“What’s wrong?” Adam asked her as they lay in the dark that night. He’d been kissing her for a long time, kissing and caressing her and trying to elicit at least a ghost of the response she had given him last night. She’d tried, she really had, and she’d prayed he wouldn’t notice that she hadn’t been able to succeed. But of course he had.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she insisted as she lay in his arms. “I’m just... tired.”
“Don’t lie to me, Lori. You’ve been upset ever since we got home from church this afternoon. Did someone say something to you? Something about our marriage?”
“No, not at all,” she insisted quite truthfully. That wasn’t why she was upset.
“Was it Bessie, then? I thought you wanted her to come to dinner—”
“I did. No, it wasn’t anything. I told you, I’m just tired.”
“It was Mrs. Price, wasn’t it?” Her arms were still around his neck, and she could feel his whole body stiffen with outrage beneath the fabric of his nightshirt. “I saw her talking to you. That old biddy, she has a tongue like an adder. What did she say to you, Lori? I’ll call on her tomorrow and demand that she—”
“No, Adam, she didn’t say anything to me.” She reached up and stroked his face, trying to calm him. “It wasn’t that, I swear it.”
“Then what is it? And I want the truth. I can’t protect you if I don’t know what’s wrong,” he warned.
Protect her. How beautiful those words sounded. And how silly she was being to keep the truth from him. For too long she’d felt so defenseless, and now here was Adam practically begging her to let him help her. He would understand if she could only bring herself to tell him about it.
“It was all that talk about... about your brother today,” she admitted at last. She still couldn’t bring herself to actually say his name.
She could instantly feel the change in him, as if something that had been tightly coiled inside of him had suddenly grown tighter. “Eric?”
“Yes, everyone kept asking if we’d heard from him and how he was and... it was so awful!”
“He is my brother, Lori,” he reminded her. His voice was strained, so she knew he understood how difficult it was for her to talk about his brother. “You have to expect people will speak of him to you.”
“I know but... You understand, don’t you? Why it hurts me to hear his name and to pretend that... that nothing’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong,” he insisted impatiently. “You’re my wife now, and what happened with you and Eric is over and done with.”
How could he say that? How could he even think it? Even if Lori could someday forget how Eric had violated her, there was still the child she carried. What Eric had done would haunt them both for as long as they lived.
“It’s not over!” she said. “It will never be over!”
Something that felt very much like anger quivered through him, although why he should be angry, Lori had no idea. “It won’t be over if you refuse to forget about Eric,” he said and pushed himself away from her.
Hating the darkness that hid his expression from her, she reached out to him in desperation. “I’m trying, Adam! I really am, but it’s so hard to forget something like that!”
She touched his shoulder and found it as stiff and unyielding as his words. How could this be happening? How could Adam be angry with her? She’d thought he understood.
And then she realized what was wrong. He was hurt because she hadn’t been able to respond to his lovemaking. She knew how much it had meant to him when she’d finally been able to give herself to him, and now he must be feeling terribly rejected.
“Adam, I’m sorry,” she tried, changing her touch to a caress on his shoulder. “I... if you want to... to make love... it’s all right.” She could give him that much, at least.
She heard him draw in a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. “I wouldn’t dream of taking advantage of you like that, Lori. You said you were tired. Go to sleep.”
With that he rolled over, turning his back and, in the process, shrugging off her hand. Stung, she lay there for a long time, blinking at the tears that kept gathering in her eyes and refusing to give in to the comfort of weeping. Only when she was sure Adam was asleep did she allow herself to shift into a more comfortable position. She was certain she wouldn’t be able to sleep. The pain of Adam’s rejection was too great, and the reminders of Eric too fresh. But her body’s needs overcame her mind’s turmoil, and she slipped more quickly into oblivion than she would have suspected was possible.
Adam felt her roll over, and since every nerve in his body was attuned to her, he knew the instant when her breathing changed, signaling her surrender to sleep. He lay there alone in the dark, and cursed himself for being a fool.
Well, what had he expected? Had he really thought that one night of lovemaking could make her forget that she had loved his brother? And more than that, make her forget his crippled leg and love him instead? Had he truly believed that by simply possessing her body he could win her heart as well? He was worse than a fool; he was well and truly insane.
And when he allowed himself to feel the frustrated aching in his loins, he cursed himself all over again for being too proud to take the one thing she had offered him. Was he striving for sainthood? First he’d waited weeks to consummate his marriage, and now he was denying himself the one comfort his bride was prepared to give him, just because he knew how distasteful she must find his attentions.
Oh, she’d denied it. She’d even convinced him she welcomed his caresses. But what was she supposed to do? He was her husband, after all. The man who had offered her protection when she was desperate. Her one hope. She couldn’t exactly show him her true feelings, could she? Not unless she wanted to risk being thrown out on her own again. So, of course, she’d pretended affection for him. And Adam had been only too willing to let her pretend.
