Dorothy Garlock

by This Loving Land

  Slater got to his feet and held the child out to Sadie.

  “She’s sound asleep.”

  “Slater. . . .” John Austin hovered beside the door.

  Slater waited until Sadie went inside the house before he spoke. “What is it, John?”

  “You promised to teach me to play chess.”

  “And I will, but not tonight. It’s time you were in bed.”

  “But—”

  “It’s time you were in bed,” he said again. “The evening hour is for me and your sister. It’s going to be our private time together. You may join us when you’re invited, and only when you’re invited.”

  Summer stirred and Slater put out his hand and caught her elbow, commanding silence.

  “Say goodnight to your sister, John,” he continued “Be careful not to disturb Sadie and Mary. Goodnight.”

  “Dear. . . .” Summer started forward.

  Slater, holding her elbow, held her back.

  “But Summer always comes with me and. . . .”

  “No. You put yourself to bed, tonight and from now on.”

  “Please, John Austin. Do as he says.”

  “Goodnight, John,” Slater said again. There was no mistaking the foreboding in his voice. John Austin retreated a few steps.

  “Goodnight,” he said with a catch in his voice; then, anxiously, “you’ll be back tomorrow?”

  “Right after sun-up.” Slater’s voice was softer, friendlier.

  With his hand on her elbow, he turned Summer and guided her firmly away from the house, down the path toward the creek.

  “How could you?” she said in a hoarse whisper.

  “I could and I did. It was very easy. I intend to manage him my way, Summer. Its best I begin in the way I intend to go on.”

  “But . . . you’re so abrupt . . . unfeeling.” She had a sob in her voice. “He’s not used to that.”

  “He’ll get used to it.”

  She walked beside him in silence. There seemed to be nothing more she could say. They crossed the yard and stopped under the cottonwood where the sack swing hung. Absently, she gave it a push.

  “It can’t be the same swing,” she said, half to herself.

  Slater moved away from her and leaned against the tree.

  The cottonwood leaves were whispering and the stream seemed unusually loud in the quiet night. With no other noise, the smallest sounds were obvious. Summer tried to see Slater’s face in the deepening shadows, but the outlines were gone, and she could only see that he was standing there.

  Abruptly, he struck a match and held the flame unusually long to the end of the cigarette he held between his lips. The light flickered on his scarred cheek and outlined it briefly before he blew out the flame.

  “This is a hard, lonely land, Summer. I’m a hard, lonely, impatient man, made more so by the murder of my pa and my own . . . injuries. I’m asking you, now, before this thing between us goes any farther, if this thing on my face repulses you, if I repulse you.”

  She had expected him to say almost anything but this. Shocked, she stared at his shadow, at the small glow of his cigarette. Finally, she found her voice.

  “I’ve said that I didn't know you, Slater. Well, you don’t know me, either, or you wouldn’t ask me such a question.

  “It’s an important question and I demand that you answer.”

  “All right, but I’m disappointed that you think I have no more depth to me than to be put off by a scar.” She stopped and caught a long, ragged breath. “I have a few questions of my own, Slater Where do we stand with you? It appears to me that you’re taking over our lives I have the right to know what to expect.” She finished breathlessly, her heart thumping like a mad thing in her breast.

  He drew on the cigarette, then dropped it to the ground and stepped on it.

  “I’ve told you what to expect. You’ve had several days to think on it. Why are you angry?”

  From anxiety and anger, her mood changed when he spoke.

  “I’m not angry. Confused, but not angry.”

  “Then answer my question. I need to know if the woman I plan to spend the rest of my life with finds me unbearable to look at.”

  Summer stood motionless, staring at his shadow, transfixed, literally shaking inside. She swallowed hard, fighting back the tears. There was a poignant longing in his voice, and for a moment all the years rolled away and she remembered him as he had been . . . the tall, slim boy: You go on and get all growed up, summertime girl, and I’ll come and fetch you home.

  “How can you ask?” The warm night air almost suffocated her as she waited for him to reply. He said nothing, and finally she cried out helplessly, “No! No! You make it seem so important and it’s not! It’s not!”

