“Don’t go back. Miles—he’ll see you in prison for helping Pace. Don’t go back.”
He gave her an amused look. “The Army tends to frown on its officers just walking away. It’s not like I’m a store clerk and can quit when I want. They call it desertion.”
“I call it staying alive,” she said fiercely. “You could be in Mexico before tomorrow night. He can’t touch you in Mexico.”
“Spend the rest of my life on the run?” He shook his head. “Funny. For the chance to kill Geronimo, I was willing to do just that. To give up everything. Even you.”
Her pain came sharp and swift.
“Doesn’t seem worth the effort now. I’ll take my chances with the Army.”
Jessie squeezed her eyes shut. “They could put you in prison. I can’t stand the thought—”
And Blake couldn’t stand all this sudden concern from someone who claimed she didn’t want anything to do with him. He cut her off. “What do you care?”
Jessie flinched at the harshness in his voice. She drew her shoulders straight and raised her chin. “You’re right, of course. I don’t. Forget I even mentioned it, Captain.” Fury and hurt swung her away. Blake’s iron-hard hand on her arm swung her back.
There was no trace of gentleness or caring in his kiss. It was hard and brutal and sapped her will to resist. Then it changed. He changed. There was still no gentleness about him, no softening. And he was still brutal, but in a different way. His lips, his breath on her cheek, his hands on her arms, demanded surrender. She never thought of anything else.
Then he thrust her away and left her gasping for breath. “Forget that, Jessie. I dare you.”
He turned and stomped off into the darkness.
Blake had it in mind to take his leave of the Coltons at Apache Pass and ride into Fort Bowie alone. The Coltons had other ideas. Except maybe Jessie. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Maybe because he’d refused to look at her.
“I believe we’ll just pay our respects to Colonel Beaumont,” Daniella said.
Pace nodded grimly. “Good idea.”
On the wagon seat next to her mother, Jessie buried her clenched fists in the folds of her skirt. “Pace, you can’t! Whether Miles is there or not, Beaumont probably has orders to arrest you.”
Fire shot from Daniella’s eyes. “I dare him to try.”
They pulled in a short time later at the parade ground at Fort Bowie. Jessie was the first to spot the tall, broad-shouldered man rushing toward them. “Daddy!” She was off the wagon and flying into his arms in an instant.
“Baby.” Travis closed his eyes and squeezed her tight. “Thank God.”
Serena came next, then Daniella. The kiss he gave his wife was long and hot and better suited to the bedroom than a parade ground. Neither of them seemed to care. “God, woman, I ought to strangle you—all of you—for scaring ten years off my life.” Instead, he kissed her again.
Reluctantly, he eased away. “Is everybody all right? Pace?” It was only then that he realized what was so different about his son. The once coal black hair was now salted liberally throughout with white. “Good God. Are you all right?”
Pace dismounted and nodded toward General Beaumont standing on the porch of his office. “You tell me.”
“You’re not going to be arrested again, if that’s what you mean.” Travis released his hold on the women and searched Pace’s eyes. “Come home, Pace. At least for a little while,” he added to forestall the objection he saw in his son’s eyes.
Pace purposely refrained from asking if Matt was home. He didn’t want to know. If he knew Matt was there, he would be forced to refuse his father’s request. He didn’t want to refuse. He wanted to go home. Needed to. Just for a few days. Long enough to smell the beeswax on the furniture, the honeysuckle in the courtyard, his mother’s roses that grew beside the front door and defied the desert.
The places he usually ended up didn’t have beeswax or honeysuckle or roses. They didn’t have family. God, how he’d missed his family. “I’ll come. For a day or two.”
Travis let out his breath and cocked one eye at Pace’s head. “Good. You gonna tell me what happened?”
Pace grinned. “Right after you tell me how it is I’m a free man.”
“Simple. All charges against you have been dropped. And that’s straight from the President.”
“How’d you do that?”
