“I’d like to think about your request for a little while,” she said hesitantly. “If you’ll stay and join us for dinner, I’ll have an answer for you then.”
Tom Jeffords split his red beard with a smile. “Ah, Mrs. Colton. Even if you decide you don’t want to help me, I could never pass up an invitation to a homecooked meal.”
Daniella extended her invitation to Cal, too, who readily accepted. After a few minutes of polite chit chat, Travis and Daniella left their guests and went to their bedroom.
“Well, what do you think?” Travis asked.
Daniella paced the floor nervously. “I think…if Jeffords is really what he says he is, Cochise needs to meet a man like him. He needs to know you aren’t the only honorable white man in the world.”
“And if it’s a trick?”
“If I was sure it was a trick, I’d give him directions to Mon-ache. He’d kill him on sight. What do you think? Do you trust him?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think, Dani. He’s not asking me for information about my adopted father.”
She understood then—it was to be her decision. Then she started laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“I just realized that I can’t tell him what he wants to know, even if I wanted to. I wouldn’t know how to describe which canyon leads into the rancheria. The best I could do would be to tell him to ride east until Cochise finds him.”
Travis smiled. “That’s not a bad idea, you know. We could tell him how to get within range of Cochise’s scouts, and let them take him in from there. If you trust him, that is.”
“It’s perfect!” she cried. She stood on tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek.
His arms slid around her and pulled her close. Their lips met in a gentle, searching kiss. It was several moments before they pulled apart.
As they left the room together, Daniella stopped Travis with a touch on his arm. “I think I want to talk to Jeffords some more before we tell him anything. Do you mind?”
“Of course not, love.” He bent down and kissed her on the nose. “I promise not to tell him anything unless you say it’s okay.”
They rejoined their guests and took them to the main salon to wait for Jason and Matt. They didn’t have long to wait.
“Uncle Cal!” came the shriek from the doorway. Matt was a blur of motion as he streaked through the room, nearly upending a small table in his haste. He threw himself at Cal’s slender chest. Everyone looked on indulgently as the two hugged each other. After a minute, Cal lowered Matt to the floor and stood back at arm’s length.
“Let me look at you, boy. I hear you had quite a little adventure after you left Santa Fe on the stage. But Matt, the next time you get a burr under your saddle, try something a little more tame, like busting broncs or wrestling a bear. Getting captured by Apaches is not what I would consider a fun thing. But you don’t look any worse for the experience. In fact, I’d say you’ve grown several inches since last winter.”
“Have I really? Dani says I’m gonna to be as big as Dad, someday,” Matt said proudly. “But the Apaches weren’t too bad, once they decided to keep me. But I wanted to come home, and they wouldn’t let me. Then Dani brought Dad, and Cochise let me come home with them.”
Cal and Jeffords both eyed Daniella carefully, questions plainly visible in their eyes. She blushed. This wasn’t something she wanted to talk about with strangers. Jason came to her rescue.
“Calvin Watson, you old bookworm. What’s the matter? Did Santa Fe finally get too tame for you, or did you figure we needed a bit of your version of law and order out here in Apacheria?”
“Jason!” Cal greeted. “It’s good to see you! Actually, I had some important papers for Travis, and didn’t want to chance the mail, no offense intended, Jeffords. So I used that as an excuse to come and meet your new daughter-in-law.”
The two men shook hands exuberantly, then Travis introduced Tom Jeffords to Jason and Matt.
“What brings you to the Triple C, Jeffords,” Jason wanted to know once they were all seated around the dinner table.
“I came to see if Mrs. Colton could help me locate Cochise,” Jeffords answered truthfully.
Matt looked up sharply. “What do you want with Cochise?” he wondered aloud.
“I want to ask him if he’ll consider letting the mail go through to Tucson unmolested. You think he will?” the man asked the boy.
“You just gonna ride up to him and ask him, just like that?” Matt was plainly skeptical.
“That’s my plan, if I can find him.”
Matt turned his troubled gaze on first his father, then Daniella. “Shimá, what if he’s an ‘iiłkúi?” Matt asked.
Daniella felt a lump in her throat. He’d called her Mother! He’d never done that before. But the question he asked was one she’d been asking herself for the past hour.
Jeffords laid his fork down on his plate and looked at both of them. “I assure you I’m not a troublemaker.”
Matt flushed guiltily at being caught calling the man names.
Daniella was shocked that Jeffords had understood. “You know their language?” she asked in amazement.
“I learned it from the same scouts who told me about you. How else am I going to be able to talk to Cochise if I can’t speak his language? It seemed like it would be worth the trouble.”
This was not a common thing, for a white man to learn an Indian language, Daniella knew. Indians were usually considered stupid and illiterate because they didn’t speak English. Jeffords had definitely gone to a lot of trouble.
“You have to understand, Mr. Jeffords, that I can’t guarantee your safety. You could very easily be killed without ever seeing Cochise.”
“And I might fall off my horse and break my neck just over the next hill, too. Life’s full of chances. I’ll take mine.”
Daniella made her decision. “Tell him what he wants to know, Travis.”
