Widow Woman (24 page)

Rachel stood in front of the stairway landing's window seat, facing the sinking November sun.

She could return to her large, well-furnished room. But she'd come from there, driven by a restlessness that had ridden her hard of late.

She could go downstairs, perhaps see if she could do anything useful in the kitchen ... and face another stolid rejection from Esther, the middle-aged housekeeper who ran Gordon Wood's home.

The daughter of a white father and Indian mother, Esther had arrived with Gordon, and word had it she'd kept house for him as long as anyone could remember. She'd made it clear from the start she wanted no interference from Rachel in the running of the Natchez household.

Rachel couldn't much blame her. At the Circle T, she'd left the house to Ruth. Rachel wasn't ignorant, she could surely get by, but from the blinding white linens and spotless floors, Esther held to a higher standard than “getting by."

What Rachel knew was running a ranch, but her assistance wasn't wanted there either. When she offered, Gordon smiled indulgently and told her she no longer needed to carry that burden. She could do whatever she wanted.

Rachel sighed.

She wanted to go home, to the Circle T. She wanted to ride Dandy in a flat-out run with the wind in her face. She wanted to have Shag beside her, scolding and protecting. She wanted a pair of black eyes glittering at her in a quiet shack.

She wanted a lot of things that could never be. And she'd better get used to it.

She needed to learn to be content with what was.

Smoothing the wool challis of her fashionable wrapper, she lowered herself carefully to the seat. One hand went automatically to the bulge of her stomach, still unfamiliar even after all these months. The fabric under her hand was new and soft. The dress was one of the many indulgences Gordon insisted on providing her. He'd brought two from Cheyenne last month. This one for now; its flowing shape from the high yoke and Watteau pleating at the back accommodated her current shape. The trim-fitting red mahogany silk he'd brought would get her started when she was ready to venture to Cheyenne herself, he'd said.

She was lucky. She had a roof over her head. A warm house. A solid barn to protect her horses. A handful of servants to ease her days.

And an undemanding husband.

"Marry me, and we'll have the best spread north of the Colorado,” he'd said, the way he'd said it two dozen times.

But that spring day at the Circle T had come a month and a half after Nick left, bare weeks after she knew for sure what she'd suspected—she was carrying a child—and only hours after they'd buried Doyle Shagwell next to the worn cross that marked her father's grave.

"I can't marry you, Gordon.” She'd said that before, but she'd never cried over it before. He'd looked so stunned at the tears that she'd had a giddy impulse to laugh as she'd added, “I can't do that to you."

"Why not?"

"I don't love you."

He swept a big hand at the air, wiping away her words.

"Love's a whole different matter from marriage between a grown woman and grown man."

"I can't do that to you,” she'd repeated doggedly.

"Why?"

Maybe it had been the gentleness of the question that drew the answer she'd told no one, unwilling to burden Ruth now and unable to tell the one person it most concerned.

"I'm carrying another man's child."

He'd sat back in the big chair in her parlor at that. Not in horror, she saw when she wiped away tears, but in concentrated thought. After a time, the silence and the strangeness of the situation had slipped past the numbness of her sorrow.

"I'm sorry, Gordon. Truly sorry, to have burdened you with this. But I do ask that you not speak of it with anyone, until I've decided how to go on about this and—"

"The father..."

She met his stare, surprised to realize he didn't know who the father was. “He ... he won't be involved."

"Bastard."

She was nearly certain he meant that for the father, but the word made her flinch at knowing it would label an innocent life. New tears slipped down cheeks already raw from the salty tracks.

"Dry your tears, Rachel, and listen to what I have to say,” Gordon commanded, handing her a soft, white handkerchief. “Listen now like the hardheaded businesswoman I've always known you to be."

And he'd proposed again. For the last time.

All he'd ever ask of her, he said, was her ranch and that she not dishonor his name. In return, he'd give her unborn child a respectable birth, and child and mother a lifetime of security.

