Chapter 25 #2
“There aren’t any guarantees in this kind of work.
” He caught her hand. His fingers curled around hers.
She’d thrown herself right in the mix with him, putting her life in danger when he would have done everything he could, except for sacrificing the mission, in order to keep her safe.
“It’s like a game of cards where the stakes are lives instead of money.
You study your opponent, calculate, and take risks.
Only today, while I was in the middle of a game with a good hand, you walked in after I’d made my bets, and you threw all the cards in the middle and said. ‘Let’s re-deal.’”
“Maybe your opponent had an even better hand and was about to take everything you had?” She bit her lip.
Or maybe she’d handed his opponent means to wipe him out.
But as he gazed into her face, his shoulders unlocked.
There’d be no scolding her. His rebuke would bounce off her like raindrops on a rubberized blanket.
Either that, or she’d take it so much to heart she’d be wounded beyond hope.
“We…I will have to revise the plan. Moyer is going to watch me like a hawk. And he’ll have men keep an eye on the Schramms too. ”
“But he’ll be afraid to do anything or say much to anyone. Because he thinks he’s under suspicion. And the way he acted when I said it…maybe he really is a thief.”
“I hope he is. That would keep him looking over his shoulder.” The slime had put his hands on…his girl. Devon’s girl. “I’ve got to know. Did you let that man kiss you? Because I’d rather take my chances of being hung than for you to allow him such liberties.”
“No kisses.” She smiled. “I told him I’d let you kiss me before I found out about your skunky ways and that I wasn’t going to allow another man to kiss me until I was engaged.”
“I’ve never had the pleasure of kissing you.”
“I had to say something to make him keep his lips to himself.”
He ground his molars. “I don’t want that man anywhere near you.”
“Then we’d better work on finishing your mission.”
“‘We’?” The change he’d agreed to was still a bit hard to swallow, but he didn’t want to talk about that right now.
Didn’t want to talk about anything. He touched her cheek.
Lightning sizzled up his arm. In the wake of it, every clear thought in his head evaporated.
“It’s not just the mission. You’ve turned my whole world upside down. ”
“Is that good or bad?”
“Both.” He drew her into his arms. His heart thundered in his ears.
Wide-eyed, she sucked in a breath. Her hands slipped over his chest, weaving a web of sweetness.
“Morning Fawn.” He breathed her name.
He lowered his gaze to her lips. The only woman he wanted to kiss. He dipped his head.
Her lips parted like a morning glory opening to the sun…then closed.
Her nimble fingers squeezed between his lips and hers. “You promised to tell me about Isabelle. I can’t bear to be in your arms tonight, and then tomorrow, maybe you don’t even speak to me.”
The way her body melted against his, he’d be willing to bet he could shove those fingers aside and kiss her half the night. His chest rose and fell hard. But she deserved an answer to her question. With a groan, he loosened his hold on her. “All right. Come.”
He led her to a wrought-iron bench, one of four that faced the starlit cupid statue at the center of the garden where the arched walkways converged. Flanked by two cypresses, the seat would provide a measure of privacy.
Morning Fawn didn’t bother tucking her skirt beneath her. It splayed across the bench. He nudged the cream-soft satin out of the way.
“I snuck off and spied on you today because I couldn’t stand another moment of waiting in the shadows like some useless, worn-out doily that no one had any use for.” Her voice hardly more than a whisper, she traced a strip of lace on her cuff.
“Nothing could be further from the truth.” He touched a finger to the hard spot beneath his shirt where the locket lingered. He had no business trying to kiss Morning Fawn while he still wore the keepsake.
“How could I know that?”
“I never meant to hurt you. I thought staying away was the most caring thing I could do.”
“How could you think that?”
A breath slid between his teeth like a cracked steam valve.
He lowered his elbows to his knees and shifted forward.
“For one, I’m on a dangerous mission and didn’t want to drag you into it.
But there was more to it than that. I didn’t write you because I started thinking about how I used to write Isabelle. ”
“Oh.” Her chest deflated.
A sharp breeze rustled the branches of the trees around them as mounting puffs of clouds shadowed the moon.
Morning Fawn shivered. “You…you said you hurt her somehow?”
Devon took her hand in his, weaving their fingers together. What if she wanted nothing to do with him once she heard what he had to say?
Morning Fawn squeezed his hand.
Where to begin? “I left home when I was seventeen. Isabelle and I were apart for six years. I wrote every chance I could, and so did she, sending our letters through a third party. Her father was a Mexican working as a cook on a neighboring plantation. A Mexican and a servant. Two boundaries not to be crossed in high-class planter society.”
“If you loved her, why didn’t you marry her and take her with you?”
“We were young. I didn’t have a way to support her. I lived rough. Worked as a teamster, then joined the Texas Rangers. My only home was the next campfire.”
“I see.”
His tongue felt like sandpaper. “Eventually, I joined the cavalry as a scout. Worked myself up to a corporal. Then, when I saved my colonel from a scalping, they made me a brevet second lieutenant. That’s when I went for Isabelle.
I’d waited until I could bring her to the fort as an officer’s wife.
” He squeezed his eyes shut. All those years of waiting and planning.
Their time together had been so short. Memories washed over him.
The joy on her face when he knelt and asked her to marry him, the days and nights as a young married couple at the fort, the love in her eyes and her hands…
the hand that had turned cold in his the day she died. He shuddered and stood.
The coyotes picked up their song, one mournful cry echoed by five or six more.
“I wasn’t there when she needed me most.” Sweat dampened his jacket collar and under his arms. “We’d been married two years.
She was with child and living at the fort with me.
My colonel needed me to track a raiding party.
Stop them before they struck deeper into the frontier and took more lives.
The baby wasn’t due for another month. The colonel mentioned that if I felt I really needed to stay, he’d send someone else.
But…I knew they needed me. I was the best tracker.
Settler lives were at stake. I thought Isabelle would be fine.
We were supposed to be back in a week….” How many times had he wished to God he could relive that day, take back that decision?
“It took two weeks. Isabelle went into labor the eleventh day. Three days of terrible pain. The baby was breech. By the time they were able to get the baby turned, it was too late. Isabelle was hemorrhaging. When I got there, our baby was dead, and Isabelle was slipping away.” His voice broke.
He sank onto the bench, his gaze plastered on the ground.
The memories tore into his heart like wolf teeth.
“It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known. The baby was weeks early.”
“It was careless and reckless of me. Babies can come early. She needed me, and I wasn’t there.
” He rubbed the moisture beneath his eyepatch.
“The fort’s doctor looked after her, but he had more experience with wounds than birthing babies.
If I had been there…I could have ridden north across the Red River.
I’d heard of a Comanche midwife on a reservation a day’s ride away.
I would have found her and brought her back. ”
“There’s no way of knowing if that would have changed anything.”
“But at least I would have known I’d done everything possible. Or at least been there to comfort her through the worst hours of her life.” His chest burned. So did his eyes. He needed to get away. Go for a ride until both he and the horse were totally exhausted. “I’ve got to go.”