As the three of them sat, Abbie glanced at the empty chairs around the table. There were five of them—for John, Susanna and three more that made her long for more children. It was an old regret, one that passed as soon as she blinked. Bowing her head, she said grace, thanking God for the bounty in her life.
As family chatter drifted down the hall, John closed his eyes. He could feel the fever spiking in this chest like a lake of fire, carrying him to places he didn’t want to go—to Kansas, wanting Abbie and the daughter he didn’t want to claim.
As the hours passed, he drifted from the pain to fiery dreams. He heard himself cry out, then a lamp flared and Abbie was at his side. She put a cloth over his eyes, blinding him as she covered his chest with a damp towel. Water trickled down his sides. It felt like blood, but he welcomed the coolness and the brush of her fingers at the base of his throat.
Desire quivered through him, making him hard in spite of the fever. Mercifully the sheet covered his nakedness, but it wasn’t enough to hide the betrayal of his body. A new pain built inside him and crawled on his skin like spiders escaping from a jar. John hated spiders. He hated the fear and the pictures swirling in his mind in shades of red.
Pa, don’t!
He was just six years old and his pa was beating him with a shovel while his mother watched. He could feel the blade slicing his skin and the air whooshing from his lungs. It hurt, damn it! He couldn’t breathe—the monster was after him.
But then he felt Abbie’s cool hands on his cheeks. “It’s all right. You don’t need to be afraid.”
But she was wrong. Ghosts were dancing on the walls—his father’s twisted face, his mother’s blank stare. His head throbbed and his bones ached. The evil lived inside of him. He wanted to die and be free of it. He knew his Bible. To die was gain—he’d be in heaven. Living took courage. It meant fighting for women and children in harm’s way and helping men who’d lost their souls.
It also meant living in his own tarnished skin. Damn those soft hands on his chest. Sexual need stirred in his belly. Or was it something else? The hunger for love, the urge to join with a woman and be whole. Groaning, John rolled in the sheets and tried to bury himself in his bed.
“Oh, God,” cried Abbie. “He’s on fire.”
Through the haze of his dreams, he heard Doc Randall bark an order. “Keep those wet towels on him. We have to cool him down.”
But the towels weighed a thousand pounds, and John wanted to fly. He wanted to go to heaven where his crazy mother would be picking flowers and Ben Gantry would be playing checkers with his sons—and Isaac Leaf would be nowhere in sight.
A prism of light exploded in John’s mind and shot him to a knoll in Wyoming. He could smell the new grass and see it shimmering with dew. The tall blades had a tender look, and the pale green reminded him of Abbie’s eyes. He wanted to flop down on the knoll and sink into the earth, but a man was clearing his throat. John blinked and saw Silas sitting on a brown horse and looking disgusted.
You damn fool! You gotta girl to raise.
But John was afraid he’d hurt her like his father had hurt him. Not with his fists—never that—but with the darkness in his heart. He dropped to his knees and told Silas he could help her more from heaven. He’d make her dreams come true. He’d dry her tears and give her a future bright with hope. And as sure as the sun rose in the morning, he’d make certain that any man who came calling on his daughter had the most honorable of intentions.
The next thing John knew he was aiming a shotgun at a devil with bleached hair and pale eyes, threatening to shoot him dead if he so much as winked at Susanna. A smile played across John’s lips. He rather liked the idea of being Susanna’s guardian angel. Pleased with the plan, he told Silas it was time to trade his preacher’s coat for a set of wings.
Gripping the saddle horn, Silas leaned low and glared at John as if he were stupid. Forget that angel talk! Your daughter needs you now.
But John had nothing to offer except a shameful past. He wanted the curse to end, and that’s what he told Silas.
If you die now, boy, so help me God, I’ll climb off this horse and tan your sorry white butt.
John told Silas he’d like to see him try.
Oh, no, you wouldn’t. She needs you, son. I’m bringing her home.
