Comanche Moon (62 page)

He relaxed in the saddle, a feeling of peace washing over him. It had been three years since he had escaped the Indian reservation—three long, restless years—and in all his wanderings he’d never come upon a place that spoke to him as this one did. Home. Maybe, just maybe, if he waited and lay low, he could escape his reputation here and hang up his guns.

A squeal of laughter caught Swift’s attention, and he nudged his hat back to survey the schoolyard to his right. A small girl raced from the playground toward the schoolhouse, her gingham skirts flying as she tried to evade the boy who chased her. The next instant someone began beating a triangle with a steel bar, raising such a din that Swift’s gaze shifted to the porch. He glimpsed a flash of golden hair, then heard a sweet, hauntingly familiar voice. ‘‘Time to come in, children. Recess is over.’’

Swift stared at the slender woman who stood on the schoolhouse steps, a vision in dark blue muslin. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think.
Amy!
Surely it couldn’t be. Yet it sounded like her. The hair color was right, a rich honey gold. Could it be Loretta, Amy’s older cousin? With her golden hair, fine features, and blue eyes, Loretta always had resembled Amy. If not for the difference in their ages, the two might have passed for twins.

The children raced for the schoolhouse. Their feet slapped the wood as they ran up the steps and went inside. Swift, drawn by the faint sound of the woman’s voice, reined Diablo around and rode toward the schoolyard. He pulled up by the stoop, swung out of the saddle, and draped the reins over the hitching post. For an instant he stood frozen and listened, afraid to hope.

‘‘Attention, attention!’’ she called out.

The clamor of children’s voices settled into silence. ‘‘Jeremiah, you’re first. If a gentleman meets a lady on the boardwalk, on which side should he pass?’’

‘‘His right,’’ piped up a boy’s voice. ‘‘And if the boardwalk’s narrow, he will step off into the street and make sure the lady passes without mishap.’’

‘‘Very good, Jeremiah,’’ the woman said with a soft laugh. ‘‘You’re answering my questions before I ask them. Peter, should the gentleman recognize the lady?’’

‘‘No, ma’am,’’ replied another boy in a shy, unassertive tone.

‘‘Never?’’ she prompted, her voice growing gentle.

‘‘Well, maybe, if’n he knows the lady will favor a nod.’’

‘‘Excellent, Peter.’’

Swift heard the pages of a book rustle. ‘‘Indigo Nicole? Is it proper for a lady to walk between two gentlemen, with a hand on the arm of each?’’

A girl replied, ‘‘No, ma’am. A true lady gives her favor to only one gentleman at a time.’’

Swift didn’t hear the next question. In a haze of disbelief he walked up the steps, his legs weak and trembling, a rivulet of sweat trailing like ice down his spine. He knew the woman’s voice. Maturity had enriched its silken alto. The diction was more precise and proper. But the voice was definitely Amy’s. He would know it anywhere, for it had haunted his dreams for fifteen years.
I’ll wait for you, Swift. Just as soon as I’m old enough, I’ll be your wife.
A promise that had become his greatest sorrow now transformed into a miracle.

He stepped to the open doorway, peering out from under the brim of his hat into the shadowy room. So shaken he didn’t trust his knees, Swift braced a shoulder against the door frame, his gaze riveted to the teacher, trying to come to grips with the reality of seeing her. Amy . . .

That grave behind Henry Masters’s barn hadn’t been Amy’s. The cross Swift had so lovingly straightened hadn’t borne her name and life song. His sweet, precious Amy was here, alive and well in Wolf’s Landing. Three wasted years! For God only knew what reason, Henry Masters had lied to him. A wave of sheer rage hit Swift.

Then joy blotted out all else. Amy stood before him, breathing, smiling, talking, so beautiful the mere sight of her took his breath. Fifteen years ago she had been coltishly pretty, as thin as a bowstring, with an impertinent little nose dotted with freckles, a stubborn chin, and huge blue eyes outlined by thick dark lashes. Now, though still fragile of build, she had acquired the soft curves of womanhood. His gaze rested fleetingly on the white piping that edged her prim bodice, then dipped to her slender waist and the gentle flare of her hips, accented by two ruffled poufs that fell in a graceful sweep across her fanny. His throat closed off, and for a second he couldn’t breathe. No dream this, but reality.

