by Brenda Joyce
He wasn't aware of falling. But he was on the ground with Lucy when they doused him with water, again and again. For just a moment he lay gasping, the relief of the water quickly gone, his knees and thighs and toes and a spot on his cheek burning. Lucy. He levered himself up and clutched her face.
"Lucy!"
She coughed. She coughed and wretched and clung to him, and Shoz went limp beside her.
Derek was squatting next to them while dozens of men were fighting the blaze with hoses and by hand with buckets of water. "You okay?" Derek asked anxiously. "Shoz, Lucy, you okay?"
Shoz stared at Lucy as she gulped air. "Yes," she said hoarsely, coughing again. "Shoz?"
"I'm here." He flopped onto his back, groping for her hand. She clung, but so did he.
Shoz didn't protest as the old man's hands probed him for injuries. "You're one lucky man," Derek said. "Your boots are burned—and your socks—and I guess your toes will have a few blisters. An ember got your cheek, and there are a few burns on your knees. You're okay."
"Grandma?" Lucy asked, sitting up groggily.
"She's fine. She took Roberto down to the mess house."
Shoz sat up, too. The three of them were faced with the house. It was an inferno—there would be no saving it. Flames engulfed it, blazed into the heavens. He looked at Derek and saw the old man staring, his face taut with controlled emotion, his face ghostly white. Lucy took his hand, sharing one look with Shoz. "Oh, Grandpa."
He didn't say anything. He couldn't speak.
Shoz watched the house burning and thought about how this one strong man had brought his young wife here in 1840 and built this house and everything around it with his own two hands, with his own sweat and blood and tears. He had braved and fought this land to provide a legacy for his wife and children. In doing so, he had more than conquered what he'd set out to tame; he had created an empire and a dynasty. Vast respect filled Shoz, and with it, a terrible sadness.
By daybreak the fire finally died. Only piles of charred timbers and the blackened stone fireplaces and chimneys remained. No one had slept through the long night; now everyone was dispersing to begin the day's chores. Lucy stood with Shoz, his arm around her waist, staring at the burned wreck of the house.
"Do you really think it started in the kitchen?" Lucy asked.
"It sure looks that way." One of the maids had sobbingly admitted to having a boyfriend visiting her while she had been cleaning up, the last one to leave—and he had been smoking. "It wouldn't take much for the house to catch, not after that dry summer."
"Grandpa and Grandma are taking this terribly."
"They're both strong. They have each other. They have the ranch, Paradise. They'll make it."
"Grandpa looked so old last night," Lucy said brokenly. A few hours ago he had been pale and gaunt, looking every one of his eighty years, looking tired and defeated. Miranda had actually been walking stooped. "And Grandma, when she finally started crying ..."
"We'll stay and give them our support until they've re-covered from the shock."
"Thank you," Lucy said, kissing him.
They found her grandparents walking around the ruins, hand in hand. Lucy and Shoz approached hesitantly, but were determined to help them through the crisis. "I think we all deserve Cook's flapjacks this morning." Lucy attempted to be cheerful.
Derek turned. "Not a goddamn thing to save except the fireplaces." It was announced matter-of-factly, causing
Shoz and Lucy to exchange startled glances.
"I think we should have brick fireplaces," Miranda said firmly.
"All right." Derek turned to them. "We're going to rebuild immediately."
Lucy exchanged a delighted glance with Shoz. "Rebuild!"
Derek looked at her. "Why so surprised? I've got a ranch to run. Can't do it from the hotel in town." "I.. ." Lucy grinned at Shoz.
"Before we rebuild so immediately, I want to hire an architect," Miranda stated.
"An architect!" Derek groaned. "What do you have in mind, woman?"
"Well, at my age, I'm entitled to a little luxury."
"We had luxury."
"I want a marble bathroom and a swimming pool."
"I can agree to that."
"And stone floors this time."
"All right. You got an architect in mind?"
"I've heard there's a top man in Austin." Miranda smiled at Derek, who grinned back.
Shoz looked at Lucy and saw the plea in her eyes. He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her close. "We want to stay here and help you rebuild."
"Can you handle a hammer?"
"Yes, sir."
"You're on. Right after breakfast, get a crew up here to start hauling the debris out. Lucy, you can take your grandmother to Austin to hire that architect. But don't come back without any plans!"
Lucy took her grandmother's hand. "We can go to Austin first thing tomorrow."
"What's wrong with today?" Miranda asked.
Lucy looked at Shoz with a bubble of laughter. He was smiling, too.
"If we're having a June wedding, we'd better start right now!" Derek pointed out.
Lucy took Shoz's hand. "I think I'll be gone for a few days, darling."
"That's all right," he chuckled. "I'm going to be too tired from all this work we've got to do to be a very attentive fiance."
"Maybe we should make a real spacious guest wing," Derek said thoughtfully, staring at Lucy and Shoz. "With a nursery—or two."
"Or a guest villa!" Miranda cried excitedly. "We could clear the woodland out back—the views would be charming!"
As her grandparents continued to make new plans, with growing excitement, Lucy took Shoz's hand and led him away. "You don't mind staying and helping them rebuild?"
