Land of Dreams

by Cheryl St. John

She nodded.

  By the time he'd washed and finished dressing, she had Zoe's hair braided and was working on her own. She'd obviously spent a restless night dreaming unseemly dreams and hogging the bed.

  "May I?" Booker asked from beside her.

  Casting him a quizzical glance, she turned the brush over. He took the curved handle in his enormous palm and ran his thumb over the bristles. Thea lifted her gaze, speculating on the thoughts lurking behind those obsidian eyes. How did he feel about the way they'd awakened tangled together like two worms on a hook? She turned away.

  He settled on the bed's edge behind her, and a long silence ensued. Before her, Zoe played with her rag doll. Finally, Thea turned her head.

  Coming to life, Booker straightened her shoulders, forcing her head forward, and ran the brush through her hair. Once down the center. Twice more, all the way to the ends. On the side, he found a snarl and gently worked it loose with small caresses of the bristles. Stroke after mesmerizing stroke, he brushed her hair from the roots at her forehead and temples all the way to the tips.

  Thea closed her eyes and sighed with pleasure.

  Gathering the ends, he held them and wrapped the mass around his wrist several times, taking up all the length until he held her fast by the nape of her neck.

  With her hair in his fist, he tilted the angle of her head and brushed his lips against her cheek. His unshaven skin scraped her jaw. A shiver danced across her shoulder and shimmied down her arm, beneath the chemise...

  Abruptly, he released her hair and stood. "I'll check on the others and meet you out front."

  She nodded, grateful he hadn't suggested breakfast in the dining room.

  "We'll eat in the boardinghouse restaurant down the street," he continued, as if guessing her thoughts. "And then we'll wait for the train."

  His boots sounded on the floor and stopped short of the door. "Thea?"

  She glanced over her shoulder.

  "You're lovely in the morning."

  The moths were back, multiplying and lining up for a strategic attack on her insides. She managed a disbelieving smile.

  "Could you manage a thank you?" he asked.

  She raised a startled brow.

  "It's my opinion that you're a beautiful woman. I've told you before. You treat the compliment like it's hogwash, and that insults me."

  She had to back up over quite a few years and a good many opinions that differed from his in order to approach his words from another angle. He really thought she was pretty.

  MaryRuth had told her many times, but she'd just considered her sister was trying to make her feel better about herself. Booker's compliment was different. Way different.

  "Thank you," she said.

  Booker smiled, went back for his hat and disappeared through the door.

  Baking beneath the blanket, Thea flung it off and bathed in the water from the basin. Cooling her skin, Thea thought of the dream. She thought of how near they'd lain all night and how close they'd awakened this morning.

  He'd been with a lot of beautiful women. But now he was married to her. Men had normal, healthy urges, didn't they? Booker did, didn't he? Of course he did. The fact had been pretty evident that morning.

  What would have happened if Zoe hadn't been there?

  Thea pulled on her blouse and recalled the night before their wedding, the night he'd kissed her senseless. What would have happened if Lucas hadn't called out to them?

  She tugged on her skirt, found her kid belt and buckled it around her waist. She retrieved her shoes from under the bed's edge and stared at the rumpled sheets.

  She reviewed their wedding night in her mind. His words, her reaction.

  Her conditioned response. Roll over, Thea. Play dead. She'd never expected more of herself. Even Booker had said she needed to think of herself more. Doing things for others had always filled her hands and her time. Church work gave her a sense of importance, of being needed. But it had never made her feel the way waking up next to Booker did. And she wanted more of that... more of him. Maybe she'd gone about this all wrong.

  Okay, so she wasn't the catch of the county. She didn't have the tiny feet and waist and the pearl complexion men cottoned to. She wasn't coy or cute or practiced in the art of flirtation.

  But she was right there under his nose. And this far west, availability meant something. He'd complimented her. He was interested.

  Thea sat and tugged on her shoes. She'd handled it all wrong, she could see that now. No use getting her feelings hurt; that never did any good. He was a man. She was a woman. Nothing could be simpler. He was her husband. She was his wife.

  She stood.

  He may not have fallen in love with her at first sight. He may not ever fall in love with her. But she could meet his needs. And that was for darned sure what she needed.

