Thunder on the Plains

by Rosanne Bittner

  He turned and walked away. Sunny knew how he must be struggling with his emotions. “I decided to try to find you, Colt. You had a right to know. I was hoping that somehow…in spite of what has happened between us…that you would agree to see the boy…be a father to him. I don’t want any more lies, Colt. Everyone else knows—even Vince. With what I have inherited through Blaine, my riches far surpass Vince’s. He knows I can destroy him financially with a nod of the head and that I will if he dares to interfere with anything you decide to do about our son. Vince is no longer a threat to us. I want so much for little Bo—that’s his name, after my father—I want him to grow up knowing you, knowing a true freedom of the soul. He stands to one day inherit a massive fortune, Colt. He needs a man guiding him who can teach him how to handle that kind of wealth without letting it make him greedy and arrogant.”

  She stepped closer, taking hope that she had found something on which they could share common ground. “I can teach him the business end of it, but you can teach him the really important things, like loving the land, respecting it, not always putting his own interests first. There is an honesty and integrity about you I want him to learn. Colt, you can give him things that all the money in the world can’t buy for him. In my whole life I never knew anyone like you. That was why I loved you so, why being with you was like leaving hell and going to heaven. For twelve years just the thought of you has been my strength. You were everything I wished I could be, everything I want my son to be. If Blaine hadn’t died, I think I would have ended up divorcing him, in spite of the scandal, to keep him from raising little Bo. I knew after the beating he would have been cruel to the boy. I would still have tried to find you—not for myself, but for my son. I want you to be a father to him, no matter what kind of sacrifices I have to make to my lifestyle to do it. I’ll do whatever you ask, give you whatever you ask. Just please don’t ask me to give him up completely. Don’t take my baby away from me. He’s all I have left.”

  The words stunned him. Here she was, a woman who could destroy him at the flick of a finger, and she was afraid he’d take her son away from her! He supposed he could if he wanted. He could just take him and ride away with him, figure out a way to never be found. It was a thought. But much as he wanted to hurt her in return for all his own hurt, he knew he couldn’t do that to her. The irony of the whole thing was astounding. Bo Landers had warned him once to stay away from Sunny. Vince had threatened to kill him. Blaine had said he would destroy him if he pursued his feelings for Sunny. Now his own son was heir to both the Landers and the O’Brien fortunes. It was almost laughable, but he felt no humor at the moment, only a deep joy inside that wanted to well up and engulf him.

  He shook his head, his eyes tearing. He had a son! “My son is going to run your little empire someday?” He turned to face Sunny, and her heart went out to him at the look in his eyes. “I have a son?”

  God, how it hurt to see a man like Colt close to tears. “Yes. I came out here with the whole family. We had planned the trip to be among the first to travel to California by train—were on our way to Utah to be present for the joining of the rails. Just before we left, Stuart found the article about you, so we stopped here on our way so that you could meet little Bo and have some time to think about what you want to do about him. I had already been searching everywhere for you.”

  She stepped a little closer, taking hope in the look of joy and love in his eyes. “He’s so beautiful, Colt, just like…like you. He has a free spirit, is full of adventure.”

  Her face brightened, and Colt began to see a little of the old Sunny in the way her eyes finally lit up. “I swear he’ll never live to five, he’s so daring. He’s full of fire and love and courage. He’s such an easy child to love.” Her smile faded slightly. “Blaine figured it out. That was the other reason for the beating.” She looked away. “He said he would disinherit both of us, but he failed to do it before he left for Africa. He left the very next day, saying my pregnancy had spoiled his first trip. We were supposed to go there on our honeymoon, but I was too sick. I lay near death from his own hands, and he left for Africa, apparently not caring if I lived or died. My injuries were passed off in the newspapers as caused by a fall.”

