To Have and to Hold (Cactus Creek Cowboys)

by Greenwood, Leigh

  “I have a plan, but it will take much of the day. Will you stay and have lunch with me?”

  “Do the children eat with you?”

  Elizabeth seemed surprised by the question. “They can if you wish.”

  Naomi looked at the brave little boy and the blushing little girl and wondered why anyone would be separated from them a moment more than necessary. “I would like that very much.”

  “Peter, go find Caroline and tell her we will have a guest for lunch.” She patted her son’s leg. “Tell her you and Esther are to eat with us today.”

  Rather than jump up and run from the room as Naomi expected, Peter slid down from the settee and walked to the door like a small mannequin. Naomi itched to take him outside and let him play until his clothes were dirty and tattered beyond saving.

  Elizabeth put her arm around her daughter. “Tell me about your journey,” she asked. “It must have been quite exciting. How did you meet Colby?”

  Over the next half hour, Elizabeth’s questions made it obvious she was more interested in Colby than the trip itself so Naomi talked more about him. She was describing their crossing the flooded river when she heard a slammed door and raised voices in the hall. Almost immediately a man burst into the room. He was tall, thin, dressed impeccably, and in a towering rage.

  “What the hell do you mean by sending Louis with a demand that I come immediately? What in hell has gotten into you? Have you lost what little sense you have?”

  Naomi wasn’t so absorbed by the visitor that she didn’t notice Esther trying to bury herself in her mother’s embrace. Peter didn’t move, but his face lost all trace of animation.

  “Father, I’d like you to meet my guest. This is Naomi Kessling. Naomi, this is my father, Elijah Davies.”

  “I don’t want to meet any guest. I do want to know what this is all about.”

  Naomi heard a door open and voices.

  “That’s Haman. Now we can get to the bottom of this.”

  It took an effort, but Elizabeth rose. “Miss Kessling, please excuse me while I talk with my father and my husband. I’ll send the children back to their room.”

  “Please, let them stay,” Naomi asked. “I enjoy talking to them.”

  Mr. Davies turned to her. “Children don’t have anything worth saying, and anybody who thinks so is a fool. Out,” he shouted at the children. “I don’t want to see you again.”

  Peter slid off the sofa, took his sister’s hand, and the two of them walked from the room.

  Naomi was so angry she couldn’t hold her tongue. “That is the cruelest thing I’ve ever witnessed. You don’t deserve such beautiful grandchildren.”

  He rounded on her, his face a mask of fury. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I know you’re a bully and a tyrant.”

  “I don’t want you in this house. Get out.”

  Elizabeth squared up to her father. “She’s my guest, not yours. She can stay as long as I wish. Now let’s go see Haman.” When her father didn’t move, Elizabeth said, “I’m willing to have this conversation in front of Miss Kessling, but you will be unhappy if she hears what I have to say.”

  “What has gotten into you?”

  “I’m dying, father. That’s what has gotten into me. I’m no longer afraid of you.” She turned and left the room leaving her father to follow.

  For the next twenty minutes Naomi listened to voices raised in anger. She didn’t know what Elizabeth was saying, but judging by her father’s language, it was unwelcome news. Finally, after a series of thumps and banged doors, the house fell silent. Moments later Elizabeth returned. She looked near exhaustion, but her eyes were gleaming and she was smiling. There was even a hint of color in her cheeks.

  “If you’re ready, we can have lunch with the children. Colby should be here by the time we’re finished.”

  Twenty-one

  Colby had paced his cell until there should have been a rut in it. He cursed himself for asking Naomi to come to this cesspool, for asking her to see Elizabeth in his place, yet what other options did he have? He had several. He just hadn’t used them. He could have asked her father. He could have asked Ethan or any of the other men in the train, but he never considered them. Naomi had been his only choice. He needed to see her, to know she still loved him. If that had changed, he wouldn’t have cared whether he ever got out of prison.

