“If I didn’t spend time with him, he would be alone all day. You certainly haven’t made any effort to be with him, to help him adjust.”
“Until tonight I couldn’t even put my pants on by myself. You don’t know Comanches, Miss Whittington, but I do. That boy’s been with them so long that all he wants is to go back. He won’t let anything stand in his way— not you, not me.”
“He’s just a little boy!”
“He’s Comanche now. He’d just as soon slit your throat as not if you stand in the way of his escape.”
“I’ll
never
believe that child capable of killing.”
“Then you don’t have the sense God gave a goose. I’ve been fighting Comanche and Kiowa for years. I’ve seen just about every kind of nightmare you can imagine. Do you know what he said in there? He cursed you and all your ancestors. He cursed your spirit to wander the earth forever when you die.”
“You understood him?”
“Enough.”
“Why, then, you can talk to him! You can help him understand what is happening to him and why.”
“I’m not speaking Comanche in this house.”
Bright spots of color stained her pale cheeks. Her breath was coming hard and fast, her anger barely contained. She had far more spirit than he would have ever credited to a spinster teacher from some orphanage school. In her anger, her loveliness was only heightened.
An unbidden image flashed through his mind. One of her straddling him, easing down on him, taking him inside her. He closed his eyes but failed to dim the memory of a throaty cry of pleasure-pain.
Impossible if she had been a virgin. What would she know of such uninhibited lovemaking? The dream must have confused her with Becky in his mind. No innocent woman would be so brazen her first time with a man, except perhaps one who was desperate enough, greedy enough to try to make herself unforgettable to him. A woman like Becky.
He couldn’t shake the notion that Kate had been part of his father’s scheme all along. Had she intentionally seduced him that night? He wished he had not stubbornly talked himself out of reading her letters.
The night wind whipped across the prairie, came snaking down the long upper hallway, ruffled the lace at the open collar of her nightgown.
How far would she be willing to go now that she was no longer a virgin?
A little cry escaped her when he grabbed her by the upper arms and roughly drew her against him. Before she could cry out or pull away, he lowered his head and pressed his mouth to hers.
At first she was stiff as a war lance. Her lips remained locked, her mouth a hard line against her teeth. Slowly he flicked his tongue over the seam between her lips, coaxed her until she thawed, and then he deepened the kiss.
Lost in her scent and taste, he slipped his right hand between them and gently cupped her breast, surprised that her clothing hid her full figure so well.
She moaned and leaned into him, then pressed her palms hard against his chest and shoved. Even in his weakened state, she was no match for his strength, but he let her go.
She stumbled back. He reached out to steady her. She pushed his hand away and caught herself. The pins had fallen from her hair. Now a long, rich strand dangled over her shoulder. Breathless, they stared at each other in shock.
Reed damned himself for wanting her again—this woman his father had handpicked for him.
Embraced by the shadows in the hall, Kate blessed the semidarkness. Although it could never erase her mortification, it could at least mask it from him.
Dear God, he had kissed her shamelessly, touched her breast, pressed her so close that she had recognized his arousal through her thin nightclothes. From the minute the kiss had begun, she had wanted it to last forever. She would be a fool to try to deny that her body had understood and answered of its own accord.
Outside the ring of lamplight spilling from Daniel’s room, she stared up at Reed with her mind and heart racing, her body aching to feel him inside her again.
Perhaps she had inherited the heart of a whore. Perhaps her blood ran hot because she was Meg Whittington’s daughter. Her wanton nature came naturally. Her need was definitely physical. Her heart was still pounding so hard that her blood rushed in her ears.
His touch had rekindled all the wonderful feelings of the night that had passed between them. His kiss had ignited the same fire in her, one she never realized existed before, one that made her want him again—even though she knew he hated her for being here.
She had opened Pandora’s box the night she had given herself to him, and now, no matter what she told herself, no matter how tenuous her position here, her traitorous body still wanted him. She could never take back what had happened that night. She could never go back to what she was before.
Nor would she ever forget. Now that he had kissed her, she knew for certain that not only her mind, but her body would never let her forget either.
She forced herself to think, to move, to act as she clutched the edges of her robe together at her throat. Her alternatives were to run like a scared rabbit or go back to Daniel as if nothing had happened.
She did not want to feel like both a whore
and
a coward, so she raised her chin a notch and stood her ground. “I am going to ignore your lack of manners, Mr. Benton. Now, if you will excuse me, I’m going to tuck Daniel in.”
“I take it you aren’t putting any store into my warning about him.” He offered no apology, not that she had expected any.
“I have my own convictions, sir. He’s a child, hurt, alone, confused. I’ll do what I can for him for as long as I can.”
“You go right ahead and do that, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Finally, after a long, measured look, he stepped aside and let her go to Daniel. But as she passed by, Kate realized it was not Daniel she needed to fear, but Reed Benton’s power over her body and her badly bruised heart.
16
Reed couldn’t get the taste or the feel of her out of his mind. He walked back to his room, found the letters Sofia had left in the drawer, locked the door, and then sat on the bed to read them.