  She put a hand to her forehead, a raging headache suddenly setting in. “I never saw Blaine again. I know I betrayed him, but he betrayed me by marrying me strictly for appearance’s sake. When he lost the elections he blamed me and Bo and said he had never loved me in the first place—said I would forever live in his own form of prison. I was ready to try to love him, but he simply didn’t understand how to love.” She looked up at Colt, wishing she knew for certain how he felt. “Do you want to see your son?”

  He quickly moved away from her, wiping at his eyes with his fingers. “I need some time alone. Take Dancer back. I’ll walk. Just leave Dancer in front of the jail. Which train car is yours?”

  “Mine is the last one before the caboose. We aren’t in any big hurry. It will be a couple weeks yet before the joining of the rails.”

  He faced her, his eyes looking bloodshot. “Is Vince along?”

  He watched her stiffen. “Only because his children wanted to come. I’m trying to bring some harmony into the family, for Bo’s sake. I will always hate Vince, but I won’t let it show in front of the children. We are going to be one family from now on, even if I have to bribe Vince to do his share.” She saw the hatred move into his eyes.

  “I’ll come see the boy. You just tell Vince Landers to stay out of my way. I can’t guarantee I won’t kill him if we get into it again.”

  “He won’t give you any trouble. When will you come?”

  He turned away again. “I don’t know. I have a lot to think about.”

  She walked over to Dancer, untying him. “Take your time, Colt. The important thing is Bo. We have to put him above our own hurt and anger.”

  “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I guess this throws us right back together again, doesn’t it? What a hell of a mess.”

  “I’m sorry, Colt, for always disrupting your life. But I’m not sorry for Bo. He’s the light of my life. And I’m not sorry for having loved you, or for the fact that I still love you and always will. My feelings for you have never changed. If not for Bo, I would have ended my life, maybe even before Blaine’s beating, but certainly after it. The only thing that kept me wanting to live was to be there for Bo, my little piece of Colt Travis, the only man I’ve truly loved with all my heart and soul and body. No matter how much you might hate me or look down on me, my feelings for you will never change. If I could go back and do things over, I would, but I can’t, and that’s the hell of it. I allowed Vince to destroy our love, and there are not enough words to—” Her voice began to choke. “To express how sorry I am that I hurt you, that I couldn’t…be with you after you were wounded, that you had to wake up to find out…I had married someone else. All my millions will never bring me the happiness I knew those two days we spent together, Colt…or the joy our son brings me. All I want now is for him to know his father. If I can have that much, I can live with the rest.”

  Colt put a hand to his head. “Just go, Sunny. Leave me alone.” He heard the sound of weeping, heard Dancer whinny lightly and then trot away. He went down on one knee and bent his head. “God help me know what to do,” he groaned. “A son. I have a son.”

  Chapter 30

  Mae answered the knock at the door, opening it to see two guards outside. “Deputy Colt Travis is here to see Mrs. O’Brien,” one of them said. “Is it all right?”

  “Oh, yes! Miss Sunny is expecting him.”

  The guard frowned curiously and stepped aside, nodding for Colt to enter. Mae stood aside, staring at Colt, who removed his hat. “Mae, isn’t it?” he asked.

  She blushed, glad for Sunny’s sake that he had come. She knew how Sunny felt about this man, knew he was Bo’s father. “Yes, sir. Come right in.”

>   “That’s some welcome committee Sunny’s got,” he said, sounding a little irritated.

  “A necessary inconvenience, Miss Sunny says. When you’re as rich as she is, and you’re traveling with a child who could be held for ransom, you have to take precautions.”

  Again Sunny’s staggering fortune seemed almost overwhelming to Colt. “Yes, I suppose,” he answered. “It’s pretty bad when even a deputy sheriff has to have permission to come visiting.” Especially when it’s to see his own son, he thought. Mae closed the door, and Colt glanced around, wondering if there was a chair in the parlor car that wasn’t too good for him to sit on.

  “Miss Sunny will be right out. She’s changing the baby. Have you eaten, Mr. Travis?”

  “I’m fine. I, uh, could use a drink though. You have any of that good whiskey Sunny usually keeps around?”

