The Man from Stone Creek (37 page)

Maddie was still taking that in when the sound of an approaching wagon distracted her as well as Oralee. Both women watched as a peddler drove into town, and, sitting straight and proud beside him, was Bird.

They pulled up and Maddie reined the burro around, staring. Bird was plump with well-being, and her face was scrubbed clean of bawdy house paint. She wore a red calico dress with a bonnet to match.

“I ain't comin' back to work for you, Oralee,” she announced first thing. The man beside her, who must have been half again her age, wore a bowler hat and an open smile. “This here's my husband, Albert J. Hildegarde,” she said.

Albert J. Hildegarde tipped his hat. “Best regards of the day, ladies,” he said.

Bird took in the ruins of the mercantile. “You need a ride someplace, Maddie?” she asked.

“I just might,” Maddie replied, squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin. “Where are you headed?”

“North,” Albert answered. “Got to pick up some supplies in Phoenix. Looks like folks around here will be needing goods.”

Maddie let her mind rest on Sam O'Ballivan.

She loved him, all right. She wouldn't have given herself to him, even in the aftermath of a disaster, if she hadn't. If she pressed him, he'd probably marry her, take her and Terran back to Stone Creek with him.

But she knew he didn't love her. He hadn't had time to get over Abigail.

It was curious, but she could have married another man, even without love, just to put a roof over Terran's head, and her own. With Sam, things were different.

It would kill her to look into his eyes, day after day, night after night, and see duty there, and unflagging honor, but not love.

Not love.

“If you meant it,” she said to Bird, “Terran and I would be obliged for a ride as far as Phoenix.”

“What will you do there?” Oralee asked. She sounded worried.

“Survive,” Maddie said. She looked back at the store again, took it all in, so she could remember not only what it was, but what it became. “Just survive,” she finished.

 

F
OLKS STREAMED INTO
Tucson from Haven, brought there by kindly friends and strangers, in the backs of wagons, mounted on borrowed horses. All of them looked stunned.

As Sam came out of the marshal's office, he reckoned the same thing was happening over in Tombstone. People had a way of putting aside their own concerns when calamity struck, and doing what needed to be done.

A tug at his sleeve deflected his attention and he looked down to see Violet Perkins standing next to him, with an ice-cream cone dripping in her free hand.

“Hullo, Mr. SOB,” she said cheerfully.

Sam smiled, ruffled her hair.

“I guess that was Ben Donagher's stepmama you just put in jail.”

He nodded. “You look real pretty today, Violet,” he said, noting her clean face and ruffled dress.

She shoved the ice-cream cone upward. “Want some?”

Sam grinned. “No, thanks,” he said.

“My mama's getting married,” she told him. “To the man who rescued us from the fire.”

“That was quick,” Sam commented, but he was pleased. Women had to make their way in the world as best they could.

“His name is Seth,” she went on. “He bought me this dress and this ice cream, too. He has a house with a porch and a yard. His wife died three years ago and he's been right lonesome.”

“Do you like him, Violet?” Sam asked gently. He didn't know what he could do about it if the answer was no, but he had to find out, or the child's well-being would prey on his mind from that time forward.

She nodded. “Mama does, too.”

“That's good,” Sam said.

Violet looked back over her shoulder, nearly spilling the ice cream to the sidewalk. “I guess I better go. Mama and Seth are in with the justice of the peace. They ought to be hitched proper by now.”

Sam leaned down, kissed the top of her head.

She took the opportunity to hook an arm around his neck, stood on tiptoe and smack him on the cheek with ice-cream lips. “Thanks for the dress and the storybook, Mr. SOB,” she whispered. “I knew all along they was really from you. And thanks for letting me go to the outhouse whenever I wanted, so I didn't wet my bloomers.”

Sam blinked hard. Before he could bring himself to say “You're welcome,” or anything at all, she'd turned away, skipping off down the sidewalk.

He crossed to the telegraph office, sent a wire to the major.

“Assignment done. Coming home. Bringing some people with me. I've got a boy and a dog to spare. Do you still want Ben Donagher?”

He was across the street an hour later, paying for a team and wagon and a whole passel of other things, when the telegraph operator tracked him down with an answer.

“Damned right I do,” the major had replied. “Think I know who else you're bringing along. Will have your place readied up. Come on home.”

Come on home.

Sam meant to do just that.

