Beneath The Texas Sky (22 page)

“Bethanie.” His voice was low with passion. “Bethanie, say you love me.” His hands slid down her stomach and across to her hips. He turned her toward him, and she felt the length of his body beside her. “Do you love me?”

Bethanie answered without words, by moving into his embrace. Both his hands rested on her hips as he drew her even closer to him.

Her arms encircled his neck as he asked, “Tell me you need me. Tell me, my silent Bethanie, that you want me. That you’ve never stopped wanting me. Tell me that I’ve haunted you as your touch has haunted me.”

Bethanie could not speak. What he said was true; he had always been a part of her. She did need him and want him. He was the passion of her soul. Closing her mind to the fact had not made the need for him go away. Like a mother loving two sons, she had loved both Ben and Josh, but in different ways. Be it right or wrong, she loved them both. Her love couldn’t be measured like a commodity to be divided. She loved them each with all the love she had, with a total love for both.

“I love you, Josh. I’ve loved you from time beginning, and I’ll go on loving you as long as my spirit lives.” She kissed his eyes. “I could no more bolt you out than I could lock out myself.”

He made love to her then, with a sweet union of bodies and minds. All the pain and loneliness he’d known was burned in their fire for each other. In the quietness of their loving, he thought he must be dreaming, but with each new peak, he knew no fantasy could be so wonderful as Bethanie in his arms. As she had years ago in the cave, she said not a word to him as the night aged, but let her body speak the volumes of her love.

When light drifted into his room, Josh woke her with loving kisses. “Bethanie,” he whispered. “I’ve one more question. Will you marry me?”

Bethanie opened her eyes and smiled. “I’ll think it over,” she said as she stretched beside him.

He laughed and popped her on the backside. “I’m not letting you out of my sight until we’re married, so you might as well say yes or you’ll be kept a prisoner here forever.”

Bethanie moved beside him again and watched fire touch his eyes. “Does the guard serve meals?”

“I serve all your needs, madam,” Josh laughed as he pulled the covers over them, blocking out the sun and the world for another hour.

Three weeks later they were married by the circuit minister, with Rachel and Cain acting as witnesses. As the days passed a joy filled Bethanie’s already overflowing heart when she realized she had once again married while already with child.

Dusty Barfield pulled his collar an inch higher and turned his bearded face away from the freezing wind. He’d been riding the border of the Weston Ranch for twelve hours, and encroaching night was forcing him toward home. He knew Ruth would leave a meal and probably a washtub for him by the warm hearth as she had on cold nights for almost twenty years. Dusty nudged his mount faster as he raced the darkness. He was looking forward to a warm fire. If he finished the bookwork in time, he might even get a few hours reading in before sleep demanded its due.

A shadow moved along the horizon, halting Dusty’s progress and wrenching an oath from his lips. He swung from the saddle and knelt beside the carcass of one of the prize heifers he’d bought last spring to improve his herd. The cow’s throat was slashed, just like all the others he’d seen this week. Frozen blood covered her legs, telling of a slow death for the cow. She could have staggered a mile from where she’d been cut, and it was already too dark to follow the trail. The butcher would be long gone, having soundlessly knifed into the Weston Ranch.

Dusty stood and swore once more in frustration. He could fight any enemy in the open, but this senseless slaughter of his cattle was slowly unnerving him.

A sudden movement in the brush snapped Dusty
around. His hand pulled the Colt from his leg in a fluid action. His body went rigid with all attention following the barrel of his gun. A calf, not more than two days old, struggled past the bushes and waggled toward the corpse of its mother.

Dusty laughed in relief as he replaced his gun. “Well, looks like our knife killer missed one of my herd.” He lifted the newborn across his saddle and tied its legs underneath the horse. “I’ll give you a ride back to the ranch, and we’ll find a milk-cow that doesn’t mind having an extra for dinner.”

It was well after dark by the time Dusty found the calf a willing substitute mom and made it back to the ranch house. He knew Ruth would be asleep in her room, so he stripped down and washed in front of the fire in the main room.

