“But why didn’t you say anything about it?” she pressed.
“At first, we didn’t trust you. Now that you know the truth, can you blame us? I was pressed for time when I found you in Lampasas. I married you because I love you and wanted to keep you home safe. I told you I would reveal everything soon. I guess I was waiting for us to get to know each other better. When I realized you were truly in love with me, I panicked. I couldn’t risk exposing my deceit until I was home to deal with your reaction. Then when you were shot and suspecting me, I tried to prove how much I loved you and wanted you. When that matter came up in Dallas, I knew how you would take that news. Then word came about the trial in Austin. I figured you needed time to fully recover. And I needed to learn everything Yancey had told you, in case some of it was lies. I swear I was going to spill everything the moment I got home. I saw those letters from Brax, and they had me plenty worried. I caught your little clues and enticements to confess, but I didn’t know you had the deed. I felt you weren’t in any condition to be jolted with the past. I’m sorry, love; I honestly didn’t mean to hurt you or deceive you. I can’t lose you, Callie; I love you with all my heart and soul.” He waited anxiously for those words to sink into her mind.
In her gut and heart, Calinda knew he was being totally honest. In a way, her own deceptions had blocked the truth. As these revelations settled in, she remained quiet and thoughtful.
“Callie? Do you believe me?” he asked hoarsely.
She looked him in the eye and murmured, “Yes.”
A whoop of joy and relief rent the air. A broad smile claimed his lips. “You’ll come home with me? You won’t leave again?”
“Yes. No,” she cheerfully replied, smiling up at him.
He fell to his back on the grass, sighing loudly. She rolled to her side and asked, “May I go to sleep now? I’m beat.”
“Sleep as long as you wish, love. I’ll be right here,” he stated, patting the ground as his gaze caressed her.
“How about if you be right here?” she retorted, patting the bedroll, eyes heaped with smoldering embers of desire.
“In your condition, just for protection and sleep,” he teased, warming to the fires in her green eyes.
She laughed and pouted, “For tonight.”
“Think I can move back into our room when we get home?”
“If you don’t, I’ll hunt you down and hold you prisoner,” she jested, laughing happily and honestly for the first time lately.
“I’m already your prisoner, Callie,” he told her huskily.
“And I, yours, my love,” she seductively responded.
“No more secrets, Callie; I swear it,” he promised sincerely.
Cal leaned over and kissed him, provocatively and sweetly. Lynx gingerly pulled her into his embrace. They snuggled together on the bedroll as she relented to the strong callings of slumber. He watched her for a time, then closed his eyes.
They rode for two days, halting frequently to relent to her need for rest and to master her dizziness and nausea during the mornings. When they camped that second night near a river, she bathed and splashed joyfully as she refreshed her body and spirits. When she grew queasy at dinner, Lynx studied her closely. He hadn’t noticed any change in her figure when they made love, but he suddenly recalled how sensitive her breasts had been.
Striking as swiftly and unexpectedly as a lightning bolt, a suspicion jolted him. Lynx eyed her intensely. She was relaxing on the bedroll in a lively mood. He sat down beside her and asked, “Cal, is there something you haven’t told me?”
Baffled, she met his piercing gaze. “Such as?” she hinted.
“This illness of yours, tell me about it,” he coaxed.
Naive, Cal related all of the symptoms which had been plaguing her of late, excluding one which she had failed to notice. “When’s the last time you…you…” he faltered as he tried to select the appropriate word to use in her presence.
“When I what, Lynx?” she pressed in bewilderment.
“When you did what all women do every month?” he stated, actually blushing in modesty. “Are you pregnant?” he asked abruptly.
“Pre…pregnant?” Cal stammered in astonishment. Her mind went to whirling with that added clue. “Am I?” she asked him.
Lynx chuckled. “You do have all the signs. Right?” he teased as she reasoned on his assessment. “When was the last time, Cal?”
“Before I was kidnapped,” she told him shyly.
“That doesn’t pin down any date, love. Since we were married?” Lynx aided her deliberation.
“I didn’t marry you because I was carrying your child,” she informed him, if that was his implication.
“It doesn’t matter. If you were, it was my doing,” he jested.
“The last time was three days after our wedding. Since then, I haven’t…I suppose it happened after you rescued me from Stevens.”
“From your symptoms and our timing, that should make it about two months into blooming,” he concluded, patting her flat abdomen.
“Are you angry?” she fretted anxiously.
“To be expecting a son or a daughter from my beautiful wife? Never, love. Our first baby, imagine that?” he stated at the pleasing wonder of it. Chills suddenly washed over him. “Are you sure you’re all right?” he queried.