  She dressed Zoe, all the while thinking, planning. Here she'd been trying to think of an answer for MaryRuth's marital dilemma, and both solutions looked identical.

  With a smile on her face, she took Zoe's hand and led her out the door.

  Thea Hayes was going to seduce her husband.

  * * *

  Two days with this tie on was more than a body could abide. Lucas ran a finger around the inside of his prickling collar, lifted his hat and shook the hair from his forehead with a toss of his head. In the distance, the mournful train whistle announced the eight-twenty's arrival.

  He'd dangled his legs over the edge of the platform until his feet had fallen asleep. He turned around and sat cross-legged, adjusting his hat back on his head.

  Mrs. Vaughn had best be on this one. If she wasn't, he'd melt into a puddle on the wooden structure by noon. The whistle lamented again and he met the angel's sympathetic gaze. Beneath the brim of her blue cotton bonnet, her eyes were brighter than the cloudless sky... a clear color, like blue water running over mossy green pebbles. Eyes that saw things only angels could see.

  Lucas smiled, and she winked in return. Was he really lucky enough to get an angel for a ma? He'd had a ma once. If he let himself remember, he could sometimes picture her. Nothing like Thea. Nothing like he wanted to remember, so he didn't do it much. Only once in a while. Just to tell himself he could remember if he wanted to, which wasn't often.

  She'd been dark-haired. Thin. She cried a lot. Sang sometimes when she'd had too much to drink. Cried and sang and waited for a ship to come in. Lucas figured it must have come for her, 'cause all of a sudden she'd been gone and he'd never seen her again.

  He didn't remember a whole lot about the early days. He thought he must have stayed with someone for a while, but then that's where his Home memories began. So many children. Too many nights. Too many families that didn't want him. Faces and years and beatings ran together until only the worst ones were clear pictures in his mind. And those were the ones he tried to forget.

  The rails hummed and Lucas's stomach lurched. He took stock of Hayes calmly watching the horizon, his black hat pulled low over his eyes. Lucas had never had a pa. Never wanted one. Never saw one that he'd of wanted to have. Mean ‘uns most of 'em were. Hayes wasn't so bad, though. He'd never laid a hand on anybody that Lucas had ever seen. 'Cept Bard, Lucas corrected himself with a smug twist of his lips.

  The engine rumbled into view, and black smoke belched into the sky. The rails vibrated, and Lucas remembered every inch of the long, arduous trip west from New York City. If he had his way, he'd never get on another train again as long as he lived.

  Beneath the platform, the ground trembled. Steam hissed as the locomotive neared the station and slowed. The engine passed and Lucas held his hat on against the rush of hot, dry air. The cars rolled to a grinding stop.

  A Negro porter in a hat and suit unfolded the metal stairs from the passenger car, and a man and woman descended. Mrs. Vaughn came next, smiling as Hayes took her carpetbag and offered his arm. Thea greeted her, and Lucas followed them into the dim station building.

  "Congratulations," the slight woman said, looking up
at Thea. "I received Mr. Hayes's telegram."

  "Thank you," Thea replied. "Will you be able to stay with us?"

  "No. Thank you, but I'm getting back on the train and heading east. I'm already a day behind schedule."

  "Can we buy you dinner?" Hayes asked.

  "Thank you, no. I have provisions in my bag." She opened her reticule and took out some folded papers. "I just need you both to sign these. While you look them over, I'd like to talk to Lucas alone."

  Thea glanced over at him and pointed to her head. "Lucas," she whispered loudly.

  Belatedly, he doffed his hat, crushed it to his chest and stepped nearer the agent. "Ma'am?"

  Mrs. Vaughn led him to the straight-backed chairs along the front wall and sat. Uncomfortably, Lucas perched beside her and rolled his hat brim. Across the room, Thea and Booker seated themselves and watched.

  "How are you, Lucas?" she asked. He noticed the way her high-necked dress bunched the loose skin at her throat.

  "Just fine, ma'am."

  "Lucas, I'm awfully sorry about Mr. Bard. You must understand I couldn't have known anything like that would happen."

  "No, ma'am."

  "I feel quite responsible for the children I place. I pray every night that they'll find good homes."

