“Actually, that’s why we’re here,” Duncan said. “Boyd wanted to meet with Dallas.”
Cordelia swallowed back the tears. “Boyd is here?”
“Yeah, he’s in the office talking to Dallas.”
“About what?”
Her brothers averted their gazes, one staring at his boots, the other at the ceiling. Foreboding ripped through her. She rushed down the hallway and eased her way past the partially opened door.
Dallas stood before the window, gazing out. Boyd stood beside the desk, a scroll in his hand.
“So that’s the way I see it,” Boyd said. “The contract says if she gave you a son, you’d deed the land over to us. She gave you a son. It’s unfortunate he died, but that doesn’t change the fact that she upheld her end of the bargain. Now, I expect you to uphold your end—”
“The hell he will,” Cordelia said.
Dallas spun around, agony reflected in his gaze, just before he threw on a mask of indifference. “Dee—”
“This doesn’t concern you, Cordelia,” Boyd said.
“The hell it doesn’t. You and Father bartered me away for a strip of land, and now you have the gall to say it doesn’t concern me? How dare you! How dare you come into our home and demand anything of us, anything of Dallas. There isn’t a court in the state that will side with you, that will say a dead son is the same as a live son—”
“Dee—” Dallas began.
“No!” she said, hurting for him, the pain twisting inside her for all that they had lost. They would lose no more. She turned her hardened gaze on her brother and pressed a hand to her chest. “We hurt, damn you! We lost something that we desperately wanted, something we can never regain. Where was my family when I was suffering? Where was my family when I thought I might die? Marking off the land they wanted to claim!” She trembled with rage, hurt with disappointment. “I never again want you to step foot in this house. You will never acquire the land because I am now unable to give Dallas a living son. I have a strong need to hit something, Boyd, and if you don’t get out of my sight right this minute, there’s a good chance you’ll be the thing I hit.”
Boyd glared at Dallas. “You gonna let her do the talking for you?”
Dallas nodded sagely. “I’ll even hold you for her if she wants to hit you.”
“You’ll regret going back on your word,” Boyd spat out just before he stalked from the room.
Cordelia sank into a chair, shaking as though she’d been thrown into an icy river. Dallas knelt beside her.
“I’ve never gone back on my word, Dee, but for you, I will. I’ll move my fence back across the river if you want.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what I want right now. Just hold me.”
He wrapped his arms around her. She pressed her face to his shoulder and wept: for the family named McQueen that she had lost, for the family named Leigh that she would never have.
Sauntering from the back room in the barn, Austin heard the faint harsh breathing, like someone running, fighting for air. He halted and listened carefully. Then very cautiously and quietly, he climbed to the loft.
Rawley was crammed into a corner, his arms wrapped tightly around his drawn-up knees, rocking, rocking back and forth.
Austin eased over the straw-covered floor. “Rawley?”
Austin had never seen raw terror, but he knew he was looking at it now. He touched the boy’s shoulder and could feel the tremors racing through him.
“He’s here,” Rawley whispered.
“Who’s here?”
“The man what hurt Miz Dee.”
Austin crawled on his belly to the open window in the loft and gazed out. He recognized the three horses tied to the railing, but he couldn’t believe one of the McQueen brothers was responsible for hurting Dee. He glanced over his shoulder. “You sure he’s here?”
Like a frightened turtle, Rawley drew his shoulders up as though he thought he could hide his head. “He paid my pa.”
“What he’d pay your pa for?”
Rawley rolled his shoulders forward. “To hurt me,” he whispered in a voice that echoed shame.
Rage surged through Austin. “Can you point him out to me when he leaves?”
Rawley shook his head vigorously. “Said he’d kill me if I ever told.”
“Give you my word, Rawley, that he’ll never touch you again.” He held out his hand. “But I gotta know who it is before I can deal with him. Come on. Help me.
