The Beholding, page 7
Luke’s brows furrowed as his palm jerked away. “Then let’s set up camp. Daggert, you stake the schooner. I’ll do the butchering.” Walking past the boy, Luke ruffled Tommie’s hair. “Looks like we’re having mule for supper.”
“And one demanding ass,” Jim grumbled into Tess’s ear.
Chapter Six
After supper dishes were cleaned and put away, Tess longed to bathe. The quick cleansing she did before cooking merely took away the first layer of dust and perspiration. Now that camp chores were completed, she could give Tommie and herself a good scrubbing.
With a basket of clean clothes in hand, Tess walked alongside Tommie. Jim led his mahogany-colored roan through a stand of dogwood that banked an offshoot stream flowing from the Arkansas River. Luke took first watch and scouted the area. Jim should have stayed back at camp, but he insisted upon escorting them so he’d know their whereabouts in the event of trouble.
Tess caught herself admiring Jim’s moonlit profile. He was tall and solid-shouldered, much like his horse. Thick waves of chestnut hair fell well past the collar of his gray morning coat, and the reddish-brown mustache added a daring look. A handsome man to most and always considerate of her, so Tess couldn’t fathom what it was about Jim Daggert that put her off.
Upon approaching a bed in the stream which formed a secluded inlet, she halted her steps. Jim and Tommie did the same. “This looks like a good place.” Smiling her appreciation, she thanked him for his trouble.
Jim thumbed the brim of his hat. “Anything for you, Contessa. You know that.”
His soft drawl sent a wave of shivers across her shoulders and down her back. There was no doubt he cared for her, wanted her, and the woman in Tess responded to that sincere attraction and his thoughtfulness.
“I need time, Jim.” She turned away from the desire shining in his moonlit eyes. “You can understand that, can’t you?”
A hand at her elbow gently persuaded her to turn around. When she complied, he drew Tess closer. “A man can only understand for so long, Contessa, then he has to force an answer to the issue.”
Thankfully, Tommie chose that moment to tug on her skirts, saving Tess from reminding Jim that her husband had been dead less than a week.
“Mommie, yet’s go swimming. I inna hurry.” He wobbled off toward the stream.
“Wait, son! Don’t go in without me.” Not wanting to leave Jim’s statement unchallenged, yet knowing the three-year-old would be too excited at the thought of swimming to obey her command, she quickly apologized. “We’ll talk more later. He’ll plunge right in if I don’t get there before him.” Gathering her skirt, she sprinted down the path Tommie had taken, not waiting for Jim’s answer.
The bank sloped to a sandy shore where a long beam of moonlight illuminated the surface. The stream sparkled with its silvery gleam. Cattails and switchgrass along the curve of the waterway hummed with a chorus of crickets and croaking frogs.
Tommie jumped up and down at the bank. “Come on, Mommie. Yet’s go!”
The water looked inviting, and Tess suddenly felt Tommie’s compulsion to be free of the perspiration, dust and hard work of the journey. To do nothing but frolic in the water.
“Let Mama change. Take everything off but your flannels. I brought some fresh things for us to wear.” Tess found an outcropping of bushes where she hooked the basket on the tip of a branch, then turned to see if he was undressing.
“That’s a good boy,” Tess complimented as he quickly shucked his clothing, then piled mud from the bank to build a dugout of sorts. Tommie had obeyed her instructions much better in the last two days than in the past few weeks. With Clifton gone so much of the time, Tommie’s mood had swung from impishness to impossible. She half expected him to rebel as a reaction to his father’s death, but he hadn’t. Perhaps it was his friendship with Luke. Tommie hung on every word the bounty hunter uttered. He showed her several things Luke had taught him just today. How would her son be affected when he learned the truth of Clifton’s death?
Undoing her corsets and crinoline proved more difficult than usual. Her arms and hands were weakened by the first day at the reins and trembled as she unhooked the metal latches. For a moment she wondered whether she really should leave off the undergarments except for the cotton chemise and pantalets when she completed her bath. But packing away the rest of the undergarments seemed practical. She could sit the driver’s box easier and wouldn’t have to worry about her legs accidentally touching one of the hot bands that gave her skirts width.