  "Yes, ma'am." She had some kind of oval jewelry pinned to her collar that looked like a woman's profile raised off the surface.

  "Lucas, do you like the Hayeses?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Will you be happy to have them adopt you? Once the legal procedure goes through, I'll have no more say in your welfare. The state of New York will no longer be your legal guardian."

  Lucas stared in disbelief. This adoption thing was really going to happen? He'd expected something to go wrong, the agency to remember some rule against good things happening to street trash.

  Mrs. Vaughn blinked her hazel eyes, which were skimpily fringed with short dark lashes. "Lucas? Do you want them to be your parents?"

  Lucas tore his stare from her. The papers lay forgotten in Thea's lap. She and Hayes openly studied him from across the room.

  "I'll—" he began and had to start over. "I'll belong to them? For good?"

  "The court has to look over the files and sign the documents, but there's no reason why the case won't be finalized in a few months. I've handled many adoptions, Lucas. The court is eager to place you with good parents."

  He wasn't so sure about that. Seemed to him all they'd ever been eager for was to pawn him off on any old person who would have him.

  "Is this what you want, Lucas?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  She patted his hand with her gloved fingers. "Very well, then." She stood. "Let's get those papers signed before my train leaves."

  The agent produced a fountain pen from her bag and marched across the lobby. Lucas's future—he blinked in awe—parents signed the pages. He watched Mrs. Vaughn refold and tuck them in her reticule, and didn't let himself conjure up images of something happening to the papers on their way back to New York City.

  He swallowed and barely noticed the tie constricting his throat. Maybe—just maybe—he wouldn't have to leave after all.

  Their party was headed for the livery when a horse and rider came alongside them. "Hayes!"

  Booker stopped. Beside him Thea paused, and the others stood still as well. Booker tilted his hat back on his head and glanced up.

  "You Hayes?" the marshal asked around a fat cigar.

  "I am," Booker replied.

  "Heard you caused a little ruckus at the hotel last evenin’."

  Thea looked up at Marshal Hardy with a feeling of unease curling through her chest. What had gone wrong with this town? Everyone she knew was becoming an enemy.

  "Seems the problem was settled satisfactorily," Booker replied.

  "That right?" The beefy man flipped open a pocket watch and glanced at it, taking his time. Slowly, he poked it back into his vest pocket. "Care to tell me where you spent the night last night?"

  "I'm sure you already know I was registered at the hotel," Booker answered, annoyance lacing his tone.

  "Where were you shortly after one o'clock this morning?"

  "Room seventeen," he said.

  "Anybody here can back that up?"

  "I can," Thea said quickly. "He was with me all night. Why are you asking these questions, Marshal?"

  Hardy rolled the cigar from one side of his wet lips to the other. "Someone gave Irving Jackson a beating last night. He left the hotel and somebody pulled him into the alley. Man's in pretty bad shape."

  Knowing Jackson the way she did, it was no wonder he'd made his share of enemies. "Time or two I'd liked to have done that myself," she admitted. "But I can assure you it wasn't my husband, and I resent the fact that you suspect it was."

  "Now, Thea, you know how it is when there's strangers in town. People just get suspicious." The marshal turned his attention to Red Horse. "How about you?"

  Thea's heart sank, fearfully. She'd heard about cruel vigilante justice, and she was frightened for Red Horse. The marshal might haul him off to jail. What if the townspeople lynched him? Zoe clung to her skirt and she reached down with a trembling hand.

  Red Horse replied without hesitation. "I was in the room next to his."

  "Anyone there with you?"

  Lucas stepped forward. "He was with me, an' he didn't beat nobody up. He ain't that kind."

  "You don't think I'm gonna take a kid's word for it, do you?" Hardy asked.

  "Did anyone see one of us leave our rooms or the hotel?" Booker asked. "Do you have anything to back up your accusations, marshal? Both of us have spent time in the army, fighting to earn peace for this country. Red Horse has a shining record with the government. Why don't you wire Washington and ask for a character reference?"

  The marshal leaned back until his saddle creaked. He contemplated them both for several seconds. "I'll just do that," he said finally. "Until then, keep your noses clean."

  Thea watched his retreating back with anger festering in her chest. The whole town had gone loco.

