Chapter 18
Morning Fawn slowed her steps on the bottom flight of stairs. Her red shawl hung over her arm. Per instructions of Lucy, she was to have Devon drape it over her shoulders.
Devon looked up at her as he had the night Nicholas came to dinner. However, this time, she was coming down just for him. But had any other audience mattered since he showed up at the house?
He sucked in a breath and tugged on the lapels of his frock coat. A wide smile crossed his lips.
“I need help.” She pushed the shawl toward him and turned her back to him.
“I can’t leave a lady in distress.” His fingers skimmed her shoulders as he draped the red spun wool around her, slipping the material beneath her hair. Goosebumps.
The dining room door clicked.
“Come on.” He touched her elbow and hurried her out before they could be accosted by the LeBeaus.
As they stepped off the porch, she curled her fingers around his steady arm, his muscles firm beneath his coat sleeve. A tingle wove its way through her.
Just like— No. She wasn’t going to think of Pride and Prejudice or Jane Eyre.
This wasn’t a romance novel. Devon had no vast estate, and thank goodness, he didn’t have a wife hidden in the attic.
They were merely going on a walk. But the way her pulse pounded in her ears, her heart hadn’t gotten the message.
Down the moonlit path, they strolled. Banjo music drifted up from the slave quarter. The scent of soap and bay rum caught her nostrils, with only a touch of horse. Devon had washed up before dinner. For her?
A whip-poor-will called from a branch as they drifted through the grove of pecan trees making small talk.
On the porch, a door swung shut. Morning Fawn resisted the urge to turn and look. Why couldn’t those people leave her be?
Devon whispered, “We’d best not wander any farther from the path, or someone might come join us.”
“Last thing I’d want.” Pecan shells crunched beneath her shoes.
In a shadowed area next to the main lane, Devon stopped and gazed upward. “So many stars.”
A twinkling canopy of lights lit the heavens.
“You can see even more in Palo Duro or the Llano Escatado.” She clutched her shawl. The memory hitched her heart. The closest thing she had to a real home, and here she was half smitten with the man who’d taken her away from it all.
He dropped his gaze, his voice thick with emotion. “I’m sorry.”
So much gentler now than the first time he’d spoken to her. “About what?” How could this be the same man who’d stuck a gag in her mouth and jerked her hands behind her back?
“Taking you from your home. The rough treatment. Everything.” He shifted his arm from her touch and stuffed his hands into his pockets.
She had sworn at him. Called him a weasel warrior, a dog, and worse.
Now, different words came out of her mouth.
“You had your reasons.” She glanced down at his boots.
He’d protected her from the others. Given her as much kindness as he could without allowing her to escape.
And goodness knows, she’d tried several times. Almost got them killed.
“Land and avoiding conscription.” He exhaled and shoved his fingers through his hair. “Plus, I figured I was helping you.”
Helping her? Yes, most people would see it that way. The truth bubbled out. “I was so angry at first, I could have put a knife in you if I’d had one. Later, I decided my uncle was the real devil, and you were just a hired bandit.”
He winced. “And now? Or do I even want to know?”
Now? Her heart swelled with admiration and respect. “I think differently.” She pulled her shawl snug and swayed a step closer. “I saw what you did for Lucy. And I haven’t forgotten those two empty nail holes in my window sill.” Her voice lilted.
“So you do remember.” The tension drained from his face.
She’d best change the subject before every thought spilled from her head. Land. “You said you needed money for land? Did your stepfather take away your inheritance?” The question was out before she could stop it.
His eyebrows arched. “You’d better watch out, or Pinkerton will come draft you into his service.”
“Who’s Pinkerton?”
“Runs a detective agency up North. I hear he’s the best.”
She blinked wide. Interesting that he’d come up with such an example.
“What?” He shot her a puzzled look.
She scrambled for a reply. “I was wondering… You considered paying for a substitute to avoid conscription yet volunteered in the end? Even though you disapprove of slavery?”
“Shhhh.” He placed his finger to his lips. “Not a sentiment to spread far and wide.”
“I’d never say anything to endanger you,” she whispered. There she went again, sounding like some maiden who’d never been out of a tipi before.
He scuffed his boot against the dirt. “I enlisted because I care about Texas. I figured it wasn’t right of me to avoid the fight while so many were giving their all.
” He cleared his throat. “And after I’d hauled you to Fort Belknap against your will, you fighting me every mile of the way, I decided I’d had enough of hiring out as a scout. ”
“You quit because of me?”
