Dark Fires

by Brenda Joyce

  “‘Hi, Mom’! I haven’t seen you in over ten years and you say ‘hi, Mom?” Her voice was broken, and she wiped tears delicately away with a lace handkerchief. “Oh, Nick! It’s so good to have you home!”

  Nick was very quiet, and had been all through the ride to the D and M and through the sumptuous dinner Miranda had waiting for them. Jane knew his parents had noticed—because the two had exchanged clear, concerned glances. Now they all sat at the oak dining-room table after finishing homemade pie and thick, strong coffee. Molly had taken Nicole for a nap, despite her protests (and her grandparents’). Chad was restlessly squirming. Derek had promised to take him riding and show him the ranch. “When are we going, Grandpa?” he asked excitedly.

  “Can Grandpa finish his coffee?” Derek returned, grinning.

  “Chad,” Nick and Jane reproved simultaneously. Nick picked up his mug, so Jane continued. “Let your grandfather finish his meal and enjoy his son’s company. Wouldn’t you want to be with your papa if you hadn’t seen him in more than ten years?”

  Chad bit his lip, then nodded slowly. “Ten years is a long time, isn’t it?”

  “Very,” Derek interjected.

  “Okay, we can go riding tomorrow,” Chad announced. “But may I go out and play, Papa?”

  “Of course,” Nick said, but as Chad leapt up, he eyed him sternly. Obedient to the unspoken command, Chad gave Jane a hug and kiss, then his father. “And what about your grandparents?”

  “Sorry,” he mumbled, but then he ran to Derek and Miranda before racing with a whoop out of the room.

  “You have a fine son,” Derek said, smiling.

  Miranda, sitting beside Nick, touched his arm. “Are you happy, Nick?”

  He looked at Jane intently. “Yes.”

  “I’m so glad,” Miranda said, a catch in her voice.

  Nick gazed at his mother briefly, then turned to his father. “How come,” he demanded, “how come you lied to me?”

  56

  “How come,” Nick said, his voice hoarse, “neither one of you told me the truth?”

  Jane was stunned he’d bring it up now, so abruptly, and she froze.

  Derek looked quizzical but then suddenly sober. He moved his coffee aside. “Never told you what truth?”

  “The truth!” Nick’s voice rose, his eyes flashed. He stared at his father. “How come you lied to me?”

  Derek straightened. He stared back, shocked. “I’m not a liar—especially not to my own son. What are you accusing me of?”

  Jane, sitting between father and son, put her hand on Nick to restrain him.

  He ignored her. “But you did lie—and I’m not your son.”

  Derek’s confusion was obvious. “What the hell are you ranting about? What’s—” Miranda’s gasp cut him off. She was whiter than white, clutching her breast, staring horrified at Nick.

  Nick looked at her. “I found out the truth the day I rode off to fight in the war.”

  “Oh, Nick,” Miranda cried, gripping his arm. “Why didn’t you come to us then?”

  “What in hell?” Derek cried, standing.

  “Chavez,” Nick said, lunging to his feet.

  Derek became deadly pale, and he gripped the table for support. “Oh, God.”

  “Chavez is my father,” Nick continued ruthlessly. “You lied to me—all these years!”

  “How did you find out?” Miranda moaned.

  “We were protecting you,” Derek said heavily.

  “We didn’t tell you because it was pointless!” Miranda cried. “Pointless and cruel!”

  “My life here has been lies!” Nick shouted.

  “My love for you isn’t a lie,” Derek said, so softly, so hoarsely, he brought an absolute silence to the room.

  Nick gripped the table too. He stared at Derek. Waiting, beseeching.

  “That’s the truth,” Derek said. “Nick, the day you were born I took you in my arms and loved you as my own. That’s the truth.”

  Nick stared at the table, his vision hazing. “Shit. It’s not possible. How could you love the son of a man who raped your wife? How?”

  “Chavez paid for what he did,” Derek said savagely. “You are my son!”

  “Rathe is your son!”

  “No more than you.”

  Nick just stared.

