The Beholding, page 17
“Yessir.” Tommie’s tone was meek and repenting.
Luke nudged the boy’s chin up with his knuckle. “Well, a few folks might call that bad or mean. Others would call it an accident—the wisest choice. So everyone has their own idea of good and mean.”
“What ‘bout God? What do He think?”
“Well, I can’t speak for Him, but if He’s as fair a judge as the Bible says, then I’d say He figures whatever you feel in your heart ought to persuade His decision. Did you mean to leave Thammy and burn him up?”
Tommie’s head shook emphatically. “No sir, Mista Yuke.”
“Then there you have it!” Luke tapped Tommie’s shoulder. “The Lord knows that and doesn’t consider you mean. Now if you left your salamander in there on purpose—”
“No sir, I din’t.”
“Then it was just a plain old mistake. And God allows mistakes. There’s only ten rules you’ve got to follow for certain. The rest of them you can break once in a while, as long as you don’t mean to.”
“Whew!” Tommie breathed a sigh of relief that left him looking like a sack of half-packed flour. Luke hadn’t realized how tense the boy had been over the matter.
“You know, Tommie. That goes for us big folks too.” Luke felt scared facing the child with the truth. More frightened than when he had looked down the barrel of the fastest gun he’d ever drawn against or faced that slew of Chiricahuas in Apache Pass. Dreaded it even more than Olivia’s looks of disapproval. “We make mistakes.”
“You, Mista Yuke?”
“Yes, me, Tom. I made an awful one and it hurt some people I really care about.”
“You din’t mean to, did you, Mista Yuke?”
“God knows I didn’t, son.”
“I tell ’em for ya. I tell ’em you a good man.”
Luke had often heard the old expression “taking your heart in your hands” but never understood what it meant until now. For so many years he had no heart to speak of. Locked behind a wall of stone, he only recently learned that it could be loved and broken within the blinking of an eye. In the telling of a truth.
With my heart in my hands, Luke thought and uttered the words that might forever rip it from his chest. “It’s you I hurt, Tom. You and your mother.”
Puzzlement etched Tommie’s fair features.
Sweat beaded along Luke’s hairline and upper lip. “There’s no easy way to tell you, Tom. But I made a mistake and I’ll be sorry for it the rest of my life. Though that won’t bring your daddy back, will it? Forgive me, Tommie… I killed your father.” The facts of the incident came out in a slow confession but seemed hollow justification.
The green eyes staring back at him first denied Luke’s words, then widened, filled with shock, anger and hurt. It was the hurt worst of all that gripped Luke’s heart like a fist and threatened to make it stop beating.
A thousand questions raced across Tommie’s expression as the boy fought to decipher all that Luke had said. The bounty hunter saw the child remembering, rejecting, analyzing their conversation in his own limited capabilities, then finally drawing some conclusion.
The muscles of Luke’s body grew taut as he steeled himself against the boy’s fury, as surely as if he faced a hanging judge’s verdict.
“You tell my Mommie?” Tommie sniffled.
“She knows.”
“Her don’t think you meant to?”
“She says she believes I didn’t do it on purpose.” Luke met him eye to eye. “You ask her yourself. Don’t take my word.”
Tommie cupped his palm against Luke’s scars in the same manner his mother had on that fateful day in June. “I don’t think you did neither, Mista Yuke.”
Luke crushed the boy to him.
Chapter Seventeen
The smell of fryback and coffee wafting through the hole in the canvas greeted Tess as she woke. Her eyes fluttered open to a more delicious smell… cinnamon! Mr. Peabody promised something special to celebrate the boy’s recovery and he had kept his word. Cinnamon anything was Tommie’s favorite.
Tommie’s eyes opened and he sat up quickly. Though movement was awkward, he managed to stand. “You smell it, Mommie? Can I have some?”
Tess’s heart melted as pain darted across his small face, but he ignored it in favor of Peabody’s confection. “Of course you can, darling. Just let Mama straighten her hair.”
