“So, don’t go beating yourself up, claiming a guilt you don’t deserve, Buck. I’m not even sure why she told me. She had no intentions of trying to change. Maybe you could have saved her that day, but eventually, she’d have ended up the way she did.”
Buck waited for the numbing pain to come. It didn’t. For so many years after her death he’d felt guilty for even thinking she’d been unfaithful. He’d thought it was just a safety valve, something to mollify his own feelings of ambivalence toward her and their marriage. If there had been honest signs of her unfaithfulness, he hadn’t noticed them. But then, he realized sadly, he hadn’t bothered to look too hard.
Something inside him, the guilt and anxiety he’d fed on for so many years, began to dissolve. A peace stole through him. He’d always be sorry he hadn’t been there for her, but he knew that in order to save someone from addiction of any kind, that person must want to be saved.
“And you’re sure the schoolmaster, Harry Ritter, killed her?”
“He’d gotten drunk one night and all but admitted it to someone—I can’t remember who. But you know, who in the hell cared if a squaw was murdered?” Jason added bitterly.
“Yeah, who in the hell cared …” In spite of what Buck had learned, he finally had put everything in perspective and was at peace. Of a sort. At least that part of his life was behind him once and for all. Hopefully, he’d never let himself wonder about “what might have been.” Hell, he spent more than enough time thinking about Molly, and “what was going to be.”
Molly heard Anna, Buck and Josh returning from church. She’d felt a bit too queasy to join them and had been dozing on the sofa. She’d had some bouts of dizziness as well, but as long as she rested, they didn’t last long. The house had been empty save for her. June had gone to Sky and Shy Fawn’s earlier to work on a quilt. Concetta was spending the weekend with her daughter.
As Josh and Anna entered the kitchen, Josh was laughing, holding his sides.
“It isn’t as funny as all that, Joshua Gaspard,” his mother scolded.
Molly glanced at Anna, still beautiful at fifty, and noticed the blush that had colored her cheeks. She looked beyond Anna toward the door, a twinge of disappointment infiltrating her relief when she realized that Buck hadn’t come inside with them.
Josh saw Molly at the table. Still gasping for breath, he announced, “Ma and Rachel got a fit of the snortin’ giggles in church.”
“We did not snort,” Anna answered primly.
Molly bit her lower lip to keep from smiling. “What happened?”
“We were standin’ for a hymn when Ol’ Mrs. Crabtree, who was in front of us, farted—”
“Passed gas,” his mother interrupted tersely. “Don’t use that other word in the house.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered, taking the stern correction with a good-natured nod. “Anyway, Mrs. Crabtree, passed gas,” he said, obviously only to please his mother, “and Rachel was sittin’ next to Ma and cleared her throat, but she kind of hiccupped at the end, like she was tryin’ to keep from laughing. And then—”
“And then,” his mother said firmly, “that’s the end of it, Joshua.”
Still chuckling, Josh left the room and bounded up the stairs.
Anna removed her gloves and her cape, laying them over the back of a chair. As she wove her hat pins into the brim of her hat, she gave Molly a careful look. “Are you feeling any better?”
Molly yawned and stretched, unwilling to mention her bout with dizziness. “Much. I’m sorry I missed the excitement,” she added around a smile.
“Honestly,” Anna said, her face still flushed. “I can’t believe I did that. What kind of example is that for the children? Jason’s three youngsters were sitting right there with us, and I do believe they were stupefied to find their mother and their granny giggling and snorting into their hankies like a couple of girls at a basket social.” She shook her head with dismay. “Thank heavens Reverend Toland is such a saint. He just talked on and on as though nothing had happened, when in reality, we upset the congregation far more than poor Ella Crabtree did. And that rascal Josh,” she said, clucking her tongue. “The stinker started laughing so hard at us, he had to leave the church.”
With a resolute shake of her head, she mumbled something and went into the pantry.
