“Oh, Mike, how could I have thought my love for you had died? I love Mike, the man, every bit as much as I adored Mike, the boy.” She laughed with pure joy and wonderment. “Just think—Patrick is a part of both of us.”
“Yes,” he whispered, planting a kiss in one corner of her mouth. “It’s a miracle.” He lifted his head and looked into her face. His dark eyes were wet and gleamed in the moonlight. “If I could sing, I would. If I could fly, I’d snatch you up, fly over the barn and into the woods and love you all night long.” His words teased her, his eyes loved her. He pushed the hair back from her temples. “Take out the pins,” he whispered.
“Why?”
“I want to see it like it used to be, lying along your shoulders and down your back. You were the prettiest girl in Dunlap. Let me do it.” His hands began to carefully search for the pins.
“Mike,” she protested. “I’m not a girl. I’m a woman with a five-year-old son.”
He combed his fingers through her hair and then trapped her head between his hands, tunneling his fingers into the hair at her temples.
“You’re my girl.” His lips nuzzled her hair, her neck, behind her ears. “And you are beautiful. Just beautiful.”
He flattened her hand against his chest and held it there so that she could feel the rhythmic thump of his beating heart. Her fingers curled gently into the soft dark down that covered it and found a small hard nipple to examine curiously. He took a quick breath and kissed her with hunger, taking care not to scrape her soft skin with his rough cheeks.
“I wish I had shaved,” he said, his ragged words trapped in her mouth by his plundering kiss.
“I don’t care. I don’t care.” Her fingers continued to move over his chest while her lips opened to his kiss, meeting his tongue impatiently. Passion raged voraciously within them. Had she been able to think clearly she would have realized his desperate struggle to hold back. His body was trembling violently and his hard sex was grinding against the softness of her belly in a desperate need. Finally, he moved his mouth from hers, took great gulps of air, and moved her back away from him.
“It’s been so long and I love you so much. I need another dip in the creek,” he added in a hoarse whisper.
“No, don’t. It’s too cold. I must go in. Tomorrow I’ll go to town to see Doctor Hakes, and I want to get an early start.”
He wrapped her in his arms again. “I wish I could sleep with you in my arms all night long,” he whispered after numerous tender kisses.
“Mike, what will we do? If we could go away from here it wouldn’t matter. But I can’t leave Grandpa, and how can we tell Patrick without everyone knowing?”
“We’ll think of a way. Don’t worry. Sweet, sweet, Letty.” He followed her up onto the porch, holding tightly to her hand.
“I’m too happy to worry about anything tonight.”
He hooked his hand around the back of her neck and kissed her reverently on the forehead, then on the lips, long and hard. “You’re my life. Every minute I’m away from you seems like an hour, but I know it must be this way for a while. Good night, sweetheart,” he whispered before he opened the screen door and gently pushed her inside.
* * *
At the edge of town in the long, narrow three-room house that Oscar Phillips called home, Cecil Weaver sat at the kitchen table drinking from a quart fruit jar.
“Where’d ya say yore kids was at?” He watched Oscar hang a blanket over the window.
“I didn’t say, but they’re at their grandma’s. The old lady takes them once in a while. You better lay off that white lightning till after Elmer goes.”
“Him bein’ a deputy don’t cut no ice with me.”
“It’d better. He ain’t to be fooled with.”
“He’d better walk careful ’round me, is all I got to say.”
“And you’d better not be throwin’ out no threats. I’m tellin’ ya straight.”
Cecil grinned and took another drink from the fruit jar. “I know what I’m doin’.”
“What’s the matter with ya? Where can ya make easier money than takin’ that hooch over to Henderson?”
“He ain’t the only cog in the wheel.”
“Goddammit, Cecil. You dad-blasted clabberhead! Talk like that’ll get ya killed. If’n ya screw this up ya’ll be in shit up to your eyeballs.”
“I ain’t goin’ to knuckle under to no fat-ass deputy if’n he don’t treat me right.”
“I done told Elmer you’re a man to depend on.” Oscar jerked the jar out of Cecil’s hand, poured himself a liberal drink in a water glass, and set the jar back in the middle of the table.
