Heartbreak Creek

by Kaki Warner

  “Have you ever hit a child, Ed?”

  Her hand dropped back to her side. “I hit Freddie Helmsworth when he called Pru a mean name. And my brothers a couple of times.”

  “I mean, as an adult. Have you even wanted to hit a child?”

  “Many times. Your son, most recently. But I never would.”

  “Then why do you think you’d beat your own?”

  She didn’t respond.

  So he pushed harder. “I don’t think you have it in you. But if it ever came to that, I’d stop you. Like you stopped me from taking Joe Bill to the woodshed. That’s what parents are supposed to do. Protect their children. Even from each other if need be.”

  He saw her stiffen and knew she’d heard the unspoken criticism. “Daddy didn’t know.”

  How could he not? But Declan didn’t say it. If she wanted to hold on to that illusion, he’d let her. She’d suffered enough betrayal.

  “Just because your mother was crazy doesn’t mean you’ll be.”

  “Is that a risk you’re willing to take?”

  He would take any risk for this woman. But he wasn’t going to admit that. Not yet. “Do you want children, Ed? If you don’t, that’s all right.” Which was a lie. He liked children. He would be proud to have one with Ed’s blue eyes, and her joy and energy and odd sense of humor. “But if we have children, I’ll watch out for them. And you. Always.”

  She made a small sound. He didn’t know what it was until he saw her reach up and wipe her fingers across her cheek. “Yes, I want children.”

  He let out a deep breath, not aware that he’d been holding it in. “Then put that thing down and let’s get started.” Whisking away his towel, he climbed under the quilt.

  She didn’t move. “You’re sure, Declan? I know I’m not some sturdy farm—”

  He had to laugh. “Christamighty, Ed! Will you just take off your gown and get over here?”

  She jumped under the covers.

  “You still have on your gown,” he reminded her.

  “Oh. Of course.” Without lifting the quilt, she removed the gown, shoved it to the floor, then lay back, arms at her sides, covers to her chin.

  He thought of her nervousness and her timid kisses, and the shock on her face when he undressed. “You’re not a virgin, are you, Ed?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Good.” Rolling toward her, he put his hand on her breast.

  She almost bolted upright. Then lay stiffly back, her heart hammering beneath his hand. “Sorry.”

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “I know. You just startled me is all. Please continue.”

  She was wound as tight as a cheap watch. He could feel her trembling, feel the rapid rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. Trying to calm her, he stroked his fingertips across her cheek, then down her neck to her shoulders, taking his time, talking softly about how soft her skin was, how smooth, how beautiful she looked in the moonlight.

  Gradually, she relaxed. When he touched her breasts again, she tensed, but he kept at it, slow and calm, until she gradually began to give.

  “Didn’t your first husband do this?”

  Her breath caught. She arched into his touch. “No . . .”

  He was glad. “You’re so soft,” he murmured, stroking her from breast to her hip and back again. “Like satin.”

  “I’m not very pointy.”

  “Yet, see how perfectly you fit into my hand.”

  He stroked lower, across her belly, then lower still. She moved restlessly, but in a way that encouraged him.

  “Did he do this?” Declan whispered against her mouth, as he slid his hand up the inside of her thigh.

  A sound soughed past her lips. Her hips rose to his touch. “No.”

  Leaning up on one elbow, he looked down at her, trying to see her face in the moonlight, wanting to know if she still had barriers against him. “He should have.”

  “W-Why?”

  “Because . . .” He kissed her mouth, her chin, her brows. Tasted the salt of her dried tears, smelled roses on her skin. “That’s the way it works.”

  “The way wh-what works?”

  Rising up, he positioned her beneath him. “This,” he said, and slid inside . . .

  . . . His wife.

  . . . His Ed.

  And it was grand.

  Edwina awoke to bright sunlight and the smell of coffee. Opening her eyes, she almost cried out when she found Declan, fully clothed, sitting on the edge of the mattress, looking down at her. “W-what?”