  What could Naomi say to Elizabeth to make her want to help a man she’d jilted? She would have to go against her father. If she couldn’t do that for the man she thought she loved, why would she do it for a man she hadn’t seen in almost five years? It was a futile errand.

  But he had to see Elizabeth. That was the only way Naomi would marry him. It might be a month before they released him from jail. They would certainly tell him never to come back, but he’d find a way to talk to Elizabeth. Nothing was going to stop him from marrying Naomi.

  The door at the far end of the corridor opened. He wondered who was being released. He hoped the man wasn’t going to the gallows.

  The guard stopped in front of his cell. “You must have some powerful friends,” he said to Colby, “or your lady friend is mighty persuasive. I’m ordered to escort you to the house of Haman Stuart. Can’t understand what they would want with a rat like you.”

  Colby didn’t waste time responding to the guard’s invective. He was shocked to learn he wouldn’t be handcuffed and would be accompanied by a single guard.

  “How do you know anybody as rich as Mr. Stuart?” the guard asked.

  “He’s a trader,” Colby said. “Before the war I knew all the traders.” He didn’t know Haman Stuart, but the man’s father didn’t have a good reputation.

  “Fancy neighborhood,” the guard said. “I don’t get over this way much.”

  Not many people did. People like Elizabeth’s father and her husband’s family jealously guarded their street.

  The closer Colby came to the house, the more tense he became. When he asked Naomi to see Elizabeth, the most he’d hoped for was a message. It never entered his mind that he might be summoned to her home. The servant who admitted them to the courtyard told the guard to wait outside. When the guard started to argue, the servant stated that Elijah Davies had given the order. Such was the man’s influence that the guard subsided immediately.

  On entering the parlor, four individuals faced him from across the room. Elizabeth sat on a settee with Naomi beside her. Her father and the man Colby remembered as her husband stood at either end of the settee.

  “Come in, Colby,” Elizabeth said. “Please have a seat.”

  Her appearance shocked Colby. “You aren’t well,” he said. “Have you seen a doctor?”

  “I appreciate your concern, but I see my doctor regularly.”

  It was a surreal experience, Elizabeth acting like they were old friends rather than former lovers, Naomi sitting next to Elizabeth, their hands clasped, the father and husband standing on either side glaring at Colby, one with dislike and the other with open hatred. The drama was on hold. He was a mere distraction.

  “Now that the war is over, what do you plan to do with yourself?”“ Elizabeth asked.

  “What he’s always done,” her father snapped, “work as a hired hand. That’s all he’s fit for.”

  Colby ignored her father. “Naomi’s family is looking for a place to settle and start a town. I plan to take them to Arizona.”

  “Naomi tells me that you two have fallen in love and want to marry.”

  Colby turned to Naomi. “If she’ll have me, I plan to settle down and raise a family.”

  “You’ll never settle down,” her father exploded. “You’re a shiftless nobody. I don’t know this woman,” he said, pointing at Naomi, “but I couldn’t give her any better advice than to look for another man to marry.”

  Ignoring her father, E
lizabeth rang the small bell on the table next to her. Almost immediately the door opened and two small children entered the room and went directly to their mother. When she turned them to face Colby, he thought his heart would stop beating.

  “Who…Are they…?” His power of speech left him.

  “This is Peter and Esther,” Elizabeth said. “They’re twins. Children, this man is Mr. Colby Blaine. Say hello to him.”

  Esther spoke from the safety of her mother’s arm, but Peter crossed the room and extended his hand to Colby. “How do you do?” he said. “I’m very glad to meet you.”

  Colby was so choked up he couldn’t speak. He could hardly believe that the small hand tucked in his belonged to his son, that the little girl who eyed him with curiosity was his daughter. How was he supposed to leave this room and pretend he’d never seen them, that he wouldn’t ache to hold them in his arms, to shower them with the love he’d been saving up ever since he was a small boy?