  “I’ll go and get some. Please sit down wherever you like.” Mae hurried to the forward section of the car, which Colt guessed contained a small kitchen. This car was bigger than the last one of Sunny’s he had been in, and even fancier, the walls and ceiling made completely of oak, carvings of trees and flowers in the ceiling that were highlighted by gold etching. The curtains at the windows were a pale yellow, and the same color dominated the designs in the upholstery of the Victorian furnishing and in the flowered carpeting. A gilt-framed painting of mountains hung on one wall, another painting of a Union Pacific locomotive on another, a picture that closely resembled the huge painting Colt had seen in Sunny’s Chicago office, but smaller. He tried to remember how long ago he had been there. Was it ’61 or ’62? It seemed incredible they had moved in and out of each other’s lives over so many years.

  He still wore his denim pants and knee-high boots, but had changed his shirt to a simple white one with a black string tie. He wore a new black felt hat, had bathed and shaved but decided not to dress up any more than usual. He had decided not to be anything but himself for this first meeting with his son. He had left his six-gun at the sheriff’s office, deciding not to wear it around the baby. He had told Rex Andrews he would explain later why he couldn’t be on duty tonight, although he wondered how in hell he was going to tell the man he had sired a son by Sunny Landers O’Brien, just about the richest woman in the country. It would probably take Rex, who had become a good friend, a week to stop laughing before he realized Colt was not joking.

  He heard a baby giggle, and his heart nearly skipped a beat. He removed his hat and sat down on a silk love seat, thinking how he hated fancy furniture. A moment later Sunny came out, holding a handsome baby boy in her arms. “Hello, Colt,” she said softly. “Mae said you were here.”

  She could see he had eyes only for the baby, and she smiled sadly. “This is little Beauregard Stuart O’Brien. If you want, I can have his last name changed to Travis. It can be legally done.”

  Colt slowly rose, his eyes glued to the boy. Bo was wearing short pants and knee-high stockings with high-button shoes and a little dress shirt with a striped jacket. His nearly black hair was oiled and combed to the side. He stared at Colt with wide hazel eyes set against very brown skin, and he suddenly smiled, reaching out for Colt as though he sensed exactly who he was.

  “You see what I mean about having no fear of strangers?” Sunny said, handing him over.

  Colt reached out hesitantly, and the boy came right to him, putting chubby arms around his neck. “My God,” Colt said softly, burying his face in the child’s neck.

  Tears formed in Sunny’s eyes at the sight. She had done so many wrong things, but now she could give Colt a little bit of joy through this child. She knew how he had suffered over the loss of his baby son to the Pawnee, something that had left a lasting emptiness in his soul, as it would any man. “Would you like me to leave you alone with him?” she asked.

  Colt could not reply at first. He simply shook his head, sitting down with the boy and quickly wiping his eyes. He set Bo out on his knee and looked him over, studying his perfect complexion, thinking how he resembled many Indian babies he had seen, grinning at the boy’s dimples and the way he giggled when Colt bounced him lightly on his knee. He touched his hair, his face, his arms, held his chubby hands. Yes, this was his son all right. All anyone had to do was look at him to know that. He took a deep breath and cleared his throat before speaking. “What the hell kind of a way is this to dress a kid?” he asked. “He looks like he’s ready to go to the office with you.”

  Sunny grinned. “I suppose you would rather he wore little buckskins?”

  “Sounds more fitting to me, considering his looks.”

  Sunny was relieved to see him finally grinning. Mae came in with a silver tea tray that carried a teapot and cup, with a few slices of cheese and bread, as well as Colt’s whiskey. “Thank you, Mae. Maybe you should go and stay with Stuart and Vi so we can be alone,” Sunny suggested. “I’ll call for you when I need you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Mae answered, secretly hoping she didn’t hear another thing from Sunny for the rest of the night. She quietly left, grinning to herself. She had grown to love Sunny, felt fury at the thought of Blaine O’Brien beating her like he had. I’ll bet Colt Travis would never beat a woman, she thought as she went out.