Slower than a snail, looking as though he’d retreat back to the corner at any second, Rawley crawled toward Austin. Austin pulled him down beside him until they lay flat on the floor, their eyes just above the straw.
Austin saw the three McQueen brothers leave the house and mount up. “Which one?”
Rawley pointed a shaking finger. “The one in the middle.”
“You sure?” Austin asked.
“Yes, sir.”
Austin turned his head and smiled at the boy. “You done good, Rawley. You just leave the rest to me.”
Two hours later Austin swaggered into the saloon. The smoke was thick, the noise thicker. He slapped a nickel on the counter and eyed his quarry. “Beer.”
He took the glass and downed the bitter brew in one swallow. He was the youngest, the baby, the one everyone else always watched out for.
Not this time.
He removed his gun from the holster, took careful aim, and fired a bullet in the wall of the saloon … just above Boyd McQueen’s head.
Boyd tipped over in his chair and hit the floor with a resounding thud. He came up sputtering.
Austin couldn’t believe the calmness that settled over him as he strode across the room. Men jumped out of his way. Men who had been sitting at Boyd’s table hastened to move to other tables.
Austin planted his hands on the table and glowered at Boyd. “I know the truth—everything. You stay away from me, mine, and anyone I consider mine or my next bullet goes through your heart.”
He spun on his heel.
“You don’t have the guts to kill,” Boyd taunted.
Austin slowly turned and faced his adversary. “Mark my words, McQueen. Nothing would bring me greater pleasure than to rid the ground of your shadow.”
Spring came as though winter had held no sorrow, blanketing the earth in an abundance of assorted reds, yellows, and greens.
Cordelia sat on the front porch of Amelia’s house, watching as Amelia nursed Laurel Joy. The child kicked her chubby arms and legs in rhythm to her sucking mouth. Cordelia did not resent that Amelia held the child to her breast, but she could not help but ache for the children she would never nourish.
Cordelia turned her attention to a lean-to where the men and Rawley were working to help a mare deliver a foal. Always births would abound. Always the pain inside her would deepen, for what she could not have, for what she could not give Dallas.
“You look as though you have something on your mind,” Amelia said.
Cordelia averted her gaze from those she loved. She gnawed on her lower lip. “You told me that you and Dallas had acquired an annulment. How did you go about it?”
Amelia shifted Laurel to her shoulder, buttoned her blouse, and studied her as though trying to understand the reason behind the question. “It was really rather simple. We never consummated our marriage.”
“Oh.” Cordelia felt her heart sink. “That wouldn’t work for us, would it?”
“No, you were obviously intimate at one time.”
At one time. Dallas hadn’t come to her bed since the afternoon they’d shared in the hotel. He watched her with wariness as though he wasn’t quite certain what to do with her.
“Then what would a woman do if she no longer wanted to be married?” Cordelia asked.
“Have you talked with Dallas about this?”
“No, we don’t talk at all anymore. We are more like strangers now than we were before we got married.”
“He’s hurting—”
“So am I. Bu
t I can end his hurting.”
Laurel Joy burped and Amelia scooted up in her chair. “How?”
“By leaving him. By giving him the opportunity to marry someone who can give him a son.”
Amelia shook her head. “I don’t think he wants that, Dee. When you were losing the baby, he begged me not to let him lose you, too.”
“Words easily spoken—”
“Not for Dallas. He’s never been one to speak what he feels.”
“He didn’t know what it would cost him to say them because he didn’t know I’d never be able to give him the son he so desperately wants.”
Sympathy filled Amelia’s eyes. “You love him.”
Tears clogged Cordelia’s throat. “Help me, Amelia. Help me to give him what he wants.”
Amelia sighed with resignation. “You should probably talk with Mr. Thomaston.”
“The lawyer?”
Amelia nodded. “There’s something called a divorce. I don’t know much about how it’s done, but I know a divorced woman is looked down upon, so think hard on this before you do it, Dee.”