  “I don’t love him more,” Derek said urgently with sudden insight. “In fact, it killed me from the very beginning that you were the one who had to go to that goddamn England and take over that damned inheritance—it killed me! Rathe was suited for it, not you. This is where you belong, where you’ve always belonged, here, at my side, on the D and M, the way it used to be …”

  “Really?” Nick was hoarse.

  “Son, do you want to see my will? I’ve left all of this to the three of you equally. A parent doesn’t love one child more than the other, yet, Nick— you were our first. In a way, that makes you special, always, to me and Miranda.”

  Nick hung his head. He felt Jane’s hand on his back. He heard his mother speaking.

  “Nick, you know your father isn’t a liar, and you know that he is a warm, loving man. Don’t doubt his love for you! The day you left for England he wept.” At Derek’s startled look, she smiled through her own tears. “Yes, darling, I knew. I decided to leave you in privacy.” She touched Nick. “We both grieved, and we comforted each other. We didn’t want you to go, Nick. Do you want to know the truth? The truth is, if my father hadn’t been an earl, Derek would have left you the D and M, instead of leaving it to the three of you equally. We always thought you were the most like your father, and you know what? Because Derek and I never questioned his being your father, or his love, we sort of forgot the truth, and it didn’t seem strange that you should be so like Derek—more so than your brother. You’re the one who is happy working the land, you’re the one who is a homebody, a family man.”

  Derek moved around the table, but stopped short at Nick’s side, not touching him. “You should have come to me immediately—not ten, no, fifteen years later! God, Nick, when I think of what you’ve been through …” He choked.

  Nick looked up. “I was afraid.”

  “How could you have doubted me?” Derek asked, his eyes glistening.

  “I don’t know,” Nick managed.

  “Do you—do you still doubt me?” Derek asked. “No.”

  His eyes brimming, Derek smiled and pulled his son into his embrace for a big bear hug. Just for a moment, Nick clung, and then the two separated, both embarrassed.

  “I should wallop the hell out of you,” Derek tossed out.

  And, nose red, Nick laughed.

  It was the happiest sound Jane had ever heard.

  Arm in arm, hips brushing, they walked along the ridge at sunset overlooking the D and M. Below them, on the right, were the many timbered buildings of the ranch—the main house, the barns, the smokehouses, the bunkhouses, the tool sheds and tackrooms. On the left, in the distance, were the many rooftops of the little sprawling town. Above them, a golden eagle soared, and they both paused to watch.

  “You know what?” Nick said, his tone lighter than Jane had ever heard it, his body relaxed against hers, “I feel like that bird.”

  Jane cuddled closer into his side. “Like a bird?”

  He smiled down at her, his eyes warm and unshadowed. “I feel like that eagle. I feel so light, so free, that I could fly, soar, along these mountain-tops.”

  “I’m so glad, Nicholas,” Jane said.

  His hand stroked her shoulder. She said, “They are very special people.”

  “Yes, they are.”

  “Quite the couple.”

  “Absolutely.” Nick suddenly chuckled. “Derek thinks you’re like Miranda. It tickles him to death!”

  “He can’t get past our accents, is all,” Jane teased.

  “He knows a lady and a beauty when he sees one,” Nick said, lifting her hand to kiss it. “Mmm, you taste good.”

  She kissed his shoulder, eyeing him.
“You taste like horse.”

  He laughed, a roar she had never heard before, one suspiciously like his father’s. “Really? You just don’t know what to do seeing me in blue cotton and denim pants and cowboy boots!”

  “I think the outfit is—er—interesting,” she said. Then she looked at him askance. “I think the pants fit you too well, Nicholas.”

  “Too well?” He grinned. “And why is that?”

  “They’re rather … provocative.”

  He laughed, another roar, and lifted her up and swung her around. She shrieked and clung, and when he put her down, they were both breathless and giggling like children. They started walking again.

  “It’s amazing,” Nick said, “how this ranch has grown. Do you know when I was last here there was no town, just two little cabins that two of the hands built for their brides and a general store.”

  “Really? Why, I even saw a bank this afternoon.”

