“Amelia’s okay... a bit feisty at times, right, Pap?” Moss said, hoping to draw his father into the conversation. He didn’t fail to notice that the smile left Billie’s face at the question. So Amelia was the big trouble. He should have known. Pap was like a bronc with a burr under his saddle.
“So, Pap, how’s things at the ranch? Any new colts? How many head of cattle did you ship this month?”
Seth shifted his chaw. He looked like he wanted to spit but didn’t know where. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “I could have used you this past month, boy. Heaviest month yet. The army is after me for more, more, and then some more. Six new colts in the past three months. Nessie is ailing. Breaks my heart. That old gal has carried me a lot of miles. The vet is telling me I’d be doing her a favor if I put her down. Can’t do it. She’s gonna have to die of old age, same as the rest of us.”
Billie listened to the tenderness in Seth’s voice as he spoke of his horse. She’d never heard him speak like that about his wife. And Billie doubted he ever had in all their life together. Her features hardened. So, Moss thought, Amelia was at the center of the trouble, but there was more. Much more.
“You look tired, boy. I think we’ll go along and come back tomorrow. We don’t want you overdoing. Take a nap. Get your strength back. Come on, girl, let’s let the boy sleep.”
Billie stiffened. “No, Seth, I think I’ll stay. If Moss wants to sleep, I’ll read a novel. I brought one with me.” Billie refused to meet Seth’s eyes as she rummaged in her bag for the book she’d thought to bring at the last minute.
Seth glowered and shifted his chaw a second time. “How will you get home? Do you even know the address?”
“Of course I know the address ... and the phone number. You go along. I’ll find my way back. Taxis looked plentiful outside.”
“What about the girls?”
“What about them?” Billie asked quietly. “You’ve seen to their every need. There isn’t a thing I can do for them that Miss Jenkins can’t. Mother is there to take up the slack. Don’t wait dinner for me, Seth. I’ll catch something here or filch something from Moss’s dinner tray.”
Seth all but snarled. “Dinner? That’s hours away. How long are you planning on staying here?”
Billie laughed, to Moss’s delight. “Until the nurse or my husband throws me out. Don’t worry about me, Seth.”
“I’m not worried. I think it’s a damn fool thing to be doing. Using valuable gasoline for a second trip when I’m going now. Damn foolishness!” Billie smiled again but said nothing. She settled herself in the only chair by Moss’s bed.
“I believe I will sleep,” Moss said, feigning tiredness. He appeared to be asleep in seconds.
“Women!” Seth snorted. He shifted from one foot to the other. When he saw that his son was asleep, he turned and left without another word.
Moss cracked open one eye and grinned at Billie. She giggled. “Is the old boy gone?” She nodded. “Then come here, Mrs. Coleman, and welcome me home properly.”
He didn’t have to ask twice. Billie was on the side of the bed in a second, her arms around her husband, offering her lips, making up for all the months of longing. Her fingers raked through his thick dark hair; her breasts swelled beneath his caresses. He was home, here in her arms. Once he saw how much she needed him, once he held his daughters for the first time, war, hell, or heaven could never separate them again. Now that she had him, she would keep him.
His family was lined up on the verandah when Moss climbed from the ambulance with the aid of a corpsman: his father, Agnes, Billie, and his two children.
He saw it all in a flash but it was to Maggie and Susan that his eyes went. A lump rose in his throat as he climbed the dozen steps to the porch. How beautiful they were! His own flesh-and-blood family. Remarkable. “Hello, everybody, I’m home,” he said spiritedly.
Billie watched the kaleidoscope of emotions on her husband’s face and decided that the months of agony and misery and the difficult births had all been worth it. The love on Moss’s face touched her soul. She bent low and whispered to Maggie. The child tugged harder on her mother’s dress and then stepped forward. She lowered her dark head and peered at her father from beneath incredibly long lashes. Billie held her breath.
“Hello, Pap.”
Moss stared at his daughter. He could feel something burn his eyelids. He was about to reach out to Maggie when Seth finally maneuvered his way between Billie and the little girl. He slapped his son on his back and drew him forward.
