Dair paused just inside the barn door. Outside, Emma gently stroked Holt’s palomino’s muzzle as the sinking sun turned the sky above a brilliant orange-scarlet. Nearby, mourning doves cooed and at the other side of the corral, Logan’s roan gelding strolled in a majestic oval. This, Dair thought, was life. When the palomino did something to bring a giggle to Emma’s lips, the sound physically hurt. He hadn’t made Emma giggle in weeks.
Scratching the puppy behind its ears, he said, “Love her for me, Fluffball. Love her for me.”
When the dog licked his chin, Dair grinned and tucked it beneath his shirt. It snuggled up against him as he approached the corral fence. The puppy’s razor claws dug into his chest as Dair winced, readjusted the pup, then stood beside Emma. “Did you enjoy your party?”
She shrugged, didn’t meet his eyes. “For the most part, it was very nice.”
Dair’s fingers itched to touch her. Instead, he slipped his hand beneath his shirt. “I hope you think this is one of the nice parts.”
Her blue eyes lit like sparklers when he pulled the dog from beneath his shirt. Dair handed her the puppy, saying, “Happy birthday, Texas.”
She forgot to be angry with him as she exclaimed, “Oh! Look at him! He’s darling! Oh, Dair. You got him for me? He’s so cute. No bigger than a minute. Hello, you precious thing.” She nuzzled the puppy’s neck. “Does he have a name?”
The word “no” sat on the tip of his tongue, but what came out was different. “Riever. His name is Riever.”
God, MacRae, you are such a sap.
Emma laughed and for the first time since he’d introduced the others that morning, the hurt was gone from her gaze. “That is quite a coincidence, MacRae. However, I like it.”
The puppy licked her on the nose and she laughed again.
“He’s so sweet. So friendly. Hello, my precious.” She inspected him closely, then carried him away from the corral toward a hay bale where she took a seat, setting the puppy at her feet. The first thing he did was try to crawl beneath her skirts. “Definitely your namesake,” she declared, laughing. Then when he took a seat beside her, she gazed at him with soft eyes. “Thank you, Dair. Riever is the best birthday present I’ve received in years.”
“He’ll make a good lapdog,” he responded gruffly. “I saw his sire and dam. He shouldn’t get much bigger.”
Emma played with the dog until the sun went down and the puppy crawled into her lap, curled up, and fell asleep. Dair knew he should say good-night, return to the house, and go to sleep early. Tomorrow would be a killer of a day.
Instead, he stayed where he was, listening to the crickets chirp and the cicadas buzz. He was loath to end the moment. As the last bit of sunlight slipped away, he murmured, “I wish this day would never end.”
He felt rather than saw Emma’s smile. “I can’t believe I spent so much time wishing it would never get here. I dreaded my birthday with every fiber of my being. Had I known then how happy I’d be today—despite being mad at you—I’d have counted the minutes for it to arrive.”
“I wanted you to have a happy day.”
She stroked the puppy’s head. “It would have been perfect if not for the secrecy. Dair, I understand the concept of privacy, but you told me that these men were like brothers to you. Why would you keep our relationship a secret from them? It hurt me.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Emma. God knows, that’s the last thing I want. It’s just…”
“Just what?”
Dair propped his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, his head down. His eyes shut. “Let’s not do this now. It’s your birthday.”
“The sun is down. My birthday’s over. Talk to me, Dair. Explain to me why you’ve been so distant to me during the day and so desperate for me at night. Explain why you claim to love me, but at the same time shut yourself off. Shut me out.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Yes, it is. I love you, Dair. You love me. I know you do. I knew it even before you finally got around to telling me last night. I’ve wondered if the problem might be the difference in the way the two of us grew up, especially after seeing Sherwood. I grew up in a house where my parents frequently and flagrantly expressed their love for one another. If your reverend and Nana Nellie weren’t so demonstrative, I can understand that you would approach a relationship with different sensibilities than I. But Dair, we need to reach an understanding about this. I don’t want to live this way.”
He laughed without humor. “I just want to live.”
“What you mean is you want to call all the shots. You want to have all the control in this relationship. Well, that’s stupid, Dair. Didn’t I prove that much to you last night?”