  “You’re right, Derek does have a bank.”

  “It’s your father’s!”

  Nick nodded, smiling. “Rathe talked him into it. Everything you see sprang up to support the ranch—Derek has two hundred employees working for him. Many have families and live in the town. Families need a postal office and shops, restaurants , a bank. The new railhead will bring even more business. Derek told me they’re electing a mayor this spring.”

  “So this is genesis,” Jane said. “It’s incredible, Nick, when you know the entire story—how Derek brought Miranda here when it was nothing but a wilderness—he made this all for her and you and Rathe and Storm.”

  “With his own two hands. My father is quite a man,” Nick said, with obvious pride.

  “And your mother quite a woman—to come from a convent in France and manage to thrive here!”

  Nick stared down at the ranch. “This was quite the homecoming, Jane.”

  “I’m so happy we came. I’m so happy you and your father had this out.”

  “So am I. I feel like a whole person again. But you know what’s funny?”

  “What?”

  “Even though this is home, and it always will be, it’s not the way it used to be.”

  “What do you mean, Nicholas?”

  “I mean”—and he smiled at her—“I am very aware of the fact that Dragmore is patiently awaiting our return.”

  Jane’s heart swelled with joy. “You miss our home, Nicholas?”

  “Yes, I do. I really do. Dragmore is in my blood, Jane. I don’t know how it got there.”

  She gripped his hand. “It’s half your heritage too, Nicholas.”

  They were silent for a long while, both lost in their own thoughts, but both thinking of Drag-more—of home.

  “If you want,” Nick said, “we can return sooner. We don’t have to stay the six weeks we promised.”

  “Do you want to go back earlier?”

  “No. There’s so much catching up to do …”

  “Good,” Jane said, leaning close. “Because we don’t know when we will come again, especially now.” Her hand touched her abdomen and rested there.

  The earl pulled her against his side, his expression soft and adoring. “Just think,” he whispered, “next April I’ll be bouncing our baby on my knee.”

  “I’m glad you’re so happy.” “Deliriously so. How does six sound?” Jane froze. “Six?” “Six.”

  “Six, er, what, Nicholas?”

  He kept a straight face. “Six children.”

  Her eyes widened, he whooped and hugged her. “I can compromise,” he whispered in her ear.

  “Good,” Jane said, relieved. “We’ll settle on ten, then.”

  He roared. His arms still around her, his laughter subsided, and they gazed out at the panorama spread before them, each cherishing their own special thoughts. The golden eagle took wing again and soared above them.

  “Can you think of a name?” Nick suddenly said.

  “What?”

  “The town has no name. Derek asked me to think of one—every one he likes, Miranda hates, and every one she likes, he hates.” Nick suddenly chuckled. “Derek wants to call it Mirandaville!”

  “Oh, no!” Jane agreed, laughing. “We had best come up with something!”

  Nick took her hand, pulling her close against his side. Jane looked down at the town sprawling with its frontier fervor amid mesquite and sage, and she thought of how Nick’s father had come to this land when it was raw and virgin, how he and his wife had tamed it, turned it into this lush, thriving Eden. “Truly,” she murmured, “it was genesis.”

  Acutely attuned to her, Nick frowned. “You want to name it Genesis?”

  Jane laughed, pressing closer and smiling up at him. “No, Nicholas, darling. It’s very simple. This”—and she gestured grandly at the mountains behind them, the plains ahead, at the spectacular orange and purple sunset splaying across the Texas sky—“is Paradise.”

  “Paradise,” Nick said, and he smiled. “Do I detect a bit of wit, Angel dear?”

  “Wit?” Jane laughed. “Never—my lord.”

  And so it came to be. Paradise, Texas, was born from a little bit of wit and a whole lot of love.

  EPILOGUE

  Dragmore, 1877

  Summer was tardy in its arrival, and there was nothing gracious about it. The sky could not be bluer, yet there was more than a hint of dampness in the air. The vast Dragmore lands undulated a glistening green, dotted with sheep, and the trees overhead provided thick, fresh canopies of new foliage, yet the road from Lessing was muddy and scarred from spring’s steady rains. The Dragmore coach with its bold crests hit another pothole, sending a cascade of mud up from its wheels, dousing some poor rider upon his mare. Within, instinctively, the earl took Jane’s arm and steadied her.

