Texas Love Song

by Jodi Thomas

  McCall nodded and stood back, looking like she wasn’t sure she wanted to follow.

  Slowly, Sloan tested his weight on each step. The wood held. Whoever built this place had built it to last. The door had been almost airtight, keeping out leaves and rain.

  As he moved further down, heavy cellar air filled his lungs and spiderwebs barred his path. Dusting the few webs aside, he shone the light lower into a room.

  “Oh, my!” McCall whispered in awe from a few steps behind him. “This is the original dugout Grandfather built. This is ‘Sanctuary.’”

  Sloan touched the ceiling of the room that was too short for him to stand in. “He must have reinforced the roof, then closed it off with the door years ago.”

  “But why?” McCall searched the room. “We have a cellar closer to the house. I remember when I was a child he was always planting trees near this spot. When he died, I was about twelve. I remember Father thinking of burying him near here. He said after they built the new house Grandfather used to walk out here and sit among the trees until dawn.”

  Sloan glanced at the only piece of furniture, a bed. “Maybe he used this as his guest room?”

  McCall touched a dusty but neatly stacked pile of bedding. It looked as if years ago it had been laundered and put at the foot of the bed. “Maybe. But it makes no sense. Why didn’t I know about this place? I don’t think my father knew it was still here.” She wrinkled her forehead. “Why would Alyce know about this place and never tell me?”

  Sloan checked the corners. “I have no idea, but I know why she told us now. This is the only safe place for us to stay. Your house is an open target. Anyone could get a shot in from any direction. But here, no one would ever find us. Maybe your grandfather left it in case of Indian attack. Or maybe he thought he’d store guns in it during the war. Who knows?”

  McCall looked around. “You’re right. If I didn’t know of this, neither will anyone else. It’s warm and dry. I’ll be able to sleep the night here and you can sleep in the barn.”

  Sloan wasn’t sure he heard any of the words she said beyond the “I.” She was making it plain he wasn’t invited to share the bed. He wasn’t about to ask, after what they’d said to one another today, but it hurt his pride that she felt the need to say no anyway. “I’ll carry over a good mattress,” he mumbled, hiding his feelings.

  “I’ll get the bedding before it gets too dark outside to find the opening among the trees.” McCall walked past him, lifting the lantern from his head and carrying it up the steps.

  For a long while Sloan stood in the darkness, telling himself he hadn’t really planned to sleep with her again. He’d told her the only reason he was here was to see her safe, then he’d be gone. But part of him had been fool enough to believe that they might stay together one more night. If she wanted that, she wouldn’t have run out on him the morning after they made love.

  How could the greatest night of his life have been so easily forgettable to her? All afternoon, he’d thought of the way her skin felt to his touch. The way her body moved against him. The way she smelled of dampness and roses after they’d made love. But he hadn’t touched her. It never seemed like the right time. He didn’t want her to think he was some kind of animal who attacked her at every opportunity. Even if the thought was in his mind most of the time.

  This morning seemed a million miles away. Had he really kissed her only this morning? And felt her legs wrapped around his waist? Had it only been hours since he’d tasted passion?

  For a short time, they’d been so right together. Nothing else in the world mattered. But the time passed and he had no idea how to get back to that magic loving place. He couldn’t just say that he wanted to make love to her again. The woman he’d slept with had disappeared and been replaced by someone he couldn’t get close to.

  Any other woman would be frightened and want someone nearby. McCall was doing what she did best…organizing.

  Sloan forced the thoughts to the corners of his mind. He needed to have all his wits about him. Trouble was riding toward him at full speed. She could sleep here and be safe. He’d bunk in the loft of the barn where he could watch the road, at least.

  He climbed the stairs and walked to the barn.

  An hour later he was too lost in the task of cleaning some of the equipment to notice McCall until she was almost close enough to touch him.

  “What are you doing?” she asked casually.

  He wanted to yell, “Keeping my hands busy so I don’t make a fool of myself by attacking you,” but instead he said, “I thought I’d oil some of these harnesses before sundown.”

