For the Love of Suzanne (26 page)

She drew away and patted Suzanne’s round
belly and gave her a tight smile. “You just have a healthy
baby. That’s all I need,” she whispered. “You’ll
be okay. I know you will.”

She nodded with tears of her own flowing freely
down her cheeks. “I’d better get packed.”

“I’ll help you.”

“Thank you.”

All Suzanne had was the buckskin pants and white
shirt of Cody’s that she’d been wearing when she got
here, and they didn’t fit anymore. Marda insisted she keep the
dress she was wearing and set her up with a coat and mittens and a
scarf for her head. She was carrying the bag into the kitchen as Cody
opened the door to come in, stomping the snow off his boots before he
entered.

“Why won’t Boris do that?” Marda
said wondrously. “He’d rather drag snow all over the
house,” she muttered and left the room. “Go ahead and
start eating,” she called to them from her bedroom.

They sat down next to each other at the table and
began to eat the ham and pancakes that were still warm.

“Are you ready to go?” Cody asked
Suzanne casually as he cut a pancake.

She nodded.

“I won’t say anything to Boris, but I
did leave a horse out in the barn for him.”

“You’re very generous,” she said
thoughtfully as she chewed some ham.

“Well, Marda did what I couldn’t and
that was to nurse you back to health. For that, I am very grateful
and the horse is just a small token of that. I’d leave them
money, but there’s not a lot of use for it in these parts so
the horse is better.”

“You’re a good man, Cody,” she
said seriously. “I wish there was something I could do. I mean,
it was for me.”

“Don’t you worry about it, honey. It
was for me, too,” he said and kissed her on the cheek.

Marda came back into the kitchen as they were
finishing their food, carrying a small white dress. “I don’t
know if you’re going to have a girl or a boy, but I want you to
have this.”

Suzanne took the fine silk dress from her friend
and touched it reverently. “Oh, it’s beautiful,”
she said in awe. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome. We were supposed to
have our own child christened in it, but that never came to be so
maybe you can have your child christened in it instead.”

She looked at her. “What happened?”
she asked sympathetically.

“Aw, the little guy died at birth and the
doctor told me not to have anymore so…” she trailed off
with a melancholy smile.

She hugged her. “I’m so sorry, Marda.”

She hugged her back. “It’s okay. It
was a lifetime ago. All we can do is move on.”

“Right,” she said quietly, feeling bad
for her friend. She folded the little lacy dress carefully and set it
neatly in the bag, meeting Cody’s eyes and giving him a shaky
smile.

He ran his hand down her back affectionately and
continued to eat as Marda joined them in happy conversation.

Cody cleared the table after they were done
despite Marda’s protests. He wanted to give the two women a
couple of more minutes together since they’d obviously become
fond of each other and would never see each other again.

Suzanne knew he was ready to go and stood up.
“Thank you for everything.”

Marda stood too. “You’re welcome,
sweetheart. Just take care of yourself and the little one.”

“I will,” she promised as she pulled
on her fur coat and picked up the bag of clothes and the food.

She hugged her tightly and kissed her on the cheek
then went to Cody, who had already pulled on his coat. “Cody,
you handsome hunk of man,” she said jovially with a smile. “Why
aren’t I twenty years younger?”

The three of them laughed as she gave him a big
hug.

He kissed her on the cheek as he held her. “I
probably shouldn’t have done that. You’ve been kissed by
an Injun,” he said good-naturedly.

She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him
squarely on the lips for a moment and drew away with a smile. “Now,
I’ve been kissed by an Injun.”

Everybody laughed again.

She still held Cody by his biceps through the
thick coat and gave Suzanne a playful wink over her shoulder. “Don’t
you be jealous now.”

She giggled. “I won’t.”

She patted his arms affectionately. “You
take care of her and that baby, you hear?”

He nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I won’t
let anything happen to either of them,” he promised and hugged
her again. “Thanks for everything.”

“You’re welcome, sweetie,” she
said and stepped out of his arms.

