Mary Connealy - [Kincaid Brides 03]

by Over the Edge

  “I put the children all in the south bedroom.” Audra looked them over. “Two more bedrooms. One for the women, one for the men?”

  “I’ll sleep out here in front of the fire,” Seth said.

  “Me, too.” Heath rose from the table. His chair scraped on the floor, and he looked about ready to fall asleep where he stood.

  Callie was relieved the boy had spoken up because she didn’t want to be tempted to sleep with her husband.

  “Callie, you stay out here with me,” Seth said. “Let Julia and Rafe, and Audra and Ethan have the bedrooms.”

  Though she didn’t like it, Callie felt churlish refusing to give the married couples some privacy. Then she realized she was included in that group—married couples. She hadn’t said much in front of the others about not wanting to be with Seth, and now wasn’t the time to bring it up. Nothing married would happen while she was sleeping on the floor in the same room as a half-grown boy.

  They were soon settled with a generous pile of blankets that took some of the hard out of their hardwood mattress. Callie was too tired to worry much about Seth lying down next to her and covering them both with the same blanket. And she was barely awake when she realized that somehow her head was pillowed on his broad shoulder.

  Chapter

  19

  A scream jerked Callie awake. Something hit her in the face. She clawed for her gun as she rolled aside.

  She didn’t have it.

  “I’m on fire! Rafe! Ethan!” The cry for help dragged her out of her unthinking reaction as, with a whoosh of relief, she recognized Seth’s voice.

  She was kneeling, facing him, well out of striking distance by the time it all sorted through her brain. And she had a throbbing spot on her cheek where she was pretty sure her husband had just punched her.

  Her poor tormented husband needed his arm broken.

  “I’m burning!” Seth slapped at his arms and face.

  She saw movement in the dark room, lit only by glowing embers from the dying fire.

  “What’s going on? Where’s the trouble?” Heath was on his feet. He sounded like a boy ready to fight for his life.

  A wise way to conduct yourself on the frontier.

  “Seth has nightmares.”

  Two doors crashed open. And Rafe and Ethan came out of their bedrooms in their nightshirts.

  “I’ll get the cold water.” Ethan turned to the kitchen side of Rafe’s house.

  Callie crawled toward her husband. “Heath, light a lantern please.”

  Rafe knelt beside Seth, opposite Callie.

  “Forget the water, Ethan.” Callie wanted to slap her insensitive brother-in-law. “I can wake him up.”

  Ethan came to her side just as Audra and Julia emerged from their bedrooms.

  “Help! Rafe, help me.”

  “Seth, wake up.” She rested one hand firmly on his shoulder, and he thrashed around, knocking her hand aside, and she barely ducked in time to miss getting a black eye.

  “Let me hold him down while you try and wake him up.” Ethan looked across Seth’s flailing arms at Rafe. “Grab his arms.”

  “No, that’s not necessary.”

  Ethan and Rafe moved before they could listen to her. Seth’s cries rose.

  “You might think the water is cruel, but it’s fast.” Ethan lost his grip on Seth and nearly fell across him. He caught himself and got a better hold.

  “I suppose.” Callie wondered if Seth would respond to her with his brothers holding him down. He screamed louder, fought their hands.

  Callie had to bend around Ethan, who knelt near Seth’s head. She leaned down and kissed him.

  He bucked against her and cracked her in the face with his hard skull. She dove in again, wrapping her arms around his neck. Maybe to hug him, or more in the way of being a human straitjacket. She kissed him, long and deep. His head tossed and she found his lips again, and suddenly he quit fighting and kissed her back.

  “Callie, is that you?”

  From experience she knew he was still asleep, but his dreams had just changed.

  “My back hurts. Callie, help me.”

  Something he’d said a lot in the hospital.

  “I’m out of Andersonville, Callie. It’s over, isn’t it? The war is over.” He struggled to free his arms and she knew exactly why.

  “Let him go.” Then his arms were around her and he went back to kissing her. The nightmares driven back. The war over—except in his dreams.

