More silence.
Heath finally said, “Pa didn’t leave us nuthin’. He rode off one spring to sell his furs. He never came back.”
“That must’ve been the year he died.” Rafe shoved his hands into the back pockets of his pants. “He rode in here, sick with a fever. He died. He died . . .” Suddenly Rafe frowned and looked at the newcomers. “He told me to take care of his son and his wife. I thought he was out of his head.
“He meant you.” Rafe’s voice echoed with regret and his shoulders slumped. “He wanted me to find you. I couldn’t make sense out of it. His wife—our ma—was long dead. I thought he was just raving or dreaming of a woman’s gentle hand. I’m . . . I’m sorry. I think he even meant the fur money to go to you. He said something about selling it, using it to care for his wife. I hadn’t seen him for almost a year. I know now that all that time he was gone, he was with you, that even before Ma died he was with you. But after, he barely even lived here. He stopped in from time to time.”
“He wasn’t with us that much, either.” Heath crossed his arms, almost as if he wanted to hold back the words he had to say. “He’d leave for weeks at a time. Ma, well, Ma had grown up in the mountains. She could provide for us better with a skinning knife and a Winchester than most people can with a general store and a herd of cattle.”
“Did she cry?” Seth asked.
Callie never was much of a crier. From Seth’s tone, she suspected he wouldn’t think fondly of her if she took up the habit.
“Never saw her shed a tear,” Heath said.
“So, since there’s no money to be had here,” Callie said to Heath, “it looks like you’re gonna have to take your inheritance out in land and a roof over your head.” She then turned to Seth. “And since Heath’s new to the family and so am I, I want him. I want help getting you through your nightmares. It wears on a body after a while.”
Ethan patted Seth on the back. “So true.”
Callie gave Connor a big hug. “How many bedrooms does your cabin have?”
Seth sighed long and hard. “Not enough.”
Heath looked at Callie. “So when do we have this house-building party?”
“Right after the breakfast dishes are washed,” Rafe said. “And then I’ve got a line shack I want to put up before the snow flies.”
“Too late for that. The snow’s already started.” Seth looked out the window. “But we won’t let a little blizzard stop us. Let’s hit the trail.”
Chapter
15
Seth hadn’t gotten a minute alone with his wife since . . . he paused. Had he ever gotten a minute alone with her? At least when she was fully conscious?
And since Seth couldn’t remember being married, it really was never. Which was maddening when he considered he’d not only married her, he’d undeniably made a baby with her.
He’d really like to remember that part.
They’d been two days building on to his house.
He saw his chance to actually speak to his wife alone when Callie stepped outside with a basin of wash water.
“Let’s get packed up.” Rafe was being his usual tyrannical self. “We leave at first light for the line shack.” Issuing orders to Seth, Ethan, and Heath. Even though they were all men. By the amount of work he did, Seth even counted Heath . . . mostly. Men with functioning brains, Seth even counted himself . . . mostly.
Seth exchanged a look with Ethan, who had his usual phony grin on his face. He was probably daydreaming, ignoring Rafe. A quick glance at Heath told Seth the kid had already learned the skill of pretending to listen to Rafe while his mind was elsewhere.
When Rafe turned around to pick up an axe, Seth jabbed an elbow into Ethan’s arm and jerked his head in Callie’s direction.
Ethan looked at Callie, quirked a genuine smile, and waved Seth toward her. Rafe kept talking.
Seth slipped away just as Callie rounded the side of the house, out of sight of General Rafe. Seth came up behind her as she tossed the water out of the basin. Seth snagged her wrist. Startled, she squeaked and dropped the shallow metal pan.
He laid his hand over her mouth and whispered, “Quiet. Rafe’ll hear you and come drag me back to work.”
She nodded. She’d been issued a few too many orders in the last couple of days, it seemed. Seth left the basin behind when he pulled her away. He was careful to keep the house between him and the next orders.
He whispered the question that burned the worst. “Why’d you have to ask Heath to stay with us?”
He loved being this close to her. He couldn’t get over how pretty she was with her snapping black eyes and the brilliant shining black of her hair. Even her temper drew him. He got the impression that when she was mad, she might be a wild woman. Almost as wild as him. The little thrill of fear was exciting enough that he considered prodding her to make her show him the full extent of her wildness.
He’d seen flashes of temper but not when she was at full strength. Which she almost was now.
“Heath needs a home. We need the help.”
“We don’t even have any of the herd on my land yet. The house is done. I’ve got two horses and a milk cow and a flock of chickens. What help do we need?”
“There’s plenty to do.”
“It’s because of my nightmares. Seems like that’s a good reason to not have him around.”
Callie looked at him long and hard, as if she was searching his eyes, hoping to see inside his head. “How are you feeling? Did you have bad dreams last night?”
He studied right back. The smaller scrapes and scratches had faded, but she still had a mean-looking slice on her temple and, though they didn’t show, the stitches on her scalp. Her color was better. Now that she wasn’t as pale as milk, her skin was a warm tan.
“I never woke up. So I must—wait.” A memory flashed through his head. He dug around trying to focus on it. “I . . . I dreamed about you last night.”
