Apache Runaway
Page 27
“My heart soars and my spirit sings,” he murmured, and smiled as he recalled that his father had used the same words years ago, on the day Ryder had become a warrior of the Cheyenne nation.
Filled with joy and a deep sense of well-being, awed by the miracle of birth and the wonder of life renewing itself, Ryder lifted his face to the sun and loosed the ululating victory cry of the Cheyenne. He laughed aloud as he imagined the momentary panic the shrill cry would arouse in the hearts of his neighbors.
“You’re a lucky man, Ryder Fallon,” he mused.
Whistling softly, he hurried through the morning chores, then returned to the cabin.
Inside, Laura Barnes was singing an Irish lullaby as she whipped up a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs, fried potatoes, baking powder biscuits and gravy.
Jenny was sitting up on the sofa, nursing the baby. She smiled at Ryder as he came to sit beside her.
“So, how are you feeling, darlin’?” he asked.
“Wonderful.” She gazed lovingly at the child cradled against her breast. Ryder’s child. “Isn’t he beautiful?”
“You’re beautiful,” Ryder said. “The best, sweetest, most extraordinary woman I’ve ever known.”
Jenny blushed prettily, pleased by his words, and by the love shining so pure and clear in the depths of his midnight blue eyes.
She leaned forward for his kiss, felt her heart beat a little faster as his mouth covered hers. Silently, she thanked God for sending her a man like Ryder Fallon. Ryder, who had strong arms to hold her when she was sad, whose very touch filled her with peaceful fire.
“Ryder, would you do something for me?” Jenny asked. “Would you look in on Hank and make sure he’s all right?”
“Sure, honey.”
Ryder kissed her one more time. He could afford to be tolerant of Hank Braedon, he mused. The man had nothing, while he, Fallon, onetime gambler and gunman, had everything he had ever hoped for, and more.
The bedroom was cool and dim. Outside the window, a bird warbled cheerfully, and from the parlor came the faint cries of his son, but in this room there was only silence, and the faint, musty smell of death.
The Indians believed that life was a circle, that nothing was ever lost. A man had died, but in the next room a baby’s cry could be heard. It was a good sound, filled with hope and the promise of a new life.
With a sigh, Ryder Fallon covered the face of Jenny’s husband.
She was free now. As soon as she felt up to it, they would ride into the next town and be married again. No one in Twin Rivers need ever know that their child had been born out of wedlock.
Closing the bedroom door behind him, Ryder went to tell Jenny that their last link with the past was gone.
Epilogue
Jenny sat on the top rail of the corral, watching as Ryder sacked out a young spotted stallion. The mustang, fresh off the range, tossed its head, shying as Ryder rubbed the heavy burlap bag across its withers and down one shoulder. She could hear Ryder talking softly to the horse, lolling it not to worry, that everything would be all right.
The horse, tied to a snubbing post in the middle of the corral, watched the man’s every move, its eyes showing white, its whole body tense, quivering.
Ryder was infinitely patient, rubbing the burlap over the horse’s back, down its flanks, over each leg, up its neck and over its head.
Four-year-old Dorinda gasped, her tiny hands covering her mouth, as the horse reared up, its forelegs slicing dangerously close to Ryder’s head.
Six-year-old Dusty shouted, “Pa, watch out!”
“Ryder, be careful,” Jenny cried, adding her warning to her son’s.
Fallon waved at Jenny and smiled reassuringly at Dusty and Dorinda. Despite the difference in their ages, his son and daughter looked much alike with their wavy black hair and deep-green eyes.
Another thirty minutes and the horse accepted the touch of the burlap bag without flinching, though it continued to watch Ryder’s every move.
After another thirty minutes, the horse endured having the sack waved in front of its face.
Giving the stallion a pat on the shoulder, Ryder called it a day.
Jenny let out a sigh as Ryder walked the horse around the corral to cool him out. How good life was! They had two happy, healthy children, a crop in the field, dear friends in the valley. The little town was growing each year. More people meant more homes, churches, schools, stores. And yet Twin Rivers remained a close-knit, friendly place.
Jenny glanced over her shoulder, admiring the home that she and her husband had built together. In the past five years, they’d added several rooms and a spacious veranda to the cabin. Ryder had painted the house the summer before, a soft yellow with white trim.
Jumping down, she lifted Dusty and Dorinda from the fence rail and sent them into the house to wash up for supper. She watched them for a moment, smiling with a mother’s pride as they skipped up the path to the back door; then, with a sigh of contentment, she walked over to the gate to wait for Ryder.
He was smiling when he joined her. “He’s a beauty,” Ryder said, jerking a thumb in the stallion’s direction. “I can’t wait to ride him.”
“He still looks wild to me.”
Fallon shook his head as he draped his arm around Jenny’s shoulders. “He’s just young and skittish.”
“Well, I guess you know what you’re doing.”
“You guess!” Ryder grinned down at her, knowing she was teasing and loving her for it. Loving her for the warmth she’d brought into his life, the sense of home, of belonging.
They had a good life, he mused as they strolled toward the house. He farmed the land because it gave him a certain sense of satisfaction to grow food for his family with his own hands, but his real love was breaking mustangs for the townspeople. His reputation as a horse trainer had spread beyond the valley, and people from as far away as Texas and Nebraska came to Twin Rivers to buy a horse that had been gentled by Ryder Fallon.
It had amused him, having a reputation again, and he sometimes kidded Jenny that he didn’t know which was more frightening, the thought of being stomped by a wild bronc now that he had a reputation as a horse trainer, or the possibility of being gunned down by a wild kid out to make a name for himself back when he’d had a reputation as a fast gun.
“Come here,” he murmured. Stepping behind a tree out of sight of the house, he drew her into his arms, lowered his head and kissed her.
A slow heat crept over Jenny as she melted against him, her eyelids closing, her heartbeat increasing as Ryder kissed her with infinite sweetness. As always, she warmed to his touch, forgetting everything but the man who held her, who loved her. The man she loved.
He kissed her deeply, thoroughly, possessively. “Tonight,” he whispered, his voice tickling her ear, “I’ll meet you down by the creek when the kids are in bed.”
Jenny nodded and then she pressed her lips to his once more, wanting him, needing him, still surprised that the desire between them had not dimmed with time.
“Mom! Hey, Mom, Dorinda’s pinching me again.”
Chuckling, Ryder dropped a kiss on Jenny’s cheek, then took her by the hand and headed for the house.
“Tonight,” he reminded her as they reached the back door.
Jenny smiled up at him, her heart aglow with happiness. “And every night,” she murmured.
And hand in hand, they went into the house and closed the door.
About Madeline Baker
Madeline Baker started writing simply for the fun of it. Now she is the award-winning author of more than thirty historical romances and one of the most popular writers of Native American romance. She lives in California, where she was born and raised.
Apache Runaway
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Apache Runaway Copyright © 1998, 2013, 2016 Madeline Baker
Published by Butterfly Kisses Press
Cover design by Cindy Lucas
Madeline Baker, Apache Runaway