“The old house seems filled with ghosts tonight,” Dusty said to himself. “Guess that’s why I built my cabin. It just never seems right to sleep here with all the memories.” He laughed as he realized he’d said his thoughts aloud. “I’ve spent so much time alone, I’m starting to talk to myself. And answer.”

Dusty shook his damp hair and moved with determination toward the records. He nibbled at his supper and worked over the books. Long after midnight, with only a blanket pulled around him for warmth, he stretched his long body out on the couch and fell into exhausted sleep.

The train pulled into Fort Worth for a few hours’ layover as dusk spread over the flat land like thin golden paint. Mariah Weston straightened her back, refusing to surrender to the fatigue that flooded her body. She was two months past twenty and woman enough to carry herself like a lady even in these dire surroundings. She was no wide-eyed child on a first outing. She had ridden
horseback, with her parents and four brothers, to San Francisco and spent a year traveling Europe in style. Her grace spoke of finishing-school training, but the strong set of her jaw could only have been Weston-bred.

She was not wild like her middle two brothers, or serious and bookish like the other two, but Mariah had her dream, and she aimed to see it come true. She’d always been pampered, as the only girl among four brothers. She was short by Weston standards, with velvet-black hair and dark brown eyes that could make almost any male heart beat faster. As she had grown to womanhood, she’d found herself constantly courted thanks to both the scarcity of women in Colorado and the common knowledge that the Weston mines were worth millions. She’d begun construction on a wall around her heart on her sixteenth birthday when an anxious suitor had declared his love and in the same breath asked what percentage of the mines she would someday inherit.

Mariah knew she would never be happy unless she was more than a prize some man won. She had the strong blood of pioneers flowing in her veins. She planned on blazing a trail few women had tried. If her aim was true, she would reach her goal in a little over two years and be Dr. Mariah Weston. Boston University Medical School had already accepted her as one of seven women to start the fall classes. Now, only one problem remained to be solved, and it waited at the end of this train ride. Her half of the Weston Ranch must be sold.

“Miss Weston?” A young man only a few years older than herself interrupted Mariah’s thoughts. Dressed in an Eastern-style suit, he swayed in the narrow aisle beside her seat. “You are Miss Mariah Weston?”

“Yes,” Mariah answered. Though she smiled up at the man, she didn’t miss Cain’s watchful eyes open slightly as he faked sleep in the window seat opposite her. She could tell from the twist of the old man’s lip that he had
sized up the intruder and found him wanting, as well as harmless.

The stranger removed his round derby hat to unleash a bushel of curly brown hair. “I’m Elliot Mayson, son of Wes Mayson.” When Mariah gave no sign of caring, he continued. “My father has a ranch south of the place where you were born. My mother died when I was born, but my father says he’s known your mother and father since before you were born.” He looked as if he were waiting for her to acknowledge his statement.

The train jolted slightly, swaying Elliot closer to her. He smelled of damp wool and dust. And, Mariah thought to herself, insincerity.

Mariah smiled sweetly as she twisted a strand of her coal black hair. She decided she would play along. She had been successfully fending off admirers since she was fifteen. She could have this dude for breakfast, and even Cain knew it, or he would’ve been at her guard like a hungry watchdog. But she knew nothing of the Weston Ranch, and this young man might be just the one to enlighten her on a few points.

“Please,” Mariah spoke, her voice as soft as a spring breeze even on this cold train. “Won’t you sit down, Mr. Mayson. I’m sorry I don’t remember your family, but you see, I left the ranch when I was two years old.”

Elliot’s head bobbled happily as he took the seat next to Cain. He frowned as the old man grunted, and reluctantly moved over. “Is he with you?” Elliot whispered as he balanced his hat on his knees and looked as though he were waiting for a camera to snap.

“Yes,” Mariah smiled. “Cain’s relaxed appearance is deceiving. I wouldn’t wake him if I were you.”

