Thunder on the Plains (58 page)

Colt put a hand to his head. “Just go, Sunny. Leave me alone.” He heard the sound of weeping, heard Dancer whinny lightly and then trot away. He went down on one knee and bent his head. “God help me know what to do,” he groaned. “A son. I have a son.”

Mae answered the knock at the door, opening it to see two guards outside. “Deputy Colt Travis is here to see Mrs. O'Brien,” one of them said. “Is it all right?”

“Oh, yes! Miss Sunny is expecting him.”

The guard frowned curiously and stepped aside, nodding for Colt to enter. Mae stood aside, staring at Colt, who removed his hat. “Mae, isn't it?” he asked.

She blushed, glad for Sunny's sake that he had come. She knew how Sunny felt about this man, knew he was Bo's father. “Yes, sir. Come right in.”

“That's some welcome committee Sunny's got,” he said, sounding a little irritated.

“A necessary inconvenience, Miss Sunny says. When you're as rich as she is, and you're traveling with a child who could be held for ransom, you have to take precautions.”

Again Sunny's staggering fortune seemed almost overwhelming to Colt. “Yes, I suppose,” he answered. “It's pretty bad when even a deputy sheriff has to have permission to come visiting.”
Especially
when
it's to see his own son
, he thought. Mae closed the door, and Colt glanced around, wondering if there was a chair in the parlor car that wasn't too good for him to sit on.

“Miss Sunny will be right out. She's changing the baby. Have you eaten, Mr. Travis?”

“I'm fine. I, uh, could use a drink though. You have any of that good whiskey Sunny usually keeps around?”

“I'll go and get some. Please sit down wherever you like.” Mae hurried to the forward section of the car, which Colt guessed contained a small kitchen. This car was bigger than the last one of Sunny's he had been in, and even fancier, the walls and ceiling made completely of oak, carvings of trees and flowers in the ceiling that were highlighted by gold etching. The curtains at the windows were a pale yellow, and the same color dominated the designs in the upholstery of the Victorian furnishing and in the flowered carpeting. A gilt-framed painting of mountains hung on one wall, another painting of a Union Pacific locomotive on another, a picture that closely resembled the huge painting Colt had seen in Sunny's Chicago office, but smaller. He tried to remember how long ago he had been there. Was it '61 or '62? It seemed incredible they had moved in and out of each other's lives over so many years.

He still wore his denim pants and knee-high boots, but had changed his shirt to a simple white one with a black string tie. He wore a new black felt hat, had bathed and shaved but decided not to dress up any more than usual. He had decided not to be anything but himself for this first meeting with his son. He had left his six-gun at the sheriff's office, deciding not to wear it around the baby. He had told Rex Andrews he would explain later why he couldn't be on duty tonight, although he wondered how in hell he was going to tell the man he had sired a son by Sunny Landers O'Brien, just about the richest woman in the country. It would probably take Rex, who had become a good friend, a week to stop laughing before he realized Colt was not joking.

He heard a baby giggle, and his heart nearly skipped a beat. He removed his hat and sat down on a silk love seat, thinking how he hated fancy furniture. A moment later Sunny came out, holding a handsome baby boy in her arms. “Hello, Colt,” she said softly. “Mae said you were here.”

She could see he had eyes only for the baby, and she smiled sadly. “This is little Beauregard Stuart O'Brien. If you want, I can have his last name changed to Travis. It can be legally done.”

Colt slowly rose, his eyes glued to the boy. Bo was wearing short pants and knee-high stockings with high-button shoes and a little dress shirt with a striped jacket. His nearly black hair was oiled and combed to the side. He stared at Colt with wide hazel eyes set against very brown skin, and he suddenly smiled, reaching out for Colt as though he sensed exactly who he was.

“You see what I mean about having no fear of strangers?” Sunny said, handing him over.

Colt reached out hesitantly, and the boy came right to him, putting chubby arms around his neck. “My God,” Colt said softly, burying his face in the child's neck.

Tears formed in Sunny's eyes at the sight. She had done so many wrong things, but now she could give Colt a little bit of joy through this child. She knew how he had suffered over the loss of his baby son to the Pawnee, something that had left a lasting emptiness in his soul, as it would any man. “Would you like me to leave you alone with him?” she asked.