Hell, he hadn’t intended to do this today, but maybe this was best. They were out here alone. It was dark. He wouldn’t have to look at her. She had the pup to cuddle. Maybe it was meant to be this way. He still believed in fate, didn’t he? Still, he thought about it long and hard before saying, “You’re wrong, Emma. I meant exactly what I said. I want to live.”
She waited, then said, “I don’t understand.”
“I lied to you, Emma,” he told her, his voice raw and gruff. “About the headaches. They’re not getting better.”
He shoved to his feet and paced back and forth in front of her. Emma’s voice quavered. “Dair?”
He clenched his teeth, dropped his head back, and let the pain of what he was about to do wash through him. It hurt so bad that for a moment, he considered lying to her again.
Then he looked at her and saw the woman he loved beyond reason. Ah, Emma. Beautiful, perfect, wonderful Emma. She didn’t deserve this. Didn’t deserve having another man to bury. Better for her sake if they’d never met. Easier for him, too, to go to the grave not knowing what it was like to love and be loved in return by a woman like Emma.
But life had seldom been easy for Dair and death wasn’t shaping up to be a breeze, either. He couldn’t lie to her. Not now. He had to tell her the truth. “I’m sorry, Texas,” he said, his voice low and gruff. “I’m so damned sorry. I never meant to…”
She stood and clutched his sleeve. “Dair, you’re scaring me. What are you saying?”
He drew a deep, bracing breath, then said, “I’m dying, Emma. I’m dying.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
E
MMA HEARD A
roaring in her ears. “Excuse me? What did you say?”
He repeated the God-awful words. Then he continued, his voice low and strong and honest, with a tale of physicians and tumors and a prognosis that left her numb and shaking.
I’m dying.
She couldn’t think clearly. Her mind was mush; thoughts had to fight to get through. She knew she should work up a protest, tell him it had to be a lie, but her tongue wouldn’t move and her throat was too tight to get out a sound.
His expression was somber, his demeanor serious. He was telling the truth.
I’m dying.
Oh, God. Emma shut her eyes. She believed him. It explained so much. The signs had all been there. The increase in the frequency of the headaches. The intensity. His response to her. The distance he put between them.
The desperation she sometimes sensed in his lovemaking.
I’m dying.
Dair started talking about the orphans. She heard his voice saying something about nuns and investigative reports and how he wanted the treasure to endow the children’s home. She heard the words, but she couldn’t process them. Couldn’t listen. All she’d heard clearly and for certain was that he was dying.
He’s dying.
Oh, God.
She should comfort him. How frightened he must be. She should be strong for him.
Emma couldn’t be strong. The man she loved was dying. Again. Leaving her alone. Again.
“Oh, God.” With Riever still cradled in her arms, she shoved to her feet. Nausea rolled in her stomach. Bile rose in her throat. “I can’t…I’ve got to…”
He reached for her, but she pulled away. “Don’t. Don’t touch me. Please.”
“Honey…”
“No!” She dashed away from the barn, away from Dair, away from the sound of his voice calling her name. At the edge of the inky dark forest, she stopped. Her stomach revolted and she leaned over and was sick. The puppy whimpered when her hold on him tightened. Horrified, she relaxed.
Sorry. I’m sorry.
She pulled the handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her mouth. Her breaths came in harsh, labored pants. She couldn’t do this again. She couldn’t go through this again.
Dear Lord, I’m selfish. He’s dying and I’m worrying about myself? Shameful. How shameful am I.
But she loved him. Oh, God, she loved him with every fiber of her being. Losing him would be like losing part of herself. He was part of her, the other half of her. For the first time in forever she felt whole.
Losing Casey had almost killed her. The pain sharp and brutal and agonizing. The loneliness had settled into her bones, into her soul. Until Dair. He’d brought life back into her existence. He’d made her sky a brilliant blue and her music an arpeggio of joy and her air smell like fresh apple pie.
Now, just when she’d awakened, the darkness hovered poised to descend once again. How can life be so cruel? So unfair? This was more than bad luck. This was a curse. A wicked, evil curse.
Emma stumbled along the tree line, walking blindly in the night until a three-quarter moon rose above the forest and illuminated her way with a silvered, ghostly light. Despite the improved visibility, her foot snagged on a branch and she tripped, though didn’t fall. She heard him calling out to her, but she didn’t answer. She couldn’t face him. She didn’t have the strength.
