of shield around all of us, with the wagon at our backs.

  “It’s a hell of a storm out there!” Boyd shouted. “The lightning is really firing now!”

  Boyd and Angus crouched to form a semi-circle with us as thunder reverberated through the ground under our feet and lightning made the entire prairie sizzle in a white, otherworldly glow, one flash on top of another. The horses were fretful, whinnying and shifting in unease. I was so shaken, so full of emotion, that I didn’t care what anyone saw and clung to Sawyer, keeping my face against his chest. Sawyer kept his left arm secure around me, his long fingers curling and uncurling gently against my back and hidden from view as he stroked me, calming me at least fractionally. Malcolm was on my other side, pressing his face to my shoulder, huddling against me, and Sawyer shifted enough to get his right arm around the boy, too, encasing me between them.

  The storm burned itself out within the next quarter hour, the rain at last slackening as the thunder rolled to the east. In the distance there were still occasional flickers of brilliance, but the land and sky were both quieting. My heart, however, was not.

  “Holy sweet bleeding Jesus!” Boyd said then, shaking himself like a puppy, pulling off his hat and flicking rain from it.

  Malcolm drew back and I forced myself to do the same, to remove my hands from Sawyer. Malcolm said, “Lorie, Sawyer, you two won’t believe what we saw, you won’t believe it!”

  Angus was studying me with somethi
ng in his eyes I had not yet encountered, but he said gamely enough, “A twister, coming along at a clip.”

  “How far away?” Sawyer asked, moving into a crouch, his forearms against his thighs.

  I rose, soggy in Malcolm’s clothes, and felt Sawyer’s eyes as I stepped carefully around the wagon and then out of everyone’s sight. I went around the front, where poor Juniper, who was still hobbled, waited. He looked at me with his eyes showing white, indicating his fear. To calm myself, hearing the men still discussing the storm, I leaned against his neck, scratching him mindlessly, inhaling the familiar, comforting scent of horse.

  I knew, had perhaps known since my eyes first touched him there in Ginny’s, that I was in love with Sawyer.

  Just his name in my mind flooded me with yearning. He needn’t have spoken the words for me to know he felt the same for what throbbed between us, as though alive itself. The rushing intensity of him, the thought of his touch and his kisses, his eyes, struck at me and I leaned harder against Juniper, tipping my forehead against his wet hide.

  What if I was carrying another man’s child at this very moment? What if I didn’t bleed and would have to explain to Angus that I would bear his baby?

  Oh dear God.

  I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it when I was in love with someone else. I would rather die than go to another man, ever again.

  But what choice would I have?

  “Lorie, you all right?” Malcolm asked, coming around the far side of the horse, concern in his boyish voice. “The storm was pretty scary, weren’t it?”