Tom Jeffords left for Cochise’s stronghold the next morning at first light. It would be weeks before anyone at the Triple C learned if he even made it alive past Cochise’s trail guards, let alone got to talk with the great chief himself.
Cal Watson was fascinated by everything he learned about Daniella Blackwood Colton. He stayed several days, until he finally had the entire story out of Travis. By the time he headed back to his law practice in Santa Fe, he was convinced that Travis and his new wife were very much in love with one another. He admitted to himself that his concerns had been groundless. Travis was happy, and Daniella was a worthy object of his affections.
With the autumn rains came cool, almost cold nights. Daniella’s spinning wheel was moved to the main salon where the family now gathered each evening. She spent hours spinning her wool into fine yarns and threads while Travis and Jason told her what all was happening around the ranch, and Matt studied the lessons she gave him.
With the heat from the fire on her face, Dani draped her shawl on the back of her chair. She was unaware that every time she bent to check or change the spool beneath her spinning wheel, the front of her loose blouse gaped open to an alarming degree, causing Travis considerable discomfort.
Jason chuckled. Travis flushed in embarrassment at being caught ogling his own wife.
“Come on, Matt. I think it’s past our bedtime,” Jason suggested with a laugh.
When Daniella and Travis were alone, she looked at him uneasily. He’d been glaring at her all evening. She tried to think of what she could have done to cause his ill temper.
“Travis?”
“Um?” He stared into the fire and nursed his third glass of whiskey.
“What’s wrong?”
He scowled at her from beneath lowered brows. “Nothing’s wrong,” he growled.
She stared at him in disbelief until he turned his gaze back to the fire and downed the rest of his drink. She bent to replace her full spool with an empty one.
“Damn.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then rose from his chair
and turned his back to her.
“Travis, what is it?” she asked desperately. “Why are you so angry?” They’d been getting along so well lately. He’d been so tender with her, so thoughtful of her every need. This mood of his tonight was one she hadn’t seen in a while, and it worried her.
He spun around and threw his glass into the fireplace. “I’m not angry.”
Daniella raised her chin a notch. “Then why are you scowling and shouting at me? You certainly act angry, and your anger seems to be directed at me. Just tell me what I’ve done.”
“I am not angry,” he said between clenched teeth. She moved to lean down again to untangle her thread and Travis groaned. “Stop! For God’s sake, Dani, you’re driving me crazy when you bend over like that.”
She followed his gaze and the blood rushed to her face at the sight of her own breasts completely exposed. She sat up abruptly and clutched the front of her blouse around her neck. “I’m sorry,” she said in embarrassment. “I didn’t realize—”
“No, love, I’m sorry.” Travis came to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “I didn’t mean to shout at you.” He gave a harsh laugh. “Restraint is something I’ve never been very good at.” He looked down at her in apology. “Let’s go to bed. I need to at least hold you in my arms.”
She couldn’t resist the plea in his eyes. She stood and went into his open embrace with a sigh, and Travis picked her up and carried her to their bedroom. Once they were in bed, Daniella in her nightgown, Travis naked, as always, he reached for the bottle of lotion. He’d been applying the lotion for her every night since he’d first done it that night weeks ago, the night they made love.
Daniella was still sensitive about having him see her in her present shape. In her opinion, his seeing her belly stick out like some old fat sow about to farrow should be enough to cool his lusts, but she’d found out in the past few weeks that it did no such thing. She knew he wanted her and understood his frustration.
“Travis.” She reached out to halt his progress on her buttons. “You don’t have to do this tonight, if you’d rather not.”
He leaned down and kissed the hand that covered his, then looked at her steadily. “Most of the pleasures in my life lately stem from you, and touching you is one of them. I want to do this. I need to do it.” His eyes held hers for a long moment, asking permission.
She sighed and released his hand. In truth, she wanted this as much as he did. She loved the feel of his tough, calloused hands against her skin. His fingers were so gentle as they stroked her, and she was coming to crave the fires he ignited within her with his touch.
By the time he finished with the buttons on her gown, the babes in her womb were trying to adjust to her new reclining position, and were tossing and kicking violently. Travis grinned at her stomach and began to smooth on the cool lotion.
“They certainly are violent tonight,” he teased. “I’ve never seen an Apache war dance, but it sure feels like that’s what’s going on in there.”
Travis both felt and heard Dani’s quick intake of breath. His gaze flew to her face and he saw her eyes darken with despair. “Don’t look at me like that,” he said. “No one hates how you got these babies more than I do, except you. But the fact that they’re half Apache is not something we’re going to be able to ignore, not ever.”
She tried to turn her face away, but he reached out and held her chin. “With all my heart, I wish the seed they sprang from was mine, but it wasn’t and there’s nothing you or I can do about that now. But these are going to be my children, Dani. They’ll carry my name, and be raised with Matt as his brother and sister, and I’ll love them and protect them till my dying day.
“But even if we tried to keep it from them, they’re going to know before too many years that I’m not their sire. Cochise will be back to see them. I have a feeling he’s going to take his role as grandfather quite seriously. If you want to fight him on that, then I’ll do my best to keep him away. But I’m not sure that would be wise, or even fair. The Apaches are a very proud breed. These two little people have the right to know about that side of their heritage, Dani. I don’t want them to be confused, or torn, or have their loyalties divided, but…they’re going to need to know. Am I making any sense?”
