by Martha Hix
“You’re a foolish woman.”
“Perhaps. But you’re . . . stuck with me.”
“Yes, we are stuck, aren’t we?” He laughed, the sound almost maniacal. Easing closer, he snaked an arm around her waist, drawing her to him. “If you must have a man’s kiss lingering on your lips, it will be mine.”
He inclined his head to press his mouth against hers. Fearful she might be of his capabilities, she couldn’t and wouldn’t deny him. I want him.
Her lips parted. His tongue parried with hers. Sighing, she laced her hands behind his naked back, his muscles tensing beneath her fingertips. Somehow, they were both on the floor of the overhang, Jon Marc in a superior position. Her husband grew hard at her belly.
She bowed up to him. The musk of desire flowed. Mindless desire overtook him, as she hoped it would. He kissed her ear, the column of her throat, the slope of a breast. His teeth teased the latter into arousal.
She ached for more. Her fingers prodded between their bodies, finding his engorged staff. He groaned as she worked the buttons of his britches. Her index finger capered with the tip of him, peeling back the foreskin.
Before she could free him completely of the confines, he pushed her away. But not altogether. He gathered up the hems of her skirts, parting her split drawers to rub a middle finger along the tender nub at the apex of her thighs.
“You want your little French phrase, don’t you?” he taunted.
“Yes.”
“How does this feel?”
How could she answer? Her head thrashed from side to side. She moaned low. He settled between her legs, drawing them over his shoulders. Then lips replaced his fingers.
Her fingers curled into the hair of his head, holding him to his task, loving it. The best part was yet to come. She bucked against his mouth, riding the crest to the stars. “More,” she demanded as he thrust against her entry. “Fill me.”
His tongue gave one last lunge. “No. No more.”
He eased from her, rolled away. “Any more and I’d be filling you with a babe. I meant what I said earlier. There’ll be no children for us. Not with things the way they are now. Never, if I can’t learn to trust you.”
The thrumming at her core subsided. She squeezed her legs together, hoping to sustain it. That wasn’t to be.
Turning her gaze to Jon Marc, she saw him swiveling to his feet. He stuffed himself back in britches and buttoned denim. “Good night, Beth.”
“Wait just one minute, mister. We’re stuck. Let’s make the best of it. You’ve got yardsticks for what’ll make this marriage work. I’ve got mine, too. I refuse—absolutely, flatly refuse—to live in fear of losing you to Hoot Todd’s bullet. Make peace. For me. But mostly for yourself.”
“The hell, you say.” Jon Marc bounded away.
She drew up her knees and buried her forehead against them. Staying in this position for hours, she mourned the hell of their existence.
Hoot Todd, his thoughts scrambled from making peace with his sister and hell with her husband, rode into Fort Ewell to find Terecita. He found her, playing the piano in an empty church.
“You ain’t much on that thing,” he charged and scooted onto the bench beside her.
Terecita tried to slam the lid on his fingers, but he was too fast for her. “Do not criticize me, chico.”
“Don’t give me no hard time, woman. I ain’t in the mood for it.”
“You’re in a mood? What about me?” Terecita pointed at her bosom. “What about Sabrina? Padre Miguel says I should send her to La Casa de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, in the City of Mexico. He says I should think of her future. What he says is true. Sabrina must be educated, must know better than I give her. Unless I return to lifting my skirts. That is the only way I can afford to send her to a good school, in a fine city.”
There she went, nagging, nagging, nagging. This was about the fiftieth time Hoot had heard this threat. “Terecita, you ain’t that valuable.”
She ground her heel into his toes. As he yelped, she blew up like a toad. “I do not know why I ever bothered with you.”
“Wish you hadn’t.”
“Then why are you here? If not to lift my skirts, what do you want?”
“Talk. I got troubles, Terecita. O’Brien killed Peña. If I let him get away with murder, I’ll be a laughingstock. Legends don’t let nobody make a fool of them.”
“Peña? I spit on Peña!”
Hoot left the piano bench. Sliding thumbs behind his silver belt buckle, he trod with head down, out the church. It wasn’t that he gave a fig about Peña. Who would? That idiot had been more trouble than use, like when he’d torched Wilson’s home.