  “What do you think of them?” Elizabeth asked.

  Colby was too overwhelmed to find words to express his emotions. Even if he had been able to speak, he doubted there were words with sufficient power to describe the wellspring of emotion that the sight of these two children had unleashed. He felt weak, drained, so helpless he was unable to speak. Naomi spoke for him.

  “I think Colby would like to say he’s never seen two finer children. They’re exactly the kind of children he’d want for his own.”

  Peter’s big, nearly black eyes gazed up at Colby from under a stray lock of chestnut hair. “Grandpapa says we’re misbegotten. Do you know what that means?”

  Colby knew it was unchristian to hope Elizabeth’s father met a slow and painful death, but he didn’t care. “It means you’re very special,” Colby told Peter.

  “Would you like to take a walk with Mr. Blaine?” Elizabeth asked Peter.

  “Where would we go?” Peter asked.

  “Anywhere you and your sister would like.”

  “Esther won’t go,” Peter said. “Grandpapa says Indians will get us.”

  “There’s not an Indian brave enough to come after you as long as you’re with Mr. Blaine,” Naomi said. She turned to Esther. “I’ll go with you. You can hold my hand the whole time.”

  “Children, why don’t you take Naomi to your room? She can help you decide what to wear.”

  The door had hardly closed behind Naomi and the children before both men turned on Elizabeth. Colby sprang to his feet, crossed the room, and placed himself between Elizabeth and the two men.

  “Not another word!” he shouted. “I’ll hit the next one who says a cruel word to Elizabeth. My god, can’t you see she’s not well?”

  “You’re the one who’d better shut up!” her father shouted back, “or you’ll rot in jail.”

  “Ignore him,” Elizabeth said to Colby. “I’ve finally gotten the better of him, and he can’t stand it.”

  Colby didn’t move. “What do you mean?”

  “I told him I’d tell everyone in Santa Fe that Peter and Esther are your children. I’m not sure that he doesn’t hate you more than he fears a scandal, but Haman can’t afford scandal or gossip. It would ruin his plans to marry a very pious Spanish lady after I die.”

  “You can’t be dying. You’re too young.”

  “I’ve seen every doctor in Santa Fe. They all say the same. The only question is how long it will take.”

  It was hard to believe Elizabeth was dying. It was impossible to remember the young woman she used to be and not feel it was a terrible waste.

  “What will happen to the children?”

  “I’m going to give them to you if you’re married to Naomi and have a house by the time I die.”

  Colby wasn’t sure he could handle any more shocks, but this was so wonderful, so beyond his wildest dreams, that he didn’t dare let himself believe it could be possible.

  “What about your father, your husband?”

  “My father hates you, but he hates me more for refusing to go to a convent where I could give birth and put them up for adoption. He’ll be glad to have them disappear. Haman will say he’s too overcome with grief to give the children proper love and attention so he has sent them back East to his family. After a period of time, he will marry his Spanish bride and they will start a family. There’ll be one reason or another why the children can’t, or don’t want to, return. After a while, everyone will forget about them.”

  “How could you have done all of this in the few hours since Naomi got here?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it ever since the doctors told me I was going to die.”

  Colby was ashamed of all the years he’d spent blaming Elizabeth for his unhappiness. She had braved her father’s wrath to put his children’s welfare before everything else.

  “I’ve made a will,” Elizabeth told Colby, “but I don’t trust my father. I will have papers drawn up and signed by him and Haman giving them to you and Naomi.”

  “You can’t force me to do that,” her father said.

  She turned to her husband. “Maybe not, but Haman will.”

  Haman’s gaze shifted to his father-in-law then back to his wife before he nodded his agreement.

  “You need to leave Elizabeth to rest,” Colby said to the two men. “I have a few things to say to her before Naomi and I take the children for a walk.”

  The men were reluctant to leave, but Elizabeth surprised everyone by saying she’d seen enough of both of them for one day.