Elliot took the warning to heart and moved as far away as he could from Cain. “My father sent me a wire, as I started home from college, telling me you’d be on this train and asking me to offer you my gentlemanly protection.
I’ve heard him talk of the Weston Ranch and your father, Ben Weston, all my life.”

Mariah had to smile. The day she would need this greenhorn’s protection would be the day her four brothers disowned her. She might be petite, but Lord help the man who crossed her fiery temper or her right fist.

Elliot seemed to take her smile as approval and relaxed a little. He crossed his legs in a manner that, while not feminine, destroyed any hint of masculinity in his long frame.

In the three-hour train trip that followed, he told Mariah as much as he knew about the Weston Ranch, and most of it was bad. Elliot described the man who ran the Weston land as being hard to reason with. Though. Elliot admitted Dusty Barfield’s men were fiercely loyal, he said that Dusty would never work with Elliot’s father on any business deal, even when it promised to be highly profitable.

Mariah frowned when Elliot said he believed the Weston Ranch was in deep financial trouble. Though he admitted the past winter had been the worst since Austin settled Texas land, Elliot seemed to think all the blame lay on the ranch’s foreman and half-owner. He told Mariah of how Dusty wouldn’t sell his cattle to Elliot’s father and thousands of beef had frozen on the open range.

Mariah knew there was another side to Elliot’s tale. She had learned long ago that people who need to build themselves up by tearing away at others usually don’t stand very tall.

A few hours before dawn, the train pulled into the deserted station. The town was dark and unwelcoming. Mariah could make out a line of stores and a church. A yellowed campaign poster promoting John Ireland, “Oxcart John,” for governor waved in the wind as the whistle blew and the train moved on. Cain disappeared into the
shadows to find a carriage, and Mariah wished suddenly she had sent a message of her arrival.

Elliot Mayson continued talking as if he had nowhere to go. Finally, when he saw Cain returning, he bowed his good-byes and suggested he talk with his father about Mariah’s problem. “Perhaps,” he volunteered as he helped her into the carriage while Cain loaded trunks, “I might persuade my father to buy your half before the ranch goes completely under.”

Mariah nodded, only half listening. She had traveled this far hoping to sell her part to Dusty for whatever he considered a fair price. Though she only vaguely remembered Dusty, she needed money…her own money…fast. If the ranch was in as much trouble as Elliot said, maybe his father would be her only way out.

Cain rocked the rented buggy as he climbed in and took the reins. “That boy reminds me of one of them pastry things you gave me once in France. Real pretty on the outside, but full of sugar-sweet mush inside.”

“Elliot the Eclair,” Mariah laughed. She put her hand through Cain’s arm and leaned against him in a trusting gesture. “Tell me, Cain.” Her voice reflected the open honesty they had long shared. “Do you think what he said about the ranch is true?”

Cain was silent for a long moment. “I wouldn’t put too much faith in his words. Your dad died before I came to the ranch, but I figure if your mother married him, he must’ve been quite a man. I don’t think he’d have left this Dusty half a ranch if the boy was dim-witted.”

“That’s true.” Mariah nodded to herself in the darkness. “But Mother speaks of Dusty as a boy. He must be thirty or more by now.”

Cain drove the rented team with only the guide of moonlight. “Wait to make a judgment, child. As far as that Mayson boy goes, I wouldn’t listen too long to the
music of a magpie. Why don’t you try to get some sleep. It’ll be dawn before we get to the ranch.”

“If you’re too tired, we could stop for a while.” Mariah scolded herself for forgetting Cain’s age. He was too old to be traveling around the country, but her Uncle Josh never allowed her to travel without the huge, silent man. He was her constant guardian and often her only confidant.

“I slept on the train,” Cain answered as he tucked a blanket over her shoulders.