And, he had to admit to his own shame, he would be willing to again. Tonight he’d managed to be noble, but that had only been an act. He wasn’t noble at all, not where Lori was concerned. She might be nothing more than a silly chit whom his brother had seduced and abandoned, and she most certainly would never be the soul mate he had once imagined he would find to share his life, but she could more than fill his bed.
Unable to resist another moment, he rolled over to face her. She lay on her back, and while he couldn’t make out her features in the dark, he already knew them by heart. The gentle sound of her breathing seemed to fill his head, and every beat of his heart sent an answering throb to his loins. Dear God, even her scent was intoxicating, an erotic mixture of roses and female musk that made him dizzy and made him ache.
He lay like that for a long time, like a man obsessed, which he was. And just as he was about to despair of his own sanity, she whimpered in her sleep. She was crying! Remembering the time she’d awakened him screaming from a nightmare she couldn’t escape, he instinctively reached for her.
That was almost his undoing. She felt so soft, so feminine that desire roared in him like a caged beast. But then he felt her shoulders shaking and knew that she was weeping in earnest now. The nobility he had earlier denied saved him. While his body screamed for physical release, his honor prevailed, allowing him to cradle her gently in his arms and press chaste kisses into the thickness of her ebony hair.
By the time she had quieted, by the time she again lay peacefully sleeping in his arms, he knew he was lost. But he also knew that, by God, somehow, someday, she would be as lost as he.
***
Lori awoke the next morning with a certainty that something was terribly wrong. Still groggy with sleep, she needed a moment to figure out why, and then she remembered what had happened last night, the way Adam had rejected her. In the next instant, she realized that she was alone in the bed. Alarmed, she came completely awake in a moment and sat upright only to find she was alone in the room, too.
When had he left her? Had he gone back to his old bed as soon as she had fallen asleep? But that was ridiculous. Why would he do a thing like that? And when she glanced around, she saw his nightshirt hanging from a peg on the wall, and then she noticed that the room was bright with morning sunshine, and she sank back against her pillows in relief. She had merely overslept. Angry with her or not, Adam had spent the night here and gotten up at his usual time, leaving her to sleep.
But, she realized with renewed alarm, that wasn’t particularly good news, either. Every other morning he had been eager to share breakfast with her. Because he enjoyed her company, he had said. This morning he hadn’t wanted her company, however. The knowledge was like a lead weight in her chest as she threw back the covers and climbed out of the big bed.
Trying in vain to judge how late she had slept, she moved slowly to the washbasin to begin her morning routine. There was no reason to hurry. If Adam didn’t want to see her, nothing else was important.
She dressed carefully, perversely wanting to look her best, even though she knew nothing mattered anymore. When she was ready and could think of nothing else to keep her here, she reluctantly opened the bedroom door and stepped into the hall. Expecting to see no one, she almost cried out in surprise when she saw Adam striding toward her.
“Oh, good, you’re awake,” he said, smiling at her as if nothing untoward had ever passed between them. “I didn’t want to leave without seeing you, but you were sleeping so soundly this morning, I didn’t have the heart to wake you.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, thinking he must be criticizing her for lying abed when she had work to do. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“You were tired last night, remember?” he said with one of the smiles she’d never thought she’d see again.
Her cheeks burned at the reminder. Why on earth was he being so nice to her? “I wasn’t that tired!” she protested guiltily.
But he took her hands in his and gazed down at her with eyes that held not the slightest hint of reproach. “Just be sure you aren’t that tired tonight,” he said, and lifted each of her hands to his lips by turn and kissed them.
Nearly breathless with surprise, she said, “I won’t, I promise!”
And then he kissed her mouth. “I’ll hold you to that, Mrs. Ross,” he said when he was done.
He tucked her hand in his arm and led her back through the house to the rear door where Oscar had the buggy waiting to take him to the fields.
Lori was still speechless with amazement as she stood waving while he drove away.
And as the days stretched into weeks, her confusion only increased. The night she’d thought marked the end of her relationship with Adam might never have happened. He treated her with every kindness and courtesy during the day, and almost every night he made slow, sweet love to her until she cried out her pleasure.
If sometimes memories of Eric’s attack made her want to recoil from him, if sometimes she resented the fact that the instrument of his pleasure was the same one that Eric had used to inflict pain, she never let him know it. And if, on those occasions, she was slow to respond and even certain she never would again, Adam was ever patient with her, coaxing her until her responses were no longer hers to control, until Adam was the only driving force in her life.
After only a few short weeks of such tender wooing, Lori understood that while she had already given Adam her heart years before, her soul no longer belonged to her, either, but had somehow passed into his keeping. She was obsessed with him, and his happiness became the only thing she considered important anymore.