“You ain’t got no reason to be hot. I got a reason. My kid was put with a prissy-ass woman what looks down her nose at me. I’m bent on makin’ me a pile of money, gettin’ my kid back, and goin’ to someplace big like Omaha or Kansas City.”
Oscar leaned across the table, his narrowed eyes so intently on Cecil’s face that the man squirmed uncomfortably.
“Why’re ya so determined to get that girl back? What you goin’ to do with her? Leave her in that pigsty ya call a house while ya hit the road for Elmer? The kid’s better off where she is . . . and yore rid a her.”
“Just you never mind. She’s my kid. She belongs to me. Hear?”
Oscar eyed Cecil’s flushed face for a long while. Then a knowing look came over his face and his lips twisted in a sneer.
“Why?” Oscar asked softly.
“Why? Wouldn’t ya like to know.”
“Ya low-down trash! The girl’s buddin’ out pretty good, ain’t she? Tall for her age.”
“Watch what yore sayin’!” Cecil shoved back his chair and stood. “I don’t have ta take no shit off’n you. That kid owes me!”
“Owes you what? Have you been ugly to that girl? I saw her at the schoolhouse and she’s wound up tighter’n a drum.”
“What I do with my kid is my business. Ya ain’t so lily pure, y’know.”
“I ain’t no saint, but I ain’t had no hankerin’ to diddle with no little girl! You . . . you filthy shithead!”
“You got no right to call me names. Before ya was hot on that war-widder, ya was wantin’ that Pierce girl.”
“She wasn’t no little girl that hadn’t bled yet! She was sixteen—”
The back door opened. Elmer Russell stepped in and closed the door. He moved quietly and swiftly for a big man. His eyes scanned the room, the covered windows, and the men glaring at each other over the table, before he moved away from the door.
“You fellers havin’ a set-to?”
“Naw.” Cecil sat down and reached for the fruit jar.
“Arlo ain’t here yet?”
“Ain’t comin’.” Oscar took a drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Since ya took him down to Boley to see Naked Ann he’s gone around with a smile on his face like the wave on a slop bucket.”
“Jesus!” Elmer hooked his booted foot around the leg of a chair, pulled it away from the table, and sat down. “Well?” he said to Cecil. “What did you learn out at Fletchers?”
“Nothin’. My kid’s got the mumps. I hinted to stay for supper, but got no invite.”
“Your kid’s got the mumps?”
“It’s what I said,” Cecil growled and took several deep swallows from the jar.
“That’s funny. She was running round chasing the dog a couple hours ago.”
“She’s sick abed. I saw her.”
“I say she ain’t.”
Cecil’s bloodshot eyes looked defiantly into the deputy’s. “How do you know?”
“I saw her in the spyglass is how I know.”
“That gawddamn slut!” In his rage Cecil raised up out of his chair. “I’m going out thar ’n’ stomp the shit outta that woman.”
“You’ll do no such damn thing. Sit down.”
“Don’t ya be tellin’ me what to do ’bout my own kid.”
“Lay off the booze, Weaver. I’ll not have no drunks
workin’ for me.”
“I ain’t workin’ for ya tonight. I’ll be sober when I take the load to Henderson.”
“You gawddamn better be.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll tear up your ass.”
“Just don’t be forgettin’, Mister Deputy, you ain’t the only one that can tear up ass.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“What’a ya think it means? A hint here or there ’n’ yore name’d be mud in this county.”
“Are you threatening me, Weaver?” The deputy’s face had taken on the expression of a wolf about to attack.
“No, he ain’t,” Oscar said quickly. “He gets mouthy when he drinks.”
“Shut up, Oscar. I can do my own talkin’.”
The deputy didn’t speak for a long moment. When he did, his voice was flat and wicked, taut with restrained anger.
“Go home, Weaver. Be at the tracks Thursday night at midnight. We’ll load the wagon and top it with a load of coal.”
Cecil opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it and got to his feet. He screwed the zinc lid onto the jar, cradled it in his arm, and with a cocky salute to the men at the table, went out the door.
The moment the door closed behind Cecil, the deputy’s fist hit the table.
