The Beholding, page 1
THE
BEHOLDING
DIA HUNTER
Copyright © 2012, Dia Hunter
This book is dedicated to
Tom Koumalats
—friend, historian, Texan
Your support of my writing has always been,
as reliable as a spur jingle.
With deepest appreciation.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Prologue
“You shouldn’t be out here alone … in the dark.”
The deep male voice nearly startled Tess out of next year’s growth, making her stumble as she gathered the last sheet from the clothesline. She swung around to face the man only to discover his chest pressed dangerously near.
“Don’t!” she cried almost hysterically, twisting her body away as if she’d been stung.
“I was only trying to stop you from falling, Miss Mitchell.” The man backed up and put his palms up in mock surrender. “No harm intended.”
“Oh, it’s you.” Tess exhaled slowly, relieved to discover it was only Clifton Harper, the soldier from Fort Smith. For one long, terrifying moment, she had feared that the man who had turned her life into a living hell two days ago had returned.
As a friend of her parents, every time Clifton Harper had business to tend to in Hot Springs, he made a point of paying a visit to the bathhouse they managed. But those visits had become more frequent lately. “I-I’m sorry, Mr. Harper. I’m afraid it’s been a difficult week.”
She pointed toward the right wing of the bathhouse which provided living quarters for the current manager. “Father and Mother have retired for the evening, but I’m sure they wouldn’t mind being awakened if you need them.”
He took off his hat and twisted it in his hands. “I didn’t come to see them, Miss Mitchell. I hoped I might have a word with you.”
“Me?” She eyed him curiously. Suspicion crept into her thoughts, forcing her to gauge his height and weight. Could he be the one? She could remember very little about the attack two nights ago. It seemed her mind only wanted to block out the horror of it all.
“And why tonight? Can’t it wait till morning?”
“No, it can’t.” With a good deal of effort he finally allowed his gaze to meet hers directly. “You see, Miss Mitchell… Tess… the law knows about your daddy’s and mother’s schemes. That last fella—Webster Krugg—he had fifty dollars stolen while he was bathing in your pa’s bathhouse. Said you lured him in with all that talk about you being forty years old and the waters offering a fountain of youth of sorts. He told the marshal that you lured him in and your parents robbed him while he bathed.”
“I had no part in it!” Tess defended herself, thrusting the sheet into the basket with the other linen.
“But you knew they did, didn’t you?”
His tone wasn’t accusing and his expression offered sympathy. Tess couldn’t deny her knowledge. “I suspected my father for a long time, but didn’t find out the truth until a few days ago.”
“Yet you continued to let them use you to scam the bathers. You can’t be a day over fourteen.”
“Fifteen, and I didn’t let them use me. I had to or… or, well, it’s none of your business.” Tess refused to tell him that her father tended to make her mother suffer for any disobedience Tess showed him. Silent little bruises her mother had said were hidden where inquiring eyes couldn’t question. Bruises, Tess had since learned, that never existed.
Clifton took a step closer. She grabbed the basket and held it in front of her, putting distance between her and the soldier.
“I know this isn’t my concern, but if I don’t speak my hopes tonight, I might not get another chance. And maybe you’ll want to hear what I’ve got to say.”
“Then say it, Mr. Harper. You seem intent upon doing so anyway.”
“Tess, girl, I guess you’ve noticed how many times I’ve come around. And I know I ain’t as young a man as you’d probably hoped to wed one day, but I won’t beat you and you’ll never go hungry—”
“Are you asking me to marry you, Mr. Harper?” Tess couldn’t hide the astonishment in her voice. She started back up the path toward the bathhouse. “Why, you hardly even know me.”
He fell in step beside her. “That’s true. But I know I’ve wanted you for my wife ever since I seen you the first time. And I happen to know that if you don’t get out of here this very night, Krugg and the law plan to pay you and your parents a visit in the morning. I can tell you the circuit judge don’t take kindly to thieves. And it doesn’t matter which of you did the stealing. He’ll figure you were all in on it.”
A giggle of hysteria erupted in Tess’s throat as she halted. She started to stifle it, then didn’t, shaking the voluptuous body that had proven her undoing.
“Are you all right, Tessa?” He reached out to steady her, patting her hand.
He wasn’t much to look at, was probably near her father’s age. And as a soldier, he would never be a rich man. But he had one quality she needed desperately: he was willing to love her despite her… imperfections. Perhaps devoting herself to making his home and life more comfortable would be enough to repay him for his timely offer.
“No, I’m not all right,” she whispered, not shying away from his soothing touch, “but you seem to be willing to take me as I am. God forgive me for doing this to you; you probably don’t deserve it. But yes, Mr. Harper, I’ll marry you.”