“I suppose I’m normal, if your judgment is accurate.”
“I mean about the shooting and all the pressures you’ve been through lately? You were pregnant during that fall. I could kick myself for endangering you and our baby like that,” he criticized himself.
With this discovery, she felt better immediately. She wasn’t sick or dying; she was carrying her love’s child, their child. She lovingly caressed the area which would soon expand and tell everyone. “Our baby,” she murmured in ecstasy.
He looked at her, fierce love and pride storming his body. He captured her face between his hands to engulf the radiance there. “I love you, Callie. I promise everything will be fine now.”
“I know, my love,” she quickly and joyously agreed. “Our baby,” she stated again, giggling softly. “There’s so much I’ll need to learn. Heavens, Lynx, I don’t know anything about babies or having them,” she vowed, suddenly apprehensive and insecure.
“That makes two of us, but we’ll learn together.”
A bright and serene smile greeted him as she said, “Yes, we’ll learn together. I love you, you arrogant and mysterious rogue. You with your sneaky silver spurs,” she jested, playfully striking one with her finger and watching the tiny stars fly round and round, glittering in the moonlight. “A golden stranger in magical black,” she teased.
“Never would I have believed I would marry a girl I met in the Red Satin Saloon, lying seductively in my bed in that sleazy red and black gown. You can’t imagine the contrast in my first thoughts and feelings compared to them right this minute.”
“Knowing you, Lynx Cardone, I can well imagine,” she stated.
“Good thing I didn’t toss you out of my room that night. Then some other man would be experiencing this special moment.”
“Fate, my love, that guardian angel you mentioned. After I met you, mean and lecherous though you were, I could think of no man but Cody Richards,” she murmured dreamily.
“What?” he shrieked.
“As you recall, that’s the name I was given for my late caller, that mysterious drifter in devilish black with hair and eyes of gold.”
“I owe fate a large debt for withholding my identity until we could meet again. Hearing it at the ranch, you would have surely fled.”
“Maybe not,” she whispered softly, revealing her ruse that night.
They both laughed as they reflected on their first meeting at the ranch. “You think you can stay home and take care of your greedy husband and child? Or should I use this spur to place my mark of warning and ownership on a lady who carelessly wears red satin?”
They exchanged playful looks and laughed. Calinda softly
parried, “I’ll make you a bargain, my love; you hang up those silver spurs and I’ll promise to never wear red satin or visit another saloon. Besides, my fierce and cunning Lynx, your ownership is much too vivid as it is, or soon will be,” she insinuated, tapping her abdomen.
Impassioned, he murmured seductively into her ear, “I love you, Llama de mi corazon, mi alma, mi mente, mi vida…” Catching his slip and knowing why she had once rebelled at that endearment from her father’s letter, he leaned back and apologized, “I’m sorry, love; I forgot. But I never knew Brax called Mother that.”
She smiled provocatively and replied, “Honestly, it doesn’t matter anymore. But I would like to know what you’re saying. Perhaps I should have lessons in Spanish? When my other education is completed, if ever,” she speculated mirthfully.
Lynx tenderly grasped her face between his strong and gentle hands, whispering huskily, “I love you, flame of my heart, my soul, my mind, my life…”
Her rapturous gaze devoured his compelling features. “Yo te quiero, mi amante; that’s all the Spanish you taught me.”
“That’s more than enough, Callie Cardone.” His lips covered hers as they sank entwined on his bedroll, the musical sounds of a lovely September night offering serenity to their passionate lovemaking beneath the Texas moonlight.
Epilogue
On the prosperous Cardone Ranch, it was late spring of 1881. In March of ’79, Calinda Braxton Cardone had given birth to a son. The child had been named Travis Cardone, in memory of Colonel William Barrett Travis who had commanded the ill-fated and heroic stand by the Texas Rangers at the Alamo. Except for Lynx’s silver spurs and badge in a drawer, the name Travis was his only link to past days with that dauntless force. Also keeping her promise, Calinda had never worn Laura’s red satin gown again.
Following Lynx’s last rescue of his wife and their return home, the ensuing months had been peaceful for the Cardones. Manuel, Salina, and Clint Deavers had been arrested for their crimes. Their names were never mentioned again on the ranch.
To Calinda’s relief and joy, not once since his retirement from the Rangers had Lynx appeared restive or discontent. He.seemed too busy with the ranch, his adoring wife, and growing son to have time or energy to desire anything other than what he proudly possessed. Neither had thought it possible, but their love and passion had increased with time. Even Rankin had been snared by love; he had been seeing Eliza Adams, a lovely widow from a nearby ranch, for over eleven months.