  Jane was remembering another time in almost the same place. The memory was poignant. She was remembering a young girl sitting in a hired coach next to her stiff, unsympathetic Aunt Matilda, on their way to Dragmore for the very first time. Then it had been summer too, the hills had been damp and glossy like now, only she had been so very afraid. Of the future, of the Earl of Dragmore. She bent to drop a kiss upon her baby’s forehead as she held her, and then she smiled at her husband. He, however, was gazing raptly at the countryside.

  “Papa!” Nicole shouted. “Papa, papa! Dragmore, where is Dragmore?” This was one of the first larger words that had been added to her vocabulary while abroad.

  Chad, who had been leaning forward to stare eagerly out the window, turned irately to his sister. “Right here, silly. You don’t even know what Dragmore is!” He scoffed. “Does she?” He turned to his father. “She’s too young to remember. She’s just pretending to know what she’s talking about!”

  The earl was preoccupied, but he tore his own gaze from the coach windows as they entered the long winding drive that would take them to the house. “She’ll probably remember bits and pieces,” he said quietly, and turned to watch out the window again.

  Dragmore. It had been so long. Once abroad, they had spent several months with Nick’s family in Texas, then had left the children with their grandparents to take a honeymoon after their marriage. They had gone visiting his sister, Storm, and her husband, Brett, in San Francisco. A truly idyllic month in Hawaii had followed, and then they had decided to wait out the rest of Jane’s advancing pregnancy in Texas. But now, within moments, they would be home. Home. He tasted the word, tested it, and finally said it aloud. “Home.”

  His wife, holding his hand, squeezed it. He looked at her, all his preoccupation vanishing, his gray gaze instantly softening. He smiled; she smiled. “It feels good, Nicholas,” Jane said softly. “Doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “It does.”

  His hand tightened on hers. It was incredible, but his pulses were pounding with anticipation and excitement soared in his veins. This was home. He was coming home. He felt it in every fiber of his being, and the feeling was both exultant and peaceful. Jane reached over and planted a kiss on his cheek.
He smiled at her, and it reached his eyes.

  “Look,” Chad shouted. “Look!”

  “Look,” Nicole screamed. “Look!”

  Chad gave her a dark glance, she laughed.

  Jane and Nick leaned forward and saw the turrets of the mansion and its dark bold outline. As they got closer, they could make out the pink roses creeping along the gray stone walls everywhere. And then Jane gasped.

  “My God!” she cried. “The south tower, it’s gone!”

  The earl grinned slowly.

  The burned-out south wing had been completely razed—it had ceased to exist. And in its place the lawn was green and inviting, although a little bare, without any trees or gardens. Jane turned to her husband, stunned.

  “I decided last fall to get rid of that, er, ruin.”

  She started to smile.

  “Instead of deciding whether and what to rebuild there, I merely had them put in the lawn. I didn’t even have them plant any gardens. We can rebuild the tower, if you like, or add an extension to the house. Or even a patio.” His grin flashed. “I decided I had better consult my wife before doing any redesigning.”

  “That was wise,” Jane agreed, beaming. “Oh, Nicholas, what a wonderful surprise.”

  “I rather thought so, myself.”

  The carriage had come to a stop. Chad leapt out, while Molly, who had gone in a coach ahead of them, and the footmen received Nicole and the baby. Jane and the earl alighted and, as one, walked past the house and to the new lawn where the south wing had once been. Hand in hand they stood there, not saying anything, just feeling the moment.

  “It feels peaceful now,” Jane said softly. “Peaceful and light. There are no old spirits, no dark passions, haunting here anymore.”

  The earl lifted her hand to his lips. “Nor are they lingering in our hearts or in our heads.”

  Jane’s eyes misted.

  “Thank you, darling,” he said.