Gathering his courage, he went around the room, offering to share his gift with everyone, even the bratty girl, watching their smiles grow, wishing he had more to give them. When he returned to his place, he glanced at the two unopened boxes. He didn’t figure they could hold anything better than what he’d already gotten.
He set his box of candy aside and opened the next present, saving the biggest for last. His heart plummeted when he looked inside the box. A blanket. A blanket he could use when they took him back to town, and he was sleeping beside buildings again. He’d been working so hard, hoping they’d keep him forever, but he hadn’t worked hard enough.
“Gonna open the last one?” Mr. Leigh asked.
Rawley nodded, even though he didn’t want to open it, to see what else they’d given him. He pulled the bow apart and peeled back the paper, opened the box, and stared.
Stared at the fine brown leather that shone like someone had spit on it over and over. Mr. Leigh reached into the box and pulled out the saddle.
Mrs. Leigh touched her fingers to a corner of the saddle. “Those are your initials.”
He didn’t know what his initials were but he sure knew good carving when he saw it, and someone had carved little designs all along the saddle, except for the place where he’d put his backside.
“Well, now, if that ain’t the stupidest gift I’ve ever seen,” Austin said as he walked over for a closer look. “What were you thinking, Dallas?”
Cordelia wondered what Dallas had been thinking. He’d planned to give that saddle to his son, a son he would never have.
“What good does a saddle do him, if he ain’t got a horse?” Austin asked.
“But we brung him a horse!” Maggie slapped her hand over her mouth and turned round green eyes to her father.
Houston scooped her into the air, and she squealed. “You kept that secret longer than I thought you would,” he said, grinning.
Dallas unfolded his body. “Let’s go outside.”
He held his callused hand out for Cordelia. She slipped her hand into his, relishing the strength she felt, the warmth, remembering the feel of his hands touching her intimately as they would never touch her again.
He pulled her to her feet. Austin tossed Dallas a coat from a nearby chair. He draped it around Cordelia. The others shrugged into their coats before walking through the doors that led onto the veranda.
Rawley had put on his jacket, but now he stood like a statue, staring at the door, gasping for breath. Cordelia extended her hand toward him. “Come on, Rawley. It sounds as though this last gift was too big to wrap.”
He shook his head vigorously. “I don’t want a horse. I don’t want to have to leave.”
“You don’t have to leave, son,” Dallas said.
Cordelia’s heart lurched at the word—son—spoken with such ease.
“Then why you givin’ me a horse if you don’t want me to ride it outta here?”
“How else are you gonna ride over my range and count my cattle for me?”
Panic delved into Rawley’s dark eyes. “I don’t know how to count.”
“Can you tie a knot in a rope?”
Rawley nodded vigorously.
“Then I can teach you to count.”
Cordelia slammed her eyes closed. Dallas would teach Rawley as he’d once planned to teach his own son. She wondered if he was even aware that he was saying to Rawley things that he’d planned to say to his own son.
But Rawley didn’t carry Dallas’s blood; he wasn’t a Leigh. Yet, she couldn’t help but wonder if this child of misfortune could possibly fill the gaping hole in their hearts.
Opening her eyes, she wrapped her hand around Rawley’s. “We’d better look this horse over before you start making plans. You might not even want to keep him.”
Rawley nodded enthusiastically. “Oh, I wanna keep him. Even if he’s butt ugly.”
Dallas cleared his throat and a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You’re too easy to please, Rawley.”
They walked to the porch, hand in hand, a family that might have been, a bittersweet reminder of what would never be.
Tethered to the veranda railing, a brown and white spotted horse nickered.
Rawley released Cordelia’s hand and walked to the edge of the veranda. Dallas continued to hold her hand tightly. She ached to have his arm come around her, to find again the intimacy they had shared as they had anticipated the birth of their child.
Rawley spun around, disbelief in his eyes. “He’s mine?”
