Tucker’s Claim

by Sarah McCarty

  He didn’t know what to say. “Maybe you ought to back up a bit so I can understand.”

  Her hand didn’t let go of his wrist any more than her gaze released his. “It was so long ago.”

  “I can see how ancient you are.”

  “Some days I feel ancient.”

  He’d never seen her like this, full of doubt. “Got to say I like this side of you.”

  She just blinked. He ran the cloth over her face, pressing it gently against her temples. “I like knowing you’re not perfect.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense.”

  “It does if you think about how imperfect I am.”

  “Thee are the most beautiful man, inside and out.”

  “Now I know you’ve gone and puked up your common sense.” He poured and handed her a glass of water. “I’m big, ugly and hot-tempered.”

  She drank thirstily and, when she was done, leaned back against the pillows. A bit of spirit returned. “I didn’t say thee weren’t misguided at times.”

  “That’s my moonbeam.”

  He tugged off his boots.

  “What are you doing?”

  He hung his gun belt on the chair. “Joining you. All that puking took a lot out of me.”

  He stood and shucked his pants and his socks. He started to unbutton his belt.

  “I did all the puking.”

  He was down to his long johns. “It still took a lot out of me.” He lifted the covers. “Scoot over.”

  “The morning’s half-over.”

  He slid under the covers, pulling her into his arms. She turned on her side and her cheek settled into the hollow of his shoulder. “This is decadent.”

  She didn’t have the slightest clue as to what was really decadent. “So enjoy it. Are you comfortable?”

  “Yes.”

  He stroked his hand over her shoulder, feeling the tension in her muscles. She was still all wound up. “Tell me about how you came to be with the Quakers.”

  “There’s not much to tell.”

  “Sure sounded like a lot.”

  “I was upset.”

  “And now you’re not.” He tipped her chin up with his finger. “I’m not going away, Sally Mae, no matter what you tell me.”

  “I thank thee.”

  “I don’t want thanks, I want explanations.”

  Her fingers curled into his chest. Her thumb flicked over his nipple. His body’s response was instantaneous. Her thigh slid up his. He cupped it in his palm, sliding it a bit higher. “You can’t distract me, either.”

  “I don’t remember what happened to me before I came to the Griers.”

  “The Griers were your family among the Quakers?”

  She nodded. “I remember being afraid to go to bed because of the nightmares.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Around ten. I was found hiding in a wagon after an attack. I couldn’t talk to give anyone even my name. I was brought to the Friends. The Griers took me in. They figured that when I needed to remember, God would lift the barrier. So in between, they gave me a new name, a new life, and all the love a child could want, but even my birthday isn’t real.”

  Goddamn. “Then we’ll try out new ones until we find one that you like.”

  “I don’t want a new one. I was happy until I met thee.”

  “Bull.”

  Her hand clenched to a fist on his chest. “The Griers taught me to find God’s light inside me. Thee can’t understand the peace that comes with that. How grateful I was to have the terror stop and laughter return.”

  “I’ve got an inkling.” It’d taken him years to stop lashing out and realize he didn’t have to react as people expected. That he could control people in a large part through his response to them.

  “But following God’s way was always a struggle for me. It came so easy for them, for Jonah, but always so hard for me.”

  “How do you know it came easily for them? Did you ask?”

  She shook her head. “Thee could just see it.”

  “Is that why you married Jonah? Because it came easy with him?”

  It didn’t make him proud to hate such a good man, but he did. Because Jonah had had Sally Mae’s respect, had held her heart, had earned her trust where he was still struggling with her accepting him.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” She traced a figure eight over his chest. “His parents were friends with mine. He was always around, always there when I needed him. It just seemed natural that he ask me to marry and that I say yes.”

  As if she felt the jealousy raging within him, her hand opened over his heart soothingly. “It wasn’t a grand passion that brought us together, but it was a good marriage.”

  “Ours will be good, too.”

  “Thee say that as if it’s all under thy control.”

  “It is.” He just had to figure out what she needed and give it to her.

  Her lips burned soft and sweet on his chest. “Ours is a grand passion, Tucker. It’s not something that can be managed. It demands to be experienced. That scares me.”

  “I’d never hurt you.”

  She waved her hand. “I know that. Thee are the gentlest man I know.”

  No one had ever called him gentle before. “You sure you’re looking at the right man?”

  “Yes. Very sure. I sometimes think it would be easier to not see thee as I do. To pretend thee are like Jonah, who was content to have me in the periphery of his life.”

  Jonah the saint. He wanted to punch the man in the face. He wanted to run. How the hell could he compete with a ghost? “I’m nothing like Jonah.”

  “No. Thee are not.”

  He tossed the sheet back. “You should have thought of that before you lay down with me.”

  There was no way her hand on his chest could have kept him on that bed, but the words she said chained him as thoroughly as steel. “I did.”

  He turned on his side, looming over her on purpose, needing the truth. “Explain.”