  “Don’t worry.” He smiled. “I put the cup out of flailing range so you won’t douse me like you did before. Morning, Ed.”

  He leaned down and gave her a kiss on lips that were still slightly tender from all the other kisses he’d given her through the night. Tonight she would insist he shave. Or maybe she should shave him. In the tub. Together. Bare naked. It would be a tight fit, but they could improvise. Maybe do that thing where she gets on top and he—

  “I owe you an apology.”

  Yanked from her pleasant thoughts, she blinked in confusion, then almost flung herself against him before she realized she wore nothing beneath the quilt. “Oh, no, Declan,” she assured him. “You were wonderful. Magnificent. The whole thing was just . . . well . . . wonderful.”

  His smile broadened. “I’m gratified to hear it. You were pretty amazing, yourself. But what I’m apologizing for is calling your water witching ‘bunkum.’ ”

  Amazing? She smiled, pleased. “So now you believe it works?”

  “I do.” Bending, he retrieved her gown from the floor and tossed it to her. “Come to the window and see for yourself.”

  She hesitated, waiting for him to move away, but he continued to sit there, that hungry look back in his eyes. “You expect me to put this on with you watching?” Even though they had been unclothed all night and had done shocking and intimate things, it had been under cover of darkness. To expose herself to his scrutiny in glaring sunlight was too unsettling.

  “I do. You owe me. Especially after the show you made me put on for you last evening.”

  “Declan!”

  He laughed. “Don’t ‘Declan’ me. I watched you watching me. Now I know how a fifty-cent whore feels on payday.” He must have seen her shock, because he quickly added, “That’s a good thing. Come see.” Rising, he went to the window, where he stopped well back from the opening, one hand gripping the side frame as he looked out.

  Edwina hurriedly pulled on her gown, then crossed toward him, watching for any stray bits of glass she might have missed when she’d swept up the day before. “We have water?”

  “We do. Those seams we found yesterday opened up overnight. Now the water level is seven feet from the top and holding.”

  “No more bunkum?” she teased, stopping beside him.

  “No more bunkum.”

  Edwina saw that a wall of stones now ringed the well. Bluecoated men were stacking more rocks around two upright log poles on either side, while other soldiers were digging a trench from the well toward the house. Hearing voices below the window, Edwina leaned out the opening to see what they were doing.

  Declan yanked her back. “What are you doing? Are you crazy? You could fall.”

  His harsh tone shocked her, his expression even more. “Did you think I was going to jump?” She said it lightly, confused by his overreaction.

  He released her shoulder. “You could have fallen,” he snapped. “Just stay back until I can board it up.”

  Then she remembered his reaction when they’d crossed Satan’s Backbone. Regretting that she had worried him, she linked her arm through his. “I’m sorry. I forgot you were afraid of high places.” Oddly, that small failing made him even more appealing to her. More human.

  His scowl deepened. His lips pressed in a tight line. Aware that she had pricked that fragile male ego, she patted the arm she held. “I’m afraid of spiders,” she said to reassure him. “Snakes will warn you. Eve
n bees buzz to let you know they’re there. But spiders just lurk around, waiting to drop down on your head, or shoulder, or back, or get in your shoe, or—”

  “I’m concerned, that’s all. So unless you can fly, stay away from the window.” And putting an end to the subject, he pointed at the men erecting the log scaffold over the well. “For now, we’ll hang a rope and bucket off that. But when we come back, I’ll bury a line in the trench and put a pump in the kitchen so we’ll have gravity-fed water without having to carry it from the well.”

  We. When. Edwina liked the sound of that. It spoke of a future. Of not being alone. Of working toward something, rather than away.

  She looked up at her husband. They were bound by deed now, as well as fact. What a foolish risk she had taken, signing those proxy papers without even knowing the man to whom she was binding herself. What if he had turned out to be like that smallminded Cal Bagley, or a glum, filthy prospector who would disappear into the hills for months at a time? Or a drinker, a gambler, a man who thought it his right to beat his wife?