Travis grinned. “I threatened to sic your mother on him again.”
Pace chuckled, then held out his hand. “Thanks, Dad.”
To hell with a handshake. Travis had come too damn close to losing him. He hugged Pace instead, quick and hard, then stepped back. “You’re welcome, son.”
“Daddy?” Serena said. “You got the charges against Pace dropped, but what about Blake?”
“Who’s Blake?”
“He’s…” But Blake was gone. He’d ridden across the parade ground and dismounted before Colonel Beaumont. The two men were just entering the colonel’s office.
Jessie wanted to be glad he was gone. She tried to be.
She failed miserably.
Chapter Seventeen
Jessie didn’t see Blake again. The family took the train from Bowie to Tucson that night and reached the ranch before sunup. She went straight to bed, determined not to cry. After all, what did she have to cry about? She’d wanted him out of her life, and he was gone. She should be happy.
One thing to be happy about was that Pace came home with them. He didn’t stay long, only two days, but for Jessie, who needed the reassurance that he was all right, two days was better than nothing. He would have stayed longer, except Matt was home.
Someday, Jessie vowed, Pace was going to have to accept that his sister had married his stepbrother. But Pace was stubborn. He refused to see the joy in Serena’s eyes when she spoke of Matt, or looked at him, or thought of him. He refused to see the worship in Matt’s eyes when Serena was near.
But maybe Jessie was coming to understand at least part of the pain that sent Pace running. She was only now learning how hard it could be to watch two people so obviously in love, when one’s own heart was in shreds. It was too hard. Nearly impossible.
So over the weeks, as the fall rains replenished a land baked dry by the summer sun and filled dry washes with water, swelled trickles into streams, streams into rivers, Jessie kept more and more to herself. If she hadn’t, perhaps someone would have noticed that the streams weren’t the only things that swelled.
Jessie pressed her hands over her womb. “Dear God, a baby.” She heard the wonder in her own voice, felt the tears sting her eyes. She was carrying Blake’s child. She could deny it no longer. Not to herself, not to her family. It was January, and she was four months along.
“Lord help me, what am I going to do?”
“About what?”
Jessie stiffened. She hadn’t heard her mother enter the room. Jessie dropped her hands to her sides and blinked. “Mama, I—” Her voice broke. Her mother was going to be so disappointed in her. And her father! He would murder Blake. Right after he forced them to marry. She couldn’t do that to Blake. After the way she’d treated him all the way home from Texas, the way she’d spurned him, he hated her now, she was sure. And he had every right.
But she’d been so afraid! Now she knew a new fear.
Her mother’s warm hand touched her shoulder. “Jessie, what is it?”
Slowly Jessie turned to face her mother. “I’m going to have a baby.”
“She’s what?”
Daniella sighed and laid her head on her husband’s chest. “You heard me. Our youngest daughter is about to give us our fourth grandchild.”
Daniella had had a little time to get used the idea. Enough time to allow her to wonder where the time had gone. Their fourth grandchild. It seemed impossible, since it was only yesterday that Daniella Blackwood had ridden up to the Triple C that first time and announced to an angry, frustrated Travis Colton that she knew where the Apaches w
ere holding his son, and she could get Matt back for him.
All the intervening years floated through her mind, the laughter and love, the tears and heartaches. Friends and family here today, then gone forever except in warm memories.
Funny, but she didn’t feel old enough for all these thoughts. She was fifty-four, yet she still felt eighteen. Especially when she was wrapped in her husband’s arms.
Those arms tightened painfully as Travis wrestled with the news she’d just given him. Finally his voice exploded. “How?”
Daniella bit her lip. “Oh, the usual way, I suppose.”
Travis took in a deep breath, then let it out. “All right, then who, dammit?”
She pulled from his arms and straightened. “The only one it could be is Blake Renard, but she won’t admit it.”
Travis’s eyes narrowed. “The captain? The one who helped you get Pace out? The one who saved her life?”