From the corner of her eye, Amy glimpsed a shadow looming in the doorway. Distracted from her place in
The Manual of Proper Manners,
she forgot what she was saying and looked up, taking in the tall man, clad all in black, with a wool poncho draped back comanchero style over one shoulder, a gun gleaming like silver death on his hip. With a shallow gasp she retreated a step, pressing her spine against the blackboard.

‘‘M-may I help you, sir?’’ she asked in a frail voice.

He didn’t reply. With his shoulder against the door frame, he stood with one hip slung outward, his knee slightly bent, the stance careless and somehow insolent. The wide brim of his concha-banded hat cast his face into shadow, but light played on the twist of his sharply defined lips and the gleam of his white teeth. Touching the brim of his hat, he nodded to her and shifted his weight to the other foot as he drew to his full height, which seemed to fill the doorway.

‘‘Hello, Amy.’’

His deep silken voice sent a wash of coldness over Amy’s skin. She blinked and swallowed, trying to assimilate the reality of a Comanchero standing in the doorway of her schoolroom, blocking the only means of escape. The fact that he knew her name terrified her even more. This wasn’t Texas, yet the nightmare of her past had somehow found her.

Mouth as dry as dust, she stared at him, trying to think what to do. Were there others outside? She felt the uncertainty of her students, knew that they were frightened because they could see that she was, but courage, if she had any, eluded her. Fear consumed her, a cold, clawing fear that paralyzed her.

The man took a step closer, his spurs chinking on the wood floor. The sound swept Amy back through time, to that long-ago afternoon when the Comancheros had kidnapped her. To this day she could remember the feel of their rough, hurting hands on her breasts, the cruel ring of their laughter, the endless haze of pain as man after man took his turn violating her child’s body.

The floor dipped under her feet. In her ears, echoes from the past jostled with sounds of the present, a deafening cacophony that beat against her temples.

The Comanchero moved closer, step by relentless step, the rowels of his spurs catching on the floor planks. She couldn’t move. Then, coming to a halt a scant few feet away from her, he removed his hat. Amy stared up at his dark face, once so familiar, now chiseled by manhood, each line etched upon her heart yet changed so by the years that it had become the face of a stranger.

‘‘Swift . . .’’

The whisper trailed from her lips, barely audible. Swirls of black encroached on her vision. She blinked and reached wildly for support, her groping hand finding only open air. As if from a great distance, she heard him repeat her name. Then she felt herself falling, falling . . . into the blackness.

LONI KENDRA MACEWEN COULD BARELY contain her excitement. The two-bedroom house was small and dated, but she saw it with the eye of an interior decorator, and there were possibilities everywhere she looked. She moved slowly through the rooms, envisioning white Priscilla curtains at the windows, a diamond-hard polyurethane wax on the worn hardwood floors, bright pillows and throws on the overstuffed sofa and chairs, and designer shades of paint on the walls. She could also imagine a cheerful blaze in the brick fireplace, with her huge yellow dog, Hannah, snoozing before the hearth.

Normally Loni never would have considered renting an old house, much less a furnished one, but something about this neglected bungalow appealed to her. Maybe it was the charming bay windows, the built-in bookcases at each side of the fireplace, or the old-fashioned archways trimmed in burnished oak, but she was more inclined to think it was the essence of the house itself; a warm, peaceful feeling had enveloped her the moment she stepped inside.

Smiling at her good fortune, she went to stand at the kitchen sink to gaze out the window at the large backyard, enclosed by a sturdy, six-foot cedar fence. There was even a large dog door that opened into the attached garage. While Loni was at her shop, Hannah would have shelter from the weather, an important feature in the high-desert community of Crystal Falls, Oregon, where the winters could be long and harsh.

The sudden chirp of her cell phone made Loni jump. Expecting a call from her older sister, she hurried to the mahogany dining table and plucked the device from her purse. Bypassing ‘‘hello,’’ she answered with, ‘‘You’ll never guess what.’’

Deirdre, a second-grade teacher at Roosevelt Elementary a few blocks away, laughed and said, ‘‘You got the house!’’

Sinking onto a ladder-backed chair, Loni pushed a curly tendril of dark brown hair from her eyes. ‘‘It was love at first sight. I just signed a one-year lease. I’m so happy I want to shout.’’

‘‘Oh, Loni, what wonderful news! I was starting to think you’d never find a place that would take Hannah.’’

