by Caryl McAdoo
A fire erupted in her belly, burned away her grief and worse, her joy at seeing Charley. She’d kill Jack! Shoot the rake dead and feed him to the hogs. “St. Louis, you say?”
He nodded then snorted. Or was it a snicker? His lips thinned before tightening into a grimace as though he could read her mind. Could he still know her so well?
“Cad!” She hit his arm just like she had a hundred times in the past. “Are you laughing at me?”
His head started down toward a nod, but he obviously thought better of it and circled, then sawed back and forth like a lumberjack slicing through a pine. “No. Well, it’s…” He gasped once, then cackled.
At first, she wanted to slug him for real then caught some of his mirth. She smiled at him just before the audacity of it caught hold. He was laughing at her! Nothing made her have to put up with the likes of him anymore. She was grown, a wealthy woman.
Why he would choose to ridicule her after so long a time….
“Good to see you, Charley.” She turned and marched toward the street.
Oh, no! Where had her carriage gotten off to?
In no time, he caught up with her. “Don’t walk away from me, Lacey Langley. I’ve come too far, and I’m sorry. But it reminded me of that time we all went fishing, and Houston and Bart put those worms down the back of your dress. Do you remember?”
“Of course, I do. The little scalawags!” She stopped and faced him. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Oh, you getting mad at that Diamond guy, and your I-am-going-to-murder-him expression… I broke one of his fingers by the way.”
“Just one?”
“I started working on another, but he told me what I wanted to know.”
“You should have killed him, the sorry, no good loafer.…” Her heart nicked her. ‘Vengeance is mine, says the Lord’ echoed through her soul. “I hope God gets him good, I mean does bad things to him.”
YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW DAUGHTER
Maybe she should try to be more merciful and toss a little grace in Spade’s direction.
How could she though? He was such a horrible rogue. Still…her heart knew the voice of the Lord and came under conviction to forgive Jack. Not an easy thing to do.
The one time love of her life’s voice brought her from her internal debate. “No, if I’d of killed him, then I’d be hanged.”
Why did he have to be right all time? She slow-punched his arm. “You’re probably right, and it is good to see you. So very good, Charley. You’re a sight for sore eyes for sure and for certain, but I can’t go back to Texas. Not now.”
“Why not?”
“I have my reasons.” She shrugged. Not only did he have no need to know what they were, he had no right to ask. Her own person, she’d go to her home in Glenn Falls and figure out exactly when she wanted to return to Texas, on her own terms—if ever.
“But I love you, Lacey.”
“Is that so?” She spun toward him, glaring. “You say it as though it should mean something. Aren’t kin supposed to love each other? Yes, they are. So, I guess I love you, too.”
When he didn’t respond, she marched toward the street again, zigzagging, careful not the step on any graves.
“We’re not kin.”
She stopped but didn’t look around. “That isn’t what your letter said.”
Suddenly, he stood in front of her. “I was wrong. I’d just killed two Blue Coats, and Uncle Henry made me a sergeant, because ours went and got himself killed in the same battle. I didn’t want you sitting home on needles, pining over me. But that’s exactly all I’ve been doing since I sent that stupid letter. Pining over you.”
“You were?”
“They didn’t tell me you’d run off.” He took off his hat. “I didn’t expect you to write me again, but after a few mail calls with Bart and Houston getting no letters from you, I knew something had gone wrong.”
“I…I….”
“I’ve been sick over you, girl. I love you. Not in a kinship way, either.” He knelt on one knee before her. “You’ve got to forgive me, Lacey Rose.”
“Why? Why should I? You’re so mean, Charley Nightingale, and you shattered my heart! Give me one good reason why I should forgive you.”
“I want to marry you.”
She resisted smiling, but her heart thundered in her chest. He needed to know—right that second—but could she tell him? She had to. “I can’t, and you won’t want to. I’m…” Tears returned and overflowed.
Oh, Lord, give me strength.
Chapter Twenty-six
Laceywiped her cheeks then somehow found her voice. “Get up. There’s something I need to tell you.”
Why had it all happened like that?
She studied the oak tree on the far side of the cemetery. Then she glanced down. The stubborn oaf remained on one knee, looking every bit a boy—the one who’d stolen her heart all those years ago.
His silly grin got even bigger. “No. Not until you say yes.”
Exactly like him. He always wanted to be the boss. Telling her and Houston and Bart how the cow ate the cabbage. Always had to have everything his way.
Well, she’d just tell him. Get it over with. He’d react just like Nate then be on his way, and she’d never see him again. “I’m pregnant.”
Why’d she blurt it out like that?
“Hopefully, I’ll be as good a father to the baby as Levi Baylor was to me and Bart.”
“That was different.”
Scooting closer, he grabbed her hand. “No, no difference. Not really. I love you, Lacey Rose. I wasn’t sure of it after all this time, until I saw you step out of that carriage. The boys thought I knew you were sweet on me, but I was blind to it. I swear. Then when you kissed me that day…I almost didn’t go, started to come back. But.…”
She should let him go on back to Texas, but she couldn’t stand it another heartbeat. “Yes, Charley, I’ll marry you.”