“Yes. More than once.”
“I never did get to meet him so I could thank him for that. Guess I’ll be making a little trip tomorrow.”
“Travis, don’t—”
“Yeah, I need to thank him for all the help he gave this family. Then I’m going to kill the bastard.”
“Travis, you wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
And he damn near did. Only the thought of Jessie having to raise a fatherless bastard kept the Colt in Travis’s holster the next day when he pounded on the door to Captain Blake Renard’s quarters at Fort Bowie.
Blake ignored the racket at his door. He didn’t feel like talking to anyone. Hadn’t felt like it in months.
For the first time in his life, he’d begun to get an idea of why his father drank. Swimming his way to the bottom of a bottle had seemed like the only thing to do that day he’d watched Jessie ride out of the fort and out of his life without a backward glance. As if he’d meant no more to her than another clump of cactus along the trail.
He had shared that night with a bottle, and been so dog sick the next day he’d puked his guts out. It was that, more than any strength of character, that had kept him sober during the months since.
The pounding on his door wouldn’t go away. With a resigned sigh, he got up and answered it. Shock riveted his boots to the floor.
Jessie’s father.
He had no trouble recognizing Travis Colton, even though he’d only seen him from a distance that day they’d ridden in from Texas. Though her coloring was fair where her mother’s was dark, Blake had always thought Jessie favored Daniella. Now he saw that she also bore the stamp of her father. In the color of her hair and the shape of her brow. And they had that same stubborn tilt to their chins, although hers was much more delicate and pleasurable to look at.
“Captain Blake Renard?”
“Yes, sir.” Blake stuck out his hand. “You’re Travis Colton.”
“That’s right.” The man’s grip was like iron.
“Come in.” Blake motioned toward the small room behind him.
“No, thank you,” Colton said stiffly. “I only came for two things, so I’ll make it quick. First, I want to thank you for everything you did to help my family. I owe you a great deal.”
His words might have said thanks, but his tone and his eyes said something else entirely. Blake stiffened.
“I owe you something else, too. For what you did to Jessie.”
Blake saw the swing coming, but was too stunned to duck. He felt the impact in the pain that exploded over his face as his nose gave a sickening crunch beneath a fist of steel. He reeled backward, then felt himself falling, felt the hard, wooden floor slam into his head. Then he felt nothing.
Travis stood with grim satisfaction over the unconscious body sprawled across the floor.
One chore done. Now, he had to go home and talk sense into Jessie.
The first thing Blake became aware of was the pain. Then he remembered. His nose was broken. Travis Colton had busted him a good one.
As he pulled himself slowly from the floor, the implications of the reasons for Colton’s attack swam in his groggy mind. He’d said it was for Jessie? What the hell was that supposed to mean, when she was the one—
Something was wrong. He had to get to Jessie. He had a pass coming. He’d talk to the colonel and go at once.
Good God, more pounding on the damn door. If that was Colton coming back for another shot at him, Blake vowed the man was going to be disappointed. Jessie’s father or not, he wasn’t going to take Blake by surprise again.
Blake staggered to the door and flung it open.
Not Colton. Instead, he was greeted by a very uncomfortable looking sergeant and two privates.
“Captain Renard, I’m here to escort you to the guard house.”
“If this is somebody’s idea of a joke, I’m not in the mood.”
The sergeant shifted from one foot to the other and looked everywhere but in Blake’s eyes. “Uh, no, sir. Orders, sir. You’re under arrest, Captain Renard.”
January dragged by, then February, and Jessie outwardly blossomed. Inwardly, she shriveled a little more each day, because each day was another twenty-four hours of knowing that Blake didn’t care.
Two days after Jessie had told her mother about the baby, Travis had come home with bruised knuckles. She’d later learned that he’d gone to see Blake. Travis swore he hadn’t told Blake about the baby, but wouldn’t Blake have wondered why her father would go all that way just to hit him? Wouldn’t he have tried to find out?
