The problem gnawed at him so deeply he couldn’t sleep. Instead he stared at her beautiful face and contemplated the future. What if he married Ella and took her and the children to Boston?
Seth winced, and Ella shifted in his arms, murmuring and turning toward him with a sigh. Her hand lay above his heart. His chest tightened. He loved her so much. He wouldn’t do that to her.
He could imagine the life she’d live in the North so soon after the war. Snubs, sneers, a deep down coldness that rivaled the winter air. She wouldn’t be happy there, where she couldn’t walk through the fields barefoot or spend her evenings on the porch gazing at the land she loved.
The thought of returning to Boston and spending his days making instruments meant to kill in a place full of loud noises and stifling air didn’t appeal to Seth, either. Despite the money he’d make, all the things he could give them, he’d be miserable and so would they.
Honor and duty tugged him both to the North and to the South. Confused, uncertain, Seth untangled himself from Ella’s warm embrace and went to the window.
Dawn burst over the horizon, spreading orange, pink, and red fingers of light across the land. The apple tree on the far side of the field stretched, strong and full, toward the sun.
And suddenly he knew what he had to do.
***
Ella awoke in her own bed alone. Vaguely she recalled Seth carrying her there. She’d been sleepy, happy, content. He’d kissed her on the forehead and murmured—
“Good-bye?” She sat up, scowling.
Gaby’s cries had Ella scrambling to get into her nightdress before one of the children walked in. Her mind still puzzling over the memory of Seth, she changed the baby and walked down the hall to his room.
The door was open. She could see his bed—empty. Her heart began to thud with fear. He’d touched her, loved her, then left her. She shouldn’t be surprised. Had she truly expected Seth to stay?
From the ache in her chest, Ella guessed that she had. Still, she stepped into the room and checked his closet and the dresser drawers. Also empty. Her eyes burned with tears.
The sound of the other children moving about had her blinking the tears away. She would not let them see how Seth’s desertion pained her. There would no doubt be tears once they knew he was gone, but none of them could be hers. At least not where anyone could see.
She hurried downstairs and fed Gaby before she raised the roof with her howls. The child was doing so much better—had been since Seth arrived. For him she drank her bottles and took her naps. She’d begun to gain weight as a baby should. Ella pushed aside the thought that Gaby would suffer the most without her favorite man in the house.
Thunder on the stairs made her straighten, pat her cheeks to ensure they were not damp, and force a cheery morning smile onto her face before the children streamed in for breakfast.
No one asked the inevitable question until they’d eaten and cleared the table. As the others filed outside to do their chores, then play, Cal hesitated. “Where’s Seth?”
Ella turned away. Sooner or later she had to tell them, but right now she could barely breathe.
“Ella?” Cal stood at her elbow, concerned dark eyes intent on her face. “What’s the matter?”
She hesitated again, sadness and guilt nearly overcoming her. If she hadn’t been selfish, if she hadn’t needed his strength, desired his touch, maybe he wouldn’t have left. Or at least he would have stayed a little while longer. Ella swallowed the thickness in her throat and plunged ahead.
“He’s gone, Cal.”
Surprise replaced the confusion, immediately followed by anger. Ella braced herself to hear horrible insults hurled on Seth’s lying, Yankee head.
“You’re wrong!” he shouted. “He wouldn’t leave without saying good-bye. He wouldn’t leave at all. I don’t believe you!”
Ella blinked. “I thought you wanted him to go?”
“Not anymore. He’s not like everyone else.”
“What’s everyone else like?” He hunched his shoulders and looked away. “Tell me, Cal.”
For an instant she didn’t think he’d answer, then the words came tumbling out. “I loved my pa, but he was …” His voice trailed off as he struggled with a way to impart the truth, yet keep from being disloyal.
“Your father was who he was,” Ella said gently.
Cal sighed, nodded. “He was a friend. He loved me. But he didn’t try to make me a better person. He never punished me. He’d laugh when I acted up and pat me on the back.”