At two, Travis was a happy and active child. He was bright, daring, and confident. Mischievous and determined, Calinda was constantly chasing after her small son to keep him out of danger. Travis was frequently seen riding with his parents or keenly witnessing the exciting facets of ranch-life. Even though he was so young and small, Travis Cardone thought nothing of climbing the ladder into the stable loft, or sneaking under the corral fence to get closer to the horses, or unwisely testing the heat of a branding iron out of curiosity, or showing his strength by “helping” with chores.
Often when Travis attempted something too difficult or perilous, Calinda would sigh and shake her head, playfully warning her husband, “Merciful Heavens, Lynx, he’s as daring and stubborn as you. But he’s also as handsome and smart. His skin’s as bronze as yours and his hair is just as tawny. I hate to imagine how many hearts he’ll break.”
Lynx would chuckle and retort, “But he had your mysterious and expressive green eyes, mi corazon. I must confess, he is a handsome and roguish devil already.”
“I do wish you’d stop filling his head with all those tales of Rangers and their colorful exploits. If not, he’ll join up the moment he’s of age. Do you regret leaving the force? Do you miss it?”
Lynx would gaze into her lovely and entreating face to declare honestly, “Never, llama de mi corazon.”
Only once, three months ago, had Lynx left home without Calinda. As the dark secrets of the past had unfolded, they had been conquered by their love and serenity. Unexpectedly, a letter had arrived from California, a stunning letter which demanded attention and action. Both Rankin and Lynx had journeyed to San Francisco to sever the last remaining tie to their turbulent past.
In California, a startling tale had awaited the two Cardone men on a windy and chilly March day in ’81. Upon arrival, the two men learned that Laura Cardone had died in childbirth in February, alone and probably terrified. As merciful fate would have it, the ailing child had not survived. According to local authorities, Elliott Braxton had vanished six months earlier, proclaimed dead at the hands of hostile Indians in Colorado where he was supposedly checking out a silver claim he’d purchased.
Letters found in Laura’s and Elliott’s possessions had exposed their ties to the Cardone family in Texas; thus, Rankin and Lynx had been notified of the three deaths and a lingering problem: Carlotta Braxton, eight years old…
Laura’s body was returned to the Cardone Ranch, to finally and perhaps fatefully occupy that grave on the hillside. While Rankin was discovering and claiming his lost daughter and Lynx was meeting and seeing his sister for the first time, Travis Cardone was celebrating his second birthday, without his father or grandfather…
There was no doubt Carlotta “Lottie” Braxton was the daughter of Laura and Rankin. Lottie’s hair was as black and shiny as coal; her large eyes were as dark as midnight. An undeniable resemblance to Rankin was stamped on the girl’s face. Almost immediately upon returning, Lottie had been officially declared Carlotta Cardone, another heir to this vast and opulent empire.
It hadn’t taken long for Calinda to notice several dismaying and saddening facets to this curious child. For the tender age of eight, Lottie was exceptionally mature and disturbingly withdrawn. Calinda realized the girl was slightly spoiled and willful. Lottie had given both Calinda and Travis a difficult time after her arrival. To make matters worse, Rankin overly indulged and excused the audacious child, seeking to make up for her suffering.
Calinda decided she would become just as beguiling as Lottie, to win her affections and trust. Only then could she effect any changes in Lottie. Surely a grown woman could outwit a defiant child? Perhaps Lottie’s behavior was defensive. Perhaps Lottie needed correction and instructions. Perhaps Lottie wasn’t to blame for her offensive traits and actions.
With time, effort, affection, and patience, Calinda made tremendous progress with the little minx. As time passed, Lottie began viewing Calinda as her big sister. Before summer ended, peace and love ruled on the Cardone Ranch, and the past was dead forever.
When Eliza Adams finally won Lottie’s affection and trust, the romance between her and Rankin flourished, The timing was perfect for Calinda to encourage Lynx to build that dream-house on the bluff not far away, the one they had discussed and planned for so long.
With Eliza and Lottie in Rankin’s heart and future, perhaps that was a perfect solution for all. They would be close, but not too close.
When Calinda seriously broached the subject of the new house, Lynx was very receptive to the idea. Rankin had been hinting strongly at a new family of his own. Plus, Lynx was noticing some changes in his beloved’s body which boldly hinted at another child, and Lynx was eager to point them out to her. Another child with his only love, his first love, his wild and wonderful love…
eISBN 978-1-4201-2737-9
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Copyright © 1984 by Janelle Taylor
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Sixteenth printing: August, 1995
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First Love Wild Love Page 51