"We get on well enough. I won't ever mistreat you, Rachel."

"My people..."

"Will have jobs with me, if they want them. I won't let any of ‘em go without your say-so. You can even keep on with that horse-breeding nonsense if you want."

"But the Circle T..."

"Would become part of Natchez,” he'd said firmly.

"My baby..."

"Will be my heir. Nobody but the two of us will know it's not mine. I swear that to you, Rachel."

Security she would have denied herself. She might even have gambled with her child's security. But to sentence the child to a lifetime of being sneered at as a bastard when offered an alternative would have been unbearably selfish. She only had to marry a man she didn't love. She'd done that for her father. Could she do less for her child?

She'd accepted Gordon's proposal, and he kept his word. He married her, he presented her to their world as his wife and the child in her womb as his heir-to-be. And he didn't touch her.

She didn't know what she would have done if her bedroom door had opened one night and he had walked through. In the early months of their marriage, she'd spent hours lying in the big, high bed, willing the door to remain closed. It did.

Gordon lavished gifts and clothes on her, but not time. He spent that on the range and a good number of trips, mostly to Montana or Cheyenne. Checking his holdings, she supposed, though she'd never gotten him to talk about the business. She knew little of what happened on the ranch. He turned aside her questions by saying it would be a shame to trouble such a pretty woman with matters of business. That got her to back off as nothing else. She didn't want to stir that sleeping dog.

These later months, though, she'd lost that worry, for surely no man could desire a woman who looked as she did.

But as that worry faded, others grew to replace it.

Would she be a good mother? Would her babe be healthy? Would the birth go well?

Doc Prescott had agreed to come when the time came because he wasn't nearly as likely to be stranded here as at the Circle T—and because Gordon insisted with his wallet.

She'd heard the doctor talking to Gordon when he stopped at Natchez one afternoon in September to check her.

"First baby at her age may not go easy, Gordon."

"Her age? Rachel's not even thirty. What about my age?” Gordon said, then gave a booming laugh. “I'm near seventy!"

"It's different for a woman,” the doctor had said tartly. “I just want you to know. It may go hard with her."

The doctor said no more to her husband, and her efforts to draw him out had earned no more than vague reassurances that nature would lead her, as it had women through all time. She wanted to point out that the only place nature had led a number of women of her acquaintance during childbirth was the grave. But putting the thought into words seemed an invitation to disaster.

Perhaps if she had had another woman to confide her worries to...

But Ruth had moved to Chelico to live with her niece after Shag died, and Rachel hadn't seen her since her last trip to town, back in August. Annie Brett was not around either, since she and their children had gone with Arnold to Montana when Gordon put him in charge of a spread there.

So the only women around Rachel were the help in the house. And, while Myrna and Olive, the wife and young daughter of Gordon's underforeman. Bob Chapman, seemed inclined to friendliness, they were most often kept at a distance from Rachel by Esther.

Without a woman to talk to, Rachel would have given so much to have Shag by her side. She missed him with an ache that never went away.

She shook her head at herself. Wishing again for what could not be. That would lead only to thoughts of other impossible wishes, and other aches.

With a great sigh, Rachel rose from the dusk-dimmed window seat, pushing off with her hands against the cushion.

She thought her time might be drawing near.

While her knowledge in that area was suspect, she had great faith in the instincts that told her a harsh winter was fast closing in. Deep snow would make even a short outdoor journey impossible for her.

Finding her old coat, two scarves and gloves, she wrapped her round body as warmly as she could, slipped out the side door without encountering Esther and headed to the snug stable to visit her horses. This was a pleasure she might not have for much longer.

He had to know. Was this baby Rachel carried his?

And what will you do if it is?

Alba's question never left him. Nick had no answer.

The one other time it was mentioned between him and Alba in the seven weeks since his stop at the Texas Rose, her quiet words had only driven him further from an answer.

"She gave him the Circle T, now she's going to give Wood what he's always wanted—an heir,” he'd said in bitterness. “But I'll be damned if she'll give him my child."

