To Have and to Hold (Cactus Creek Cowboys)

by Greenwood, Leigh

  Adobe homes were scattered along the trail coming into town. Some were modest dwellings of one story high. Others possessed courtyards enclosed by adobe walls. Still, others had large fields behind. Timbers used to support the roofs protruded from the walls like fingers, some casting shadows on the walls like the bars of a jail cell. A church built of the same brown material towered above the town. She wondered if its two stumpy, square towers contained bells. The open fields beyond the houses were populated mainly by sheep and goats.

  They followed the traders’ wagons across a small river to a plaza that appeared to be the center of town. A busy flow of traffic had churned the streets to dust. Traders’ carts lined the streets in front of businesses, one of which advertised stoves for sale. A long building with a spacious portal flanked another side. From Colby’s description, she knew it had to be the Palace of the Governors. Burros carrying wood and what looked like cornstalks were everywhere, some standing, others lying down under the weight of their load. Men who appeared to be local citizens drove open carts with solid wood wheels pulled by spotted oxen.

  The inhabitants appeared to be friendly. Some were obviously wealthy, but most appeared to be wretchedly poor. Yet, they seemed quite happy and content. Roy Greene had said it was a city mired in vice and degradation, but it looked peaceful, even slumbering, to Naomi.

  “Now that we’re here, what are we going to do?” she asked her father.

  “Once we find a place to camp, we’ll meet and decide what to do next.”

  Ben pointed to the square. “I want to say here.”

  “I doubt they’ll let us camp in the middle of town,” their father said. “We have nothing to sell and little money to spend.”

  The plaza was surrounded by a white picket fence. Several trees inside offered shade from the relentless sun. From its empty state Naomi supposed it was primarily used on festival days.

  “We’ll probably park the wagons outside of town,” her father said. “The main thing we have to do is decide on a location for our new town and hire a guide to take us there.”

  “Will that take long?”

  “I hope not. Arizona is a long way from here.”

  “What are we going to do now? It’s nearly dark.”

  “After we eat, I’m going to find a hotel. I want one night when I don’t have to sleep on the ground or sandwiched in between the two of you.”

  Naomi hoped a real bed would make a difference. She hadn’t been able to sleep since Colby left.

  ***

  Colby had been calling himself a fool for the last six days, but that hadn’t made any difference. He had still followed the trail into Santa Fe, though he kept his distance. At least twice a day he’d ridden close enough to be able to catch a glimpse of Naomi’s wagon. He knew they would have no difficulty getting to Santa Fe, but he had to know she was safe. Now he was camping on the slopes of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains close enough to see the lights of the town. He was locked in place, unable to go forward or backward.

  Forward would have been to a remote valley where he could spend the rest of his life in a mostly solitary existence. Yet what had once seemed so necessary to his peace of mind had lost its appeal. Going backward meant going down to Santa Fe and finding Naomi.

  If his parents couldn’t love him—what was more natural than that parents would love their children regardless of their differences—maybe it wasn’t possible for anybody to love him. That would explain why Elizabeth’s love didn’t last.

  Naomi’s love wouldn’t last either.

  He poured his coffee over the dying embers of his fire. It was cold and tasteless, pretty much how his life felt just now. He ought to saddle up and ride north. He’d already accepted that cold and tasteless was how things were going to be. Naomi said she loved him, but so had Elizabeth. How could he be sure now when he thought he’d been so sure before?

  Enough! It was time to leave. He scooped a bucket of water from a nearby stream and doused his campfire. Five minutes later Shadow was saddled and he was ready to ride. He mounted up. With a gentle nudge in Shadow’s flanks, he was on his way.

  Headed down the mountain toward Santa Fe.

  ***

  “I feel selfish having a hotel room all to myself,” Naomi said to her father.

  “It’s not your fault that neither Norman nor Noah would let your cousins share your room. I don’t know what trouble they think the three of you might cause.”

  Naomi knew that wasn’t the reason. Norman didn’t trust her influence on his wife. Noah was too jealous of Laurie to let her out of his sight.

  “It seems only fair that you have a room when I do,” her father said as they climbed the stairs to the second floor.

  Ethan said he had to stay with Cassie, and Ben had jumped at the chance to be on his own for the night.

  “Can we really afford it?”

  “I’m using part of the money Paul Hill paid me for giving him two healthy babies.”

  Naomi smirked at her father. “I thought his wife did that.”

  Her father grinned back. “She did the preliminary work. I was responsible for the part that counted.”

  They had reached the second floor landing. Her father was staying on the first floor, but he’d insisted upon seeing her safely to her room.

  “Sleep well,” her father said. “We can’t afford to stay in a hotel every night.”

  Naomi unlocked and opened the door to her room. “After sleeping in the wagon or under it, I might not be able to sleep in a real bed.”

  “Give it a try.” Her father kissed her cheek and handed her the lantern. “See you in the morning.”

  “Night.”