Chapter One
Fort Smith, Arkansas 1866
“Hell of a way for a man to make a living,” Luke Reeves muttered disgustedly. He pulled up the collar of his black duster and tugged the brim of his slouch hat lower to shield his eyes from the downpour. After dismounting, he glanced briefly at the taller of the two bodies stretched over the extra mount taken on at Pencil Bluff. The dirty sidewinder deserved the bullet in his gut, but only time would tell if the other one had met his Maker too soon. Innocent or guilty, Clifton Harper was just as dead.
Telling Widow Harper had been put off long enough. Luke tied the reins to the hitching post outside the row of whitewashed apartments assigned to officers with families. This wasn’t the first time he’d changed a wife’s name to “widow,” and it wouldn’t be the last.
An amber glow in a calico-curtained window drew him to the Harper home. Childish laughter challenged the rumbling thunder. The echoing mirth belonged to a woman, rich, melodious and compelling. A powerful thirst corded Luke’s throat as his fist paused, then struck the door three times. He should have satisfied the urge for something fiery to drink before he finished this piece of business. Maybe if he had, whiskey could have melted the cool aloofness that had numbed his soul for more years than he cared to remember.
“Clifton? Is that you? Let me move the rags from below the door; the mud is leaking in again.”
The voice sounded younger than Luke’s investigation indicated. Clifton Harper was on the down side of forty, and the wife he married in Hot Springs was reportedly near the same age. He’d bet his next payroll she was less than twenty-five.
The door jerked open with a squeak of the hinges. Accustomed to being denied entry, Luke took a step forward, letting one boot nestle between the door and its jamb.
“Oh, I thought you were my husband.” Tess Harper pressed her body against the door, closing off the warm welcome she’d intended.
“Ma’am.” Luke tipped his hat and from beneath its broad brim, studied her. Eyes the shade of mountain mint revealed both her curiosity and the wariness he expected of someone running from the law.
Sweat rolled off him despite the cooling rain and trickled into his eyes. Flickering shadows cast by the oil lamp hinted at the lushness of the widow’s mouth, full and shapely, almost pouty. Small wonder the report said she was so successful at swindling the bathers. With lips like that added to a figure Michelangelo would have considered perfection, a man could imagine all kinds of ways to show his appreciation for such beauty.
“Are you here to see my husband?”
Youth made her voice soft, expectant. Twenty, maybe. Not twenty-five as he’d earlier figured. That would have made her about fourteen at the time of the Hot Springs scam. Must’ve been quite a beauty early on.
“Name’s Luke Reeves.” Determination hardened his mouth into a grimace, deepening the curved lines that bracketed his face. “I’ve come to speak to you about Mr. Harper.”
The lady leaned closer
“What’s wrong, Mr. Reeves?” Tess asked suddenly, her scalp tingling with premonition. Cold dread settled heavily in her stomach as she stared at his hard slash of a mouth. He had the look of a hunter—cold-eyed and with sinews carved from long days in the saddle. He bore the weight of the gun resting against his left thigh well, revealing the weapon as an inherent part of him and not something donned in a moment of irritation. Was he the one she long suspected would take her from Tommie?
Glancing at her son, she mentally wrapped him in a protective embrace and vowed she would fight to the death before she’d let anyone separate them. Tess’s voice took on an edge of caution and hope that her fear was needless. “Tommie, get Mr. Reeves something to dry himself with while I pour him some coffee.” After wiping her hands on her apron, she pretended to brush away nonexistent dirt from the folds of her linsey homespun.
At her son’s departure, Tess Harper attempted to cloak the foreboding that coursed through her as she looked up quickly to meet the stranger’s gaze. Taking a breath, she braced herself for the worst. “What is it that needs saying on such a soggy night, Mr. Reeves?”
Luke admired her control and was surprised that his hands felt clammy inside the dark cowhide gloves. “Like I said, it concerns your husband.”
Instantly a new worry welled. “What has he done?”
“Nothing,” Luke admitted. That is, nothing I can prove yet, he should have said. “It’s what I’ve done.”
Luke stepped into the light and awaited the startled gasp he knew would follow her first sight of his scars. To his surprise, none came. She was a lady, he’d give her that. Most women objected loudly. Hell, so had most men he’d faced. Luke once considered growing a beard and mustache to hide a portion of it, but the jagged white scars that had zigzagged his right cheek and brow from birth made his job easier. Many a man had backed down from Luke’s fierce expression and the gun hand that backed it up.
“He’s in trouble, then?”
Tess Harper did what few others attempted, studying Luke with a frankness he admired. He hoped like hell she wasn’t guilty. The thought of taking her back to stand trial grated against his better judgment. His instinct for finding the truth had been honed to a fine edge over the past twenty-seven years. But truth traveled many side trails if a man was willing to be led down them.
Luke met her sea-green gaze directly, unsure if he honored her so because he was impressed with her or because something inside him wanted to hurt—wanted to feel, even if it was pain he inflicted on someone else. “Ma’am, there’s no easy way to tell you this.” He paused, searching for better words but found none. “Your husband’s dead. Shot this morning about daybreak near Pencil Bluff.”