But Peña was part of the Todd gang, and a leader looked out for his own. Which meant revenge.
Before his little sister got to him, Hoot would have licked his lips and smiled, making O’Brien dance to the tune of bullets. It aggravated more than it ought to, being caught between his promises to Beth and the vengeance he must exact.
What could he do, and how should he do it, avenging Peña, without paining little ol’ Beth too much? There was no way.
In the moments before dawn broke, Bethany O’Brien came to a conclusion. Not really a conclusion, an affirmation. She loved her husband, had always intended to heal his broken heart, and she must not hide from the fruits of her ill-sown deeds.
But what about his violent streak? He would kill at the drop o’ a pin; never seeing it a sin; but for his troubled soul, my heart did beat, a greater truth ne’er been tol’.
She brushed herself off, stretched the kinks out of weary muscles, and hiked up her chin. She’d see to Sabrina’s breakfast and send her to chores, would go to Jon Marc, would face him down. Like a showdown at dawn. Love must be the victor, not bullets nor hatred.
Halfway home, she heard voices from over her shoulder. She turned. Looking from left to right, she caught sight of a fine coach as it wheeled down the trail from Fort Ewell.
Intuitively, she knew Fitz O’Brien had arrived.
He couldn’t have arrived at a worse time.
He’d known the old goat was on his way. It had been too much to hope for, that Fitz O’Brien would turn back. Why was luck never with Jon Marc?
Wrung out from the near-miss of lovemaking with Beth, he’d guarded her hiding place and kept an eye on the house, throughout the night. Each time his eyes turned to the overhang, he’d gotten aroused again. He wanted her with a fury like none known before, but he must not bury himself in all she offered.
Right now, he had to think of her safety, no matter what sort of fit she pitched. He’d put her on the next stagecoach to Laredo. Once he got rid of a meddlesome old coot.
Fitz’s arrival was made worse by Beth running toward the coach, as if she welcomed the visitor. She was in no danger, not at this moment. Jon Marc took a different direction.
He had to find Hoot Todd.
To try to make peace.
Jon Marc owed Beth that much.
Chapter Twenty-One
Bethany waved the coach to a stop, a good distance before it reached the house. The Caliente had more than one guest, as if they needed any at all, which she and her husband didn’t.
The callers were led by a droop-eyed bloodhound. Even before the coachman proffered a step, the dog bounded from the coach to clump off to a chaparral, where he lifted a leg.
Bethany’s gaze went back to the coach. She was surprised to see a youth take that step. Freckle-faced and dark-haired, the cowlicked boy appeared to be about twelve.
Could this be Pippin O’Brien?
Who else could it be?
“Hello to you, ma’am,” he said, then hoisted a hand, like a coachman, to assist the next visitor.
A big fellow of undeterminable age, wearing the accoutrements of a gentleman, crowded the open door. Swarthy in complexion and emitting a foreign air, he had not a hair on his head. He did sport a golden earring in his left ear.
His nostrils expanding, he inhaled deeply,
then flashed a tooth as golden as his ear jewelry. “Praise Allah, we have arrived.”
It went without saying, this was the genie.
Did he have the magic lamp in a valise?
He lumbered to the ground. Bowing low, he said, “You must be the yield of my magic.”
“Ye be a pretty lass,” said another man.
She lifted eyes to the oldest-looking person she’d ever seen in her life. He crouched over a pair of canes.
The youth and the genie bracketed each side of the door, as if to aid the advent of royalty.
“May I presume you’re Mr. Fitz O’Brien?” Bethany asked.
He nodded, the rumples of his face jiggling like jelly. He did not accept the twofold offer to alight. He didn’t budge. Eyes green below bushy white brows accessed her. “May I presume ye t’ be me great-granddaughter, by law?”
“I am Jon Marc’s wife. Beth.”
“Why did ye stop us short of yer castle? Is me grandson not of a mind t’ be seeing me at all?”
The youth and the foreign-appearing fellow faded into the background, along with the bloodhound.