  “Will we be safe after dark?”

  “Since those searching for us have never been here, and this place is hard enough to find in the light, I’d say we’re safe once the sun sets. Bull Willis won’t know what he’s riding into at night, so he’ll wait for daylight.”

  McCall nodded and began saddling one of the horses.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Sloan snapped.

  “I’m going for a ride. Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon. I know how to travel without being seen.”

  “You can’t—”

  “There you go again, telling me what I can and can’t do.” McCall pulled the cinch tight.

  “How about I stop talking to you at all!”

  “That would be a great blessing, I think, for the one thing I don’t need is a man telling me what to do.”

  Before he could answer, she swung up onto the saddle and moved through the door. Sloan was only seconds behind, but she’d almost disappeared out of sight before he cleared the barn.

  He followed, but as always she knew no speed but fast. She was familiar with the land and he had to guess his way. But he managed to keep her in sight as the sun set. Within a mile he realized she wasn’t just out riding, but was heading to a certain point.

  She rode north, closer to town, but didn’t follow the road. At the far corner of her land, she turned onto a small lane that led up to a cottage sitting just far enough off the road to go unnoticed by travelers.

  “Lacy?” she called as she neared. “Lacy, are you home?”

  Sloan slowed and watched from the shadows as a stout woman came to the door of the cottage. “Who’s out there?”

  “It’s McCall Harrison. May I come to call?”

  “Mrs. Harrison. Well, bless my soul. Do come in, child. I haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays. You know you’re always welcome.”

  McCall lowered herself from the horse and tied the reins to a post. She’d known Lacy since she’d married. Lacy had moved in about that time to this small house and began making desserts for the station. Everyone in the county knew her by her fine cooking.

  The shorter woman held her door open wide. “I was thinking of you only today when I heard about the trouble over at Howard’s station. I was sure glad you was gone and didn’t see what someone did to Mr. Howard. He ain’t an overly kind man, but he don’t deserve a beating.”

  Sloan moved a little closer to the house. He could smell fresh bread and see loaves lined up on a table inside. Lacy was a woman in her forties, maybe old enough to be McCall’s mother. She was short and well-rounded, with white hair only lightly peppered. Her bustline seemed a solid roll from her double chin to her thick waist.

  “The men who hurt Mr. Howard were looking for me,” McCall said as she pulled off her gloves.

  “I heard that, but I can’t imagine why.” Lacy moved inside. “Anyone who’d want to hurt you must be crazy. I’ve known you for years, and you never done a soul a bit of harm. Would you come in, child, and rest a spell? You look tired and I got some hot tea ready.”

  “Thanks.” McCall moved past the woman. “I’d like that.”

  Once inside, Lacy seemed a little nervous. The older woman often visited with McCall when delivering pies to the station. A few times they’d shared a meal there, but McCall had never made a social call.

  “Do you like sugar in your tea?” Lacy dust
ed an already spotless side table.

  “No.” McCall watched her closely. “I like my tea just the way Holden did.”

  Lacy rattled the cup and saucer, almost dropping it. “And how is that?”

  Suddenly, McCall didn’t want to hurt Lacy. She truly liked the woman. “Just plain,” she said softly.

  Lacy set the cup down before her and lowered herself into the rocker across from McCall without pouring herself any tea. “If you’re in some kind of trouble, I’ll do anything I can to help.”

  “Thank you,” McCall said. “I think I’ll be fine. I’ve come about something else. Something that has nothing to do with the men who are following me.”

  “Yes.” Lacy stared at her hands. “What is it?”

  McCall looked at the little woman, thinking that she should hate her. This woman had been Holden’s lover for years. What had Starkie said…even before Holden married? McCall knew Holden, though from a good family, had little money. Most of the time they’d lived on her inheritance. Even the cottage and land his mistress called home belonged to her. She should throw the woman out on the streets. It would be the proper thing to do.