“Sure,” Mariah yawned as she closed her eyes. Cain probably hadn’t missed a word Elliot Mayson had said. She laughed suddenly to herself, thinking how her future husband would react when Cain went along on their honeymoon. When she had gone away to school, Cain would see her to the door, then be waiting when she got out for vacation. He had made the trip from Denver to Boston twice for her every year of school. The old man loved her brothers, but she had the feeling he would die for her without hesitation, or kill anyone he thought might harm her.

A golden dawn was breaking over the cliffs behind the ranch house as Cain stopped the buggy. “We’re on Weston ranch land,” he said emotionlessly as he touched Mariah’s shoulder.

She rubbed her eyes and looked at the wide adobe house nestled among a grove of trees at the foot of a cliff. A faraway memory drifted into her mind as she studied each building, each path, each tree. Mariah shook her head; she had been too young to remember much. She couldn’t tell if her memory now was real or only a shadow of her mother’s description of the ranch. She could see the root cellar where they’d hidden the day her father had been killed. To the left were the barns and bunkhouse just like her mother had described. Out front stood two huge elms where her father had been tied and murdered by the Indians almost eighteen years ago.

“Looks like they’ve added a wing off to the left of the main house since I was here.” Cain spoke as if it had been only a few months and not years since he had seen the ranch. “I don’t remember that porch swing, either.”

“Let’s go.” Mariah swallowed the lump in her throat. She was suddenly anxious to get this over and leave. She couldn’t tell if it was because her memories here were bad memories or if she was afraid to grow too fond of
a place she must sell in order to reach her goal in life. As they neared the house, Mariah set her mind on her future dreams.

Cain let her out at the porch and said he would take care of the team. Mariah slowly walked the steps and opened the door without knocking. This was half her house after all, and she planned to look around a little before anyone was awake. The element of surprise would aid her in more clearly picturing the problems.

As Mariah walked into a huge room, her eyes blinked to adjust to the shadows. She could see a study area with books and papers piled everywhere. A dining room was off to the right, with a dirty place setting abandoned beside a small mountain of papers. As she moved into the center of the room, she saw a wicker wheelchair pushed close to the fire. Clothes lay across the chair, and a watch was piled on top of the clothing. Curiosity drew her to the chair.

Mariah reached to touch the high cane back when something on the couch moved. She jumped in surprise as a man rolled over in his sleep. He was nude from the waist up, and a sandy brown beard framed his features.

Mariah moved closer. His hair half covered his sleeping eyes, but she could tell he was young, though several years past a boy. His chest was scarred in two places that she could see, but the marks only seemed to add character to his perfection. His shoulders were broad, but his waist and hips promised to be narrow beneath the Indian blanket across him.

The morning sun touched his body as if spotlighting him. She had been around men all her life, but this sleeping, darkly tanned man drew her close appraisal. Her gaze traveled slowly down his chest to where the blanket pulled across just past his navel. Mischievously, she wondered if the rest of him were as tan as his top half. Smiling,
she thought of how shocked her mother would be at her outrageous question.

A low male voice shook her to the core. “If you’re planning on robbing me, all I have on is the blanket. If this is a social call, it’s a bit early.”

Mariah’s gaze quickly traveled back to the man’s face, and she looked into the deepest golden eyes she’d ever seen. She stumbled backward over the wheelchair and almost fell. Her hand caught the watch an inch before it hit the floor. He made no attempt to stand and help her, for which she was grateful. Her curiosity to see the rest of his tan was not as strong as she might have thought. She pulled herself up to her full five feet. “Do you live here?” she asked, trying to sound formal.

“No.” The stranger’s words came low and slow, almost like a gentle touch. “I only fell asleep while working late on the books last night.” His eyes were watching her with an intensity that made her uneasy.

“How about you?” He winked. “You live around here…or just fall out of heaven a moment ago?” he asked as he sat up and ran long fingers through his brown hair.

Mariah’s bottom lip protruded slightly as it always did when she realized a man was making fun of her. Who did this bookkeeper think he was, sleeping nude in the main room and then questioning her, the owner?

