Apache-Colton Series

by Janis Reams Hudson

  Spence straightened away from the door. “All afternoon? As in, the whole time the family is here?”

  “All afternoon.”

  Spence shook his head in disgust. “Have it your way, you stubborn jackass. You’re going to hurt their feelings.”

  “All afternoon.”

  “Fine by me. Why don’t you start that nap right now?” Spence stepped into the hall and shut the door, sealing Pace in alone with his own foul company.

  The family came. Pace couldn’t help but hear them as they all tromped down the hall toward the stairs leading to Spence and LaRisa’s home over the office. He held his breath, telling himself he really didn’t want to see anyone. If he was disappointed that the family respected his privacy and left him alone, he had no one but himself to blame.

  When they left that evening, Joanna did not leave with them. Pace supposed that would have been too much to hope for. She stayed, and in the days that followed, Pace fell deeper in love with her than he’d ever thought possible. He craved her closeness, but knew he shouldn’t, so he snapped at her and verbally pushed her away.

  Joanna was losing, and she knew it. She had come to Tucson in hopes of binding Pace closer to her so he would forget his ridiculous idea of a divorce. But every day he withdrew more and more from her, and it was all she could do to keep from weeping. She was losing him as surely as if he had died up in the mountains.

  He loved her—she knew that. She could see it in his eyes whenever she managed to catch his unguarded look. But he seemed more determined each day to fight his own feelings, and hers.

  His wounds were healing. He had full use of both arms now and refused to let her help him with anything more than bracing pillows behind his back once Spence said it was all right for him to sit up.

  Every day, when the feeling did not return to his legs, his expression grew grimmer, his opposition to her attention more adamant. Lately, even Spence had been after her to go home and rest, and now LaRisa was adding her weight to their arguments.

  The first morning Joanna threw up, she knew her plan to get Pace to relent was over.

  “Goddammit, if you don’t go home today and stay there, I’ll leave.”

  Weak and shaky from her first bout of morning sickness, Joanna sat on the edge of her cot and stared at him. “Leave? How can you leave? Where would you go?”

  “I’ll go where you can’t find me. Maybe then you’ll go home and take care of yourself. Or is it your plan to work yourself so hard that you lose the baby?”

  Joanna gasped in shock. “You can’t think that!”

  “Then go―home.”

  Joanna went home that afternoon. It was mid November and she was, by her calculations, ten weeks with child, and she was leaving her husband. She wondered, when the Thanksgiving feast was laid out next week, just what she was supposed to be thankful for.

  The thought shamed her. She had her life, thanks to Pace. She had a child on the way, that, too, courtesy of Pace. Pace was alive and, for the most part, recovering, even if he didn’t believe it or consider himself a whole man anymore. She was safe at home and surrounded by her loving family. All those were things to be thankful for.

  She was not thankful for the dark, lonely days without Pace, days that surrounded her and stretched endlessly into the future. Why had God been so cruel as to show her what love was like, to give her that ecstasy, grant her the miracle of a child from that love, and then let Pace turn his back on her?

  It took great willpower, but Joanna stayed away from Tucson. Every time someone went to town, however, she begged shamelessly for news of Pace. Was he better? Was he happy? Did he have any feeling in his legs yet? What was Spence saying about his condition?

  The answers were the same. According to Spence, Pace’s wounds were healing, his broken legs mending, but he was still paralyzed. Pace himself refused to see anyone. Will and Russ grew hurt and angry that their uncle didn’t want them to visit him. Joanna was pleasantly shocked when her father explained to them that Pace merely didn’t want them to see him when he was so sick, that Pace was embarrassed to be anything but his best for his nephews.

  “It’s a man thing,” Serena added with a smirk.

  That, the boys understood instantly.

  As the weeks passed, Joanna concentrated on eating and sleeping, for the baby’s sake. Food had no taste, and her dreams were filled with memories of one glorious afternoon in a deserted barn in the Mexican desert.

