And when he opened his mouth to speak, his shaking voice told her that her fears had been correct. Savannah cocked her head in disbelief, in confused anxiety while her worst suspicions overtook her as she heard him say, “I’ve got to get back to Galveston. There’s something that I need to take care of.”
Anger began to seep its vicious venom into her breaking heart as she summoned the courage to ask if she would be invited to join him, but his answer stunned her into angrily holding her tongue.
Travis paused just long enough for Savannah to open her mouth and then he continued, “And you and Benny are going back to Georgia to claim your home.”
Stunned, confused and confounded, she sucked in a long, thoughtful breath before she asked, “How can I?” She folded her arms in front of her when she told him what he should have already known, “Diego owns it—owned it. He’s probably already sold it by now.”
“Not exactly,” he started before he looked her in the eyes. “He never really did own it so he had no authority to sell it.”
Surprised by the revelation, her resentment subsiding suddenly, Savannah coughed and when she regained her composure, she asked, “How can that be?”
Travis shifted his stance before he answered, “A long time ago, your ancestors made sure that the plantation would always stay in the family as long as an heir exists. You were that heir, that is, until Benito was born. He was the key to the ownership of the plantation and El Diablo knew that from the start. That’s why he married you and that’s why he got you pregnant. And that’s why he kept you bedridden and told you that your son was dead, so that you couldn’t claim ownership and ruin his plans.”
Taken aback, Savannah gulped in disbelief, digesting the words that he had spoken. She stared at her wringing hands and asked, “He knew all along that the land was to stay in the family?”
“Yep,” he said quickly.
“And that is what you couldn’t tell me earlier that might change my life?” she asked, finally realizing his motives for keeping the secret.
“Yes, I was afraid that if I had told you, you would have put off your mission to get your son back.”
“I wouldn’t have done that,” she assured him. “But I would have wanted to kill Diego on the spot for lying to me, for using me and my son.”
“Yep, that’s what I figured,” Travis said with a nod. Then, he leaned closer to her as he added, “He knew about something else, too.”
“Whatever could that be?” she asked, still amazed that she had been kept in the dark all these years.
“The treasure that is buried somewhere on the plantation. He just needed you to die and to use your son as the heir to the plantation and he could be the executor to all that it held.”
Savannah mulled these words in her mind, trying to comprehend the immense implications that this news entailed. Suddenly, the realization that her husband had used her from the beginning, used her father, used her life, used her home to his own agenda and she seethed with indignation at the knowledge that her life had been nothing but a tactic to gain more prosperity than Diego had already enjoyed. If the man was not dead already, she would have wanted to tear him limb from limb to make him pay for what he did to her and her family. But her mind pushed that anger aside when confusion took over.
“What treasure?” was all that she could spit out.
“The things that all the Southern supporters gathered together for the war effort,” he explained.
“How do you know this?” she asked, still perplexed.
“Tito gave me the letters that describe the whereabouts of the treasure,” he said. “He found them at the house where you and El Diablo lived, in the library. Who knows how your husband got his hands on them.”
He paused, seeing the indignation return to her face before he added, “Tito wanted you to have them. They’re right here in my pocket...”
“N—No, they’ll not do me any good,” she stuttered at first, and then finished with decided finality in her voice.
“Why not?” Travis asked, cocking his head in confusion.
“I can’t keep any of it,” she announced matter-of-factly, shaking her head and waving her hands into the air.
“I don’t expect you to,” he agreed, finally understanding her motives. “Except the things that your family donated.”
“My family contributed?” she asked. “So why didn’t they go and retrieve the items?”
“Maybe they did already, maybe not. I’m not sure. According to this manifest, there are several very expensive things that your family contributed and then there are the gold coins.”
As he handed the letters to her, she opened one of them and looked it over before asking, “Gold? Why would Father not go and get those coins when he knew that he needed money to pay the mortgage?” She then sucked in a quick breath to continue her questions, for which she knew he would not have an answer, “Why would he force me to marry Diego when he had that money hidden away and could have used it instead of making me marry that devil?”
“I don’t know, Savannah,” Travis said almost apologizing for her father’s actions. “But there must have been a damn good reason for it. Read these letters, maybe they will give you some answers.”
Ignoring his last statement, she asked while slipping the first letter back into the stack, “So, where is it all hidden?”
“I don’t know, I’ll show you the map,” he answered, taking the stack from her and searching for the one that Tito had showed him. “Maybe you can figure it out. There’s something about an underground catacomb and a well...”
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” she started and then suddenly, she realized that the well in question must be the one that she and her brother had hid with Bessie years ago and her face lit up with recollection. “Yes, a well!”
“It’s on the map,” he told her, nodding once and pointing to the map in his hand before he handed it to her.
“Then, I suppose we should go back and find that fortune and return it all to its rightful owners as soon as possible,” she announced.