“I’m Mariah Weston, and this ranch is half mine.” She handed him the watch as she talked, and wondered what the initials “S.J.B.” stood for. “I came to see a man named Dustin Barfield, who lives here.”

The man seemed to be in no hurry to call his boss. “You know Mr. Barfield, do you? Plan on helping him run this ranch?”

Mariah straightened the wrinkled pleats of her skirt. “Yes, I know him, not that it’s any of your business, but I plan on seeing him about selling the ranch.”

The stranger leaned his head back and closed his eyes as if needing time to digest her words. She studied him, realizing her decision could mean his job. Then Mariah suddenly realized the chair must belong to him. Of course, that would explain why he slept here and why he’d made no move to stand.

When he said nothing, Mariah sat on the hearth opposite him and tried to think of something to say. “I’m…sorry I fell over your chair,” she mumbled, hating herself for being so dim-witted. “Can I do something for you?” She hoped he didn’t suggest she help him into the chair, for he looked almost double her weight.

He opened one eye and stared at her. She felt sorry all over again that he was crippled. He looked so strong as he leaned forward and rested his forehead on his palms. His words seemed spoken more to himself than her. “You can tell me why after being here five minutes you want to sell this place?” he asked.

Mariah’s anger touched her words. “I don’t see that it is any of your concern.” When he didn’t fire back or argue, Mariah felt strangely guilty that she had snapped at him. He probably hadn’t been around many women out here and wasn’t trying to be unkind.

The man stretched, pulling his shoulders back into a mass of tight muscles. Mariah lowered her eyes but continued to watch him through her eyelashes. He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. She liked his voice, even now with the hint of anger in it. “Look, Mariah Weston, I’m not worth much after two hours’ sleep and no coffee. Why don’t I make us a pot and we’ll talk?”

“No!” Mariah almost yelled. She was thankful to hear Cain coming up the steps. “I’ll make the coffee.” She turned to see Cain blocking the door as he squinted, trying to see in the dim light. “Cain, will you help this man get dressed while I make the coffee?”

Both men said “What?” at the same instant, but Mariah was already halfway across the room. She guessed the kitchen would be on the other side of the dining room. She certainly wasn’t going to stay around explaining to Cain that this nude man was crippled. She could just guess what questions the older man might ask.

As she opened the kitchen door, she saw an aging woman by the stove. A pot of coffee was boiling on the fire. The warm smell filled the room with welcome as the old woman turned and smiled. “You don’t remember me, child, but I brought you into this world.”

Mariah moved closer. “Are you Ruth?”

The old woman nodded. “That I am.”

Mariah laughed as if a storybook character she’d heard about all her childhood had suddenly come to life. She crossed the room and put her arm around Ruth in an affectionate hug. “I’ve heard Mother talk about you all my life.”

Ruth placed her aging hands on Mariah’s shoulders and pushed her to arm’s length. “Let me look at you, child.” A smile rippled from her lips across gray-white cheeks. “My, my, you’ve made a fine woman. You have your mother’s nose, I think, and the Weston hair and eyes. I knew you were a keeper the minute I cleaned you up.”

Mariah laughed, feeling suddenly very much at home with this woman. “You should see my brothers. Mother had one son a year the first four years she was married to Uncle Josh. She named them after the first four books of the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They all look just like Josh, except the youngest. He has Mom’s red hair. The others tease John that Mom stopped for fear she might have another carrottop and have to name him Acts.”

Ruth pulled cups down from the cupboard. “I’d like to see your mom. She was quite a lady, even when she
was no more than your age. The day she walked into this place I knew both the Weston boys loved her.”

Mariah looked surprised. “You mean Uncle Josh loved her even before she married Dad?”

Ruth nodded. “They both loved her. But for reasons long buried, she married Ben. They were very happy when you came along. I thought this house would explode with joy. Is Bethanie happy now?”

