The Beholding, page 29
“You didn’t love me, Contessa,” Jim accused, moving toward her. “That’s all I’ve ever asked of you, and you wouldn’t even do that.”
She shrank away, refusing his touch. Anger flared within him and he grabbed her. “Don’t ever move away from me again, do you hear? If you do, that boy won’t have a mama to see him grown.”
Tess backed away from his advance. “What do you intend to do?”
Jim’s face drew closer until his breath fanned her face. “I’m going to give you a choice, Contessa. Either you marry me and I’ll tear up these papers you so unwisely copied for Clifton, or I’ll turn them over to Sheriff Mason and let him decide if you were really only learning to read and write when you copied them. But after I tell him about the Hot Springs scams, somehow I don’t think he’s going to look too favorably on that possibility.”
“Why would you want me to marry you when you know how I feel about Luke?” Tess hated the feel of his hands upon her flesh. She struggled in his arms, but he wouldn’t let go. His fingers clutched tighter, bruising.
“I should have killed him back on the trail like I’d planned.”
“You shot him?”
“Blue Hawk got in the plug, not me. But I could have. Just didn’t choose to. Thought you’d think better of me if I looked like a hero. But that wasn’t good enough for you. There was no getting you to love me. So I’m going to have to make you do it.”
“Why me, Jim? Plenty of others would gladly have you.”
“Sure they would. But none of them feel the way you do. Ever since that night I made love to you …” He paused, then his grip tightened as her body went rigid with realization.
“Made love to me?” Only three men had ever touched her body—Clifton, Luke and the man who…. “Dear God, you raped me!” A thousand curses filled her mind as she began to fight, a scream tearing from her lips. Jim attempted to cup Tess’s mouth with his palm. The possibility that Jim might be Tommie’s father sickened her. She fought harder, jabbing her elbow into his stomach, kicking at his shins.
“You made me second choice even then, Contessa,” Jim accused, shoving her toward the bed and warding off her blows.
“Run, Tommie!” she warned. “You’re in danger!”
Tommie woke and whimpered, trying to move, but the injury wouldn’t let him move fast enough.
“You married Harper when that bastard didn’t deserve you. Shouldn’t have never gotten the pleasure of what I’m going to take from you now.”
“Nooo …"she mouthed against the hand that finally closed off her protest. He meant to molest her again, but this time with her son lying next to them. Tess jerked her head to the side. His hand moved with it. Though she hoped the action would free her, it only provided a clear bite at his fingers. Tess bit like a raging lion.
“Son of a bitch!”
“Mista Luke!” Tommie screamed. “Help us!”
Jim backhanded the boy. Tess clawed backward, trying to reach the gambler’s eyes, before a mighty blow struck her head. Light turned to darkness as she turned and clutched at Tommie. With an effort born of desperation, she threw her body over his to protect him from the gambler’s madness, then crumpled into unconsciousness.
“Tess! Tommie! What’s wrong?” Hearing no answer but Tommie’s muffled wail, Luke threw his shoulder against the door with all his might. “Open up in there!”
The door held. He hit the oak panel again, but the hinges wouldn’t give.
“Get out of here, Reeves. Go back where you belong!”
Daggert! Cold rage coursed through Luke. Why didn’t Tess answer? Had the bastard hurt her?
“Let ’em go, Daggert, or I’m coming in, damn you!”
“You aren’t calling the shots here, Reeves. I am. You’ll get them when and if I’m through with them.”
“You touch either one and you’re a dead man.”
“Too late, Reeves. I’ve already had her.”
Murder, hard as steel, scraped the edges of Luke’s sanity as he kicked and pounded the door with the fury of a lunatic. He willed the hinges to loosen.
Jim laughed at the bounty hunter’s futile efforts, not noticing the man who slipped like a shadow through the bedroom window. The hinges gave an inch … another. The gambler drew his pistol.
“Drop it, Daggert,” Nugget’s voice sounded deadly. Jim whirled around and stared down the barrel of a two-shot derringer.
A ripping of hinges took Nugget’s attention momentarily away.