Unable to help herself, Molly chuckled quietly. Oh, how she’d missed all of this. It was the funny, madcap day-to-day incidents with her family that made her happy to be home, in spite of her troubled feelings about Buck. She pushed the complicated problems away, preferring to enjoy the day instead.
Anna, now composed, stepped out of the pantry with a cloth covered basket. “Molly, would you do me a favor?”
“Of course. I feel perfectly fine now.” And she did. She’d never experienced two bouts of dizziness in the same day.
“Well,” Anna began, “on our way back from church, we saw a couple of the hands cleaning out the brush by the line shack back in the woods near the river. They looked so tired, I just know they’re hungry. I thought it might be a good idea to bring them some lunch.” She slipped the basket handle over her arm and wrung her hands. “I’d send Josh, but after he changes into his work clothes, Nicolas wants him in the barn. I’d go myself, but I—”
“Say no more.” Molly stood slowly, just in case the vertigo returned. It didn’t. “I’d love the ride. I’ll change my clothes and take one of the mares.”
“Oh, you are a lifesaver.” Anna sounded so grateful, and strangely enthusiastic.
It was a beautiful morning. Unseasonably warm, as had been the entire month. A small grove of sycamores snuggled at the edge of the vineyard, their smooth, light green leaves forming irregular crowns atop the rather colorless trunks. A swallow took flight from within the leafy mass, cutting an erratic path across the road, leaving only a sweet twittering in its wake.
Molly guided the mare off the road onto the path that led to the line shack. A wash of memory made her ache. This was the shack where Buck had found her drinking with her friends that night before the family decided to ship her off to San Francisco.
A flush stole into her cheeks. Had she really kissed him so boldly all those years ago? For all she knew, he could have made the story up, but knowing how she’d been in those days, he probably hadn’t.
The line shack stood in the distance, settled comfortably beneath a grove of gnarled oak. Shading her eyes, she looked for the hands. No one was around.
Nudging the mount gently, she drew closer to the shed, but still saw no one. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw something move.
She turned; the familiar stew of emotions filled her. Buck had his back to her, clearing away some of the dead grapevines. Her pulse quickened, her pelvis thickened with desire, and she felt an incredible, insane, sense of elation. How she loved this stubborn, straight-talking man.
He turned, the surprise briefly etched on his face quickly masked. “What are you doing here?”
She snorted softly. So much for romance. Glancing around, she said, “Anna told me there were workers here who needed lunch.” She raised the basket in his direction.
He stood, leaning on his shovel, and gave her a probing gaze. “There’s no one here but me.”
To avoid his analysis, she looked down at the basket. “Maybe you want this anyway. Would you mind taking it?”
He placed the shovel against a tree and crossed to where she sat. He looked at her for a long time, his gaze somehow poignant.
Her insides continued to hurt. A wave of nausea swelled upward, she pressed her fingers to her mouth and moaned. Her other hand clutched her stomach, and she briefly realized that she’d dropped the basket.
Everything happened within seconds. Her nausea pressed into her throat, a cold sweat broke out over her skin, and familiar black spots danced before her eyes before she pitched sideways into thin air.
Molly breathed in a long sigh and opened her eyes. She wa
s lying on a cot in the line shack, a soft pillow under her head and a quilt spread over her. One hand was free, resting outside the quilt. The other, she realized, was clasped tightly between Buck’s calloused palms.
Turning, she caught his gaze. Her heart expanded, the richness of emotions warming her. His beautiful gold-rimmed eyes were no longer closed down from the inside. Concern, compassion, devotion, kinship, warmth … They were all there.
“I guess I fainted.” She gave him an open, loving smile.
He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it, drawing it to his cheek where he pressed it against his skin. “If anything ever happened to you …” His voice was husky, and he cleared his throat. “Is there … do you think … is the baby all right?”