Hearing the two voices from the wagon, Luke stepped up to the back with a tin in his hand. A twist of steaming sourdough, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar, nearly filled his plate, and he had already eaten three. “Peabody said to take as many as I wanted, but gave me a what-for look when I went back this last time. I told him I was bringing them to you.” He set the plate down. “Morning. How’d you sleep?”
When Tess roused, Luke thought he’d trade his soul for the sight of watching her wake morning after morning.
“Mista Luke!” Tommie hobbled across the wagon to the bounty hunter and lifted his arms.
Luke opened his arms and the three-year-old clasped his neck without restraint.
“My leg feels better.” Tommie pulled back to face him. “You scratched me, Mista Luke. We better shave again.”
The rapt look softening the hard lines of Luke’s face caused Tess’s heart to tighten in her chest. There was no denying the love the bounty hunter felt for Tommie, nor that Tommie returned it. Why did she feel so envious when all she had ever wanted was a man to love both her and her boy? She suddenly realized that Tommie had said every L correctly. “You said Luke and leg! Tommie, you said them correctly.”
God, this feels good. Luke marveled at how such a little hug could make a man’s heart swell with so much pride. “He’s been practicing hard, haven’t you, little man?”
Tess started for Luke, then as she reached him she realized what she had intended to do. They stood inches apart, face to face, studying Tommie. Meeting each other’s gaze. A closeness stole over them, binding them in some indefinable way. “Thank you,” was all she could manage, but wanted to say so much more. Thank you for teaching my boy, for loving him. Thank you for coming into my life.
“It’s fun and he taughted me everything. Sometimes I git mixed up, but sometimes I don’t!”
Gathering her wayward curls, Tess tried to brush them upward with her fingers. The mass was too unruly without the strict bristles of a brush to master it. “What else has he taught you?” she asked, finding the morning too pleasant to be disgusted about her hair.
“Leave it down. It looks pretty in the sunlight.” Luke shared a conspiratorial glance with Tommie. “Should we tell her?”
“Sure.” Tommie rocked back on his heels. “I teached Mr. Yu—Luke how to fish for spiders.”
“Spiders!” Tess grimaced. “Where? How? Are there any here? Whatever for? Don’t you dare get one anywhere near me … either of you!”
Luke and Tommie laughed together. The bounty hunter stared at the boy. “I guess that just about covers it all, don’t you?”
“Mommie hates spiders, Mista Luke. I know … ’cause I catched one and put it in her bonnet. She scweamed and scweamed and scweamed. Then she whooped my bottom and I scweamed and scweamed and sweamed too.”
Tess wagged a finger at her son. “And you remember that, young man.” One look at Luke and the finger changed directions, aiming at the older of the fishermen. “Don’t go getting any ideas, Lucas Reeves. I may be faint of heart where spiders are concerned, but I have my methods for vindication.”
Luke spread a hand across his chest in feigned innocence. “You suggest I would do anything so devious?”
“If you thought you could get away with it.”
“You know me better than I thought you did.”
“Well enough.”
The teasing took on a serious tone. “Not as much as I’d like you to.”
“You’re the one who says there’s not enough time for such matters. I seem to recall you saying something about a job that would keep you away.”
“Ouch, the lady has claws!”
“And feelings, too, Mr. Reeves.”
“Now, Tessa, I told you why.”
“Yes, you told me, but I don’t have to agree with you nor like your decision.” She suddenly insisted the wayward curls do her bidding. When he looked like that, as if he would devour her slowly piece by piece, she could not remember why they argued or what to use as her defense.
“Why, Mrs. Harper, you certainly look ravishing this morning!” Charles Peabody sidled up to the opening in the back of the chuck wagon, nudging Luke over with a tin. Piled atop its rounded surface, cinnamon confections were stacked three layers deep. “This big galoot tried to eat me out of pot and pantry, but I see he kept his word and brought you one of my little doings.”
“Oh, he’s good at keeping his word,” Tess taunted.
Luke grinned. “The second best thing I’m good at.”
Peabody blushed before Tess did. “Well, yes, of course. We all have our talents, don’t we? Are you hungry, small one?”
