"I'm sorry," she whispered.
He lifted a hand and caressed her cheek as he so often caressed fine wood whose beauty required more than a visual appreciation. A soft light flared in the depths of her eyes, contradicting the stubborn jut of her jaw.
Intrigued, he traced her lips with the tip of a finger, feeling her mouth soften beneath his touch. He slipped his free hand around her waist and held her gaze until he saw the full extent of his own need and desire mirrored in her eyes.
He brushed a gentle kiss across her brow, but it wasn't until he captured her mouth with his own that he knew for certain that she still wanted him, even now.
He pulled his mouth away from hers and wondered if he could really trust his instincts. "Are you sure you want this?" he asked. "After knowing what I've done?"
"I don't know that you've done anything, Luke. What happened that day was a tragedy, but it's over. You've got to put it behind you. Behind us."
"It was a mistake for me to make love to you the other night. Before you knew the truth. Maybe that's partly the reason I pulled away. There was so much you didn't know about me. Still, don't know."
She looked at him in disbelief and wonder. Most men would have put their own needs before honor. Now the love she felt for him only grew deeper. She threw her arms around his neck, openly and freely, and this time he accepted her flamboyant show of affection without protest.
Desire flared into passion as he deepened his kiss and plunged his tongue into the velvety depths of her mouth.
Wrapping his arms around her, he pressed his heated body against hers, forgetting the legacy that forbade him to give in completely to his feelings.
He was ready, more than ready, to take her right there. Had it not been for Matthew, he might well have done so. But fearing that Matthew would awaken, he tore his lips away from hers, even as his body moaned its loss.
Matthew was a potent reminder of the dangerous ground he was treading on. "You better go to your tipi." It was an order, a plea.
A deep, abiding pain radiated from his loins. An aching need that was as great as the wide expanse of prairie outside his door.
She tugged on his arm. "Come with me."
"No!"
His loud declaration caused Matthew to stir, and they drew apart like two guilty adolescents afraid of being caught. Neither spoke until the boy had rolled over and it was clear he'd fallen back to sleep.
"Do…do you find me lacking in some way?" she asked.
"Dammit, Maddie! Do I look like a man who finds you lacking?"
"They why won't you come outside with me? Luke, listen to me. What happened to the doctor…it was an accident."
He shook his head. "Violence runs in the family. My father was a brutal man who was finally and, I might add, justly hung. You've probably heard of him. Lord knows, everyone else has."
A sudden wrenching thought held her in its grip. Tyler.
Gantry Tyler.
How often she had seen that name in headlines, heard it spoken at social gatherings. The name had become synonymous with all that was evil. There had even been legislation dubbed the Gantry Tyler Bill introduced in Congress. Her father vehemently opposed it. The bill, which was defeated, would have placed too much restriction on the way local law enforcers gathered evidence. Had it passed, Gantry Tyler would probably still be alive to continue his reign of terror.
Luke watched her face. "So now you know."
"What difference does it make who your father was?"
He looked at her incredulously. "What difference? How can you possibly ask such a question, Maddie? Violence runs in the family. Why do you think I was so worried when Matthew had those fits of rage?"
"But now we know the truth, don't we? Matthew is a gentle, loving child who gets angry and frustrated on occasion because he can't talk."
"That might be true of Matthew, but you have no way of knowing that's true of me."
"I know you're not a murderer, Luke. I know that much."
"If I thought for one moment that were true… Oh, Maddie." He touched her hair, her silky red hair that seemed to hold warming rays of sunlight even at night.
"Is that what the reporter found out? Who your father was?"
He nodded. "Once the word got out, I was no longer welcome in town. I only wish--"
"What, Luke? What do you wish?"
"That I could remember that night. Everything that happened." He looked deep into her eyes. "When I'm with you, It's so easy to believe that I'm incapable of murder."
"That's because you are."
"Listen to me, Maddie. There's no way any of us can be sure. It's the uncertainty that's the worst of it. I look at you and I see a man mirrored in your eyes I don't recognize…a man who's good and incapable of doing anything wrong."
"It's you who's mirrored in my eyes," she whispered.
"I want it to be, but I can't be sure. And until I am …until I know for sure what kind of man I am, I'll always feel that I'm giving you less of me than you deserve."
She inhaled, and her breath caught somewhere between her ribs. "There's no way to be sure," she whispered. "Unless…" A thought suddenly occurred to her. "What about Matthew? Now that he can write, maybe he can tell us something that will help put the pieces together."
Luke shook his head. "No, Maddie. Leave Matthew out of this."
"But he might know something…Please, Luke. It's possible, isn't it?"
"We don't know that for sure. In any case, I don't want Matthew to relive such a tragic day. He's shown real progress in recent weeks. I don't want to do anything that would prevent his progress."
"We won't let that happen, Luke. All I'm asking you to do is to talk to him about the day his mother died. Ask him to write down what he remembers. If he becomes upset, you can stop… Please, Luke, it's the only way that you will ever be free from the terrible burden you carry."
"I can't take the chance, Maddie. I'm sorry." He grabbed hold of her arms. "Promise me that you won't question Matthew. You've got to promise me."