“What are you making?” he asked one evening. They were in the parlor, as they usually were after supper, and Lori was taking advantage of the lingering daylight to do some embroidery.
He’d laid a possessive hand on her shoulder as he stood over her chair, and his touch had galvanized her because she knew what it meant. It meant that he was so anxious to make love to her later that he couldn’t stop himself from touching her now. Her body responded instinctively, as he had trained it to do with his relentless tenderness, and Lori savored the golden glow of her own desire.
“It’s a wrapper for the baby,” she said without thinking, gazing up at him lovingly.
Instantly, the spark of desire died in his eyes, and the hand on her shoulder stilled in its caress.
She wanted to snatch the words back. By unspoken agreement, they never mentioned the child. Lori knew he must have noticed the changes in her body. He had spent so many nights exploring every inch of it that surely he was just as aware as she of the way her stomach had rounded. But to say the word “baby” aloud, to acknowledge the child’s existence, was something they had never yet done. Until this moment.
“It’s... very nice,” he said and moved away, going to the sideboard where he kept the liquor.
Her first impulse was to stuff the small garment back into the sewing basket, out of sight, and to begin chattering cheerfully about something inconsequential, so they could both pretend that everything was fine again. Adam, she was certain, would be perfectly willing to assist her in that pretense, but sooner or later they were going to have to come to terms with the fact that there would, in a few short months, be a baby in this house. If she let this opportunity pass, heaven only knew when she might have another.
Very carefully, she stuck the needle into the cloth and laid the tiny garment in her lap. “Adam?”
She didn’t need to look at him to know what he was doing. She could hear the clink of the neck of the bottle touching the rim of the glass and the splash of the liquor as it poured. She also knew he wasn’t medicating the pain in his leg.
“Yes, my dear?” he replied with forced pleasantry.
When he turned to face her, glass in hand, he was smiling, but she knew him well enough now to recognize the falseness of that smile.
“I thought I was going to hate this baby,” she told him, forcing herself not to look away, to see his reaction and not to cringe from it.
His smile vanished, but she was glad to see it go. She wanted no pretense tonight. “Did you?” he asked noncommittally.
“After what happened... well, I guess you remember that I wanted to die. Until you came along, that is,” she added quickly.
He stood where he was, perfectly still, holding the glass in one hand and not even raising it to his lips. She waited, willing him to say something, anything. After what seemed a lifetime, he nodded once.
Understanding that was all the encouragement she was going to get, she took a deep breath and hurried on. “I’ll always be grateful to you, Adam.” She thought he winced slightly, but knew she must have been mistaken. “Without you, I don’t know what would have become of me... of us. If you hadn’t married me...” She caught herself. That’s not what she wanted to say to him. “Anyway, like I said, I expected I would hate the baby, but... Well, Sudie told me I wouldn’t. Bessie did, too. They said I’d even come to love it in time. I didn’t believe them then, but now that I’ve felt it move...” Instinctively, she placed her hand over the small mound of her stomach and felt the feeble fluttering that told her the child knew she was thinking about it.
She drew a deep breath to control the conflicting emotions swirling inside of her. “Now that I’ve felt it move,” she repeated determinedly, “I can’t hate it. Maybe I don’t love it yet, but...”
She looked up at Adam again, silently begging him to understand. But she saw no sign of that. His face was as cold and still as marble.
“We have to think about the future,” she went on relentlessly, knowing she had to say these things now, because if she didn’t, she might never again find the courage to do so. “Pretty soon people will start to notice. They’ll know there’s a baby—maybe they already do or at least they’ve guessed, but now they’ll start talking about it. To us,” she clarified. “And they’re going to think you’re the father.”
His lips stretched into the most ghastly grin she had ever seen on his face. “I certainly hope they will.”
Responding to an overwhelming urge to go to him, knowing only that she had to reassure him in some way, she laid aside the wrapper and rose to her feet, but he stopped her with a gesture.
“Lori, if you’re worried that I’ll tell someone the truth—”
“No! Of course not!”
“Then what are you worried about?” he asked with obvious reluctance. He did not want to have this conversation.
How could she put it into words that he would understand? “We never talk about the baby. I get the feeling that you... that you want to pretend it doesn’t exist.”
“Of course I do,” he admitted, shocking her. “I want to pretend that you married me because you wanted me. I want to pretend that I was the first man—the only man—who has ever had you.”
“But you are!” she said. Only when she saw his surprise did she realize what she had said. “You’re the only man I ever gave myself to,” she corrected herself. “The only man I ever wanted.”
“Really?” he asked, but he looked more suspicious than convinced.
“You must know I want you, Adam,” she insisted, moving toward him at last. “I didn’t think I had any secrets from you anymore.”
