“I don’t allow cheatin’ in my fields,” a deep voice rumbled.
Grayson looked past Abbie to where Westland stood, legs akimbo, eyes narrowed into an icy glare. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw other people stop their labors and stare.
“I beg your pardon?” Grayson asked, unable to prevent the haughtiness from creeping into his voice.
“I pay my workers two bits for each sack they pick. Taking a sack that’s half-full is cheatin’.”
“Two bits?”
“A quarter,” Abbie explained.
Grayson met Westland’s accusing glare. “I am not one of your workers. The only reason I’m picking your damn cotton is because I want Abbie out of the fields as quickly as possible.”
“I won’t pay you for the half-filled sacks you take from her.”
Grayson slipped the empty sack onto Abbie’s shoulder. She put her hand over his.
“Don’t be a fool. If he’s not going to pay you—”
“I don’t want the money, Abbie. I never did.”
“No one works a cotton field for nothing.”
“If my working the fields gets you out of them sooner, then I didn’t do it for nothing.”
He felt John Westland’s gaze boring into him as he headed toward a section where the cotton was a bit more abundant. The sooner he filled his sack, the sooner he could hand an empty one off to Abbie.
The day was the longest of his life. The heat was unbearable. His fingers bled, swelled, ached, and cramped, but the most painful part of all was shutting off his emotions. He was torn between confronting John Westland and honoring the man’s return.
As dusk neared, the others left the fields, but Grayson continued to pluck tuft after tuft after tuft. As long as he could see the shadows, he could pick…and each piece he picked was one that Abbie wouldn’t have to.
Abbie tucked the sheets around Micah’s chin even though she knew the warmth of the night would have him kicking the sheets off his small body before he’d drifted off to sleep. A week had passed, and John had yet to say good night to his children.
“How come Gray can’t read to us no more?” Micah asked.
She sat on the edge of his bed; his eyes were wide as he studied her. She brushed his hair back. “He doesn’t live here anymore, and he needs to get to his place in town before night comes.”
“Who’s he live with?”
“He has a room at the saloon.”
“Wish he lived here,” Micah said.
“Me, too,” Johnny piped up. “I thought maybe you’d marry him.”
Abbie’s heart gave a sudden lurch as she glanced at Johnny. The boys slept in one big bed—close together as though they didn’t mind ramming into someone else during the night. Perhaps there was even comfort there. Unlike her and John who—after the first night—slept stiffly, each hugging their respective sides of the bed.
She shook her head. “No, no…” What could she say? I was going to marry him. I want to marry him still, but Fate returned your father to me and now I must honor vows I made at sixteen. She simply shook her head again.
“He said he’s gonna move to Galveston when the damnable cotton—”
“Johnny!” she scolded, although inside a small part of her smiled. In the week since John’s return, she’d never heard Grayson talk about cotton unless it was preceded by the word damnable.
“That’s what he said,” Johnny protested.
“I know, but that’s not what we call it. It puts food on the table so we’re grateful for it.”
“I wanna go to Galveston with him,” Johnny said.
So do I. She would have gone anywhere with him.
“You can’t. This is your home.”
“But—”
“Maybe when you grow up.” She rose to her feet and bent over each boy, kissing his forehead, even though she knew Johnny would prefer that she didn’t. She was starving for affection and was grateful for the smallest amount.
She lowered the flame in their lamp before stepping out of their room and clicking the door quietly into place. She pressed her forehead to the door. She had never questioned the sanctity of marriage vows until now. Did one remain loyal to one’s husband…or one’s heart?
Slowly, she turned and the breath backed up within her lungs at the sight before her.
John sat at the table, turning the pages of the family Bible, brushing away the crushed flower petals until they were strewn before him on the table. Flowers that Grayson had given her.
She’d forgotten how often John would ask her to read from the Bible. Other than the almanac which she also read to him, it was the only book they’d possessed until Grayson had given her Ivanhoe.
As calmly as she could, she walked to the table. Cupping a hand, she started to scoop the faded petals into her hand.
“Leave them,” John commanded.
“They’re making such a mess—”
“He give ’em to you, didn’t he?”
“H-he?” she stammered.
He lifted his hard, uncompromising gaze to hers. “Rhodes.”
She sank into the chair, her heart pounding as she considered the merits of lying. But in the end, she decided he deserved the truth. “Yes.”
“I figured. I’m surprised the fields don’t burst into flames with the looks you two give each other.”
She felt as though he’d slapped her. “I’ve hardly cast a glance his way all week—”
“Ah, but when you do—”
“That’s not fair, John.” She bolted from the chair, her breath coming in shortened spurts as though she were drowning, fighting to draw in air. She spun around and faced him, balling her hands into fists at her sides. “They told me you were dead, and I did not hold my heart as close to my breast as I should have—as I would have if I’d known you were alive.”
“You love him then?”
She was unprepared for the pain she saw reflected in his brown eyes. The fight went right out of her. He didn’t deserve this. None of them deserved this twist of fate.
