Jiggling the baby, Jackson made his way to the door.
A trio of men stood on the gallery, two just coming into manhood, the third a score of years older than Jackson himself. Jackson recognized the trio, but stopped short of welcoming them in. He did not exactly harbor a grudge, for after all, Luther, Luck, and Lafe had been instrumental in bringing Reagan into his life. Neither would he let them off the proverbial hook so handily. Pulling his aloof air around him like an oft-worn cloak, he looked down his nose at Luther, jiggled Miranda, and waited.
Luther fished in the breast pocket of his broadcloth coat and came away with a pair of round-rimmed spectacles, which he perched on his thin nose. “Durn thangs,” he said, taking them off again. “Can’t see any better with ’em than I can without.” Squinting at Jackson, he tried again. “We’re lookin’ for the Broussard place. We was told it was hereabouts.”
“This is Belle Riviere, Miranda’s ancestral home. What is it you want?”
Luck nudged Lafe and whispered something in his ear, managing to knock his new beaver hat off his head. “Is not!” Lafe said, retrieving his prize.
“Is too!” Luck shot back, looking smug in his swallowtail coat and gray-striped pantaloons.
Luther silenced both with a look. “Yer pardon. My boys is a bit excited at the prospect of seein’ their sister. Does a Reagan Dawes by chance work here?” He squinted at Jackson again, tilting back his head. “Hey, aren’t you the fella that bou—”
“I am Reagan’s husband,” Jackson informed him coolly. “And this is our daughter, Miranda.”
“Jackson!” Reagan called from the top of the staircase. “Jackson! What on earth have you done with our daughter?” In a moment she appeared, as sleek and as beautiful as she had been the day he married her, only with a new fullness about her bosom, due in no small part to the squirming infant in his arms. “Oh,” Reagan said. “I didn’t know we had comp’ny.”
“I was just about to send them away,” Jackson said. “But then, they are here to see you, so perhaps you should decide if they stay or go.”
Reagan descended the final tread and started across the foyer. Jackson counted her steps. One... two... three... shriek! While he watched, she dashed headlong, grabbing Luther’s gnarled hands, hugging her twin brothers until they begged for air and sought to escape. “Oh, thank God! You’re alive and well! I feared you’d been taken by the Blackfoot, or worse!”
“Taken with the Shoshone, is more the like,” Luther said. “Luck got his heart broke over a little In’jun gal, and has since sworn off women. We’re takin’ him home so’s he can mend. It’s a sad case, all right.”
Jackson humored his wife as she ushered them in, plying them with questions, exclaiming over their newfound prosperity. Yet nothing could entice them to stay more than an hour or two. “We’re bound for Bloodroot,” Luther said. “But before we left town, we thought we’d stop by and see how you were faring—”
Lafe nudged him, frowning, and with a sigh, Luther broke off. “Well, if the truth be known, we all feel a trifle guilty for the way we parted and all, and we was thinkin’ that if ye weren’t content in your new life... well . . . there’s always a place for you with us, back home in Kentucky.”
“Thank you, Luther, Luck, Lafe.” Bending, Reagan kissed each cheek in turn. “But I’m happy here. Truly.”
She smiled up at Jackson, taking his hand in hers, pressing a kiss on his knuckles.
Much later, long after Miranda had been placed in her cradle, with Bessie to watch over her dreams, Jackson led his lady wife out into the garden. The moon was rising in the east, a full, glorious moon that silvered the crushed-shell path on which they strolled. “I was thinking of taking a trip in a month or so,” he told her, “just as soon as Miranda is old enough to travel, and you have completely recovered. I thought we might take a steamboat south, perhaps visit Catherine and Jason and the first Belle Riviere. Then, if you’re up to it, we could amble on up to Kentucky. There’s some choice land to be had still, if a man has the wherewithal to purchase it. I was thinking it might make a fine place to spend our summers. That is, if it pleases you?”
Reagan threw her arms around Jackson’s neck, rising on tiptoe, kissing him deeply again and again. “Have I told you just how much I love you?”
“Indeed, you haven’t,” Jackson said. “And though I am anxious to hear it, I would much, much rather you showed me.”
Laughing, Reagan glanced back at the great house, the windows of which spilled buttery lamplight onto the lawn, then playfully pulled him off the path and into the bushes, from which the sound of their laughter soon turned to contented sighs.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Also by S. K. McClafferty
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
Bride of the Shining Mountains (The St. Claire Men) Page 32