It slowed him down considerably, traveling by wagon, with his gelding tied behind, and it was past nightfall when he pulled up alongside the river on the Haven side. He rode the gelding across and was met on the shore by none other than Ben. The dog was beside him.

“Maddie wanted me to leave with her and Terran, but I said I'd stay,” the boy told him, his face full of hope. “Go on up to Stone Creek with you.”

Sam froze halfway between the saddle and the ground. Let himself down slowly. “Maddie left?” he asked when he thought he could get the words out without tripping over any of them.

Ben nodded. “With Bird and her peddler husband,” he said.

Sam swore. “You know where they went?”

“Phoenix,” Ben said helpfully.

Sam rubbed his chin. He needed a bath and a shave, but between taking Undine Donagher to jail in Tucson, buying the wagon and new clothes for everybody but Neptune, he hadn't had the time. “How long have they been gone?”

Ben shrugged. “Left this afternoon,” he said.

“You still got your horse?”

“Yep,” the boy answered.

“Well, get him. If we're going to catch up to that peddler's wagon, we'd better be on the move.”

Ben hesitated only a moment. Then he fetched his horse and crossed the river with Sam. The dog rode with Sam.

On the other side, Sam put Neptune in the back of the wagon, with the crates and packages, and hoped he wouldn't chew anything up. Ben climbed into the box alongside Sam, after they'd secured their tired horses behind.

They'd traveled less than an hour when they came upon the camp.

Maddie came out to meet them, looking tired and dirty and forlornly surprised. Sam didn't speak to her. He just got down from the wagon, turned Ben's horse and the gelding loose to graze, and then unhitched the team. Ben and the dog had long since gone to greet Terran, but Maddie lingered.

“That's a fine team and wagon,” she said when the silence got too long and too uncomfortable. “I gave our horses to Mr. Maddox, the blacksmith.”

Still, Sam said nothing. He didn't trust himself.

Maddie seemed bent on starting up a conversation. “I guess I should have waited to say goodbye, and thank you for all you did,” she said softly, “but Bird and Albert were heading out right away.”

“Guess so,” Sam said.

A tear slipped down Maddie's cheek. “You'll be going on to Stone Creek, I suppose.”

Sam finally faced her, set his hands on his hips. “It's home,” he replied.

“Ben tells me you're an Arizona Ranger.”

He thrust a hand through his gritty hair. “I think I'm through with rangering,” he allowed. “I just want to settle down at Stone Creek and concentrate on ranching.” Then, carefully, “What are you meaning to do, once you get wherever it is you're going?”

“I'll look for work.”

“What kind of work?”

She shrugged. Spread her hands. “Whatever I can find,” she said.

“I'm in the market for a wife,” Sam heard himself say. In the next moment he wished the ground would open up and swallow him without a trace.
I'm in the market for a wife,
he'd said. Like he planned on buying a cow off the auction block.

“What about Abigail?”

The question startled Sam right out of the tangle of embarrassment he'd gotten himself wound up in. “Abigail,” he said, “is dead.”

“But you loved her.”

Sam looked away, made himself look back. “I
should
have loved her,” he said. “But I didn't. Oh, I fooled myself for a long time, but once I met you, I knew the truth of it.”

Now it was Maddie who was flummoxed. “Once you…met me?” She almost whispered the words, and put one dirty, tremulous hand to her throat.

“I love you, Maddie.”

She just stood there, without saying a word.

“I'm an old-fashioned man,” Sam said, moving to take her upper arms in his hands. “When I lay down with you, it was because I wanted to make you mine. Not just for one night, either. For always.”

She cried harder, and he wondered if he'd insulted her somehow, mentioning their lovemaking, or if she still cared for Warren Debney and didn't know how to go about telling him.

“Oh, Sam,” she said finally. And she put both her arms around his neck. “Sam.”

He kissed her, tentatively at first, and then with everything he felt for her. She responded with a fervor that made him wish they were back in that Mexican springhouse. But the fact was, they weren't. They were within a hundred feet of another wagon, and Terran and Ben had to be considered.

Sam lowered his hands to Maddie's waist and held her away, but he kept the distance slight.

“I love you, Sam O'Ballivan,” Maddie said, smiling up at him, even though she was still weeping. “I love you.”

He caressed her breast, felt her nipple harden deliciously against his palm. “Then I suppose you ought to marry me, before the both of us wind up with bad reputations.”

She laughed, and the sound made Sam's heart swell.