  “Then come to me,” he whispered huskily.

  It didn’t occur to her not to obey. She stopped in front of him and his arms reached out and drew her close. Her palms pressed against his chest. She looked up at him, into his eyes. He studied her face, the sparkle of tears on her lashes, her trembling mouth. He grabbed her hand and held the palm hard against his cheek.

  “You’re sure?” he asked, and she nodded. “You are absolutely sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.” She was crying to herself inside that it was so hard for him to believe her.

  Slowly, he released her hand, but she held it there against his face and let her fingertips trace the rough ridges and plains of his cheek. She looked up at him searchingly. The pale light slanted onto his scarred cheek and his thick lashes made fans of darkness in the hollows beneath his eyes. The moment quivered with electric tension. As her hand caressed his cheek, her soft, slim body changed and grew taut with a strange longing. And out of the longing grew a new feeling, a wish to take away his hurt, to absorb his pain.

  “I don’t want you to be hurt . . . ever again,” she said in a low, stricken voice. Her breath was coming quickly, and she felt his body shivering against hers.

  “My summertime girl,” he whispered, and leaned his head forward, kissing her reverently on the forehead. His voice was merely a breath in the night. The softly-uttered words and the caress of his hands on her back sent tingles of excitement racing through her. “I had to hear you say it,” he said against her hair.

  Her hands moved up to encircle his neck and she lifted her face. A sound, half-groan and half-sigh, exploded from him, and he strained her closer.

  He tilted her head so he could look directly into her eyes. His eyes devoured her. “You want me, too!” Relief and surprise made his voice husky and transformed his anxious face.

  They stared at each other for a moment that was so still that it seemed time had stopped moving Then, slowly, haltingly, he lowered his mouth to hers.

  Summer’s breath left her in a sudden gasp. The shock was abrupt. The first, gentle touch of his lips awakened fires, the bittersweet ache of passion. A strange feeling, until this moment unknown to her, fluttered within her breast. Although his lips were soft and gentle, they entrapped hers with a fiery heat that flamed her cheeks and spread down her throat. The tobacco taste of his mouth, the woodsy, musky smell of his face as her nose pressed his cheek, and the hard strength of his embrace made her head swim—she was only vaguely aware that his hand had traveled down her back to her hips and pulled her to him.

  Her arms tightened about his neck and she clung to him, unaware of his restraint, unaware of the tremor in his arms. She came to him with eagerness. Their lips blended with an impatient urgency, and locked in each other’s embrace, glowing waves of pleasure spread like quickfire through her body. Somewhere, she had lost the fumbling uncertainty of her feelings for him, and untamed intensity swept her on. They were two beings blended together in a whirling tide that set them apart, for the moment, from the world.

  He drew his head back and looked into her flushed face. He knew that he was the first man she’d ever loved. His hoarse, ragged breathing accompanied the pounding thunder of his heartbeat as he realized that she was not fright
ened of his passion, that she had responded. It was more than he had dared to hope for so soon.

  “It’s a gr-rand thing that’s happened to us!” he said against her mouth. He stuttered with the power of emotion, and his voice sounded vaguely Scottish, like his father’s.

  “Yes!” She could feel life pounding in her throat, her temples.

  “Sweet, sweet, wonderful Summer!” His whisper was warm against her lips. He was trembling violently, and as he looked into her shining eyes, half-closed in ecstasy, his mouth went dry. He seemed to be drowning in her violet eyes. Mesmerized, he watched as the tip of her tongue came out and moistened her lower lip.

  “Slater, I. . . .

  “Shhhh . . . don’t say anything,” he cautioned. “We’ve said enough for tonight.”

  He drew her arm around behind him and held her hand tightly between his arm and his body. With his arm around her, they walked slowly back to the cabin. At the door, his lips fleetingly touched her forehead

  “Goodnight.” His hand gently squeezed her shoulder, and he was gone.

  Summer moved into the darkened room. Nothing in her young life up to now had prepared her for the emotions that churned inside her. It was as if she was outside of herself. Her heart still hammered furiously and her lips felt warm and throbbing. A fluttering in the pit of her stomach refused to go away, even as she pressed her hands tightly to it. Automatically, she undressed and slipped into her nightgown, took the pins from her hair and combed through it with her fingers before plaiting it into one long braid.