  Daniella sent word to Tucson that Pace was expected to have Christmas dinner with the family, but when the day came and Spence, LaRisa, and young Chee arrived—at the same time as Jessie, Blake, and their four little hellions—Pace was not with them.

  “Where is he?” Daniella demanded, saving Joanna the humiliation of having to ask the whereabouts of her own husband.

  Spence and LaRisa shared a look, then Spence looked anywhere and everywhere but at his mother or Joanna. “He’s…gone.”

  Joanna’s stomach clenched. “What do you mean, gone? The last I heard, he couldn’t walk.”

  “He can’t. I don’t know where he went, or how. When we got up this morning, he was just…gone. He left a note.” He held a folded piece of paper out to Joanna.

  She didn’t want to read it. God, she didn’t want to! But with Gran and the others looking on, she forced her trembling hands to unfold the note.

  Spence: Thanks for everything. You can’t help me anymore. Tell Jo I’m sorry. Pace.

  Shock rendered Joanna immobile for a long minute. Then she pressed her fingers over her mouth and slowly walked down the hall and into her bedroom.

  Matt had read the note over her shoulder. “I’m going to kill that sorry little—”

  “That’s enough,” Daniella snapped. “We have enough problems around here without you adding to them.

  “He’s hurting, Matt,” Serena added.

  “Yeah, he’s hurting,” Matt snapped back. “He’s always hurting over something, and when he hurts, he lashes out and hurts everyone around him, and I’m damn sick and tired of it. It’s time that little asshole grew up.”

  Spence’s lips quirked. “Little? Only you would call him little. He’s six feet tall and weighs just under two hundred pounds. Believe, me, I’ve turned him over in bed enough times during the past few weeks that I can guarantee he’s anything but little.”

  Daniella smiled at Spence’s attempt to lighten the mood, but on the inside, her heart was breaking. Where had Pace gone?

  The search for Pace started the next morning. The family sent riders to Tombstone, Douglas, Nogales, Naco Springs. They searched north in Phoenix and Globe. Anywhere they thought Pace might go. They telegraphed Fort Sill. Matt rode back to Pa-Gotzin-Kay. Pace surely could not have reached the Sierra Madres, but they were running out of places to look. No one had seen him.

  Joanna told the family about the ranch Pace had mentioned. Matt and Blake rode down to Douglas and asked around until they found someone who could direct them.

  “We found his ranch,” Matt said when they returned two days into the new year, “It’s called Los Alamos. It’s deserted.”

  Joanna had to swallow a cry of dismay. “Let’s…not look for him anymore,” she managed.

  “Pumpkin?” Matt asked.

  “He doesn’t want to be found, Daddy. That much is obvious. When I went to Tucson to stay with him at Spence’s, he said he wanted privacy. I refused to give it to him. It looks like he finally just…didn’t want any of us around anymore.”

  When Matt pulled her against him and wrapped his arms around her, it was all Joanna could do to keep from wailing in misery.

  “I’m sorry, Pumpkin. So damn sorry. I know…I know you love him. I wish…”

  “I know, Daddy.” She sniffed and stepped from his embrace, offering him a tentative smile. “Thank you. If and when Pace is ready, he’ll…come for a visit. Sometime.”

  At Joanna’s insistence, the two-week search for Pace was called off. The next afternoon Joanna was fight
ing a rebellious strand of embroidery thread—she’d never had much patience with sewing, but for the baby, she had decided to try—when she heard an angry shout from the front hall.

  Eager for any excuse to put the snarled thread aside, she jumped from the sofa. A wave of dizziness hit her, and she had to catch the arm of the sofa to steady herself.

  Rena warned me, she thought. Serena and Gran had both told her what to expect as the baby grew within her. She was barely four months along, but her body was changing daily. The morning sickness was past, but her waist was thickening and her breasts were swelling, becoming tender. And she’d begun eating like a famine victim. Now, dizziness. No more jumping up fast like that, she cautioned herself.

  When the dizziness passed, she felt fine and went to the hall to see about the commotion.