“Yes,” Mariah answered without hesitation. Josh and her mother were loving parents. She’d grown up seeing the special way they looked at each other, even when they disagreed. She’d often thought she would give anything to have that kind of love with one man, and apparently her mother had found it with two.

“We’ll visit more later,” Ruth said as she handed Mariah the serving tray. “If you’ll take the men coffee, I’ll air your mother’s old room and draw a bath for you. I know you must be bone-tired. The bedrooms in the new wing have all been empty since Mike and Allison moved to their ranch, but I think you’ll feel more at home in Bethanie’s room.”

“Thank you.” Mariah nodded, remembering something her mother had once said about Ruth. The woman knew everything going on in the house and usually outguessed everyone’s needs. As she took the tray of coffee, she had no doubt Ruth retained her talent.

Mariah moved through the door hearing the unfamiliar sound of Cain’s laughter. She looked up to see him standing beside a tall man dressed in tight denims and a white shirt open down the front. Golden eyes turned to watch her as she moved into the room.

“I thought…” Mariah tried to stop stumbling over her tongue as the now wide-awake cowboy moved on sure feet toward her. “I thought…”

“Cain and I just figured out what you thought.” He took the tray from her and set it on the dining table.
“When I said the chair was mine, I was incorrect. It is half mine…as is everything in this house.”

Mariah decided to work on one new fact at a time. “Then, why a wheelchair?”

Dusty poured a cup and handed it to Cain. “The chair was your father’s. Don’t you remember?”

“No.” Mariah looked at Cain. “My father wasn’t in a wheelchair. If he had been, someone would have mentioned it, or I would have remembered.”

“Your father was a strong man. I guess the fact he was in a chair never seemed important to anyone,” Dusty replied.

Cain nodded. “I was hired just after he was killed. I remember a slanted side on the porch for a chair to go down.”

“All right.” Mariah pushed the offered cup of coffee away. The realization of how little she knew of her mother and their life on the Weston Ranch hit her like a blow. “Then if the chair is half yours, you must be Dustin Barfield.”

“Guilty as charged.” Dusty lifted his cup and drained half the hot liquid. “It’s really amazing what powers of reasoning a finishing school can teach even a bit of a girl.”

Mariah’s temper flared. “I’m not a bit of a girl. I’m a woman, and I’ll thank you to stop treating me as if I were a child. I’ve been on my own, doing what I please for some time now.”

Dusty’s words were cold and low. “I’ll tell you one thing you’re not going to do, Mariah Weston. You’re not going to sell this ranch.”

“I damn well will if I please. I happen to know that a Mr. Mayson is already interested in making an offer.”

“Over my dead body,” Dusty hissed.

“I doubt that will be one of the terms.” She moved
toward the far hallway where she had seen Ruth disappear.

Dusty slammed his cup hard against the table. “You’re not Mariah Weston. You haven’t got an ounce of Bethanie’s softness or a hair of Ben’s brains. I should have you arrested as an imposter.”

Mariah whirled to face him, her hands clenched in rage. “No, I’m not my parents. I’m me, my own person. I’m going to sell this ranch, take the money, and do what is important to me. This ranch may have been their love and home, but it’s not mine. I have my own dreams, and I’m going to see them through. No cowpunching clod who’s never been off the ranch is going to tell me what I can and can’t do.” She took a quick gulp of air and smiled at Dusty’s shocked face. “Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to take a bath and go to bed. You may not sleep here, but I do.”

As she moved down the hallway, she heard Cain say, “She’s a firecat, son. You best stay out of her path.”

Mariah stepped into the room Ruth was cleaning and heard the sound of Dusty laughing. Anger poured through her veins like hot wax. She was tempted to go back and give both Cain and Dustin Barfield a piece of her mind. She was not some schoolgirl to be manipulated at will. She had her dreams too, and she would not give in without a fight. The memory of Dusty’s golden brown eyes, alive with rage, flashed in her mind. She could see he wouldn’t be handled lightly either. Well, if it was to be a fight, then fight she would.