Opening the first one in the stack, he noted the date, last October. Kate wrote in a fine hand, the letters even, the lines straight. He absently rubbed his thumb back and forth along the edge of the page as he read.
Dear Mr. Benton,
I suppose you might wonder what kind of a woman would answer your advertisement, but the truth is that I am wondering what kind of a man would place one in a paper so far from his home.
For twenty years I have lived in an orphanage in Applesby, Maine—first as an orphan, and for the past eleven of those years as a teacher to the girls who lived here before the place recently closed.
I will not lie to you about my background. My mother left me at Saint Perpetua’s Orphanage when I was nine years old. I feel that if we are to consider forming a matrimonial bond, that you must know all, so I will not spare the dark details of my past.
My mother was a woman of ill repute who sold her favors on the street. We lived together in a one-room shanty until she abandoned me on the steps of the orphans’ home. Now I realize I was fortunate that she chose to give me up, for I have gone on to live a decent life.
I write in answer to your advertisement because once, long ago, I dreamed of having a home and family of my own, but alas, I have let the years slip away. If our correspondence succeeds, I would be delighted to move to Texas, to begin a new life with you and realize my dreams.
Reed rested the letter in his lap and stared down at the written page.
A home and family of her own.
It seemed little to ask for when he saw it there in black and white on paper. Between the lines he found an explanation for the fragmented images that had haunted him since the night they had been together. If she had seen her mother with men, if she had witnessed the woman plying her trade in the one-room shack—or granting favors, as Kate had so politely put it—then although she might have been a virgin that night with him, she was a woman raised by nuns who possibly knew as much as a practiced harlot.
He thought about what he already knew of her, which was not much. She had a gentle, caring nature, but her stubborn side had shown in her determination to stay on despite what had happened and in her concern for Daniel. She was well spoken and educated. A horrible cook. Desperately in need of new clothes.
And she had kissed him back tonight, this orphan who had never left the orphanage except to come West, carrying her hopes and dreams and childhood wishes.
He read on.
When I lived with my mother, I always wished for hot food and clean sheets. When she left me, I suddenly had both, but not in the way I had dreamed. That experience taught me early on not to wish for too much. Fate has a way of giving you what you ask for, but not exactly the way you had pictured it.
If nothing else, Reed, I am loyal. I stayed at Saint Perpetua’s for eleven years after I was hired to teach there. Now I find myself twenty-nine years old, a little old for a bride, I know, but none the less, I am sincere and would honor an agreement between us.
She was a year older than he, but what difference did that make in the long run? He would be lying to himself not to admit that he found her downright striking. As he sat there thinking about her, he realized he had not seen her really smile since that first morning he had laid eyes on her. Nor had he heard her laugh out loud. Then again, what did she have to laugh or smile about now? Once again, fate had been fickle.
He recalled the way she had looked the morning she had walked into his room like a bright promise unspoken. The glow in her eyes when she looked into his that very first time had scared the hell out of him.
He had taken her virginity the night before, and all he could say was, “Do I know you? Have we met?”
Shock, disbelief, and then an incredible expression of loss had come over her. It was a shattered look that he would never forget.
After reading a few more letters, his eyes ached from straining to see by the weak lamplight. Too weary to stay awake any longer, he refolded the letters and then shoved them all beneath his pillow.
Reed blamed what he had read as much as kissing Kate for a night of tossing and turning. Up and dressed again by the time the sky was barely washed with gray light, Reed hankered for a cup of strong black coffee—the kind the spinster never served.
Careful not to make a sound as he walked down the hall, he paused beside Daniel’s door, took a deep breath, opened it, and looked in. The boy was still asleep but uncovered, lying crosswise in the bed. His bandaged ankle dangled over the edge.
He sighed and lingered, watching the child, this boy who’d looked at him through sullen eyes. There was no way of knowing what Daniel had endured during his early days of captivity, but Reed knew that once captives were adopted into a Comanche family, they were treated well. So well, in fact, that most recovered captives eventually found ways to escape back to the Comancheria.
Daniel stirred in his sleep and Reed almost closed the door, but when the boy did not awaken, he lingered, and his thoughts harked back to the night Daniel was kidnaped.
Sick of the constant battle of wills with his father, he had moved Becky and the boy out to an abandoned cabin on the far western border of the ranch.
Raids occurred beneath the full moon so often the settlers had taken to calling them Comanche moons. That night, a full, soft summer moon hung low in the sky.
For years before the war, Texas border lands had been more secure from Comanche and Kiowa attacks, but with the state’s secession from the Union and the withdrawal of troops from nearby forts, raiding warriors took advantage of the Tejanos’ weakened defense.
During the winter months, renegade bands would return to the reservations to live off rations, but in the spring and summer months when the weather was warm, the grass long, and buffalo plenty, hostilities would begin again. Like his father, he believed that since wandering bands were invited to take Lone Star cattle when times were hard, the ranch was safe from attack.
When he and Becky had argued heatedly that warm summer night long ago, he knew he would never forget the way she had looked at him, as if he were the lowest man on earth.
