Authors: Parting Gifts
Maddie slumped forward and looked at Charles. “Why did you do that?”
He placed his hand over hers and squeezed gently. “Because I want him to care for you as much as I do, and that won’t happen if you ignore him.”
“I wasn’t ignoring him. As a matter of fact, I spoke with him this morning when I came to get your coffee.”
“Well, then, if you’re friends already, it should be a very pleasant day.”
A very pleasant day. It was an exceedingly pleasant day. The cold weather that had whipped through earlier in the week had dissipated, and the last remnants of spring were giving way to the fullness of summer.
The company, however, was unpleasant. Maddie sat, hugging her side of the bench seat, her back stiff and straight, her eyes on the canopy of leaves passing by overhead. Jesse was hunched forward, his elbows digging into his knees, his eyes trained, she was certain, on one of the horse’s rumps. In contrast to the mood, the wagon swayed gently from side to side.
“Does the town have a name?” she asked brightly.
“Raeburn,” he replied brusquely.
“Is that a family name?” she asked less brightly.
“Probably,” he replied more brusquely.
She nodded as though he would care whether or not she acknowledged his inadequate answer and his desire not to engage in further conversation. She watched the horses flick their tails. She adjusted the positioning of her small hat, the one that matched her serge traveling dress. She felt the sweat trickle between her breasts and settle around her waist. Nothing she ever could, should, or would need was worth traveling with this man. The horses plodded along, and she began to wonder if they would ever reach the town.
“I have an idea,” she said at last.
He grunted, and she was tempted to bury her knuckles in his arm. “You can stop the wagon and let me out here.”
He jerked his head around, his dark eyes darkening further beneath the brim of his dark brown hat.
“You can leave me here, go into town, then pick me up on the way back so you don’t have to endure my company for the day.”
“You’re going to sit out here for five hours?”
She shrugged lightly as though his concern was of little consequence. “There is plenty of shade. I ate a hearty breakfast. I should be fine.”
His eyes narrowed. “I know the truth. It’s my company you don’t want to have to put up with.”
“I have decided there isn’t enough coffee in the entire world to improve your disposition.”
“I don’t like to be manipulated, and Charles did just that this morning.”
“So you’re taking it out on me?” “I’m not taking it out on you.”
“What do you call it when you’d rather stare at the back end of a horse than talk to me?”
His gaze went forward, and his expression darkened. “Hell.”
She wasn’t certain if her words or something he’d spotted on the back end of the horses had so aggravated him. She looked toward the road, realizing it was neither. Three-fourths of a tree, charred where lightning had severed it from the trunk, blocked the road. The horses halted. Jesse vaulted over the side of the wagon and stalked toward the tree, jerked his hat off his head, and wiped his brow with the sleeve of his shirt.
“I suppose we could just turn around and go home,” she offered.
“Hell no! We need supplies! You need something from town!”
Scrambling down from the wagon, she walked to where he stood. “I don’t need anything from town.”
He plopped his hat back on his head and walked around the tree, studying it from all angles. “It’s going to have to be moved eventually. Might as well do it now. You go stand over there beneath that tree.”
“Are you hoping there’s a loose branch somewhere that might fall on my head?”
He squatted. “Won’t happen. Not with the luck I’ve been having.”
Forcefully, she kicked the tree, rustling the branches. Jerking back, he landed on his backside. She smiled triumphantly as he scowled at her.
“It’s not so funny to be startled into making a fool of yourself, is it?” she remarked.
“Get in the shade before the sun burns your nose.” He got to his feet and walked toward the wagon.
She scurried over and blocked his path. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Towering over her, he glowered at her. She tilted her head back, refusing to be cowed. He tugged his shirt out of his pants and shoved the buttons through the holes. “Get in the shade.”
“And if I don’t?”
Shaking his head, he walked away, took off his shirt, and tossed it onto the seat of the wagon. He reached into the back of the wagon, hefted out a rope, and draped it over his shoulders.
Reluctantly, Maddie moved into the shade and watched him work. In the sunlight, she could see what she’d been unable to see in the gloom of the kitchen. The back she had so admired that morning carried a thin diagonal scar across it that began at the tip of one shoulder and raced toward his hip, disappearing somewhere beneath the waist of his pants. It was an ancient scar, blending in with the coloring of his body.