Though she tried to comply to the fashion edicts of the day, common sense told her to leave the corset off as well. Tess unbuttoned her high-topped shoes and set them in the overhanging tree branch so no scavengers would come along and steal them. Raccoons were notorious robbers, and even branches offered little protection. “Might as well make them work for it,” she said into the night.
The insect chorus halted at the sound of her voice, and Tess listened to the silence. The wind in the dogwood blossoms, the rustle of switchgrass and cattails, and the lapping of water at the shore were muffled by the deep, endless silence of the night. Without the brief relief of nature’s voice, the quiet would be a bit frightening and utterly lonely. A cloud passed over the moon and shadowed the stream for a moment, spreading disquiet and loneliness within Tess.
“Enough of this,” she scolded herself. Loneliness was something she had lived with long before Clifton’s death; she would not let her spirit decay from it now. Splaying her toes in the warm sand, Tess felt the earth shift between them. “Are you ready, son?” she asked, grabbing Tommie’s small hand as they splashed into the stream.
They both squealed in delight at the cleansing coolness of the river water on their skin. Moving in closer to the bank, she set her son down in front of her, careful to make certain the water hit him belly-high.
“Now, shall we wash you first?” She caressed the treasured bar of lavender-scented soap. Would the fragrant soap cause the welts to itch more than they did now? Steeling herself against the unpleasant possibility, Tess decided the pain would be worth it to feel clean again.
“Ahh, Mommie, do I have to?” Tommie complained, jumping up and down.
“Yes, I’m afraid so.” This was the Tommie she knew—all boy, protector of dirt, hater of freshly scrubbed skin. “Now what’s first—your hair or your face?”
His hands dipped inside the breast pocket of his red flannels and pulled out a lizard. “How ‘bout him first?”
Tess yelped as Tommie thrust the reptile toward her face. “Good heavens!”
Tommie giggled. “He won’t hurt you, Mommie. He wants to kiss you.”
The lizard’s tongue darted out as if on cue and she cringed from its slithery contact. Trying to quell her revulsion, Tess reminded herself that this could really be quite laughable if it wasn’t so revolting. How she hated slimy, slithery creatures! “Uhh, I don’t think a kiss is quite appropriate, son. We haven’t been properly introduced, you see.”
“His name is Thammy.”
“You mean Sammy?”
The lizard’s tongue darted out, making Tommie squeal. “See there. He said it again. Thammy … not Sammy.”
“Well, why don’t I break off a piece of this soap?” Tess dug her fingernail into one end of the bar and offered it to him. “You can wash Sam—Thammy while I clean my hair. By that time, maybe you’ll be ready for me to wash you.”
“You mean I can keep ’im?” Tommie’s lashes widened over his green eyes.
Tess laughed. “As long as I know where he’s at, at all times. Ooohh!” She shivered with the thought of coming across the creature unexpectedly. But the reptile would fill Tommie’s time in the long journey ahead and give him something to play with.
“Oh boy, Mommie. You a tophand.”
She laughed. “Where did you hear that?”
“Mista Yuke.”
“Did he tell you what that means?” What topic had they discussed which would introduce the word to her son?
“He said you’s a tophand of a mama.”
A blush of pleasure tightened Tess’s cheeks as if the man were there to see it. Realizing she needed to urge Tommie into action, she returned the compliment. “Well, it’s easy to be a good mother when I’ve got a tophand of a son. I’ll just bet Thammy could be a better salamander if you’d clean him up a bit too.”
Tommie took the bit of soap and began to scrub, informing Sammy he was not a lizard after all but something his mama called a salamander.
Removing the hairpins that held her severely knotted blond coil in place, Tess shook the thick mass from its binds and let it cascade past her shoulders. Fastening her hairpins to the bodice of her chemise so she wouldn’t lose them, she lowered herself into the water and dipped her head backward to rinse the dirt from her hair.