  She studied the stubborn line of Declan’s jaw as he watched the men working below. He had an austere face, angular and uncompromising. Except when he smiled. Then all the armor fell away, and for a moment, she was able to glimpse the man beneath.

  A strong, capable man. One with a gentle touch despite his great size. One who could probably tip over a wagon but was afraid of heights. One who seemed to accept her, despite her flaws.

  Would he ever love her? Would she love him?

  Ninny. She had loved Shelly, hadn’t she? And look what that got her. Maybe love was just a fabrication of novelists. Or poets. Or an insecure woman’s mind.

  “We did the right thing, didn’t we, Declan?”

  “Digging the well?” he asked, still watching the men below.

  She would have to add practical and unromantic to his list of attributes. “Rushing the waiting period. We still have two months to go.”

  He shot her a guarded look, then turned back to the window. It was several moments before he spoke. “Regrets, Ed?”

  She was surprised by the curt tone. He didn’t meet her gaze, but she saw the tension in the rigid set of his shoulders, in the hard line of his brows, and sensed she had touched a nerve.

  “No. Worries, maybe. But not regrets.”

  Still, he wouldn’t look at her. “Worries about what?”

  “We’re very different, you and I. I’m impulsive. You’re not. I like to dance and play and laugh. You don’t. It’ll take some adjustment.”

  He didn’t respond. Which was another thing that worried her. How was she to know what he was thinking if he didn’t talk to her? “Do you have regrets, Declan?”

  He took such a long time to answer she wondered if he even heard the question. “I didn’t do right by my first wife,” he finally said. “I want to do better this time.” When at last he looked down at her, she saw the smile in his eyes. “And I did dance with you, remember.”

  Edwina let out a deep breath. “Yes, you did.” It wasn’t much of an answer, but for Declan, it said a great deal. And suddenly feeling almost giddy, as if this beautiful day were spinning away from her and if she didn’t hurry she might miss something wonderful, she spun away from the window. “Do you like poke salet?” she said as she ducked behind the screen to get dressed. “One of the soldiers said he saw pokeweed down by the creek.”

  Declan muttered something.

  “Don’t worry,” she called to reassure him. “I know to boil it first. Three times. Maybe I’ll make another cobbler if there’s enough sugar left.”

  “Sounds . . . tasty. Be sure to take one of the boys with you.” A moment later, she heard him clump down the stairs.

  When Edwina came out the kitchen door, Joe Bill was waiting with a sour expression on his face and a bucket dangling from his hand.

  “Don’t you know how to swim?”

  “Of course I do.” Stepping past him, she headed toward the creek.

  He fell in beside her. “Pa said I was to keep you from drowning. But if you already know how to swim—”

  “How old are you?” she cut in, glancing over at him. He was tall, his blond head past her chin, but gangly. She probably outweighed him by fifty pounds, more if her skirts were wet.

  “Nearly ten.”

  “And you think if I fell in, you could pull me out? Really?” She let her tone indicate what she thought of the chances of that happening.

  He rose like a trout to a mayfly. “I can toss R.D. and he’s nearly three years older.”

  “Is he?” She gave him a skeptical look. “Nonetheless . . .”

  “And I’m strong.” Pushing up a shirtsleeve, he flexed his bicep into a lump the size of a mashed apricot. “See?”

  “Impressive. But still . . . are you really sure you could save me?”

  If he puffed up any more, he would pop his buttons. “I’m sure.”

  “Well . . . all right, then. I guess you can come along.” If only his father were this easy, she thought, as they continued to the creek.

  “Especially,” Joe Bill added with a smirk, “since the creek’s only three feet deep.”

  Cutting a wide berth around the army tents—and their freshly dug latrine—they went upstream several hundred yards before ducking into the brush. It was like stepping into a different world. Outside sound faded beneath the babble of the creek. Leaves rustled overhead. Birdsong filled the air as warblers and swallows and finches flitted through cottonwoods, salt willow, and mesquite. The air felt ten degrees cooler and smelled of damp earth and the yellow and blue wildflowers crowding the bank.