He smiled then, a sad thing that made her heart ache because she had no idea what could have hurt him so deeply. “I’m sure you have a lot of secrets from me, Lori.”
She did of course, the one secret she hadn’t yet found the courage to share with him, the truth about her love for him. Still she shook her head in silent denial, but Adam finally seemed to remember the glass he held and lifted it to his lips, using that as an excuse to turn away from her.
Once again, Lori wondered what kind of pain he was try ing to ease.
“Adam,” she said when he had lowered the glass again. “What’s the matter?”
He looked at her then, and his blue eyes were as cold as crystal. “I’m trying to figure out what you’re trying to tell me, Lori, but I’m not sure I really want to know.”
She’d known this would be hard, but she’d never dreamed just how hard it would be. “Sudie once told me that you’d never be mean to a child, that you’d never blame it for... for things that weren’t its fault... the way your father did.” He stiffened at that, probably thinking about Eric, but Lori didn’t want to think about Eric, so she hurried on. “She said you’d be a good... a good father to my baby. Adam, I didn’t want this baby, but it’s coming whether I want it to or not. Whether we want it to or not. You told me you would take care of it because it’s the Ross heir, and I let you because I needed someone to take care of me, too. But now...”
He waited, standing so still that Lori realized he wasn’t even breathing. Finally, when she didn’t go on, he prodded her. “Now?”
Oh, dear Lord, how could she say this? How could she ask such a thing of him? But then, how could she not?
“Now that I’ve really started to feel like... like I’m your wife—not just a girl you felt sorry for,” she added when she saw his frown. “Now I want us to be a family. I want you to be a... a father to my baby. Because I don’t want this child to turn out like... like his real father did.”
Adam closed his eyes, and she thought she saw a tremor pass over him. For a moment she was afraid, more afraid than she had ever been, even when she thought Eric was going to take her life. But then Adam opened his eyes, and all the coldness was gone.
“I swear to you, Lori, that will never happen.” He lifted his arm, reaching for her, and she came to him then, slipping her arms around his waist. She felt so good, so perfect, in his arms that for a moment he couldn’t get his breath. Twisting quickly, he set his half-empty glass back on the sideboard so he would have both hands free to hold her.
But even that was not enough. There was still too much between them, clothes and corsets and uncertainties that could only be alleviated when he was inside of her. But the thought reminded him once again that he was not the only man who had known her intimately. He might be the only man to whom she had responded, but he was not the only man she had known. And he was most certainly not the man who had put a baby in her belly.
A baby he had just sworn to protect. And a baby he knew in his heart he would always resent as a reminder of who had come before him—and why. Because he now knew Lori well enough to be certain she would never have even considered surrendering to Eric unless she had loved him.
The knowledge was like a knife in his heart, a knife that twisted every time he realized that she did not love him the same way. Oh, she’d surrendered to him, but only because she was his wife and it was her duty. And she had responded to him because he had given her no other choice. But he didn’t know how to make her love him, and he was beginning to fear he never would. Maybe if she’d never loved Eric...
But she had loved him. The bitterness of it was like gall and he kissed Lori fiercely, needing her sweetness to counteract it.
She responded as she always did, opening her lips to him granting him access to the depths of her mouth, just as she granted him access to the depths of her body. At the taste of her, his own body tightened with the desire that having her only seemed to intensify.
When they were both breathless and he had to break the kiss, he rested his forehead on hers, still holding her tightly.
“You know,” he said, managing a grin, “I just realized that my leg is bothering me.”
He loved the way her beautiful face instantly creased into a worried frown. “Why didn’t you say something! Come and sit down...”
“No,” he said, still grinning down into her eyes. “I think I need to lie down. In bed. With my devoted wife by my side to comfort me.”
He also loved the way the color came to her cheeks as if she were still a virgin, instead of a woman who had known two men.
“And just what kind of comfort will you be needing?” she asked, smiling shyly in spite of her blush.
“The kind only you can provide,” he informed her, releasing her just enough so they could walk side by side toward the door.
She went willingly, but she pretended reluctance with another frown. “Maybe I should call Sudie,” she teased. “She has a lot more experience than I do.”
“Not with the kind of comfort I’ll require,” he assured her.
He couldn’t even wait until they were undressed, and he made love to her with most of their clothes still on, struggling and cursing and laughing as they fought with ties and buttons and pieces of fabric that insisted on being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But at last they came together, and Adam lost himself in her silken heat.
For a few blissful moments no one else existed except the two of them and the exquisite pleasure they gave each other. When Adam heard her cry of joy and felt her release rippling around him, he tried to hold back, needing to savor this one perfect moment when she belonged only to him. But his body betrayed him and within seconds he, too, convulsed with his own completion.
When it was over and they were both satisfied, Adam rolled off of her, wanting nothing more than to cradle her in his arms and revel in his possession of her for the rest of the night.