She was diminutive and beautiful, with dark hair and eyes, a woman who would seem forever youthful because of her size. He had fallen in love with her at first sight, had wanted to marry her despite his father’s protests to the contrary. Becky’s parents were farmers who had moved from Illinois to Texas. They weren’t dirt poor, nor were they rich. Reed Senior had wanted him to marry a well-educated woman with powerful connections. Becky was neither.
She had been insistent upon his taking her back to live at Benton House the next day. She had told him so in no uncertain terms that night after Reed had tucked Daniel into bed. “I won’t stay out here in this old cabin one more day, Reed. I won’t do it, and you shouldn’t expect me to. It’s not fair to me or to Daniel. We’re Bentons now. I grew up in an old, run-down cabin like this. It wasn’t what I had in mind when I married you, you know. This is no place to raise the grandson of a prominent landholder, the grandson of a man as rich and powerful as your father.”
She demanded he take them back to live with Reed Senior in the big house, but he had refused. She thought the old dog-run cabin on the edge of the ranch was beneath her.
“There are no conveniences out here, Reed. We don’t even have a well or a pump. And I need more help with Daniel.”
Because he still loved her, because, no matter what she said or did, he believed he always would love her, he didn’t remind her that Daniel’s care fell to him most of the time already.
“I know life out here is harder on you than it is on me,” he told her, “but I love the frontier as much as I despise my father’s attempts to push me into public office.”
“I think he’s right,” she told him, brushing aside his hand when he tried to take her in his arms and kiss her out of her dark mood. “You’re not livin’ up to your full potential.”
Pushed to the limit, Reed reminded her that his father’s opinion of her was not the highest. Becky assured him that no matter what he decided about running for office, his father would do anything to have them all under his roof again, especially Daniel.
The argument intensified until Becky finally threw a dish at his head. Reed ducked and came up laughing until she saw that he was not taking her seriously and became vicious.
“Don’t you laugh at me, Reed. Don’t think you can kiss me and make this all go away. If you think I love you enough to put up with this anymore, think again.” Suddenly she grew very still and coolly calm. She looked him straight in the eye and said without pause, “You want the truth? Daniel isn’t even your son. I’m leaving here tomorrow whether you want me to or not, and I’m taking Daniel with me.”
She went on to reveal, in stomach-churning detail, exactly how she had cheated on him and with whom. What she confessed to that night had been inconceivable, but there was only one way to discover the truth. He would take her back to his father’s house as soon as it was daylight.
They had fought before, but never like that night. Shaken with rage and doubt, Reed had stormed out into the dark, marched to the barn to see to the stock. He was furious. Everything his father had tried to warn him about Becky—including that she was a loose woman with the morals of a stray cat—backed up her claim.
As he walked out of the barn after securing shutters and filling feed bins, he noticed a brilliant red glow on the far horizon, and his blood had run cold.
The Comanche were on the move.
The closest settlers living off the ranch were across a far ridge, two brothers from Tennessee who had settled their families in the rich bottomland along the Brazos. Reed raced back to the house, slammed in the door. Inside, Becky was packing her things.
“The Williams place is on fire.” He kept his tone even as he strapped on a Colt, took up his rifle, and gathered ammunition. “I’m going to ride over and see if anyone is still alive.”
He would forever remember how her eyes had filled with fright, the way her skin had gone pale and ghostly, her face a pallid oval framed by long dark hair.
“Are you just going to
leave
us here?”
“You’ll be safe. Turn out the lamps, bar the shutters. Here.” He gave her one of his handguns. “That’s loaded. Keep it close by. Lone Star’s never been raided before, and it won’t be tonight. Besides, the Williams place is already burning, which means the Comanche have moved on. They would be here by now if they were coming this direction.”
She had raced around the table and grabbed his sleeve. He had to pry her hands off his shirt.
“You
know
what they will do to me if they come here.”
War with the Comanche had been going on nigh onto thirty years. Everyone in Texas knew what happened during a raid. Men were tortured, staked out, and butchered, women were raped and murdered on the spot or worse yet, carried off and forced into slavery. Some were made to take Comanche husbands. Some lost their minds. Those too weak to survive the trip back to the Comancheria were killed along the way.
Older children fared little better. Those too small to protest were quickly adopted, raised Comanche, and soon they forgot they were ever white at all.
He had known very well what
could
happen that night, but they were on Lone Star land. He was as arrogant as his father in his belief that they were safe. Like Reed Senior, he was convinced they were untouchable.
Truth be told, as he stood in the hallway now, watching the savage boy his baby had become, Reed wondered if deep in his heart something more than arrogance had made him leave them there alone.
He faced questions he had not dared ask himself since that night. Had he wanted Becky to suffer? Had he left her so that she would have to sit there alone and taste heart-stopping fear until he returned? Had he wanted to terrify her for all the soul-shattering things she had told him, for the doubt and disgust she had inflicted on his heart and soul?
Even now, years later, he couldn’t say for sure. He hoped to God he had not done it on purpose, but his conscience would haunt him until the day he died.