“He’s yours,” the three brothers said at once.
They exchanged looks, and Cordelia saw a bond between them that didn’t exist between her brothers.
“Because he looks like someone splashed paint on him, he’s known as a paint or pinto,” Amelia explained. “You’ll need to give him a name.”
“Spot!” Maggie cried as she wrapped her hands around the veranda beam and leaned back. “Spot’s a good name.”
Rawley looked at her as though she’d lost her mind. “Spot? That ain’t no name for a horse.”
She crinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue. “What then?”
Rawley furrowed his brow. “My ma was Shawnee. Could I call him Shawnee?”
Amelia released a small cry and stumbled against Houston, her hand pressed against her stomach.
“I don’t got to call him that!” Rawley yelled. “You can name him!”
Houston wrapped his arms around his wife as she began gasping for air. Dallas’s hand tightened around Cordelia’s.
“What’s wrong?” Houston asked, a thread of panic in his normally calm voice.
“Ma? Ma?” Maggie said weakly, tears welling in her eyes as she reached for her mother. Austin snatched her into his arms, the blood draining from his face.
Amelia’s breathing began to even out. She glanced around the stunned crowd, her smile quivering, her hand pressed below her throat. “I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to go home now.”
Houston stared at her incredulously. “Are you having the baby?”
“I think so. We need to go home.”
“The hell with that,” Houston said as he scooped her into his arms. He looked at Dallas. “Which room?”
“Dee’s room. The corner room.”
“I don’t want to have the baby here,” Amelia said.
“Too damn bad,” Houston said gruffly. “Austin, fetch Dr. Freeman.”
Houston swept into the house, his protesting wife in his arms. Austin handed Maggie off to Dallas.
“Hell,” Austin grumbled. “December. Could she have picked a worse month? I refuse to call any relation of mine Something December.”
“Just go get the doctor, and we’ll worry about what we’re gonna call the baby later,” Dallas told him.
Without another word, Austin ran toward the barn. Dallas touched his finger to Maggie’s nose. “Your ma’s gonna be all right.”
“Promise?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“Give you my word.” He looked at Cordelia. “Houston can probably manage until the doctor gets here, but why don’t you go see if they need anything? We’ll put Shawnee in the barn, then we’ll come inside.”
She gave him a shaky nod and walked into the house, praying that everything would be all right. Outside her room, she took a deep breath of fortitude before opening the door.
Houston had a fire burning low in the hearth, the drapes pulled back on the windows, and his wife lying in the bed. Her outer clothing was draped over a chair.
Cordelia gave them both a tremulous smile. “Would you like to borrow a nightgown?”
“Yes,” he said.
“No,” she said.
With a sadness in her eyes, Amelia held her hand toward Cordelia. Cordelia rushed across the room and wrapped both her hands around Amelia’s.
“I’m so sorry,” Amelia said. “I’ve been having little twinges all day, but I thought they’d pass. I know this is hard on you. I didn’t want to have my
baby here.”
Cordelia brushed a wisp of blond hair from Amelia’s brow. “Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t stop having babies just because I can’t have them. Let me get you a nightgown. It’ll probably swallow you up, but you’ll be more comfortable.”
Amelia nodded slightly in acquiescence. Cordelia walked to the bureau. She heard a gasp and spun around.
Amelia’s face was contorted in pain, her hand squeezing Houston’s, her breathing ragged. “Try and relax,” he said in a soothing voice.
“You try and relax,” she snapped. She fell against the pillows, breathing heavily. She smiled at her husband. “Don’t take anything I say from this room.” She released a long slow breath. “This baby is going to be here too quickly.”
Too quickly turned out to be not soon enough as far as Cordelia was concerned. She felt as though the hours dragged by while she helped Dr. Freeman, wiping Amelia’s brow, holding her hand, reassuring her that everything would be all right—until she heard that first lustful cry a few minutes after midnight. Tears filled Cordelia’s eyes as Dr. Freeman placed the baby in Amelia’s arms.
