Enchanted Heart

by Brianna Lee McKenzie

  “I wouldn’t hear of it. I would rather you turn tail and run,” she said without smiling but pulling away to show him that she was serious. “But I’d run right along-side of you and I’m sure those does over there would do the same if that buck would raise that white tail of his and lead them to safety.”

  “Ah, Greta, my dear, I wish it was that easy,” Buck said with a sad expression coming over his face before he turned it away to watch the herd disappear into the woods.

  She lifted her hand and turned his face back toward her, forcing him to look into her eyes before she said with conviction, “I understand. I don’t like it, but I understand. Thank you.”

  She kissed him quickly on the lips and then backed away, worried that she had been too bold. She had never been so bold in her life! This man gave her confidence, so much confidence that it frightened her—no, it invigorated her. She was even more exhilarated when he captured her face between his hands and crushed his lips to hers, searing her heart with the promise that he would never allow himself to be put in the position that would cause her grief even though he had professed to do just that.

  The kiss softened, causing Greta to cling to Buck as if he was the only man who could win her heart after she had suffered for so long. With one affectionate gesture, he had assured her that their love could last forever and that only bliss would fill her heart as long as she would allow him to show her just how passionate a man he could be.

  For Buck, love was instantaneous back at the cave when he had first seen her. But to have her look at him with a sparkle in her eyes and a loving smile on those beautiful, sweet lips was more than he needed to make him realize that they were meant to be together. All the pain that both of them had endured when they had lost what they had believed to be their partners for life was now wiped away and love could blossom for them again.

  And so it did. As the weeks passed, they became more in love than they had ever thought possible after such tragedy had ruled their lives and their hearts. Only the happiness that accompanied love would pass between them and only the bliss of pure, genuine devotion would reflect in their adoring eyes. The coldness of winter gave way to the warmth of Spring and their love flourished as did Nature’s bounty.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  While Greta and Buck fell more and more in love, Marty wondered if she would ever see Caid again. After she moved into Josie’s house she was constantly trying to convince her friend that men were not as bad as Josie believed. But it was a losing battle because the plump woman stood her ground and always had a prejudicial answer for each good thing that Marty spoke about them. Finally, Marty would throw her hands into the air and wander out onto the front porch to sit on the swing and watch for Caid to ride that chestnut stallion toward her.

  But the weeks passed and the snow piled so high that it covered the steps of the porch, which Tyree would secretly clear during the night. Marty would come out each morning to see that they were without a trace of snow on them or the brick sidewalk. She knew it had been Tyree who had shoveled the snow away, for she had seen him duck around a corner one morning with the very instrument of his good deed still in his hand. But Spring chased the snow away and the steps stayed clear and ever-warming as the sun beamed its glory upon them.

  And it was on those steps, after living through a blood-thirsty Indian attack and then waiting out the long and lonely winter with them, that Caid had seen the woman he loved on that early spring morning when he had finally found his way to Fredericksburg, but she had not seen him. And, it was that very same evening when he found out that she had not waited for him to find her, that she had found someone else to spend her time with.

  As soon as he came to town, Caid got a room at the Nimitz Hotel where Marty and her family had stayed on their first journey through this town. That night, while he sat on the bed, he wondered if this had been her room and if she had thought of him while she had slept there. As he stretched out for the night, he closed his eyes and watched the images that danced in his mind, images of Marty’s breathtaking face, her voluptuous body and her mesmerizing gaze. Then, as dreams delivered what his fantasies did not dare to fabricate, his body responded with the urgent yearning to make them come true. The next morning, bright and early, he walked over to the address that the note had indicated and fully expected to have Marty meet him with open arms at the front door.

  He waited impatiently after knocking on the door of the two-story blue house to see her breathtaking face. He leaned on one foot and then the other while he counted the seconds that it took for her to answer the door. When the woman who opened the heavy wooden door looked back at him and smiled in recognition, he stepped into the house and, thinking that the woman was Marty, Caid took her into his arms and kissed her soundly on the lips.

  Taken aback, Greta pushed him away, dropping her cane in the process and told him who she really was, “Caid! It’s me, Greta!”

  “Greta?” Caid asked with voice higher than he had expected. “What are you doing here?’

  “I live here,” Greta answered with a shrug of her slender shoulders.

  “But, Marty…” he stammered.

  “Marty lives at the boarding house in town. Josie’s Home For Women.”

  “Where?”

  “Second Street,” Greta hurriedly replied with a rise in her voice, for he had turned away from her in such haste.

  Embarrassed, Caid mumbled an apology and quickly left the house without inquiring about Greta’s injuries and recovery or how they had found their way into town. The notes only told him where they had gone but they did not inform him who had taken them there.

  When he stomped onto Second Street, his eyes scanned the bricked road for a building that might be a boarding house. Then, he saw Marty standing on the steps of a blue two-story house, poised to step onto the brick sidewalk. He waved at her but she did not seem to notice him. She turned to walk toward the schoolhouse, never seeing him while he tried to get her attention. Disappointed, angry and even broken-hearted, Caid went back to the house where Greta had greeted him to find out why Marty had completely ignored him.