“You’re mine,” he whispered against the softness of her hair, needing desperately to hear her confirm it. But once again his body betrayed him, and before she could respond— if she did respond—he fell asleep.
***
Lori was so happy. She hadn’t been happy since the day she’d learned her father had been killed in a battle so unimportant it didn’t even have a name. Not until today, at least. Because today she’d found out that Adam loved her.
Well, he hadn’t said so, not in so many words, but she knew he did. Why else would he have sent her a note and asked her to meet him? She’d thought her heart would burst this morning after church when he’d smiled at her. Oh, he’d smiled at her before. She’d known him practically all her life, after all, but this morning had been different. This morning he had looked right at her, and the smile had made his blue eyes glow.
She’d been so thrilled by this special attention that for once she’d forgotten to be ashamed of her faded dress and her worn bonnet and for the first time in her life she’d actually felt pretty. And then his brother had handed her the note.
“Adam asked me to give you this,” he’d said, slipping the piece of paper discreetly into her hand as he walked by her in the churchyard.
His smile had been so knowing, Lori had blushed furiously and imagined that everyone there must have guessed her secret. But when she’d looked around, she realized no one had even noticed the exchange. No one was looking at her at all.
Her heart pounding with apprehension and anticipation she’d hurried away, out of sight behind the church and opened the note.
“My dearest Lori,” it began, and Lori flushed with pleasure each time she recalled how he had addressed her. “I’m sure you must have noticed my great admiration for you. For years I have been satisfied to admire you from afar, but believe the time has come to tell you in person just how much you mean to me. You will make me the happiest man alive if you will meet me by the oak tree that marks the boundary of our properties at three o’clock this afternoon. Until then, I remain your devoted servant, Adam Ross.”
Lori had read the note so many times, she knew it by heart now. She’d had plenty of time for that, since she’d been waiting by the oak for at least an hour. She and Bessie had no clock, so she had no way of knowing when it was three o’clock exactly, and she hadn’t wanted to be late.
After the longest wait of her life, at last she saw him. He was riding a horse, coming quickly over the fields, and her heart began to thunder with excitement. He couldn’t wait to get to her! He was as eager as she! She could hardly breathe, and for a moment she was afraid she would faint, but somehow she remembered to draw some air into her lungs, and soon the feeling passed again.
She wasn’t sure exactly when she realized something was wrong. She should have known immediately, of course, because Adam never rode horseback. What had she thought, that his love for her had worked a miracle and healed his leg? But she hadn’t been thinking at all. She’d been stupid, so stupid, such a silly stupid girl.
Then he was close enough and she could see for herself. She didn’t have to remember about his leg or anything else, because she could see it wasn’t Adam at all. She should have known then at least, but she hadn’t, not then, because she was so stupid. And because he was smiling. And so handsome. Not as handsome as Adam, of course, but handsome just the same. All the girls said so and would have even if he hadn't been practically the last bachelor left in Texas.
But handsome is as handsome does, as Bessie was so fond of reminding her, and by that rule, Eric Ross wasn’t handsome at all. He’d lied and cheated and bribed his way out of serving in the army. Everybody knew it. Everybody knew he was a coward and a traitor to the Southern cause. And he was mean. She’d heard stories about how cruel he could be, and how he had a temper that no man wanted to test. How he could be so different from his brother, nobody could understand, but he was.
Why hadn’t she remembered that then? Why hadn’t she run away?
But she’d stood there like a lovesick fool, trying to figure out why he had come instead of Adam. Something must have happened to Adam, she’d decided. Was he sick or hurt? Her heart went still with terror at the very thought. That must be it. Something terrible had happened, and he had sent his brother to tell her. No, he had sent his brother to fetch her because he needed her. She was sure that must be it, because nothing less would have kept him from their rendezvous. But, she soon discovered, nothing terrible had happened at all. At least not yet.
He’d ridden up to her, his smile still wide, so happy, as if she’d come to meet him. If something had happened to Adam, his brother didn’t seem too upset.
“You came,” he said, climbing down from his horse. He left the reins trailing, so the animal wouldn’t wander, and came toward her.
“Where’s Adam? Is something wrong?” she asked. Her heart was still pounding, but now it was with fear.
“You don’t have to pretend,” he said. “We both know why you’re here.”
She had no idea what he was talking about, but before she could figure it out, he was reaching for her. She backed away in alarm.
“Where’s Adam?” she repeated desperately.
“How the hell should I know?” he replied impatiently.
“But wasn’t he...? The note...”
“I’ve been watching you for a long time, Lori,” he told her, smiling again. He seemed very pleased about something. “I might not’ve noticed you except I saw Adam making cow’s eyes at you, and then I realized you were all grown up all of a sudden.”
She was so confused. What was he talking about? And where was Adam?
