Apache-Colton Series

by Janis Reams Hudson

  “That’s easily remedied,” he said grimly.

  “Daddy! You sound just like Pace.”

  Startled, Matt frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “He said virtually the same thing before we left the mountains,” she said, pulling on first one kid glove then the other.

  “He what?” Matt bellowed. “I’ll wring that sorry bastard’s neck. He seduces you, gets you pregnant, then expects to be able to walk away?”

  “Walk being the operative word.” Joanna pulled her skirt up so she could place her foot on the buggy step. At the same time, she reached for the hand strap to pull herself up.

  Matt automatically grasped her elbow and gave her a boost.

  Once in the seat, Joanna scooted over to make room for her father. “Pace has decided that I shouldn’t be allowed to throw my life away on a cripple.”

  Matt had heard that Pace’s legs were at the root of the tension between Jo and her new husband.

  Husband. How that word galled him. He didn’t want Joanna married to Pace. Truth be known, he couldn’t bring himself to want her married to anyone. In his mind she was still his little Pumpkin.

  But he bit back any such foolish comment. Serena, his dad, hell, the whole family was right. Joanna was a grown woman. At twenty-two it was time she married and started a family of her own. Matt just wasn’t sure he would live through having to let go of her.

  “And what do you want?” he asked her as he picked up the reins.

  Joanna met his look squarely. “Pace.”

  When they reached Spence’s office in Tucson, Matt helped Joanna down from the buggy and carried in her carpetbag. The door opened into a reception area. Spence was there to greet them.

  To the left another door led into the examination room. To the right of the reception area was a narrow hall leading back to Spence’s office, a storage room, and what Spence euphemistically called “the luxury suite,” a small room with two cots, for any patients who might need to stay. The room was rarely used.

  At the end of the hall a staircase led to the two-bedroom living quarters upstairs.

  “Why don’t we take your bag upstairs and get you settled?” he asked.

  Joanna braced herself for an argument. “You said you had two cots in the room where Pace is staying.”

  Spence paused in the act of turning toward the back hall. “Yes, I have two cots.”

  “I’ll be staying with Pace, then.”

  The argument didn’t come. Instead, Spence grinned, and the spark in his eyes was pure devilment. “In the same room?”

  “In the same room.”

  “Pumpkin,” her father said beside her, “are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  Joanna knew her father was having considerable trouble reconciling himself to her marriage to Pace, but there wasn’t much she could do to help him. “He’s my husband, Daddy. Where else should I be?”

  “I think it’s an excellent idea,” Spence volunteered.

  Matt shot him a dirty look. Grudgingly, he followed Spence and Joanna to Pace’s room at the back of the hall.

  “I’ve got a roommate for you, big brother, and I promise, she’s real easy on the eyes. Smells better than you do, too.”

  Joanna steeled herself before stepping into the room. She didn’t have long to wait for the explosion.

  Pace paused in the process of working the stiffness out of his right arm. “Goddammit, I told you to stay home.”

  With a deep breath, she ignored his outburst and nodded toward his arm. “Are you supposed to be doing that?”

  “I want him to start using the arm,” Spence confirmed.

  “The bullet wound is healed enough?” she questioned.

  Spence raised one eyebrow at her. “You show me your medical diploma and I’ll show you mine.”

  She smiled. “Just checking.”

  “You brought her here?” Pace demanded, seeing Matt over Joanna’s shoulder. “A smart daddy wouldn’t let is little girl anywhere near me.”

  Matt knew in that instant that he had a decision to make. He could support his daughter in her choice of husband, or he could aggravate her current problems with Pace.

  He couldn’t make her stay a little girl. She was a married woman. He didn’t like the way she’d gone about it—baby first, marriage second—but the same thing could have happened to Rena. Matt hadn’t waited until the wedding before taking her to bed. He could easily have gotten her pregnant.

  He couldn’t say he was thrilled with Joanna’s choice of a husband, either, but that was his stubbornness talking, and he knew it. He had to ask himself if he would be any more pleased if he and Pace had been close all these years, or if she’d chosen some other man.