“Shot?” Tess’s body flinched as if she’d been struck. The word ricocheted through her mind and lodged in her heart with such force that her knees threatened to buckle beneath her. Clifton’s dead. The torment’s finally over.
Within her, turbulent emotions boiled anew, echoing the tumult rumbling in the Arkansas sky. Their marriage shouldn’t have ended this way. Never this way. Finding her voice, she swallowed the painful loneliness of years threatening to close her throat. “How did it hap—” Her question stopped abruptly as her son returned.
“Here it is, Mommie. Gosh, Mista, you all wet!”
The tow-headed boy seemed to bounce as he walked across the room. The child’s uneven gait revealed his limp to be the kind long endured, not of a recent injury. Embarrassed at the same ogling he had expected of Tess, Luke accepted the offered towel and deliberately sought the boy’s eyes. “Much obliged, Mr. Harper.”
The small boy giggled and rocked back on his feet. “My daddy is Mista Harper. My name is Tommie, and I’m almost four years old.”
“Pleased to meet you, Tommie. I’m Luke Reeves.” Realizing he had just delivered devastating news to the boy’s mother and now stood there chatting as if nothing had happened, Luke decided he needed to get the child busy so he could finish giving the details to the widow. “Do you know how to shine boots, Tommie?”
Tommie’s head bobbed. “Gooder’n everybody! Papa taughted me. Don’t you know how, Mista Yuke?”
“Not as well as you, I’ll bet.” Luke ruffled the boy’s blond hair, surprised at the warm stirring that kindled in his heart. Would those eyes a shade darker than his mother’s look up at him with such friendliness if the lad knew his reason for being there? “I only pay for the best. You want to earn a nickel?”
Tommie’s emerald gaze narrowed into a mischievous slant. “How about two nickels?”
Enterprising as his mother, so it seemed. “You drive a hard bargain, Short Pants.” Luke offered to shake on the agreement, and the boy clasped his palm warmly.
“It’s a deal, sir.”
While the stranger took off his boots, Tess looked for something to keep her trembling hands busy. A rush of guilt consumed her. In wishing for her own safety, had she brought harm to Clifton? Maybe if she had been the kind of wife he wanted and did not anger him so often that he felt compelled to stay away, Clifton would be alive.
Don’t do this to yourself, Tess silently reprimanded and began to polish spoons she’d already dried once. She had promised she wouldn’t condemn herself anymore about failings beyond her control. Clifton made his own choices. Just like her mother and father had. When would she quit being everybody’s pawn? She didn’t kill Clifton. It was time to think of Tommie. I’m all he’s got now.
Tess felt Luke watching her, studying her, and suddenly she was all too aware of him as a man. Confused emotions too frightening to identify stirred deeply within her, and she was surprised at this attraction. She’d thought that part of her had died long ago.
“Got ’em!”
Luke’s sudden declaration startled Tess. She dropped the utensils, causing them to clatter against the wooden floor. “My goodness,” she muttered, bending to pick up the mess. Tears welled in her eyes and a great sob wrenched from her soul. With enormous effort, she attempted to appear composed. Why tears now, Tess wondered, when she had ached for their release so many times before? “This will n-never do,” she stammered. “S-so clumsy.”
As she gathered the spilled dinnerware, the stranger’s hands gently rested over her own, halting the task. Tess trembled as the sympathy they offered warmed the cold that iced her heart. She looked up into eyes the dark blue of twilight in the Ozarks and was engulfed by the genuine concern found in the carved strength of his face.
Warm prickles raced down her neck and spine. Despite the rawhide glove he wore, she could feel the strength in his hand. The musky scent of leather, rain and man swamped her thoughts as his fingers touched her own, scorching her entire being with his heat. She shivered, as if staring into the approach of a dangerous wildfire.
“Tommie, do you have more rags where you found the first one?” Luke asked, never taking his gaze from hers.
His low voice rumbled in her ear, and Tess found the timbre compelling.
“Yessir. Mommie, you care if I get some more?”
“Go ahead, son.” She squeezed her eyes closed. “Use what you need.”
Tommie ran into the other room, leaving Luke wondering what to say next. Could he believe the innocence he saw in her eyes? Though soft, tender and almost shy, those beautiful green depths kindled a fierce desire within him. A desire that had lured men into the baths only to be robbed and beaten? And her touch? Was this touch of hands capable of swindling men of their mining claims, as well?
Despite his life-long principle never to let emotion rule his decisions, Luke was surprised to discover that a little decency still lingered somewhere deep inside him. He didn’t want to destroy her, and the fact amazed him. How long had it been since he wanted deliberately to be kind, or believe any woman?
Her hand slid away, and she reached for the blue-speckled pot on the stove. “Would you like some coffee, Mr. Reeves? I always have a pot waiting for Clifton when he comes back from—”
