The Texan (25 page)

“I trust you, Red.”

“I don’t want this responsibility, Owen.”

“Too late to worry about that now. I’ll try to stay still and keep down the noise.”

“Feel free to moan and groan,” she said. “At least that way I’ll know I haven’t killed you on the operating table.”

When Owen didn’t say anything she said, “That was a joke.”

“Oh,” he said. “Ha ha.”

Bay tried to reassure him by smiling. “I’m a good surgeon, Owe. I’ll get you through this okay.”

“Thanks, Red.”

He didn’t speak after that, because he had his jaws clamped on the piece of wood to keep from screaming. Bay made a neat, precise incision, found the first offending spike and used the tweezers to pull it out. Bay knew she was hurting him, because when she cut, every muscle in his back tensed.

His face ran with sweat, and despite his gritted teeth, a groan issued from his throat.

“One down,” she said.

He groaned loudly at that announcement.

“Don’t be a baby,” she said. “It’s just a little surgery without anesthesia.”

She knew she’d made him laugh, because the sound ended in a gasp when she made the next incision. There were three spikes in his back, and she had them all out in five minutes. They were the most grueling five minutes of her life.

“I have to sew up these incisions,” she said. “I give you fair warning the stitches may be a little crooked. I never could sew a straight seam. Can’t cook worth a damn, either—except for macaroni and cheese—and you know that makes me gag.”

He was laughing again. She could feel it in his body, which was better than seeing his muscles stretched taut with pain while she’d been cutting. There had been no needle or thread in the first-aid kit, so she’d improvised.

Ironically, she ended up using a lechuguilla spine for a needle and peeled a yucca leaf into thread-sized lengths. She made quick work of the sutures. Ordinarily, she would have wanted them close together to minimize the scar. But she made the stitches as far apart as she dared, because she couldn’t bear his pain.

“You’re going to have some really sexy scars back here, Owe.”

“Do girls go for that sort of thing?”

She was surprised to hear him speak and realized he’d spit out the piece of wood. It was marred with impressions of his teeth. “Scars like this are a sign you’ve survived in battle.”

“Some battle,” he said ruefully. “Me and a cactus going three rounds, and I nearly bit the dust.”

Bay wanted to tell him the worst was over. Maybe it was. The offending spikes had been removed. She’d used more of the acacia concoction to rinse the three wounds before she’d sewed them up. Now she had to make sure
Owen rested and kept drinking the foul-tasting teas she brewed, so his body could heal.

“You’ll make a good mother,” Owen murmured. “You’re tender and gentle and caring.”

Bay felt her throat swell closed. He couldn’t know how it hurt her to hear him say that. She knew she ought to tell him the final secret she’d been keeping from him, but he kept on talking, so she remained silent and listened.

“My mom never spent much time with us kids. We had servants to take care of us. But I never stopped wanting her to notice me. I remember once I fell and skinned my knee. I couldn’t have been more than six or seven. I landed pretty hard, and it was nice and bloody. I figured if anything would get her attention, that would.”

He stopped, and she heard him swallow hard.

“Anyway, she was up in her studio, painting. I knew I wasn’t supposed to interrupt her, but I did it anyway. She took one look at me and yelled, ‘Get out! I’m working!’”

“What did you do then?” Bay asked, her heart aching for the little boy he’d been.

“I got out. I never washed my knee, and it got infected. My dad was pretty pissed off when he noticed it. He took me to the doctor, and I ended up getting a shot of penicillin in my butt. I’ve got a scar there. On my knee, not my butt,” he clarified with a laugh.

“I’m so sorry, Owe.”

“I didn’t tell you that to get your sympathy. I just wanted to explain a little about why we Blackthornes are the way we are.”

“You’re not at all like your mother,” Bay said certainly. She pursed her lips. “I suppose that means you must take after your father.”

Owen grinned. “That ogre? Are you sure?”