“The sooner the better,” she said when she'd recovered.

He kissed her again.

Then he gave a whoop of joy, lifted her right off her feet and spun her around in a circle. Neptune had rejoined them, and he ran 'round and 'round, barking with delight.

Ben and Terran were drawn by the festivities, too, their faces bright with curious pleasure.

Sam set Maddie back on her feet and nibbled lightly at her ear. Felt a shiver go through her.

“I wish we could make love,” she whispered. “Right here and now.”

He nibbled again. “Next time I have you,” he promised, “it will be in a real bed, and we'll be married.”

Her eyes twinkled with mischief as she looked up into his face. “Will it be like before?” she teased.

“Better,” he said. He looked over his shoulder at Ben and Terran, who were standing at a little distance.

She trembled again. Stroked his cheek with the backs of her fingers. Practically made his knees buckle, as easy as that.

“Come and have some supper,” she said. “Bird's got enough rabbit stew in that pot for all of us.”

They sat around the peddler's fire, eating and talking quietly.

When it was time to bed down, Maddie and Bird retired to the interior of Hildegarde's well-equipped wagon, with Albert in a bedroll beneath. Ben, Terran and Neptune stretched out in the back of Sam's buckboard, among the parcels, and Sam lay underneath, tired to the bone and grinning like a damn fool.

It would be several days before they got as far as Flagstaff. Once there, he and Maddie would find a preacher and make it legal.

Overhead, Terran and Ben began to snore out a soft chorus of exhaustion. Sam listened for a while and then he dozed off himself. When he woke, it was daylight, and Maddie was crouched beside the wagon, beaming.

“Wake up, Sam O'Ballivan,” she said. “The coffee's ready.”

“You sound like a wife,” he teased.

She laughed. “I'm practicing.”

He pulled her down beside him, kissed her until they were both breathless.

“You kiss like a husband,” she said.

Sam grinned. “I'm practicing,” he told her.

T
HE HIGH COUNTRY
lay blanketed beneath a dazzling snow, virtually untouched, as far as the eye could see, and sprinkled with diamonds. The air was cold and bracing, and Maddie O'Ballivan sat straight on the wagon seat, beside her husband, taking it all in. Down at Haven, even as far north as Phoenix, the ground was bare and dry. This was like another world.

“Stone Creek,” Sam said with quiet pride.

Maddie saw two houses, smoke curling, home-scented, from their stone chimneys, a variety of outbuildings and a partially frozen stream running through, like a long strand of sky-blue thread. Hereford cattle grazed on summer hay, scattered from wagons by men with pitchforks. Great, towering pines stood sentinel on the sloping hillsides and, in the distance, at the end of a twisting trail, a town nestled, brave and remote and new.

Sam had told her about the town. Said what it needed was a general store, and he'd build one, if she'd run it.

Maddie's heart swelled into her throat. It was hard to believe, looking upon that pristine expanse, that she and Terran and Ben were going to live there. She felt as though she'd died and been reborn.

In the back of the wagon, Neptune began to bark. It was an exuberant, hopeful sound. Ben and Terran, bundled in the coats Sam had bought for them in Flagstaff before the wedding, fairly jumped up and down with excitement.

“Which house is the major's?” Ben asked, poking his head between Maddie and Sam. His breath made a white plume in the thin air.

“That one,” Sam said, pointing, to Maddie's surprise, to the smaller of the houses. He'd told her a few things about the setup at Stone Creek, that he and Major Blackstone were partners in the ranching business, as well as rangering, though he reckoned the latter would slow down, now that he had a wife and a boy to raise. But he'd wanted the rest of it to be a surprise, and it was.

Maddie's gaze turned naturally to the larger house, a long, two-story structure of stone and timber, with windows gleaming at the front. From now on, she thought, this would be her home. Come the spring, she could plant a vegetable patch, and flowers, too.

It was a miracle.

“You'll be glad to sleep in your own bed again,” she said because she was afraid she'd forget how to speak if she didn't say something, no matter how mundane it might be.

Sam had followed her gaze, and now he grinned, the reins resting lightly in his gloved hands. The team sputtered and tossed their heads, anxious for feed and rest and the warmth of a barn. “Actually,” he said, “I've never lived in that house, so it'll be as new to me as it will be to you.”

Maddie looked into his eyes, forgetting the boys, the dog, the horses tied behind, everything but Sam. “You built it for Abigail,” she mused, with no rancor.