  He’d always responded to her like this. Including the first time she’d tried it. The third night in the hospital—the night his fever broke—she’d found him deep in the grip of a nightmare, but he was soaked in sweat and his fever down. He’d live. Her relief was so strong, she wanted to wake him and celebrate with him. She believed that waking him one more time, to find himself on the mend, would be the end of the nightmares that he’d had repeatedly since he’d been brought in.

  She’d been a cockeyed optimist for sure back then. She’d struggled to pull him out of the dream, and she’d remembered a fairy tale. Awakening a sleeping prince with a kiss. Or maybe the story had been about turning a frog into a prince. The frog part, that was a better description of her husband.

  So she’d kissed him.

  He’d awakened and kissed her back like a house afire.

  And he’d held her tight. They’d celebrated his improved health for quite some time. After that, she’d stayed with Seth at night. Waking him, sometimes several times a night, with a kiss. The intimacy, though it hadn’t gone too far, was definitely improper. One night a doctor interrupted them, very unhappy to catch his nurse kissing a patient. Seth was awake enough to propose.

  Like an idiot she hadn’t hesitated to say yes. They were married the next day.

  He’d been released from the overcrowded hospital to stay with her that night. And though he was still weak and taking small doses of laudanum for the pain, he hadn’t had the nightmares. Of course their sleep had been interrupted with delightful regularity by the joy of being newlyweds. Then when they’d been married just a few days, his first nightmare came. She’d awakened him with a kiss—and more. The next morning, Seth went for a walk and foolishly Callie hadn’t gone along.

  He’d never come back.

  Since they had about a dozen witnesses here in Rafe’s house, she needed to get away from her lunatic husband and his heated kisses.

  She had her hands full pulling away. It was made worse by how wonderful it felt to be in his arms.

  “Callie, no. Come back.” He reached for her.

  “Wake up, Seth.” Callie coaxed him rather than ordering him. He responded very well to coaxing once the dreams had been driven back.

  “Callie.”

  “He remembers you in his dreams. He must.” Audra came up and rested her hands on Callie’s shoulders.

  “Yes, if he’s dreaming and he knows my name, he might be remembering.” To her own ears, Callie sounded hopeful and eager and stupid as a chunk of rotten timber. So what if he remembered her when he was dreaming? He remembered horrible things even more.

  “You’re in there.” Audra spoke as if she read Callie’s thoughts. “He’s just been really hurting for a long time. It sounds like he was sick when he left you. He got to Rawhide somehow, but before he could get home, a man got hold of him and gave him laudanum for a while. A lot of the confusion he’s gone through can be blamed on the drug.”

  “Laudanum? Seth reacted badly to that. I let him have a little bit because the wounds in his back were so painful, but I never gave him strong doses.” Callie had dispensed a great deal of it in the hospital, including to Seth, but the drug had always hit him harder than most. “A doctor was treating him?”

  “No,” Audra said quietly. “A man who was after those diamonds. He found Seth and realized Seth knew this area. The man wanted help finding where my husband had us living. At that old cabin we tore down today. When they got close, Seth remembered the cavern and showed the man. Then the man dr
ugged Seth to keep him calm and confused while Seth showed him around in the cavern, because it was a good hiding place, close to where the man thought the diamonds were hidden.”

  “That stupid cavern again.” Callie hadn’t known about the cavern when she was back East, but now she knew exactly what to blame for Seth’s nightmares and scars and general madness.

  “Callie?” Seth sounded confused but awake. He reached for her. Callie knew he was still befuddled enough that she didn’t dare let him get his hands on her.

  She’d find out more about the laudanum later. Right now she needed to pull Seth all the way out of his tormenting sleep. “Seth, we’re at Rafe’s house.”

  “Rafe?”

  “It’s Callie.”

  “Callie, I’ve missed you so much.” He sat up and dragged her against him and pulled her onto his lap. His lips rained kisses across her face and sunk one hand deeply into her hair. He’d always liked to touch her hair.

  She wondered if they might not need the cold water after all.

  “Another nightmare, brother.” Rafe slapped Seth on the shoulder hard enough that his head bumped into Callie’s lips. Callie figured Rafe knew exactly where Seth’s mind was headed, and he wanted to make very sure it didn’t get where it was going.

  “Rafe? Is that you?” Seth sounded more awake by the moment.

