by BJ James
"She looks happy." Juan didn't smile, but there was relief in his voice.
"She is." Jefferson didn't look away from the small house, or from Marissa. She sat on the steps with Marta. Alejandro sat in her lap, chattering, gesturing, more animated than he'd seen the child. Neither she nor the boy had let each other go from the moment she'd rode into the yard to hail the house.
Though their conversation didn't carry to the barn or the corral where Jefferson stood with Juan, their laughter did. The trill of the boy's happy giggle blending with Marissa's contralto with such regularity, made it clear the reunion was a joyful return of old habits. In what once would have seemed to him to be rare exuberance, Marta was clearly expounding on this new home. A home she could never have expected before.
But for all the elation in this time, it was Marissa who held Jefferson's exclusive attention. Marissa and Alejandro.
This small, handsome child with his dark, dark hair and eyes as dark could've been her child. And, as she bent to kiss his cheek, or ruffle his hair, laughingly accepted another of many hugs, only a blind man wouldn't see that the love was as strong.
Tearing his gaze from her, he spoke to Juan. "Marissa has worried about you. Knowing you're all safe and close is the best of it." With a thumb, Jefferson tilted back the brim of his hat. His sky-blue eyes returned again to the woman and child. "Especially Alejandro."
"There is a special bond between them," Juan agreed. "There was no doctor when he was born. Just Rissa. He wasn't positioned properly for the birth. In the greatest patience and with only what she'd learned in the stables, she turned the infant. For me, it was a miracle."
The gaucho's hands closed tightly over a splintered rail. "If not for Rissa, I would have lost them both."
Jefferson nodded. He could understand, for he'd witnessed her skill at River Trace, his brother's horse farm. If the fates were kind, he would witness it again on the Broken Spur.
If they were kinder still, one day she would have children of her own. His sons, his daughters. No, he amended, our sons, our daughters.
He hadn't let himself think that far into the future before. But standing in the heat and dust, hearing her laugh, seeing the love on her face as she held a child, Jefferson knew he wanted a life and a family with Marissa.
A life, a family, and forever.
Nine
"Tired?"
Marissa didn't lift her chin from her folded hands, or turn from the darkening and ever fascinating sunset. Regretting the concern she heard in Jefferson's deep voice, she answered, honestly, "Of course." Then to ease his mind she smiled her assurance. "But pleasantly so."
Quiet returned to the porch again. Only Satan, sleeping by her side, scratched at the wooden floor as he chased some elusive creature in his dreams. For once hardly aware of the dog's antics, from her place on the top step Marissa watched the end of day in continued preoccupied silence.
Jefferson stood only a pace away, hipshot, shoulder braced against a post. He was oblivious of the time or the canyon and the shadows that crept across its walls. His attention and his world revolved around the woman huddled at his feet.
Riding back from the Elias's new home, she had grown quieter. The joy of the day had been replaced by a mantle of melancholy. He assumed it was the sadness of saying goodbye to her friends, even for a little while. A grief he thought would ease. But the rest of the day and evening had been no different.
Supper was another fiasco that neither of them wanted. Now she'd sat for nearly an hour, silent and brooding. Whatever it was that had sent her into this mood, he had to understand. To help, if he could. Sitting down beside her, with an arm around her shoulder, he asked, "Are you thinking about Alejandro?"
Nodding and lifting both hands, with the heel of her palms, she squeezed her temples as if she would push her thoughts away. In a continuation of that same motion, with her fingers she combed her hair back from her face, before clasping her hands again as tightly as before.
The clean scent of her surrounded him, tantalized him, as strands of her falling hair brushed the back of his wrist. Hair that smelled of sunlight. Dark hair, as dark as the boy's.
It was strange that since he'd seen them together again, all thoughts seemed to lead to the black-eyed child. Marissa's thoughts, as well, he suspected. "He's on your mind even more now that he's close. It's obvious how much you love him."