Tommie squealed with delight and hurriedly asked his mother if he might have one.
“Be sure to thank Mr. Peabody.”
Though he had to scoot it out from one of the lower rows, Tommie grabbed the biggest roll on the tin. He yelled as his hand jerked back instantly, “Hot damn!”
“Thomas James Harper! You apologize this minute.”
His brows veed together in rebellion. “It’s hot, Mommie.”
“Apologize this moment.”
The boy turned around. “I’m sorry, Mista Pea Potty. But you made it hot as Hell.”
“Thomas!” Tess reprimanded again.
“Well, ‘at’s what Brace Williams said—not me!”
Luke chuckled and shook his head. “You better stop while you’re ahead, boy. Here, take mine. It’s cooled off. When these aren’t so damned… blamed hot, I’ll bring you another.”
“Can I eat ’em up on Talon?”
Luke glanced in the direction of the remuda. “Ask Jim if he’ll bring over the dun. But don’t go wandering off. This isn’t our camp, and you could easily get lost.”
“I be careful. Yet me down, Yuke.”
Luke lifted him up, then lowered him to the ground.
“Yook at all ’em cows. Must be hunnerds of ’em!”
“Keep your distance. They need to figure you out first before you take a closer look.”
Tess watched as Luke disappeared from view to introduce Tommie to the drovers still in camp.
“Indians!”
Her son’s declaration made Tess wonder how everything could be so exciting to him. Nothing ever seemed uninteresting to Tom. But then she supposed the world was new to him and everything held a challenge. She hoped that age and experience would never take that from him. Just as nothing or no one would ever take him from her.
“Take your time, Mrs. Harper. The men just came in off the watch and I’ve gotta get this bunch fed. We won’t be striking camp for another half hour at least.” Peabody stood there, watching her rise and stretch. He seemed enamored.
Tess began to feel uncomfortable under his blatant adoration and thought she would be less a spectacle out in the open where she could move about. She suspected he was the sort of man who did not pursue women. “Would you have a comb or brush, Mr. Peabody? I’m afraid I’ve lost everything but the clothes on my back.”
Peabody jolted into action. “Oh, but of course. How stupid of me. I have better than a comb or brush. I have an entire vanity tucked away in here. May I?” He pointed to one of the drawers.
“Certainly.”
The thin man wore a yellow vest with green-striped suspenders and a dove gray shirt. His red hair had been parted down the middle and was slicked back over two ears that put Jack and Jenny to shame. Blue-gray eyes contrasted sharply to his carroty-red hair. Peabody looked like a plume, dipped in various colors. He reminded Tess of those strange-looking ostriches from Africa she’d once seen being transported up the Mississippi. Peabody looked just as gangly … long-necked, long-legged, plumes and a beak of a nose.
Tess hid a smile behind her hand as he turned around.
“Here it is!” he proclaimed with satisfaction.
A small ornately carved box opened to reveal a mirror, comb, hair brush and hairpins, clothes brush and a bar of soap. “Thank you so much, Mr. Peabody.”
“Charles,” he insisted. “Please. And do consider letting me arrange your hair. I dressed some of the finest ladies in England.”
As the expression on Tess’s face must have warned him about the uncomfortable feeling his statement had stirred within her, he raised a palm to his mouth. “How uncouth of me. You Americans say things so differently. What I meant was that I’m long accustomed to styling women’s hair. In fact, I’m quite proficient at it. The only reason I no longer conduct the practice is that some brute of an oaf insinuated I needed a more masculine profession. That’s why I’ve resorted to this.” He waved a hand at the chuck wagon. “I wanted to show everyone I could do a man’s job as well as the next. I simply prefer hairdressing. Such artistic satisfaction, you know.”
“Think you could do something with this disaster?”
“Of course, my dear. I would love the challenge. But first come meet the men. If I keep them too long, Chisholm will have my fry pan, as they say.”
As Tess stepped out from the wagon, a flood of drovers descended near the cookfire. Before her stood a tail, lanky Anglo. From the stance he took and the swell of his chest, he too considered himself something special.