Ella resisted the urge to roll her eyes. That sounded just like Henry Elliot. She found it interesting that Cal understood what he needed better than his own father had.
“But Seth …” Cal shrugged. “Even though he’s a Yankee, he knows what’s right and wrong, and he wanted me to know, too. I thought he’d live here and keep us safe for always. He’d marry you. Then you’d be our ma and he’d be our pa. We could stay here, and things would be the way they were before.”
Ella put her hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Nothing’s ever going to be the way it was before, Cal. I’m sorry. Those days are gone.”
“Mama always said that when morning comes things look brighter. And things were startin’ to look brighter with Seth around. He came after the dark times. He’s our morning, Ella.”
She smiled at the poetry in a young boy’s heart and tried to draw him to her. But he pulled away and ran upstairs. She let him go. What could she say?
Truth was truth and Seth was gone.
Exhaustion weighted Ella’s shoulders and she leaned against the stove. Not only had she been selfish to welcome Seth’s embrace, but foolish, too. What if she were with child?
A small sob escaped her lips—not of fear, but of joy. Seth’s child would be a gift. A living, breathing memory of the one and only time she’d known love. She’d cherish the gift and care for the child as she’d care for the others in her charge.
Gaby, left too long in her basket on the table, began to wail. Ella ran the heels of her hands over her eyes to blot the tears. Before she could turn and get the baby, someone stepped through the door. Gaby immediately stopped crying and giggled.
Ella forgot to breathe. The baby never stopped crying like that unless—
She spun about. Seth held the little girl aloft, grinning at her as the sun through the kitchen window caught in her hair and turned it gold.
“Seth!” she cried, and he glanced at her.
“Morning.”
Ella had to sit down. When that didn’t help, she put her head on the table and forced herself to breathe.
“What’s the matter?”
“I—I—I thought you were gone.”
“I was. To town. I had things to do.”
Ella laughed and the sound was a bit hysterical. “Things to do? Like what?”
“Send a few wires. Talk to a man.”
Cal skidded into the room, took one look at Seth, and threw his arms around Seth’s waist. “I knew it wasn’t true. I knew it.”
Seth’s face creased in confusion. “What wasn’t true?”
“Ella said you left us.” Cal glared at her. “But she was wrong.”
“Left you?” Seth echoed and frowned at her over the boy’s head. “Why would you think that?”
“I woke up and—” Ella went silent and glanced at Cal.
“Cal.” Seth brushed a hand over the child’s unruly hair. “Run outside and round up your brother and sisters, please.”
“Sure.” Cal ran out, banging the door behind him.
Seth raised an eyebrow and waited for an explanation.
“You were gone,” Ella blurted. “Your clothes, too. What was I supposed to think, Seth?”
“Not that I’d had my way with you and disappeared into the wilderness. What do you take me for, Ella?” He held up his hand, jiggling the baby with the other. “Don’t answer that. I’m a no-account Yankee. A carpetbagger. The enemy. Will you ever trust me?”
“I want
to. I’m sorry. But you have to admit, it looked bad. Where are your clothes?”
“In my suitcase.”
“Aha!”
“In your room.”
She blinked. “What?”
Sighing, Seth kissed Gaby and put her into the basket. Then he crossed the short distance between them and brushed the loose hair away from the nape of Ella’s neck. She shivered at the memories his gentle touch invoked.
“I was hoping to hang them in your closet. After you marry me.”
“Marry you? But—”
“I had to go to town and see a man about a wedding. I figured I’d be back before you woke up. But while I was there, folks kept stopping me on the street to thank me for bringing in those deserters. I hear they’ve been causing trouble up and down the border. People were downright cordial to me today. Not that they kissed me and welcomed me into their homes but—” He shrugged. “Maybe someday I might fit in. Anyway, I brought the pastor home with me. I hope you won’t have me carting him back without earning his pay.”