She blinked back the tears that pooled in her eyes. “I guess so, but…I just don’t see how you can simply accept them so easily.”
Travis read the pain and confusion, and even the doubt in her eyes. “That’s easy, love,” he said with a soft smile. “They brought me you.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Daniella’s pace slowed considerably during the last weeks of her pregnancy, but she went about her days with a light heart. When her burden lowered, she found it difficult to get around, but Travis was nearly always at hand to help her. The entire household noticed the difference between how the husband and wife behaved with each other now as opposed to in the past. Everyone smiled when they saw the tender looks that passed between the two.
Indeed, it would have been impossible for anyone to fail to notice the difference. Daniella fairly glowed under Travis’s care, and Travis was more relaxed than anyone ever remembered.
The only dark spot for Daniella was Travis’s occasional joke about being kicked awake in the middle of the night by the twins. “How can you sleep through that?” he would ask with a mock groan. She knew his jokes were meant to tease away her concern, so she hid her worries as best she could.
“I think I’m getting used to this,” Travis announced one morning during the latter part of November.
“Used to what?” Daniella had been awake for some time. An ache in her lower back had disturbed her just before dawn.
“I slept through all the nighttime wrestling matches,” he replied with a grin.
She should have told him then that the babes hadn’t kicked in hours. She should have told him they were too busy preparing for their imminent birth. But she didn’t.
Travis had had no trouble controlling his lust lately. As he saw Dani’s discomfort grow daily, he was far more concerned with her welfare than his own loins. Her time was near, and he worried about the ordeal she would be forced to endure.
“Did you sleep all right?” he asked, concerned.
“Mostly,” she answered truthfully. “I just can’t seem to get comfortable any more.”
Travis rubbed a soothing hand over her taught stomach. “It won’t be long now. They’re getting lower and lower.” He continued stroking the tight mound until he felt the muscles relax somewhat. “Are you worried about the birth?”
“No,” Daniella answered softly. It was true. She really wasn’t worried. “Juanita and Rosita assure me I’ll be fine.”
She laughed at his doubtful expression. “I think that means they won’t allow me to be anything other than fine. I’m not worried, so you shouldn’t be either.”
Later that morning, Daniella met Juanita in the hall.
“There is a man here to see you,” the woman said.
“Me, not Travis?”
“Sí.”
Daniella smiled. “Is it Tucker?” she asked eagerly, her spirits lifting at the thought.
“No, señora, this is a man I do not know.”
Daniella’s smile died. A feeling of unease raced down her spine, followed swiftly by another wrenching spasm in her lower back, the same kind she’d been having all morning. She gasped with the intensity of the pain.
Juanita reached for her arm. “Is it los niños?”
Daniella relaxed as the pain passed. “No, it’s just my back.”
The housekeeper gave her a knowing look. “Just your back,” she said with a nod. “Stay on your feet as long as you can. I will be nearby when you need me.”
Daniella waved away the woman’s words. “I told you, it’s just my back. I’ll be fine.”
As she walked toward the salon to greet her visitor, she wondered again who it could be. With her luck, it was probably that despicable Billy Joe Crane. A shu
dder ran through her at the thought.
When she entered the room a moment later, she almost wished her visitor was Crane. He would have been more welcome.
“Hello, Ella,” her father said.
A deep coldness seeped into her bones. As if it were happening all over again, she could feel the blade of his betrayal twist in her heart. Forcing all emotion from her voice, she asked, “What are you doing here?”
She watched as he ran his gaze from her head to her toes.
“I came to—” On the way back up, his gaze stopped at her stomach, and for a moment Daniella feared his eyes would pop right out of his head. “Good God! You’re…you’re…” His face turned dark red and he clenched his fists at his sides.
“Damn!” He tore his gaze from her abdomen and raked her from head to toe again. With a sneer, he said, “I came looking for you, thinking maybe I was wrong, the way I treated you when you came home last spring.” He paused and gave a sharp bark of bitter laughter. “Only I wasn’t wrong, was I? It sure as hell didn’t take you long to find yourself a man, did it? What’s the matter? Apaches leave you with an itch you couldn’t wait to scratch?”
Daniella felt the blood leave her face and wished desperately for something to lean on. From behind her came a low snarl. A second later a dark blur shot past her. Travis!
He reached her father in two long strides, and before Daniella could wonder what he was about, Travis grabbed the shorter man by the collar and lifted him off the floor. His fist swung and connected with a loud whack to Howard’s jaw. Travis released him and Howard staggered backwards, his eyes wide with shock, his hand clutching his aching jaw.
“Colton! What the devil’s got into you?”
“Shut up, you miserable bastard.” Travis swung again, this time knocking Howard to the floor. “If you ever, ever talk to my wife like that again, I’ll kill you with my bare hands! I’m more than tempted to make her an orphan here and now.”
Travis practically breathed fire while Howard, a look of total shock on his face, struggled to sit up. “Your wife?” he croaked. His face seemed to crumple. “Daughter, I…”
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