  “Do you know what pokeweed looks like?” she asked as they picked their way along the rocks at the edge of the water.

  “I know it’s poisonous.”

  “Not if you boil it good, then steam it with fried bacon and onion. Tastes just like spinach, only better. Here’s some.” Stopping beside a leggy plant with pointed green leaves and ripening berries, she checked it well, then said, “Only pick the youngest leaves, and none that are starting to turn red. And don’t eat any of the berries.”

  “Thomas eats all kinds of berries.”

  “Not this kind. This kind will kill you.”

  “And you’re fixing to feed it to us?”

  “Just the leaves.”

  “I’m not eating any.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  They picked leaves until the bucket was half full, then moved on, hunting another plant. Dragonfl ies circled above the rushing water, catching the light on their long gossamer wings. A squirrel somewhere behind them chattered and fussed. Far in the distance, a cow that had escaped the war ax called out for her herd.

  Edwina was reaching down to check a plant when an odd noise caught her attention—a snuffling, chuffing sound—coming from the brush on the other side of the water. She straightened and scanned the far bank.

  Dappled sunlight. Bugs arcing in the air. A bird startled off a drooping willow branch.

  The creek was moving fast and shallow here, barely a foot deep but wider than where they had come in. A person could cross and barely get his shoes wet. Or his moccasins.

  She glanced at Joe Bill, who had squatted beside her to dig in the rocks with a stick, his chin resting on his bent knees.

  “Joe Bill.”

  “Yeah?” he asked, without looking up.

  “We need to go back.”

  Something in her voice brought his head up.

  “Now,” she whispered. “Go.”

  He rose, the stick still gripped in his hand. “What’s wrong?”

  She took a step back, then tensed when the sound came again. “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?” he whispered, standing so close she could feel the heat of his breath through the cloth on her arm.

  “In the bushes.” She pointed across the water, then almost jumped out of her shoes when the sound came again. “There! You didn’t hear that?”

  Before h
e could answer, the leaves rippled and shook. Edwina grabbed at Joe Bill, her breath suspended, her heart pounding like a wild thing trapped beneath her ribs. “What is it?”

  Low to the ground, something moved, so dappled with shadow and light she could hardly tell the color or shape. Then the leaves parted and a crouched figure appeared. Huge and furred, with yellow eyes and a gaping mouth that showed a curling pink tongue and long stained teeth.

  “Cougar!” Joe Bill shrieked and whirled to scramble up the bank. “Pa! Pa!”

  “No!” Edwina grabbed the back of his shirt. “Don’t run!” She yanked him back so hard he toppled. “He said don’t run!”

  But it was too late.

  The cougar bounded out of the brush, mouth open in a snarl.

  Without thinking of anything except the boy sprawled helpless at her feet, Edwina charged to meet it, shrieking in terror and waving the pail over her head. “Go away, go away, go away!”

  The cougar checked and made a yowling sound, one paw up, claws extended.

  “Go away!” Edwina screamed, waving and rushing into the water.

  The cougar crouched and edged back, ears flat, tail twitching.

  “Ed, drop!” a voice shouted.

  Edwina ducked.

  A rifle cracked. She heard the whine of the bullet past her ear, the whump as it struck flesh, then a broken cry as a huge, heavy weight crashed into her back and drove her face-first into the water.

  Fifteen

  The weight lifted. Hands grabbed at her, flipped her over as if she were a rag doll.

  “Ed! Jesus, are you all right?”

  Coughing and spitting water and grit, Edwina fought to drag air into her lungs as a heavy hand pounded on her back. “D-Don’t,” she choked out. “Stop!”

  He stopped. She felt herself lifted from the water in arms that held her so tight she could scarcely breathe. A moment later, he laid her out on the soft bank in a bed of wildflowers.

  “Talk to me, Ed! Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

  She blinked up at her husband’s pale, worried face. “Joe B-Bill?”

  “He’s here. He’s fine. Tell her you’re fine.”

  Joe Bill came into view. Dirty, wet, spattered with blood. “I’m fine.”