  “He’s beautiful,” Colt was telling Sunny as she poured him a shot of whiskey. “I can see he has a lot of your personality too. I imagine you’re a good mother. You have the heart for it.”

  A warmth moved through Sunny at the words, along with the pain of knowing how she had hurt him. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  Colt looked at her, noticing she was not wearing the fancy black velvet dress she had worn earlier. She was dressed in a plain blue cotton dress and wore no jewelry except small pearl earrings. She wore little makeup, and her hair was brushed out in long, thick tresses. To him she was prettiest this way, although whatever she wore, there was always an air of elegance to her composure. His eyes moved over her in a way that gave Sunny a new feeling of warmth, new hope. She saw no hate there. “You look nice tonight,” he told her. “I always liked you better in simple clothes.”

  Her face felt suddenly hot. “Thank you again.” She handed him the whiskey, and their fingers touched when he took it. She quickly looked away and poured herself some tea while Colt downed the whiskey and set the shot glass back on the tray. He stood then, picking up Bo and holding him high so that the baby laughed, then he nuzzled the baby’s neck again.

  “God, Sunny, you don’t know how many times I wondered what my Ethan would have been like at this age, dreamed about how it would be teaching him how to do things as he got older, taking him hunting, teaching him to ride. I want to do all those things with Bo.”

  “You can do whatever you want. I told you that was how it would be. Wherever you are, I can bring him out to you for a week every month, or a summer. If you like, you can live in Omaha and see him as often as you like. I think I’d prefer raising him there rather than Chicago or New York. In Omaha he’ll be closer to the land you love. I’ll have to make monthly trips to New York. You can spend all the time you want with him the times I’m gone. I would never give you a problem about how much you want to see him.”

  He met her eyes, and she thought he looked at her rather strangely. She wished his once-gentle eyes were not so unreadable now. She thought she saw some of the old love there, but then, maybe that was just wishful thinking.

  “I, uh, I haven’t decided yet how to handle that part of it,” he told her. “I would like him to carry my name though. And I’d like to be in on any major decisions that involve him, including anything to do with when he inherits certain things, when he takes responsibilities, where he goes to college, things like that. And I don’t want Vince to have anything to do with his upbringing.”

  “Fine.” Sunny drank some tea and ate a piece of cheese while Colt continued to play with the baby, wrestling with him, letting Bo think he was stronger, tic
kling the infant, glorying in the sound of his giggling. They played so hard that when Colt finally got up and took a chair, holding the boy on his lap, Bo lay his head against his father’s chest and was quickly asleep. Sunny sat quietly and said nothing, letting Colt hold his son and stroke his hair gently.

  “It’s like he knows,” he finally said.

  “I think maybe he does,” Sunny answered. “Here, I’ll take off his shoes and we can put him down. I’ll just let him fall asleep in his clothes.” She knelt in front of Colt and unbuttoned the baby’s shoes and pulled them off, as well as his long stockings. “Bring him back here.”

  Colt rose, hugging the boy close and following her into a narrow hallway along one side of the car.

  “That door at the end of the hall goes to our private kitchen,” Sunny told him. “The other door on the side here is Mae’s room and this is my room. I keep Bo’s crib in here.” She opened a door and went inside a small but luxurious room that contained a four-poster with lace curtains all around the canopy and a blue satin bedspread. Everything in the room was blue, with a dash of yellow. Sunny lifted a blanket from the crib and Colt laid the boy on his belly. Sunny covered him. “It always surprises me how cold it gets out here in this arid land at night,” she said quietly, “no matter how warm the days are.”

  “No trees to hold the warmth and no humidity,” Colt answered.

  “I always remembered that from that first trip west,” she said, turning to leave. Colt caught her shoulders.

  “Sunny—”

  “Please, let’s get out of here, Colt.”