Now she’d gone and done it.
He jumped to his feet and gave her hand a little tug. She threw her arms around his neck and tilted her head. He pressed his lips to hers. Way before she was ready, he leaned back. “We need to go.”
“Where.”
He kissed her again then grinned. “I’ll tell you on the way.”
Seemed foolish barging right into some strange lady’s fancy house, even if she was Aunt May’s editor, but Charley claimed it would be fine.
What kind of name was Freddie for a grown woman anyway? The cook seemed nice enough, but her boss probably would take one look and order her out. No half-breeds allowed.
Two hours and twenty-two minutes later, the home’s owner proved her all wrong. Frederica acted like kin. Seemed for true that she couldn’t be happier to meet Charley’s Lacey and find out he’d asked her to marry him.
Kisses and hugs again, as if the woman was an aunt or something. But then she asked a question for which Lacey had no answer.
“When?”
Charley shrugged then smiled at her. “Getting late tonight. How about tomorrow?”
Same person she’d fallen in love with so many years before made her smile. That Nightingale never let any grass grow under his feet, but she didn’t want to wait either. “Tonight sounds all the better.”
Though she said it in jest, her love and the marvelous Frederica made it happen, complete with a fancy gown even.
While she tried on her loaned wedding dress, Charley ran a note two doors down. Of course, the senior bishop at Saint Michaels would be glad to assist. Per her betrothed, his exact words were ‘Yes, yes, I have nothing more important to do than officiate a wedding this evening.’
The simple ceremony didn’t match up at all to the one Lacey had dreamed of, but once all was said and done, she wore a golden band on her finger, a sign to the world that she’d married the love of her life and become Mis’ess Charles Nathaniel Nightingale.
The prize she’d fantasized about since she could remember.
Aft
er the ‘I dos’ and more hugs, cheers, and tears—even Aunt May’s editor cried—it finally came the time to be alone! Just her and him, mister and mis’ess. “Oh, Charley, I can hardly believe it. I feel like such a princess.”
“I have a surprise fit for royalty.” He lifted his bag to the bed and removed an old bottle without any kind of markings. He uncorked it then produced two crystal tumblers and filled both half full, extending one to her. “Here.”
“What is it?”
“Very old and highly prized, bourbon.” He touched his glass to hers then took a sip.
Touching it to her lips—she hated telling him she didn’t much care for hard liquor—then…. “Wow. That is so smooth, I’ve never tasted anything like it. Where’d you get it? ”
As he drained his glass…was that a flash of concern etching his eyes? But no, then it was gone. “Fun story.” He leaned toward her and nuzzled her neck. “Want to hear it now or later?”
Choosing later, she forgot all about the fun story, lost amidst the joy of his loving her so completely.
Whatever came before or might come in the future, she loved her life. In that moment, that Comanche blood ran through her veins and her mother calling her a half-breed didn’t matter.
Charley’s heartbreaking letter either.
Jack, Harold, lying, cheating—none of it.
The bed shifted slightly. Her skin on one side abruptly chilled. One eye popped open. He lay on his side grinning. “Good morning, Mis’ess Nightingale.”
“Yes, indeed, Mister Nightingale. I’d say it’s a fabulous day.” She scooched closer, and he kissed her. “I need to check out of my hotel. Want to take me?”
“Love to.”
“Then we need to get to Glenn Falls and collect my things there before we go home.”
“My wish is your command.” He smiled.
Bursting out laughing, she poked his chest. “You’re so bad. You said that wrong you know.”
“What? What’d I say?”
“That your wish…” She couldn’t quit giggling. “Was my command.”
He laughed along. “Did I? Sorry. You knew what I meant though, right? So where’s your hotel?”
“Uptown. Shouldn’t take long.”
“Not a problem. But if my wish does happen to be your command…he pulled her close and smothered her in kisses.
Even though she’d told him, it obviously didn’t register. Not until the carriage stopped in front of the Astor. “You’ve been staying here?”
“Yes. I know…I booked it in a moment of weakness.” What if she didn’t tell him about Harold’s claim of it only costing twenty percent more to go first class?
She’d answer any questions Charley had regarding her dead husband, but why borrow trouble volunteering?
A thousand questions vied on each breath, but he refused them all, not wanting to question her. The past would unfold in its own time…hers…and his.
How she’d come to afford such extravagance, staying in the Astor, really wasn’t his business. Plenty of coin filled his money belt to get back to Texas. Once there again, he’d never want for anything.
And neither would she. He’d see to that.
Except, he would be honor bound to return to the war. While even the thought of having to kill or be killed hurt his heart, suffering disgrace especially in the eyes of his father and uncle—not to mention his boys—would never be acceptable.
Without honor, life had no luster.
“We don’t have to check out until noon.”
He focused.
Sitting on the edge of the fanciest bed he’d ever beheld, she bounced, grinning.
“Noon you say, Mis’ess Nightingale?”
“Yes, sir. And that bed you’ve been sleeping on…” She patted the covers.
Neither bed could compare to the one back home, but then he’d never been big on lying in his rack a minute extra. Get up and get to it. Whatever needed doing, he jumped up to get it done.