  For some reason, she thought of her mother as she climbed into bed, and the words she had murmured as she lay dying . . . “Such a wonderful summer . . . so wonderful.”

  When morning came, Summer had no time to prepare herself for Slater’s arrival. He came in through the back door while they were having breakfast.

  “Mornin’.”

  Summer’s tongue froze to the roof of her mouth and a rosy flush came up from her neck to flood her face. Sadie’s quick glance took in her confusion and she jumped to her feet.

  “Mornin’, Slater. Had yore breakfast yet? You did? You got room for coffee and a cake, I reckon.” She took her cup from the table. “Sit right here, where I was a sittin’, cause I m done, anyhow. That John Austin has been a rarin’ at the bit a waitin for you to get here. I’ll swear to goodness, I don’t know what we’ll do with that youngun. He’s a corker, he is.” Sadie knew she was talking too much, but she was desperately trying to make time for Summer to gather her wits about her. She sat looking down at her plate. “Did those big galoots up there at the bunkhouse eat up all those doughnuts? In all my life, I never did see men what could get rid of so many doughnuts. Filling them up is like pouring sand down a prairie-dog hole.”

  Slater’s sharp eyes had caught the blush on Summer’s cheeks, and he understood her friend’s unnecessary chatter. He smiled at the pert red-headed girl.

  “You’re right about that, Sadie. They think it’s Christmas and the Fourth of July all rolled into one.”

  “Well, I guess I’ll just have to stir up another batch. If’n there isn’t anything else I ort to be doin’.”

  Summer looked up. Slater’s eyes on her face brought her color up again. She looked away from him and despised the blush that flooded her cheeks.

  “I don’t know of anything we have to do that can’t wait, Sadie. It’s a hot day, though, for you to be standing over a stove.”

  “Summer is right, Sadie. If you’re going to be the doughnut-maker for McLean’s Keep, the least we can do is build you a fireplace in the yard.”

  Sadie looked disbelievingly from Summer to Slater, then her green eyes sparkled.

  “An outside fireplace. Why, that’d just be heaven!” She grinned impishly at him, and Summer envied her her easy manner. “You make me a cook-place, Slater, and I’ll make doughnuts . . . till the cows come home!”

  Slater laughed and Summer couldn’t help noticing that when he did, it spread a warm light into his eyes. She found herself beaming with pleasure.

  “I’ll get Jack on it. He’s real handy with that sort of thing.” He looked directly at Summer and met her smiling eyes. “Where’s John?”

  Summer’s eyes were fastened on his dark blue ones, and her pulses leaped in stupid excitement. Her slightly-flushed cheeks made her violet eyes seem all the brighter, clearer Her mind groped like some wild creature caught in a bed of quicksand.

  The voice from the doorway saved her from answering.

  “Here I am, Slater. I already got the saddle on Georgianna Pud didn’t help me, I did it all by myself, and I left her in the corral like you told me.”

  “Georgianna?”

  “She’s a girl, ain’t she? You told me I could put my own name on her, and I like Georgianna.”

  Summer got to her feet, filled with remorse for being so wrapped up in her own affairs that she had failed to know what her brother was about. He could have been stepped on . . . trampled.

  Slater intercepted the worried look and got his hat from the peg. “Well, we’d better go take a look and see what kind of a job you’ve done on . . . Georgianna.” ~e followed the boy out the door.

  “He’s gonna do just fine, Summer.” Sadie came to stand beside her. “Don’t worry, Slater’ll make a man out of him “

  Summer turned and caught the look of yearning on Sadie’s face, which quickly changed to a saucy grin.

  “Why, if’n I ever do find me a man like that, and if’n he would take to my baby, I’d just about lick his boots every day of the week.” The green eyes sobered. “I’m a tryin’ not to envy . . . I swear to God, Summer, I’m tryin’.”

  “He wants to marry me.” The words burst out.