  “There is a wild side to me, Tucker. My whole life I’ve tried to hide it, successfully hid it, because my family and Jonah just wouldn’t understand it.” Her hand left his chest and rose to feather across his cheek to play with his lower lip the way he did with hers. The reciprocity soothed the emotion seething inside. “I couldn’t hide it from thee.”

  “No.” He kissed her fingertips. “You couldn’t.”

  “Thee threaten every ideal I value, but thee are the only one who sees me as me and is comfortable with it.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

  “To me there is, but one thing that has been revealed to me in this opening is that I can’t run from thee or myself any longer. I have to find a way to walk between thy world and mine.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that, so he leaned down and kissed her.

  “I’m going to try very hard,” she whispered against his lips.

  “Does this mean you’re marrying me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good, then there’s something we need to get straight.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t have to change a damn thing for me.”

  “Yes, I do. I already am, but—” her hand curled around his neck “—thee will need to be patient.”

  Patience was not his long suit. “Maybe we should just tackle these fears one by one. What’s your biggest?”

  She didn’t even hesitate. “That I won’t have a place at Hell’s Eight.”

  “Honey, everyone’s going to love you.”

  “I need to feel I belong, Tucker. I’m afraid I won’t there. That I’ll spend my days on the outside looking in.”

  The way he’d felt until the day he’d met her. “God—” He cut off the curse. “That’s a hell of a fear.”

  “Yes, and one that only time, not thee, can fix.”

  “You’ll find your place.”

  “Not just as thy wife and the mother of thy children?”

  Goddamn, he hoped so. “Y
es.”

  “I hope so.”

  Hearing her words so immediately echo his thoughts sent a shift of unease through his conviction. He pushed it away. Whatever Sally Mae needed, he’d give it to her.

  Her hand behind his neck pulled him down, not for passion he discovered as her eyes drifted closed, but for the return of her pillow.

  As he resettled her against his shoulder, he asked, “Tired?”

  She nodded and yawned. “Very. Already thy son makes demands on me.”

  “Thanks for going along with my decision that it be a boy.”

  “Thee seem to need it.”

  And she was always giving him what he needed. “The thought of a little girl scares me witless. I think we should let Desi and Caine break the ice with that one. Caine owes me anyway.”

  Her smile spread against his chest. “There is such love in thy voice when thee speak of thy friends.”

  “We’ve been to hell and back together. That tends to either breed friends or enemies.”

  “Thee have been together long?”

  “Fifteen years.”

  “Thee were just boys.” She yawned again. “What happened?”

  He kept it short and to the point. “We got caught in the border wars. The Mexican army swooped in one day and wiped out our town. The members of Hell’s Eight were the only ones who survived.”

  “Thee escaped.”

  “Yeah, but it was close.”

  Her hand covered his. He hadn’t realized he was holding the bullet. “Thee were injured?”

  “Yes.”

  “This bullet is very old?”

  There wasn’t any reason not to tell her, but he still hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Thee got it that day, didn’t thee?”

  “Yeah. There was a girl in town I was sweet on. Not that she would look at me—”

  “She looked.”

  He shook his head. “I’d be dead if she had. My father was a mean drunk and my mother a squaw he rented out when we ran short on whiskey funds. They’d have fed me my balls for breakfast if they’d had an inkling I was looking at one of their precious girls.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  “Who was she?”

  “Caine’s sister, Mary.” She’d been beautiful with hair that shone in the sun with all the brown of autumn. She’d look at him sideways and his heart would explode with puppy love. Christ, they’d been so young. “I tried to save her.”

  “Thee were just a boy.”

  “I was near as big as I am now.”

  “They were soldiers armed and trained. Thy best would still not have been enough.”

  “It wasn’t. I stopped the first bullet, but I couldn’t stop the second.”

  Her arms came around him, holding him close as if she could shelter him from the memory. The bullet, trapped between them, pressed into both their chests, a physical pain to join the mental.

  “At least they didn’t rape her.”

  “And she didn’t die alone.”

  “No, she didn’t die alone.” He’d managed to crawl to her, the wound in his chest burning like fire, every breath agony, but he’d covered her slight body with his much bigger one as the battle raged around them. She’d been crying, he remembered that clearly. Tears slipping from her eyes as she’d stared at him in bewilderment.

  “I’m sorry, Tucker, so very sorry.”

  So was he, but he’d learned it didn’t change anything. “Anyway, when the smoke cleared, only the eight of us survived. Caine dug the bullet from my chest and we headed out.”

  Her fingers feathered over the ugly scar. “And to think I cursed thy surgeon for doing such a poor job.”

  “I’d be dead if he hadn’t done something.”

  “I understand.”

  This yawn was bigger, more pronounced. “Enough about the past or you’ll be back to having nightmares.”

  “I’m sorry, I seem to fall asleep at the oddest times lately.”

  He pulled the covers over her shoulders. “Go to sleep, Sally Mae.”

  He thought she had until she whispered his name sleepily. “What?”

  “Is there a man of God at Hell’s Eight?”

  “Father Gerard is close enough.”

  “Is he a nice man?”

  “Nice enough, why?”

  “I have changed my mind about the wedding.”

  His chest tightened.