The face of a dark-eyed girl with chopped-off hair shimmered in John’s mind and then split apart like ripples in a pond. Even when the face was gone, he heard the solitary cry of her heart. She thought that no one understood her, but John did. They had the same need to seek out the truth and live big. And from her mother, she had no doubt inherited a good heart and the rebellion that had sent her running from home.
At the thought of Abbie, John flashed back to the first time he’d unbuttoned the front of her dress. It had been a game to him—how many buttons would she let him undo? All of them, he’d discovered. He’d been the one to stop, only because he’d realized she didn’t want him to. Later that night, they had gone to bed and made Susanna.
John saw Silas scowling at him. You owe Abbie, too.
Yes, he did. He’d give her every cent he had.
Silas spat on the ground. You know that’s not enough.
But it had to be. John had nothing else to give.
Yes, you do. You’ve got love in you now. Show it to Abbie.
A moan tore from John’s throat. Why couldn’t Silas understand? Of course, he loved Abbie. He wanted to buy her pretty dresses and make her laugh. He wanted to bury himself inside her and feel the wholeness of their love. But loving her meant keeping her safe—from Ben Gantry, false hopes and babies with his bad blood.
As the fever spiked through him, he shivered inside a cloak of cold sweat. Abbie was better off in Washington, but first she had to go to Kansas. In his dream the Wyoming grass withered to straw and the sky turned black. John had never laid eyes on Judge Lawton Moore, but he felt the man’s heartlessness in the sudden chill. Abbie was the grass. She’d die without the sun. Rising to his feet, John looked for Silas and found him on top of a stagecoach.
You know what you have to do, son.
No, he didn’t. He had no idea. Silas raised his voice as if he were shouting at a mule.
Do right by her, boy! Give that woman your name.
A blast of light plastered John against the bed. He felt the fever-soaked sheets clinging to his legs like a shroud and kicked them off. As a breeze rippled over his skin, he saw what he had to do. He’d marry Abbie. He’d give her his name, his possessions, his heart—everything but the union of their bodies. It was time to right a past wrong. That meant giving Abbie the benefits of marriage without taking advantage of the privileges.
As he opened his eyes, he saw her face close to his. He wanted to tell her that he’d keep her safe, but his throat was too dry. Seeing his need, she lifted his head and raised a cup to his lips. As the first drop brought relief, he gulped for more.
As soon as he felt better, he’d talk to her about everything he wanted to do for her—and the things he couldn’t. He’d ask her to be his wife and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
As soon as John calmed down, Doc Randall left for the night and Abbie collapsed in the chair at his bedside. She hated seeing him lashing out like a terrified boy. Doc Randall had been close to tying him up, but she had refused to let him do it.
She knew how it felt to be trapped in the dark with a monster. The fear stripped away reason and turned a woman into a pleading child. In the first years with Robert, she had bargained.
Please don’t hit me. I’ll make things nice for you.
But her pleas had only inflamed him. Holding in tears, she recalled fighting with her fists, but he had flipped her to her belly and taken her from behind. She had struggled like a wild animal, only to end up bleeding and too terrified to ever resist him again.
The old terror welled in her belly now, spreading to her chest and up her throat. Pressing her hands to her cheeks, she forced herself to breathe slowly. If the p
anic struck, she’d be sobbing for hours. The sadness would come like a smothering heat, and she’d be trapped in it for days, even weeks.
Damn! Damn! Damn!
She had to stay angry. If she let her guard down, the sadness would come back in a rush. But how could she stay angry when her heart was burning with John’s pain and she ached to comfort him? He had taken a knife meant for her. He’d befriended her son. And though he hadn’t opened his heart to Susanna, he was helping in the search.
With tears pressing behind her eyes, Abbie took his hand in both of hers and kissed his fingertips one at a time. As his breathing quickened, so did hers. The rasp took her back to another night when her breath had come hard and fast. She was running to her grandmother’s barn, where Johnny Leaf had just saddled his horse. He had wiped away her tears with his knuckles.
Come with me, Abbie. You don’t belong here.
I don’t belong with you, either.
