Apache-Colton Series

by Janis Reams Hudson

  “Hurt me? Blake?” Jessie blinked in amazement. “Why would you ask a question like that?”

  “Because you’re a brand new bride, and you’re not happy. I had assumed that what happened between the two of you in San Antonio meant you cared for him. I know he cares for you.”

  Cared for. If her nerves weren’t stretched so taut, Jessie might have laughed at the words. So pale when compared to what she felt.

  “Do you not enjoy your new husband?”

  Jessie stared at her mother, confused.

  Daniella rolled her eyes. “In bed, Jessie, in bed.”

  Fire shot up Jessie’s neck to her cheeks, clear up to her scalp. “Mother! What a question to ask.”

  “It’s important, or I wouldn’t. Blake is wound tight as a spring and you walk around looking like a whipped puppy. Something’s obviously wrong. I’m only trying to help. You’ve never said, but I always assumed you loved him. Have I been wrong?”

  “I…I don’t think so. I mean, I think…”

  “You think? You’ve bedded the man, you carry his child. The minute you heard he was in trouble you caught the next train to San Antonio to clear his name, no matter what anyone thought of you. You’ve married him. And you think you love him?”

  “How am I supposed to know?” Jessie cried. “It’s all so overwhelming, all these feelings. They’re so strong. They scare me, Mama. I feel as if I could lose myself in him, and there’ll be nothing left of me. I don’t know what to do.”

  She poured it all out to her mother, the same way she had to Blake. But unlike Blake, Daniella understood only too well what Jessie was saying. She held her and patted her back as she’d done when Jessie had been a little girl.

  “Oh, baby, don’t be afraid. Everything you’re telling me says you love him more than anything. I know it seems scary right now, but let it happen, Jessie. Blake is a good man, and I know he loves you. He may not know it, but I do. Now come on. We have a lot of work to do before he gets back if you’re moving to your new home next week.”

  “He offered to wait until after the baby comes.”

  “See?” Daniella smiled “I told you he was a good man. What did you say?”

  “I told him I didn’t want to wait. I’m sorry, Mama. I’ll miss you terribly, but I feel this need for us to be on our own.”

  “You’re right. I think it’ll be the best thing for both of you. And Jessie, give yourself and Blake a chance. Don’t fight yourself so much, don’t fight your feelings. You won’t lose yourself to them. I promise. You’re much too strong for that.”

  As Jessie returned to sorting and packing, she determined to take her mother’s advice. But determining and doing were two different things.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The name Tres Colinas—Three Hills—was misleading. The ranch sat shielded on three sides by the rugged foothills of the Santa Rita Mountains. To the west lay the Santa Cruz river.

  The ranch took its name from the three slight rises aligned east and west between the river and the first big hill to the east. The house and out buildings sat slightly south between the first two rises.

  Wade Sinclair’s knuckles turned white around the binoculars as he watched from his place in the foothills north of the house as the wagons arrived at the ranch. Jesus H. Christ, the Arabians. Son of a bitch. Blake was moving in. And from the looks of things, he was bringing a new wife. The young Colton bitch.

  Wanting to get closer for a better look, Wade scrambled down into the dry wash between him and the last hill before the land flattened out around the home pasture. He was about to scramble straight up the other side, using the ledge just above him as a handhold to pull himself up, when something, some inner sense, made him pause. He could see the edge of the shelf, could even reach it. But he couldn’t see onto it. A man couldn’t be too careful in country like this, and Wade Sinclair was a careful man.

  Cautiously, he picked up a rock and tossed it onto the sandstone shelf above him. A hiss and rattle erupted instantly.

  Keeping his gaze sharp on the ledge, he backed away, one careful step at a time. Retracing his path, he scrambled back up the other side and used his binoculars to scan the place he’d almost climbed.

  A shiver racked his muscles. His heart knocked against his ribs and beat louder than a big bass drum in a marching band. Jesus H. Christ. He’d damn near climbed his ass straight into the largest nest of rattlers he’d ever seen.

  He swallowed hard and waited for the shakes to stop. Then, in the spot where he’d started from, he turned the field glasses back toward the ranch.