“Are you ready, honey?” Cody asked
Suzanne as he took the bags from her.

She nodded. “I guess so,” she said
quietly and hugged Marda one more time. “Thanks again.”

“You’re welcome, sweetheart. Have a
safe journey.”

“We will,” she said as she went out
the door then took Cody’s arm as he led her across the deep
snow to the waiting bay mare that was saddled with Red Dog’s
saddle.

Cody loaded her saddle bags with the clothes Marda
had given her, then lifted her into the saddle with very little
effort. He tied the burlap bag of food to his saddle before easily
mounting Titan. “Thank you,” he called to Marda and gave
her a wave.

Suzanne did the same and they received a wave and
a smile back.

“I guess this is it,” he said with
brightness he didn’t feel as he started into the woods with
her.

“I guess so,” she said as she followed
in the trail that Titan was breaking with his long legs.

Suzanne’s horse was having trouble getting
through the deep snow, even after Titan had plowed a path. She didn’t
have the strength or the long legs like he had and was stumbling and
sinking to her belly in it.

Cody kept an eye on her and Suzanne and when he
finally found a spot that didn’t have so much snow, stopped and
got off Titan and went to her and eased her off the horse.

“What are we doing?” she asked him
curiously as he carried her to the stallion.

“I think you should ride with me again. The
snow is too deep for that horse and you’re getting wet. She’ll
have a much easier time without you on her back. Besides, your feet
are already wet and so is your dress. I don’t want you getting
sick again.”

“Okay,” she said easily and helped
herself into Titan’s saddle as he slid her into it.

He swung himself up behind her and impulsively
kissed her on the cheek as he gathered the reins. He hugged her as
his arms came around her.

He handed her the reins to her horse and started
both horses going, Titan still plowing a path for the smaller animal
as she trailed them. As they rode in silence, he thought about what
was ahead of them. It was more of an unknown than anything and the
prospect of losing her made his heart ache. She was going back even
if he did want her to stay. A life with her could never be. She had
the baby to consider and she put the child above all else just like
any normal woman would. He hated like hell to take her back to where
he’d found her, but he’d promised her he would and he
never broke a promise if he could help it.

Suzanne leaned against him, looking at his
leather-gloved hands and thinking they were big. She vaguely
remembered her grandfather telling Beau he had big hands and big
hands were working hands. Her grandfather had passed away shortly
after she and Beau had gotten married so he never knew that Beau’s
big hands were also big weapons.

She didn’t miss her husband. She felt a
little guilty about it and had tried to keep their happy times in the
forefront of her memory, but as time passed, the memories went with
it. They’d been so few and far between, she should have clung
to them for the sake of their child, but the sad truth was that the
pain of living with him far outweighed the pleasure.

The drinking, the women, and the way he spent
money was hard to live with. When she’d found out she was
pregnant, she was going to leave him and go back to New York. But
he’d died too soon and, looking back on it, she knew it had
probably been a blessing.

He hadn’t left any money for her, but she
was sure she would be okay. She was sure her job was gone now so she
would have to find another one and then daycare for the baby. She
figured she was going to be a welfare mom for awhile, but would make
sure it was only temporary.

“What happened to Mika?” she asked
Cody quietly.

He sighed heavily. “She’s in the next
world.”

She looked at him with tears in her eyes. “She
was killed?”

He nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said
sincerely.

“Who killed her?”

“It’s hard to say. I found her and
buried her.”

“Was she shot?”

“Yes, but by whom, I don’t know,”
he said apologetically.

She brushed her tears away. “Why did they
kill her? She was just a child.”

“I know,” he murmured and brushed his
lips over her teary cheek. “Unfortunately, life for children is
hard and uncertain and sometimes they don’t survive.”

She sniffed. “I was hoping one of the Indian
families had adopted her or something.”

He shook his head sadly.

“Did you bury anyone else?”

“No. Just her.”

