Magic and the Texan

by Martha Hix

  Beth let out a sigh, moving closer to Jon Marc. With a grin as wide as the Texas sky, she smiled up at her husband.

  But Fitz hadn’t finished speaking. “Jonny ... I canna leave without telling ye the truth. Was a trick I was meaning t’ play on ye. By dangling Abbott as bait. Meant t’ lure ye, meant for ye think I would be giving the factor house t’ him.”

  Everyone, Jon Marc sensed, expected an explosion of wrath. Catfish mounted up, fast, as if to make a swift getaway. Eugene retreated, until he backed into a coach wheel. Beth squeezed her husband’s hand. She had a mighty grip.

  Pippin, on the other hand, stepped forward. His dark cowlick catching a ray of sunlight, as well as his freckles, he boosted his twelve-year-old jaw and stood down his great-grandfather. “What are you gonna do about Fitz & Son?”

  “Sell it, lad.”

  “No, you ain’t. I want it. My dad has other sons to help him with his steamship company. He don’t need me. I need you, Great-granddaddy. And you need me. I’m strong and I’m smart, and I can learn about cotton and how to sell it.” Pippin wiggled his own set of O’Brien shoulders, albeit adopted. “You needn’t worry ’bout love messing things up, Great-granddaddy. Me and ’Brina, we’re already in love. She likes the idea of living in Memphis—I already asked her. We gonna start a whole new dynasty.”

  Jon Marc cut his eyes to Beth, who did what she could not to laugh at the naivete of youth. Her husband, on the other hand, wondered how their lives would have turned out, had Beth Buchanan come into his life at Pippin’s age.

  “Great-granddaddy? What do you think?”

  “Ye’re too young, lad.” Fitz tilted his head toward Jon Marc, who cast him a warning glower. A smile pulled up old lips. Fitz raised a finger, like he’d just had a brilliant idea. “But now that ye have me thinking, Pippin, I do believe there is a place for ye at Fitz & Son. As an apprentice, if yer parents doona object.”

  Beth left her husband to kneel in front of Fitz. “Work on that, sir. You can talk them into it, or my name isn’t Beth O’Brien.”

  Fitz laughed.

  So did Jon Marc, the latter shaking his head in amazement. “Too bad she can’t go back with you, Granddad. If she can talk Hoot Todd out of a feud, Burke and Susan wouldn’t stand a chance. Don’t get any ideas of leaving, wife! You’re right where you belong.”

  Four months later, Padre Miguel finished exerting his authority in the matter of Bethany’s conversion to the faith, as was his privilege as a frontier priest. Not that he wouldn’t have bent the rules, no matter his authority.

  He served first Communion, in private.

  It was All Saints Day, the first of November.

  The wafer tasted bland on her tongue, as did the wine, yet the blessed sacrament gave her a fulfillment that she’d never known, outside her husband’s arms. At last God would hear her prayers.

  But He had in so many ways, ways too numerous to count.

  Bethany had everything that she’d ever dreamed of, save for God’s blessing over her marriage . . . or a child to hold in her arms.

  “Amen,” intoned the priest.

  She rose from the rail. Padre Miguel opened his arms, and she went into them, to exchange a hug. The thieves had done honor to their clandestine pact.

  “I must go.” She wrapped a horse blanket around her shoulders to ward off the blue norther—unseasonably cold weather—that blew outside the church of Santa María. “I told Jon Marc I’d be home before nightfall. And I promised to stop by the post office before I left town.”

  “Vaya con Dios. ”

  “I will. Thanks to you. And to God.” She slanted her face toward the priest. “How can I honor Him?”

  “You will think of a way.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Brrr!” Bethany, fresh from first Communion, sped toward home and rushed inside the parlor. “It’s cold outside!”

  Jon Marc, who had tucked up in front of a fire, poetry volume in hand, left the settee in the now-spacious room. He enclosed her in his arms, horse blanket and all. “You should have kept it for yourself, that coat you tailored for Sabrina.”

  “Don’t be silly. She needs it.”