“How did you come by that scar on your back?” she asked. “War.”
She moved out of the shade. “The War Between the States?”
He tied the rope to the harness. “That’s the one.”
“You’re a lot older than I thought.”
He stopped working and stared at her. “How old did you think I was?”
“Thirty-three, thirty-four.”
He nodded. “Thirty-four.”
“You would have been a boy during the war.”
He led the horses to the other side of the tree. “Old enough to beat a drum for the Union when it started, old enough to tote a rifle when it ended.”
“But Texas stood with the Confederacy.”
He studied her a moment. “You don’t look old enough to know what slavery looked like. I couldn’t defend it.” He anchored the rope to the charred trunk and guided the horses toward the side of the road, the fallen tree trailing easily behind. He loosened the rope, pulled it out, and wrapped it around his crooked arm, bringing it over his shoulder.
“War is no place for a child,” she said, watching the manner in which he worked, concise, wasting not a solitary movement.
“War’s no place for anyone. Brings out the worst in men.” Grabbing onto the harness, he led the horses back to the wagon. “Brings out the best, too,” he threw over his shoulder as he tossed the rope into the back of the wagon before hitching the horses back into place.
He grabbed his shirt, slipped it on, buttoning it as he went around the wagon, and came to stand before her.
“And which did it bring out in you?” she asked.
“The best, of course.”
He gave her a smile, the same warm smile he’d given Hannah that first day. Maddie wished he hadn’t. Charles smiled all the time, but none of his smiles ever made her wonder what it would feel like to press her lips against that smile. She knew she shouldn’t have those thoughts now.
He placed his hands on her waist, and she prayed he couldn’t feel the rapid thudding of her heart that his nearness caused. The smile eased off his face as he stared into her eyes. His Adam’s apple slowly slid up and down, and she felt his fingers tighten their hold. Then he scowled and lifted her into the wagon, leaving her with the uneasy feeling that he’d been privy to her thoughts. He climbed onto the wagon, took the reins, and set the horses into motion with a flick of his wrist.
In silence, Maddie watched the scenery roll by. Charles had been wrong. The storm hadn’t passed.
The brass bell above the door clanked as Jesse opened the door. Maddie preceded him into the store, stiffening slightly when he took her elbow and led her toward the counter.
“McGuire, this is Mrs. Lawson. Whatever she wants, you just put on our account.”
Angus McGuire’s bushy white eyebrows shot straight up. “Mrs. Lawson, is it? And how long have you been that, lass?”
Blushing, Maddie wished Jesse hadn’t drawn attention to her. “A few days.”
“Ah, she’s a pretty one, Jesse.”
Jesse scowled at her. She lifted her chin. He snorted and laid a list of needed supplies on the counter. “Just get my supplies, will you, McGuire?”
“Marital bliss didn’t last long,” McGuire mumbled under his breath as he headed to the back room.
Jesse walked to the back of the store where a huge barrel was filled with nails. He grabbed an empty box and dropped nails into it. Then he returned to the front and set the box on the counter. Maddie was still standing where he’d left her.
“I don’t want to spend all day in here. Get whatever it is you need so we can get going.”
“I told you I don’t need anything.”
“You must have said something to Charles to make him think you needed something.”
She drew her brows together. “No, I don’t think so.”
He expelled his breath. “All right. So there’s nothing you need. There must be something you want.”
“I want to make Charles happy.” She glanced around the overly stocked store. “But I don’t suppose there’s anything in here I could buy that would do that.”
Astounded and bemused at the same time, Jesse studied her. Some moments she appeared to be a woman of the world, and others she seemed as young as Hannah. He wanted to believe her words were declared to catch him off guard, and they did because within her voice, he’d heard the absolute truth. “Come here.”
Hesitantly, Maddie followed as he threaded his way toward a distant corner. He stopped and waved his hand over a shelf laden with bottles. His hand seemed that much larger and more masculine next to the small, delicately shaped glass.