  Naomi closed and locked the door before placing the lantern on the table beside the bed. It didn’t take long to wash her face and change into her nightgown. Too keyed up to lie down just yet, she walked to the window and looked out.

  The cloudless sky provided enough moonlight to illuminate the street below. It seemed there was almost as much activity as during the day. Several boys were playing a game in the square that involved kicking a ball, but it seemed too random to have an objective. An occasional cart moved through the street while two couples strolled through the park. People filled the boardwalks conducting business they’d put off during the heat of the day. Others were just starting to look for a place to eat. Naomi couldn’t imagine waiting until after nine o’clock to eat supper. She wondered if Colby would eat so late. He never seemed to have any trouble eating his meals on their schedule while he was with them.

  She came away from the window. She wondered where he was now. She couldn’t imagine living alone in any of the places they’d passed since leaving Independence. Where would he live? What would he eat? What would he do?

  She had to accept that none of that concerned her any longer. She had to put him out of her mind just as she was certain he had put her out of his. She was headed toward a new life, one that would need all the attention and effort she could give it. It wouldn’t do her or anyone else any good to have her mooning over a man who’d turned his back on her.

  She walked over to the bed and settled on the edge. The mattress wasn’t soft, but it was better than sleeping on the ground.

  The problem that faced her now wasn’t the mattress but finding a way to fall out of love. It would have been so much easier if Colby had been cruel, thoughtless, or dishonorable, but he was the opposite of all that. How could he have held her like he did, kissed her senseless, if he hadn’t loved her at least a little bit? He was an honest and straightforward man.

  It wouldn’t do any good to keep thinking of all the reasons why he should have stayed. He was gone and that was that. She got in bed, and pulled the covers over her. The sheets smelled freshly laundered. Now if the mattress had only felt a little less like a board, she might be able to drift off to sleep.

 
She was aware of voices coming from the street. They were a mixture of English, Spanish, and dialects or languages she’d never heard. That seemed so strange after living her whole life among people who spoke only English and with the same accent, but in some way Colby had made it seem almost normal.

  She turned on her side and pulled the pillow over her head. She had to stop thinking about Colby. Maybe it would help if she could block out the voices from the street below. She would try to imagine she was back home in Kentucky in her own bed. She would make a list of the chores she had to do the next day, arrange them in order of importance, and decide what she needed to complete each job. By the time she did all of that, she’d always been on the verge of falling asleep.

  Only it didn’t work anymore. She wasn’t in Kentucky, she wasn’t in her own bed, and everything was so different she hardly knew where to begin. The future was a huge blank. How could she sleep when she couldn’t stop thinking about it? The worst part was that she felt terribly alone. It didn’t seem to matter that she had her father and two brothers, or that the rest of the community would be with her. Colby had a way of making sense of this new and daunting world, a way that made it seem less frightening and threatening.

  A knock on the door broke her train of thought. What could her father want, and why was he knocking so softly?

  She sat up, shoved her feet into her slippers, and then got up. There was enough light coming through the window that she didn’t need to light the lantern. The soft knocks came again followed by a whispered request to open the door. Thoroughly confused, Naomi decided not to open the door just yet.

  “Papa, is that you? What’s wrong?” When the answer came, it left her so weak she wasn’t sure she could stand.

  “It’s Colby. Let me in.”

  Nineteen

  Naomi’s hand shook so badly she could barely work the key in the lock. The moment the door was open, Colby rushed in and closed it behind him. She opened her mouth to say something—she had no idea what—but he took her in his arms and kissed her until any thought seemed superfluous. Colby was here, and she was in his arms.

  “What are you doing here?” The answer seemed obvious, yet the deeper meaning was not.

  “I love you.”

  She had been certain those words would answer every question, banish every doubt, but they didn’t.

  “Why have you come sneaking into my room like you’re afraid someone will see you?”

  They hadn’t moved. Colby still held her in an embrace, and the room remained in shadows.

  “If they find me, they’re liable to try to hang me. I didn’t tell you this before, but I set fire to Elizabeth’s father’s house. That’s why they won’t let me back in Santa Fe.”

  Naomi never doubted that Colby could be a dangerous person when provoked, but she hadn’t expected anything like this. “That was horrible.”

  “I know.” He kissed her. “Now I don’t want to talk about that anymore. I came here to tell you that I love you, that I was a fool to think I could leave you, and that I want to marry you.”

  Naomi disengaged herself from Colby’s embrace and stepped back. She needed light. She had to be able to see his face, look into his eyes. She lit the lamp, adjusted the wick, and motioned for Colby to sit on the edge of the bed next to her. “What made you change your mind?”

  Colby sat next to her, took her hands in his, looked into her eyes. Even in the limited light of the lantern, she could tell he was seeing her with different eyes. There was a warmth there she’d never seen before, a softness—and a vulnerability. She’d always felt he’d been honest with her, but despite the kisses and the embraces, he’d managed to maintain a distance. That had disappeared. He was here now, all of him.