“At least he took you to the hospital. He must not be quite as heartless as I’ve always thought.” She made a face and said, “I suppose he must have a few redeeming qualities to make my mother fall in love with him.”

They looked into each other’s eyes and smiled, and a comfortable silence fell between them.

Bay reached out and brushed aside the lock of hair that always fell onto Owen’s forehead.

Owen brushed his knuckles against her cheek, where the scab had fallen off and left pink skin behind.

She reached up and twined her fingers in his. “You should go to sleep,” she said.

“I’m not tired.”

“Don’t argue with the doctor,” she said, putting her fingertips over his eyelids and urging them closed.

“How about a bedtime story?”

“What did you have in mind?” Bay said, as she sank down cross-legged on the floor of the tent beside him.

“There must be a good story about the Blackthornes and the Creeds. Something from a long time ago.”

“When we all used to sit around the fireplace on winter nights, my father would tell this sad story about Jarrett Creed.”

“You mean Cricket’s husband before she married the first Blackthorne? Jarrett was killed in the Civil War, right?”

“Wrong. Cricket
thought
he was killed. He was wounded and got captured and sent to Andersonville. You know, that really cruel prison. His leg was torn up by a musket ball, and he had to go into the prison hospital.”

“But a pretty nurse saved him, and he fell in love with her,” Owen said.

“Whose story is this?” Bay said. “You’re supposed to be falling asleep.”

“My eyes are closed.”

“Try shutting your mouth.”

“Okay, Red. Tell your story.”

“Cricket received a letter saying that Jarrett had died in the battle at Antietam. She had borne five children, four sons and a daughter. The daughter had died of pneumonia when she was a child. Three of Cricket’s sons—and she thought her husband, as well—were killed in the war. Her one remaining son was reported missing and presumed dead.

“Cricket had lost everything that was important to her, so she left her home and went to live with her older sister Sloan, at her cattle ranch, Dolorosa. That’s when this mysterious Blackthorne fellow showed up. Seems he made some kind of wager with Cricket, and he won, and they ended up getting married.”

“They fell in love,” Owen interjected.

Bay glared at him, and he shut his eyes. “Now, this is where the story gets good. See, Jarrett finally gets released from prison and comes home. And what does he find?”

“Nobody.”

Bay growled.

“Sorry, that slipped out.”

“He hears some carpetbagger named Blackthorne
and his wife
have taken up residence at Lion’s Dare, the cotton plantation he’d owned before the war. Meanwhile, Jarrett has no idea where his wife is, and all his sons are reported missing or dead. So he heads for Dolorosa, where his sister-in-law Sloan is living. Sloan gives him
the bad news: Cricket is married to another man. And she’s expecting his child.”

“I thought all her sons were grown men? How old was she, anyway?”

“Young enough to bear your great-great—however many greats—grandfather,” Bay said with asperity. “Do you want to hear the end of this story, or not?”

“I’m listening.”

“Anyway, Jarrett wants his wife back. Things are complicated, because she’s pregnant with another man’s child. To make matters worse, Jarrett is no longer a whole man.”

“Right. He’s missing a leg,” Owen piped up.

“No, his leg is stiff, so he limps, but he’s still got both limbs.”

“Then what’s wrong with him?” Owen asked.

“He’s blind.”

“Whoa,” Owen said. “Why didn’t I ever hear about any of this in my family history?”

“Because this is a story about
my
forebears,” Bay said.

“What happened next?” Owen asked. “What did Jarrett do?”

“Nobody knows.”

“What kind of ending is that for story?” Owen complained.

“The only one we have,” Bay said. “All we know is that Jarrett disappeared and was never heard from again.”

“I
hate
that ending! Couldn’t your father have made up something more satisfying?”

“The truth is the truth.”

“That’s a tall tale if I ever heard one. Jarrett Creed died in the war. That’s what Cricket wrote in her diary. I’ve seen it myself.”

“He didn’t die. He came back. Then he disappeared again.”