A breeze lifted a tendril of her hair and pushed it into her eyes. Shoz moved it away. "I want to stay and help them, Lucy. Besides, they'll be pressed for time, because of our June wedding."
She melted against him. "Do you really mind?"
"Waiting until June? No. Not when it makes you so happy."
She touched his face, careful not to touch the gauze covering the burn on one cheekbone. "You make me happy, Shoz. If we married tomorrow, I'd be just as happy."
"You mean we can change the date?"
She heard the teasing note and laughed while his arms went around her. His mouth tenderly brushed her nose. "From tragedy to triumph," he murmured. "We're not the only happy ones."
Lucy followed his regard and watched her grandparents; Derek was pointing, Miranda was nodding enthusiastically.
"Look at them," he said softly. "Married over fifty years, partners over fifty years, lovers for more than half a century. A few hours ago they were shocked, almost defeated. Now they're fighting back—together—and enjoying every moment of the new challenge."
She leaned back to look up at his handsome face, marveling anew at his sensitivity—and at how lucky she was.
"One day," he said huskily, his gray eyes fierce with emotion, "we will be like that."
Tears burned Lucy's eyes, momentarily blurring her vision. "Did I tell you today how much I love you?"
He stiffened. "No. Lucy ..." He stroked the high bones of her face. "You could have died today. God! But you know, you do know .. ."
"You risked your life for me," Lucy replied gravely. "When you're ready to say the words, I'll listen, but I don't need them, Shoz. I do know."
He cupped her elbows, pulling her against him. "I'm ready to say those damn words," he whispered. "I love you, Lucy."
She smiled and, just a little, she cried.
EPILOGUE
Paradise, Texas
June 1899
Lucy Bragg and Shoz Savage were married on June the tenth, eighteen hundred and ninety-nine. The ceremony took place out-of-doors on the hill by an old white swing. The bride, although it was her second marriage, wore white: a couture Worth gown from Paris, scandalously straight, with an endless tulle train that made her appear to b
e walking in clouds. During the ceremony, she wept. The groom, in a dashing black tuxedo, was tense, solemn, and nervous. During the vows, the groom lifted the bride's veil to wipe away her tears with his handkerchief. After the ceremony, many guests commented on how touching it had been.
Over a thousand guests attended. The entire family, of course: the Braggs of New York, the d'Archands of San Francisco, Lord and Lady Shelton of Dragmore, and all their children and grandchildren. The bride's father, the millionaire-industrialist Rathe Bragg, gave away the bride with a wide smile. Although it was not quite traditional, after the ceremony he made the first toast, almost directly to the groom, an apology for past doubts and a welcome to the family. The groom blushed and the bride wept again.
The groom's seven-year-old son, Roberto, had acted as his best man during the ceremony, trying to be somber but unable to repress his terrific excitement. The bride's mother, one of the well-known leaders of the Progressive Reform movement, Grace Bragg, was her daughter's matron of honor. She also made an untraditional toast during the reception, referring to her new son-in-law as a real hero. Later, she spent most of the evening on the dance floor in uninhibited and uncharacteristic abandon.
The groom's parents were just as pleased and just as emotional. His father, the California rancher Jack Savage, could not stop smiling; neither could his wife, Candice.
The three Savage brothers attended with their wives, and so did the groom's sister, Christina, now the Princess Zem-stov, with her husband, the Prince of Lubrovic.
There were many illustrious guests, including Senator Claxton, although his wife was mysteriously absent, President McKinley and his wife, and the now famous ex-Rough Rider, Theodore Roosevelt. Dancing began almost immediately after the ceremony, outdoors on a wood-planked floor covered with sawdust to the tune of a rowdy Spanish band. It continued until the wee hours of the morning, when the last of the guests finally departed to their lodgings.
The wedding was written up in all of the nations's leading journals despite efforts to keep it out of print. They called it the Wedding of the Century.
The bride, it was said, was a leading Society heiress who had been kidnapped by the groom just a few years ago. The groom, it was said, was a lawyer who had been erroneously imprisoned for a theft he did not commit. He had abducted the bride in a jailbreak, fleeing with his captive into the heart of Mexico. There they had fallen in love, only to be wrenched apart when her father tracked them down.
The scandal had ruined her, while he had mysteriously disappeared. It was hinted that more than just an abduction had occurred; some said they had even been married and divorced secretly at the time. And then just when she was about to marry the diplomat Leon Claxton, she, too, dis-appeared.
To this day, there is a legend that holds that she followed him to Cuba, where he was a great rebel leader called El Americano by friend and foe alike, and together they lived and loved and fought for Cuba Libre until it came to pass.
It was a story America immediately loved. It was the Love Story of the Century. The Triumph of True Love. No one was unaffected by it, and many wept over it. They became America's Darlings.
This, then, was their story, but here the story does not end. For the day following the glorious celebration, the family patriarch, Derek Bragg, gave the bride and groom his wedding present, the DM and his majority shares of Bragg Enterprises. The groom was speechless, the bride was not.
And so the Saga continues.
Table of Contents
PART ONE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
PART TWO
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
PART THREE
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