  In any case, the choice wasn’t his, it was Joanna’s, and she had made it. It might kill him, but he would try not to interfere. For now.

  He carried the carpetbag to the empty cot, then turned to Pace. “Good morning to you, too. The boys want to know when they can come see you.”

  For a second Pace’s eyes brightened. “Will and Russ?” Quickly he masked his feelings. “Later,” he said tersely.

  Even though he and Pace had been butting heads for years, Matt understood Pace just then. Matt and Serena’s two sons followed Pace around like a couple of pups whenever he was home. To them, he was an exciting hero. Pace knew how they felt. He didn’t want the boys to see him battered, defeated in his own eyes. He didn’t want to tarnish their hero. This much, Matt understood.

  “I’ll tell ‘em you’ll be coming to see them as soon as possible,” he said, letting Pace off the hook. “You need anything?”

  Joanna nearly staggered, so shocked was she by her father’s casual words to Pace. Her heart warmed, and she smiled at him brilliantly.

  Pace glowered. “Yeah. I need a little peace and quite. Privacy. Take her home.”

  Matt propped his hands on his hips and raised a brow at Joanna. “Do you want to go home?”

  “No.”

  He shrugged at Pace and held his hands out, palms up. “She doesn’t want to go.” He crossed to Joanna and kissed the top of her head, then, on his way out the door, he tossed back, “You kids play nice now, you hear?”

  From the cot came a low growl.

  Joanna stared after her father in shock.

  Spence broke out laughing. “Yes, sir, this just gets interestinger and interestinger every day. When you get settled, run upstairs and say hi to Risa. She’s looking forward to seeing you.” He glanced around the small room that had one tiny window over the empty cot. “Are you sure you want to stay in here? It’s kinda dreary.”

  Pace let out a snort of disgust.

  “It’s grouchy as hell in here, too,” Spence added in a loud whisper.

  “Now, Spence.” Joanna crossed to the bed and opened her carpetbag. “You’d be grouchy too if you had as many broken bones and holes in your hide as Pace does.” She took out her comb and brush, then looked around for somewhere to place them.

  “I don’t need your sympathy,” Pace muttered.

  “You don’t have my sympathy.” She place the matching comb and brush next to the water pitcher on the small table between the cots. “What you have is my understanding, my help, and,” she added softly, “my love. Whether you want them or not.”

  Spence shuffled his feet. “I think I’ll, uh, leave you two alone.”

  “Thank you, Spence. I’ll go up and see LaRisa in a few minutes.”

  When he was gone and the door was closed, Pace glared at Joanna. “If this is a ploy to get out of our agreement, it won’t work.”

  To hide the fact that her hands were shaking, Joanna turned back to her carpetbag and began unpacking the few clothes she’d brought with her. “Our agreement?”

  “The divorce. You promised me a divorce after the baby is born.”

  The shaking spread to her knees. She turned and sat abruptly on the edge of her cot. “Ah, yes, the divorce.”

  “What’s that supposed to me
an?”

  “Nothing,” she claimed with exaggerated innocence. “Except…it’s going to be a little difficult to get a divorce if there’s no record of us having ever been married.”

  “You promised a divorce.” Both his fists were clenched. “Are you going back on your word?”

  “No.” Joanna shook her head, hoping he couldn’t hear her heart pounding from across the few feet that separated them. “I will give you the divorce you want, but first we have to have a record of our marriage.”

  “How do you plan to accomplish that?”

  “I plan to go this afternoon to visit the minister and ask him to come here and marry us.”

  Pace’s head came off the pillow. The veins in his neck stood out. “You what?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  That very afternoon, for the second time in less than two weeks, Pace and Joanna were married. First by a supportive, sympathetic Apache shaman, this time by a frowning, disapproving Presbyterian minister. First witnessed by most of the family, this time by only Spence and LaRisa. First in anguish and desperation, thinking Pace was dying. This time, in hurt, anger and resentment, knowing the marriage was a sham.