The precious moment was shattered. Billie wanted to cry. Instead, she hugged Susan closer. Agnes looked away. Moss turned and looked down at Maggie, who was once again sucking on her fist. The burning sensation behind his eyelids was gone. He knew he’d lost something in that moment, and still his eyes lingered on the little girl.
“We waited lunch, Moss,” Agnes said cheerfully. “Sirloin tips with fresh mushrooms. I seem to recall it’s one of your favorites. And the cook made a lemon meringue pie just for you.”
“Sounds great. I’d like a nice cold beer, if possible. It’s been so long since I’ve had a beer I’ve forgotten what it tastes like.”
“I’ll get it for you, Moss,” said Billie, “but you’ll have to hold Susan. Would you mind? She doesn’t wiggle and I don’t think she’ll hurt your shoulder.”
“The boy doesn’t want to hold a squealing baby,” Seth said sourly.
“Sure I do, Pap. I want to hold both my girls. Come here, Maggie, and sit next to me. Let me get settled, Billie, and then hand me Susan.”
Billie’s eyes were so grateful—and full of something Moss didn’t want to think about. He looked away. It was goddamn sinful the way his wife looked at him. And he loved it.
Susan let out an ear-splitting shriek when Billie tried to transfer her to her father. She grabbed at her mother and kicked out with her foot.
Seth’s bellow of outrage could be heard all over the house. He stepped forward, yanked the shrieking Susan from Billie’s arms, and thundered for the nurse. “Children belong in their rooms with their nannies. I told you this wasn’t a good idea, but did you listen to me? Jess would never have pulled a damn fool stunt like this. The boy needs peace and quiet, not screaming, yelling brats.”
“Pap, it’s okay. Susan has never seen me. What do you expect? I don’t mind. How do you expect me to get to know my children if you keep them penned up in a nursery?”
“You have plenty of time. You just got home,” Seth said gruffly.
Billie stood staring from her husband to her father-in-law. What to do? Moss looked tired and he wanted a beer. He wanted her to get the beer. In the end she took Maggie’s hand and led her from the room. She handed both children over to the nurse, raced to the kitchen, uncapped the beer, and reached for a glass. She double-timed back to the living room and just caught Seth handing his son a beer and a glass. She stood foolishly in the doorway. When Moss looked up, she smiled tightly. “I thought I would join you.”
The girl was learning, Agnes thought as she excused herself to see about lunch.
“Good girl. Come sit here by me and rub my back. Remember that massage you gave me on the beach in Hawaii? I want one just like that.”
“The atmosphere isn’t quite right,” Billie said, laughing as she filled her glass.
“I thought you didn’t like beer. When did this start?”
“When your father beat me to the refrigerator. Waste not, want not. You’ll probably have to finish it.”
Seth glowered at Billie and settled himself directly across from Moss. “I want to hear everything you’ve been doing. Don’t leave a thing out. Billie, why don’t you help your mother in the kitchen?”
Billie locked eyes with her father-in-law. “What could I possibly do? There’s a cook, a maid, and a young girl to serve. Mother herself is probably in the way. She’s merely checking on things. You go ahead and talk. I’ll just sit here.”
Moss’s hand tightened imperceptibly on
hers. Billie glowed.
After Moss had climbed the stairs for a nap, Agnes suggested she and Billie go for a walk. “It’s such a beautiful day and the girls are napping. Neither of us is needed here.”
“Moss might wake and want something.”
“That’s why we have servants, Billie. We won’t be gone long. I would like to talk to you.”
“All right, Mother, but no more than thirty minutes. I want to be with Moss when he wakes.”
“Thirty minutes will be fine. People tell me this is the best time of year to be in San Diego. It’s beautiful, don’t you think?”
“Yes, Mother, it is. What did you want to talk about?”
Agnes frowned and then decided on bluntness. “Billie, child, I know you’ve had a harrowing time with your last two pregnancies, but I think you had best give some serious thought to having another child as soon as possible. I know this is none of my affair, but you are my daughter. The next time Moss might not be so lucky. If ... if he ... What I mean is, if something happens, you won’t have that piece of Moss that can only be yours with a son. The girls ... well, they’re girls. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. You have to give it serious thought, my dear. A son, Billie. You need a son. Moss needs a son. We both know how disappointed he was when the girls were born.”