Jim grabbed Tess up, pointing his gun at her head. “No, you drop it. Unless you’d like to see this little lady’s brains splattered all over the room. Then I can tell the law how you wanted her dead so you could get the other half of the richest mine this territory has ever claimed.”
Nugget’s mouth twisted with rage, but he dropped the gun. Just as the hinges broke, Jim fired the pistol. Nugget went down.
Jim whirled as Luke burst through the door. As Tommie moved beneath her, Tess jerked upright. Her elbow struck Jim’s arm. His shot went awry. The gambler cursed.
“Luke!” Tess screamed and threw herself on Jim’s back, clawing at his face. The gun aimed again, but Tess pulled Jim’s head backward as hard as her strength would allow. A knife left Luke’s boot, whizzed through the air and plunged into Jim’s chest. He sagged to the floor beneath her.
Untangling herself from the gambler’s body, Tess ran across the room and threw herself against Luke. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close, burying his face in her hair. Relief shuddered through her.
“H-he was the one, Luke. Jim was the man who—”
“It’s over now, love. He’s gone. He can’t hurt you … ever again.”
“Mista Luke?” Tommie struggled to roll on one side.
Luke took him in his arms. “I’m here, son.”
“How come Mr. Jim be so mean?”
Luke let out a long sigh. How could he explain this to a child who should never be witness to such ugliness in men’s souls? “You’ve got to cut pretty deep sometimes, Tom, to find a rotten core.”
Chapter Thirty-three
During the investigation into Jim’s and Nugget’s deaths, Tess spent hours thinking about the wrongs of her life and how she blamed everyone but herself. Life was a matter of choices. Good and bad. She had let her father and Clifton manipulate her and had lived in utter hell because of it.
She was tired of running, tired of hiding from her past. Lies and secrets were all she had ever known, and the day to end them was now. She loved Luke Reeves with all her heart and, more than anything, she wanted him to be the man she had fallen in love with. If he was to be that, then there was nothing else to do but turn herself in to Sheriff Mason, tell him the entire story, and help Luke keep his word and his job. But first she needed to talk to Tommie.
Telling Tommie she would be leaving him in Luke’s care for an indefinite time turned out to be less difficult than she expected. Her son was attentive to all she told him, grasping as much as a four-year-old could. She held back nothing of her past, confessing it all. The wrongdoing. Agreeing to her father’s wishes to save her mother from the beating he would give her if Tess disobeyed. Later on when Tess discovered her mother had lied about the abuse, Tess thought it too late to change. Too many thefts had occurred, and she was too frightened of what her parents might do if she refused to continue. Thankfully, Clifton proposed and the marriage became a way out.
“I’m not telling you to disobey your elders, son.” She brushed back a wisp of blond hair so much like her own. “But it’s better to trust what you believe is right. You’ll know it in here.” Tess pressed his heart. “The truth is a voice that’s sweet and kind. It hurts sometimes, but it always ends up feeling much better.”
“Mista Luke told me the same thing.” Tommie squeezed her tightly, clinging.
He sensed that the leaving would be long; Tess could tell it in the way he tried to enfold her in his small embrace. She glanced at the bags which were packed and ready. The thought of leaving him seemed unendurable, yet she knew she must. If he was ever to learn what facing the truth meant, she must become an example. Luke would care for him. Love him … until she returned.
“When did Luke talk to you about this?” she asked, more out of a need to hear his voice one more time before she said the final dreaded good-bye.
“On the trail, when he been shot. He told me that you made some mistakes when you was a little girl, but you didn’t mean to.”
Tess couldn’t hide her surprise.
“Don’t worry, Mommie. Mista Luke say God don’t do bad things to people if you don’t mean to be mean.”
She hugged him fiercely and whispered a silent prayer of thanks to Luke and the Creator who had brought him into her life. “You listen to Luke always, son. He’s one grown-up who’s not going to make you do bad things you don’t want to.”
“You mean I can if I want to?”
Tess laughed and kissed his cheek. “No, I certainly do not.” She rumpled his hair. “You’re going to be good, for Luke, aren’t you?”