  The girl had not gone with Ramón and Manuel to the city of Mexico, as Terecita had promised. Lately, Bethany had tutored her kin. And she liked it. Yet Sabrina would go away to boarding school in the new year—oh, how her aunt dreaded saying good-bye, even for the semester. But it was for the best. Her niece needed proper education, if she were to become the lady her mother dreamed of. Perhaps to live on the Mississippi with Tristan O’Brien.

  I want my own child. Be it of my body, or adopted!

  “I feel like a churl,” Jon Marc said as he led Bethany toward the rug she’d braided, that presently rested in front of the hearth, “wearing this sweater you knit for me, when you’re cold. You’re a paragon, Mrs. O’Brien. Knitting sweaters and mittens for everyone we know of, even Hoot Todd.”

  Despite the weather, Hoot and his band, astride fine horses sporting new brands, thanks to their crossing the C’s from horse coats with a running iron, were currently on a campaign to rob stagecoaches in a more populated area, where writers were sure to tread.

  She said, “Hoot looks good in chartreuse, won’t you agree?”

  “Wife, I have no idea how Todd looks in anything. Men don’t ogle men.”

  She wiggled up to an all-male form. “He looks good. So do you.” She smoothed fingers over her querido’s woolen-clad chest. “I love you in damson purple.”

  His face went the same shade of purple. “Do you really think this is a good color for a man?”

  “I most certainly do.” She began to shed her wrap, since a network of veins were warming, thanks to Jon Marc’s presence.

  “Beth honey, I’m going to send to Laredo for a coat for you.”

  “That would be nice,” she replied, no paragon by any means. “I’ve heard cashmere is warmer than down.”

  “Have you now?” he teased. “You could end up an expensive wife.”

  “Better get that herd to Kansas, husband. Else I’ll flatten your purse.”

  “What you do is bulge Old Duke.” His hand guiding her to the floor, they sat, her spine against his middle, one of her favorite places. Mighty Duke swelled.

  Bethany closed her eyes to the orange fire, and wiggled against that which amazed her in its prowess.

  “I oughta kick myself for suggesting you wear britches,” Jon Marc muttered, his fingers delving into the top of denim. “There’s a reason women wear dresses. Men designed them for easy access.”

  “Is that what the poets say?”

  “That’s what I say,” Jon Marc replied with a growl, then dug at her buttons.

  While his fingers eased trousers away from her hip, she squirmed out of them. In no manner was she cold.

  His rid himself of his own britches, then she inched backward, again settling at Mighty Duke.

  “I’ve never taken you this way,” he murmured.

  “You’ve done it many ways, why not this one?”

  His fingers coasted beneath her shirt, stopping at the swell of her breasts. “I got more than I ever fancied in you.”

  “Same with me.”

  That was when she shoved her hips to him. He parted her cheeks, placing Duke just short of its goal. No! She didn’t want this—had meant this. Oscar had used her thusly.

  Jon Marc never used her.

  He said, “It tempts me, but I won’t. It goes against Nature. A man must penetrate the proper place.”

  “Do it.”

  He did.

  To grant better entry, she planted her palms on the rug. And then he was in her, marvelously in her, as her desires demanded. His large sacs slapped her thighs, as he thrust into her, more times than any reasonable woman could count. All the while, he caressed her flesh, first her hips, then her waist, then her breasts. Luscious time passed—she relished every moment of it, her passions flying higher and higher. Sensing his completion, she f
elt her own. Her muscles tightened around his sex. With a snap of ecstasy he pressed one last time, planting his seed within her.

  And then he rolled her backward, bringing his spine to the rug, her head to his chest. Still caressing her breasts, he whispered, “I don’t think I could ever get enough of you.”

  “I pray you don’t.”

  The Duke sagged out of her. She squirmed, releasing him, before flipping to her side. Her fingers slipping along Jon Marc’s well-shaped hips, she cupped her palm over the blue-veined power, now listless. It was lovely. Thick and massive, even at slack.

  A hunger lusted within her, the need to taste his jewel. Once, Oscar had forced her head to his spindly shaft, which roused nothing but counting sheep. She didn’t find Jon Marc repulsive. Her tongue darted out, just a bit. “Would you let me do as you’ve done many times?”

  He flushed. “Well, I, I, I don’t know. Interesting. But what if I wasted our seed?”