She looked back toward the lean-to. Dallas was hunkered down beside Rawley, pointing toward the mare, his mouth moving, instructing, explaining as she knew he’d always wanted to teach his own son. He deserved that opportunity to teach a child who carried his blood.
“I don’t have to think about it,” she said softly.
Standing inside Shawnee’s stall, Rawley noticed the stench first, liked boiled eggs he’d hidden once so he wouldn’t have to eat them. Then the cold of dawn crept over him much as he imagined a skeleton’s bony fingers would feel as they skittered over his neck.
He swallowed what spit he had and crept out of the stall. A barn owl swooped down with a swoosh that nearly stopped Rawley’s heart from beating.
Shadows quivered in the corners. He could see sunlight hovering between the crack where the doors to the barn met.
He smiled. The first light of dawn. Mr. Leigh would be waiting on the back steps—
The pain ripping through his chest caught him unaware as something slammed into him and knocked him to the ground. Someone straddled him and wrapped a large hand around his throat. He didn’t know why. He couldn’t have breathed if he’d needed to … and he needed to. He needed to bad.
A face hovered within inches of his, a face that he’d once known. The face now looked like a wooden puzzle that someone had put together wrong.
Black and white dots fought each other in front of his eyes. The black was winning.
“I’m gonna move my hand away. If you yell, I’ll snap your neck in two,” his pa rasped.
His pa. His insides recoiled at the thought.
The hand moved away. Rawley dragged in a deep breath, swallowing the bile that rose as the stench of his father filled his nostrils.
His pa got off him and pulled him to his feet as though he were little more than Maggie’s rag doll. He slung him against the wall, and Rawley wished he were a doll so he wouldn’t feel the pain fixing to come his way.
“Living fancy, ain’t you, boy?” his pa rasped. Rawley shook his head.
His pa smiled. He didn’t have as many teeth as he’d once had and those that remained were black at the top of his smile. “Well, I’m gonna be living fancy, too, and you’re gonna help me.”
Rawley listened to the words. He wanted to take himself away to that place inside his head where nothing could hurt him.
But he knew if he did … his pa would kill the lady.
The picnic had been Rawley’s idea.
“A way to make you happy,” he’d said shyly, eyes downcast.
Cordelia should have known then that something was wrong, but she was too wrapped up with thoughts of leaving Dallas. Rawley had told her that he knew of a perfect place for a picnic, a place Dallas had shown him.
That should have tipped her off as well. Rawley always referred to Dallas as Mr. Leigh.
In retrospect, she could see that he had given her clues, small hints that something was amiss.
But it wasn’t until they had sat on the quilt to enjoy the food—not until the riders arrived and Rawley’s eyes brimmed with tears and he refused to look at her—that she came to understand the true reason behind his suggestion for a picnic.
Dear Leigh,
I am Mr. Cooper’s prisoner. You got until noon tomorrow to bring $1,000.00 to the dried well on the north end of your ranch. Wait there alone, without any guns or knives.
I ain’t hurt, but if you don’t follow his orders, he’ll kill me.
Mrs. Leigh
Cordelia glared at her captor. He snatched the paper from beneath her hands and held it toward the light of the lantern. “Good, good, you wrote just what I said.”
She wondered if he could read, if he did indeed know that she had written his words exactly as he’d spoken them. She wished she hadn’t written them at all.
She glanced at Rawley, her sole reason for doing as Cooper instructed.
Within the shed, he sat on a wooden crate. Unmoving. His hands folded in his lap, a grown-up posture out of place on a little boy. He seemed to be staring at the flame quivering in the lantern, only the flame, nothing else … as though he wished there were nothing else.
As though staring at the lantern, holding himself perfectly still, would make the gun pressed against his temple go away.
“Well?” the man holding the gun asked.
Rawley’s father nodded. “Go ahead.”
Before Cordelia could react, the man pulled the trigger. She screamed as a resounding click echoed around the room.