“Pick out some sweet smelling bath salts you can use.”
Maddie stepped back, flinging her hands to her hips. “Are you saying I stink?”
He looked toward the ceiling and released a quick burst of air. “No, I’m not saying that. You more than anyone ought to know that I say what I mean.”
“You didn’t this time. You tell me how bath salts are going to make Charles happy.”
“A man likes for his woman to smell sweet.” He picked up a bottle and held it up to the window. “When he curls up next to her in bed, it’s nice if she doesn’t smell like the wood he’s been chopping all day or the sweating horses he’s been caring for.” He set the bottle down. “Hell, do what you want.” He started to walk off.
“Wait.” He stopped, and Maddie cautiously approached the shelf. “There’s so many. Which one would Charles like?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Buy whatever you usually buy.”
“I’ve never had bath salts.”
“Never?” Jesse asked as he moved in behind her.
“Never. If we were fortunate, we had lye soap.”
“Lye? It gets the dirt off, but no man wants to lie next to a woman who smells like him. Take the tops off the bottles and find one that smells like you should.”
Self-consciously, Maddie reached for a bottle, pulled out the stopper, and sniffed. “I don’t know what I should smell like. Like this?” She held the bottle out to Jesse.
“No, rose is too common. You need something different.” He studied the bottles while Maddie continued to remove the stoppers and sniff.
“I never knew there were so many different smells.”
“Scents. They’re called scents,” he informed her.
“So what should I scent like?”
Jesse stopped his hand halfway to its destination and glanced back over his shoulder. She had that challenging glint in her eyes, the one she’d worn that morning when she’d questioned him about his avoidance of coffee since her arrival. What should she smell like, this woman who the more he came to know was nothing at all what he’d expected? “Unusual, something unusual.” He picked up a small bottle. “Here, try this.”
She removed the stopper, and a soft, delicate fragrance wafted out of the bottle.
“Forget-me-not,” Jesse said, “you should smell like forget-me-not.”
“Do you think Charles will like it?”
“He’ll like it.”
“I wish there was some way I could surprise him.”
“I could set up the bathtub in the Princess room.”
“The Princess room?”
“Yeah, the one with the brass bed and all the frills. The one that looks like a fairy princess ought to be sleeping in it. You could bathe in there just before bedtime, and he wouldn’t know until you got into bed.”
“You’d do that for me?”
He looked away. “I want Charles to be happy, too.”
She clutched the small bottle to her breast. “I guess I did need something after all.”
They walked back to the front of the store, and she set the bottle on the counter beside the box of nails. Then she studied the jars of candy arranged on the counter.
“Do you want some?” Jesse asked.
“I was thinking of the children. Could we take them some cinnamon balls?”
“1 don’t see why not.” He watched her pick up a small sack and carefully place six cinnamon balls inside. He suddenly wished she did want something. “You sure there’s nothing you want?”
“I’m sure.” She set the sack on the counter as McGuire came out of the back.
“I’ll have my boy load your wagon,” McGuire said.
“Fine,” Jesse said. “Add these items in, and I might as well pick up the mail while I’m here. We’ll have a stage coming through in a day or so. Save you a trip.”
He followed McGuire to a little cubicle area with iron bars in the window. McGuire began gathering the pieces of mail and dumping them in a bag.
With nothing else to do, Maddie trailed behind Jesse. She glanced at the wall. Her knees wobbled, her lungs refused to draw in air, and she feared at any moment she’d hear the ricochet of bullets echoing around her.
“You all right?”
She jumped back, her hand to her throat, her gaze falling on Jesse. “I’m just fine.” But her high-pitched voice sounded too nervous even to her own ears.
Jesse cast his glance to the reward posters covering the wall, and a look of pure disgust crossed his face. “You shouldn’t concern yourself with animals like those.” He studied her for a moment, then added, “You look a little pale. Why don’t we get something to eat before we head home?”
Nodding, Maddie fought back the tears, the panic. She had never again expected to see those faces.