She didn't speak for a while. Easing the clasp of her hands, reaching across her body, she laced her fingers through his. "I think of him. Constantly. I always have. But tonight is different. Tonight Alejandro is a reminder of something I should tell you. Something I should have told you long ago."
Jefferson felt the sudden clench of premonition in his gut. The grip of his fingers over hers was unconsciously fierce. "Then now is as good a time as any, isn'it?"
"As good as any?" she whispered hoarsely. "I don't know. But it's the best time we have now." Turning in his embrace, her solemn gaze held his. Her breasts rose and fell in one long, unsteady breath. "There was a baby, Jefferson. Our baby, conceived that last day in the tree house."
Pausing she waited for his reaction. Anger, disgust, regret, anything. When there was none, when he sat as still as death, waiting, she continued her revelation in a somber, lifeless tone. "When I knew, I went to Paulo again. This time, he released me from our final agreement and all my promises. I was making arrangements to come back to you. Then, for no apparent medical reason, it was over. Too soon to know if our child would be a boy or a girl, it was gone."
"Then there was no reason to come home to me." Though he spoke of things other than the child, the hurt, the loss, colored his voice. In his tone there was the grief of unspoken words.
Sliding her hand from his, she framed his face between her fingers. "There was always reason, my love. But—"
"But," Jefferson interrupted with a grimace. "If. There's always one or the other, isn't there?"
"For us, so it would seem." She wanted to hold him and comfort him, but the look in his eyes, the tension in his face, warned it was too little, too late.
"What was it this time? No." With an abrupt, humorless laugh he stopped any explanation she might make. "Let me guess. Does it go something like this...the discovery that you were expecting the child of another man, a stranger, caused such a furor your mother became even more ill.
"So ill that when our baby was lost, you had to stay. To be the dutiful daughter again," he finished, bitterly. Bitter for her, never with her. For he understood how the Alexandras worked. Understanding their sort and their selfishness wasn't difficult. Even without knowing them. "All for that precious lifestyle that was your price to pay."
Marissa hoped that someday she could make Jefferson understand what was abhorrent to him was an accepted practice among the people who moved in her parents' social and economic circle. She hoped he would know and believe that they thought the arrangement they made had given her the best of her world. In time, perhaps, he would, but not now. Not yet. She need not waste time or breath trying until he was ready to understand.
"My mother's heart problem had taken a severe toll on her in my absence from home. Before I realized I was carrying your child, news of the wedding was widespread. She was really too frail to cope with the scandal of a broken betrothal."
"But she would have had no choice but to cope, if the baby hadn't miscarried? Is that what you're saying, Marissa?" His face was still grim. His voice roughened by pain.
Marissa looked away, gathering her composure. When she turned back to him, there were tears in her eyes and on her cheeks. "I loved my mother. But in choosing a life, my choice would have been our child and you."
Groaning softly, Jefferson reached for her. "I know, sweetheart. I could never doubt that."
Folding her closer, with her head on his shoulder and her face nestled against his throat, he embraced her. Even now, he could feel the pain thrumming in her. Not for the first time, he realized how strong
she'd become. The choices she'd had to make were enough to bring the strongest to their knees.
But not Marissa Alexandra.
She had walked out of his life a young woman of clear but untried principles. She had returned to him a woman tested by grief and tragedy. A woman who would walk by his side in the worst and the best of times. A woman to treasure. To love.
For the gift of that woman, Jefferson could even forgive the Alexandres for the time she had been taken from him.
"The baby, our baby, is part of the reason you studied medicine and obstetrics." His fingers glided over her hair, smoothing it. His touch was comforting in the absence of anger.
"I wanted to keep what happened to me from happening to others."
"Juan says you have already. With Alejandro's birth."
”That was good fortune. It was too early in my studies ' for any real medical knowledge to come to bear. Fortune and dire determination Marta wouldn't lose her child as I had."
She had found her way through grief with strength and a goal. He believed now her mood was a reaction to the resurrection of memories. Memories provoked by a dark-haired child.