Rawley’s father laughed. “You lucked out again, Rawley.”
He drew his hand back and slapped Rawley across the face. Rawley staggered off the box and hit the floor.
“No!” Cordelia cried as she hurried to the corner and took Rawley into her arms. He was shaking as though he’d been dunked into an icy river.
“He didn’t feel it,” his father cackled. “He’s tetched in the head; goes someplace far away. He ain’t smart like me.” He pointed to his temple. “Now, me, I’m a thinkin’ man. Always thinkin’.” He knelt and brought his abhorrent body odor with him. “Know what I’m thinkin’?”
Cordelia gathered her strength around her as she tucked Rawley more closely against her. “It doesn’t matter what you’re thinking.”
“He’ll come, and when he does I’ll kill him.”
“Why? You’ll have the money—”
“I told you I’m a thinkin’ man. Your brother paid me to kill him, but I’m thinkin’—Dallas Leigh ain’t gonna be an easy man to kill. He’ll fight.
“Then I get to thinkin’, Dallas Leigh thinks he’s smart. Thinks I’m dumb. So I think to myself, I’ll kidnap his wife. Make him bring me money. Then I’ll kill him. I get money from him. I get money from your brother.”
“Dallas won’t come. He’s not a man to trade something for nothing. He wants a son which I can’t give him. With my death, he will gain an opportunity to marry a woman who can give him a son.”
Rawley’s father stood. “You’d better pray he does come ’cuz if he don’t come”—he raked his gaze over her body and Cordelia forced herself not to shudder—“I know lots of men what would pay to spend time with you, just like they paid me to spend time with that boy’s ma.”
“That boy? You mean Rawley? You sold your wife—”
“She weren’t my wife. She was a squaw I found.” He tapped his temple. “Told you I’m a thinkin’ man. Took her in, made a lot of money off her till she died. Give her boy my name, but I don’t imagine I’m his pa. He ain’t nearly as good-looking as I used to be. And you’ll be better than she was ’cuz I won’t have to worry about you leaving me any worthless brats.”
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
Dallas stared through the window of his office as darkness settled around him … along with the loneliness. He’d never before experienced loneliness, perhaps because he’d never understood comp
anionship: the comfort of knowing someone was willing to listen to his thoughts, the joy of sharing something as simple as watching the stars appear within the velvety sky.
He wanted Dee to be in his office now, curled up in her chair discussing her ideas, her plans. But she hadn’t come to his office since she’d had the confrontation with Boyd.
He crumpled the note she’d left him on the dining-room table.
Rawley and I have gone on a picnic.
Only a few months before, she might have invited him to join them. Now, she didn’t even want his company when she rode into town to check on her hotel.
They had become strangers.
After her accident, he had been afraid to sleep in her bed, fearful of hurting her. With each passing day, a chasm had widened between them, a chasm he had no earthly idea how to close.
He wondered if she would even come home tonight. She had begun to spend more nights at the hotel. He bent his head until his chin touched his chest. Damn, he missed her, and he didn’t know how to get her back.
Her smiles for him had disappeared, along with her laughter. Sometimes, he would hear her chuckle at something Rawley said. He’d hoard the moment as though it were for him, knowing full well that it wasn’t.
It seemed that the night they had lost their son, whatever tender feelings she might have had for Dallas had perished as well. How could he blame her? He hadn’t been there to protect her. He had been as useless as a dry well.
He heard the galloping hooves and looked up in time to see the rider bring his arm back. The window shattered as a rock sailed through it.
What the hell?
He found the rock, untied the string that surrounded it, and unfolded the note. He recognized Dee’s flowing script long before he saw her signature.
Sitting at his desk, he turned up the flame in the lamp. He read the note a dozen times. The words remained the same, chilling him to the bone.
He planted his elbows on the desk and buried his face in his hands, digging his fingers into his brow. Christ, he didn’t know what to do.
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