She traced her fingers over his dimpled scar, her emotions brimming. “I’m sure the baby is fine. I fainted, Buck. It’s happened before. I just have to be careful—”
He uttered a ragged curse. “If it was my fault—”
“Stop,” she interrupted softly. “I forbid you to assume any more guilt. Do you hear me?”
A touch of humor softened his eyes. “Still the feisty, bossy brat, I see.”
“And you’re still stubborn and mule-headed,” she answered around a smile. “I’ve loved you forever, you know.” She was no longer afraid to share her feelings.
He bent close, so close she saw every detail of his dangerous, handsome face. “And before that, I loved you.”
Goose flesh, thrilling and exciting, raced over her skin. Tears of relief surged forth, rimming her eyes, brimming over onto her cheeks. “Oh, thank heavens for that.” She pressed her lips together to keep them from quivering.
He lowered his face to hers and they kissed. A sweet burst of pleasure splintered through her as their mouths opened, softly, slowly, and their tongues teased.
He pulled away, looking down at her with an intense look of possession. His gaze roamed her face, her hair, her neck. “I don’t want to hurt you, but dammit, I’ve got to at least hold you.”
She scooted to the far edge of the cot and turned on her side, throwing the quilt back as an invitation for him to join her.
He gave, her a lusty, lopsided grin. “Think this one will hold us?”
Remembering the one they’d broken, she answered his smile with one of her own. “We’ll be careful. But I think I’ll dry up and blow away if you don’t hold me.”
He gingerly lowered himself next to her and took her in his arms. They sighed together, a deep, twin sound that made them laugh again.
Her ear rested against his shoulder, yet she could still hear and feel the pounding of his heart. She thought her own would burst, she was so happy.
“You will marry me,” he ordered, his voice soft against her hair.
She put her arm around him and stroked his back. “I thought you’d never ask—again.”
His hands moved over her, tracing the lines of her body beneath her clothes. “I have some things to tell you.”
Her insides rose, then settled gently, leaving her a little anxious.
“The first thing we talk about is Honey.”
Frowning, she pulled away slightly and looked at him. “What is it?”
He drew her close again. “I stopped in and talked to Jason this morning. He told me many things about my late wife that I hadn’t known. One day, maybe we’ll talk about it, but for now, just know that in many ways I feel exonerated.”
She brightened. “You don’t feel guilty anymore?”
“Well,” he said on a harsh sigh, “I guess I’ll always feel some guilt, but Jason convinced me I shouldn’t waste my life—and yours—worrying about it.”
Warmth burst inside her. “Someday I’d like to hear what he told you.”
“Someday you will.”
She waited for him to continue. When he didn’t, she asked the question that had been gnawing at her for months. “Buck, who is Tomas’s mother?”
“Can’t you guess?”
She nodded, and for the first time, felt no jealousy. “It was Nita, wasn’t it?”
“I suppose we should talk about her.”
A queer sensation cloaked her stomach. “Yes. Please, just tell me the truth. My imagination has already done enough damage.” She snuggled closer, if that was possible, feeling him draw her against him.
“She was a whore, Molly. It wouldn’t have bothered me to hear you say it.”
“I’ll always be sorry for what I said and thought about her.”
“She was my woman for a lot of years. You should know that. I think she loved me, in her way, but she also knew I never loved her. Not like she wanted me to. And,” he added, gently, “by the time you’d come to the ranch, we hadn’t shared a bed in over a year.”
Relief tumbled over her guilt. “And I was such a shrew whenever I thought about the two of you together. It was unforgivable, Buck. I’m so sorry.”
“I was partly to blame for not leveling with you in the first place.” He stroked her hair. “I think the last thing we should talk about is Tomas.”
The memory of cuddling him through a night of fever came back to her, reaffirming her feelings for the child. “I love that little boy, Buck.”
He let out a whoosh of breath, yet still appeared tense. “I’m real glad to hear it.”
“And it doesn’t matter who his mother was. I’ll love him as if he were my own.” She waited for him to respond. His silence was curious … nerve-wracking.