  * * *

  Thea helped Zoe carry a bucket of water to the spot where they'd planted the acorn and poured it onto the barren ground. Both of them watched the water soak into the dirt. Two weeks and nothing.

  Thea glanced at the gray clouds gathering on the horizon. "Looks like we won't need to carry any more water today."

  The jingle of harnesses alerted her to the arrival of a wagon creaking toward the house. Booker rode on horseback alongside a wagon pulled by a team of mules. The sight of him called the moths back to active duty in her belly. She hadn't managed a minute alone with him for days. How was she going to carry out her plan for seduction? She followed Zoe, who carried the bucket to the back porch. The wagon pulled to a halt.

  Booker dismounted and a bandy-legged little man with a grizzled salt-and-pepper beard climbed down from the wagon seat. He hit the ground flat-footed, and Booker shook his hand. Bowlegged and stooped slightly, he came only to the middle of Booker's chest.

  Booker motioned her closer. "Thea, this is Skeeter Gunderson. He's the millwright I told you would be coming. Skeeter, this is my wife, Thea."

  The little man leaned backward and craned his neck to look up at her. "Oh-o-ee! Big one, ain't she?"

  Thea couldn't help a smile.

  Skeeter Gunderson cackled.

  Booker grinned. "Now, Skeeter, you're going to have to mind your manners around my wife. She puts out a fine spread, and you wouldn't want her throwing you out on your ear before you've had supper."

  "No, sirree!" Skeeter said, chuckling. He bowed comically. "I like a tall woman, I do."

  Booker laughed. "Let me get the plans for the inside of the mill. We'll have time to go over them before supper. Okay?" he asked, turning to Thea.

  Caught off guard, she merely nodded. Booker entered the house. Zoe sat near the corner of the porch, watching a butterfly flit over a clump of violets.

  "Didn't know '
e had a woman waitin'," Skeeter commented, and moved his sunken lips in a habitual mincing pucker. Thea wondered if he had any teeth left. She hoped she had something to serve him for dinner that he could chew.

  "We didn't meet until Mr. Hayes was discharged and came looking for his niece," she explained.

  He pursed and unpursed his seamy lips. "That her?"

  "Yes. Her name's Zoe."

  "Zoe, huh. Me pappy had a goat named Zoe once. Right ornery critter that was. Ate my mammy's pantaloons right off the clothesline."

  Thea stifled a grin.

  "Fine barn," Skeeter said, squinting at the new structure. "Me 'n' my mules will be right comfortable."

  "Oh, Mr. Gunderson, I wouldn't want you to stay in the barn. We have plenty of room in the house."

  He eyed the house skeptically. "Dunno. Fancy, is it?"

  "No. It suits Mr. Hayes." How true that statement was. She loved the house, the simple, basic furnishings, and the wide-open, uncluttered spaces. There wasn't a piece of needlepoint or a doily in the entire house. After living in the midst of Madeline and Trudy's handiwork, the lack of frippery was a blessing. "It's not fancy at all. Would you like to see it?"

  "Show me at dinner," Skeeter consented. "I ain't cleaned up right now."

  She nodded.

  Booker returned with the plans.

  Thunder rolled across the heavens like a lopsided boulder gaining momentum. Zoe ran and clung to Thea's skirts.

  "Looks like we'd better hurry over to the mill," Booker said, squinting at the darkening sky.

  Skeeter jumped back up on the wagon.

  Booker mounted Gideon. "See you at dinner, Thea."

  She nodded and waved them off.

  The rain was still just a threat by the time she had the meal on the table. The men came through the back door with slicked-back hair and an outdoorsy smell clinging to them. Thea had set the meal out in the kitchen as usual. Even though Skeeter was company, and company called for the dining room and the good dishes, she wanted him to feel comfortable in their home.

  Booker nodded his silent approval and brushed past her with an unexpected peck on her cheek. She covered her surprise by turning away for the basket of warm rolls.

  Skeeter surprised Thea by helping himself to an extra-large slab of beef, and chewing with gusto. She caught the amused look Red Horse and Lucas exchanged and gave them a wink. The others spoke politely about their day, but Skeeter didn't say anything until he'd finished eating. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and then, as if realizing that's what the checkered napkin was for, scrubbed his hand with the napkin.