  “Yep, and Ethan and Julia and Audra and Heath.” A howl came from the bedroom Ethan and Audra had emerged from. “And Lily.”

  Another cry sounded. Connor was awake.

  “Yep, the whole family’s right here watching you kiss Callie.” Rafe slapped Seth again. “You oughta knock it off.”

  “Callie, you came back.” His eyes went to her hair, which he’d managed to get out of its braid. He combed through it, his strong fingers smoothing at the dark length.

  As if Callie was the one who’d gone somewhere.

  “Is that Maggie?” Seth looked past Callie just as Julia appeared with Connor.

  Callie said, “Give me the boy, please.”

  Julia set him down, and the baby crawled with startling speed straight for Seth. He kept going until he used Seth to pull himself up. He stood, his knees bending to bounce himself.

  “Papa!” Connor slapped Seth in the face.

  Which Callie enjoyed.

  “Connor.” Seth pulled the little boy close and hugged him. That’s when Callie knew the poor idiot was finally fully awake.

  “I have a son.” He pulled Connor up so he sat on Callie’s lap, with Callie on Seth’s lap. Callie’s family formed one small pile.

  Rafe buried his face in one palm, then scrubbed for a while. “Yep, you’ve got a son.”

  She tried to get off her husband’s lap. He hung on, but he had her and Connor both and it was too much for him when he was still muddled from the nightmare, so she got away. “You can all go back to sleep now. The excitement is over.” Callie wondered how long that’d last.

  “I wonder how long that’ll last,” Ethan asked.

  “Let’s go.” Rafe rested his hand on his wife’s back. “Morning comes soon and I’ve still gotta finish that cabin.”

  “Since Seth is here, can we go down into the cavern again, Rafe?”

  “Not now, Julia.” Rafe sounded more exhausted than could be accounted for by interrupted sleep.

  “What’s the big deal about this cavern?” Heath asked.

  “I think we ought to hide those diamonds we found,” Seth said. “We need to put them somewhere safe until we can ride to town and hand them over to the sheriff.”

  “Somewhere safe like the cavern?” Julia sounded far too enthused about that idea. Callie wasn’t sure why the woman was so excited about a cavern that had hurt Seth so badly.

  “Yeah, great idea.” Seth bounced Connor, and the two wild men smiled at each other. “You want to see the cavern, don’t you, big guy?”

  Connor squealed with excitement.

  “We need to get him back to sleep.” Callie tried to sound gentle instead of stern. Neither of her men were much good at settling down at the best of times. She slid her arm across Seth’s shoulders, feeling the rough, scarred skin through his shirt. Hating the pain that still haunted his dreams after all these years. “Let me have him. We can talk about how to deal with the stupid diamonds tomorrow.”

  “Those diamonds have brought us nothing but trouble.” Audra sounded worried. “We need to get rid of them. Whether or not they’re ill-gotten gains on the part of the man who owned them, they were definitely stolen by my husband.”

  “You stole diamonds?” Heath scowled at Ethan, his blue eyes glittering in the lantern light.

  “No, her first husband.” Ethan tried to steer Audra back to bed. “Maggie and Lily’s pa. He’s dead.”

  “Ethan’s your second husband?” Heath asked, sounding real doubtful. “How old are you, anyway?”

  “Can we talk about this tomorrow?” Callie knew Connor was waking up more by the second. “At this rate we’ll be gathered in here yammering when the sun comes up and we’ve got a long day ahead of us.”

  “We certainly do, hiding treasure.” Julia didn’t sound a bit sleepy.

  Rafe urged her into their room and closed the door with a firm snap.

  Ethan and Audra were gone next.

  That left Heath and Seth and Connor to get to sleep. Callie was tempted to rock her husband to sleep—with a real rock—to the skull.

  “Give me Connor.” Callie found herself in a tug-of-war with her husband over the baby. Since Callie didn’t know for sure how hard Seth would pull, she let go.

  “I’ll take care of him.” Seth went to the rocking chair that had been pushed aside to make room on the floor for sleeping.

  Bouncing Connor on his lap, Seth made silly noises and Connor started giggling.