“YOU are going back to find it,” Travis said with emphasis on the first word. “I’m going back to Galveston to finish some business that I had started before I found out where your husband lived.” He paused to let the words sink in to her puzzled mind and then finished with, “But, what’s more important, you are going back to the home that you had owned all along.”
Savannah turned away from him, her eyes welling up with tears as she heard those words again, that he was going to Galveston. And she was going back home.
For some reason, home did not seem so inviting to her. A long time ago, she had said good-bye to the only home that she had ever known. She had resolved in her mind that Diego would never let her visit it again and she had talked herself into the reality that he probably had sold it soon after they had abandoned Robin’s Glen. To have that certainty reversed with a few words from Travis did not seem very convincing.
She knew that she had to see for herself if he was speaking the truth. She knew that she would have to go home. Apparently without Travis. But at least she would have her beloved son with her. Having a legacy for Benny was worth claiming even if it meant losing a love that could have lasted, in her heart at least.
Their destinies ended right here and right now, she made herself realize when she turned back to him and said without remorse and as coolly as her heart would allow, “Well, then, I suppose this is good-bye.”
“We still have tonight,” he argued with a coy wink.
But she was not in the least moved by his remark and her heart fell even lower in her breast when she realized that he expected her to make love to him one last time before he left her forever. Anger replaced her sadness as she raised a fist to show him just how loathe she was to give in to his request but then she lowered it again and sucked in a breath of determination as she said, “I am tired. I’ll say my good-byes now.”
Taken aback by her sudden change
in mood, Travis stepped toward her so that he could melt her into his arms for a long and teary good-bye. But she stepped away from him and coolly stared into his eyes with abhorrence that he had never seen her shoot toward him before.
He wanted to explain to her his reason for leaving her but her seething expression told him to leave it as it was, for she would not hear any words except those that she desired and the ones that he knew that he must tell her would only perturb her further. He lowered his head as if she had admonished him for some deed that he had unknowingly committed and then shuffled his feet as he said, “Well, then. I guess it’s good-bye.”
“Good-bye Mr. Corbett,” Savannah said more calmly than she felt as she stepped around him to the screened door and opened it to retreat to her room for a heart-wrenching cry.
Travis could take her attitude no more. He needed to explain to her his intensions, to tell her that he was not going to leave her forever. He stepped in front of her and impeded her departure with a hand on her shoulder as he spun her around, sending the stack of letters spraying around their feet. He lowered his head toward her face and growled, “You can’t just leave me like that, woman!”
Savannah pulled her shoulder from his grip with a wild wave of her arm as she stepped into the doorway and announced coldly, “You seem to think that you can just leave me without so much as a word of regret. I would think that you would consider offering me the same pleasure. Now, if you will excuse me, my son needs me.”
She wrestled the screened door from his hand and slammed it behind her, shutting the heavy oak inside door behind her and shutting out any protest that might have come from the man with whom she had, just a few hours ago, hoped to spend the rest of her life. She ran upstairs to her room and threw herself onto the bed that had been her home while she had gathered the courage to recover the gentle child who slept in the smaller bed beside hers.
She would begin her life again, with or without Travis, she promised herself as she pushed her face further into her pillow. With time and perseverance, she knew that her heart would heal and she would replace her anger and hatred toward the man who had taken the love that she’d offered and had smeared it into the dust with the heel of his boot and had left her to grieve for what could have been, for what she thought should have been. But until that day, she would smother herself with the pain of losing the only man that she had ever allowed herself to love while showering her son with the love that she felt for the boy who now took all of her attention.
She cried herself to sleep, hoping against hope that Travis would bound up those stairs and tell her that he had decided to take her with him to Galveston where that supposed unfinished business was calling him. But he never burst through her door and never took her into his arms and he never asked her for forgiveness for wanting to leave her after all that they had shared. The night was filled with the anguish and misery of her broken heart as she tossed and twisted in her bed, drowning in a sea of desolation.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Travis leaned on the post that supported the Sheriff’s office, staring at the hotel and wishing that he had explained everything to Savannah. Many times, he had almost talked himself into striding right over there and telling her the whole distasteful truth. But, then, he decided to wait until morning when he was thinking straight. He knew that tonight she would not be in a receptive mood, especially since she had not bothered to light a lamp when she had run to her room to brood.
Besides, the sky above him threatened to spill its roiling contents through clashing clouds. It was going to be a stormy night. No need to add fuel to the fire by starting an argument with the woman who had never backed down from his ominous stature.
He decided to find his way to his room in the back of the Sheriff’s office. If he took Margaret’s offer of a room at the hotel, he knew that he would eventually find his way to Savannah, to curl up next to her in her bed and beg for her forgiveness. And, he knew that she would eventually forgive him, so long as he kept his dark secret to himself. So, he took one last look at the blackened window where she slept and he turned to find solace in the scratchy sheets on the cot that his old friend Hayden had offered. He closed the door to his fears, his anxiety and his worry that Savannah would never forgive him. He tossed and turned in the small bed while the thunder clapped angrily outside.