“And I saw the way you looked at me this morning when I gave you that note,” he continued, apparently oblivious to her distress. “I knew a girl as pretty as you wouldn’t have any use for a cripple, not when you could have a real man.” He reached for her again, and this time she wasn’t quick enough. He caught her by the arms. She gasped in shock and tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip, making her cry out in pain.
“Let me go!” she cried. “You’re hurting me!”
“Then stop fighting,” he replied, holding her even tighter. “I don’t want to hurt you. I want to have some fun. You want to have some fun, too, don’t you, Lori?”
She shook her head frantically and continued to struggle, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Yes, you do. You just don’t know it yet, but I’ll show you I’m twice the man my brother is. I’ll make you forget Adam Ross even exists!”
She fought him as best she could, but she was no match for him, and finally he slapped her so hard that stars danced before her eyes. Stunned, she could not resist when he forced her backward to the ground. He held her wrists over her head with one hand while he did whatever he wished with the other, touching her breasts while she squirmed futilely and tried to get away, but his weight pinned her in place. He was crushing her and all she could do was scream until he slapped her again.
The pain exploded in her head, and before she could even gasp, he clamped a hand over her mouth, shutting off her air. This time black spots clouded her vision, and he was just a blur above her through the tears that had filled her eyes. She was going to die, she knew it. He was going to kill her. “Don’t make me hurt you, Lori,” he was saying, his voice faint, as if he was very far away even though his breath was hot in her face.
The darkness was closing in on her as she felt her life slipping away, and just when she was sure she would die, he lifted his hand. Desperately, she gasped air into her burning lungs. She was so intent on simply breathing again that she didn’t realize what he was doing until she felt the cold air on her legs.
“No!” she cried or tried to, but the protest was lost in a cry of agony as he forced himself inside of her. The pain seared through her, threatening to tear her apart, and once more she knew she was going to die. She couldn’t breathe and she couldn’t see and he was crushing her and killing her, grunting in her face like an animal while her life slipped away in a crimson tide of agony.
“You’re mine now, Lori,” he’d said. “I’ll come back for you, Lori. Wait for me, Lori. Lori. Lori…”
“Lori! Lori, wake up! Lori!”
He was still holding her, and Lori fought back, clawing and kicking and struggling with every ounce of her strength until he pulled her upright and shook her, making her open her eyes.
“Lori, wake up! You’re having a nightmare!”
She saw him then. It was Adam. Adam, not the other one, not the one who had hurt her. Adam who had promised to keep her safe.
She collapsed against him, sobbing out her terror while he held her fast against his heart.
“My God,” he was saying, “what on earth were you dreaming?”
But she couldn’t tell him, couldn’t speak at all because she was sobbing too hard. She’d thought she was over it. She hadn’t had a nightmare like that in weeks, not since she and Adam had really become husband and wife.
It had all seemed so real, too, as if she was really there with Eric and it was happening all over again. And he was promising to come back for her because she belonged to him now.
But Eric wasn’t coming back, she told herself fiercely. And even if he did, Adam would protect her. Eric would never hurt her again.
She clung to Adam and wept away her terrors until she was too exhausted to weep anymore. Only when she lay spent against his chest, silent except for the occasional hiccup, did she realize dawn had broken. Soon it would be time to get up and start a new day. Instinctively, she tightened her grip on Adam, not wanting to let him go ever.
“What in God’s name were you dreaming about?” he asked her again, pushing her away slightly so he could gaze down into her face. He looked so dear with his hair mussed from sleep and the day’s growth of golden whiskers stubbling his chin and the worried frown creasing his handsome face that she wanted to weep all over again. She certainly didn’t want to tell him about her terrible dream.
He smiled slightly when she did not respond. “Surely, you don’t believe that old superstition that if you tell a dream it’ll come true,” he said, trying to tease her.
“It already came true,” she told him wearily. “I dreamed about him, about when he attacked me.” She shuddered at the memory, and feeling her reaction, Adam tightened his arms around her.
“It’s all right,” he assured her, brushing the hair away from her damp cheeks. “It’s over now and it won’t ever happen again.”
And it wouldn’t. Adam would see to that, because he had no intention of ever sharing Lori with any other man. And as alarmed as he had been to see her in the throes of the nightmare just now, he also knew a sense of triumph. Lori might have once loved Eric, but if this dream was any indication, his brother had hurt her in ways Adam was only beginning to understand.
Perhaps there was more hope than he had realized. Perhaps Eric’s violence really had destroyed Lori’s tender feelings for him, or at least damaged them. If that were true... Well, if that were true, Adam would be a fool not to damage them even more, wouldn’t he?
“Lori,” he said, still stroking her lovely face. “I wasn’t completely honest with you about something.”
He saw the fear spark instantly in her beautiful dark blue eyes, and he hastened to relieve it.