“I knew it! I knew it was a mistake to take in that no-good son-of-a-bitch.”
“I’m thinkin’ yore right. The bastard’s got a hard-on for his own kid or my name ain’t Oscar Phillips.”
“Nooo?” Elmer’s lips drew back in a snarl of disgust. “That’s as low as a man can get! You sure?”
“Sure as shootin’. Ya think he’d be glad to be free of her, but he’s wantin’ her back. Said the kid owed him.”
“A bastard that’d do that ain’t fit to live.”
The words sent a chill over Oscar. There was blazing anger in Elmer’s eyes as they shifted from door to window and back. But when he spoke his voice was calm—too calm.
“He ain’t goin’ to mess me up. This is my chance to make me some money and ain’t nobody goin’ to mess me up.”
“Find out any more ’bout that Dolan feller?”
“Some. According to old man Hartley, he had a wad of bills that’d choke a horse when he paid for that buckskin.”
“Three one-dollar bills rolled together would be a wad to that old coot,” Oscar snorted.
“Don’t figure it was soldier’s pay. I tore his nestin’ place all to hell. Didn’t find nothin’. He’s smart. Have to be if he’s tied in with Chicago or Kansas City.”
“What makes you think he is?”
“Why’s he workin’ for old Jacob? He ain’t no dirt farmer. Ya can see that with half a eye.”
“You seen him? Talked to him?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen him. Ain’t talked to him since he was at the hotel. He’s settin’ up to do blacksmithin’ in Fletcher’s shed. Good cover if he’s planning on building a good-size still. Another thing, a load was took right out from under our nose down at Claypool, and the feller I had haulin’ to Blatsberg got his legs broke with a warnin’ to get outta the business. None of this happened till Dolan come.”
“Did ya tell Weaver ’bout the man’s legs?”
“Hell no. I ain’t no fool.”
“That Dolan’s a mean son-of-a-bitch. I wouldn’t put nothin’ past him.”
“There’s ways a handling fellers like him and keepin’ your nose clean. Plenty a ways.” Elmer stood. “Be down at the tracks to help with the load. Tell Arlo to be there, too. I reckon we’ll have no more than fifteen minutes to unload that boxcar.”
“Elmer, you figurin’ on comin’ down hard on Cecil?”
“Hard as need be. I’ll tell you one thing, I ain’t sittin’ by and lettin’ no shithead tear down my playhouse.”
“Don’t blame ya none atall. He’s queered hisself with me. I got no use for a man who’d be ugly to a kid.”
Elmer let out a grunt of disgust and went out.
Oscar sat at the table and stared at the door. He’d done things he wasn’t exactly proud of doing, but he’d not killed anyone and he’d not forced himself on a woman, much less a kid.
Yup, whatever Cecil got he’d have coming.
CHAPTER
17
“Mornin’.”
Letty turned from the stove and met Mike’s eyes. They shone with pure happiness. He looked years younger than he had the day before. Her pulse leaped, bringing color to her face, and her flushed cheeks made her soft brown eyes seem all the warmer.
He put the pail of milk on the floor beside the workbench and covered it with a cloth. Without hesitation, he came to her, put his arms around her, and kissed her lips again and again. His mouth was warm and loving. She could smell the shaving soap on his face as her nose pressed into his cheek.
“Mornin’,” he whispered against her lips.
“Morning to you.” Her voice was scratchy. It was hard to get enough air into her lungs. This smiling, gentle, black-haired giant of a man who watched her with such tenderness in his eyes was the Mike she remembered, not the cold-eyed man who had lashed out so viciously at Oscar Phillips. She was going to spend the rest of her life with him just as she had planned so many years ago. She moved her arms up to encircle his neck. His seeking lips found her ear and loved it.
“Tell me what you told me last night so I’ll know it wasn’t a dream. Say it, sweetheart.”
“I . . . love you.” Her whispered words came haltingly.
He laughed aloud and hugged her tighter, lifting her off her feet.
“Shhh . . . you’ll wake up Grandpa—”
“Sooner or later he’s going to have to get used to seeing me kiss you.”
“Wait until I tell him.”
“I can’t wait. I don’t care if the whole world sees me.”