Acutely aware of Jesse scrutinizing her, Maddie stared out the window of the small restaurant. She thought if she lived to be a hundred, she’d never forget the look on his face when he’d confronted those images on the wall. Black and white Charles had said. Everything to Jesse was black and white. How could he possibly understand how everything in Maddie’s world was gray? And if he learned the truth, what would he do then? And if he told Charles, would Charles’s gray shadows suddenly become a stark black and white?
“You need to eat so we can get going.”
“Are you always in such a hurry?” she asked, directing her attention to the man sitting across from her.
“If I was in a hurry, we wouldn’t be in here now.”
She stuck the tines of her fork into a bean, then pressed the bean against the side of the plate and worked it free, a thought niggling at the back of her mind. “Why did you leave the Texas Rangers?”
Jesse shoved his empty plate to the side and planted his elbows on the table. “My reason for wanting to be a Ranger no longer existed. I found what I was looking for.”
“And what was that?”
“Family. Being a Ranger gave me a monthly stipend and the freedom to look for Charles and Cassie while I pursued the outlaws and troublemakers. When I found Charles, I felt like I’d come home.”
“Did you ever find Cassie?” she asked quietly.
He glanced toward the street. “Family that took her in left without a trace when a smallpox epidemic struck their community. I have my doubts that she’s even still alive. Every lead I get takes me nowhere.”
“I’m sorry.”
He glanced over at her, her eyes a reflection of his sorrow. Only a handful of people had understood his need to find the brother and sister who’d been torn from his life at such a tender age. He wondered why it didn’t surprise him that she understood. He shrugged off-handedly. “At least I found Charles.”
“I would imagine your life as a Ranger was exciting.”
“It had its moments. Saw a lot of the state, worked alongside some fine men.”
“Do you miss it?”
He shook his head. “I kept working as a Ranger for a while after I found Charles, but I began to feel like a tumbleweed in the wind. A Ranger is always searching for an outlaw, a renegade, someone. His life can’t be worth more to him than the lives of the people he’s supposed to protect. When I found Charles, met his family, I grew tired of the chances I was taking. After Alice died, he needed some help running the place, so I resigned.”
“Charles loves Alice very much.”
“They seemed to share something special, but now he has you.”
Forcing a small smile, Maddie shook her head. “He told me he still loves her, that he’ll never love anyone else.”
“He has to have some feelings for you, or he wouldn’t have married you.”
“Whatever his feelings, love isn’t one of them.”
She watched the sunlight stream in through the window, caressing his profile as he studied her in silence. When at last he spoke, his voice was as gentle as the lowing of a lone steer in the dead of night. “A marriage without love seems like a hell of a sacrifice for a woman to make.”
“I made the decision to accept a life without love when I walked through Bev’s door. I’m not a fool. Men don’t fall in love with soiled doves.”
Jesse leaned forward. “No, you’re not a fool. You strike me as being an extremely intelligent and well-educated woman … not at all the kind of woman a man would expect to find in Bev’s parlor. Why the hell couldn’t you have survived another way?”
She tilted her chin. “And how would you suggest I earn my keep? I grew up beneath the stars, a campfire burning brightly into the night the only permanence I ever knew, the only thing I could count on always being there. My father was an educated man. He taught me and my brother to appreciate the written word. I know Shakespeare and Dickens and have just discovered the wonder of Mark Twain. I enjoy reading poetry. I can write and decipher.” She leaned forward. “I know. I could be a schoolteacher.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“What? Don’t you think a community would hire me to teach their children?”
“Maybe. If you had tried.”
“Don’t you think I did? My education is excellent, but informal. I never sat in a schoolhouse. I don’t know what goes on in a classroom. And I have no references. No school can attest to my abilities. I can count the number of people who knew me on one hand, and two of those are now dead. The other two can’t write their names and can usually be found in saloons.”
Jesse leaned further across the table. “Damn it, Maddie, you could have found something if you’d tried harder. You didn’t have to resort to selling your body like some cheap—”
She slammed her hands on the table. “Damn you!” she hissed through clenched teeth. “Damn you and your damn self-righteous judgment. One day I’m laughing with my brother, Andrew, and the next day I’m holding him in my arms while he dies. All I ever had that I could call mine was my father and my brother. And then they were dead. And all the things they’d promised, all the grand plans they’d made for me died with them. I was alone and scared and hungry. I traded everything I had to trade until I had nothing left to trade but my body. It may not have been a fine, upstanding occupation, but at least it was an honest one. I would have given something in exchange for what I got. And if that thought sickens you, Mr. Lawson, allow me to let you in on a little secret. It sickened me as well.”