“What I told you about Eric, about him shooting me, that wasn’t true. Or at least not completely true,” he amended quickly. “He did shoot me, but it wasn’t an accident. That’s what I told my father and everyone else, but that’s not how it happened.”
Her eyes grew wide as the horror of the truth dawned on her. “He shot you on purpose?” she asked incredulously.
“He was lying in wait for me. I think...” His voice broke on the words he’d never spoken aloud to anyone because he had never, until this moment, wanted to admit they were true. “I think he intended to kill me.”
She cried out, an incoherent sound that was part sob and part protest that yet spoke eloquently of her outrage and horror. After a moment, she managed only one word, “Why?” He felt something inside of him, that terrible secret fear, ease with a swiftness that was almost painful. She hadn’t defended Eric! She hadn’t even considered the possibility that Adam might be wrong.
“He hated me,” Adam told her baldly. “I told you how my father blamed him for killing our mother. He made Eric suffer every day of his life. I tried to protect him, and Sudie did, too, but we couldn’t, not when my father was so determined to punish him. And after a while, Eric seemed determined to suffer. He almost went out of his way to provoke my father, as if he believed a beating was better than simply being ignored.”
“But why would he hate you?" she asked. “You tried to protect him! If he wanted to hurt anyone, I’d think he’d want to hurt your father.”
“I’ve been trying to figure that out for over ten years now. The only reason I can come up with doesn’t make any sense to me, but it’s the only one that makes any sense at all. I think he must have believed somehow that if I was gone, our father would love him instead, that Eric could take my place.”
“That’s crazy!” she insisted.
“He was only a child, barely twelve years old. But you should have seen his face that day. The ball went in my leg and knocked me down. I was lying there in the dirt, bleeding and writhing in pain, and he stood over me and laughed.”
“He laughed?” Lori echoed in horror.
“I never told anyone that,” he confessed. “If I had, my father would have killed him. As it was, he almost did anyway, even though I swore it was an accident.”
“Why did you protect him? Why didn’t you tell the truth? He didn’t deserve your help!”
“He didn’t deserve a lot of what had happened to him, either. It wasn’t his fault that our mother died, and he was as much my father’s son as I was. I felt guilty because I was loved and he wasn’t, and so I’d been protecting him—or trying to—all of his life. But I can see now I made a mistake. If I’d told the truth then... well, maybe he wouldn’t have hurt you, too.”
“Oh, Adam,” she said, and tears filled her eyes again as she gazed up at him adoringly. Perhaps she didn’t love him yet, but she loved Eric less now.
His conscience pricked him just a bit. Once again, he was taking the love that should have been Eric’s, just as he was taking Eric’s woman and Eric’s child. But if his motives were selfish, they were also just, because Eric had forfeited any claim to Lori and her love when he had abused her so cruelly.
“But if he hadn’t hurt me,” she said, as if she could read his thoughts, “then you and I wouldn’t be together now.” Her smile was so sweet that Adam could almost imagine the emotion shining in her eyes was love instead of merely gratitude. Longing throbbed painfully in his chest, the desire for what he needed so desperately and feared he might never have.
“Do you think us being together now was worth the pain?” he asked to torture himself, knowing perfectly well she couldn’t lie about that, not even to please him.
But to his amazement, her smile never wavered. “It was worth almost anything,” she assured him.
That was when Adam understood the true depths of his own obsession, because he was so eager to accept her lie.
***
Eric wanted to go home. Nobody was likely to care if he did, of course. It wasn’t as if he was in the real army or anything. But he couldn’t go home, because if he did, everyone back there would know he’d run away. That would pretty much ruin whatever respect he’d gained from joining up with this godforsaken bunch in the first place.
He should’ve joined the regular army. He could see that now. At least he would’ve gotten some glory and seen some real fighting. The regular army had uniforms and guns and ammunition, too. None of that had seemed very important before, when he was back home in the comfort of Elmhurst. Why, he’d thought then, should he risk his neck to fight ir a war to protect a cause he didn’t give a damn about? Southern honor? He’d seen enough Southern honor to know it wasn’t worth protecting, and it for damn sure wasn’t worth dying for.
But that was before he started getting all those funny looks from people who thought he was a coward or worse. Who thought he ought to join all their sons and fathers and husbands in the fighting. What the hell did they expect? He’d already paid some poor son of a bitch to take his place, and what good would it do if he went himself? One man wasn’t going to make a difference one way or the other.
But then he began to realize that if he didn’t go he might suffer more than he would if he did. He began to realize that the men who had fought and died for the South were now saints, and the ones who had fought and lived would be heroes. But the ones who hadn’t fought at all would be outcasts, despised by one and all.
Eric had had enough of being despised by his father. He didn’t want to have to face it from everybody else, too. So when the call had come from Rip Ford to protect Texas from the Yankee invasion, he’d ridden to join them.