She giggled softly and framed his face with her palms.
“Then what are you waiting for, silly man?”
“For Christ’s sake kiss her,” Jacob said from the doorway. “Then maybe I can have my breakfast.”
Letty pushed herself away from Mike, her face flaming. Jacob watched with a grin and twinkling eyes. She glanced at Mike. The smile he gave her spread a warm light into his dark eyes. He was beaming with pleasure, not in the least uncomfortable.
“I ain’t no dumbbell y’know.” Jacob pulled the red suspenders attached to his britches up over his shoulders, went to the washbasin, and splashed water onto his face. He looked at them from beneath his bushy brows as he dried himself. “I knowed you’d get a itch for him sooner or later.” He chuckled. “What’er ya so red-faced for, girl?”
“Grandpa!” Letty held her palms to her hot cheeks. “You just jump right in with both feet, don’t you?”
“Ain’t no other way as I see it.”
“This doesn’t mean that— Well, it doesn’t mean that Patrick and I will . . . go away with him.”
“I be knowin’ that too. I want three eggs this mornin’. I’m hungry as a bear.”
“Don’t change the subject, Grandpa.” Letty went to him and put her arms about his waist. “I love you, Grandpa. I’ll not leave you . . . ever!”
“Now, now.” He patted her shoulder. “What’s all this talk about leavin’. You got a hankerin’ for the city?”
“You know I don’t,” Letty said crossly to hide the tears in her voice. “I love it here. This is my home.”
“I hope ta hell it is!”
“Letty, sweetheart—” Mike put his hand on her shoulder and turned her toward him. “Don’t fret about leaving your grandpa. Jacob and I have already talked about it. We decided that if you still loved me and wanted me to stay that I’d put what money I have in fences and sheep and a good brood mare or two. Remember how we talked of having a farm and raising horses? Jacob is giving me that chance. I’m learning by working with him.”
“Hell, there’s plans in the wind, girl.” Jacob paused and cleared his throat because his voice cracked. “
Me ‘n’ Mike’s goin’ to be partners. We’ll do us some fixin’ up round here. Hell, girl, we’ll do our own blacksmithin’ and a dab for the neighbors. This farm goin’ to be top-notch by the time Patrick takes it over. Gol-damn, I wish I’d be here to see it.”
Letty looked from one man to the other. Both were looking at her. Grandpa’s hand was on Mike’s shoulder. They were really fond of each other! How could she have been so lucky? She blinked at the big tears that came to her eyes.
“You know what will happen when . . . when people find out that there was no Mr. Graham and that Patrick was born out of wedlock.”
“I don’t care doodle-d-squat what people think,” Jacob snorted.
“Well, I do! I won’t have people calling my son names.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, Letty.” Mike cupped her cheeks in his hands and turned her face up to his. “We’ll go to another county or another state and be married. We’ll tell everyone that we spoke our vows long ago—and we did. Remember? Beneath the willows. We can say we had a misunderstanding, and you came here and took another name so I couldn’t find you.”
“Do you think it will work?” Tears rolled down her cheeks and Mike wiped them away with his thumbs.
“Hell yes, it’ll work! Mike ‘n’ me talked ’bout it. Don’t start blubberin’,” Jacob said gruffly. “I don’t want nose droppin’s on my eggs. I want ’em top side up with grease splattered on ’em. Hear?”
“I hear. You and Mike have been figuring out a lot of things behind my back.”
“We’d a told ya if ya hadn’t had yore back up so high. Get hoppin’, girl. Times wastin’. We got plantin’ to do.”
“We want to talk to you about that, Jacob. Sit down and I’ll tell you what Letty and I discussed last night.”
“Oh, ya had time to talk, did ya? I’m surprised about that.”
“Don’t be smug, Grandpa,” Letty snapped, with a tilt to her chin as she took a spoonful of lard from the crock and dropped it into the iron skillet. She glanced at Mike. He was watching her, his eyes adoring, his face younger and rid of care. She smiled at him, her lips not quite steady. “Grandpa can be aggravating as heck sometimes. I don’t dare let him get the upper hand or he’d run me ragged.”
Ribbon in the Sky Page 21