Luke scraped the back of his hand across his mouth and wiped away the dust that gathered at its corners. Reaching the slope of the bank curving into the Arkansas earth, he heard Tess’s and Tommie’s voices. Damn! Didn’t they realize they were making so much noise, that anyone could creep up on them and they’d never hear a thing?
Carefully dismounting the dun, he threaded the horse’s reins over a limb, leaving them unknotted. Stealthily he crept closer and skirted the crackling blackjack leaves so he would be able to prove how silently an attacker could move. The switchgrass grew shoulder high at the bank, and the cattail stems provided an air funnel that anyone could use to move closer underwater.
Tommie squealed as he splashed Tess, and she joined in his laughter, splashing back.
“Quiet, boy….” Criticism died in Luke’s throat as he caught sight of Tess’s hands delving into the wet mass of thick curls that were piled on top of her head and threatening to spill at any moment. Her slim shoulders and arms were as luminous as the slivers of moonlight fanning the surface around her. Watching her long, slim neck arc backwards made his lips press tighter together. Would the velvet of her skin taste as enticing as it looked?
His hunger grew as his gaze lowered to the wet chemise and he noticed how exquisitely the undergarment revealed firm, round breasts and a healthy portion of a stunning full figure.
Luke watched her massaging strokes and wondered what she would say if he waded in to wash her hair or rub away the soreness inflicted by a day at the reins. He’d observed her at supper and seen her slow movements as she ladled beans. Bending to clean the dishes appeared a bit more difficult than she admitted. Tess denied any discomfort when he asked, and he admired her for it. She meant to take charge of her life as she had claimed, and revealing discomfort meant confessing a lack of strength.
Leaning back into the water, she washed the soap from her hair. As the water ran in tiny rivulets from her hands to her torso, Luke imagined his own body sliding down the same length, tasting her sweet freshness.
Get hold of yourself, man. Luke grimaced as he fought the desire racing through him. He was no longer seventeen years old and preparing to make love for the first time to Laoni.
Gentle Rain. How much like her name Laoni had been. But the Chiricahua maiden believed the Thunder People had come to her during the night before her marriage to Luke, wreaking havoc in the heavens and to his young heart. The Voices of Thunder, Wind and White Fire had warned that the scars on his face bore the mark of lightning—an omen that he would one day tear Laoni from her people.
Luke had vowed to forsake his heritage for her own—an easily given oath. He could no longer endure the white world. Though born Anglo, wealthy and the son of socialites, he’d received little love from his parents. Excelling in horsemanship, studies and law at West Point had barely rated a nod of approval from Olivia and Marsten Reeves. After deciding that nothing he would accomplish would ever make his parents forget they’d produced less than a perfectly sculpted Adonis, Luke dropped out of West Point and headed west.
He had suffered a snake bite while passing through Chiricahua hunting grounds, finding himself recovering due to the generosity of Running Horse, Laoni’s father. The months spent with Cochise’s war chief and daughter seemed like a long-ago dream. Yet it was a dream which caused Laoni’s love to falter. Running Horse, the father Marsten had never been, took Luke aside and said he must deny the marriage rites. If Laoni faltered then, how would she withstand the harsher trials all marriages suffer?
Ten years had passed since Luke walked away from the only two people in his life who cared for him as he had them. Days became weeks, weeks stretched into months, months faded into years. Loneliness mortared the broken pieces of his heart, turning it to stone. The War Between the States provided a battleground to vent his anger, while cathouses pacified his physical needs. The yearning for something more remained long after he gave up the nightly visits to those veteran seducers. A yearning to experience the first touch of genuine love. Love so strongly bound that no dream, no omen, nothing but God Himself could loosen it
Why such remembrances now? Luke wondered, wishing he could dispel the past as easily as Tess shook the water from her hair. The woman stirred his senses. Long-denied senses, at that No man could stare at such beauty and not wonder how she would feel beneath him, her eyes soft and hooded with passion while her long legs wrapped around his, allowing a satisfying closeness. Yet Luke wondered if it was more than there physical attraction he felt. He admired her spunk, and the way she saw to Tommie’s needs before her own.