  “So,” Wade ground softly to the tall image in the binoculars. “Think you’re here to stay, do you? Well, Cousin, hows about I bring you a little wedding present, eh?”

  He lowered the glasses and rubbed his thumb. “And I know just the thing, you son of a bitch.”

  Blake tamped down his unease about the rundown condition of the ranch and reached to lift Jessie from the wagon seat. God, but it felt good to touch her in the full light of day. He set her gently on the ground, reluctant to release her.

  Then he remembered where they were, that they had an audience. Hell, they always had an audience these days. But not for long, he vowed. “I told you not to expect much.”

  Her smile was tender as she reached up and touched his face with her fingertips. “And I told you not to worry.”

  Blake wanted nothing more just then than to turn his face into the palm of her hand, to feel her really touch him, her flesh to his. But they had an audience. An avid, smiling audience.

  Before he let Jessie go, he spoke again. “You have to promise me something.”

  “What’s that?” Her eyes were big and gray and held him ensnared.

  “You have to promise you won’t work too hard. That’s why the others are here, you know. It’s pretty bad inside.” He nodded toward the two-room adobe house behind him. “But if you wear yourself out, I’ll haul you back to the Triple C.”

  Humor and warmth filled her eyes. “I’m pregnant, not sick. But it’s sweet of you to worry. I’ll be fine.”

  “See that you are,” he said gruffly.

  When he released her, Jessie stepped past him and took her first up-close look at the house. Her new home. Their home. She could feel Blake behind her, waiting tensely for her reaction. Did he think she would be disappointed?

  The adobe was chipped along one corner. She wondered if that’s where the bullet had hit, the one that had put the hole in Pace’s hat. They thought she didn’t know about that, these overprotective men in her family. Good heavens, did they think she would swoon at the news?

  She chuckled silently to herself. I’m made of stronger stuff than that, Blake Renard. Even if I haven’t acted like it lately.

  The squat, flat-roofed house sat in the middle of the sunbaked ground between a dilapidated barn on one side and a thick stand of mesquite on the other. A thatched roof extended across the front, casting a three-foot strip of speckled shade along the length of the house. At each corner, rocks, from fist-sized to the size of a ripe cantaloupe encircled what had once obviously been flower beds, now choked with weeds and gravel.

  The shutters along the house, weathered and warped, were closed over the windows. Beneath the thatched roof, next to the front door, stood an oak dining table, severely abused and scarred. Things—unidentifiable clumps and globs—were dried and stuck to its surface. Nothing a little scrubbing wouldn’t cure.

  Jessie squared her shoulders and made her way to the door.

  The interior was dim and dusty. Blake followed her in and yanked open the shutters on first one window, then another, letting sunlight stream through.

  Dirt. Everywhere. Thick and crusted. Even the cobwebs were layered with it, as was the plank floor. The important part of that thought was that there was a plank floor. Jessie smiled.

  The main room held a built-in counter, waist high, in the front corner to her right. The side wall next to it boasted a rock fireplace. Jessie
smiled again. She’d braced herself for one made of mud. Rock was a pleasant surprise.

  Along the opposite wall, to her left, stood—oh my gosh—a cookstove! She certainly hadn’t counted on that. Next to the stove, a door led into the only other room. She picked her way through the debris on the floor—dirt, old newspapers, a broken packing crate, empty tin cans—and peered into what would, by nightfall, she vowed, be her new bedroom. Their bedroom.

  Blake shouldered his way past her and opened the shutters. A rocking chair stood forlorn and abandoned in one corner, with a tall wardrobe coated in years of dust and neglect in the other. Along one wall was a pile of straw, as though some traveler had bedded down there.

  Traveler, indeed, Jessie thought. More like an army of mice and rats, judging by the debris. Well. Nothing a broom and mop couldn’t remedy. And her dresser, bed, and chest of drawers would fit nicely once the room was clean.

  Back out in the main room Jessie glanced again at the built-in counter. There in the shadows of the corner, she spotted something that widened her smile. “Oh!”

  Blake stepped in from the bedroom. “What happened?” he asked anxiously.