"Hermano,
if she says and this Gordon Wood says the child is his, how could you fight them?"

"I'll find a way. I won't have my child tossed aside like we were."

Instead of recoiling from his harshness, Alba had given him a long, thoughtful look, then shook her head. “If a woman gives this man what he so long wanted, his gratitude should lead him to give her many things. If he has longed for a child as you have said he has, he should give that child many things. He is rich, this Gordon Wood?"

"Yes."

"Then he can give this baby much. Even if you win the baby as your own, what would you give this child in the end?"

He'd looked into his sister's eyes then, and seen an answer to her question. Shame.

Yet even that didn't stop the gnawing in his gut that said he had to know.

He had to see Rachel.

He told himself he didn't want to make trouble, he only wanted to know the truth. But he would march into the house and demand to see her if that was what it took. If his questions were overheard, if his demands carried an audience, so be it.

Instead, he found himself slipping quietly into the stable on Brujo, aware no one had observed his arrival. He delayed the coming confrontation long enough to pass along the row of familiar horses, to reward whickers of recognition with a rub of the nose for Warrior, a mutter of praise for Fanny. Until he came to stand at the open door, preparing to head for the house.

And then he saw her trudging toward him—head bent, muffled by scarves and poorly illuminated by the fading light, figure so unlike what it had been. Yet he knew her immediately, without question.

In fascination, he watched how she adjusted her movement to adapt to the burden she carried before her.

He couldn't gauge his reaction. Disappointment that the confrontation would come here, in the darkening, musty stable instead of inside, amid the comforts she had traded herself for? Disquiet they would meet in private, with no chance of servants or husband walking in to keep words and emotions in check?

He stepped back, waiting in the shadows until she'd reached the door.

"Hello, my lovelies,” she crooned softly as she walked toward the first stall.

She had nearly passed his niche in the shadows when Nick spoke.

"Rachel."

She jolted to a stop. As she darted looks around her, a sound like a half sob escaped her. Was it fear? If Rachel had been given cause for fear, he would find Wood and kill him.

The thought drove him a step nearer, out of the shadows, and she saw him.

He could hear her breath rush out in a deep exhalation. “Nick. You're here."

The scarf covering her hair slipped, revealing the paleness of her face without letting him read its expression.

"Yes."

"You're safe. I worried ... but you came back."

"Brought my sister from Texas.” How could a few words of concern, a searching stare from a pair of hazel eyes, close his throat as tight as a noose? “And a herd. I'm ranching on the Wallace place."

"I'm glad. Shag would—Oh, Nick, Shag ... Shag is dead."

"I know."

She nodded once. When she dropped her head a second time, it stayed there, and the sound he heard was surely a sob. Nothing could have stopped him from taking her in his arms then, not even himself.

"Ah, Rachel.” He kissed her hair, her forehead, her brow. Her cheekbone, tasting tears there. “Don't cry."

"I miss him. So ... much."

"I know."

He stopped her words of sorrow and pain by taking her lips with his own. He delved into the heated welcome of her mouth, claiming it with his tongue. His response was immediate, and powerful. He wanted nothing more than to press against her until he found his place in her.

Tightening his hold made him all the more aware of the rounded weight that she carried before her and that separated them.

Easing his grasp somewhat, he pushed back her second scarf so her face caught more of the faint light. Her skin had a new fragility, a paleness without its usual blush from the wind and sun. She had been kept indoors. For some reason that knowledge re-ignited the anger he'd forgotten the past few moments.

"Why did you marry Wood?"

She drew back, yet remained in the circle of his arms. “You left."

"So then you were free to marry him, to make your damned fortune.” Anger, great hot clouds of it, welled up in him, anger like he hadn't known even in the moment of seeing a man beat his sister. “I'd done my job, I'd served as stud and now you could give Wood the heir he'd always wanted."

She spun away from him, but he caught her flailing arm and encircled her, so her back pressed against his chest.