He kissed the tip of her nose. “I built it for you,” he said, and then he set the wagon moving again. “I just didn't know at the time who you'd turn out to be, that's all.”

Major Blackstone waited, the collar of his coat pulled up around his ears, on the porch of the first house. With a shy smile, he made his way out to the gate as Sam reined the buckboard to a halt.

“Welcome to Stone Creek, Maddie O'Ballivan,” he said, catching and holding her gaze.

“Thank you,” Maddie answered. She too felt shy; the major was Abigail's father, after all. It must have seemed strange to him, seeing Maddie as Sam's bride, taking a place he'd surely imagined for his lost daughter.

The major seemed to see right inside Maddie's mind. He reached up and patted her hand. “It'll be a fine thing, having you here,” he told her, gruffly gentle. “A fine thing indeed.”

Ben leaped down from the back of the wagon, Neptune barking at his heels. “Where's the bunkhouse?” he asked.

Major Blackstone smiled. “You won't be living in the bunkhouse,” he said. “I've got a room ready for you upstairs.”

Ben's eyes widened. “My dog, too?”

“Your dog, too,” the major said. His wise eyes swung to Terran, still in the back of the buckboard. Took him in in a way that made him part of things. “You'd best stay a spell, too. Help your friend get settled in.” He looked at Maddie again, then Sam. “Let the newlyweds have some time to get used to each other.”

Terran, subdued since Maddie had taken him aside, the first night in Flagstaff and told him the truth about the both of them, let out a heartening whoop, grabbed his things and jumped down just as Ben had.

The major rounded the wagon, untied Dobbin and Sam's gelding. “We'll see to these critters,” he said. “Won't we, boys? Nice barn waiting for them.”

Sam shifted on the seat to watch. “Obliged,” he said.

“The old fella,” the major noted, examining Dobbin with a practiced eye, “looks ready for the pasture.” He patted the tired horse fondly, but looked at Sam. “You ever name the other one?”

“Apollo,” Sam answered. He and Maddie had agreed on the name on their wedding night, between bouts of lovemaking. Apollo, he'd said, was the sun god. There had been enough darkness in their lives up to then, and now it was time for light.

The boys, neither of whom had seen more than a skiff of snow in their lives, had already figured out how to bunch the stuff into balls and fling it at each other, and their laughter rang like music, with Neptune contributing joyous yelps.

They'd be starting school in town in a few days, but for now they could play. They'd been through so much, both of them.

“What are you sitting here for?” the major demanded good-naturedly, his eyes resting with affection on Sam. “Seems to me, you could think of better things to do.”

Maddie blushed. Sam laughed and turned the team toward the other house, perhaps a mile away.

A few minutes later they pulled up to the door of a barn, so new that the wood was still unweathered and fragrant with pitch.

“You could go on inside the house if you want,” Sam said.

Maddie smiled. “No, sir,” she answered. “You're not getting out of carrying me over the threshold, Sam O'Ballivan.”

He chuckled. “It was worth a try,” he said.

Maddie swatted at him, laughing.

They unhitched the team together, put the weary horses in their stalls, groomed and fed and watered them. Sam took a while to groom Dionysus, too, and to check the animal's lame foot, now healed. When the work was done, Sam said he'd fetch their belongings from the wagon later, took Maddie by the hand and led her around to the front porch.

At the door he paused, placed his hands on either side of Maddie's face, and kissed her gently.

“This is
your
house, Maddie. Yours and Terran's and mine. Let's remember Abigail and Warren—they'll always be part of our lives—but under this roof, there will be no ghosts. Agreed?”

Maddie swallowed. Nodded.

Sam swept her up into his arms, so suddenly that it took her breath away. He opened the door and they were over the threshold.

A spinet gleamed, next to the fireplace, though there was, as yet, no other furniture.

Maddie took in an audible breath at the sight of it.

“Wedding gift from the major,” Sam said, setting her on her feet.

“How did he know? How did
you
know?”

Sam rested his hands lightly on either side of her waist. A charge went through Maddie, and much as she wanted to sit at that spinet and let loose all the music she'd been storing up inside since the last time she'd played, she wanted something else more.

“Terran talks a lot,” Sam told her, and grinned.

Maddie felt flushed, even though they'd just come in from a cold, snow-spread day and the fire on the hearth was burning low. “Do we own any furniture at all?” she asked practically.

