Promises Prevail

by Sarah McCarty

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Nice-looking boy you’ve got there,” Asa said, joining Clint on Doc’s porch, his collar turned up against the evening chill.

  Clint looked through the window to where Dorothy was forcing another piece of pie on the kid. Nothing offended Dorothy more than an underfed male. “For all the fuss he made about taking that bath, he did clean up well.”

  Asa touched the bruise on his cheek which he’d gotten while escorting Gray to the tub. “A fighter to the bone, that one.”

  The door opened and light spilled onto the small porch before being blocked by Cougar’s big frame. “Talking about Gray?”

  “Hell of a name to pin on the kid.”

  Clint shrugged. “The kid chose it.”

  “I’m thinking that was more self-defense,” Asa offered, leaning against a porch support. “No offense, Clint, but Jenna doesn’t have an ear for languages.”

  Clint smiled. “If the kid hadn’t conceded, I was considering begging. It was pure torture listening to her butcher his Indian name.”

  Cougar leaned back against the log wall, melting naturally into the shadow. “She’s not one for giving up, that’s for sure.”

  “No, she isn’t.”

  “And you like that about her.”

  Clint smiled. “Yes, I do.”

  Cougar’s teeth gleamed white in the sudden flash of a sulfur striking.

  He held out the cigarette he’d just lit. Clint shook his head.

  “Since when aren’t you partial to an after dinner smoke?” Asa asked, the amusement in his tone indicating that he had a fair idea.

  “Since I got married.” The only time Jenna had pulled away from his kiss was right after he’d had a cigarette. She’d recovered, but he liked her better when she was leaning into him rather than away.

  “Pussy whipped already?” Cougar asked.

  “No more than you.”

  “I’m safe tonight,” Cougar said, taking a deep drag on his cigarette, his eyes narrowing with satisfaction. “Mara can’t mess with my dinner if she catches a whiff of smoke seeing as how Dorothy’s cooking.”

  “You could just lay down the law to her,” Asa suggested.

  “The same way you laid down the law to Elizabeth about breaking horses?” Cougar asked, smiling.

  Clint echoed the grin. It was the worst kept secret in the territory that Asa indulged his headstrong wife.

  “Along those lines,” Asa admitted. “I might just be getting soft, but all that woman has to do is turn those pretty green eyes on me, and I forget my point.”

  “Yeah. Same here.” Cougar took another drag. “The only difference is that Mara’s eyes are brown.”

  “Elizabeth’s prettier too,” Asa said with a perfectly straight face.

  Clint rolled his eyes, knowing what was coming. Cougar was a keg of dynamite when it came to Mara.

  “In your dreams.” Cougar flicked the cigarette into the dirt beyond the porch.

  “I’m not saying Mara isn’t sweet and smart, but when it comes to looks, Mara can’t hold a candle to my Elizabeth.”

  Cougar pushed off the wall, stepping into the light. Clint shook his head and entered the fray.

  “Hell, you’re both sucking dust when it comes to my Jenna. There isn’t a prettier, softer woman in the territory.”

  “I’ll give you that,” Asa drawled. “She has to be pretty damned soft in the head to take up with you.”

  “You got that right,” Cougar agreed, laughter in his eyes.

  Clint shrugged. “You might be right there.”

  “Ah hell, you’re still not thinking you’re not right for the girl, are you?” Cougar growled.

  “She deserves someone who can love her.”

  “She needs someone she can depend on,” Asa countered, his tone serious for once. “Someone she can trust to lead her without abusing her.”

  “She doesn’t need a leader.”

  “Christ, Clint,” Cougar scoffed. “The girl’s been trained to do nothing but follow. And I suspect, been beaten into accepting it, and you want her to just up and take charge?”

  “Shit, no wonder she’s having nightmares,” Asa murmured.

  “She’s not having nightmares anymore.” Clint reached for his makings.

  “Well, that’s a blessing,” Cougar cut into the argument. “Any word on who raped her?”

  “No.” Clint untied the pouch.

  “Damn. I’d rest a lot easier if we knew that.”