Bethany stepped up to the coach. “I stopped you for a reason, sir. My own reason. Before you see Jon Marc, I want to know what you want with him.”
“ ’Tis news I bring. ’Twill interest Jonny.”
From what her husband had told her, the shrewd Fitz O’Brien would say anything for his will to prevail. You should be able to identify with that, girl.
“Sir, you and I must talk,” she said.
He backed up. “Come ye into my carriage, lass.”
She climbed the step and entered the plushest mode of transportation that her eyes had ever beheld. The scent of fine leather assailed her nose. A shelf of cut-crystal decanters banked one bulwark, each vessel filled with what had to be fine spirits. The sight of brocade upholstery and fringed pillows took her aback at their luxury. She’d veritably smelled money.
Money unimportant, she helped the old squire retake his seat. She sat opposite. The door remained open.
“My husband isn’t interested in removing to Memphis,” she said bluntly.
A gnarled hand planted a silver-topped cane on the coach floor, then waved it from side to side. “I willna return without him.”
In a perfect world Jon Marc would accept his supposed grandfather’s offer. It would take him from the hardscrabble life of La Salle County, dislodge him from the trouble Hoot was sure to raise. Somehow she couldn’t envision brush-popping Jon Marc cloaked in an embarrassment of riches, his energies expended at a factor house. But that was his upbringing, his heritage, as surely as the Long Lick and a wealth of rotgut had been hers.
Where would she fit into Memphis life?
Memphis or the Caliente, her lot might be partially determined by how Jon Marc reacted to Fitz O’Brien’s visit.
“Mr. O’Brien—”
“Granddaddy will be doing ye.”
“Sir, you are a stranger to me. I wouldn’t feel comfortable with such familiarity.”
“Then call me Fitz.”
“Fitz, it is.” She studied the aged planes of his face, wishing many things could be different, mainly that the world could be perfect . . . here at the Caliente. “Jon Marc won’t listen to you, not if you make demands.”
Fitz leaned back against the fine squabs, pondering her statement. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, the bloodhound gamboled into the coach. Eyes as folded as Fitz’s gaped at Bethany. His tongue lolled.
“ ’Tis Sham II, this beast,” Fitz informed her. “Belongs t’ me great-grandson, Pippin.”
Bethany stroked behind Sham II’s ear, which pleased him. “Then I take it that young man outside is Pippin.”
“Aye. A fine lad is Pippin.”
Pippin, whom Jon Marc esteemed. His presence would be the good amongst the not so good, as her husband would see it. “Why don’t you give your factor house to the boy?”
“T’ be a riverman like his da is what Pippin seeks, not cotton bales. An O’Brien through and through is the lad,” Fitz expanded dolefully. “Set on his own course.”
Bethany studied the old gentleman, her heart going out to him. He’d build a fortune from his factor house, yet none of his descendants appreciated his efforts. What ingrates they were, the O’Briens.
She’d loved her own grandpa, yet he’d left nothing but a gold watch to remember him by. She’d loved Grandpa Todd for his smile, and the way he told tales out of school. She’d loved his warmth. Was no warmth to be had from Fitz O’Brien?
He didn’t look the least bit cold as he said, “I want me grandson back. Before me next birthday.”
“You tossed my husband—a mere youth—to the lions.”
Fitz’s eyes turned sad. “Is a man t’ suffer all the days of his life for one mistake?”
“Why did you make it?”
“Vanity.”
He needn’t say more. After what Jon Marc had told her, Bethany knew that Fitz had expected his grandsons-of-the-blood to follow in his footsteps. As a woman with many mistakes to account for, she understood this man’s folly. “Yours is not an easy task. Jon Marc will not return to you.”
“I will be going t’ me grave unhappy, if I doona have an O’Brien t’ take over me enterprise.”
“What if you had a daughter and she had a son named, say, Smith or Williams? Would that son not be good enough?”
“My daughters doona have sons. They doona have children. Married too late in life, did Phoebe and Contessa.”
“What if they had children? What does a name matter?”
“It matters not,” Fitz conceded. “Matters not . . .”