  “Couldn’t we be selfish just this one time?”

  His eyes showed that he would relent.

  “Is it too soon for you?” she asked.

  As if summoned, Mighty Duke nodded. “Not too soon,” Jon Marc growled and pulled her head to it.

  Eager lips surrounded the stout trunk. The tip of her tongue rounded the area beneath his foreskin, then she took him deeper. The tip pressed her tonsils, yet he still wasn’t in. It took swirling her hips to accommodate him. He went past her throat, yet she didn’t gag. Jon Marc’s fingers combed into her hair, his groan filling the parlor.

  “Geezus—never imagined!” he called out. “Good.”

  That was when she found his male nipples, and pinched them. His rear bucked off the rug. A high point overtook her, shattering, driving her wilder.

  She sucked harder.

  He pushed her face away. “No. In you. We shouldn’t waste a drop.”

  He tried to drive her to her back. But it was too late. White pulsed against her cheek, then her hand. Her eyes were on Mighty Duke. In Liberal, she had thought the letting of male seed ho-hum. Presently, and forever, she found it fascinating. It seemed to go on and on, so full was her husband. This was what went into her, what filled her so fully, what smelled delicious . . . and now, as her tongue swept along Duke’s head, tasted even better.

  “We shouldn’t do that anymore,” Jon Marc lamented, once he got his breath. “We should save it for making a baby.”

  “Querido, I feel full enough for ten babies.”

  He bent over her, sliding his middle finger into a wicket, wet with his previous stream . . . and the culmination of hers. “Then why have we seen no evidence of a babe?”

  “I-I don’t know.” Unless God wasn’t a benevolent heart, if He were the vengeful presence of Agatha Persat’s religion. “Perhaps we haven’t made love often enough.”

  “Beth, we haven’t missed a day. Or a night.”

  That, she knew. “What if I’m barren?”

  “Then we’ll have to adjust to being childless.”

  The mere thought hurt, yet she tried to be reasonable. “Would you mind terribly if we adopted a child?”

  “You feel the need to ask that, given my background? Beth honey, you don’t know how many times I wished, as a child, that some loving couple had taken me in.”

  She recalled the orphan boys, now south of the border. “We should have gotten closer to Ramón and Miguel.”

  “It’s too late for them. But if other children pass this way . . .”

  “I want them. Even if I swell with your child, I want all children who need us.”

  “Fine with me.”

  Once they replaced their clothes and had shared bites of dinner, Bethany glanced across the eating table at her husband. His eyes were on her, as they had been when she first arrived at Rancho Caliente. She grinned at his ardent stare.

  “You had me so engrossed for a while there,” she said, “I forgot to mention the mail.”

  His palm found her knee under the table. “You want to talk mail, after . . . ?”

  She knew what he meant. After their stunning bout on the parlor floor. Her insides tightened, recalling it. “We have the rest of our lives to enjoy the flesh’s pleasures. But we must think about the world outside our door on occasion.”

  “Spoilsport,” he teased.

  “You got three dispatches.”

  “Did you open them?”

  “You would accuse me of snooping?” she asked, returning his tease.

  “Could happen.”

  “Not in this case. I didn’t read your letters. But I know you have a post from Fitz. And one from each of your brothers.”

  “Where’s the mail?”

  She smiled, heartened at the strides Jon Marc had made since her arrival. “In my britches pocket.”

  Her husband rose from the table to stride to the denims that lay before the fireplace. He ripped open one missive, read it. “Pippin’s parents will allow him to work at the factor house during summers, until his education is complete. Our nephew agrees with the terms.”

  “That pleased me,” Bethany said serenely.

  “Catfish will manage Fitz & Son till then.”

  “Good.”

  Jon Marc sliced open the next two letters. Handing one to Bethany, he pulled a sheet of paper from the other. “This is from Burke. He and Susan would like for us to spend Christmas at their home in New Orleans, celebrating Fitz’s birthday.”

  “Your brother Connor and his wife say they’re going to New Orleans. They want to make it a real family reunion. Do you think we can?”

  “Doubtful.”