  “We’d all rest easier.” Asa paused, caught Clint’s eye and nodded to the pouch in his hand. “Sure you want that cigarette tonight?”

  Clint sighed. He wanted it but he wanted Jenna more. Especially as Dorothy was hinting that Gray should stay with her and Doc tonight while dropping additional hints that the boy shouldn’t be separated from his sister so soon after their reunion. He put the pouch back in his pocket.

  The door opened and Gray Fox Searching and Doc came out. Doc took a seat in the bentwood rocker and took out his pipe. Cleaned and dressed in clothes Dorothy had dredged up for him, Gray almost looked civilized, except for the wariness in his gaze and the slight curl to his full lips.

  “Evening, son.”

  Gray cut him a glare and nodded. Clint considered it a victory that he didn’t deny the relationship. Then again, being Indian, the boy understood kinship by claim. And by his own words, he really had nowhere else to go. The Indian wars had seen to that.

  “You’re packing a lot of attitude for an eleven-year-old,” Cougar pointed out conversationally.

  “I am not a child.”

  “You’re not a man either, and until you learn to fight, you’d better rein in that challenge.”

  “I fight just fine.”

  “That why your mother got kicked while protecting you?” Clint asked.

  Before the boy could open his mouth, Asa was shaking his head. “A man protects his women, Gray. He never endangers them.”

  A shadow passed over the kid’s face, and Clint swore, knowing he wasn’t thinking of Jenna right then. The boy’s mother had been forced into prostitution and then murdered when she had refused to continue after her daughter was born.

  “You couldn’t help what happened to your mother, son. Some things are out of our control. It’s the ones we can control that we need to be aware of.”

  The boys jaw set in a line that said clearer than words that it wasn’t over as far as he was concerned.

  “In a few years,” Clint told him, understanding, making a place for him at the rail, “if you want to hunt down the man who killed your mother, I’ll ride with you.”

  That earned him a startled glance.

  “You’re a McKinnely now,” Cougar cut in with a shrug. “You’re not alone.”

  “However, between now and then,” Clint continued, “you’ve got to get ready.”

  “Ready?”

  “You need to learn to handle yourself.”

  “I can handle myself.”

  “That’s pride talking,” Asa interrupted. “Pride will get you killed. Common sense will get you to your goal.”

  “I’ll teach you to handle a knife,” Cougar offered.

  “And who are you to teach me?” Gray demanded.

  Clint had to hand it to the kid for gall. Even when Cougar’s face went hard and his eyes went dead cold, the kid held his ground.

  “I am your uncle.”

  Doc shook his head at Gray. “The first thing you need to learn is when to bite your tongue.”

  “Why?” Head thrown back, the kid was a picture of arrogance.

  Asa rolled his makings into a cigarette. “Because you just went and told ‘Gut ‘em McKinnely’ to fuck off.”

  The kid swallowed hard and went pale. To his credit, he didn’t hand out excuses and try to cover. Instead, he squared his shoulders and remained silent. The kid had some real likable qualities.

  Gray swallowed again, and looked at Cougar, Asa, and then Clint. Clint started counting in his
head as he passed a match to Asa. In the orange flare, the boy’s distress was easy to see. Gray took a step back away from the rail. His mouth set belligerently, but not before Clint saw the hint of a tremble. If Cougar didn’t cut this short, he sure as shit was going to.

  Cougar glanced at the boy from the corner of his eye.

  “Lucky for you Gray, I’ve got a rule against holding grudges on family.”

  For an instant, Gray wavered, and then he stood tall. He looked so alone in that moment that Clint put this hand on his shoulder. The kid’s bones poked his palm, but there was the promise of future strength in their width. He didn’t flinch away so Clint didn’t pull away.

  “I was disrespectful.”

  “It’s been a hell of a day, so I’ll cut you some slack,” Cougar allowed. “Plus, I’m grateful for your stepping in for Jenna.”

  The boy frowned. “She shouldn’t have done that.”

  “No,” Clint agreed, “she shouldn’t have.”

  “What’d you expect her to do, let Dan beat the boy to a smudge?” Doc asked, his grizzled brows raised.