  This time when she answered the door, he smiled apologetically and asked, “Can I come in?”

  “Certainly, Caid,” Greta said, stepping backwards so that he could enter the large foyer.

  Caid paused to marvel at the beautifully ornate room. The staircase gleamed with dark markings of a fine mahogany wood with etched risers and a carved rail that curved into an intricate volute at the end. The walls were covered with gold wallpaper that was most likely the latest fashion. Gold velvet curtains adorned the doorways that separated the rooms and rich carpets covered the polished oak floors.

  “Welcome to our home,” Greta said while she joined him after closing the heavy oak door. “Let’s go into the parlor. I’ll have some tea brought in.”

  Caid followed her into the large room to their right and he helped her to seat herself in a thickly upholstered wingback chair. Then he pulled a matching red chair to the table and folded his frame into it. He watched her as she picked up a brass bell and rang it. He smiled at the sound that it made, plinkity, plinkity, plinkity.

  All of this reminded him of Grammy and her giant mansion with all of her servants who came to her assistance at the sound of such a miniscule instrument. They would flit about like phantoms, tending to her every need while keeping their distance and remaining silent unless she spoke to them. Grammy’s servants revered and loved the woman who, in return, paid them handsomely and gave them the same respect.

  But when a Comanche woman dressed in a faded cotton dress that covered worn leather leggings entered, Caid was taken aback. He hadn’t expected Greta to take an Indian servant. But then, many things were surprising to him that day.

  The woman stopped at the table and clasped her hands together in front of her before she asked, “We have a guest?”

  “Yes, Linda. This is Caid McAllister. He is Marty’s intended,” Greta explained while she wave
d a hand toward him.

  “I’m pleased to meet you Mr. McAllister,” Linda said while she raised her right hand toward him. “Miss Marty speaks good words about you.”

  “Nice to meet you too, Linda,” Caid said, taking her small hand into his.

  “Linda Dear, will you bring some tea for us?” Greta asked. Suddenly, she was reminded of the nickname that Caid had given Seraphina and a sudden sadness crossed her face.

  Caid read her thoughts, for he cleared his throat and was about to tell her that he would go to get Sera Dear as soon as possible. But just before he was about to open his mouth, the Comanche woman spoke, sending his selfless promise into oblivion.

  “Yes, Mrs. Greta,” Linda said with a bob of her head. “I’ll be right back. Cookies too?”

  Greta looked to Caid, who shook his head in the negative before she replied, “Just the tea, please. But bring a cup for yourself.”

  “No thank you,” Linda said with a smile. While she walked away, she said, “We need some things from the market.”

  Caid watched the woman skirt around the velvet curtain with a flurry of fabric before he told his hostess, “What a proficient servant she is.”

  Greta’s expression was one of puzzlement for an instant. Then she laughed and corrected, “Oh, she’s not a servant. She’s part of the family. She’s just helping me while I am healing. Buck took her in years ago. We don’t expect her to do the chores but she does them in return for her room and board. When I am healed, she’ll probably still insist that I allow her to continue as she has been. The quarrel will keep us playfully bantering for years!”

  She leaned closer so that she could whisper, “Linda is a Godsend. But never tell her that. She is proudly humble.”

  Caid whispered his question, “Why does she call you Mrs. Greta?”

  “That is what she calls me,” Greta answered, raising her shoulders. “I can’t get her to call me just Greta. I guess it is her way of showing that she respects me.”

  “She sounds like a good friend to have,” Caid said as he turned his head toward the kitchen to make sure that Linda could not hear their conversation.

  Greta nodded with a smile. Then she leaned back in her chair and lifted her brow to ask, “So tell me, Caid, what has kept you from finding us?”

  “Blizzards, boys who wanted a brawl and inadequate maps,” he answered with more than a little ire in his voice. He leaned toward her and put his forearms on the table before he said, “Now tell me about Marty. What has kept her busy while I was gone?”

  He was hinting that Greta might know something about why Marty had chosen to ignore him when he had gone to see her. But just as Greta began to speak, Linda entered carrying a heavy silver tray laden with the appropriate accoutrements for a proper taking of tea.

  “She’s a teacher at the school,” Greta said with a serene smile as she poured a cup of tea on the small table.

  Caid watched her tilt the silver tea pot over a china cup and he noticed something very different about her and it must have been this change in her that had made him think that she was Marty earlier. Greta had gained some weight and her face was filled out. Her cheeks were no longer hollow and her eyes did not sink into their sockets as much as they had before. Her long red hair flowed in a cascade around her shoulders and she was all aglow, almost radiant as she smiled at him and handed him the cup.

  He heard her saying, “She moved to the boarding house after Buck and I got married.”

  “Buck?” Caid asked with a brow raised in question as he gazed upon the woman who had certainly healed and now seemed to blossom with some secret therapeutic quality.

  “He found us in the cave a day after you left us and he took us to his cabin where he operated on my leg and saved my life,” she explained before she took a sip of tea.