As she remembered his matter-of-fact nod, her heart ached just as it had that night—for herself because it hurt to see him leave and for him because it didn’t seem to hurt at all. She had reached for his hand.
I’ll never see you again, will I?
Probably not.
She had wanted to say something more, but he had lashed down his rifle and climbed into the saddle. Looking down at her face, he had run his fingers through her hair, letting it fall a strand at a time. A wistful smile had curved on his lips, and he’d given her another halfhearted invitation to Oregon.
Looking at him now, Abbie felt the ache of that choice all over again. Would she have left with him if she had known she was pregnant? Probably not. She loved her mother, and Dorothea Moore had been fighting the breast tumor that had taken her life. Abbie had made the right decision, but sometimes—when she looked at Susanna and saw John—she tasted a regret so thick she couldn’t swallow. If her mother had known what the future held, she would have given her money and shipped her things, just as Abbie would do anything to protect her own children.
Blinking back tears, she counted the specks of silver in John’s beard. Fifteen years ago she had loved a young man without a line on his face. In the presence of the adult he’d become, she felt those seeds of love stirring to life, like the tulips she planted in autumn and forgot about until spring.
She loved walking into her garden and discovering the first green blades had emerged from the moist earth. It gave her a little thrill, and she had that feeling now—a warmth in her middle that made her feel alive. It was spreading through her chest and down to her womb, as if the seeds John had planted in Kansas were opening inside her.
Could she really be feeling this way? The evidence was moist between her legs and tingling in her breasts. Even her breathing had changed from something she never noticed to a rasp escaping from her throat. She ached to open her garden gate and invite John inside. She wanted to bloom and flourish with this man who had planted the first seeds of love in her lonely life.
Keeping her eyes open to hold back Robert’s ghost, Abbie bent low and kissed John sweetly on the lips. She saw his brows arch with surprise, but he didn’t open his eyes. Instead he tilted back his head and matched his lips more fully to hers. The silky glide turned moist and warm like a spring afternoon. She flashed on her snow-covered garden, the first burst of the April sun and the melting in her womb.
She had kissed John this way in Kansas, leaning over him with her weight on her hands and only their mouths touching. It hadn’t been enough then and it wasn’t enough now. She bent her elbows until the tips of her breasts grazed the hardness of his chest. A pulse-pounding shock ripped through her. At the same time, John tangled his hands in her hair and held her tight, deepening the kiss with all the passion of a virile man.
Abbie pulled back, but he didn’t let go. Instead he moaned and pulled her close with a need of his own. For closeness…for love…for sex… Her breath caught in her throat. The muscles cinched tight, choking her like a man’s hand. As her eyes popped wide, so did John’s.
“Abbie—”
Gasping, she ran for the back door, slamming it behind her. What had she just done? She’d kissed him as if… She couldn’t stand the thought. She raced down the steps and through the garden, past the moonlit rows of strung-up tomatoes and into the pines. Her toe caught on a rock, but she didn’t slow until the path ended at a rushing stream.
Dropping to her knees, she knotted her hands in her lap and wept. Why did she want things she couldn’t have? Her marriage had left her crippled. She could no more make love to John than a woman with a limp could climb a mountain. The only difference was that her scars didn’t show as long as she kept her clothes on. Raising her eyes to the heavens, she searched for solace and found it in the faces of her children. She loved them and that was enough. It had to be.
As Abbie fought her tears, an owl hooted and took flight. The shadow of its wings crossed her face, filling her with a longing to follow the bird into the darkness.
Instead she was destined to live like a cooped-up chicken in Kansas. Unless her father had changed, he’d give her a withering look and order the sale of her house. She’d be dependent on him for every bite of food. He’d make her wear mourning for four more years and then she’d be doomed to navy blue.
Abbie could have endured the emptiness for herself, but Robbie and Susanna deserved better. Raising her eyes to the heavens, she searched for another answer. She longed to fly into the dark like the owl, but she didn’t have wings. She ached to love again, but she didn’t have the heart. Never mind that she had kissed John and her lips were still tingling. With a little luck, he would think he’d dreamed it. Her heart swelled with longing as she wished on the stars, but then a train whistle cut through the stillness, reminding her that soon she’d be living in Kansas and dining on chicken feed.
