She wasn’t his disappointing daughter anymore.
Chapter 15
“RISE AND SHINE!”
Bay came abruptly awake at Sloan’s cheerful greeting, then realized she was sitting in the middle of her bedroom floor draped in nothing more than a sheet. “Hello. Good morning,” she said, awkwardly pulling the sheet around her as she stood up. She mentally prepared a suitable explanation for Sloan as to why she’d slept on the floor and felt let down when Sloan didn’t ask. Actually, Sloan seemed as uncomfortable as Bay felt, and busied herself spreading up the four-poster.
Despite being only a year apart in age, Sloan and Bay had never been good friends. Bay’s interests had been too different from Sloan’s, and Sloan’s strong personality was a better match for Cricket’s. So Bay wasn’t sure what to think of Sloan’s unexpected appearance this morning. When she heard a baby crying, she used it as an excuse to break the uncomfortable silence. “Is that Jesse?”
Sloan smiled and said, “Yes. She’s quite a handful, even though all she does is eat and sleep.”
“Where’s your child?” Bay asked, returning Sloan’s friendly smile. “Your son or daughter must be quite a handful, too.”
Sloan’s face paled and her lips flattened into a straight line. She took a deep breath and said, “He doesn’t live here. I gave him to the Guerrero family two years ago.”
“What?”
“You heard me,” Sloan said, yanking the bedcovers viciously. “I gave him away.”
“Your son? You gave your own son away?”
Bay was dumbstruck. She’d known that the father of Sloan’s child, the younger son of a wealthy Castilian Spanish hacendado, had been killed before he could marry her. But as of the day of Bay’s capture by the Comanches, Sloan had intended to raise her child at Three Oaks. Having been forced to give up Little Deer, and knowing firsthand the agony of such a separation, Bay couldn’t understand why Sloan would willingly have agreed to give up her child. But perhaps she hadn’t been willing.
“Did Rip force you to give up your son?”
Sloan’s bitter laugh didn’t answer Bay’s question as much as it raised others. “Rip didn’t have anything to do with my decision. If he’d had his way, the child would be trailing around underfoot right now. Look, all this was settled years ago. I don’t think about it anymore, and I certainly don’t want to talk about it now.”
“How could you do such a thing?”
“I said I don’t want to talk about this,” Sloan warned.
“Well I do!” Bay snapped. “What were you thinking? How could you give away your own flesh and blood?”
“My bastard son.”
“Bastard?” Bay couldn’t believe Sloan could apply such a word, and with such contempt, to her own flesh and blood.
“Yes, bastard,” Sloan retorted. She turned angrily to confront Bay. “Antonio Guerrero never married me.”
“I know that,” Bay snapped, “but—”
“Did you know he never intended to marry me? Ah! I see that’s news to you. Well, before you judge me, why don’t you hear all the facts. Antonio duped me into carrying messages for him while he plotted to help the Mexican government invade Texas.”
Bay gasped at the intense pain underlying the fury in Sloan’s voice.
“He betrayed the Republic and he betrayed my trust in him. He was killed by one of his own men, who wanted to surrender to the Rangers when they were caught rather than fight to the death as Antonio intended to do. Do you wonder that I didn’t want his son around reminding me every day how gullible, how stupidly trusting, I was? Yes, I gave the bastard to Antonio’s family. The Guerreros were glad to have him.”
“How could you give away an innocent baby?”
“Look who’s accusing me of giving away my child! Didn’t I hear you say yesterday that you had a child as well? Where’s your child, Bay? Decided not to bring your Comanche bastard home with you?”
The flat of Bay’s hand met Sloan’s cheek with a loud thwack. Sloan’s skin flamed red.
“Did I hit too close to the truth?” Sloan taunted.
Bay fought to hold on to her temper, appalled that she’d resorted to violence. “You couldn’t be farther from it. I would never have left Little Deer if I’d been given the choice.”
“You mean you’d have stayed with those brutal savages if you’d been given a choice?” Sloan asked, incredulous.
“They’re not savages!”