Sam's blue eyes twinkled. “A table, a bathtub and a bed.”

Maddie's tongue tied itself in a tidy knot.

Sam look her hand, led her into the kitchen at the back of the house. There was another fireplace there, with flames flickering inside, a big wood stove with a tap on the hot-water reservoir, and a long, plain table with benches on either side.

Maddie pictured herself cooking there, pictured all of them, her and Sam and Terran, at the table, laughing as they shared a meal.

Meanwhile, Sam went out the back door and came back shortly with a large, round tub. He set it down close to the stove, which was already pumping delicious warmth into the spacious room, and turned the tap to let hot water flow into it.

“You first,” he said, picking up a bucket and carrying it to the sink, where he began pumping cold water into it.

Maddie looked around. “You mean—undress?”

“Unless you want to bathe in your clothes,” Sam said, lifting the lid on the reservoir and emptying the bucket into it. He went back to the sink, when Maddie just stood there, and commenced to pumping again.

“Undress?” Maddie echoed stupidly. “Right here?”

Sam grinned at her, over one shoulder. “Right here,” he said.

Maddie took off her bonnet first, then her heavy cloak. Laid them aside on one of the benches lining the table. She wanted a bath; she was cold, at least on the outside, and they'd traveled a long way from Flagstaff. On the inside, she felt feverish, and a familiar tension was building.

“You're going to—watch?”

“I certainly am,” Sam said.

“Sam,” Maddie choked out, “this is a
kitchen.
”

He stopped his filling and carrying and emptying to run his gaze over her. It scorched as it passed, and made her nipples harden against her camisole and the bodice of her new woolen dress. “There is no room in this house,” he said, “where I won't make love to you, sooner or later.”

A delicious shiver went through Maddie. She began unbuttoning the front of her dress, but she fumbled so that it took forever. Sam, usually eager to help with the process, stood back, watching with a possessive heat in his eyes.

Maddie stripped until she was naked, waiting for Sam to take her.

Instead, he gestured rather grandly toward the tub.

Maddie stepped in, sank down into the water with a sigh. Sam brought her soap and a towel, and fetched some of her things from the wagon. Then he went back for more while she bathed.

When she'd finished, she stood, dripping, and he admired her for a long moment before wrapping a towel around her.

“Venus,” he murmured, “rising from the sea.”

Maddie's heart fluttered its wings.

She wanted Sam to kiss her, make love to her. Instead he helped her out of the tub and pointed toward the rear stairs.

“Our room is at the far end of the hall,” he said. He dragged the tub to the back door and Maddie felt a rush of cold air as he emptied it.

She nodded, covered in gooseflesh, and started for the steps, looked back to see Sam turning the tap on the stove. Hot water steamed into the tub. When he began to peel off his clothes, Maddie turned strangely shy and bolted.

Sam's laughter followed her to the second floor.

Their bedroom, like the kitchen and the parlor, boasted a fireplace. A blaze had been laid, and Maddie struck a match to it, stalling. The bed was huge, a mahogany four-poster with fluffy pillows and a colorful quilt, turned back to reveal white linen sheets.

Maddie swallowed. The light shifted and fat snowflakes began to drift past the windows.

She moved closer to the fire, wishing she had a nightgown, but the towel would have to do. There was no way she was going back down those stairs to the kitchen for her valise. Sam was there, and he was naked in the bathtub.

“Silly,” she said, impatient with herself. It wasn't as though she and Sam hadn't made love before. Why, practically the minute they'd exchanged “I do's” in Flagstaff, he'd dragged her off to a hotel-room bed and ravished her so thoroughly that even the recollection of it aroused her.

She paced.

She added wood to the fire.

She watched the snow.

She looked at the big, inviting bed.

She added more wood to the fire.

And then the door opened and Maddie's breath caught.

Sam came in, naked except for a towel tied loosely at his waist.

He held out a hand to Maddie, and she went to him, tentatively, for all the world like a blushing virgin bride.

He kissed her. Tugged at her towel until it dropped away. Let his own fall to the floor.

“Do you remember what I told you that first time?” he asked in a ragged, sleepy whisper, stroking her with his hands, nibbling lightly at her earlobe. “In the springhouse in Refugio?”

Maddie remembered, all right. Her blood sang with the recollection.

She swallowed, nodded. She'd waited for that particular promise to be fulfilled, nerves jumping with anticipation every time she thought of it, but Sam had withheld it.