  “Course he does, any fool’d see that. Can’t hardly take his eyes off you.”

  Summer threw her arms about her friend. “It was meant to be that I’d meet you, Sadie. I’m so glad I did.”

  “Well, I been thinkin’ on that too, Summer. I must a done somethin’ right back there a ways for the good Lord to let you come to that hotel. Now, if’n the good Lord would just let some big, old, handsome cowhand come and sweep me right off my feet, like he done you, well, then I think I could give out ‘n die!”

  Summer laughed. “Well, until he comes, Sadie, you’ll stay right here and become the doughnut queen of Texas. But I just know before the summer is over, you’re going to meet that big, handsome cowboy.”

  “Well, let’s see. There’s Bulldog, old Raccoon, there’s Pud and Jack. Oh, lack’s nice. Real nice, Summer, but he don’t make my heart flutter. Just once, I want a man what would put a shine to my eyes like Slater puts to yours.”

  “Does it show that much?” Summer put her hands to her cheeks.

  “Don’t be shamed by it!” Sadie pulled her hands away. “It shows to me ‘cause I been lookin’ for it. And it shows to him. He was early this mornin”, just like he couldn’t hold hisself away.”

  “Oh, I’m not shamed. It’s just so new, is all.” Summer’s violet eyes danced and she couldn’t keep the smile from tilting her lips.

  “He’s a man what would make any woman proud,” Sadie said softly. “I ain’t seen but one other what would make a woman feel so safe, so taken care of.”

  Summer gave her friend a sharp look, but Sadie had turned away and was plucking her newly awakened daughter from the tangled bedclothes.

  Summer could hardly contain her bubbling spirit as the morning progressed. Sure that her hair was smooth and her dress was clean, she paused frequently to look out the door toward the corral. She was agonizingly aware when Slater and John Austin rode into the yard, and fervently wished she could conceal herself beside the door and watch, but she went to her room and busied herself with the quilts in the big, wooden box at the end of the bed.

  She had spread the patchwork quilt out to refold it when she heard Slater’s voice in the other room. Her heart was pounding, her knees were weak, when he appeared in the doorway. His searching eyes found he
r, then swept the room before coming back to hers.

  “I always liked this room.”

  Summer clutched the quilt to her, her eyes devouring his face, her heart galloping wildly.

  “My mother loved it,” she managed to say. “She said the most wonderful time of her life was spent here. When Papa came back from the fighting, he wanted to go back to the Piney Woods, but I think Mama wanted to stay here.”

  “Yes, I think she did,” Slater said slowly. He walked over to the high chest and ran his hand over the small, carved box that had belonged to Nannie Kuykendall. It was in this box that Summer had found the letter from Sam McLean. “I remember this box. Your mother kept her treasures in it. There was a small gold ring she wore when she was a baby. You wore it, too.”

  Summer moved over to stand beside him. She lifted the lid of the box and took out the circle of gold. It was small and thin and she slipped it over the tip of her little finger for him to see. He was standing close to her. She could feel his breath stir the loose tendrils of her hair. She stepped away so she could look up at him. Their eyes caught, held, and Summer thought she would suffocate.

  Quickly, she returned the ring to the box and drew out a flat package and unwrapped it.

  “For as long as I can remember, Mama had this hair necklace. I never saw her wear it, but sometimes she took it out and looked at it. I think it’s beautiful and must have taken hours and hours to make.” She held it up between them. The hair was glossy black, and fine as silk. It was crocheted into a beautiful rope design to form the necklace. “I don’t know whose hair it was.” She smiled at him. “But it could have been yours, Slater. It’s the same color.”

  “Or yours.” His eyes teased her and he reached out to touch the coils atop her head.

  “I think if it was mine, she would have told me. I know it isn’t Papa’s. His hair was reddish-brown.” She folded the necklace in the paper and returned it to the box. Slater didn’t move. She could feel his eyes and looked up. He smiled at her with amused tenderness in his eyes. His voice had reached into her heart with a thrill of joyful recognition so strong that it caused her to catch her breath. She knew him! She knew him with her heart, her soul, as if he was the other half of herself and they would never be content until united.