Abruptly, she stood. “Just go to hell. Just go to bleedin’ hell.”
Jesse watched her storm out of the building before he buried his face in his hands. Sighing heavily, he rubbed his roughened fingers up and down his face.
“You and Mrs. Lawson have a little spat?”
He peered through his fingers at Jean Lambourne, the elderly woman who owned the restaurant. Slowly, he brought his hands down. People were staring at him, but he didn’t think any of them had been seated close enough to hear any of the conversation.
“Nothing I can’t undo. How much do I owe you?”
Smiling, she patted his shoulder. “This one’s on the house. Married life just ain’t always what some women think it oughta be.”
Standing, Jesse placed his hat on his head and brought the brim down low. “ ‘Preciate it. It was a good meal.”
Once outside, he searched the boardwalks for a petite woman with a fiery temper and the slightest of English accents that emerged when she was angry. He swore under his breath when he finally caught sight of her, on the outskirts of town, trudging toward home.
Maddie heard the rumble of wagon wheels, the clip-clop of horses’ hooves, but she kept her gaze focused straight ahead, her step determined. Then she smelled the sweat of horses as they neared, and one nudged her shoulder.
“Get in the wagon, Maddie.”
“Go to hell!”
“Thought it was bleedin’ hell.”
“Bleedin’ hell, then. Go to bleedin’ hell.” She jerked away from the horse and quickened her pace.
“Was your father English by chance?”
Maddie spun around. “What?”
Jesse drew the horses to a halt. “When you get angry, you talk with a slight accent. Thought maybe you’d picked it up from your father.”
She felt the blood drain from her face. How could she have been so careless in her anger to forget that this man had made a living searching for outlaws, and would easily detect the small clues that would give away a man’s identity—or a woman’s?
“My family is none of your damn business.” Turning, she walked briskly away.
Jesse set the brake on the wagon and wrapped the reins around the brake handle before jumping from the wagon and walking quickly to catch up with her. He placed a hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off.
“Come on, Maddie.”
“Leave me alone.”
“I can’t do that. I know who you are now.”
She froze, everything within her screaming at another one of life’s injustices. She lived in a home at last and had a family with children. His knowledge would strip her bare of both.
Gently, he turned her around, cupped her chin, and tilted her face, wondering at the tears filling her eyes. “You’re my brother’s wife, the poor woman who’s been burdened with a jackass for a brother-in-law.”
A mischievous glint she’d never before seen sparkled within the black depths of his eyes. Relief washed over her, and she couldn’t contain the hysterical laughter that erupted from her throat. Then the laughter died and brought to life tears, flowing freely down her cheeks.
Jesse wrapped his arms around her, drawing her against his chest. “Maddie,” he whispered against her hair.
Sobs wracked her body. “I didn’t want to be a whore. I didn’t. I wanted honest work. I offered to scrub floors, to clean out stalls. No one would hire me.” A shudder coursed through her, and he pulled her more closely into his embrace. “I was cold and hungry and alone. I didn’t want to go into Bev’s. I didn’t.”
He tilted her face, his thumbs caressing her dampened cheeks, his eyes holding hers. “I know.”
“I’ll be a good wife to Charles. I’ll do whatever it takes. You’ll see. I’ll make him happy.”
Lightly, he touched his thumb to her trembling lower lip. “I know you will. Now, come on. We’re gonna be lucky to get home before nightfall.”
He hoisted her into the wagon. Wiping away the last of her tears, she watched as he moved around to the other side of the wagon and vaulted up, unwrapped the reins, and flicked his wrists to set the horses into motion.
“Need to take your hat off,” he said. “Something’s wrong with it.”
Reaching up, Maddie pulled out the hatpin. Then she placed the hat in her lap, studying it from all angles. “What’s wrong with it?”
