Tucker’s Claim

by Sarah McCarty

  Tucker had stayed too long. Brought this on her. The brilliant spatter of Lyle’s blood on her face was stronger than any accusation. He gritted his teeth. “You’ve always known who I am. You just never wanted to acknowledge it. It didn’t suit the nice little future you dreamed up for us.”

  “No.”

  Was she denying him or the reality? Blood dripped down the cabinet onto her freshly scrubbed floors. He was losing her just as surely as Lyle had lost. Tucker stepped over Lyle’s legs and cupped her shoulder. Her flinch, when she’d never flinched away from him before, lashed his soul.

  “You don’t need to be looking at that.”

  She leaned back, staring at Lyle’s corpse as if it held all the answers she’d always been missing. “There’s a dead body in my kitchen, where would thee have me look?”

  Anywhere but there. Grabbing a towel, he took the coffeepot off the burner. “Go in the parlor.”

  Even as Tucker gave the order, she swayed. It only took one step to scoop her up in his arms. A second step to feel the rejection. She turned her head, leaving him staring at her bloodstained cheek. The cheek he’d caressed so many times before. The cheek that was now sporting a bruise. The cheek he loved to kiss after they made love, when she was flushed and panting from pleasure. He set her on her feet in the parlor. “It wasn’t your fault, Sally Mae.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  She was beginning to look a little green around the gills. “I’ll get you a glass of water.”

  She vehemently shook her head, her gaze locked on the kitchen door. He brushed the back of his fingers down her cheek. She leaned away. He curled his fingers around the pain, absorbing it, accepting it. “I’ll get it from the well.”

  “We can’t just leave Lyle there.”

  “He’ll keep.”

  “The blood…”

  “I’ll put a towel under—” She probably didn’t need to hear the graphic details. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Thee always take care of things.” Her hand waved vaguely between them before settling over her stomach. “I just never understood…”

  “What was involved,” he finished for her. The time for illusions was past.

  She shook her head. “Thee are right. I didn’t want to know.”

  Her fingers dug into her stomach. He caught her arm. “Sit down before you fall down.” He practically forced her to the settee.

  Fine tremors radiated down her arms. If possible her skin was even paler. “Tucker?”

  He stepped back and braced himself for the coming tirade. “What?”

  She flinched from his tone, or maybe just looking at him now made her sick. Hell, he’d shattered her world, her illusions. There was no maybe about it.

  “I think I’m going to faint.”

  She didn’t faint like the young ladies at a social. There was no graceful crumple. She simply toppled over. He had to dive to save her head from the floor. He glared at the kitchen door. If Lyle wasn’t already dead, he’d kill him all over again. She was so light in his arms. So frail. He couldn’t even feel the steel he knew lurked beneath the outward appearance of fragility. He glanced at the settee and then the stairs. The least he could do was make her comfortable.

  He carried her to her bedroom. Sunshine blazed bright and cheery into the small space that smelled of lilac and…illness? Laying Sally Mae on the bed, Tucker loosened her blouse before unhooking the corset beneath. Her breathing was shallow and she was so very pale that the tracery of veins beneath her skin seemed more pronounced. He touched the start of one violet line just below her shoulder, followed it over the slope of her breast to the valley between. Fragile. Everything about the woman was delicate except for the way she loved him. That was rock solid.

  He didn’t know if she knew that he knew she loved him, but Sally wasn’t a woman of easy virtue. She could tell herself anything she wanted, but he’d always known she wouldn’t lie down with a man unless he held her heart. And he, true to form, had selfishly taken advantage of that love, stealing for himself a bit of a dream that could never be. Deluding himself that he could protect her from the reality of what he was for the duration of their affair. It had been a delusion, and she was lying here now, shattered because of his arrogance. Wiping the blood from her cheek with his thumb, feeling weary to his bones, he whispered, “I’m sorry, moonbeam.” He kissed her cheek. “You can wake up, now. It’s safe.”