“It’s not savage to lasso a baby and drag it alive and screaming through cactus? It’s not savage to rape a woman and leave her pinioned to the ground with a Comanche lance? It’s not savage to kill and pillage and destroy for no good reason?”
“You don’t understand!” Bay protested.
Sloan shook her head in disbelief. “Are you actually defending them?”
“It’s not all one-sided, Sloan. They also love and—”
“Ahhhh, love,” Sloan said with a cynical smile. “That explains everything.”
This was not the Sloan that Bay remembered. This woman had been hurt and had hardened her heart against more pain. It was clear Sloan didn’t think much of Bay’s defense of the Comanches. To be honest, Bay thought, there was no defending the atrocities practiced by either whites or Comanches against each other. Yet each side seemed so sure it was right. For the first time Bay could see the extent of the problem faced by Long Quiet, who walked a narrow path between two worlds.
“What’s going on in here?” Cricket said, stepping inside Bay’s bedroom and closing the door behind her. “I could hear the two of you shouting all the way down the hall.”
Cricket walked over to Sloan and touched the red mark that still stood out on her cheek.
“We were just talking,” Sloan said, brushing Cricket’s hand aside.
“So I see,” Cricket said. Bay flushed when Cricket turned and looked inquiringly at her. “Would you mind telling me what brought you two clabberheads to blows?”
Sloan smirked. “Babies.”
Cricket’s brow arched in confusion. “Babies?”
“Bastard babies,” Sloan clarified.
“Oh.”
“Bay seemed to think I should have kept Antonio’s baby.”
“Your baby,” Bay corrected.
“Not anymore it isn’t.”
“Hold it. Hold it!” Cricket said. “This isn’t getting you stubborn, lard-headed mules anywhere.”
“You’re right,” Sloan said. “I’ve got work to do and I don’t have time to stand around arguing about the past. Rip asked me to come see if Bay felt up to doing some bookkeeping.” She stared at Bay. “Well, do you?”
Bay swallowed the misery in her throat. “Yes, of course. I’ll come down as soon as I’m dressed.”
“Fine. I’ll tell Rip.” Sloan turned and left the room.
“How long has she been like this?” Bay asked, staring at the closed door.
“Like what?” Cricket asked.
“Bitter. Cynical. Angry. We were never close, but I don’t think I ever felt so frustrated trying to talk to her.”
Cricket crossed to sit on the bed. She pulled her long auburn braid around and chewed on the end of it before she spoke. “I can understand your feelings, Bay, believe me. But Sloan’s decision to give her baby to the Guerrero family was made a long time ago. It’s too late to do anything about it now. All that can result if you argue with her is to make things worse.”
“How could you let her do it?”
“Nobody let her do it,” Cricket retorted. “Rip was furious. But by the time he’d found out what she’d done, the Guerreros had Francisco and wouldn’t give him up.”
“Francisco?”
“That’s what the Guerreros named the baby. They call him Cisco.”
“Have you seen him?”
“Yes, once. I went to visit Cruz, Antonio’s older brother, and he let me hold the baby. Oh, he’s so beautiful, Bay. He has sable hair, just like Sloan’s, and blue, blue eyes.” Cricket pursed
her lips thoughtfully. “Actually, I’d say he looks more like Cruz than Antonio. I don’t know how Sloan could bear to give him up.”
“Maybe if she saw the baby again she’d change her mind,” Bay murmured.
“Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?”
“Could be,” Bay said. “But speaking of beautiful babies, when am I going to see Jesse?”
“As soon as you’re dressed. While you were sleeping I laid out a dress and muslin petticoat for you.” Cricket gestured to the practical brown dress made of muslin delaine, a soft, lightweight wool. “It buttons up the front, so you should be able to get into it by yourself. I’ll stay to lace you into your corset if you like.”
“I don’t think I’ll wear the corset,” Bay said. “I . . . it’s just that wearing underclothes at all feels strange and I don’t know if I could stand to be laced into a corset just yet. Maybe in a little while . . .”
“Nothing seems the same, is that it?”
“I guess.”
Cricket’s eyes narrowed appraisingly. “You seem changed, too.”
“I do? How?”