Colt could not reply at first. He simply shook his head, sitting down with the boy and quickly wiping his eyes. He set Bo out on his knee and looked him over, studying his perfect complexion, thinking how he resembled many Indian babies he had seen, grinning at the boy's dimples and the way he giggled when Colt bounced him lightly on his knee. He touched his hair, his face, his arms, held his chubby hands. Yes, this was his son all right. All anyone had to do was look at him to know that. He took a deep breath and cleared his throat before speaking. “What the hell kind of a way is this to dress a kid?” he asked. “He looks like he's ready to go to the office with you.”

Sunny grinned. “I suppose you would rather he wore little buckskins?”

“Sounds more fitting to me, considering his looks.”

Sunny was relieved to see him finally grinning. Mae came in with a silver tea tray that carried a teapot and cup, with a few slices of cheese and bread, as well as Colt's whiskey. “Thank you, Mae. Maybe you should go and stay with Stuart and Vi so we can be alone,” Sunny suggested. “I'll call for you when I need you.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Mae answered, secretly hoping she didn't hear another thing from Sunny for the rest of the night. She quietly left, grinning to herself. She had grown to love Sunny, felt fury at the thought of Blaine O'Brien beating her like he had.
I'll bet Colt Travis would never beat a woman
, she thought as she went out.

“He's beautiful,” Colt was telling Sunny as she poured him a shot of whiskey. “I can see he has a lot of your personality too. I imagine you're a good mother. You have the heart for it.”

A warmth moved through Sunny at the words, along with the pain of knowing how she had hurt him. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

Colt looked at her, noticing she was not wearing the fancy black velvet dress she had worn earlier. She was dressed in a plain blue cotton dress and wore no jewelry except small pearl earrings. She wore little makeup, and her hair was brushed out in long, thick tresses. To him she was prettiest this way, although whatever she wore, there was always an air of elegance to her composure. His eyes moved over her in a way that gave Sunny a new feeling of warmth, new hope. She saw no hate there. “You look nice tonight,” he told her. “I always liked you better in simple clothes.”

Her face felt suddenly hot. “Thank you again.” She handed him the whiskey, and their fingers touched when he took it. She quickly looked away and poured herself some tea while Colt downed the whiskey and set the shot glass back on the tray. He stood then, picking up Bo and holding him high so that the baby laughed, then he nuzzled the baby's neck again.

“God, Sunny, you don't know how many times I wondered what my Ethan would have been like at this age, dreamed about how it would be teaching him how to do things as he got older, taking him hunting, teaching him to ride. I want to do all those things with Bo.”

“You can do whatever you want. I told you that was how it would be. Wherever you are, I can bring him out to you for a week every month, or a summer. If you like, you can live in Omaha and see him as often as you like. I think I'd prefer raising him there rather than Chicago or New York. In Omaha he'll be closer to the land you love. I'll have to make monthly trips to New York. You can spend all the time you want with him the times I'm gone. I would never give you a problem about how much you want to see him.”

He met her eyes, and she thought he looked at her rather strangely. She wished his once-gentle eyes were not so unreadable now. She thought she saw some of the old love there, but then, maybe that was just wishful thinking.

“I, uh, I haven't decided yet how to handle that part of it,” he told her. “I
would
like him to carry my name though. And I'd like to be in on any major decisions that involve him, including anything to do with when he inherits certain things, when he takes responsibilities, where he goes to college, things like that. And I don't want Vince to have anything to do with his upbringing.”

“Fine.” Sunny drank some tea and ate a piece of cheese while Colt continued to play with the baby, wrestling with him, letting Bo think he was stronger, tickling the infant, glorying in the sound of his giggling. They played so hard that when Colt finally got up and took a chair, holding the boy on his lap, Bo lay his head against his father's chest and was quickly asleep. Sunny sat quietly and said nothing, letting Colt hold his son and stroke his hair gently.

“It's like he knows,” he finally said.

