Chapter 24
Red’s hand came to rest on Cassie’s where it lay on his cheek. He pressed her palm against his skin. The baby screamed louder, and somehow, the wriggling presence between them deepened the closeness that connected them, if that was possible.
Red’s heart turned over at the dark circles under Cassie’s heavy-lidded eyes. She must be exhausted following the endless day and night of her laboring. He should insist she rest, but the love that glowed out of her for the baby was too precious to interrupt with something as earthbound as sleep.
Her feather-light touch on his trailing tears moved him profoundly. He leaned down to Cassie until their bodies cocooned the baby gently between them, and still holding her hand, he kissed her. He pulled his lips away a scant inch. Her eyes had drifted shut. “Open your eyes, Cass.”
She did, but with a clear struggle.
His gaze reached inside until he was part of her and she was part of him. “I love you, Cassie Dawson. I love you, and I love our little…” Red startled. Oh no…
A tiny spurt of fear flashed in Cassie’s eyes. “What is it?”
Red said, chagrined, “I just realized I don’t know if the baby is a boy or a girl.”
Suddenly, they were laughing. All the fear and hard work and wonder erupted from them. Red’s deep, warm chuckle and Cassie’s gentler laughter mingled, as surely as their hearts had mingled moments ago.
They didn’t laugh for long because the baby gave a particularly furious roar of anger. Red held the infant while Cassie, with hands trembling from exhaustion, unwrapped the blanket.
“A girl,” Red whispered. “She’ll be as beautiful and ornery as her mama.”
“I’m not ornery. Look at her toes.” They were as perfect as the rest of her.
“Check her over good. Then we’d better wrap her back up.”
Cassie nodded. “She needs a bath…but out by the fireplace where it’s warm.”
“Should you feed her first?”
Cassie looked up at him. Clearly, he’d startled her. Then, inexplicably, she was crying. Through her tears, she said, “I’m the worst mother who ever lived!”
“I’m sorry, Cass. I didn’t mean…” No doubt she couldn’t hear him over her tears, so he quit talking. The force of her sobs shook her body. Red hugged her awkwardly as she lay on her back with the baby still between them in his arms.
The crying eased a bit, and he said, “You don’t have to feed her yet if you don’t want to.”
She snarled at him so savagely. he was reminded of a mountain lion he’d come face-to-face with his first year in Montana. “I will, too, feed her. And I’ll do it right now!”
The baby jumped wildly when Cassie yelled. She still lay half on Cassie’s chest, half in Red’s arms. Both arms and legs flew out, her whole, tiny body jerked, and she howled as if someone had stuck her with a pin.
“I scared her.” Cassie started crying all the harder.
Crying from the house told Wade the child had been born. Something cracked into pieces in his heart. Wade didn’t know much about birthing a child, but he knew it was a long, hard business for a woman, and he hadn’t been there to help or protect his fragile China Doll.
Yesterday the storm had given him enough cover to risk getting close enough to where his spyglass worked.
And he’d seen no sign of anyone all afternoon and evening yesterday, nor again this morning.
He’d crept up to the cabin in the vicious weather when Red didn’t emerge to do his usual chores.
Wade had to know what was going on inside.
He might get caught, coming this close in the daytime, but if he was careful, the storm would cover his tracks and he could have a moment to be close to the China Doll.
He crouched by the door to the soddy and ached from the awful cold.
The only shelter Wade had found big enough for himself and his horse was a miserable cave that seemed to catch the wind. The gale whipped around inside and moaned until Wade heard voices in the howling current. Sometimes his father’s, sometimes the China Doll crying for help, sometimes…maybe…God’s.
Wade had taken money from his account in Divide before he’d laid the false trail out of town, but he’d spent almost none of it.
He could afford to live better, although he’d have to go to town to spend it.
There was warm food and light at his father’s ranch.
But Wade refused to take another beating in exchange for shelter.
The baby’s cry transported him to another time, another baby born in a lowly place. The prayers and lessons of his mother came back to him. How had he been brought so low as to crouch in this cold, hurting all the way to his soul for a woman who’d been stolen from him?
He sank to the ground, his head bowed, and he tried to clear the traces of whiskey and hate from his thoughts. Behind that, he found fear and hopelessness and terrible, aching loneliness. It was too much to bear, and he pulled his bottle from the pocket of his coat to drown the pain.
One thing did become clear. He loved that new baby as much as he loved his China Doll, and he couldn’t take them away in this cold. He hated to do it, but there was no way now to rescue them until the cold eased.
The strange, tinny crying stopped, and all that was left was the wind, biting into Wade’s coat, laughing in his ear, telling him he’d sunk as low as a man could sink.
Thinking of that badger hole of a cave he slept in, Wade tried to figure out how that was any better than taking his father’s fist. His father would laugh to know Wade had been reduced to such lowly straits.
He couldn’t be close enough to protect his China Doll.
He couldn’t work up the guts to kill Red Dawson.
He was worthless.
A poor excuse for a man.
Finally, in desperation, he lurched to his feet and staggered into the woods and up the treacherous slope to where he’d concealed his horse. He’d leave.
His horse seemed eager when Wade swung up onto his back.
“We’re gonna find a warm place for a couple of months, boy. But then we’ll be back. We’ll get the China Doll and hightail it to Denver. Live there till the winter weather breaks.”
The horse snorted and shook his head, the metal in his bridle clinking. White breath whooshed from the impatient animal.
Wade clapped the horse on the neck. He’d taught the bay to lie down in the cave, and Wade had learned to use the big animal’s body for warmth. It had been awhile since Wade had met anyone whom he cared for more than this big gentle horse.
How had Red managed to turn that cave he lived in into a place so welcoming?
Wade rode his horse down the mountain, far from Red’s cave. While he rode, Wade planned. He’d go somewhere and find his backbone. He’d catch a man drunk, and he’d learn how to kill.
The thought made him shudder, and he seemed to hear the soft whisper of his mother’s voice, full of gentleness and love.
Or maybe it was someone else. Someone who might be near, watching, caring.
Wade’s mother had taught him about God, but Wade’s father had taught him it was foolish to put hope in some fancy.
Wade drank deeply to silence that voice and the pain that came with hearing it. The whiskey separated him from the hurt inside and gave him liquid courage.
He’d go to Denver and face down a man who wasn’t a danger to him. Once he won a shootout, pulled that trigger for the first time, the next killing would be easier.