  But she couldn’t hate Lacy. She was a kind woman, McCall could understand why Holden would come to her Maybe he’d loved her. Maybe Lacy had loved him. For her peace of mind, McCall had to know.

  Blinking away the tears, she thought back over the years of her marriage and her husband’s death. If Lacy had loved him, she had never gotten to say good-bye. McCall had held him when he died and received all the sympathy as his widow. She’d been the one who’d mourned and buried Holden. Lacy must have only been allowed to cry in silence.

  “Lacy,” McCall said softly. “I have to know the truth, though it never will go beyond this room. Did you love Holden?”

  The older woman didn’t answer for a moment, and McCall held the hope that she might have been mistaken about Lacy. Maybe Starkie got the name wrong, or the story wrong. If so McCall would apologize and ask Lacy to forgive her for the late call and the question.

  But when Lacy glanced up, she looked like she might cry, and McCall knew the truth before she said a word.

  Lacy straightened slightly and mumbled, “I guess you found out. We never meant for you to know. I told Holden after I met you that I never wanted to hurt you, and he was never, ever, to tell you about me.”

  McCall placed her hand on Lacy’s tightly balled fingers, realizing the older woman could have lied. “I don’t want to hurt you, either. I just need to know a few things. I tried to love Holden, but I never felt like he let me. It would help me to know that someone did love him enough to make him happy.”

  Lacy was silent. Her hands trembled beneath McCall’s touch.

  “He loved you, didn’t he, Lacy? You did make him happy.” McCall faced the truth.

  “I tried.” Tears bubbled over the now wrinkled face. “We had some times.”

  “He should have married you.” McCall almost hated him for the first time in her life. If he’d have married Lacy, they might have all been happier.

  “I wouldn’t let him,” Lacy answered with pride. “I weren’t nothing but trash when he met me. I weren’t no officer’s wife. You was that, Mrs. Harrison. You was all the best that could be. There weren’t a day back during the war, or since, that I ain’t been proud of who my Holden married.”

  McCall was shocked. She sat back in her chair and closed her eyes, remembering all the nights that Holden would go for a ride and not return until after midnight. She’d thought he’d gone into the night to think, or to the station to talk with someone. He must have been here with Lacy. All those nights she’d slept in her room alone, he could have been here and she’d never have known.

  “I’d think you’d hate me for marrying the man you loved.” McCall couldn’t understand. They should be throwing rocks at one another, not sitting drinking tea.

  “Oh, no!” Lacy answered. “I always felt sorry for you.”

  “Sorry for me?”

  Lacy looked embarrassed.

  “Please,” McCall needed to hear it all, “I have to hear the truth.”

  “Holden told me about how you was. Cold and all…even in bed. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I think lots of ladies like yourself don’t feel that more animal feeling some of us get. It’s probably a blessing in the long run of life.”

  McCall was too shocked to speak.

  Lacy patted her arm. “He told me you didn’t like to be touched. That you was all proper, all the time. But don’t you worry, I know you got deep feelings. You proved that by doing what you did to bring him home. There weren’t many women who’d drive a wagon across Indian country to bring a man home to bury.”

  Tears streamed down Lacy’s chubby cheeks. “It meant a lot to me these past three years to be able to visit the grave. I’m always real careful, never going when anyone is around. I hope you’ll still allow me to, now that you know how it was between Holden and me.”

  McCall slid from her chair to the floor in front of Lacy, watching the woman cry. “Of course you can,” she whispered, wishing she could also cry. The woman had taken her husband’s love. But all she could see was how much greater Lacy’s loss was. “You’re welcome anytime,” McCall whispered as she wrapped her arms around the woman.

  Lacy’s tears were rivers now as she clung to McCall. “I miss him every day, and I ain’t never been able to tell anyone. I’ve lived in fear that someday you’d find out and have me kicked off this land like the trash I am.”

  McCall thought of all the heartache she’d caused this woman without ever knowing it. “I’m so sorry you were afraid. Holden should have deeded this square of land to you. I’ll see it’s done.”