“Oh, isn’t she beautiful?” Amelia asked in a hushed voice.
Cordelia patted the glistening sheen of sweat from Amelia’s throat. “Yes, she is.”
Amelia looked at her. “Go get Houston.”
“Not yet, girl,” Dr. Freeman said. “We’re not through yet. Don’t know why it is you women think we’re finished the minute you’re holding that baby.”
“Maybe because that one minute is the one we’ve been waiting for,” Amelia said as she brushed her fingers over her daughter’s dark hair.
“Hand her over to Cordelia for a minute,” Dr. Freeman ordered, “while you and I finish up here.”
Cordelia took the precious child and wrapped her in a soft blue blanket she had planned to wrap around her own child. So tiny. With deep blue eyes, the child stared up at her. “Should I wash her?” Cordelia asked.
“Give her some time to get used to being outside,” Dr. Freeman said. “You can wash her while Amelia sleeps.”
“I want to see Houston first,” Amelia said.
Dr. Freeman brought the blankets over her. “Then I’ll fetch him. My job is done tonight so I’m gonna head on home, but I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.” He pointed a gnarled bony finger at her. “You stay here until I say you can go home.”
She smiled softly. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, girl. This is the part of being a doctor that I enjoy the most.” He wrinkled his brow. “Come to think of it, it might be the only part I enjoy.” He patted her head. “See you tomorrow.”
Cordelia placed the baby back into Amelia’s arms. “You’ll want to show Houston his daughter.”
Amelia grabbed her hand. “Thank you. I know it was difficult for you—”
Cordelia squeezed her hand. “I didn’t want to be anywhere else.”
She stepped back as Dr. Freeman shuffled across the room and opened the door.
“Reckon you’re waiting to get inside here,” Dr. Freeman said.
“She all right?” Houston asked as he made his way past Dr. Freeman.
“Course she is.”
Houston crossed the room and knelt beside the bed, his gaze focused solely on his wife. Smiling, she folded the blanket back. “We have a daughter.”
“A daughter,” Houston said in awe as he touched a large finger to the tiny fisted hand. “She’s as beautiful as her mother.” He lifted his gaze to his wife’s. “I’m never gonna touch you again.”
Amelia looked at Cordelia. “Will you take her now?”
Gingerly, Cordelia wrapped the child within her arms.
“I mean it this time,” Houston said. “I know you do,” Amelia said as she touched his cheek. “Now, come hold me.”
Carefully, he climbed on the bed, lay beside his wife, put his arms around her, and pressed his cheek to the top of her head. “I love you.”
“I think that’s our signal to leave.”
Cordelia snapped her head around. She hadn’t heard Dallas come into the room, but he was looking at her with an intensity that had her heart beating faster than thundering hooves. “I need to wash the baby.”
He nodded. “I’ve warmed up the kitchen.” She followed him from the room, and he closed the door quietly.
“Are you all right?” he asked as they walked down the stairs. “Just tired.”
“Houston figured they had a couple more weeks, or he wouldn’t have brought them over today.”
“I’m glad they came. I’d like to think they needed us.”
They walked through the dining room. “Where are the children?” she asked.
“I put them to bed shortly after sundown.” He opened the door into the kitchen.
A warm cozy feeling settled around Cordelia, and she held the child closer to her bosom. Dallas removed a kettle from the low fire and poured water into a bowl. He’d already set towels and blankets on the table. “You’ve done this before,” Cordelia said quietly.
He glanced up at her. “When Maggie was born. Houston is pretty useless worrying about Amelia the way he does.”
“And when your son was born?”
She watched as his Adam’s apple slowly slid up and down. “Yeah, I bathed him, too.” He set the kettle down. “Why don’t you lay her on the towels there. I’ll hold her while you wash her.”
She laid the child down. Dallas slipped his large hand beneath the child’s dark head.