Chapter 31
It was obvious the following morning that things between them would never again be the same. They could never again act neutral in each other's company. Knowing the truth, as horrible as it was, made her feel that much closer to him. She only hoped that the love they shared would be enough to conquer any doubts that Luke still had about himself.
She accidentally brushed against him as she reached for the coffeepot. Their eyes locked.
"Thank you for last night," he said. "For…for understanding--"
Luke didn't have a chance to finish what he'd been about to say, for at that moment Matthew threw his boot across the room. Luke's jaw hardened as he turned to look at his son. Doubt and self-loathing played their deadly games across Luke's face.
She lay a hand on his arm. "It's nothing. He's just frustrated."
"You can't know that for sure!" He spun around and stormed outside.
Maddie retrieved Matthew's boot and unknotted the rawhide shoelace. "You mustn't throw things, Matthew," she admonished gently. "When you're upset, you must write it down." She handed him his slate and pointed firmly to the surface. "Write!"
Matthew snatched the slate from her and scribbled all over it. He tossed the slate aside and gave her a defiant look. He was clearly surprised when she nodded in approval.
"Good for you. That's how you express your anger, Matthew. Not by throwing things."
She knelt on the floor next to him. "Matthew, look at me."
The boy lifted his eyes. She stroked his neck, starting beneath his chin and working her finger downward to the hollow at the base of his throat. "See if you can make a sound. Try it." She grunted to indicate what she wanted.
Matthew's body tensed as he tried to follow her lead. She gently pressed her fingers against the area around his vocal chords. "Relax now. Don't try so hard."
His face clouded in frustration. Fearing he was about to have a tantrum, Maddie removed her fingers from his neck and handed him his slate. "Write something, Matthew."
This time, instead of scribbling, he wrote,
I have no words
. He looked so devastated, she almost regretted that she'd tried to get him to speak. She wasn't even certain that her motivation was all that pure. There was no denying how much she might gain personally if Matthew regained his speech, how much they all stood to gain if he could tell them something that would absolve Luke's guilt.
"You have words, Matthew." She pointed to the slate. "These are your words. They are quiet words, that's all. But there's nothing wrong with quiet words. I have quiet words, too. Everyone does. Sometimes we speak with our hands." She touched his cheek gently to demonstrate. "Like Lefty and Flying Hawk and all the other Indians do. Sometimes we speak with our eyes. Look…" She gave him a dazzling smile. "Now you tell me what my words are."
Matthew studied her face and wrote a single word on the slate.
Papa.
She puzzled over the word for a moment. Then she realized Matthew understood more than any of them gave him credit for. "You're absolutely right. I was thinking of your papa. That's why I was smiling. See? What did I tell you? There are all kinds of ways that we speak to one another."
After breakfast, Maddie took Matthew with her and drove to Colton to check on the progress of the school. To her delight, the two-room building was complete.
"As soon as the desks arrive, you can start holding classes," Mr. Boxer said.
She was tempted to tell him to cancel the desks. She found desk too confining. Children needed movement, and she much preferred her students to march in a circle around the room while she quizzed them in spelling or multiplication. She was tempted, all right, but she thought better of it. Mr. Boxer was bound to find out soon enough that her teaching methods were far from conventional, and often controversial.
Later that night she approached Luke with the idea of making slates for her class. "Could you make them light in weight so that they can be easily carried?"
"That won't be a problem," he said. "When do you need them?"
"Mr. Boxer said the desks should be here in two weeks' time."
He looked surprised. "I guess progress has been made." When she didn't reply, he mopped his brow. "It's hot." He lifted his eyes, and she read the question in his eyes.
"At least the wind's not blowing." Her gaze inadvertently dropped to his mouth before turning to check on Matthew's schoolwork.
Matthew gave her a knowing look and grinned. She fervently hoped that the grin meant he'd finally finished his lessons, and that the look he gave them had nothing to do with the heated signals passing between his father and her.
"Did you finish your arithmetic?" she asked. She had spent the greater portion of the afternoon trying to keep cool and quizzing Matthew on his multiplication tables.
He nodded listlessly and pointed to his slate, which was on the bed. His face was flushed with the heat.
She sat down on the bed and checked over his work. "I do believe your son is gifted in arithmetic."
Luke tightened his jaw. "Something else that runs in the family. I read in the newspaper that after my father was hung, they discovered the walls of his cell covered in mathematical problems."
She let the slate drop to her lap. "Don't," she pleaded. "Don't keep doing this, Luke."
Luke walked out to the barn after supper, intent on starting on the slates for Maddie's students. By ten, he had cut the wood into strips for the frames and applied the first coat of linseed oil.
He doused the lantern and stepped outside. Overhead the sky was a mass of bright stars. But other than a quick glance upward, his attention was riveted on the tipi. He couldn't help himself.
Maddie was moving about inside, but it wasn't clear what she was doing until she lifted her arms and pulled her dress over her head. He'd seen her undress before and had managed to maintain his distance. But not tonight. For tonight the memory of her lovely firm breasts in his hand was too momentous, the memory of her lips too real.
A little knowledge may be a dangerous thing, but never had it been so defeating as it was at that moment. He could no longer resist her silent call.