  She moaned and stirred. He could see her pulse beating steadily in the hollow of her throat. She was fine. The only thing wrong in her life was him. He stood and angled the sheet over her torso. “I’ll send Hazel over.”

  She would want someone she trusted if she were sick.

  Hazel marched up to Sally’s house ahead of Tucker, back straight, skirts swaying with the force of her steps. He stood back, holding the front door open as she passed through. “I’m sure if Sally Mae fainted there had to be some other reason than seeing a man wounded.”

  “He was dead.”

  “She’s seen plenty of dead men.”

  “I killed him.”

  She looked at him.

  “In front of her,” he added.

  “Oh.”

  Hazel stopped in the doorway to the kitchen. He expected more of a reaction than the glance she sent Lyle. “Can’t say that anyone will miss him.”

  It was a harsh statement for a woman. “You knew him?”

  “A lot of men think a widow is lonely.”

  He frowned. “You should have told me he was bothering you.”

  Hazel huffed. “He was hardheaded, but his head wasn’t harder than my frying pan.”

  The sharp retort spurred a smile. Hazel was a fine-looking woman, capable. She wouldn’t be alone long if she didn’t want to be. “Glad to hear it, but if you have any problems in the future, come to me or any of Hell’s Eight.”

  “Thank you, but I’m going home.”

  He followed her to the foot of the stairs. “Back East? Why?”

  She paused on the landing and shrugged. Her mouth quivered and firmed. “My Ben and I came here for a new start, but all that happened to our dreams was that they came to an end.”

  “You’ve still got Davey.”

  She wiped tears on her sleeve. “Yes, and I don’t want to lose him. He’ll be safer back East.”

  It was expensive to travel that far. He wasn’t above assuring Hazel’s loyalty with cash. “I’ll pay you to take care of her.”

  Hazel’s chin snapped up. “Sally Mae was there for my Billy and my Davey. You won’t insult me again by offering money to take care of her.”

  Living on the outskirts of society for so long, he’d forgotten the odd feeling of helplessness that settled on a man after being reprimanded by a woman. “Thank you.”

  She jerked her chin in the direction of the kitchen. “You can thank me by cleaning up that mess. If Sally Mae’s stomach is feeling sensitive, she won’t want to look at that again.”

  “Consider it done.”

  “Just be sure it’s done right.”

  Up until recently, no woman other than Tia, the Eight’s adoptive mother, had given him orders. Most feared his size, combined with his reputation. Oh, women might be fascinated enough to sleep with him and might nourish a secret hope that he’d turn savage in bed, but they usually didn’t go toe to toe with his will. Yet in the past year, four women had—Caine’s wife, Desi, Sam’s wife, Isabella, Sally Mae and now Hazel.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He headed into the kitchen. Hell, maybe Sally Mae was right. Maybe he was getting tired.

  He was scrubbing the floor when Hazel came down. He tracked her footsteps across the parlor, knowing she stood in the doorway when they stopped.

  “Is she all right?” he asked, scrubbing at the last of the blood. He didn’t know how women stood cleaning. The stench of lye soap from this alone had about burned his nose hairs off.

  She didn’t answer. He looked up. She stood in the doorway, face white, arms folded across her chest. He sto
od, a cold, sick feeling settling in his stomach.

  “What the hell is it?”

  She came toward him. His world narrowed to the rhythm of her approach, the swish of her skirts, the staccato rasp of her breath, the click of her soles across the wood floor. She stopped just in front of him. Her mouth worked. The cold feeling in the pit of his stomach opened to a yawning void. “What’s wrong?”

  Hazel made a fist, relaxed it, and then made it again.

  “She’s pregnant.” She slapped him across his face. The sound echoed in the room, in his head, the reverberations building on one another, amplifying the incomprehensible reality.

  Shit. Pregnant?

  Hazel slapped him again, before hauling back for a third. “What are you going to do about it?”

  He caught her hand this time. “Pregnant?”

  She yanked her hand. “Don’t try pretending it’s not yours.”