"Alejandro is a bit more than three?" he ventured.
She had relaxed beneath his soothing touch and tensed a little again at his question. "Only a bit. If our son or daughter had been meant to be, he or she would be the same age."
"She," he insisted. "I prefer to imagine our baby was a little girl as pretty as her mother."
Leaning away from him, solemnly Marissa searched his face. "You aren't angry that I didn't tell you before?"
"There's nothing to be angry for, sweetheart. All I feel is sorrow for what we've missed." With the pad of his thumb he wiped away the spill of her tears. "And regret that our lost baby never knew what a generous and wonderful woman her mother is."
A low cry sounded in her throat. In the last of twilight, her eyes were luminous. "You really mean that, don't you?"
"I've never doubted it. Not even when I was struggling to forget you. The more I struggled, the more I proved it couldn't be done. You were—you are—unforgettable." "And when I reached out to you?" "I knew I was a goner." As he kissed her cheek, his breath was warm against her skin. "I don't know how your letter found me, but I'll be eternally grateful it did."
She laughed for the first time in hours. "That part was easy. My final letter came to you from Eden. The original packet was a series of letters within letters. With the exception of their separate instructions, I asked that each send it intact to the next person. When it came to Eden, I asked only that she send it to you if she was certain you would want to hear from me."
"And my beloved, first sister-in-law knew I would." "Perhaps, if she'd known what I was asking, what I was drawing you into, she wouldn't have sent it on."
"She would have. But I'm glad she didn't know. I'm glad none of your helpers know. You took a chance trusting that they would each do what you asked."
"They were good friends, and my only avenue. There was no other choice."
"Then it's truly all's well that ends well?" "If it ever ends. If we can ever lead normal lives again. If those who have helped me here can have their lives back." Her face was suddenly bleak when she looked to the rim of the canyon. "What are they thinking now, the riders who stand guard? Are they missing their families? Someone special they love? Where do they sleep? When do they sleep?"
"Jake Benedict has a line shack nearby. A step above what you would see in movies, but still a shack. They're accustomed to rough quarters. Even Valentina, I imagine.
Billy's plan was that they would work in overlapping shifts at night. That way one would sleep while two patrolled. But, I figure they're as familiar with catnaps as with rough quarters."
"Rough quarters, little sleep, away from home and family. I have to wonder, Jefferson, what I ever did to deserve such care. And how long can it go on?''
"You deserve it because every citizen deserves protection. It can go on as long as needed. But Menendez will make a mistake sooner or later, and Simon and his men will have him."
"I've wondered how Juan and Malta's disappearance was handled. Surely someone questioned how they could be there one day, and gone the next."
"Ah, sweetheart, never underestimate Simon. A wonderful job opportunity arose for Juan. So wonderful time was of the essence. So wonderful Juan sent a crew to the estancia to collect his belongings and make his goodbyes." "You think that story will be believed?" "After seeing Simon in action, do you doubt that he will see to it that it's taken as gospel?"
Marissa smiled then. "Not really. In fact, there were times I had trouble remembering he isn't Superman in disguise. Or that he isn't infallible."
"Maybe not. But he's as close to both as possible." Her short trill of laughter held the sound of conflicting emotions. Abandoning this digression, she spoke again of what was in her heart. ' 'I've wondered how you would feel, what you would say when I told you about the baby. I imagined every reaction."
"And?" With the back of his finger he drew a caress from her forehead to the tip of her nose, then to her lips and her throat. The gentle exploration ending at last at the cleft of her breasts just visible within the opening of her shirt.
"I've discovered I love you more than I thought I could." Her voice was husky, her eyes languorous, in response to his intimate quest. "Far more."
"Enough to stay with me when this is done and be my love?"
"I would be your love, your mate, your everything, Jefferson. And stay as long as you want me."
"Then I want forever. And babies. Especially a dark-haired, dark-eyed little girl who looks exactly like her mother."