“I think maybe he does,” Sunny answered. “Here, I'll take off his shoes and we can put him down. I'll just let him fall asleep in his clothes.” She knelt in front of Colt and unbuttoned the baby's shoes and pulled them off, as well as his long stockings. “Bring him back here.”

Colt rose, hugging the boy close and following her into a narrow hallway along one side of the car.

“That door at the end of the hall goes to our private kitchen,” Sunny told him. “The other door on the side here is Mae's room and this is my room. I keep Bo's crib in here.” She opened a door and went inside a small but luxurious room that contained a four-poster with lace curtains all around the canopy and a blue satin bedspread. Everything in the room was blue, with a dash of yellow. Sunny lifted a blanket from the crib and Colt laid the boy on his belly. Sunny covered him. “It always surprises me how cold it gets out here in this arid land at night,” she said quietly, “no matter how warm the days are.”

“No trees to hold the warmth and no humidity,” Colt answered.

“I always remembered that from that first trip west,” she said, turning to leave. Colt caught her shoulders.

“Sunny—”

“Please, let's get out of here, Colt.”

“Why?”

She looked up at him, fire ripping through her at being so close to him in this room of all places. “You know why,” she whispered.

“Because you think I don't love you? I might be damn mad, Sunny, but I never stopped loving you.” His voice was tender, the words spoken softly to keep from disturbing Bo. “I spent most of the day by that creek, Sunny, thinking about all this. I don't want to be a part-time father. I want to be with my son all the time, and I want to be with
you
all the time. We both made a serious mistake letting other things come between us the last time, and I wanted so much to hate you. But part of this is my fault, too, and when I saw you standing there, holding my son—”

She turned her face away, tried to pull away from him, but Colt held her fast. “You said you still loved me, Sunny. I was ready to do it like you said, have visitation rights and all, but I want us to be a real family. I lost one family. I don't want to lose another.”

“You're saying that because of Bo. It isn't me you want—”

“It
is
you I want! I didn't want to admit it, but I can't leave it this way, Sunny.”

“Don't use me, Colt,” she whispered. “I don't want you to think of me like my mother.”

He held her arms tightly and lightly shook her. “
Stop
it, Sunny!” He said in an angry whisper. “I don't ever want to hear you talk about yourself that way again! You're Sunny Landers, a beautiful, good woman in your own right.”

She raised her eyes to meet his own, thinking how wonderful he looked by the light of a dim lantern she kept in the room so Bo wouldn't wake up to darkness. She wondered how a man could get more handsome as he got older, wondered how, after twelve years, she could still feel the way she did that night she left him at Fort Laramie, so full of love and fire.

Colt traced a finger over the scar on her cheek. “I would never, never hurt you like this,” he told her. “I love you, Sunny, much as those words have gotten me into a hell of a lot of trouble in the past. I feel like I'm taking a hell of a risk, but I'm not letting you get away this time.”

She studied his eyes, so afraid to believe. “You wouldn't lie to me, would you, Colt? You wouldn't deliberately fool me just to hurt me? I know how much I hurt you.”

He felt her trembling. “You know me better than that. All I want is for us to be a family, the way it should be. When I think how fast the last twelve years went by—twelve
wasted
years—” He shook his head. “Life's too short, Sunny, to spend it worrying about how to hurt each other more.”

She clung to his shirt. “After all we've been through, it scares me to think about trying again.”

He smiled softly. “You think
I'm
not scared? I'd rather face those cattlemen again, maybe even go back to war. I'm probably headed for a new kind of war, but I can handle the enemy, Sunny. That's where you have to trust me.”

She reached up and touched the scar over his eye, put there by the Pawnee so many years before. He had fought them in revenge for his wife and son's deaths. “Yes,” she answered. “I believe you
can
handle any enemy you face, even the kind in silk suits and top hats.” Her eyes teared. “Do you have any idea how much I love you? I'm so sorry for all of it, all the years I fought my feelings for you.”

“I was just as guilty there.”

He was so close. How could their lips not touch? How could the passion not still be there when they did? His kiss was deep and lingering, from a man hungry for the only woman who could truly satisfy him. He backed her to the bed, searching her mouth as he gently laid her back. His kisses grew hotter, his whole body more urgent.