  “I would like thy family to stand witness to our vows.”

  It wasn’t enough. He needed more. “Why?”

  “Because a marriage that is blessed in love is always blessed.”

  “Do you love me, Sally Mae?”

  A delicate snore was his answer.

  16

  Despite her decision, Tucker insisted they be married before they left. Isabella provided a dress. Bright blue with yards of lace, it was a far cry from the plain clothes Sally Mae preferred, but Bella was so excited and the mantilla she carefully drew out of a box so beautiful, Sally Mae had run out of protests. And now she was standing in the middle of her bedroom, staring at her reflection in the freestanding oval mirror, feeling she was looking at a stranger.

  “You look beautiful,” Bella said, adjusting the mantilla about her face. “Do you like it?”

  She touched the rich lace. She wondered what Tucker would think seeing her in this. “I feel so exotic.”

  Bella laughed and fluffed the ornate lace. “This is not such a bad feeling to have on one’s wedding day.”

  “I wanted to get married at Hell’s Eight.”

  “There is no reason you cannot have two weddings.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “As long as you’re marrying the right man.”

  And she was doing that. She touched the blue silk dress draped carefully over the back of the upholstered chair. She had yet to try it on, but she knew it would fit. “Where did thee get all this on such short notice?”

  “Señora Lopez sends her wishes for your happiness and that the joy of her marriage blesses yours.”

  “Señora Lopez?”

  “Zacharias’s mother.”

  She let go of the dress. “This was her wedding dress?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why would she lend it to me?”

  Bella carefully removed the mantilla before lifting the dress. “Because Tucker is important to all at Rancho de Montoya and all wish him happiness.”

  Sally Mae had heard the story of how Tucker and Sam had ridden with Zacharias and the Montoya vaqueros to get Bella back after she’d been kidnapped. She slipped her arms under the volumes of skirt. “They feel in his debt?”

  Bella tugged the dress gently down before taking Sally Mae’s shoulders and turning her around. The smile was gone from her face. “Tucker is a good man. Make no mistake, he is loved.”

  Sally Mae thought of how isolated he always kept himself. “Does he know that?”

  Bella waved her hand. “He is stubborn that way.”

  Sally Mae ran her fingers over the cool silk. “I’ve noticed the tendency.”

  “But now that he has you,” Bella said as she buttoned the myriad of buttons running up the back of the dress, “that should change.”

  “I don’t want to change him.”

  “But you will. As you will change for him. It is the way of things when people love.”

  Was it? She hadn’t necessarily changed for Jonah. Because of the age difference, it had been more that she’d grown into his expectations. Her marriage to Tucker was going to be very different. “Did you change for Sam?”

  Bella smiled softly at her reflection in the big mirror. Her eyes shadowed with memories. “Oh, yes. For Sam I learned to trust.” She shrugged. “And to think a bit more of the way others saw the world, yes?”

  “And Sam?”

  Bella clucked her tongue at the braids wrapped around her head. “You cannot wear your hair like this.”

  “I always do.”

  “Th
en today is a good day to change. A new beginning. Besides, it will look much prettier under the mantilla flowing loose.” She unwrapped the crown of braids around her head. Her hair spilled about her shoulders in a pale shimmer that picked up the silver embroidering in the dress. The dress made her eyes appear almost blue. Would Tucker like that?

  Bella paused. “Do you hate it?”

  “No.” She was beginning to feel like a butterfly coming out of her cocoon, caught between the old and the new, facing a strange and wondrous world. “It’s beautiful.”

  “For Sam it was much harder to adjust.” Bella sighed, going back to their original topic as she resettled the mantilla on Sally Mae’s head and fastened it with pins. “He had so much mistrust, so much anger.”

  She could see that. Sam of the easy surface charm had never let anyone close before Bella. “So what did you do?”

  Bella’s grin flashed. “I threw myself at him shamelessly.”

  Sally Mae had had a chance to see a bit of Bella in action. “From what I saw, he wasn’t running away.”

  “With his body, no, but in his head?” She clucked her tongue. “I will marry a very stubborn man.”

  “So will I.”

  Bella stepped back. “Not only once, but twice. I think this makes you more foolish than I.”

  “Possibly.” Sally Mae turned, checking the dress from every angle. She wasn’t used to seeing herself like this, more frivolous than practical, more beautiful than modest, but she liked the thought of how Tucker would react. She smiled. “But it could be I’m just more determined.”

  She definitely had to be determined. Folding her arms across her chest, Sally Mae planted her feet while the organ music started for the third time. “No.”

  Sam tugged her toward the church aisle. “Now is not the time to be stubborn. We’ve got two days of hard riding between us and Hell’s Eight.”

  They’d been going around like this for five minutes. Neither was budging. Sam wanted the wedding started. She refused to get married by a reverend with a gun pointed to his head.

  “Tucker’s going to think you’ve changed your mind.”

  “Tucker would not be wrong.”

  Sam, a master at negotiation, knew when it was time to change tactics. “The wagons are hitched, all ready to go. Just got to get you two married and we can be off.”