“Yes, I love him.”
Carefully he turned to the last pages of the Bible, nodding his head as he did so. With a blunt-tipped finger, he pointed to the words scrawled on the family page. “What does this say?”
She knew without looking to what he was pointing, but still she moved in closer and stared at the words she’d written at sixteen. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “John Westland married Abigail Morgan, January 14, 1856.”
“You wrote them words.”
“Yes, I know.”
He lifted his gaze to hers. “For better or worse.”
She nodded mutely. How was she to have known that better had been the years before the war and that worse would be a journey into hell?
With a brusque nod, he closed the Bible and laid his hand on top as though swearing an oath. “For better or worse, Abigail…until death do us part.”
She knew it was risky, had the potential to cause more harm than good, but her heart gave her little choice.
She waited until she heard John snore. He had always slept hard. He never awakened when the children cried out, never stirred whenever Abbie left the bed. Tonight was no exception.
She dressed quickly, quietly, waiting until she was outside to slip on her shoes. Then she saddled the horse that the children had unanimously voted to rename Ivanhoe and rode into town.
The moon had risen high in the blackened sky, an orange orb that guided her way. Lanterns cast their glow over the wide dirt street of Fortune.
The saloon was situated in the center of town. As she neared it, she saw the stairs at the rear of the building that led to the rooms above.
What a fool she’d been. Even if she climbed those stairs and managed to get onto the second floor where the rooms were, how would she find Grayson’s room? She couldn’t simply knock on door after door and apologize when it was the wrong one.
A figure emerged from the shadows beside the stairway: tall, slender, fam
iliar. Her heart tightened with an unwarranted ache. Reaching out, he grabbed the bridle, stopping the horse, before helping her dismount.
She fell into Grayson’s embrace. “How did you know I’d come?”
He cradled her cheek and tilted her face up. His features were lost in the shadows of the night until a sad smile broke through the darkness. “I didn’t know…but I hoped.” He drew her back against him, and she heard him swallow. “Will you come to my room?”
She nodded. He tethered her horse a distance away from the stairs. She doubted that anyone would see it there. He walked back to her, slipped his arm around her, and nestled her snugly against his side as he guided her up the stairs and through the doorway that led into the hall on the second floor.
She had never been in the saloon, and although she could not see the main area, she still smelled the acrid odor of the cigarette smoke and the stale stench of whiskey. She heard footsteps on the stairs at the other end of the hall. Grayson moved quickly, ushering her into a room.
His room. It carried his scent. A rich fragrance that mingled with the sweat from working in the fields. A lamp burned low on a table beside the bed. Curtains billowed through the open window. She heard male laughter float up from the street. It made her feel sordid, dirty to know she was where she shouldn’t be. She stepped out of his embrace, folding her arms around herself. “It’s much nicer than the barn,” she whispered low.
“But it’s farther away from you.”
He was standing beside her, so close that she could feel his warmth. “Please hold me.”
His arms came around her without hesitation, strong, comforting. How she had missed this. The constant caresses, the inadvertent touches. Something as simple as holding hands.
When he stepped back, she followed, as though they were waltzing with no music except the melody from their hearts. He eased down to the bed, holding her close, rolling her over until they were both lying on their sides, facing each other. He trailed his callused fingers along her brow, her temple, her cheek, her chin.
“Tonight he asked me if I loved you,” she said quietly.
He stilled his fingers. “What did you say?”
“I told him yes.”
He brushed his lips over hers as lightly as a butterfly skimmed over a blossoming flower. “What did he say?”
She placed her hand on his chest, against the beating of his heart. “He showed me where I’d written our marriage date in the family Bible, and he said, ‘For better or worse.’”
“Is it worse for you now?”
She pressed her face to his chest as his arms closed around her. She felt the weight of his leg over her thigh, the pressure of his body against hers.
“It hurts, Grayson, it hurts to see you in the fields. Please don’t come anymore. Go to Galveston. Find your success there and forget about me.”
He tucked his finger beneath her chin and tilted her head away from him. His lips came down on hers hard, demanding, his tongue sweeping through her mouth, claiming territory that it no longer possessed. Her resistance was nonexistent when he rolled her over and laid his body over hers. She felt the lines of his body, hard, unyielding, pressing against her curves. How easy it would be to forget vows and promises…how easy and how unbearably difficult to live with.
She tore her mouth from his, turning her face to the side, gasping for breath even as she heard his harsh breathing.
“I have the power to seduce you,” he rasped.
She shifted her gaze back to him, her heart in her eyes. “Probably. I didn’t come here to be seduced, but where you are concerned, I seem to have no willpower. And yet, you promised me that with you, I would always have a choice.”
He rolled off her and sat at the edge of the bed, his elbows on his knees, his face buried in his hands. “Damn it, Abbie, I don’t want you to be a conquest. You’re the only woman in my life that I’ve wanted on equal terms.”
She sat up and pressed her cheek to his back, trailing her fingers along the ridge of his spine. “If you stay in Fortune, a moment will come when neither of us will have the strength to say no…and after that moment passes, our love will die.”