Chapter Eight
John maneuvered one leg into his trousers, took a deep breath and wrestled with the other one. He didn’t have his strength yet, but spending another day in bed was out of the question. He wanted a cigarette in the worst way, and he needed to speak to Abbie in private.
Between Beth’s pie business and Robbie’s chatter, the parsonage was a beehive of activity. John didn’t want to be interrupted when he presented Abbie with his plan. That’s why he had asked her to take a walk with him this afternoon. He’d also asked her to bring a picture of her daughter. He wanted to see Susanna to confirm that she was the same girl in his dream.
Those images had lingered in his mind like smoke. Common sense told him to dismiss them as feverish wanderings, but it had all felt real—everything from Silas’s bossy tone to Abbie giving him a kiss that left him aching. John didn’t believe in dreams per se, but he did believe in signs and wonders. If the photographs of Susanna matched the face in his dream, he’d know for sure that marrying Abbie was the right thing to do.
A light tapping on the partly open door interrupted his thoughts.
“John? Are you ready?” said Abbie.
“I’ll meet you on the porch.”
A few days ago she would have walked into his room at will and why not? She’d seen him naked and raving, but that time had passed. Since the fever, she had become reserved. John appreciated the courtesy, especially since he thought about her all the time. When the kitchen floor creaked, he imagined her making supper. The ripple of female laughter told him when she was with Beth. Abbie even haunted the silence as he imagined her upstairs in her room, napping or writing letters.
John’s plan called for formality, so he selected a starched shirt with a preacher’s collar. After shrugging into it, he put on his coat, opened the desk drawer and retrieved a dried-up pack of Duke’s Best cigarettes. He thought about lighting up while they walked to the creek, but he didn’t think Abbie would appreciate it. Instead he put the pack in his pocket and walked out to the porch where he saw her.
Dressed in gray and wearing a floppy straw hat, she was standing in the yard, holding a picnic basket and a blanket, s
taring down the lane that led to town. Puffs of steam from the one o’clock train were rising over the buildings. It wasn’t hard to discern her thoughts. Ambling down the steps, John said, “She’ll be here soon.”
Abbie turned and smiled. “I won’t relax until I know she’s safe.”
John felt the same way. His heart wouldn’t be at ease until Abbie and her children were back in Washington. He eyed the wicker basket and held in a grimace. He wanted to transact business, not share a picnic. “What’s all that?”
“Just some sweet tea and apple pie.” Abbie looked sheepish. “Beth packed it for us. I’m afraid she’s a bit of a matchmaker.”
With a grunt, John took the blanket from Abbie and guided her down the path that led to a creek about a quarter mile from the parsonage. With a hint of mischief in her eyes, she looked up and smiled. “Beth should have packed the basket for you and Emma Dray. She’d make a fine preacher’s wife.”
“Oh, no, she wouldn’t. I like my privacy.”
Abbie chuckled. “We’ve turned your life upside down, haven’t we?”
“I don’t mind.” The understatement was close to a lie. He’d enjoyed every minute of her company and would miss her terribly. As they neared a stand of pinyons, he breathed in the heavy scent and listened to the squawk of a scrub jay. John hoped his proposal would come out with a bit more finesse, though it had been a long time since he’d needed to charm a woman.
“There’s a spot up ahead where we can talk,” he said.
“You’re probably craving quiet after this morning’s visitors.” Abbie chuckled, but John hadn’t been amused by Emma Dray and her mother. The old woman had followed Abbie into the kitchen, leaving Emma alone with John. Why did women think that being cow-eyed made them charming? John preferred a woman with spirit, someone who’d take him to task for his own stupidity. Someone like Abbie. Pushing back that thought, he joined in her teasing.
“Someone needs to tell Emma to bake cakes for Harvey Miller. He’s been looking for a wife for years.”
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