  Callie groaned and went to Maggie and Lily’s room and got the drawer Connor was sleeping in. Callie put it a safe distance from the fire, then looked at her husband waking her son up more every second. She sat down, her aching back resting on the warm stones of the hearth. Her husband had no idea how to put a baby to sleep. And this wasn’t the time for yelling, or a tug-of-war, or a rock to the skull.

  She settled in to wait for the sun to rise. It was going to be a long night.

  Chapter

  20

  “Rafe, Ethan and Heath can finish the shack. Seth, Callie, and I will explore the cavern and hide the diamonds. Audra can watch the babies here at the cabin.” Julia gave Seth a pat on the back.

  “I’d love to show Callie the cavern.” Seth’s heart sped up. The cavern always had that effect on him. He hadn’t liked Julia all that much at first. She was a fierce kind of woman. But then he’d found out she loved the cavern and he’d been her loyal friend ever since.

  Julia slid a skillet filled with a small mountain of fried potatoes onto the table while Audra brought over a platter of crisp side pork. Callie added biscuits and a pitcher of milk.

  “We’ve got enough eggs for everyone to have a bite. Connor and Maggie get theirs first.” Julia came from the stove with the last part of the meal. Everyone was busy eating, so no one started yelling about Julia’s plan—yet.

  Seth wolfed his food so he’d have his mouth free to support Julia. He swallowed and decided not to wait until the food was gone. Who knew if he’d be able to get a word in then?

  “You really only have the roof left to shingle and the doors and shutters to hang, Rafe.” Seth looked at his big brother. “Three of you can do that in half a day. I’ll be back from the cavern by then. Callie and Connor and I can ride home with Ethan and Audra.”

  “And Heath, too,” Callie reminded him with a sweet smile that did not match the glint of anger in her black eyes.

  Seth remembered for the first time in quite a while that Callie had taken a shot at him when he’d come upon the stagecoach holdup.

  But she’d had a real bad day. It’s not like she’d shot at him lately.

  A smile lifted his lips as he thought of
some real nice things Callie had done lately. “So, Heath, are you sure you don’t want to go on home with Ethan, get to know the old homeplace where our pa lived all those years?”

  Heath scowled. “Pa didn’t live there, he visited. He lived with me and my ma.”

  “Was Pa nice to you then? Because he was a grouch most of the time with us.” Seth decided just a little bit of honesty right now might make a difference. “I always figured he hated me.” He looked down at his plate so the hurt didn’t show for the whole room to see. “I almost killed myself and my brothers in that cavern.”

  “It was because of me.” Ethan eased back in his chair and crossed his arms. “I hurt you, bullied you. I pushed you over the edge. All those nightmares were my fault. I confessed to Ma and Pa and they . . . Ma just started crying. She seemed to give up on all of us. After that, Pa was gone more than he was home. I’m the one who destroyed our family.”

  “It wasn’t because of either of you.” Rafe shoved his plate aside. “He told me to take care of you and I didn’t. I lost control of the situation. Seth wouldn’t have had nightmares. Ethan wouldn’t have blamed himself. Ma wouldn’t have taken to her rocking chair. And Pa—I reckon Pa wouldn’t have decided he needed a better family.”

  “All that means is, it was my fault.” Seth hated admitting it, but it was worse thinking his brothers blamed themselves. “And I was always a little crazy, Eth, even before the accident.”

  Ethan shook his head. “No, you weren’t—”

  “Seth, it wasn’t your fault,” Rafe interrupted.

  “And I think,” Callie said, her voice cracking like a bullwhip in a way that shut all three of them up, “a grown man with two wives and two sets of children is a worthless heap of buffalo chips, and the fact that you can all sit here feeling guilty, long after he’s dead, is proof of just how worthless he was. It’s a parent’s job to take care of his children, not run off when times get hard. I don’t know your ma, Heath, but she sounds like she took good care of you for as long as she lived.”

  Heath nodded. “She did. And Ma could hunt, so we always had food. She tended our milk cows. She had chickens and a big garden. Pa was . . . well, he was gone from us a lot. He chased after gold some during the rush, but never found any I could see. And he was a fur trapper. That took him away a lot, too.”