  “You don’t have to do that.” Lacy wiped her cheek with her sleeve. “Holden was right not to give me any of your land. It wouldn’t have been right. You was just a child when he married you. When I found out, I was madder than a wet hen. I told him he better never hurt you or be mean to you or he’d answer to me.”

  The knowledge of how close Lacy and Holden must have been for her to threaten him so sank into McCall. She never would have dreamed of saying such a thing to him.

  “He weren’t, was he?” Lacy asked. “Mean to you?”

  “No. He never beat me or was mean to me,” McCall answered. Unless indifference could count as cruelty. “He treated me much as my father had before.”

  McCall had to ask. “Was he good to you, Lacy?”

  Lacy smiled. “He was always good to me. From the first time I was with him, he never would let me be with anyone else. Paid me most of his money so I could live without taking in laundry. He was always giving me things and telling me how I was in his heart when he was away fighting.”

  McCall couldn’t imagine the Holden she knew ever using those words.

  “Sometimes I still miss his arms holding me all night long.” She looked down at McCall. “I’ve heard tell some men are one-woman men. I guess for Holden there was two women. Course I wasn’t near as important as you. He gave you his name.”

  “No.” McCall’s training of always telling the truth wouldn’t allow her to lie now. “He was a one-woman man. He was your man, Lacy. I may have had his name, but you had his heart.”

  “Oh, no, child!”

  “Yes,” McCall argued. “In all the years we were married he never hurt me, but he never held me in his arms through the night. You were the woman he slept beside in his thoughts and dreams, when he couldn’t be with you all the time.”

  “I thank you for telling me that.” Lacy wiped her nose. “It means a great deal to me. I’ll hold them words in my heart till I die. I promise I won’t ever tell nobody about being with him. You do him proud as his widow. If folks knew about me and him it’d only muddy his name.”

  Reaching in her pocket for her handkerchief, McCall touched Holden’s watch, which she’d meant to give to Annie. “Would you like this?” she asked as she handed Lacy the watch.

  “Oh, yes,” Lacy
cried, turning the gold over and over in her hand. “I’ll treasure it. He always put it on the night-stand so he wouldn’t stay too long and have to ride home after sunup.”

  As Lacy opened the watch, she cried in surprise.

  McCall looked at the inside of the watch case. The letters M and L had been scratched there. “What is it?” McCall asked.

  “He always put them letters on his notes to me. I can’t read, but he said they meant ‘My Love.’ He said whenever I looked at them I was to think of him, for he was thinking of me.”

  Tears streamed down Lacy’s face as she held the watch to her. “Oh, thank you.”

  McCall smiled and leaned to kiss the woman on the cheek. “You’re welcome.”

  Lacy looked up in question. “And thank you for not hating me and telling ever’one so’s I’d be run out of town. What I did, I did because of the way I felt for him. It never had nothin’ to do with you. I felt bad that if you ever found out you’d be hurt and hate me. But you brought me this instead. Now I can look at this watch and know he was thinking of me ever’time he looked at it, no matter where he was.”

  “I’d never hate you,” McCall answered. “And I’m glad I could give you the watch.” Something that had meant nothing to her, Lacy would cherish. “I have to go now, but will you promise to come see me in the spring? We’ll visit the grave, and maybe we could plant some flowers in the cemetery.”

  “I’d be honored. Your visit has lifted a weight off my soul that’s been mighty heavy.”

  “And your honesty has let me see the truth, Lacy. I can understand how Holden could love you so dearly.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Harrison. You is the finest lady I ever met. There ain’t nobody who’d have done what you just did. Giving me the watch and all. I won’t never forget it.”

  McCall hugged Lacy and walked out, not noticing Sloan slip away from the window only a moment before.

  Twenty-six

  SLOAN RELEASED HIS horse into the corral and climbed the ladder to the loft just in time to see McCall break through the line of trees to the north and ride in. The moonlight danced in her long hair as she galloped. He couldn’t help but smile, thinking she was her most beautiful when she rode.