  “Did you see the way he looked at you?” Pace demanded harshly when he and Joanna were once again alone in their tiny room that afternoon.

  “It doesn’t matter, Pace.”

  “Doesn’t matter? He looked down his sanctimonious nose at you the whole time he was here. I could see it in his eyes—a white woman who’d marry a half-breed.”

  “Actually, I thought maybe it was because I was marrying my uncle.”

  “I’m not your uncle! Dammit, Jo, this isn’t funny.”

  “No,” she agreed. “It isn’t funny at all. But it’s done. We’re legally married in the eyes of the church and the territory. When the time comes, you can have your divorce.”

  “Fine. You’ve done what you came here to do. Now go home, Jo.”

  “Oh, no. I haven’t finished what I came here for at all. I can’t go home yet.”

  “What are you talking about?” He watched warily while she rolled up her sleeves. “What are you doing?”

  “I came here to take care of you. I think the first thing you need is a bath.”

  “Like hell.”

  “If need be.”

  “Humph. You’re just mad because you didn’t get a wedding ring.”

  “You’re just mad because I kissed you when the minister told me to.”

  “You call that a kiss? That stingy peck on the cheek you gave me?”

  “You didn’t like it? Maybe I should try again. I’m sure I could do better this time.”

  If Pace could have run for his life in that moment, he would have. “Never mind,” he said quickly.

  “Oh, no. I wouldn’t want you spreading the word that your wife was stingy with her kisses.” She sauntered up to his cot and perched on the edge, twisting sideways to brace herself on the mattress with a hand on each side of his head.

  “This isn’t funny, Jo.”

  “I agree.” She moistened her lips with her tongue and leaned closer, praying he wouldn’t hear the beat of fear and longing in her heart. “It’s very,” she whispered, leaning closer, closer, “very…serious.”

  Pace braced himself, but still the touch of her lips on his sent a shocking wave of fire through him that inexplicably blocked the constant pain of his wounds. God, she tasted like heaven. He had hoped—feared—that he would never again know the feel of her lips on his. It shook him how glad he was to have been wrong. This was only going to make their eventual break that much harder, but he couldn’t stop himself from taking what she offered.

  Then he was doing more than taking. His mouth captured hers and his tongue teased until she opened for him, allowing him to dip into that sweetness until he thought he would burst from the pleasure of her taste. By the time she pulled back, his chest was heaving. He would rather have had his skin peeled away inch by inch than have her take her lips from his.

  When had he cupped the back of her neck in his hand? When had his hand started shaking?

  The word mistake shouted in his head. “Go home, Jo. Go home before I hurt you worse than I already have.”

  Joanna ate him alive with her eyes. “I can’t,” she whispered. “Don’t ask me to, Pace.”

  She watched as he closed his eyes and swallowed. “You promised, dammit.”

  With slow, careful breaths, Joanna straightened, then stood. “I promised you a divorce after the baby is born. I did not promise to make it easy.”

  Joanna was as good as her word. She didn’t make anything in Pace’s life easy. She was always there at his side, bathing him, changing his bandages, taking out his stitches, easing whatever physical discomfort she could.

  And she was killing him.

  Oh, she wasn’t all sweetness and smiles. When he grumbled, she grumbled right back at him. When he snarled, she did the same. His Firefly could give as good as she got, and she didn’t mind doing it.

  A couple of days after her arrival she left him for the afternoon to visit her friend Augusta. The friend whom she’d gone to Mexico with.

  Spence had told them the night before that Matt was hiring someone to travel to Mexico City to report Juerta’s crimes, but Joanna would not put off telling Augusta of her cousin’s murder and all that followed it. When Joanna returned, she was silent and withdrawn, and Pace hurt for her. That night, she cried in her sleep.

  Pace would have gone to her if he could have. He would have held her and let her cry everything out, even knowing that he was probably one of the reasons for her tears.