“Ethan Payne,” Charles introduced Tess to the man, “bid good day to Mrs. Contessa Harper.”
Tess resisted the urge to curtsey. Instead, she nodded politely and offered a quick smile.
“So this is Tess Harper.” The slur in Payne’s drawl said he approved too well. “Pretty as they claim.”
She was puzzled at the man’s manners. Uneasiness crept through her. Could he be someone from her past? There were so many. It was so long ago. Was he the one who had compromised her? If only she had seen the attacker’s face!
Needing to back away from the fretful questions darting through her mind, Tess asked the identity of the young wrangler who took care of their mounts.
“Brace Williams,” Charles informed her. “Fourteen and feisty as General Sherman.”
“You sure are beautiful!” Brace complimented. “Do all women from Fort Smith look so pretty? Will any more be along soon? How do you manage to pin up all that hair? It didn’t look so long last night.”
“Brace!” Charles placed a restraining arm about the boy. “Ask Mrs. Harper one question at a time … later. After she’s eaten.”
Several of the men offered her a place to sit, but Tess took her meal near the wheel of the chuck wagon. All eyes seemed to watch her every move, and she found it difficult to lift the spoon to her mouth without feeling someone’s attention following the path from tin to lips.
“I’m not hungry now.” She offered the half-eaten meal to Peabody. “Perhaps I can save a biscuit for later.”
“Then if you’d like, I’ll tend to your hair while the others finish their meal.”
Luke’s breakfast churned in his stomach as he watched the Englishman scoop up the brush and move behind Tess to tend to her hair. The man’s hands were big for such a small fellow and worked the snarls from Tess’s long, sun-kissed curls with ease. When Tess sighed with pleasure and relaxed beneath Peabody’s efforts, Luke felt his own muscles grow taut and strung like a bow.
His eyes narrowed as he watched her accept the man’s intimacy and let the stranger draw the brush delicately through her strands, easing out the tangles.
“You’re as good as you say,” Tess complimented.
Luke wondered what else he was good at and when the hell they had time to discuss such things.
“I’m recommended highly by the ladies of the court.”
“You did it for them?”
“Each and every one.”
Luke grumbled. When Tess opened her eyes to stare at him, he glared back with a sour face. “Excuse me.”
“It must be very difficult being away from them.” She softly touched Peabody’s hand in sympathy, stopping the brush on a downward stroke.
Anger crept through Luke. He knew that touch well. Did she offer it so easily to everyone? As the Englishman lifted a fistful of her thick hair and let it cascade into a golden waterfall, desire twisted through Luke. He could almost smell the fresh lavender fragrance, feel its silken thickness. His fingertips itched to touch her.
Tess shivered visibly as the man swept her hair up off her neck and bared the nape.
“Rapunzel had hair like this,” Peabody informed her, brushing strands of gold upward and pinning them. “The color of sunrise. Soft as down. Rarely have I touched anything quite so beautiful.”
Fighting the temptation to cram that brush down the Briton’s throat, Luke reminded himself that Peabody was only brushing her hair, not making love to Tess. But as the Englishman’s long fingers eased beneath the heavy strands and skimmed over the curve of her neck, they seemed to trace the hairline with a caress.
Jealousy, green and raging, reared its head. There’s only one way to stop this. To hell with what the others think. Luke strode over to the small man and deliberately looked imposing, placing both fists on his hips and willing himself to tower even more than he already did.
“Do you n-need something, Mr. Reeves?” Peabody stared up at the foreboding man. The cook swallowed hard and his Adam’s apple felt as if it stuck.
“Show me how to do what you’re doing.” Luke’s voice was so low that few others could hear, yet it held a definite growl.
Without breaking the rhythm, Luke took the brush and completed the stroke Peabody had started. As he brushed with slow, gentle movements, a sense of satisfaction spread through him when Tess sighed and relaxed.
“That feels good.”
Running his hand lightly through her hair, Luke leaned close. “Sure does.”