Ella opened her mouth, shut it again, frowned.
“Is that a no?”
“No. I mean—” She didn’t know what she meant.
“I’m not doing this right.” Seth got down on one knee, took her hand, kissed her palm. “I love you, Ella. Say you’ll marry me. Today.”
Still she hesitated. Marrying Seth was a dream come true, but there were other people to consider besides herself.
His smiled faded. “Was I wrong in thinking that you love me, too?”
“Of course not. I do love you, Seth, but—”
“No buts. That’s all that matters.”
“No, it isn’t. What about the children? This farm? My farm? Your life in Boston? Your job? All the other things that matter make my head spin.”
“I’ve taken care of them. Don’t worry. You always worry.”
“Someone has to.”
“From now on we’ll worry together. And I have to admit, life might get rough.”
She snorted. “Rougher than it’s been?”
“Good point.” His hand tightened on hers. “Maybe if we’re together, rough won’t seem so … rough. And in answer to your questions, the children will be ours. The two farms will become one. Like us.” He winked and Ella blushed. “As for your other questions, I sent two wires this morning. One to my mother informing her I wasn’t coming home.”
“Oh, Seth, that’s not the way to tell her.”
He shrugged. “It’s done now.”
“You got a reply?”
“Yes. And here’s where things get disagreeable. She disinherited me.”
Ella gasped. “Because of us?”
“Because I refused to take my proper place in society.” He grimaced. “I loathe society. I loathe Boston and the job she had planned and the wife she had picked out.”
“Wife?” This was the first she’d heard of one.
He waved away her question and the wife as if they were no more important than a fly. “Her choice, not mine. I barely knew the woman.”
“Oh, well, that explains it then.”
He raised an eyebrow at her tone, but let the matter drop. Ella decided to do the same.
“I was raised to do my duty to my country and my family. I was confused and torn, until last night. My family is here. So is my home. I can’t do the job my father did. Hell, I’m not sure I can do this one, either.”
“Which job is that?”
“Do you know anything about apple orchards?”
“Apples?” Confused, Ella shrugged. “A bit.”
“Good. Because the other wire I sent was to buy as many apple trees as I could get my hands on. I think they’ll grow very well here, and there’s going to be a demand for Southern fruit products now that the war’s over.”
“I thought you’d been disinherited. How will we pay for the apple trees?”
He grinned. “I do have a little money of my own. Soldiering doesn’t pay much, but what it paid, I put aside. Enough to get us started. Then we work.”
She’d once thought he wasn’t a farmer and he never would be. Yet here he was becoming one. Of course, she’d thought she would never marry, never have children of her own.
Ella’s heart fluttered with hope. Life would never again be the way it had once been. It would be better.
“Marry me?” he repeated.
“Please.”
Ella put her hand in Seth’s. Together they left the house, gathered their children, and promised forever beneath the apple tree.
And Cal was right. When morning came, everything did look brighter.
Read on for a peek at the first Western-set historical romance in the Once Upon A Time in the West series by Lori Austin
BEAUTY AND THE BOUNTY HUNTER
Available October 2012 from Signet Eclipse
A half hour later, Cat reached Alexi’s tent, which was large enough to serve as a Rebel hospital. Mikhail stood outside. “Hitch the horses,” Cat told him. He moved off without argument.
Cat drew aside the flap and ducked in. Alexi was sprawled on a feather tick, one arm around a blonde and another around a brunette. The women were naked and fast asleep. Alexi lay naked and wide-awake.
Cat’s gaze swept his body. Everywhere.
He smirked. “Care to join us?”
“We need to be on the road.”
His lips flattened. “What did you do?”
“Now, Alexi.”
He came to his feet, tumbling the blonde onto the ground and the brunette into the dip where his body had been. Both awoke with a jolt and a gasp.
“Leave.” He flicked one hand as if shooing a fly. The girls were obviously familiar with Alexi because they snatched their scattered clothes and fled. “Should we expect a posse or merely the sheriff?”