  Letting her go, he shook his head. No. He wouldn’t be doing that.

  He handed Hazel the scrub brush before heading up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

  He found Sally Mae in the bedroom, buttoning her top. Her hair hung in a wet tangle about her freshly scrubbed face. She appeared calm. He hated her ability to surround herself with calm when he wanted to rage. “When were you going to tell me?”

  Sally Mae didn’t prevaricate. “I don’t know.”

  He leaned his shoulder against the door. “You were going to tell me?”

  Buttoning the last button at her throat and smoothing her fingers over the touch of lace, she picked her brush up off the vanity and sat down. “I don’t know.”

  “What the hell were you planning on doing? Pass an Indian baby off as white?”

  She pulled the heavy swath of her hair over her shoulder and began to brush the ends. Her hands weren’t even shaking while he felt he was breaking up inside, his longtime certainties detonating under the latest turn of events.

  “That would be dishonest.”

  “So was telling me you knew a way to prevent pregnancy.”

  That got a disruption in the rhythm. “It worked before.”

  She watched the brush glide through her hair as though it were a savior. Because she was guilty or ashamed? Guilty would have worked better for his anger, but this was Sally Mae. Peaceable, honest Sally Mae. He reached up to run his fingers through his hair and bumped his hat brim. Shit, he hadn’t even taken off his hat. He caught a glimpse of his expression in the mirror. Hell, if he was Sally Mae, he’d be running for cover. He considered using intimidation to get the answers he wanted and then immediately changed his mind. There were a lot of memories he wanted to take away from his time with Sally Mae, but the memory of her cowering from him wasn’t one of them. He took off his hat and slapped it against his thigh.

  “I thought, you being a healer, that you knew special ways.”

  “Apparently not.”

  The brush kept moving up then down, over and over. Seconds stretched to minutes. He had a choice. He could believe she’d tricked him and be angry, or he could accept that it’d shocked her as much as him and empathize. He was better with angry. He tossed his hat on the vanity to the right of the door. She jumped at the soft plop.

  “Hazel wants my hide staked to the barn door.”

  The brush strokes faltered. “She accused thee?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Ah, hell, when it came to Sally Mae, he wasn’t good at anger. He took the two steps that eradicated the distance between them. Tucking his finger under her chin, he lifted her face to his. She flinched.

  “Stop that.”

  “What?”

  “Flinching when I touch you.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Stop saying that, too.”

  She settled the brush in her lap and stared at him with those big gray eyes. “What do thee want?”

  It came to him then, exactly what he wanted. He rubbed his thumb along her bottom lip. “I want you to tell me we made a baby together. I want you to demand I do the honorable thing. I want you to—”

  “Why?”

  The question caught on the edge of the void inside him, hauling him closer to the place that made him nervous.

  “Because a woman has a right to have expectations of her lover.”

  “No, she does not. By virtue of the relationship—”

  It was his turn to interrupt her. “I want you to have expectations of me.”

  Her lips parted. He placed his thumb over the center bow, cutting off the “why” he could see forming.

  “Don’t ask, just have them, all right?”

  For a second she studied him and then she nodded. He took the brush from her lap and clasped her hand in his, raising it slightly. He turned her toward the mirror.

  She brushed her hair back over her shoulder, settling a little deeper into the seat, watching him in the mirror.

  He started brushing. “I’m waiting.”

  “Like this?”

  “Yes. Like this.” With some distance so he had a little better control over the emotions she brought out so easily.

  She licked her lips. He expected her to blurt it out. She didn’t. Instead she reached back and placed her hand over his, where it rested against the nape of her neck. Her palm was soft, her voice softer still, as if she understood the emotions that he didn’t. Her gaze met his in the mirror. “I’m going to have thy baby, Tucker McCade.”

  Ah, hell. Emotions churned inside him. Terror and joy whipped through him so rapidly that he had trouble even absorbing them. The last emotion, however, that one lingered. The one that scared him most. Joy. Sally Mae was going to have his baby.