  “A pump,” she cried. “An indoor pump!”

  Blake felt his tight muscles ease. He’d heard her cry out and wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been in dismay or disgust. He’d never thought to find her smiling excitedly.

  From outside came the women. Daniella, Serena, Joanna, and one of the Mexican women from the Triple C, Davita. This time Blake was not moved gently aside so they could tend to women’s chores. He was damn near bowled over in their haste to inspect the interior of the tiny house. He stepped aside and considered himself lucky to avoid a trampling. What the rest of the women thought didn’t matter. Jessie didn’t seem upset about the squalor. That was all he cared about.

  While the women swept and scrubbed and cleaned inside the house, the men hammered and sawed and repaired the barn and corrals, cleaned out the privy behind the house, and plowed a patch for Jessie’s kitchen garden. Before the day ended, Joanna and Serena had most of the planting done. Jessie tried to help them but they kept shooing her back into the house.

  “You don’t need to be bending over breaking your back,” Serena scolded. “Go back inside and put your feet up. Let us do the work. That’s what we’re here for.”

  Inside, it was more of the same.

  “Here, sweetheart, I’ll do that. You rest.”

  “Oh, no, don’t climb up there—I’ll get it.”

  “Jessie, you’re going to wear yourself out. Why don’t you sit down? Here, let me dust off this chair.”

  Jessie was ready to scream. “Well. I can tell when I’m not wanted.” She whacked a bucket down beneath the pump and started working the handle. She imagined it was the neck of any one of a dozen of the people who were treating her like an invalid.

  “What are you doing with that?” her mother demanded.

  I’m strangling it, was Jessie’s first thought. Then she looked down and realized her mother meant the bucket, not the pump handle. “I’m going to give the men a drink. Do you think I can manage to walk all the way to the barn without collapsing?”

  Daniella sighed and gave her a crooked smile. “Have I been that bad?”

  “You and everyone else. You’re all treating me like an invalid.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie.” Daniella smoothed a loose strand of hair from Jessie’s cheek. “Indulge me. You’re my baby, and you’re all grown up, having a baby of your own. I just…feel like hovering, that’s all.”

  Jessie sighed. “I know, Mama. I don’t mean to be cross, but I won’t break, you know.”

  Daniella’s smile wobbled. “I know. Now scoot. Take the men some water. We’ll start supper.”

  At Jessie’s look of outrage, Daniella quietly amended, “We’ll start supper as soon as you get back.”

  Jessie smiled gratefully. “Thank you, Mama.”

  Outside the sun was warm and the air was dry and fresh, and clean compared to the dust flying inside the house. Jessie made her way to the barn, where the men were working. She stepped into the shadowed interior and was met with a curse.

  “Damnation, woman, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Blake had just finished explaining to his male in-laws that they would all, each and every one of them, be sleeping in the newly repaired barn, while he and Jessie took the house for themselves. He’d taken considerable ribbing from Travis, Matt, and Pace, but in the end, they’d agreed—providing they could get the women to cooperate.

  “They’ll cooperate,” Blake had vowed.

  Then he had glanced up and seen Jessie, his wife nearly eight months pregnant, lugging a heavy water pail. A woman in her condition didn’t have any business lifting anything heavier than a single feather pillow, damn her.

  She gasped as he yanked the heavy bucket from her grasp. “Blake!” Eyes wide, she put a hand to her chest. “You scared the daylights out of me.”

  “I’ll do more than scare you if I see you carrying anything this heavy again.”

  Jessie’s eyes widened. “Well, of all the stupid, idiotic, unreasonable things to say.”

  Blake blinked. She was yelling at him! One by one, his muscles knotted and he fought the urge to shout with joy. She was yelling at him. Fire shot from those big gray eyes. She hadn’t yelled at him, hadn’t exhibited any emotion but sadness, depression, and fear, since his first day at the Triple C.

  Please, God, please, let this mean she’s not sad anymore.

  “It’s not unreasonable,” he finally answered. “You could hurt yourself.”