The howling wind battered the shutters outside the hotel where Savannah slept. The roaring storm rattled the windows above her head, interjecting itself into her fitful dream. Booming thunder mingled with cannon fire, flashing lightning mirrored blazing gunfire and engulfing flames in a frightening scene that took her back to that terrible night when Sherman desecrated her world and her life. Clinging to Bessie in her nightmare, young Savannah cried desperately in trepidation as the battle outside the well that protected her echoed against the sodden walls.
In her vivid dream-world imagination, she noticed a bright, compelling light that glowed just beyond the blackened tunnel that she had never seen before. She pulled away from Bessie to walk toward the faint light, ignoring her guardian’s pleas to return to safety. With the hailing bullets ricocheting off the rock ledge of the well and the cannon balls piercing the flesh of the earth above her, she stumbled further down the dark path toward the shimmering beam, oblivious to the devastating event that crashed all around her.
Winding, turning, weaving and zipping back again, she followed the tunnel, obsessed with finding the source of that beckoning light. Step by step, it slowly became brighter until it lit up her surprised face when she pushed aside the heavy oak door to reveal the treasure within. Bright, shining objects glistened in her dream, offering a wealth of delight for her and only her.
But, when she stepped inside the dazzling chasm, a shadow overtook her elation. She could hear Diego’s laugh above the thunder, above the cannon fire, above her mother’s screams for mercy. Shuddering, she threw her arms up to hide from him in her childlike reaction. Whimpering, little Savannah begged El Diablo to let her go.
“You can have it!” she cried at the devil in the dungeon of doom that had taken over the room. Then, in her nightmare, she magically transformed into a pleading woman as she sobbed, “You can have it all! Just let me go. Just let my son go!”
His howling chortle echoed off the walls of the cavern, stabbing her heart with the fear that overtook her. Turning and running, she swooped from the room like a bat, fluttering against the walls as if her sonar had gone awry. Following her with a voice that grew ever louder as she ran, Diego’s words haunted her, “Never, Mi Querida! Never!”
As she neared the opening of the well, she searched for Bessie, but the woman with whom she had always found solace had vanished and in her place was a cavernous abyss that grew with every frightful breath that she took. Far, far away, she heard a baby cry, its feeble, resonating sound drowned by the torrent of the terrible, trembling thunder of Diego’s laughter.
Suddenly, she awoke, the dreadful dream, all but a shocking memory. Sniffing back the sadness, she looked toward the window and shivered at the clashing storm outside.
She wiped away tears that had streamed down her cheeks in her sleep. The room lit up with the flashing lightning and she hugged her blankets toward her body against the fear that the storm, if not the dream, had caused.
Somewhere in the distance, a faint cry echoed, barely audible above the whistling wind and the rolling thunder. As if still bound by her dream, she searched the dark room for its source. The child’s wailing became louder and louder, drowning out the frightening noise of the storm’s persistent onslaught. Becoming louder still, their insistent wails deafened any who could not resist their unceasing screech.
Savannah threw the blankets aside and ran to take her son into her arms, cooing, “Shhh, Baby. Mamma’s here.”
Benny whimpered and threw his arms around his mother while she took him into her bed and cuddled with him, talking soothingly to him until he fell asleep again. As the storm trickled to a sprinkle, she drifted
into a peaceful slumber, dreaming of Robin’s Glen, of Bessie, of Benny running through the peach orchard and of Travis proudly standing on the grand porch of the mansion with her beneath his arm. It was a stark contrast to the dream that had taken her breath away earlier. This dream was all so very beautiful…
Chapter Twenty-Three
Morning brought with it a quiet reminder of the argument that had changed her destiny again, this time, forever. Savannah yawned and stretched the stiffness from her muscles, remembering the exercises that Travis had taught her, but she quickly pushed the thought away with a sniff of haughty indignation.
She looked toward the tiny bed where her son had been sleeping but he was gone. Remembering that she had brought him into her bed, she searched the blankets for his sleeping form, but except for her, the bed was empty. Panic chased her down the stairs and throughout the hotel while she searched for her precious son, whom she had only just recovered from the Devil Himself. Shocking memories of the nightmare that had been her life, and then reverberated in the nightmare that she had experienced last night, caused her to shiver uncontrollably.
Shaking it away, she told herself to get hold of herself and she called her son’s name while she scoured the hotel. She looked in the kitchen, in the pantry, on the front porch, on the back porch. Not only was she unsuccessful with finding Benny, she couldn’t find Margaret or Jake either.
A silent prayer asked that he was somewhere with them safe and sound. She leaned off the rail of the back porch and raised her hand against the sun. Her prayer was answered when she looked toward the garden and saw both of her friends with her little boy beside them stooping in the carrot patch. Relief spread over her body as she waved to them and went back inside, placing a palm upon her breast.
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