“Hard to say.” Depended on whom she’d knocked out—citizen or visitor—and what kind of friends he had.
“I need to know, cara,” Alexi said softly.
Since he did, Cat quickly told him what had happened. Alexi didn’t say she shouldn’t have gotten involved. He knew she couldn’t turn away. He also knew she’d been right.
Alexi might have more bed partners than hairs on his head, but they were always willing. He would consider it a terrible breach of his principles to take what wasn’t given freely. Women offered their bodies, men offered coins, horses, jewels. After a few hours, sometimes even moments, with Alexi, they just couldn’t help themselves.
Alexi struck the tent—folding it over and over, then shoving it onto the floor of the wagon and placing the feather tick that had been his bed on top. Mikhail hitched the horses, the two of them performing their tasks so smoothly it was obvious they’d done so many times before. In less than an hour they left St. Louis.
They traveled five miles that day without incident, setting up camp near a thin stream of creek as the sun set. Cat was exhausted, but camp had to be made, horses watered, fed, and hobbled, fires started, food prepared.
She’d just sat down with a plate of rice and ham, along with the coffee she’d wanted so badly that morning, when Alexi strode up. The tent rose behind him, a white cloud against the ebony night. The dancing flames of her fire threw shadows across his face, making the fine bones even more pronounced. His dark blue eyes swept over her. “You have to change.”
“Don’t you like me just the way I am?”
“No time, querida.” Reaching down, he hauled her up by the arm. “They’re here.”
Cat didn’t bother to ask how he knew. Alexi always knew, because Mikhail, whose large ears seemed to hear better than anyone else’s, always told him.
She still wore her boy’s clothes. Driving a wagon in a skirt was always a mistake, but she should have thought ahead, realized that dressing like this—a woman in pants—was an even bigger one after the events of that morning.
She shoved her plate and cup at Alexi. He nearly dropped them, sloshing coffee over his hand and dumping the plate onto the ground.
He cursed, several languages all mixed together so that they sounded kind of pretty, then called after her, “Costume, bébé. You know what to do.”
Cat stripped out of her boy’s clothes and shoved those at Alexi too. He’d dispose of the evidence, probably in her own fire, then, wearing only her underthings, she ran to the tent and ducked inside. Not an instant too soon. Seconds later the steady beat of horses’ hooves drifted on the night and someone hailed the camp.
Cat’s gaze swept the interior, lighting on the valise where she’d once stored her costumes sitting atop Alexi’s bed. She couldn’t believe he’d kept it for over a year. She tore through, pulling out a brightly colored skirt with many flounces that ended well above the ankle. Cat found an equally bright blouse that dipped low enough to distract just about anyone.
Add large Gypsy earrings that would sparkle and twirl and capture every gaze, then scrub some water through her hair until it appeared tousled by lustful hands and slap on a bit of makeup to darken the skin. Her light green eyes were a problem. But if she kept them cast down and let her hair fall over them, maybe in the dusky light—only one lantern burned within the tent—they’d mistake her for someone Alexi had picked up south of the Rio Grande.
Thanks to Alexi, her Spanish was quite good, and what she didn’t know, she’d invent. She doubted anyone in a Missouri posse would notice.
“Everyone out of the wagons and tent!” The man sounded like he meant business. Whoever the fool in the alley had been, he seemed to have good friends indeed.
Cat peered into a hand mirror. The woman gazing back smiled seductively. She shoved her blouse off of one shoulder, tugged the waist of the skirt a little higher to reveal more of her calf. She just might do.
“Exactly who are you searching for, gentlemen?” Alexi sounded half asleep, as if he could care less who invaded his camp or rifled his property.
“Cat O’Banyon.”
Ah hell. Cat recognized the voice. Obviously she hadn’t hit the man in the alley hard enough.
Alexi began to laugh. “The bounty hunter? Why would he be here?”
Lori Austin Page 7