“We’ll wash her hair first. She won’t like it, but it’s gotta be done,” he said.
As Cordelia sprinkled the first drops of warm water over the child’s head, the baby scrunched up her face and released a wail.
“Do you think I’m hurting her?” Cordelia asked as the wail intensified.
“Nah, she’s just exercising her lungs.” Gently, he turned the child, cradling her on her side so Cordelia could wash the back of her head.
“She’s so tiny,” Cordelia said.
“Yep, but that won’t last.”
As Dallas helped her clean the child, an ache settled deep within her chest for all the children Dallas would care for in the future, all the children who would not belong to him. Houston’s children. Austin’s children. But never his.
How unfair of Fate to give Rawley’s father a son he would never appreciate while Dallas would live the remainder of his life with no hope of ever acquiring a son.
Dallas, whose large hands cradled and comforted the child.
Dallas, who looked upon a child barely an hour old, with love in his eyes.
While Rawley’s father gave his son nothing but pain, Dallas would have seen to it that his son had all that his heart desired.
When she finished washing the baby, she watched as Dallas patted his niece dry and slipped a blue gown over her head. A gown his son would have worn.
He brought a dry blanket around the baby and cradled her within the crook of his arm. A corner of his mustache lifted as he smiled. “Hello, little December. Aren’t you a beauty? You ready to see your ma? Get something to eat?”
He looked at Cordelia, a sadness in his eyes. “Did you want to take her upstairs?”
At that moment she knew she loved him more deeply than she thought possible. “No, you go ahead.”
When he’d left, she glanced around the kitchen. Together they had cared for Houston’s daughter. They worked well together, they always had. “We would have made good parents,” she whispered to the shadows in the corner. “It’s not fair that we were denied the chance.”
Without knowing her destination, she walked out of the house, her slippered feet leaving a trail in the thin blanket of snow.
The wind whipped around her, and she heard the rapid clackety-clack of the windmill. Then she was standing beside her son’s grave—for the first time.
His wooden marker was simple:
LEIGH
SON
1881
She wanted to hold hi
m. She wanted to bathe him and comb his hair and watch him grow. She wanted his tears to dampen her shoulder, his laughter to fill her heart.
She wanted all that she could never have—and she wanted it desperately.
The anguish ripped through her chest for all they had lost: their son and the foundation for a love that he might have given them. Dallas would never love her now as she loved him.
She heard muted footfalls, but couldn’t bring herself to turn around. She tried to wipe the tears from her cheeks, but others surfaced. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to hold in the pain, but it only increased.
Dallas placed his sheepskin jacket on her shoulders. His arms circled her, and he brought her back against his chest.
To her mortification, she released a small wail and his hold tightened.
“I never even saw him,” she said, her voice ragged.
“He was so tiny, it was hard to tell … but I like to think he would have looked like you.”
“It hurts. God, it hurts.”
“I know,” he said in a raw voice.
“We lost so much when we lost him.”
“Everything,” he said quietly. “We lost everything.”
His words circled her on the wind.
Everything.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
Cordelia walked into the entryway and stumbled to a stop at the sight of Cameron and Duncan standing just inside the doorway. Joy swelled within her as Cameron looked up and smiled.
She rushed forward, taking his hands. He brushed a kiss against her cheek. Then she reached for Duncan.
“It’s so good to see you,” she said.
“Christmas isn’t the same without you,” Cameron said, and Duncan nodded his agreement.
“I’d hoped to come by today, but”—she pointed toward the stairs—“Amelia had her baby last night, and everything has been so hectic.”
Sadness filled Cameron’s eyes as he dropped his gaze to her waist. “We heard you lost your baby.”
The tears came suddenly, without warning, burning her eyes, clogging her throat until she could do little more than nod.
“I’m sorry, Dee,” Cameron said.
She pressed her hand to her lips, wishing she could control the overwhelming grief.
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