Glory. Honor. Respect. That was all he’d wanted. Instead, he’d gotten dust and mud and wormy rations and a bunch of snot-nosed kids who didn’t know their asses from their elbows.
That was Eric’s last thought when he heard someone banging on a pan to rouse the men from their fitful sleep. Eric threw off his blanket in disgust and rose stiffly from the hard ground. The scarlet sky, he saw at once, boded ill. A red dawn meant more rain and more mud, and then the steaming heat that would follow.
Eric would have killed a man for a cup of real coffee, but this army hadn’t seen real coffee in weeks. He settled for “borrowing” some of the putrid brew that one of his “men” had made from scorched mesquite beans. At least it was hot.
“When are we going to see some more Yankees?” one of his snot-nosed “men” asked crossly.
“Pretty soon,” another reported. “I heard they wasn’t far from here.”
The talk swirled around him, but Eric didn’t deign to join in. The boys weren’t as much fun now that Billy was gone. And they looked at Eric differently, too, like they thought it was his fault Billy’d gotten himself killed or something. The hell with them. Eric didn’t care what a bunch of kids thought, anyway.
He was chewing on a piece of hardtack when the orders came down. They were going to attack the Yankees who were camped at a nearby ranch on the banks of the Rio Grande Captain Dunn would lead them, and Colonel Showalter men would go with them. Hell, Showalter might even be sober, since it was so early in the morning.
Eric felt his blood begin to stir, the first time he’d felt anything like excitement in weeks. By the time they were mounted up, a slow rain had already begun to fall.
“We’ll drive them damn Yankees into the sea!” Dun shouted as the order came to ride. The old ranger sure got worked up, but Eric was pretty worked up himself.
Half-expecting the Yankees to be gone by the time the got there, the men rode hell-bent up to the ranch only to discover they were still there. Shouts and Rebel yells filled the morning air as they charged straight into the Yanks ranks.
As the drizzle became a sodden downpour, men fought hand to hand, screaming and bleeding and dying and charging onward. Using the sword he’d taken off a dead Yanks several weeks back, Eric slashed his way into the melee.
Swinging furiously at a blue jacket, he felt the shock up to his shoulder when the blade struck bone. The man’s howl of agony filled Eric’s head as the man’s blood spurted hot in his face. The sensation was nothing he’d ever experienced before, and he felt a rush of joy that was so much like sex that he actually clutched his crotch with his free hand for a moment. And then another Yankee charged him and Eric cut him down with one swift blow. More screams, more blood, and Eric was lost in the lustful frenzy of death and destruction.
The Rebels were unstoppable, and beneath their assault the Yankee line shattered. As Confederate reinforcements arrived, the Blue Coats broke and ran. The Rebels reloaded empty muskets and fired after them, cutting them down their tracks. A handful managed to reach the river and swing to safety in Mexico. A few more were captured, but most were left in ignominous death on the muddy banks of the Rio Grand
Eric got himself a new pair of boots from a dead Yankee corporal, and some tobacco from a dead captain. And they all had coffee and real meat that night from the supplies the Yankees had left behind. There were guns, too, and horses and wagons. The Cavalry of the West wasn’t quite so pitiful anymore.
And neither was Eric.
“Did you boys see me out there today?” he asked as he approached them that evening. They were sitting around a campfire the evening after the battle. “I near cut a Yankee’s arm clean off!”
They watched him warily as he took his seat among them. They were, he was gratified to notice, looking at the bloodstains on his tunic.
“It was just like at Antietam,” he continued now that he had their attention. “Guns were a waste of time. A man couldn’t get his rifle reloaded because the Yankees were right on top of us before we knew it. It was all fists and bayonets. I always swore I’d get myself a sword before I went hand-to-hand again.”
The boys were staring at him, with admiration he was sure. He rubbed one of the bloodstains just to remind them of what he had done that day.
“I finally got to kill me a Yankee,” one of them said suddenly, trying to draw their attention to himself. “Shot him when he was running into the river.”
“You’ll get a lot more chances,” Eric said, drawing them back. “We’ve got them cornered now. They’ve got the sea to their backs, so they’ll have to stand and fight at Brownsville.”
He glanced around at the circle of faces and saw exactly what he’d wanted to see. They held him in awe again. They’d forgotten about Billy, and he was once more their leader.
He reached into his pocket for the tobacco pouch he’d taken from the Yankee. “Anybody want a smoke?” he asked generously.
As the boys passed the pouch and stuffed the tobacco into the crude pipes they’d fashioned or brought from home, Eric smiled.
“Too bad there ain’t no women around here,” he said rubbing his crotch as he savored the memories of the battle “But wait ’til we get to Brownsville. That’s where we’ll have us some real fun.”