  Colby couldn’t forgive Elizabeth for jilting him and denying him four years of his children’s lives. He knew it must have been difficult to withstand her father’s pressure, but if she had loved him as deeply as she said, she could have withstood anything.

  “I can tell from your silence you’re having difficulty forgiving me. I don’t expect it. What I did was too terrible to forgive. I’m weak, Colby. I don’t have Naomi’s strength. I could never have loved you the way she does.”

  “You’re too hard on yourself.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “Not nearly hard enough. If you’d married me, you’d never have met Naomi. You do love her, don’t you?”

  “More than I thought possible.”

  “More than you ever loved me. I can see it in your eyes when you look at her, and I’m content. You gave me four years with two wonderful children. That was the one time I was strong enough to stand up to my father. I’ve always been grateful for that, but they would grow up stunted if they remained here. I want them to run and shout, laugh and cry. I want them to fall down and get up again more determined than ever. I can’t do that for them, but you and Naomi can. If dying is the price of making it possible for my children to grow up to be happy, wholesome, positive adults, then I’m willing to pay it.”

  Colby wanted to say something, but his throat was too tight to allow it.

  “I think I hear Naomi and the children approaching.”

  “I haven’t had time to say anything.”

  “I’m the one who needed to speak, to try to make right what I did.”

  “I need to thank you for giving me my children. You didn’t need to do that.”

  “But I did. I love them as I’ve never been able to love anyone else. It’s for them that I’m giving them to you. Had it been best for them to stay here, you’d never have set eyes on them.”

  Colby found himself smiling at the determination in that tired, sad face. “If you’d only felt like that five years ago—”

  “We’d have made a mess of both our lives.”

  He wanted to say more, but Naomi and the children entered the room. He was pleased to see Esther didn’t appear quite so timid. Rather than seek the comfort of her mother’s arm, she remained standing next to Naomi, her small hand in Naomi’s.

  “May we go to the square?” Peter asked. “Caroline says
men play ball there. I’ve never seen men play ball. I want to see how they do it.”

  “I’ll do more than that. I’ll teach you to play.”

  “Caroline says the men run. I’m not allowed to run. Grandpapa says only peasants run.”

  “Well I run and so does Naomi. You don’t think we’re peasants do you?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen a peasant. Are they like people?”

  Colby’s gaze met Elizabeth’s over the child’s head. “They’re very much like people. In fact, they’re not very different from you and me.”

  “Grandpapa says—”

  “I think you can forget what Grandpapa says. We’d better get started. It’s a long way to the plaza.”

  “Are we going to walk?”

  “Yes.”

  “Grandpapa says…” Peter stopped in midsentence and thought for a minute. Then he looked up at Colby and said with great seriousness, “I think I would like to forget what Grandpapa said.”

  ***

  “Are you ready, Mrs. Blaine?”

  “Yes, Mr. Blaine. I’ve been ready almost from the day I met you.”

  “It won’t be anything like Spencer’s Clearing.”

  “I’m not the person who used to live in Spencer’s Clearing. You’ve managed to turn me into someone else entirely. Now it’s your responsibility to find a place for the new me.”

  “Will you two stop acting like newlyweds and get moving? Everybody is waiting on you.”

  Naomi thought her father sounded a bit jealous. She’d never stopped to think that he might be lonely. Her newfound happiness as Colby’s bride made her hope her father might find someone to make him equally happy.

  “Up you go.”

  Colby lifted Naomi onto the wagon seat and climbed up to sit next to her. Her father was riding the horse he’d bought in Santa Fe. Ben was astride Shadow and so eager to get started he could hardly contain himself. They were ready to begin their journey from Santa Fe to their new home in Arizona. When Colby cracked the whip over the oxen’s heads, the six sturdy beasts put their shoulders into their yokes, and the wagon rolled steadily down the streets of Santa Fe and out into the wilderness beyond.