  “She should have called for help.”

  “And let the boy be hurt? You don’t know your wife, Clint, if you think she’d ever regard that as an option.”

  “She is too soft,” Gray agreed.

  “She’s all heart, that’s for sure.” He turned the kid toward him. “That why you picked her for Bri?”

  He nodded. “Her real name is Hope on the Mist.”

  Asa laughed. “I bet that’s a humdinger of a name to pronounce in Cheyenne.”

  Gray nodded, glanced through the window, and then shrugged.

  “Maybe it is best she be called Bri.” He looked through the window again. Clint followed the trajectory of his gaze to where the women sat, Bri in their midst, her arms waving and a happy smile on her face.

  “She has grown.” He sounded almost resentful.

  “Good food and care will do that to a baby,” Doc said, the smoke from his pipe scenting the cold night air.

  “It is good.”

  “The way the women were feeding you, we’ll soon have to roll you in and out of the door,” Asa teased.

  “They are good cooks,” Gray agreed noncommittally.

  “Soon we’ll all be as fat as pigs ready for slaughter,” Cougar added with a slap to his stomach. He didn’t sound at all upset with the prospect. Probably because he was in no danger of it ever happening, but he sure shocked the kid.

  “You are a warrior.”

  “That I am, but there are real pleasures to being a married man.”

  “And yet you just have the one wife.” Gray looked confused.

  “Mara’s more than enough woman for me,” Cougar laughed, the sternness of his features dissolving into pleasure.

  “They say she is too small to bear you sons.”

  Cougar’s smile faded and his expression grew serious. “Then I’ll find my children elsewhere.”

  “Another wife would be an easier solution,” Gray countered with irrefutable logic.

  “So you would think,” Cougar smiled, his face hidden from view as he looked toward his wife. “But I’ve always been contrary.”

  “Now that,” Asa agreed, “is the truth.”

  Gray turned to Clint and said, “Your woman cannot bear you children.”

  “No.”

  “That’s not for sure, Clint,” Doc countered.

  “I’ve made my peace with it.” He shrugged and the smile came from inside. “Besides, I can’t see Jenna being happy with another woman under foot.”

  “You will not take another wife because it would hurt her?” Gray asked, surprise lifting his tone.

  “That, and I don’t want another wife.”

  He frowned. “Many white men have other women.”

  “What other men do is neither here nor there.”

  “You have grown soft.” The kid scowled as if keeping his word to Jenna were a crime.

  “So it’s been said.”

  “I will never grow soft.” Gray stared into the night, his thin, handsome face hardening to a razor edge of determination.

  Clint squeezed his shoulders. “You may resent me for saying this, but I hope you’re wrong.”

  “Amen to that,” Asa murmured while Doc and Cougar nodded.

  Clint wasn’t leaving his son’s future up to God. If he had anything to say about it—and he intended to have a lot to say—his son would never grow up to know aching emptiness that could never be filled. That hollow echo in a man’s soul that came from too much purpose, too much killing. No matter how good the reason the boy thought he had.

  * * * * *

  It was late when they pulled up in front of their home. The temperature dropped with every turn of the buggy’s wheels. Clint took his rifle out of his lap and jumped down. Ice crunched under his feet, and his breath frosted in the lantern light. As he held out his hand, his black eyes glittered with that strange emotion that had been there since the disaster in the mercantile.

  Jenna placed her palm in his. His fingers closed around hers, their strength banked. She loved the way he touched her. Controlled, but with the promise of all the passion she could handle. Which was becoming more and more as each day passed.

  “I wish Bri and Gray had come home with us,” she said as he swung her down.

  “And deprive Dorothy of a chance to mother them?” he asked, his voice neutral and his eyes hidden by the shadow of his hat.

  “She’s a nice woman.”

  “The best.” His hands lingered on her waist as she got her balance. It was so dark she couldn’t see the hem of her cloak.

  “She’s in her glory with two kids to fuss over,” he added as he grabbed his rifle and High Stepper’s reins. “Besides, it’ll give us time to set up a room for Gray so he’ll have a place here, and feel wanted.”