  “Operated?” Caid asked with brows flying in confusion.

  “Buck is a doctor,” she told him. “Isn’t it funny how a doctor who lived in the mountains found us and saved my life?”

  “Funny,” Caid said without laughing. “Lucky is more like it.”

  Finally, he realized that Buck was the Comanche boys’ father but he did not ask Greta if he was correct in the assumption because she interrupted his thoughts.

  “Yes, we were lucky,” she said. “But Daniel was not. You see, he was killed by Indian boys, Buck’s sons.”

  “I know,” he said with remorse filling his heart that he had left that poor boy to defend the two women and he had been killed doing just that. “Hunts-with-a-knife and Rising Sun,” he said almost to himself, for they had told him of the incident.

  “Yes,” she said with a perplexed expression. “But, they tell me that Daniel had tried to shoot them first.”

  She tilted her head slightly before she asked, “Do you know them?”

  “Let’s just say that we’ve met,” he said, not wanting to change the subject just yet.

  “It was all a misunderstanding,” Greta said as she sipped on the cup. “Poor Daniel. Anyway, Buck and ‘the boys’, as he calls them, took us to the cabin but we couldn’t stay because a blizzard was coming. They brought us here where we have lived ever since. Well, until we got married two months ago and that is when Marty moved to Josie’s House.”

  “I saw her there at the boarding house,” he said. “She didn’t see me, though.”

  “She misses you terribly!” Greta declared to him as she touched a fingertip to his forearm. “You should have called out to her.”

  “I was a little confused at the time,” he said and he apologized for the kiss that had sent him into a bewildered circle back to the woman whom he had inadvertently violated.

  “There was no harm done,” she assured him with a smile. “It was a good thing that Buck wasn’t home or he’d have attacked you.”

  “Like those two Comanche braves did?” Caid asked with sudden anger.

  She sucked in a breath of surprise before she asked, “They attacked you?”

  “It was all a misunderstanding, as you say,” Caid said with a wave of his hand. “It seems those two react first and ask questions later,” Caid mused aloud. Then he continued, “We eventually worked it out and they bandaged me up and stayed with me until I healed. But it was almost two months until the snow started melting before I could make my way here.”

  “I’m sure that Marty will be glad to see you,” Greta assured him with a tender smile.

  “I hope so,” he said with his head lowered in worry that she had forgotten her promise to him.

  “Are you going to the Spring Fling tonight?” she asked. Then she explained exactly what a Spring Fling was, “It’s a dance, a cotillion.”

  “I didn’t know there was one,” he said. “Will Marty be there?”

  “I’m sure she will be,” Greta said cheerfully. “Her students are sponsoring it in order to raise money and she has to be a chaperone.”

  “Then I’ll be there,” Caid said with finality in his voice. Then he asked her, “Will you and—Buck was it—be going?”

  Greta ducked her head with sheepish pride before she said, “I won’t be. My leg is still healing. Besides, I am with child and I have to keep quiet. No excitement for me!”

  “Well, congratulations!” Caid said in genuine joy for her as he rose to hug her. “I’m sure you’ll get all the excitement you can handle when that little one comes.”

  “I hope so,” Greta said, and then a sad expression crossed her face as she thought aloud, “I just wish my first little one was here.”

  Caid was reminded again that he had left her daughter with Elsa at Fort Concho and he promised her, “I’ll go back to get Sera Dear now that the snow is gone.”

  Greta squeezed his arm with appreciation before she told him, “Not before you and Marty settle things. She loves you. You must know that.”

  “I am beginning to wonder,” he sighed with exasperation. “We’ll see tonight, I suppose.”

  He excused himself and went back to the hotel to freshen up b
efore the dance. While he sat in the tub, soaking in the warm water, he could think of nothing else but Marty and how she would throw herself into his arms and how their relationship would be back to the way it was before they were separated. Then, he dressed in a new suit of clothes, combed his curly black hair, shaved the two-day-old beard from his face and then stood in front of the mirror in his hotel room to admire his handiwork. What woman in her right mind could resist such a handsome fellow, he asked the man in the mirror with a cocky smile. In a perplexed answer, a dark brow raised high above deep blue eyes that swam with longing for Marty’s loving arms.

  ****

  She was dressed in a silk gown the color of aquamarine, not quite blue and not quite green. The fabric reminded her of the ocean that she had crossed with her family many years ago. The color that she favored more, though, was the deep blue silk that she had toyed with the idea of buying a few weeks ago but someone had bought most of it so she went with her second choice.

  She looked in the mirror at the dressing table while Josie watched her twirl around to check the fit. The older woman smiled proudly at her handiwork before she said, “My, my, don’t you just look like a regal porcelain doll?”

  “All thanks to you,” Marty told her friend with a hug.

  “Awe, I didn’t do much,” Josie replied with a cluck of her tongue. “A stitch here, a stitch there…”

  “Josie, you made the whole gown—even the beautiful trim!” Marty argued while she ran her hand over the ornate trim at her neckline, which dipped to reveal the impressive swell of her breasts. “You are a remarkable seamstress!”