Having an eleven-month-old Fila mastiff that weighed nearly two hundred pounds did come with its own set of problems. Loni couldn’t count the lease applications she’d filled out over the last two months that had been denied.

‘‘I got lucky,’’ she told her sister. ‘‘The man who owns the place lives in Portland, and he’s had some bad experiences with property management companies.’’

‘‘So he was motivated to lease the house without involving a third party?’’

‘‘Exactly. He never even blinked when I mentioned Hannah.’’

‘‘What about when the place needs repairs? It’s a long drive from Portland for him to fix a leaky faucet.’’

‘‘If something goes wrong, he gave me permission to call a handyman, deduct the cost from my rent, and just send him the receipt.’’

‘‘That works.’’ Deirdre sighed. ‘‘I’m delighted for you, absolutely delighted.’’

Loni grinned. ‘‘Don’t sound
too
enthusiastic, or I’ll think you’re glad to be rid of me.’’

‘‘Hah. I’ve loved having you, and so has Michael. You know that. Can I come see the house? The boys have Kid’s Club until four o’clock, and I was planning to go grocery shopping, but to heck with that. What’s the address?’’

Smiling happily, Loni grabbed the lease agreement and read off the information.

‘‘Oak Street?’’ A note of alarm crept into Deirdre’s voice. ‘‘Isn’t that in an older section of town?’’

Loni knew what was coming and ignored the question. ‘‘It’s perfect for me and Hannah, Deirdre. Just wait until you see it. Very quaint, with darling bay windows, beautiful oak trim, and a fenced-in yard. There’s even a dog door opening into the garage.’’

‘‘Quaint?’’ Deirdre echoed. ‘‘Quaint, as in old?’’

‘‘Yes, fairly old,’’ Loni finally confessed. ‘‘I’m guessing it was built sometime in the forties.’’

‘‘Oh,
Loni,
what on earth were you thinking? You’ll never be happy in an old house. You’ll have psychometric divinations bombarding you left and right.’’

It never ceased to amaze Loni that her sister, the only nonclairvoyant female in the MacEwen family, knew so many paranormal buzzwords. ‘‘Psycho-
what
?’’

‘‘Psychometric divination. That’s the appropriate term for the phenomenon that sometimes occurs when you touch things.’’

‘‘What’s wrong with just calling it a nasty jolt?’’

‘‘Nothing except that it’s boring.’’

‘‘Boring suits me fine. I swear, if I had a deformed toe, you’d call it a lower digit deviation.’’

‘‘Don’t compare your gift to a deformity.’’

‘‘Why not?’’ Loni’s
gift,
as members of her family persisted in calling it, had adversely affected her entire life. As a child, she’d had to be tutored at home. As a young adult, she’d been unable to hold down a job or attend college. Even now, at thirty-one, her social life was next to nonexistent. She rarely dated, she felt like a pariah at church, and as icing on the cake, she was forced to keep other decorators on the payroll so she could focus only on new construction. ‘‘It feels like a deformity.’’

With an ease born of long practice, Loni pushed away the negative thoughts and walked slowly to the other room, barely hearing her sister, who chattered in that shrill, nonstop way of hers when she got upset.

‘‘Back to the house,’’ Loni cut in, giving the small living room an appreciative look. It was going to be so lovely when she finished fixing it up. ‘‘I understand your concerns and know it would be best to rent a brand-new place. Unfortunately, they don’t grow on trees, and my applications for the few I found were turned down because of Hannah. Now I’m glad they were. I’ve done a complete walkthrough here and touched practically everything—cupboards, doorknobs, windowsills, faucets, and even all the furniture. I’ve picked up on nothing unpleasant. Not every surface affects me, you know. It mostly only happens when I touch a person or the possession of someone who’s been through something terrible and needs help, or soon will go through something terrible and needs help.’’

‘‘The house is
furnished
?’’

‘‘I sold practically everything before I left Washington, hoping to buy new. Now I can wait to worry about furniture until later.’’

‘‘Oh, Loni.’’ Deirdre’s voice went even shriller. ‘‘What’ll you do if you start having problems and can’t break the lease?’’

‘‘Live with you, I guess.’’ Loni laughed. Trailing a hand over the back of the sofa, she said, ‘‘Would you stop, Deirdre? I’m a big girl. If I’d thought for a moment I might have problems here, I never would have rented the place.’’

‘‘It still worries me.’’