He twisted around. “Nothing will destroy what I feel for you.”
She cradled his cheek. “Because you don’t have to look across the table at the person with whom you exchanged sacred vows of marriage…and you don’t have to look your children in then eyes, knowing you’ve been unfaithful to their father. I love you, Grayson Rhodes. I will always love you. But I can no longer have you.”
He surged off the bed and turned on her. “Shall I play devil’s advocate here? Do you want to spend the rest of your life with a man who doesn’t love you the way that I do?”
She came off the bed, her heart thundering. She had known this would be hard, but the difficulty of sending him away was staggering. “The responsibilities you owe one person don’t stop because you love another more. John was a good husband in his own way. I can’t be less than a good wife. He has done nothing to deserve my abandonment.” She reached out to him imploringly. “I exchanged vows with him long before you came along—”
“I am so damned tired of being second when I should have been first. The duke was betrothed when my mother sprang her little surprise on him, but he wouldn’t put aside his betrothal to marry an actress. So here I am, his firstborn son treated as though I am his last.
“And now here you are telling me that because I was not here when you exchanged vows with Westland, it matters not that I love you more than my very life. I am relinquished to the dung heap…even though I am the first man to love you.”
She sank onto the bed, tears burning her eyes and throat. “You’re more than that. You’re the first man I’ve ever loved. But is our love enough to justify destroying a life? Because we will destroy him. He’s a proud man, Grayson. If he were cruel or hateful…if he beat me…if he did anything that made my life unbearable, then I would leave him. But I knew he didn’t love me when I married him. I knew he only needed me. How do I tell him now that need isn’t enough?”
He dropped to his knees before her and cradled her face between his palms. “Do you know what I love most about you? That you never put yourself first. I had hoped this time that you would.”
She combed her fingers up into his thick, golden hair. “I feel as though I’m being stretched out on a rack in the dungeon, but I know if I turn my back on John, something inside me will shrivel up and die…and I will become a woman you will grow to hate.”
“I would never hate you, and damn me, I don’t know why but I love you more at this moment than I’ve ever loved you before.”
“Then be kind to us both and leave Fortune.”
Within his eyes, she watched dreams war with reality—battles she had constantly fought herself within the last week.
At long last, he stood, took her hand, and pulled her from the bed. “I think I much prefer being a rogue to being a gentlemen. The pain is so much less.” The kiss he bestowed upon her was bittersweet and carried the salt of her tears.
When he drew away, he grazed his knuckles over her cheeks. “I shall escort you home.”
“No. We’ll just have to say good-bye all over again. I can’t—”
He touched his finger to her lips. “Enough said.”
He strolled across the room, quietly opened the door, and glanced into the hallway. “All clear,” he whispered.
She walked from the room into the hall. His arm came around her, shielding her as he led her outside and down the stairs. He retrieved her horse and helped her mount up. She gave him a smile that she feared might look as cracked as her shattered heart. “Be happy, Grayson.”
“Impossible, sweetheart, without you by my side.”
She urged her horse into a gallop, his words echoing through her heart. Impossible for both of them.
Grayson watched her ride into the night, the pain within his chest growing worse as she receded into the distance.
�
��So your waiting finally paid off,” Kit said as he stepped out of the shadows.
“Spying?”
“No, just taking a late-night stroll. Ironic, isn’t it? You always preferred married women—and just when you think you’ve changed your ways, you’re bedding a married woman again.”
“I did not bed her.”
“You don’t have to lie to me—”
He spun around. “I’m not lying, dammit. She came to say good-bye. That’s all. How soon can we leave for Galveston?”
“A day or so. What about the cotton in her husband’s fields?”
“It can rot for all I care. Just do whatever it takes to get us out of this hellhole quickly.” He tromped up the stairs, wishing he’d sent his conscience to purgatory and made love to Abbie one last time.
15
Grayson waited until he was certain everyone had left the fields before he brought his horse to a halt and tethered it near the barn. He had stayed away three days while Kit made the arrangements to travel to Galveston. He thought it had taken his friend an exceedingly long time, and he had wondered more than once if perhaps Kit had no desire to leave.
He walked along the furrows. Hardly a tuft of cotton in sight. Abbie was right. John Westland liked his fields clean.
“Hey, Gray.”
Grayson turned slightly at the sound of the youthful voice. “Evening, Sir Johnny.”
Johnny smiled brightly. “When are we gonna have another tournament?”
He had come to say farewell, and suddenly the word became lodged in his throat, too damnably hard to say. “I don’t know.”
“The last one sure was fun.”
“Yes, it was,” he admitted, remembering every smile that Abbie had graced him with that day.
Johnny plucked a bit of cotton free and stuffed it into his trousers pocket. “It’s funny having…Pa home.” He glanced up. “I reckon he’s my pa since Ma says he is, but I don’t ’member him none.”
“I imagine it’s hard, but in time…well, it’ll be as though he never left, won’t it?”
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