He shrugged.
“Maybe I was too tough to handle?”
The corners of his mouth lifted. “I don’t shy away from challenges.” His tone lightened, but his eye spoke something different. Regret? Guilt? Was that the reason he was here walking with her now? Was he merely making amends?
Silence dropped around them. She fiddled with the fringe on her shawl, softer but similar to the fringe of the doeskin blouse she used to wear.
Devon scrubbed his hand over his bearded jaw. “I didn’t intend to bring all of this up tonight. But I want you to know that sooner or later, I’ll get you out of here if that’s what you want. You don’t have to put up with Moyer for a piece of land.”
“But what if I like the idea of owning land?”
He bristled. “I reckon you already have won a horse. The land shouldn’t be far behind.”
Her stupid mouth, only speaking half a thought. “The way menfolk behave, I’d almost rather be a spinster and have the land all to myself to do as I please.”
He kicked a pecan. “Mighty lonely sitting on a piece of dirt all by yourself, but that’d be better than sitting on it a lifetime with someone you don’t care for.” He turned as if he would leave.
Moisture sprang to her eyes. She grabbed his sleeve. “Don’t go.”
He glanced at her hand.
Cheeks aflame, she withdrew her touch. Why couldn’t she do anything right?
“Maybe we should talk about something else.” He offered his arm to her.
She slipped her fingers around his elbow. Why couldn’t she have the land and the man she wanted? The rules didn’t say it had to be Moyer. She gazed at the sky. “What do you know about stars?”
His arm relaxed beneath her hold. “I used to study them as a boy.” His voice took on a whimsical note.
“When I was seven, my pa acquired a piece of land just west of Dallas. Barely inside the settlement line at the time. I had a friend, more like an uncle. He was Kiowa. Worked for my pa. Taught me how to hunt and track, how to go through the woods without a sound. He was better than kin. But you probably know as much as I do about the stars.”
“I do not. I used to love to lie out on the grass outside the tipi on hot summer nights and study them, but I know nothing of what you call them.”
He pointed overhead. “I’m sure you know the North Star. Part of the Little Dipper.”
She nodded.
“And then the Big Dipper closer to the horizon. And you see those three there.” He leaned closer. The folds of her skirt lapped against his trouser leg. “That’s Orion’s belt.”
Who was Orion? She didn’t care.
He stopped talking as they gazed heavenward, his breathing punctuating the darkness. “Would you like to sit?” He nodded to the low stone wall next to an ancient oak, its weathered trunk witness to the days when no white foot had touched the soil above its roots.
“Yes.” Her heart thudded.
He guided her to the wall, but she pushed herself up on it before he could assist. Cool stone met her palms as she gathered her skirts beneath her. He settled down beside her and removed his slouch hat. A canopy of leaves sheltered them from prying eyes on the porch.
Across the fields, a cow mooed. Such a minor creature compared to a buffalo, the lifeblood of her people. Her people? Where did she really belong in this vast universe?
“Tell me about your Kiowa friend. What was his name?” She leaned her head against the tree, mere inches from his.
“Sate. Bear in English.” His voice wrapped around her like a blanket as he told her of his childhood adventures—treeing a coon, his first deer, a narrow escape from a bear, the anticipation of his first buffalo hunt…
“You never got to go?”
“No.” He exhaled. “Things changed.”
How? Why? His father’s death? She pressed her lips together.
He shifted his weight on the wall. “Enough about me.”
His next words might be that it was time to go in. She wasn’t about to let that happen. “Maybe you can take me hunting sometime.”
“Hunting?”
“Yes.” She kicked her feet from beneath her skirt. “I’m tired of wrenching my feet into these hard-soled traps. I’d love to have a pair of moccasins.”
“That would go over well with your uncle.”
“I don’t care. Besides, how much attention does he pay to what’s on my feet?”
“I could hunt and bring you back a hide.”
“No. I want to go.” She snuggled closer to his arm. “I’m pretty good at it, at least with a bow and arrow. And it’d give me a chance to get away from Sweet Briar. To be free—”
“Can’t have you running off.” His tone took on a hint of a scold.
“I wouldn’t think of it. It would be a pleasure to escape the plantation for a little while.” And to be with him.
“I took you to Columbus a couple weeks ago with your aunt.” Thank goodness, he had the grace to not mention the ride she’d had with Nicholas on Saturday.