“Well, for one thing,” Cricket said with a chuckle, “I don’t think that dress is going to fit as well as it might have three years ago.”
Bay blushed as Cricket eyed her substantial cleavage.
“But that’s not the biggest change,” Cricket continued.
“It isn’t?”
“Can you imagine the Bay who left here three years ago even daring to argue with Sloan, let alone raising her hand to anyone?”
Bay frowned, hurt by the slightly accusatory tone in Cricket’s voice. “I suppose not. But . . .” Bay wasn’t sure how to explain what had happened between her and Sloan. She wasn’t really sure she could. Or that she owed it to Cricket to try. Stormy violet eyes challenged Cricket’s inquiring gaze. When Cricket lowered her eyes, Bay admitted softly, “I guess that other Bay is gone.”
Cricket met Bay’s gaze again, her gray eyes sad. “I suppose so. I’ll see you in Jesse’s room when you’re dressed. All right?”
“Sure,” Bay said.
When Bay walked into the room down the hall, she found Cricket nursing the baby. She was appalled by the stab of envy that washed over her, even more so when she realized that what she imagined was Long Quiet’s child at her breast. She would never have Long Quiet’s child now.
She hurriedly stuffed her envy back into the hole it had crawled from and let herself be happy for her sister. “I never pictured you like this. I mean, all the time I was gone, I kept remembering you at the pond with Creed. But you look wonderful with a baby at your breast,” Bay said.
Cricket blushed, but was obviously pleased by Bay’s compliment. “Don’t let Creed hear you say that. He already wants another one.”
Jesse’s mouth was playing with the nipple now rather than sucking. “She’s finished,” Cricket said. “Would you like to hold her while I put myself back together?”
Bay took the baby while Cricket buttoned herself back into her clothes. “Oh, Cricket, she’s so perfect!”
“She is, isn’t she,” Cricket agreed with a grin.
“When is the christening?”
“As soon as Creed returns from Mexico.”
“I thought he was just meeting Long Quiet in Laredo.”
Cricket shook her head in wry acceptance. “He couldn’t stand to miss out on the fun, and since Jesse and I would be safe here, he decided to go with Long Quiet. It won’t really delay the christening that much, because we have to wait for Creed’s brother, Tom, and his wife, Amy, to arrive from Tennessee anyway. They’re going to be Jesse’s godparents.”
“When are you expecting them?”
“Sometime in the next couple of weeks, assuming the weather cooperates. If the rains start too soon, the roads will be mud pies.”
“So Creed should be back in a couple of weeks?”
“I hope so,” Cricket said with a laugh. “I don’t know how I’m going to last even that long without him.”
Bay’s shoulders sagged at the thought of a lifetime without Long Quiet. She could never even share with her sisters the memories of their brief time as husband and wife. But as Bay handed the sleeping baby back to Cricket, she kept her bleak thoughts to herself. “I guess I’d better get downstairs and get to work.”
Just as Bay reached the door, Cricket called out to stop her. “Bay?”
“Yes, Cricket?”
“It’ll get easier.”
“Thanks, Cricket, for understanding. I’ll see you at supper.”
The plantation office was on the main floor of the house, with one set of windows overlooking the front porch and a second set revealing vast cotton fields. Bay knew that a quarter-mile away, beyond sight and smell of the house, the cotton gin and baling screw were housed. The slave quarters for Rip’s sixty field hands were a quarter-mile in the other direction. Out back of the house were the bachelors’ quarters, which, Sloan had told her at dinner, hadn’t been damaged by the fire.
The office itself was reminiscent of what it had been in the past—a room that smelled of leather and tobacco, with three rough rawhide chairs situated before a rock fireplace. Rip had re-created here the same bastion of power that had existed before the fire. Bay pulled down a heavy tome from the shelves that made up Rip’s library and opened it to the current entries.
The first Tuesday of the month was the normal day of Wilkerson’s advertised public sale of Negroes, horses, mules, and carriages in Houston. Bay discerned from the entries that Rip had attended the most recent sale and purchased one male African Negro and three mules. He’d also bought a score of hogs to be slaughtered by the hog boys. She also noted from the entries that the plough boys and hoe hands had been fitted with leather shoes for the coming winter.