  She plopped her hands on her hips. “Well, the sun could fall from the sky and land on my head, too—” Male laughter, directed at the two of them, filled the barn. Jessie ignored her father and brothers and went on. “—but it’s not very damn likely.”

  The laughter ended in various versions of a gasp.

  “I told you she was crazy about him,” Pace said, his voice filled with laughter.

  “Crazy about him, my ass,” Matt grumbled. “She’s cussing him out.”

  “My point,” Pace said. “Takes powerful emotions to get Jessie to cut loose.”

  Fire crept up her cheeks. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, the lot of you. Go soak your heads in the privy. And when you’ve cleaned up from that little exercise, get ready to haul furniture into the house. That ought to take some sass out of you.”

  In a whirl of pink checked gingham, she turned and flounced back to the house, her nose in the air, her back stiff.

  Blake couldn’t help himself. He stared after her and grinned like what she’d called him—an idiot.

  Behind him, Travis, Pace, and Matt laughed. Fleetingly he noted it was the first time he’d noticed any common ground at all between Pace and Matt. But the thought fled as Travis slapped him companionably on the back.

  “I said it before, but this looks like a good time to repeat it. Welcome to the family, son.”

  Blake checked on his Arabians one last time, murmured good night to his snickering in-laws, and let himself into the house. He couldn’t believe what Jessie and the other women had accomplished in a single afternoon. Not a speck of dirt or dust remained. Lye soap, beeswax, and a hint of vinegar teased his nose. A far cry from the foul odor of rotted food and animal and rodent droppings that had tainted the air when they’d arrived earlier in the day.

  The old plank floor was so clean, he was compelled to tug off his boots lest he track dirt across its spotless surface. Even the ashes in the stove and fireplace had been cleaned out.

  He grinned at the memory of the soot on Jessie’s face and hands.

  With boots in hand, he crossed the room in stockinged feet. A braided rag rug covered the scarred plank floor before the fireplace. On the near side of the rug sat the rocker from the bedroom. It had been cleaned and waxed and polished to a high, dark sheen. On the opposite side of the rug stood a big leather wingback Jessie had brought from the Triple C. For him. />
  The old beat-up table he and Pace had dragged outside when they’d ridden down earlier in the week now stood in the center of the front half of the room, a yellow and white checkered table cloth hiding its age. In the center sat a blue vase of wildflowers. On the counter, a dish towel, limp with dampness, hung on a hook near the pump handle.

  Against the far wall, below the window, rested a horse hide sofa Jessie said her parents had put in storage years ago when they’d splurged and bought a new Moroccan leather version for her father’s office.

  Good God, she’d even hung pictures on the walls. And curtains at the windows. Blake shook his head in amazement. When he’d first seen the place last week, he’d cringed, hating the thought of bringing Jessie here. Jessie, used to that big fine house at the Triple C.

  But she’d changed it, made it into a warm, welcoming home. In just one day.

  With one ear cocked, he listened for movement from the bedroom. He heard none. And no wonder. She’d worked too damn hard today. She was probably sound asleep.

  He tried to convince himself he wasn’t disappointed that she wouldn’t be greeting him with open arms. The scenario hadn’t been very damn likely to start with, in light of her frame of mind since she’d had an unwanted husband show up on her doorstep.

  Still, her temper this afternoon…he’d thought, hoped that meant she was ready to crawl out of her shell of withdrawal. There had been such fire in her eyes. He wanted that fire, craved it. Needed it to heat the cold corners of his life, his heart. Warm me, Jessie.

  With a shake of his head at his own foolish hopes, he turned out the lamp on the cherrywood table beside the sofa and quietly entered the bedroom.

  The light was dim. At first he thought the room was empty. The covers were turned back on the bed, but no small feminine shape rested there. For one painful, heart-stopping moment, he thought she was gone.

  Then he realized the reason the light was so dim was that the lamp was behind the dressing screen. Damn thing, always hiding Jessie from his eyes. The screen was pretty enough, he supposed, if a man didn’t mind sharing a bedroom with painted peacocks and trickling fountains. What he minded was that Jessie skittered behind it religiously every morning and night rather than reveal a single inch of her fine, pale flesh to his hungry eyes.