  Her grandparents were there, with Gran looking relieved. Grandad was cussing a blue streak. “That sorry, no good, side-winding, sneaky…” Upon seeing Joanna, Travis sputtered to a halt.

  “What’s going on?”

  “We found Pace.”

  Joanna’s heart whacked against her breastbone. Don’t ask! Pace doesn’t want you. Don’t ask where he is. Don’t make any plans to go to him. He doesn’t need you, doesn’t want you. Don’t ask! “Where?”

  Travis took a deep breath then let it out. “El Valle.”

  “What?” Joanna croaked. El Valle had been Daniella Blackwood’s original homestead before she had married Travis Colton and joined her land with the Triple C. Although it had been part of the larger ranch for more than thirty years, El Valle was operated separately. The foreman was a man who had helped Daniella when she’d first moved there. His name was Simon, he rarely spoke, he’d been running El Valle for thirty-some years, and no one even knew his last name, except perhaps Lucinda, his wife. No one needed to know Simon’s last name. God never made a more honest, hardworking soul than Simon. Simon would have taken Pace in without blinking.

  What hurt and angered Joanna so much was that El Valle was a bare two-hour ride from the Triple C ranch house. Pace had been that close all this time, while Joanna had been going out of her mind with worry.

  “What are you going to do?” Daniella asked her.

  “Do?” Joanna swallowed and took a deep breath. “I’m not going to do anything. I hope Spence will ride out and check on him, but Pace wants nothing more to do with me. I plan to give him his wish.”

  Two days later, Spence turned up at the Triple C. When he asked to speak privately with Joanna, she nearly panicked. Trepidation and dread made her knees tremble. She and Spence went into the parlor and he closed the door. Joanna sat heavily on the sofa.

  “I just came from El Valle.”

  “And?”

  “I thought you should know—he’s…all right.”

  “His legs?”

  Spence shook his head. “Nothing yet, but that’s because he’s not trying.”

  “Not trying to what?”

  “I shouldn’t be telling you this. He wanted me to make sure you stay away.”

  After all the times Pace had pushed her away in Tucson, after the way he’d disappeared, deliberately cutting himself off from her, Pace’s latest edict shouldn’t hurt. But it did. It hurt so bad it was all Joanna could do to keep from doubling over in pain. Finally, she nodded. “All right.”

  “It’s not all right!” Spence surged from the chair across from her and paced to the fireplace and back. Later tonight a fire would blaze there while the family gathered around after dinner to talk about the day. Now the fireplace lay cold and empty.

  “He’ll never regain the use of his legs if he doesn’t try, damn his hide.”

  Joanna’s heart raced. “You mean…”

  “He can feel pressure when I press hard. If he’d work at it, I know he could walk again. He might have to use a cane for a while, maybe forever, but I know he could walk again if he’d try. He just won’t listen!” Spence had an idea there was something else going on, but unless Pace told him what it was, Spence couldn’t help. He’d never been so frustrated. He’d gone to medical school for the specific purpose of being able to help his family if the need arose.

  Well, the need was here and now, and he couldn’t do a damn thing but watch Pace lie in bed and let his muscles atrophy.

  “He’s made up his mind that he’s a cripple and nothing I do or say gets through to him,” he muttered.

  “He’s afraid,” Joanna said.

  “Of what, for God’s sake? He ought to be afraid of never being able to walk again. I’m trying to get him to do something about it, and he won’t.”

  “Put yourself in his place, Spence. It’s not just being able to walk. Will he be able to ride? To break and train horses? Will he be normal? Normal enough to be able to provide for a wife and child? Will he be the man he was before this happened to him? Walking with a cane would never be good enough for Pace. You know that.”

  “What are you suggesting, that we just let him lie there and rot?”

  “You know better,” she chided. “Maybe Gran could get him to listen to reason.”

  “Gran, not you?”

  “Not me.” She shook her head. “You said it yourself. He wants me to stay away.”

  Spence looked at her a long moment. “You’re what, twenty-one?”

  “Twenty-two. Why?”