She could feel his compassion and pressed a kiss
to his jaw. “Thank you. I would hate to think she was food for
the animals.”

“Like you said, she was a child. She’d
done no wrong and deserved better than to be left to rot in the sun
and be food for the vultures.”

She nodded and brushed away her tears again. “And
what of Major Richards?”

“Dead,” he said simply.

“Did you kill him?”

“No. I knocked him out and was going to let
him find his way back to wherever he’d come from, but by the
time I got back, others had already killed him.”

“Would he have made it if he’d lived?”

“Unlikely,” he said drily.

She thought that was a cruel way to die, but held
no malice toward Cody. Richards had been an evil man and had wanted
to kill Cody, not to mention he’d tried to kill her too. “Thank
you for burying Mika,” she said shakily.

He tightened his hold on her and kissed her on the
forehead as she grieved for the child. He was glad she was grieving
because nobody else had.

He let her have her time, which wasn’t all
that long, and in an effort to lighten her mood, asked her casually,
“What are you going to call the baby?”

“I haven’t decided yet. Any
suggestions?”

“Not really,” he murmured as he looked
around.

“What would you name it if it were a boy?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said with
a sigh. “I haven’t thought about it,” he lied. He
had thought of what it would be like to have her for his wife and to
raise the child as his own. He would do it if he were given the
chance. But there were to be no chances. This child was going to be
born in her world and he would never see it.

“I’ve been thinking of naming him
Tristan, after a guy I saw in this movie that I thought was so good.”

“Movie?” he echoed in confusion.

“It’s a play of sorts. Instead of the
actors being right there performing, they film it and distribute it
all over the world so lots of people can see it at the same time.”

He marveled at that. “Film? Like camera?”

“Something like that, but these cameras show
motion and you can hear what the actors say. You can even hear them
walk.”

He smiled as he shook his head with bewilderment,
not able to imagine what she was describing.

She smiled, too. “It’s pretty cool.”

He’d heard her use that term before and knew
it meant ‘very good’ and not that she was cold. “Yes.
Pretty cool,” he repeated with a slight smile.

She laughed at hearing him say that. It was so
unlike anything he ever said, but it showed his willingness to learn.

He laughed, too. “Cool.”

She laughed even more. “How about this one?
Groovy.”

He smiled into her cheery blue eyes. “What
is groovy?”

“It’s cool.”

Both of them laughed at that.

“Of course it is,” he said smiling as
if the thought of it meaning anything else was ludicrous.

She watched ahead, seeing a clearing. “Nobody
says groovy anymore, but it was a popular word back in the sixties.”

“Eighteen sixties?”

“Nineteen sixties. It was a time of
revolution and rebellion. What you’re going through now is
worse, I think, but in my time, there are wars and people killing
each other and big bombs and wars in other countries that we can
watch on TV,” she said thoughtfully, wondering if she really
wanted to go back to that and wondering how he would survive.

“What’s TV?”

“A big box-like thing that works like the
movies, sort of. It’s usually at your house, but they’re
most everywhere now.”

He didn’t understand, but let it go.

“Anyway, back in the sixties, people smoked
pot and listened to rock and roll music,” she said, trying to
get the cheeriness back into the conversation.

“Pot?”

“To you, it’s like peyote. In my
world, it’s just plain old pot and it’s against the law
in most places to have it, but people do it anyway.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah, a couple of times, but it was a long
time ago and I don’t want to do it again. It made me feel
funny.”

“I suppose it could have that effect if it
is like peyote. So, what is this rock and roll music?

“You would have to hear it to believe it,”
she said enthusiastically. “Some of it is really good and some
of it is really bad. It’s singing, guitars, drums, keyboards,
all sorts of stuff being played together and the performers give
concerts and thousands of people show up and have a great time.
Gatherings like that are called rock concerts, but only if it’s
rock music.”

“There’s more?”

“Tons more. There’s country, blues,
jazz, new age, reggae. You name it and it’s out there. I just
like rock,” she said casually.