Jesse dropped his hat on top of her head. “It’s not shading your face. You’ll have more freckles than Hannah before we get home.”
She smiled. The sweat from his brow had soaked into the brim of his hat and now cooled her as a warm breeze wafted across the land. It somehow seemed exceedingly familiar and intimate to be wearing his hat. She discovered she wanted to know everything about him, about his childhood, the life he’d led as a young man. Clutching her hat, she knew it wasn’t
his
life she should be curious about. “Tell me about Charles as a boy.”
He leaned back and smiled in fond remembrance. “He was a lot like Aaron.”
“Was he really?”
He nodded. “Everything was funny. He smiled all the time, laughed at everything. It was damned irritating sometimes.”
Her laughter took Jesse by surprise. It was soft like a flower unfurling its petals. For a moment, he didn’t mind that she was laughing at him. But only for a moment. Then he glared at her, his eyes little more than slits challenging her to admit the truth. “What’s so funny?”
“Charles said the same thing about you.”
He was taken aback by her answer, confusion clearly etched on his features. “He said I laughed all the time?”
Her laughter increased, revealing the flower in full bloom, and he wondered how he could have ever thought of this woman as a whore.
She tilted her head to peer at him past the wide brim of his hat. “No, he said you think things to death before you ever do anything. He said it was irritating.”
“A man makes a mistake if he doesn’t think things through.”
“So you think Charles made a mistake when he married me?”
He tore his gaze from hers and studied the road ahead. “I don’t know what to think anymore,” he admitted reluctantly.
She tamped down the joy growing within her. Once before, she’d misjudged his mood and been thrown back into the middle of the storm. This time she decided to tread more carefully.
She studied his sharp profile, beginning to understand the life that had brought it about. His facial features had been chiseled away over the years; determination and survival had been Fate’s tools, turning the soft face of a boy into the rugged visage of a man. A boy separated from those he loved, a boy going off to war, a boy trying to be a man. A man whose goal in life had not been a search for wealth or fame, but simply a search for those he loved.
“What was Charles supposed to have bought with your six hundred dollars?”
“Nothing important.”
“I didn’t think Texas Rangers were supposed to lie.”
He glanced over at her, a smile easing onto his face. “Cheat. We’re not supposed to cheat.”
“Lying is a form of cheating.”
His smile increased. “You’ve been spending too much time with Aaron.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “That was real nice what you did yesterday, helping him plant the flowers by his mother’s grave.”
Embarrassed, she did little more than shrug off his praise. “I’d like to know what you had planned for your money.”
He turned his attention to the horses. “Cattle. I wanted some cattle.”
She glanced around at the trees growing in abundance around her. “Here? You thought you could raise cattle here?”
“It was my father’s dream … to raise cattle. It’s what brought us to Texas. He passed his dream on to me as easily as he passed on his black hair and eyes.”
“I’m sorry, then,” she said quietly. “Sorry Charles didn’t buy your cattle.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. As long as you make Charles happy, I’ll consider it money well spent.”
The day before, she would have taken offense at his statement, but now she was beginning to understand his gruff demeanor. Part of her wished she didn’t. As odd as it seemed, it was much easier being in his presence when she didn’t like him.
Within the small parlor, Maddie sat in a wing chair beside the barren hearth, reading aloud. Charles sat at a right angle to her, his gaze occasionally shifting from her to the children gathered on the floor at her feet.
Jesse sat on the settee on the opposite side of the room, his nose buried in
Farm and Fireside,
a semimonthly journal. He listened to the melodic lilt of Maddie’s voice. He’d been lost for some time now in the varying moods she created as she brought the story to life for the children. He thought if one of his old prim schoolteachers had dared to reveal the emotions of the story with the subtle changes in voice inflections that Maddie used, he might have been an avid reader of books. Instead he’d been content to read wanted posters, memorizing the characteristics of outlaws and desperadoes. He’d learned to recognize what was written in a man’s face, his eyes, the stories he harbored within his soul that made him do the dastardly deeds for which a rope would one day bring his life to an end. Yet, as skilled as he’d become at reading a person, he’d failed completely where Maddie was concerned.