  “You don’t think he’ll take Bri and run do you?”

  “If I did, I wouldn’t have left them there.”

  She rubbed her arms and stomped her feet against the seeping cold.

  “He’s just so angry…” She bit her lip, remembering the boy’s eyes, their haunted depths. “So alone.”

  “Give him time Jenna, and he’ll be fine. Dorothy knows how to handle kids.”

  Jenna knew Dorothy could handle Bri, but Gray Fox Searching was a whole different story.

  “So you think Gray will be okay?”

  “His stomach’s full,” Clint answered. “He’s got a warm bed to lie in, and his sister’s near.” He started moving. She moved with him, but the lantern cast shadows she couldn’t see into and she fell behind.

  “Watch, there’s a hole right there.” He stopped so suddenly that she almost ran into him. His arm slid around her waist, the reins dangling down the side of her cloak as he pulled her up against him. His grip on her waist tightened to the point that it didn’t matter if she saw the hole or not. Clint wouldn’t let her fall.

  The trust she felt in his company was novel. In her youth she’d dreamed of a hero who’d like her for herself, take the good with the bad, and stand by her. With maturity, she’d accepted a good man was one who didn’t use his wife as a resting place for his fist, and now Clint was causing her to reevaluate her assessments once again, taking her back to the dreams of a child. Was it any wonder that she waffled between caution and hope when it came to him?

  “Stay there.” He led her to the right of the door, his hand staying at her hip until he was sure she was steady. Just another of the considerations she was learning to handle. Worse yet, expect.

  “Okay.”

  The wagon creaked as he opened the door and led the horse and buggy through. She was alone in the dark for a heart-stopping moment and then he was there, his hand touching her arm, making her jump.

  “Easy, Sunshine. I’m right here.”

  It was pathetic, but ever since that night she couldn’t stand the dark and the memories that stalked it. As if he sensed her need, his big, capable hand s
lid up her arm and across her back, pulling her into him.

  “I’ve got you, Jenna.”

  “Hold me for a minute?” She felt his start. “I’m sorry.” She pulled back. She got as far as his palm.

  “That’s the first time you’ve asked me to hold you,” he murmured, pulling her into his chest. He smelled of leather, smoke, and man.

  “Is it?” It seemed like she had been asking him to touch her forever.

  “Yes.”

  “I must seem like such a baby to you.”

  “I’ve already told you how I see you.”

  She snuggled into his embrace, grabbed her daring, and plunged forward. “Tell me again.”

  Beneath her cheek, his chest jerked. She’d surprised him. Good.

  “Getting bold?” he asked, his drawl deeper, neutrality gone.

  “I’m trying it out.” No reason not to admit the truth.

  “I like it.” The last was said against her hair. His lips moved across her head in a gentle caress. “Are you scared, Jenna?”

  She shook her head. He would have left it there, but she couldn’t. He never hid himself from her. He gave all he was, all the time. She liked how that made her feel. She’d like to make him feel the same. She wondered if he could feel her blush through his coat as she pushed herself down the path she was setting.

  “I just wanted to be close to you.” She buried her face in his coat. Of all the unsophisticated ways to phrase things. She sounded scared and whiny when she wanted to sound strong and seductive. His hand came up to cup her head. His fingertips rasped her hot cheek.

  “Are you blushing?”

  “Could you pretend not to notice?”

  “Depends on why.”

  “I don’t want to be someone you feel sorry for.”

  His fingers stilled. “What makes you think I feel sorry for you?”

  “Please don’t treat me like I’m stupid.”

  “I wasn’t aware that I was.”

  “You’re always fussing over me.”

  “That’s because you’re sweet to spoil.” His big body leaned into her. She leaned back against the barn wall, bearing his weight and his expectations.

  “I am?”

  “Yeah. I’ve never had a wife before. I find I like making you smile.” He kissed her ear as his hair fell against her.

  “Sigh,” he whispered against the side of her neck. He nibbled on the cord beneath her ear. She didn’t contain her groan as shivers raced down her spine and his smile spread.