“No, Mother, I didn’t know he was disappointed. He never said any such thing to me.” Billie stopped walking. She faced her mother.
“Darling, a husband doesn’t say something like that to his wife. Think how inferior you would have felt. . . . But, darling, surely you knew, felt his disappointment.”
“No, Mother, I never knew or felt anything like that. Did Moss say something to you?”
“Not to me, Billie.”
Agnes looked away at the stricken look on her daughter’s face. “Darling, don’t you think Moss looks remarkably well for what he went through? If that shell had been a little higher or more to the left, you would be a widow, Billie. That’s what the navy doctors told Seth. I’m sure Moss didn’t want to worry you and that’s why he’s making light of his injury.”
Billie felt as if her knees were going to buckle under her. They were coming at her from all sides. Seth with his deviousness, Agnes with her blunt information, Moss with his omissions. Didn’t any of them care about her? Her jaw tightened. “I think this is far enough, Mother. I want to go back and wait for Moss to wake up. The girls will be awake soon. He might enjoy seeing Susan get her bath.”
“I think you’re absolutely right, Billie. It will do Moss a world of good to see his daughters and get to know them. They’re so dainty and wispy. If you had had a boy, he would want to rough and tumble on the floor with him and he wouldn’t be able to do that with his shoulder injury.”
Billie was tight-lipped all the way back to the house. Her mother had the finesse of a buzz saw. It must have something to do with her spending so much time with Seth. She was beginning to sound like him, act like him. God forbid, she was even swaggering like him!
Billie settled herself in a comfortable chaise longue across the room from where Moss was sleeping peacefully, his good arm flung back on the pillow. It must be hard for him to sleep like that, Billie thought. He had always liked to sleep scrunched up into a ball on his side. The same side as his bad shoulder.
Her thoughts were chaotic. Her mother had voiced aloud what she herself had been thinking. In fact, it was all she had been able to think of from the moment Seth had told her her husband had been wounded. She needed a son. She wanted a son. For Moss, yes. But for herself, too. She wanted that piece of Moss that would only come with a son. It was a shame that girl babies couldn’t give that same feeling. It wasn’t fair, but it was a fact. Good Lord, whatever would she do without Moss? Would she be able to survive? Physically, yes. Emotionally ... she had her doubts. But if she had that small bundle that was part of Moss, she would make it.
Marriage certainly hadn’t changed much in her life, she thought with a grimace. Agnes had controlled everything she did up until the day she’d married Moss—and she hadn’t relinquished that hold yet. If anything, her mother had even more control because of her alliance with Seth. Her very existence was in their hands. Moss, dear, sweet Moss, trusted them to take care of her and that was exactly what they were doing.
A horrible realization dawned. If anything happened to Moss and Seth died, Agnes would be in total control—unless Billie had a son. The son would inherit, but she, Billie, would be the dowager queen. She would be in control of her son and safeguard everything until he came of age. She could see to it that Maggie and Susan received their rightful share. Gamblers had a phrase for it—an ace in the hole. The ticket to everything. She needed a son. It was that simple.
Perhaps it was time to become a little selfish. Or, to put it another way, perhaps it was time to grow up and face reality, with the rest of the Colemans.
Moss woke, feeling vaguely disoriented. He gazed about the strange room. So many rooms lately, places where he’d slept, none of them secure and familiar. He suddenly yearned for his old room at Sunbridge, for old, familiar things, for things that he could hold and feel, that would give him a sense of his past and offer a promise for his future. A muted sound from down the hall brought a grin to his face. He had something better: he had two little girls, his own flesh and blood!
He noticed Billie sleeping on the chaise. She was beautiful. He lay quietly and watched her for a long time. She was so young to be the mother of two children. Twenty years old, not even old enough to graduate college or to vote, and here she was a wife and a mother. She hadn’t fooled him with her letters that made light of what she’d endured with the pregnancies. He’d seen her that Christmas when she’d been carrying Maggie, swollen and worn and frightened. He decided he wouldn’t put Billie through that again, no matter what Pap said or wanted. Two little girls were enough for him and if it didn’t suit Pap, too damn bad.