Owen made a
hmmmph
sound in his throat. “That was a terrible story. I’m going to sleep.”

“It’s about damn time,” Bay said with a sigh.

IN THE DEEPEST PART OF HER SOUL, DORA
Coburn knew she’d made the wrong choice twenty-five years ago. But who would have believed that one mistake could cause so much pain for so many people?

Dora was waiting in the shade of a live oak, in the parking lot of the First Baptist Church, for Eve Blackthorne to bid the talkative preacher farewell and return to her shiny black Cadillac. Dora’s hands were shaking. Her knees felt like they were going to buckle at any moment. And her eyes kept filling with tears, which she swiped away with a balled-up Kleenex.

Dora had done a lot of soul-searching in church and had admitted that there was no way she could keep her son from seeing Summer Blackthorne. Billy was like a wild bronc with the bit in his teeth. He’d had a sniff of that little Blackthorne filly, and he would be back for more. Head bent, hands folded in fervent prayer, Dora had acknowledged that she had no choice except to appeal to Mrs. Blackthorne to marry off her daughter to some rancher who would take her far away from Bitter Creek.

Otherwise, both their children were going to commit the kind of sin for which there was no forgiveness.

Eve Blackthorne was coming. She looked incredibly beautiful, her blond hair cut short and styled in that windswept look Dora had seen on Meg Ryan in the
Star
magazine she’d picked up shopping for groceries in the H.E.B. Mrs. Blackthorne’s countenance was serene, as though she didn’t have a worry in the world—and never had. And her tailored, tiny-sized, off-white suit and snakeskin pointy-toed shoes must have cost at least a thousand dollars—each.

Dora stepped away from the base of the live oak and immediately squinted, putting a hand up to protect her eyes from the searing Texas sun. She took a step in Eve Blackthorne’s direction and said, “Mrs. Blackthorne, we need to talk.”

Dora saw the other woman looking her up and down and cringed inside. Over the past twenty-five years, hard work and unhappiness had etched Dora’s face with too many wrinkles. She knew she looked fifty-five, when in fact she was only forty-four. She wore a fraying print jersey dress she’d bought at Kmart in a woman’s size, to accommodate the extra pounds that had stuck to her waist and hips from too many cheap meals of tortillas and pinto beans and rice. She’d scraped her long, gray-streaked brown hair back from her face into a no-nonsense bun.

And she now wore black plastic-framed glasses that hid the entrancing brown eyes that Jackson Blackthorne had once said reminded him of rich, dark chocolate.

Whatever Eve Blackthorne thought of her now, once upon a time, Dora had been young and beautiful enough to catch Jackson Blackthorne’s eye. She’d worked part-time after school at the Lone Star Cafe in town as a waitress, and Blackjack had come in for a cup of coffee after school board meetings or hospital board meetings or bank board meetings before heading home.

Dora hadn’t meant to let things go so far. After all, Jackson Blackthorne was a married man. But she’d been flattered, because he’d been so rich and powerful. And she’d been moved to comfort him, because he’d seemed so sad and lonely.

She’d given him her virginity. And he’d gotten her pregnant.

Dora had gone straight to the Castle from the doctor’s office to tell Blackjack the awful news and ask for his help. Her parents were sure to throw her out when they discovered how she’d sinned. And she didn’t know what she’d do, if Blackjack refused to help her.

She hadn’t been at all sure he would.

He’d never said he loved her. He’d told her bitterly, after the first and only time they’d ever made love, that he could never divorce his wife.

But she’d gone to his house anyway, because she needed enough money to survive until she could have the child and give it up for adoption. So she’d knocked on the back door of the Castle and asked the maid who answered, if she could speak to Blackjack.

Eve Blackthorne had shown up instead.

Dora had been terrified, knowing Blackjack would be furious if his wife ever found out about them. She’d started to run, but Mrs. Blackthorne had called her back. “What do you want?”

“I … uh … Is Jackson—I mean, Mr. Blackthorne here?” Dora had stuttered.