  “I was camped on the foot of the mountains just outside of town. I got on my horse intending to ride away. Instead I turned toward Santa Fe despite knowing I would be jailed if I was caught.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “I have my ways.”

  “You still haven’t told me what happened to make you change your mind about love,” Naomi said.

  “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. It’s like we’re connected. I know this doesn’t make a lot of sense, but when I left I felt like a part of me was missing. Everything I saw reminded me of you in some way. Everything I did—saddle up, light a fire, top a rise—reminded me of times we did them together. You were all I dreamed about.”

  She could see his expression soften.

  “You would grin at me like you knew a secret you wouldn’t share. Other times you’d disappear, and I wouldn’t be able to find you. There were times when I would wake up in a terrible state.”

  Naomi didn’t need an explanation of what happened in those dreams. She was thankful for the dim light that hid her blushes. Yet if what Colby said was true, why had he shown no signs of that attraction when he was with her?

  “You were always a gentleman with me.”

  “Do you think it was easy? You are a beautiful woman, Naomi.”

  He reached for the lamp and pulled Naomi to her feet. By holding the lamp close to the window, he was able to cause the glass pane to reflect Naomi’s image. “Look at yourself and tell me what you see.”

  Naomi felt rather foolish staring at herself. Everything looked the same, her nose, her eyes, her skin, her hair. She wasn’t ugly, but she wasn’t beautiful, especially when compared to Sibyl. Nor did her body have Laurie’s curves. She wasn’t even as pretty as Cassie.

  “I see an ordinary face that shows the strain of enduring nightmares, leaving my home, and traveling through a wilderness to a land I know nothing about. I used to think I still had a bit of my youthful look. Now it’s gone.”

  “I see a woman, not a girl. Someone who has experienced life and knows something of its joys and sorrows, someone who’s able to appreciate the present without forgetting the past or ignoring the future.”

  Naomi peered at the shadowy image before her. Where did he see any of that? In her eyes? In her expression?

  “I see a woman of principle who knows what she wants from life and won’t settle for less.”

  He was making this up. How could she show on the outside what she couldn’t figure out on the inside?

  “I see a woman who will rise to any challenge, conquer it, and then ask for more.”

  He was wrong there. She had wanted to go back to Kentucky from the moment they left.

  “I also see a woman of strong passions and great determination who doesn’t know that she’s capable of much more than even she imagines.”

  She turned around to protest, but he guided her to back to the window.

  “I see a woman who is beautiful in the eyes of everyone else even if not in her own. Your eyes are always alive. At times they sparkle with excitement or mischief, but they’re always welcoming.”

  “Nonsense. Ben says my eyes scold him more severely than my words.”

  Colby ignored her interruption.

  “I’m particularly fond of your lips, and not just because I like to kiss them. When you smile, they make your eyes shine brighter. I especially like them when they pucker because you’re trying to keep from laughing.”

  This was ridiculous. Whoever talked about lips like they were a separate part of the face?

  “I especially like your hair when you’re not wearing your bonnet and it falls over your shoulders.”

  He was exaggerating. Her skin was chapped and sunburned, her hair as dry as straw.

  Colby slipped his arm around her waist and drew her to him. “You would make any man hunger for you. You can’t know how many nights I couldn’t sleep because you were so close I could reach out and touch you. Just having my arm around you is making me want things.”

  Much to her surprise, Naomi felt an unfamiliar stirring in her belly, a kernel of warmth that was expanding much too r
apidly. Could this be the kind of warmth Colby was feeling? If so, did it mean for her what it meant for him? She had felt a physical attraction to men before, but it had been a kind of excitement, maybe giddiness, but not this heat that was invading every part of her body. What she felt for Colby was much more than physical attraction. She was in love with him. She wanted to marry him. She wanted to sleep next to him and bear his children.

  That meant she wanted to endow him with her body as well as her heart.

  She had known this in an abstract way, but there was nothing abstract about Colby’s arm around her or the nearness of his body. There was nothing imaginary about the emotions stirring inside her nor, she was certain, the feelings stirring inside Colby.

  Colby placed the lamp back on the table and took her in his arms. “I’ve been thinking about holding you and kissing you practically every minute since I left. I kept thinking I would never see you again.”

  “I didn’t think I would see you again, either.”

  “Did you think of me?”

  She couldn’t repress a smile. “I opened the door for you. I’m in a hotel room alone with you. What do you think?”

  He returned her smile. “I was afraid you’d be so angry you wouldn’t want to see me. I wouldn’t let myself believe that because then I really would bury myself in some remote valley.”

  “I want to marry you, too, but I can’t leave my father and brothers. I don’t know where we’re going or what we’re going to do when we get there. Norman is looking for—”

  “I know the perfect place in Arizona. I was thinking about going there myself. I’ll talk to your father and the others tomorrow.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t want you to go somewhere just because I’m there.”