Sham II rested his chin on Bethany’s knee; she scratched his muzzle, asking Fitz, “Did you know Catfish Abbott is the strawboss here at the Caliente?”
Again the cane tip waved from side to side. A hint of a grin tugged at Fitz’s mouth. “ ’Tis Abbott I seek.”
“Excuse me?”
“Give the factor house t’ Abbott is what I will do.”
“But,” Bethany sputtered. “I thought you were here to collect Jon Marc. You said . . .”
“Jonny is me goal.” Fitz nodded once. “But I know me grandson. He willna go without a fight. I will fight.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Jonny is t’ think ’tis Abbott I seek. ’Twill throw him the length of these United States, or me name isna Fitz O’Brien.”
“Yours is a terrible and probably costly game.”
“ ’Tis me last chance. Run out of games have I. Jonny is destined for Fitz & Son, Factors. ’Twas ordained by God, through the decrees of John Knox. ’Tis time Jonny realized it.”
John Knox? Who was he? She didn’t want to imagine what such person had to do with anything. “I take it you intend to use Catfish as the bait? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Aye. Do ye think I didna have a part in sending the lad here in the first place? Jonny told me naught, so ’twas the Abbott lad I sent t’ do me hearing.”
“So, you’ve had two spies at your pleasure. Pippin to write letters. And Catfish to send reports.”
He nodded.
“And you did this solely to check on an errant O’Brien, one who had no right to the family name?”
Fitz laid the cane across his lap. “Nay. ’Twas because I love Jonny.”
“He doesn’t think so.”
“I will be changing all that.” Fitz set the cane upright again, this time to lean forward on it. “There be something I want t’ tell ye.”
“I’m listening.”
He told her a tale that left her flabbergasted. Tears were in the teller’s eyes.
“That’s outlandish.” Yet she appreciated the pain that his efforts had wrought. If she’d suffered any illusions about his purpose, they vanished, now that she knew how far he’d gone to reunite with Jon Marc. “My husband will never believe it.”
“Ye are wrong. Wait and see, bonny lass. Wait and see.”
&nb
sp; “He won’t allow you to stay long enough to find out.”
“Then ye’ll have t’ help me with it, is what I think.”
Bethany did her own thinking. How would her husband, troubled as he was, react to Fitz’s astounding news? She felt strongly Jon Marc needed a reconciliation with family, no matter his reaction.
Scooting Sham II’s nose from her knee, she got closer to Fitz. “If you love Jon Marc and want his love in return, sir, you must be willing to let him make his own decisions.”
Fitz emitted a tsk of dismissal. “A fool is what he would be, if he chooses this scrap of a ranch over Fitz & Son, Factors. Buying time is what he does. He will be coming back t’ Memphis.”
It offended her, Fitz’s disdain for this ranch that her husband loved so. It might not look like much to a richling from Memphis, but Fitz dismissed the Caliente without understanding the solace it gave to the man he had turned out in the night. Jon Marc had no business returning to Memphis, not with Fitz O’Brien. But shouldn’t that be Jon Marc’s decision?
“I do believe you’ve chosen a hard row to hoe, Fitz. A hard row to hoe.”
But it might be Jon Marc’s sole avenue, if Hoot Todd bore down like cattle on a stampede. Maybe I ought to bake a lemon pie, and see what good it might do.
“Would you care for a lemonade, husband?”
“I do not,” Jon Marc replied, the sun fading to the west.
Glass in hand, Beth stood on the passageway between bedroom and parlor, a duo of seated guests crowding the wide covered shelter, one holding court in an invalid’s chair.
The genie snoozed upright.
It would be preferable, sipping lye, rather than to socialize with a disappointing wife or with the O’Briens who figured “Jon Marc” was listed in Webster’s under disappointment.
No one spoke. Except for Beth. “It’s very good,” she said. “Sweet. Fitz brought the sugar and lemons all the way from Galveston.”
Why was she standing here, trying to fob lemonade off on her husband, when he wanted to be done with the uninvited guests, forthwith? For their own protection, if nothing else. For his own sanity, mainly. She should know that. Hadn’t she once suggested that they would send Fitz on his way, without delay?