  “I’ve known you all your life, JoJo. You’ve never once done something just because someone told you to. Why the devil would you start now, with something this important? You’re not giving up on him, are you?”

  Joanna had thought about what Spence was asking her. For days, weeks, she had asked herself the same question. Was she giving up? Was she conceding that she and Pace would never again share their love? Could she concede? “I don’t know, Spence. For now, I’m giving him what he wants.”

  “What he says he wants.”

  “You think he doesn’t mean it?”

  “I think he’s an idiot who doesn’t know what he wants. I think you’re the best thing that ever happened to him. He thinks he’s pushing you away for your own good. I think—”

  “I won’t go, Spence. He’ll only disappear again if I show up.”

  Spence frowned, afraid she might be right.

  It was one of the hardest things Joanna had ever done, but she stayed away from El Valle and Pace. The rest of the family, however, was not so inclined.

  “Go away,” Pace muttered when his father showed up the day after Spence had found him.

  Travis didn’t mince words. “You’re hurting a lot of people.”

  “I can’t help that.”

  “Can’t you?”

  “What do you want me to do?” Pace demanded. “Come home and let everybody fuss over me all day long? You want me to watch every day while Jo’s resentment at being tied to a cripple grows and grows?”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “Thanks so much for your understanding, Dad. I appreciate the hell out of it.”

  “Talking to you when you’re like this is a waste of breath.”

  “Then go home.”

  Travis went home, cussing and swearing all the way. And hurting deep inside for Pace, who was striking out at anyone and everyone because of his own pain and fear.

  Understanding Pace’s reasons, however, did not mean Travis condoned his adopted son’s actions.

  “If he was a kid,” he told Daniella when he got home, “I swear I’d take a belt to his backside.”

  As she usually did, Daniella held her own counsel and let others form their own opinions. In the end, they would all come to agree with her. She saw no need to force them to it when by sitting back and waiting, they would eventually think their final opinions were their own.

  “We’ll give him a couple of days to himself, then we’ll see if Serena can get through to him,” she offered.

  Serena gave Pace an extra day for good measure, then made sure that her sons weren’t around when she rode to El Valle. When she came home she was tight-l
ipped and fuming.

  “Did you get anywhere with him?” Travis asked.

  Serena glared at him. “Are you kidding? That imbecile? He’d rather lie in bed and feel sorry for himself than try to do anything about it.”

  The next week, as soon as Matt could get away, he took his turn and came back ready to strangle the first person who looked at him sideways.

  “He wants to be left alone, I say we by God leave him the hell alone. You,” he said, pointing a finger at Joanna, “are not to go anywhere near him while he’s like this. I won’t have him talking to you the way he talked to me today, the sorry bastard.”

  Joanna took a deep breath and gave her father a strained smile. “Well, that’s a first. You and Pace agreeing on something.”

  “Don’t get smart with me, young lady. You stay away from him.”

  “Excuse me?” Father or not, she gave him her haughtiest look.

  Matt hung his head. “I’m sorry. I know you’re all grown up, a married woman.”

  “Married to the man you just told her to stay away from,” Daniella added mildly.

  “Do you mind?” Matt snarled at Daniella.

  “Watch yourself,” Travis warned. “You want to snap at somebody, you go back and visit Pace—”

  “Travis!” Daniella cried.

  “You’ve no call to talk to Dani that way,” Travis finished with a glare.

  Matt mumbled an apology, then stomped out of the room.

  A few days later, Daniella decided it was time to visit her son.

  “You’re early,” Pace told her.

  “Early for what?”

  “I expected you to send Spence again before you came. You always wait until everyone else has given up before you try your hand at something.”

  Daniella smiled. “You know me that well, do you?”

  His mother was the one person on earth Pace could not bring himself to be rude to, no matter the circumstances. “Shucks, ma’am, I’ve known you all my life,” he teased. It was the first time he’d felt like teasing in weeks, and it felt good. Damn good.

  “I’ve known you all your life, too,” she told him softly. “I know what goes on in that mind of yours, shiye’. This is not like you. Spence thinks you can walk again if you try.”