“Most certainly will,” he promised, mimicking her. “And I’ll make Luke be good too.”
Tess smiled sadly. “Give him this letter when the sun doesn’t shine in the window anymore. Promise me not to do it before then … no matter what.”
“I promise, Mama. You be back soon?”
Tears flooded her eyes but she pressed them away with the back of her glove. “Very soon, my darling. Before you miss me, I hope.”
Tommie flung his arms around his mother. “I miss you already, Mommie.”
Tess closed the door of the hotel room behind her, shutting away the sound of her crying so Tommie wouldn’t hear it. With a glimpse down the hall at the door to Luke’s room, she whispered, “Take care of him, Luke. I trust you with the rest of his life.”
She turned, tiptoed down the hall and headed toward uncertainty.
Luke whistled as he entered the hotel, looking forward to the special occasion he planned for Contessa and Tommie. He shifted the packages he carried into one hand and knocked on Tess’s door. “You two hungry? I’ve got quite a night planned.”
“Come in, Mista Luke,” Tommie called out. “And I’m real hungry.”
Luke found the door hadn’t been barred and opened it to find Tommie sitting near the window staring out, looking mighty forlorn for such a small little boy. Depositing the packages on the bed, Luke glanced around. “Did your mother have to step out for some reason?”
Tommie nodded, his profile revealing a tear-stained cheek. “Mommie’s gone.”
Maybe it was the tone of the boy’s voice or maybe it was a sense of premonition, but suddenly fear knotted in Luke’s empty stomach. “What do you mean, gone?”
Tommie turned completely toward Luke, and the bounty hunter saw the child’s red-rimmed eyes. He had been crying for a long time.
“Mommie went away. Her gave me this. The sun is down now so I can give it to you.”
Luke took the letter he offered and read the words quickly. “When did she leave?” he asked, glancing up into green eyes that mirrored his own sense of loss.
“While ago. Her coming back, Mista Luke?”
“Yes, boy, she’ll come back,” Luke promised, taking the small body in his arms and letting the child weep on his shoulder.
“How come I don’t feel it right here, Mista Luke?” Tommie placed his palm upon his heart.
Luke’s eyes blurred. “Because we’re afraid, Tommie. And being afraid of losing someone you love sometimes makes you feel nothing so it won’t hurt so bad.”
“Do you hurt, Mista Luke?” Tommie said against his shoulder.
“I feel nothing.” His voice cracked.
“Are you afraid?”
“More than I’ve ever been of anything in my life.”
Luke decided that he must ask Olivia to come sit with Tommie until he could track Tess and talk some sense into the woman he loved. Gathering his pride, he asked the clerk her room number and carried the boy to Olivia’s room. When he knocked, Olivia asked him to identify himself.
“It’s Luke, Mother. I must speak with you.”
“Luke?” Surprise curved her lips as she opened the door and stared at the smaller boy in his arms. A graying brow rose over her almond-shaped eyes. “Do come in.”
“I don’t have time for a lot of explaining, but I need your help desperately. You remember Tommie. He’s going to be my son very soon—”
“Going to be?” she interrupted. “Lucas, are you in some sort of trouble?”
“I will be if I don’t hurry. I can’t travel fast if Tom’s with me. But if you’ll watch him, maybe I can catch Tess and stop her from doing something we’ll both regret.”
Olivia pointed a long, sculptured nail at the splint Tommie used to help him walk. “Will the boy be much trouble?”
Exasperation filled the bounty hunter. “Mother, what problems do you expect? He can’t go anywhere without help.”
“I be troubles sometimes, sure enough, lady. I don’t want Luke to tell no lie.”
“You’re a lot of help,” Luke groaned, offering his mother a pleading look. “For the most part he lays around, though it would be nice of you to take him swimming in the springs.” Luke quickly explained the doctor’s exercising orders.
“What is it you plan to do while I’m caring for this sometimes troublesome child?”
“I’m heading to Georgetown. In the meantime, if you can get a message to Phinneas Wideacre, see that he brings district judge Olan Wallace to Georgetown. Tomorrow on the stage, if he can make it.”
“You love this woman, don’t you?”