“Scruffy little clapboard towns don’t compare to the prairies.
And I’ve never been hunting in the woods, or a swamp.
There’s all kinds of places to explore.” She shifted toward him.
Her knee bumped his thigh. She startled and moved to scoot back, half slipping off the wall.
A couple of loose crumbles of rock broke off.
He grabbed her shoulder. “Wouldn’t want you to fall.”
A whole foot to the ground from where her feet dangled? But he could leave his hand there as long as he wanted.
Their gazes met. Moonlight shimmered in his eye. Steady jaw. Firm lips.
His hand dropped away, and he settled back against the tree. “I could teach you how to shoot a rifle.”
She pressed her heels against the stone to keep from sliding down. “I don’t know. I’d have a better chance at beating you with a bow and arrow.”
He chuckled. “So it’s a competition?”
She bit her lip and clasped her hands in her lap. “You can teach me to shoot.” Much cozier.
The breeze caught a strand of hair and dangled it across her eyes. She blinked and lifted her hand, but Devon was quicker. With the slightest touch of a knuckle, he nudged it from her face.
Her lips parted.
His gaze dipped to them before quickly darting away. “A rifle it will be, then, but there’s also the matter of your uncle.”
“My uncle.”
“After my confession about Lucy, he’s convinced I’m a scoundrel. He might not allow me to take you away from the perimeter of the house without a chaperone.”
“I could sneak out. Make up a story.”
“I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
“You’ve caused me trouble ever since I met you.” But she couldn’t hide the warmth that crept into her voice. “Some things are worth trouble.” Oh, my goodness. She might as well just lay herself at his feet, the way she was talking. She’d done so well at dinner with holding her tongue, but now…
“I think you’re plenty trouble too.” He smiled. “Taa Aruka.” Morning Fawn.
Her heart fluttered. “How do you know how to say my name in Comanche?”
“I’d rather not remind you of how I know.”
The kidnapping. Her stomach knotted, at war with her heart. But he regretted his actions and changed his life. Volunteered to fight. Probably lost sight in his eye because of it.
He exhaled and fumbled with his hat in his lap.
She bit her lip. “I still like it when you say it.” Oh my goodness. She squeezed her eyes shut. Couldn’t she shut her mouth as well? She shivered.
“Are you cold?” He reached for her hand and tucked it inside the crook of his arm once more, pressing it to his side and laying his hand over hers.
She should have worn gloves. Her aunt had scolded her many times about that. But the feel of Devon’s rough, callused palm suited her just fine.
She leaned against the oak and looked to the heavens. If only she could freeze this moment in time. She’d searched so long for the place where she belonged. What if it was at the side of this man? “Tell me more about the stars.”
Devon leaned back as well. “‘He healeth those that are broken in heart, and bindeth up their sores. He counteth the number of the stars, and calleth them all by their names. Great is our Lord, and great is his power: his wisdom is infinite.’”
“What is that?”
“It’s from the Bible. Psalms 147. Talks about how the Lord heals the brokenhearted.”
Was she the brokenhearted, or was he?
The warmth of his hand penetrated hers. “It also talks about how He knows each star, like jewels from his hands scattered across the sky.”
“Sounds like poetry.”
“I suppose so. And that’s what Psalms is. But it’s more than that. It’s truth. From the God who created the universe.”
Goosebumps prickled her arms. She bit her lip, then whispered, “I’ve seen you at the dinner table. You really pray, don't you?”
He tilted his face toward her. “Yes. Don't you?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes, I guess. I mean, it’s kind of like seeing someone you know for the first time in a long while. You don’t quite know what to say to them.”
“The Lord wants you to talk to Him, Morning Fawn. Tell Him what’s on your heart.”
That’s what her mother had spoken about as she’d brushed Morning Fawn’s hair and tucked her in. Morning Fawn couldn’t remember her face, only the portrait in LeBeau’s office, but her voice still rang in Morning Fawn’s ears, so comforting, so sweet. Gone forever from this world.
Morning Fawn shivered. “Please, let’s not talk about my mother anymore.”
“I didn’t know that we were.” His eyebrows quirked upward.
“Yes, in a roundabout way.” Sweat broke out on the back of her neck. “Please.”
“Of course.” He turned back to the stars, speaking of the wonders of the sky as his thumb moved back and forth across her hand, sending tingles up and down her arms.
Her heart settled onto a certainty. This was the man she wanted to marry. God of the heavens, if You hear me, please let it be so.