I can’t. I can’t I can’t I can’t.
She picked up her pace, pushing ahead, breaking into a run. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t leave reality behind. Finally, exhausted, she sank to the ground. Riever scrambled to be free and she let him go, then wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back and forth. She hurt too badly to cry.
As if from far away, she sensed when Dair joined her, when he lifted her into his arms. Emma turned her head into his chest and vaguely heard him whistle for the puppy. She was aware that he carried her somewhere.
A block of ice encased her. She was cold, bone-deep, bitter cold. Her only source of warmth was Dair.
Through muffled senses, she noted door hinges creak. Boots scraped against a wooden floor. Something bumped, fell to the floor and Dair muttered something. A curse?
Emma pried open her eyes, but pitch blackness proved it wasted effort. He set her down on something soft. Left her. She shivered with chill.
She heard fumbling, the rattle of glass and the scratch of a match. Lamplight flickered and burned, its yellow glow chasing away the darkness. Emma turned away, curled in a ball on a lumpy mattress. She rocked herself until Dair rejoined her, spooned against her, and pulled a quilt over them.
“Emma,” he murmured against her ear. “It’s all right.”
No, it wasn’t all right. It would never be right again.
She sank against him, drew in his body heat. They lay without speaking for the longest time. At some point, Emma slept.
She dreamed of a pirate chest filled with golden horseshoes, of a winged fairy with kind eyes and a gentle smile who watched over three little babies crawling on a quilt and cooing with contentment. Then a dark shadow blackened the sky. A dragon swooped in, breathed his fire, and her dream melted away, leaving a nightmare behind.
Dair’s lifeless body lay spread-eagle on a bloodred plain, arms and legs shackled to iron stakes sunk into granite boulders.
Emma awoke screaming.
“Shush, now. Calm down. Everything’s all right.”
But it wasn’t. Reality came rushing back and she gasped at the pain of it. “No,” she moaned softly. “Tell me it was all a dream. Tell me it isn’t true.”
“I’d give anything if I could, sweetheart. I don’t want to lie to you any more.”
She wanted to tell him not to worry, to keep on lying, but she wasn’t quite that far gone. “It isn’t fair. It just isn’t fair!”
“I know, darling. I know.”
He held her, shushed her, warmed her until she stirred enough to ask, “Where are we?”
“One of the old slave cabins. Johnny’s been sleeping here, but I chased him out, claimed it for myself last night.”
“Are the children all right?”
“They’re fine. Don’t worry about them.”
Emma didn’t have the energy to argue. At least she was warmer now. She wasn’t trying to think her way through a brain filled with cold molasses.
“You should have told me, Dair. You shouldn’t have let me fall in love with you.” It hurt too much. She wouldn’t survive the pain of losing him.
He was silent for a long minute. “Maybe. But by the time I realized where we were going, we were already there. Plus, I’m a selfish man, Emma. I couldn’t make myself give you up.”
“Until now. Why tell me now, Dair? Why not keep it to yourself until…”
“I’ll be honest. The coward in me considered it a fine idea. But I love you, Emma, and that means I owe you the truth.”
“It’d be easier if you lied.”
He laughed without amusement. “I don’t think you and I get to do ‘easy.’ Emma…” he raised up on his elbow and gazed down at her. “Will you agree to oversee the home? I’m not asking you to live here, but to do the hiring of staff, to oversee them and manage the funds I’ve established for them. The accounts are healthy as they are. If we find the treasure, well, you’ll be able to make this the nicest children’s home in Texas.”
“Dair, I…”
“You’re their best hope, Emma. Please?”
Emotion was a strangling noose around her neck. He was dying—leaving her to pick up the pieces. It was admirable that he worried about the children, but…dammit…what about her? He’s leaving her. Once again, she’d be poor old Emma withered and abandoned and alone.
She bit her tongue against the self-pitying thoughts and tried to be unselfish when in truth, her heart was breaking. “Yes. Of course. I won’t let them down, Dair. Don’t worry about that.”
“I wasn’t actually worried. I know the kind of woman you are. Now that you’ve met them, you’d have watched over them whether I asked you to or not.”