“I see you found the books,” Rip said, interrupting Bay’s perusal.
“Yes. It looks like you’ve been busy.”
“There’s a lot more to do before the weather chills. Have to get a new gate built for the corral, along with some horse troughs, and there are some ploughs that need fixing. Oh yes, and the barn needs to be cleaned out. You know. The usual.”
Bay felt a moment of sympathy for Sloan. In preparing his eldest daughter to one day take her rightful place as his heir, Rip had appointed Sloan as overseer for Three Oaks. It was Sloan’s job to make sure Rip’s will was done on the cotton plantation. Bay only had to keep track of everything that was accomplished and make sure supplies were ordered and available for all the work Rip dictated. Still, even that was a huge job for a plantation the size of Three Oaks. However, Bay was looking forward to the work to keep her mind off the past.
“From what you said at dinner yesterday about the poor crops, I expected to see the books in worse shape,” Bay said.
“It’s been bad enough,” Rip replied. “Whole damn army of cutworms ate us out in the spring. Had no choice but to replant. Damned if we didn’t get caught by army worms next. Stripped the fields sere! If that wasn’t enough, we had so much rain late in the season the cotton bolls either mildewed or washed down to the ground, where they rotted out or got so stained as to be useless. Pickers should be out there right now snatching cotton, only what little there was has already been picked. It’s been bad, all right. Second year in a row, too.”
“Has it been this bad for everyone?”
“Peach Point and Evergreen have been even harder hit,” Rip said grimly. “Longwood, Birchfield, and Pleasant Grove are about the same as us. Monte Verde seems to have escaped the worst of it, but we’re all feeling the bite.”
Bay smiled slightly at Rip’s unintentional pun. It sounded as if most of the cotton plantations along the Brazos River had been victims of insects and bad weather.
“There’ll be more homespun worn for a while, that’s for sure,” Rip finished. “Jesse’s christening couldn’t have come at a better time. People are ready to put their worries aside for a few hours and kick up their heels. Which brings
me to the young man I’ve invited to join us for supper this evening.”
“I’m not ready to meet anyone yet.”
“You’re as ready as you’ll ever be,” Rip said.
“I’m not ready to meet anyone who thinks I’ve been away touring the Continent,” Bay protested, “when what I’ve actually been doing is tanning animal hides and sewing beaded moccasins. Don’t you understand? Half the time I’m still thinking in Comanche.”
“I’m disappointed—”
“Don’t you dare!” Bay raged, jumping to her feet, her hands clenched in fists. “Don’t you dare say you’re disappointed in me. I survived. Against all the odds and when I didn’t think I could, I survived!”
Rip’s bushy red brows arched in amazement. “What brought all this on? I was merely going to say I’m disappointed that you don’t feel more like meeting company.”
Bay’s face reflected her chagrin. “I’m . . .” Bay bit her lower lip. She would not apologize. She wasn’t the least bit sorry for her outburst. “I can’t forget what happened to me. I’m not the same as I was.”
“I don’t expect you are, but I have plans for you, Bayleigh Stewart, plans that were made long before some Comanche buck stole you from Three Oaks. I have no intention of letting you spend your life regretting and remembering your life as some goddamn Comanche’s woman.”
“It’s my life. I’ll choose how I want to spend it.”
“The hell you will!”
“The hell I will!”
Bay gasped and clamped a hand over her mouth the instant she’d blurted the words that were Cricket’s normal response to her father’s challenge. In the past, about the time Cricket and Rip had gotten this far into an argument, Bay had been backed up against a wall somewhere well out of the way. Bay was appalled that she’d provoked her father, and if the ferocious look on Rip’s face meant anything, he was ready to force her into a showdown right now. Despite the fact she had precipitated this confrontation, Bay had no urge to continue it. Yet neither did she run. She grasped the pen from the inkwell and held it poised over the ledger. “I have work to do. I’m sure you do, too. I’ll see you at supper.”
Comanche Woman Page 20