“With all my heart.”
Olivia motioned Luke to place Tommie on the bed. “Then I’ll keep the child until your return.”
“Bless you.” A compulsion unlike anything he’d ever felt in his mother’s presence shot through Luke. The safeguard he had always thrown up to block any feeling toward her rose, but he fought its hold on his emotions. Before he could change his mind, he kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you.”
“Oh, my … you’re welcome, son,” she replied in a fluster.
He pointed a finger at Tommie. “You mind and don’t go climbing any trees while I’m gone. I’ll bring back your mommie, then we’ll all get married … okay?”
Tommie squealed with delight. “Sure thing, Mista Luke. Will that mean Mrs. Olivia be my grandmaw?”
“I certainly will not, young man!” Olivia gasped, her fingers splaying wide across her throat in distress. “If you intend to be related to me”—she paused, offering the imp an imperial frown—” then I will be your grandmother!”
Luke headed for the door, knowing that both Olivia Reeves and Tommie Harper had met their match.
Chapter Thirty-four
Tess managed to hitch a ride into Georgetown with a mule skinner. Though the man talked incessantly, he was friendly and demanded an answer only now and then. She had a good deal of time to consider her actions and decide they were the right ones. Perhaps the judge would be lenient when she turned herself in of her own accord and confessed to her part in the scams.
The mule skinner flicked the team into the last run toward Barton House and yelled, “Whoa, you oat-eating, turddropping sonsabitches!” He tipped his hat at Tess and spat out a wad of tobacco. “This where you get off, lady?”
“I do believe it is, Mr. Arbuckle.”
The man remained sitting. She gathered her skirt hem and prepared to step from the wagon. The mule skinner hadn’t washed in several years, if his clothing and the stains on his fingers were any indication. Tess sighed, grateful he wasn’t the courteous sort who felt required to help her down. “Don’t trouble yourself, sir. I can make it on my own.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, all right, missy. If ya say so.” He smiled a grin shy of a few teeth. “Maybe next time I’m thisaway, I’ll give you a holler.”
Tess returned his smile. “That’ll be a day to remember, Mr. Arbuckle. It surely will. Thank you most kindly for the ride.”
Arbuckle did her the courtesy of handing down her bag, but shouted the team into a trot before she had cleared the yard. Dust billowed beneath their hooves, coating her with a layer of sand, instigating a cough that nearly made her gag.
Lionel Cramden came around the house at a fast walk. “Why, Mrs. Harper, it’s sure good to see you. Where’s that little’un of yours? And Mr. Reeves?” A frown wrinkled his brow. “Don’t tell me he up and left you, taking the boy?”
“Nothing like that,” Tess assured him, allowing the tall, lanky man to take her bag. She told him about all that had transpired in Idaho Springs, leaving out the fact that Luke didn’t know she had left.
“Nugget behind all those scams, you say? And that gambler fella in on it too? Don’t guess you ever know, do you?” Lionel scratched his head.
Following him into the clean interior of Barton House, Tess gazed at the doorway to the room where Tommie’s life had teetered in the balance. If Lionel knew her part in the scams, would he be so willing to extend his hospitality?
“Want a room for the evening, Mrs. Harper? It’s pretty slow around here. You probably want to rest up before you go out to the mine. Be kind of lonely out there without Nugget and your boy to keep you company. Won’t charge you, ma’am. Bis’ness is slow. Lotsa rooms are empty. Boss’d be pleased a lady such as yourself took a notion to stay the night.”
Tess smiled at the considerate man. “How about if I give you my answer later, Mr. Cramden?”
“Lionel, please, ma’am. I’d be proud if you’d consider me a friend.”
“You’ve been a fine friend to us already, Lionel. Thank you.” Tess untied her bonnet and fluffed her hair. “Would you happen to know where I can find Sheriff Mason this time of evening?”
Lionel rubbed his chin, narrowing his eyes in thought. “That would be over at Millie’s place. He’s kind of sweet on the gal that runs the Spittoon Saloon.” A blush heightened Lionel’s cheeks. “I don’t suppose you know her?”