But he hadn’t. There had been no sign of him, no word. Day by day the hope she didn’t even know she had dried up, just like the land around her would come summer.
But come summer, Jessie wouldn’t care, because she would have a child to love and care for. Blake’s child.
Her own stubborn fear had turned Blake away from her. Even now, when she remembered the night they’d shared, the things he’d made her feel, the fear rose up to haunt her.
She hadn’t been afraid that night, not of anything, except losing him. Only later, when her trust had been put to the test and failed, did she learn to fear. She’d feared he was right, that she had never loved him, not like her mother loved her father, like Serena loved Matt. Had Jessie loved Blake the way she knew she should, the way she thought she had, she would never have doubted him. She would have known he was on their side when they’d gone for Pace.
But she hadn’t known, hadn’t trusted.
And now it was too late.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart.” She smoothed a hand over her burgeoning belly. “I’ll love you enough for a whole dozen people. I already do, you know.” She shifted to ease the discomfort. “Even if you do keep kicking me in the ribs.”
And some day, she thought silently. Someday maybe she would have the chance to make up for the way she had treated Blake. Maybe someday.
In March a strong, rare cold snap that froze the water around the edges of water troughs and made frost form on the whiskers of horses and cattle took the Triple C by surprise. It had happened before, but not often, and not in recent years.
But if the delight of ice was a surprise, it was nothing to the surprise at the ranch the day Pace rode in. Travis spotted him first and ushered him straight into the house out of the cold wind. Daniella and Jessie were the only ones in the house at the time. At the sight of him, Daniella went wild with joy.
The surprise of his visit, however, was nothing compared to the shock on his face when he got a good look at Jessie.
“Holy hell, kid. When did this happen? Who’s the lucky man?”
The room fell silent.
Jessie stiffened against the disapproving looks from her parents. It wasn’t the coming baby they disapproved of, but Jessie’s steadfast refusal to admit Blake was the father. Her mother had suggested she write Blake and tell him. Jessie had been appalled.
“He didn’t even care enough about me to find out why Daddy paid him that little visit. Why would I want anything to do with him?” Jessie had
then clamped her lips shut. She’d said more than she’d meant to. More than she should.
“Because he’s the father of the child you carry.”
“Says who?”
“Jessie…”
There had been several similar conversations in recent weeks, but as the days and weeks had passed, her mother had stopped badgering her.
But Daniella had never lost that look of disapproval, and here it was again, resurrected by Pace’s question.
Pace looked from one face to another, his eyes widening. “Well I’ll be a son of a bitch. You’re not married.”
Jessie managed a nervous smile. Her hands fluttered up, then down. “I’m afraid not.”
Pace swore long and loud, until Travis gave him a terse look. “Well, then,” Pace said. “I came here to tell you what’s happened. Now I don’t know if I’m sorry or not. I might want the chance to kill the bastard myself, but it looks like the Army’s gonna beat me to it.”
Jessie stilled. “What are you talking about?”
Pace nodded toward her stomach. “Renard, right?”
She pressed her lips together and glanced away.
“It’s his,” Daniella said. “It can’t be anyone else’s. But she won’t admit it.”
“Well, we’re not going to have to worry about him much longer, in any case. But maybe he’ll do the decent thing and marry her before they hang him. The kid wouldn’t be born a bastard, and Jessie wouldn’t be saddled with an unwanted husband. She’d be a widow quick enough.”
Jessie’s mouth went dry. “Hang him?”
“What are you talking about?” Travis demanded.
“It’s what I came to tell you. I just learned Blake is being court martialed. Army arrested him in January. Trial’s set for next week at Fort Sam.”
Jessie was too stunned to speak. When her knees gave way, Pace caught her and lowered her to the sofa.
“I’m all right,” she managed. She pushed his hands away and tried to rise. Pace had to help her. “What…” She licked her lips, but her tongue was too dry to help. “What are the charges?”
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