  Bethany figured Jon Marc’s reply had something to do with the bad turn the Caliente had taken, thanks to the weather. There hadn’t been a drop of rain in months. The Nueces and its streams were dried, the livestock suffering for it. No amount of money could buy water.

  He said, “If luck is with us, and a good rain falls, we must get ready to launch that cattle drive to Kansas. We’ll need to leave in February, March at the latest.” He eyed her questioningly. “Unless you’re in no position to travel.”

  She knew what he meant. If they had a child on its way.

  Somehow she knew that no babe would ever grow in her womb.

  This is God’s price for my lies.

  Bethany vowed to make the best of it.

  The worst was yet to come.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The wind whistled like a mournful lover, the morning after those letters from kin arrived.

  Jon Marc and his wife attended Mass to pray for the souls of their departed loved ones, on this the second day to honor the saints. Mostly, he gave thanks for a perfect wife.

  Afterward, they accepted Liam Short’s offer to stop by the post office for a cup of coffee.

  The postmaster hovered over the potbellied stove, an Indian blanket draping his shoulders, Stumpy curling at his stocking feet. The dog stunk to high heaven, not unlike one of the pigs that Jon Marc still had no use for.

  Liam said, “Shore be glad when this cold snap passes on outta here. Iffen I’d wanted to be cold, I’da stayed in Missouri.”

  Beth smiled. “Your troubles will be over soon enough, Liam. You know what everyone says. If you don’t like Texas weather, stick around. It’ll change in three days.”

  “ ’Cept in summer. Then it ain’t nothing but hot.” Liam dug toes against Stumpy’s ragged, fawn-colored coat. “Iffen we don’t get some rain, we might-uz well pack up and leave La Salle County.”

  “We’ve lived through droughts before.” Jon Marc poured coffee and handed a tin cup of it to Beth. Worried he might be about the dried creeks, but he couldn’t help smiling at the tingle that went through him every time he touched his honey. Since magic had given him a bride, he’d gotten a lot more calm about many things. “You just wait. The sky is going to open up soon, and we’ll all be back in business.”

  Beth sipped coffee, then leaned to the left to peer out the oiled-paper window. Jon Marc’s eyes were on t
he curve of one hip, and he recalled how it tasted on his tongue. He recalled how it felt to be tasted by her lips, and having Old Duke engulfed. He like to lost it. The coffee cup wiggled. He sipped deeply, scalding his tongue.

  Her voice as dry as the cracked earth of their ranch, his wife said, “I do believe that’s Hoot Todd riding up. Yes, it is. Terecita is running toward him.”

  “This is our lucky day,” Jon Marc said, equally as dry, and gulped another swallow of Liam’s bitter brew that was supposed to be coffee.

  Not long after that, Hoot Todd kicked open the post office door. He let in a draft of frigid air that sent Stumpy into Liam’s lap.

  “Close the door,” Jon Marc barked, not too interested in the return of La Salle’s bandit supreme.

  Todd nearly slammed the door in Terecita López’s face. The dancer turned piano player—her talents had improved almost to acceptable here lately—shoved her weight against the barrier and burst in. Spanish eyes blazed. Too bad they couldn’t warm this clapboard structure.

  Everyone shivered from the cold.

  “You,” the dancer snarled at Todd.

  Guilt over an unnamed source affected him not.

  “Dad gum writers,” he complained while huffing over to the stove, “they ain’t looking for a legend. They’s just looking for another Robin Hood. What’s Robin Hood? I ain’t never heard of such a thing.”

  Terecita apparently felt no need to explain the exploits that harked from a faraway place called Sherwood Forest, in bygone days. Perhaps she didn’t know.

  “Where have you been, Chico?” She adjusted her hair, then slipped fingers beneath her poncho. “It has been weeks, but I have heard nothing from you. You said you would give me money for Sabrina’s education, but you have given not a centavo!”

  Beth glanced at Jon Marc; he met her regard. Apparently the dancer-cum-musician had said nothing about the O’Brien promise to educate Sabrina.

  Well, couples did play games.

  Jon Marc had played his own. Giving over school money would have to wait until the upcoming cattle drive to Kansas filled the family coffers. Provided the Caliente outfit had any cattle to drive to Kansas.