But that day, in the moment, lying next to her, sheer contentment filled him. Once he built Lacey a place of her own, he just might have to reconsider that old habit.
From the Astor to the train station took only a few minutes. The train pulled out a few minutes after one in the afternoon, only forty-two minutes behind schedule, according to the conductor.
She snuggled in tight and squeezed his arm. “We’ve got time now. Tell me the funny story.”
Him and his big mouth.
“Diamond said you and Longstreet had planned on going to Albany, so I headed that direction. I noticed these two older ladies traveling by themselves because one was reading Aunt May’s novel. Found out both were big fans, then told them my name.” He smiled. “At first they thought I’d been named after the Charley in the book, but I told them it was the other way around.”
“Oh, this is fun!”
“The oldest sister, Miss Claudia, took a bit of convincing, even grilled me about details in the book, but they finally figured the facts bore out I was who I said.”
“Were they just beside themselves?”
“I suppose you could say that.” He patted her hand. “They wouldn’t hear of anything else, so I ended up staying with them. They’d inherited a distillery along with a brother from their father. When I left, Pauleen gave me the bottle as a gift for our wedding night.”
“They knew of me?” Lacey scooted sideways on the hard bench.
“Of course. The baby girl born in Nacogdoches?” He grinned. “I told them all about you. They tried to help me track you down.”
“So…if their father passed…the sisters were…older?” She glanced out the window. He followed her gaze. The scenery rushed by as the pulse through his veins became more apparent. He did his best to breathe normally, not enjoying her line of questioning. “What did Miss Pauleen look like?”
Him and his big mouth. “They were older, maybe in their forties.” She faced him again, staring, waiting. “What’d she looked like? No one I’ve known I guess. Shoulder high, slim, salt and peppered dark hair…what else?”
“Was she pretty?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“Of course, I do. I mean she had to be smitten! She was, wasn’t she? I mean forty or not, you’re a very handsome man, Charley Nightingale.”
“If you say so. I suppose, a little maybe.”
“Did she love you?”
“I don’t know, Lacey.” He studied his boots.” “Said she did.”
“And do you love her?”
“No, not at all. I love you, sweetheart.”
“Then why would you sleep with her? And why would she lie with you if she knew you loved me?”
Best get it out. “The first time, I’d drank too much of her special whiskey. Thought I was dreaming about you. The second –”
“It happened more than once?”
“Was the night before I left. She came to my room in the middle of the night. And well…I’d already… Plus, I was still mad at you, and….”
“Mad at me? What in the world for?”
“Running off, Lacey. Taking up with that Diamond guy.”
Lacey glared. But how could she be angry or insulted? Full well, plain as a tick on a hound’s nose, she’d earned no right to be upset with him, except that the very thought of him with another woman soured her stomach.
And…well…since he’d unburdened his soul.…
“His real name is Jackson Spencer. The liar told me it was Jack Spade.” She looked at Charley’s boots and thought twice of telling him the whole truth. But if ever the time would be right… “The same day you left, my mother was so mad that I’d supposedly shamed her in front of everyone, she called me a half-breed. To my face.”
“Oh, Lacey.”
“Then I got your letter…I just…I had to get away. Ended up in Fort Smith washing dishes in a cheap saloon. Jack rescued me from the letch I was working for.”
“Why Fort Smith?”
“I’d heard ab
out the Comanche trading there some. Hoped I could find some of Bear Fang’s people and live with them, but Spade claimed he needed a partner and I’d fit the bill well. I was broke...and stupid. Didn’t know until later he was a cheat.”
He scooted close and rubbed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “I love you, Lacey Rose, and I’m so sorry I ever wrote that letter.”
She faced him and put his arm over her shoulder then pressed in tight against his chest. She couldn’t change the past, his or hers—just like she couldn’t change what she was—except there with her true love, it didn’t matter that the blood surging through her veins would always be half Comanche.
She scooted back around. “We don’t have to go back to Texas. We could stay here. The war is almost over, and no one up here cares who I am.”
“No. Texas is our home, and sweetheart, you’re my wife now. That’s all that matters.”
She let him pull her back in tight…but no one had ever called him a half-breed.
Chapter Twenty-seven
The house itself proved to be something, nicer than he’d envisioned, and it resting in the shadow of the Adirondack Mountains surrounded by forest, caught Charley by surprise. “This is yours?”
She smiled then tossed her hair to one side. “Yes, well, ours now.”
He liked her talking that way, but did he want anything that had belonged to Longstreet?
Once inside, the hired carriage gone, and introductions made, the caretakers insisted—and Charley hated telling old folks no—he found himself agreeing to stay for church the next morning then he’d head home on Monday.
What was an extra day?
That night in Longstreet’s bedroom, sitting the man’s chair and sipping Pauleen’s whiskey out of his crystal tumbler while Lacey brushed her hair in front of his dressing mirror, Charley couldn’t hold his tongue any longer. “Why’d you marry him?”
She didn’t turn, but met his eyes in the glass then put the brush down. “I’d convinced myself I was in love with Jack, except I hated him…a lot, too. He’d just gotten his fingers broke, and we were short of cash.