It was time for Billie to enjoy life. Time for her to enjoy the girls and watch them grow. Maybe later, when the war was over, they’d take time out of their lives to try for a son. He was confident his luck would hold—the war hadn’t gotten him so far and it would never get him. He was too smart, too quick. He was a Coleman. Death was nowhere on his horizon. There would be time for a son. He would think of Billie now. Two children in two years was more than enough to ask of any woman.
Billie wasn’t the same girl he’d met in Philadelphia and married. He could see it and feel it. He recognized she was growing up. She wasn’t a girl any longer, but a beautiful, desirable woman. She was learning every day. She’d stood up to Seth. And, when she really became Billie Coleman, a woman in her own right, she would be formidable. He smiled. Billie. Dear, loving Billie.
Carefully, Moss inched himself from the bed. First stop, the nursery. He stood in the doorway for a few minutes watching the girls. Maggie was building a stack of blocks and he held his breath while one chubby hand added another and another. His eyes were drawn to Susan, playing quietly with a stuffed teddy, mangling its ear with her two bottom teeth. She looked up curiously from her playpen and Moss watched her apprehensively. Would she scream again? But evidently she felt safe behind the bars. Moss grinned because she looked so much like a fat little monkey in a cage.
Miss Jenkins was not present, and the grandmotherly nanny followed Moss’s suggestion that she leave him alone with his daughters.
Maggie’s brightly colored tower of blocks toppled to the floor. Maneuvering her plump little bottom and getting up on her haunches, the rosy-cheeked, dark-haired toddler looked around for nanny. But there was only Moss. She pointed a pudgy little finger at him and said seriously, “You did that, Pap.”
Moss threw back his dark head that was so like Maggie’s and laughed. By God, if someone had to be blamed, why not him? “I’ll tell you what,” he said, hunkering down, “I’ll build you a castle. Would you like that, Maggie?”
The toddler jabbered like a magpie as Moss added block upon block.
“Susy wants out. Get Susy, Pap!”
“Is that allowed? Would nanny like that?”
Maggie hung her head, her cheeks flushing just like her mother’s. “No.”
“Good. Then let’s do it.”
“Nurse will holler,” Maggie warned precociously.
“Pap will take care of things. I think Susy wants to build with blocks, too. We can pretend she’s the princess.”
“Who am I, Pap?”
“You’re the queen, Maggie darling.”
Maggie pondered her father’s words. “The queen is bigger!” She stretched her pink arms upward. “So big!”
“I think you mean better, don’t you? Yes, the queen is bigger and better.” Moss was grinning. Sibling rivalry already. “But just a shade better. Princesses are important, too.”
“Yes! Get Susy!”
“I thought you’d see it my way.” Moss took it slow and easy bending over his youngest daughter. He hesitated before touching her, afraid she’d begin to cry and upset Maggie, too. When his little girl wrapped her sweet arms around his neck and squealed not with fright but with delightful anticipation, Moss felt his heart melt.
Billie woke an hour later to laughter. She listened for a moment. The booming laugh came again, unmistakably Moss’s. He must be with the children, she thought, and tiptoed down the hall. At the door to the nursery she clapped her hand to her mouth to prevent her own laughter from shattering the moment. Moss was sitting on the floor with Susan between his legs. She was busy peeling the paper from Maggie’s crayons, and Maggie was drawing squiggly lines on his shoulder cast, telling him it was her name, Mommy’s name, and Grandmam’s name.
“Where’s my name?” Moss complained. “Don’t you know how to spell Pap?”
Maggie considered the question for a moment. Then she brightened. Her eyes flashed with mischief and a sudden girlish giggle erupted from her pouting mouth as she grabbed a deep purple crayon and drew a long bold line. Sitting back on her heels, she added another flourish and proudly announced, “Pap!”
Texas Rich Page 35