“Really?” Her gaze sharpened. “Your nightmares were about me?”
“Yes, I mean, no—it wasn’t a nightmare. Maybe it wasn’t a dream. Maybe it was a memory.”
“You mean a memory of before I showed up here?” She sounded young when she asked that. She mostly acted all grown up and then some.
“I think . . . we met when I was in the hospital. In my dream I was lying in a hospital. But it wasn’t a hospital exactly.”
“It was a big old house, a plantation the Union Army took over to care for the sick.”
“I dreamed that I woke up in a room, lit by lanterns. You were there, bending over me, with a cloth on my head.” Seth reached for her hand and drew it to his face. “You said you cared for me.”
It struck Seth that “you cared for me” could be taken two ways. The way a nurse cared for her patient or the way a wife cared about her husband.
“You were so sick. Feverish. The buckshot in your back was infected. You couldn’t have been in Andersonville very long or you’d’ve died.”
Unable to resist, Seth drew her along, past an ancient oak tree with a massive trunk, out of sight of the cabin. They were swallowed up by trees still bearing the last of their bright fall colors. The snow had melted in most places and their feet crunched and crackled in the fallen leaves. He was surprised she came along.
“You were like an angel leaning over me. I hurt so bad and you stayed. You were there every time I woke up.” He felt his brow furrow as he tried to remember. Their eyes met. Seth’s breath hitched.
“I helped care for all the patients, not just you.” A gust of wind stirred the trees and some of the last leaves still clinging overhead rained down like an orange and red blizzard. The pines stirred and their scent wrapped around Seth, giving him the solid feeling of home. It wouldn’t be much longer until winter would settle on their heads. And he’d be holed up with Callie for long months with weather that drove a man to stay inside, close to the fire, close to his woman to stay warm in the night.
“There was something between us f
rom the first, wasn’t there?” Seth touched her black-as-midnight hair and couldn’t believe anything was as soft and silky. “It had to be strong for me to feel this connection now.”
“I don’t know what was between us. I thought there was something, but if you forgot me so easily—”
Seth kissed her quiet. “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t slug him, so he kissed her again, longer this time. Deeper. “I don’t know how I could ever forget someone as beautiful as you.” He buried his hand in her hair. He had to remember this, the silky weight, the lush curls.
Callie pressed against his shoulders, gently but relentlessly. “Stop, Seth. We aren’t going to . . . to be together as man and wife until I know I can trust you to stay.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m home. Before, something must have been driving me home. But I’m fine now.”
“I’m sure you didn’t plan on abandoning me before.”
Seth slid an arm around her waist and eased her forward. She shook her head but let him draw her. He spoke soft enough to soothe a skittish filly. “How long did we know each other before we got married?”
Callie jerked one shoulder. Seth was learning she did that when there was something she didn’t want to say.
“How long?” His arm tightened on her waist as if he could squeeze an answer out of her.
“Not long enough, I reckon.”
“Callie, how long?” He shook her gently.
“A few weeks.” She looked confused and sad and enticed.
“A few? How many? Five? Ten?” Seth had another flash of them standing side by side in . . . it seemed like the same room he’d dreamed of last night. A parson was there. While he was still in the hospital?
She clamped her teeth shut, looking for all the world like a woman who wasn’t going to let a word slip past her lips.
He let his hand slide up her backbone. He remembered something else. He could get around her, earn her cooperation with closeness, touch, as if she craved it. “Tell me.”
“Two! Two weeks!” she snapped. Shoving at him, she fought her way out of his arms.
“Two weeks? And I was sick the whole time?” She probably should have had better sense than to marry him, but he didn’t think it was wise to say that out loud.
“I probably should have had better sense than to marry you. We needed to open up a bed for someone else. You were past the worst of it, but you weren’t well enough to just turn out on your own. You needed somewhere to go, someone to take care of you. You were having nightmares in the hospital.” Her jaw clenched, but she forced the words past. “We’d shared a kiss or two and the connection was so strong. You said you wanted to be with me, marry me. I believed all your pretty words, when it was just the fever talking. Once you remember me—if that ever happens—you won’t even want to be married. If it wasn’t for Connor, I’d have just let you go. Pretended like nothing ever happened.”
What if she had? What if she’d burned their marriage license, kept quiet about it? Lied. Married someone else. It made him mad enough to punch someone. Before she could speak any more nonsense, he shut her up by dragging her against himself and kissing her.
When her arms crept up to circle his neck, a soaring happiness swept over him. If it had only been a few weeks, and he’d been sick, then he hadn’t forgotten all that much.
And if he’d kissed her a single time, of course he’d married her. “It was like this between us from the start, wasn’t it?” He kissed her before she could deny it. “That’s why we got married so fast.”
She turned her head aside far too late to be persuasive. “I let myself get carried away.”
Seth still couldn’t remember the actual carrying away, but he hoped to remind himself of it real soon.
“And how long did we . . . uh, carry away before I took off?”
“I took you to my rooming house. You were still so weak, plagued by nightmares. You stayed only a few days and vanished.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I searched for you. I knew you weren’t well enough to be on your own.”