It was a dream. She was too happy. Happiness this extraordinary couldn't last. But she could pretend for Jefferson. "A boy first," she whispered as she touched her lips to his. "Every girl should have an older brother."
"To keep the wolves from her door." Gathering her to him, he scattered kisses over her face. ‘‘A brother to keep her safe, as Juan kept you safe, until a lover comes along."
"As you came for me, Jefferson."
"About those babies, sweetheart. Considering that I wasn't exactly prepared for making love, and considering our track record, we might have made another baby already." He had never asked about birth control. For a faithful woman with an elderly husband in name only, there was no reason.
"How would you feel if there was another baby so soon?" Her expression was a mix of hope and anxiety.
"Like this." Touching her only with his lips, he trailed kisses over her forehead then down the first of the path his plundering finger had taken. One kiss, then another skimmed over her arching eyebrows. "And this." Kisses closed her eyes, and with the tip of his tongue he caught the last of tears shimmering on her lashes. "And just in case we haven't already succeeded, this."
His mouth, when it touched hers at last, was gentle, sweetly seductive, moving again and again over the line of her lips. Teasing, but making no effort to be more. Until, at the end of her restraint, it was she who clasped his nape to keep him, her mouth opening to his in silent need for more. As the intoxicating magic of his response spun through her like delicious flames, she sighed in mournful regret as he drew away.
"There's a better place for this, sweet Marissa."
"This?" She saw the teasing in the quirk of his lips, but knew that with the teasing, he was serious.
"Making love. Making a life with you. Making a baby."
"Is that truly what you want, Jefferson?"
"It's what I truly want, in that order." His smile faded.
"If Menendez finds us?"
"He won't." Jefferson willed it to be true.
"But if he should, and it goes bad?"
"Then we will have had this much."
Then he was rising to stand over her. His callused hand reaching down, waiting for her. The instant her hand touched his, he brought her up to him. Up for one more kiss, one more caress before he walked with
her to his bedroom.
Jefferson was up first the next morning. Though exhausted and mindless from the night, he had willed himself to wake early. A skill he'd perfected years ago in the wilds of the lowcountry. He was dressed and had just begun planning Marissa's surprise when the rumble of Satan's rare bark reverberated over the yard, then was lost in the thunder of galloping horses.
He was reaching for the rifle he kept loaded and ready by the door when he recognized a familiar voice quieting Satan. An insistent rap pierced the predawn darkness and Juan Elia called for him. Wary of a trick. Jefferson flicked off the light. Easing back a shutter, he peered at the porch and into the yard.
In light of a moon half as bright as day, he saw Juan by the door. Ethan Garrett and Valentina Courtenay, Simon's crack shot called from retirement, stood by their mounts. As he moved to the door, Marissa stepped from the bedroom, dressed and wary.
"Who is it?" There was no panic, only alarm in her voice.
"Juan, with two of the guards from the rim." Jefferson was terse, his gaze holding hers a second before he opened the door. No one thought of greetings as Juan moved past him to Marissa. Moving as quickly, the rim riders were close behind.
"He has him. Menendez has Alejandro. I don't know how, but he does," Juan blurted without preamble, his eyes black holes in a colorless face. "Alejandro wanted to ride with me to check the fences," he explained before anyone asked. "When Marta went to wake him for breakfast, the window was open and he was gone."
A crumpled scrap of paper fluttered from Juan's fist to the table. "This was on his bed."
"A ransom note," Ethan Garrett supplied, familiar with the circumstance. "Menendez will trade the boy for Marissa."
As pale as Juan, Marissa reached out to take his hand, struggling to stay calm. "How long ago did this happen?"
Valentina crossed to Marissa, laying a comforting hand on her shoulder. Though she was much smaller, no one who watched how she moved, or saw the look in her eyes would think her smaller stature indicated lack of strength or ability. "Marta found the boy was missing a little more than an hour ago.