“That’s what I plan to do, too.”
Startled, she pulled away and looked at him. “What?”
“I’m not his natural father, Molly.”
She swallowed hard. “But, Buck. He … he calls you ‘Papa,’ and … and you said he was your son …”
Buck laughed, a bitter, tragic sound. “Hell, I thought he was. Never had a reason to believe he wasn’t. But the day after Nita died, I got a letter from her. One of those to be delivered only in the event of her death. In it, she told me I wasn’t the boy’s flesh and blood father. She asked me to forgive her for deceiving me all these years.”
Molly was stunned. “You mean you had no idea? No idea at all?”
He shook his head. “None. And I’d come to look forward to visiting him. I saw what I’d missed with Dusty, and I knew I couldn’t let it happen again. Actually, having Tomas made me realize how much I wanted to come home.”
Emotions tumbled inside her. “She told you all this in a letter. Did she tell you who Tomas’s real father is?”
“Yes.”
“But … but why would she keep it a secret all those years?”
He sighed into her hair, the sound filled with so much sorrow, she almost wept.
“Probably because his real father was a son-of-a-bitch who would have either killed him, or kept him as a slave because he had mixed blood.”
Cold fingers of terror marched across her heart. She felt clammy, sticky with shock. “You don’t mean …”
“Oh,” he said, his voice filled with quiet outrage, “but I do.”
“Charles,” she barely whispered. Suddenly, all of the implications reached her brain. “Oh, my God. Oh … my … God.”
She clung to him, needing to give him strength and draw it from him as well. “I can’t even imagine how you must feel.”
“At first I hated her for the deception. I’d been sucked in to loving Tomas so easily. It was hard for me to believe I could be fooled like that.”
“But how do you feel about Tomas, now?”
He was quiet for a moment. “There was a brief period of resentment. But, hell. I’d already grown to love the kid. And what was I supposed to do? His mother was dead, and his father—his flesh and blood father—would have … Ah, hell. I didn’t want to think about what he might have done if he’d ever found out. I’m sure Tomas wasn’t Campion’s first bastard.”
She thought of the irony of her and Buck, two people who had been dealt with so un
fairly by Campion, loving and raising a child that was neither of theirs, but his. She thought of the changes that had come over Buck since their days of combat years ago. He was still a man of few words. She knew he always would be. But he’d become the man she knew was hidden somewhere deep inside, where he wouldn’t let anyone enter. Until now.
She felt a sense of fatigue, but also a wonderful, fulfilling sense of peace. “I love you, Buck Randall.”
He stroked her buttocks, pressing her against his full groin. She felt her answering response, but now knew there was no hurry.
“And I love you,” he answered passionately.
Her heart leaped with joy. “You’re not afraid to marry me?”
He chuckled, the sound rumbling in his chest. “I’m afraid not to.”
Epilogue
Spring 1891
A warm May breeze ruffled the tops of the black walnut trees that edged the Randall ranch. Molly Randall stepped out onto the porch, shading her eyes against the bright morning sun as she watched her men work with the latest foal at the corral.
Her gaze roamed languidly over her husband. If it was possible, he’d only gotten more handsome. A familiar fluttering stirred her pelvis. He looked up just then, caught her gaze, and even from that distance, she thrilled at his private, searing, loving perusal. Her pulse quickened and she waved, one which he returned.
The boys, Dusty and Tomas, one firmly entrenched in manhood and the other still in the seedling of his youth, hollered at her from inside the stockade. She laughed at their animated behavior and waved enthusiastically.
She sat down at the small table on the porch and opened the newspaper, scanning the items. The door opened, and her mother, June, stepped out onto the porch.
“We’re ready for school, Molly.”
She turned, giving her mother and her daughter a warm smile. “Is the baby asleep?”
Forbidden Moon--The Moon Trilogy--Book Three Page 31