  Her fingers squeezed his. “Thee look scared.”

  He was. He’d never had happiness that hadn’t been taken away. He’d gotten accustomed to its absence. “I’m sorry.”

  Her hand dropped away. He caught it before it could reach her side. He felt awkward and unsure. Two emotions he hadn’t experienced since he’d worn knee pants.

  His voice was harsher than he intended. “A baby should be wanted.”

  The words just came from nowhere.

  Sally Mae nodded. “And thee don’t want this one.”

  Yes, he did. And every impossible thing that came with it. He tightened his grip on the brush. “What kind of father would I be?”

  Her gaze held his in the mirror. “Whatever kind thee choose to be.”

  Choice. She was always throwing that word in his face. As if everything that happened in life was at his discretion. If he’d had a choice, his father wouldn’t have been a son of a bitch, his mother would have loved him enough to protect him, the soldados wouldn’t have come and wiped out his town, and Desi and her sister wouldn’t have been sold to Comancheros. If he’d had a choice, he would have been able to court Sally openly.

  “What do you choose?” he asked.

  She brought his hand down to her stomach. “I would choose to love this child.”

  “Goddamn—”

  “Thee will not blaspheme.”

  How the hell did she expect him to resist when she so calmly and matter-of-factly taunted him with everything he wanted? He spread his fingers over the flatness of her abdomen. His child lay beneath. A son or daughter who would have his skin color, her stubbornness and hopefully her endless idealism. “We’ll get married, of course.”

  She got that stubborn look on her face that he’d seen too many times to mistake for anything else. “There’s no ‘of course’ about it.”

  The hell there wasn’t. He knelt, but not before tipping her face up to his. Nothing had changed in the past three hours. She felt as fragile as always. Too fragile to hold his hopes and his dreams. But she did. Whether she wanted to or not, she did. “You have no choice but to marry me, Sally Mae.”

  “There’s always a choice.”

  “Like?”

  “Like going back East. Having my baby among Friends.”

  “Our baby. And
that’s not a solution.”

  “Thee are worried because his skin might be as thine?”

  He ran his fingers down her spine. “Aren’t you?”

  “Friends don’t judge.”

  “If that were true, they’d be called Saints.”

  The twist of her lips was wry. “Maybe it would be better to say they don’t judge so much.”

  Picking her up, he carried her toward the bed. The trust with which her arms came around his neck soothed the raw spot from those times she’d flinched. “You’re not going back East.”

  “That is not thy choice.”

  “The hell it’s not. You gave it to me the day you lay down with me.”

  “I only made the deal for one night.”

  He laid her on the bed. “Well, now you can add a lot more nights to the count.”

  “No.”

  Anger ripped through him. She wouldn’t take herself away from him like this. “Yes.”

  “When thee left, Tucker McCade, I gave you a choice.”

  “And I’m making it.”

  “Not because of the baby.”

  “There’s no undoing what’s been done.”

  “There’s no forcing me to do what I won’t.”

  He knelt above her, straddling her hips, pinning her hands to the mattress with his. “Are you going to fight me?”

  “Not like thee are accustomed.”

  “Then how do you intend to win?”

  “By virtue of what’s right.”

  She should be cowed by his size, her position. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I will not marry a man committed to violence. I will not raise my children in a home where there is no other choice.”

  “Damn it, woman, some of the worst scum in the West have tried to out-stubborn me.”

  “I am not being stubborn.” She closed those gorgeous eyes. Her fingers flexed. Was he hurting her? He loosened his grip. She smiled and opened her eyes. “Tell me what thee decided while thee were away chasing hope.”

  Chasing hope. “Interesting way to describe my job.”

  The sheets rustled as she shrugged. The scent of lemon rose around them in a familiar hug. “Thee always leave with the hope that thee can save a killer’s next victim, bring a woman home to her family, stop a robbery. Thee are a very giving man, Tucker. I just wish for thee to give something to me.”