He’d made it home, though, crossing most of the country. He’d been well enough for that. Of course he couldn’t remember that, either.
“I stayed awhile longer. There was plenty of work still to do at the hospital. I kept thinking you’d come back. I spent every spare minute searching for you. I was afraid you’d gotten worse and maybe you were back in a hospital somewhere. There were so many injured men, we took over several houses. Finally I went home to my pa’s ranch in Texas. I didn’t know what else to do. You’d said Rawhide, Colorado. Told me your brothers’ names. But I couldn’t set out across the country alone, or at least I didn’t think I could then. I changed my mind when Pa died. I didn’t even know if you’d be there.” She grabbed the collar of his shirt. “I thought you died.”
“And then you found out there was a baby on the way.” He pulled her long black curls forward so they danced around her shoulders. She’d had a braid when she came out, but he’d freed her of it.
“I was well gone with the child by the time I’d traveled home. I knew I was tired and sick, but I blamed that on rough stagecoaches and long days. I didn’t even tell my pa I was married at first. I wasn’t even sure if it was legal to marry a man who was out of his head.”
It twisted in Seth’s gut to think a less honorable woman might’ve forgotten the vows she took, counted it a stupid mistake. But she couldn’t do that, even if she was so inclined because . . . “Connor made it real legal, didn’t he?”
A sudden burst of wind gusted leaves down on them and rattled the branches.
With a jerk of her chin she said, “My pa had a housekeeper. She told me I was increasing.”
Seth didn’t know much about women, so he didn’t ask how a woman could tell such a thing. He feared it was an extremely female thing and he didn’t want to know. Except . . .
“Seth, get back here!” Rafe interrupted in time to stop him from asking her. It was the first time in a while he’d been grateful for his bossy big brother.
Of course it also meant their chance to talk privately was over. But it had served a purpose. “I do remember you, Callie.”
“Just barely.”
“I know when I hold you, what I feel isn’t new. And I know the connection between us is strong. It survived my run for home and the time that separated us.” And his time living down in the cavern. Short miles from home but hiding instead of going the rest of the way. No, he hadn’t been well.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do before supper.” Rafe sounded bossy, but there was a thread of worry under it. Seth knew he’d given his big brother cause to worry many times.
“Looks like we’ll have to continue this talk later.” Seth grabbed another kiss and then slid his arm around her and guided her back toward the cabin.
“Seth, where are you? Are you all right?” Rafe would be coming into the trees in another few steps.
“I’m coming. I’m fine, Rafe. I’m just talking to my wife for a few minutes.” A few precious minutes. He wondered when in the world he’d ever get more of them.
“We’ve always been able to create a spark between us, Seth. But we need more than that to make a marriage. While my father was alive—”
“How’d your father die?”
“There was . . . trouble and he was killed.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“There were renegades after the war. Grabbing up land. Pa controlled a lot of acres, but he didn’t own them, just the water holes. Pa didn’t back down and he ended up dead. And I couldn’t hold the land. So I cut and ran. I took all the money I could scrabble together and left the rest of it to the vultures and came west looking for you, or at least your family.”
“I’m sorry you lost your pa, Callie. He’s gotta been a good man if he raised you up so tough.”
“I’m not tough. I told you I couldn’t hold our ranch.”
“I was thinking of the sta
gecoach shootout. That’s pretty tough.”
With a shrug Callie said, “I’ve got nowhere else to go, Seth, so I’m staying. But I’m not going to be with you as a wife would be, not for a while.”
“Isn’t a wife supposed to obey her husband?” Seth swallowed hard on that wonderful thought. Then he had one even better. “And meet his needs?”
Oh, yeah, he had himself some needs.
“Read that Bible passage about obeying again, Kincaid.” All Callie’s warmth dried up and blew away like autumn leaves. “The husband makes more promises than the wife, and you haven’t kept a single one of them. When you do, maybe I’ll give some thought to obeying you. And as for meeting your needs, that won’t happen until I’m sure you’re a man to count on. You’ve got a ways to go to prove that to me.”
She jerked out of his arms and stalked toward the house. She had on a black riding skirt that moved like magic when she walked, and Seth remembered that he’d always been a little wild. A little reckless, and not a very patient man.
A sudden slap on the back drew his eyes away from his fast-retreating wife.
Rafe.
“Having trouble concentrating, little brother?” Rafe smiled. A happily married man. Seth was starting to understand just what that meant.
“Nope, not one bit.” He concentrated on Callie until he ached all over. She walked over to the basin and bent to pick it up, and he didn’t waste one single second looking at his brother.
“I mean on work.”
“Supper’s ready,” Julia called from inside the house just as Callie swung the door open to enter.
“Let’s go in.” Seth did his best not to run for the cabin. He noticed Rafe moved right alongside him. Ethan came around the cabin at a fast pace, heading for a warm meal cooked by the strong, gentle hands of a woman.
All Seth had to do was figure out a way to get his wife to trust him, and all three of the Kincaid men would be well and truly and happily married.
Mary Connealy - [Kincaid Brides 03] Page 12