  But he couldn’t go to her. Not that night, nor any night in the future, as far as he could tell. He still had no feeling in his legs. He was still a useless excuse for a man. The reminder hardened his resolve to release Joanna from being tied to him.

  The next day she was back to badgering him into eating more, complaining less, and generally making him miserable.

  And every day, he loved her more. It was the last thing he wanted, for either of them, but there didn’t seem to be a damn thing he could do about it.

  It was the middle of the night, nearly three weeks since Joanna had come to make Pace’s life a living hell, when they were awakened by voices and footsteps overhead.

  “The baby!” Joanna whispered in the dark.

  “You think so?” Pace heard her crawl out of bed, then a match flared. She lit the lamp on the wall. “What are you doing?”

  Heading for the door as she was stuffing her arms in the sleeves of her robe, she tossed back, “Maybe I can help.”

  Before Pace could respond, something upstairs crashed to the floor and shattered. Joanna threw open the door and disappeared into the dark hall.

  Hours passed, with Pace lying on his cot listening to the creaking of the floor overhead, hearing muffled voices, occasional laughter. And absolutely no news.

  It was driving him crazy. That was his niece or nephew about to be born up there. A man ought to at least be able to walk the floor in sympathy.

  A man ought to at least be able to walk, period.

  Everyone was doing something. Joanna was probably offering encouragement. Spence was undoubtedly giving medical advice, sweating in fear, and trying not to show it. LaRisa was laboring in pain to bring a new life into the world.

  Was she suffering very much? Would Joanna suffer when her time came? Of course she would. Women suffered in childbirth.

  Women could die in childbirth.

  Ice formed in the pit of Pace’s stomach and stayed there, getting bigger and colder as the hours passed. It was dawn when the muffled silence was split by an agonizing shriek of pain that left Pace breathless and sweating.

  A minute later, a new shriek came, this one reeking of indignation. Pace let out the breath he’d been holding as he listened to the brand new voice of the newest Colton.

  Spence and LaRisa named the baby Chee, after LaRisa’s father. When Joanna brought the red, wrinkled
infant downstairs for Pace to see, Pace nearly embarrassed himself. He had to blink to clear his vision, and had to swallow twice.

  The baby was dark skinned and had a mop of thick, straight black hair. LaRisa was half Chiricahua, as was Pace. His son, his and Joanna’s, would undoubtedly look just like this.

  Slowly Pace raised his gaze from the baby nestled against Joanna’s breasts. When he met her eyes, words failed him. Her eyes were glowing. He had to swallow around the lump of heavy emotion in his throat.

  Pace tried again to get Joanna to go home. The dark circles under her eyes were growing more pronounced. He knew she wasn’t sleeping well. At night he heard her toss and turn in the cot next to his. And she was losing weight.

  But now she wouldn’t hear of leaving—not because of him, she told him in no uncertain terms, but because LaRisa needed her help with the baby in these first few weeks after his birth. Joanna was determined to stay.

  No one told him, but he heard Jo and Spence talking about the family coming—all of them—to see the newest Colton. Pace waited until Jo was upstairs, then called Spence.

  Spence poked his head in the door. “Yeah, big brother?”

  “Any idea when everybody’s going to get here?”

  Spence grinned. “Word is they’re all coming after lunch. That way Blake and Jessie and their kids can come with them.”

  “Today?”

  “Hell, yes, today. You don’t think they could let the poor kid get a day older without coming to inspect him, do you?”

  “He’s…uh, really something, Spence. Congratulations.”

  Spence leaned against the door frame and smirked. “Won’t be too many more months ‘til yours is born.”

  Pace clenched his jaw. “Speaking of that, Joanna’s working too hard. Send her home.”

  Spence grimaced. “I’m working on it. What she sees in you, I’ll never know,” he teased, “but she refuses to leave you.”

  “Work on it harder,” Pace demanded. “And close my door, will ya? I’m tired. I’ll be sleeping all afternoon.”