Tess took Tommie by the hand and led him toward the bank. Luke tried not to watch anymore, but the spell she wove held him. The breath-stopping sight of her soft wet curves in the clinging white chemise and pantalets, made transparent by the moonlight, allowed him every alluring detail.
God, she’s beautiful—from her bare feet to the crown of those lovely golden curls. A bitter truth sunk in his stomach. With such comeliness, she could have easily seduced the men who patronized the bathhouse her father managed. With such a figure, no wonder men and women alike believed her father’s advertisement that he’d found the fountain of youth.
Luke understood the age discrepancy now. Though she was probably fourteen or fifteen at the time, Tess’s father must have boasted that she was forty. Those who wanted to believe would easily have been fooled. Whether or not the hot springs offered any real prevention to aging, the disbelievers were intrigued enough by Tess’s beauty to want a closer look. With the right clothing, she might be even more beautiful.
As Tess moved behind a bush, blocking his view of all but her head and neck, Luke felt a twinge of disgust. He wasn’t any better than an urchin peeping under the batwing doors at the local saloon girls. Disgruntled with himself by how long he’d lingered watching, Luke started to turn away. But the sight of Tommie bending to put something on the ground and turning to cover each ear with a palm revealed the imp was up to no good.
What the devil? A feminine shriek pierced the night, answering Luke’s unvoiced question and assuring that everyone in the territory would know the Harpers’ whereabouts. Tess hopped from around the bush, one shoe on, the other off.
“I told you to keep him where I’d know where he was.” Irritation hardened Tess’s voice.
“He jist got away, Mommie. Jist plumb got away.”
Luke chuckled at the boy’s deliberate innocence. The child was the best fun he’d enjoyed in ages, and Luke looked forward to those hours of the day when he rode scout with the wagon and Daggert spotted ahead. Tommie’s unique way of looking at ordinary, daily tasks made Luke enjoy them all the more.
Tess’s chin lifted and she cocked her head as if listening.
Luke’s chuckle died in the glove that shot instantly to cover his mouth. What if she caught him here? She would never believe he wasn’t spying on her. Hell, wasn’t he doing just that?
“What’s wrong, Mommie?” Tommie stared in the direction her gaze had turned.
“I thought I heard something.”
Tommie ran behind the bush and came back carrying something in his hands that had a long tail and legs. A lizard?
“Just hear Thammy, Mommie,” he informed her, holding the creature toward his mother.
Tess backed away and stared as if she glanced straight at Luke. “Not unless salamanders know how to chuckle.”
Chapter Seven
Three hours later an impatient hand shook Tess from a sound sleep. She froze alongside Tommie. “Who is it?” she asked, pausing as her lashes finally opened to the dark confines of the Conestoga. Her right hand shot to the top buttons of her shirtwaist while the other wrapped protectively around her son. The outline of a man formed.
The breadth of shoulders and the appealing blend of man, butternut leather and tobacco revealed his identity before the compelling masculine voice was heard.
“It’s Luke. Get up. Dress the boy in heavy clothes. It’s about to drop buckets and we’ve gotta move out Don’t want him catching cold.”
A tiny shiver which had nothing to do with the approaching cold uncurled in the pit of Tess’s stomach. The sensation surprised her, for she knew it also did not spawn from fear. Tess wasn’t really afraid of Luke, although she suspected that his purpose in escorting her to Colorado had something to do with unfinished business concerning Clifton. But Luke seemed unlike any man she’d ever known. Instead of evoking past humiliations suffered at Hot Springs, he inspired reactions within her she had never experienced. Not even with Clifton. Luke’s ability to make butterflies flutter in her stomach simply by the tone of his voice disconcerted her.
“We’ll be dressed and out in a few minutes.” Her voice sounded unusually husky even to herself.
“You’ll be on that driver’s box in one minute or leave your belongings behind. Gotta get this team up and out of the wash if you want it to live.”
“There’s no need to—”
Tess’s complaint faded as his dark form turned and exited through the horseshoe-shaped opening. She heard Luke telling Jim to tie the extra mule to the back and prepare to drive the team. Irritation sprouted. “I’m not dressed yet!”
