The Raging Hearts: The Coltrane Saga, Book 2 (47 page)

She got down from the horse. “Luther, I can’t thank you enough. But how will I be able to get in touch with you?”

“I know everything that goes on. I got folks keeping me up on things. You run along now.”

He turned swiftly, disappearing into the night.

Shivering with the night chill and the creeping fear that moved over her body, Kitty made her way down the alley. She had not gone far when a shadowy figure loomed up from behind a trash barrel. Her throat constricted with terror. The voice drawled, “Don’t be scairt, ma’am. I’s Willy Joe.”

“Thank God,” she murmured.

He quickly told her that he had peeked in a window and watched Marshal Coltrane off and on for the past few hours. “I got a friend who works in there, cleans up and all. I got him to follow the marshal when he went upstairs. He’s in room twelve. You can go through the back door and up the steps to the side. They’s carryin’ on something fierce out front—piano a’goin’ and folks a’singin’. Nobody gonna see you, I hope. You want me to take that baby and keep him for you while you go up?”

“No. I’ll take him with me.” She did not dare part with John. What if someone came along and questioned a black man holding a white baby in the alley behind a saloon? And she wanted Travis to see his son, the sooner the better.

“Then I’ll be getting along.” He sounded relieved.

She thanked him for his help, then watched him scurry away. As she turned toward the rear door of the saloon, the sound of raucous music and laughter reached her ears. The moment of reckoning had come. Taking a deep breath, pausing to kiss little John on his forehead, she opened the door and stepped inside.

The hallway was dark, illuminated only by the lanterns that glowed through the archway leading to the saloon. She could see men laughing and drinking, women dressed in bright, flashy colors. They sat in men’s laps, on the bar, on tables, skirts hiked up above their knees to display shapely legs. Their breasts were almost completely bare. Many of the women were adorned with feathers, some even had them tucked into their hair. Even from where she stood, she could see their brightly painted lips. This was where Travis spent his time? She shuddered.

The hallway had only one lantern, at the far end, but she could make out the numbers on the door. Her heart was thundering as she saw
12
. Now. Balancing the baby in the crook of her left arm, she knocked softly.

There was no sound from the other side, and she felt a wave of panic begin to wash over her. What if Willy Joe had been wrong? She knocked a second time, louder.

“Yeah, who is it?”

She trembled at the sound of the dear, familiar voice.

She knocked again, so loudly she feared someone in another room might hear.

She heard him swearing, the shuffling of feet. Then the door flew open, and she found herself staring down the barrel of a pointed gun. “What the hell is it,” he snarled angrily, then lowered the gun as his face became a mask of shock and bewilderment.

“Travis, I have to talk to you. Please…” Catching him off guard, Kitty shoved past him and into the room.

And then she saw her—lying naked upon the bed—Nancy Warren Danton.

“What are you doing here?” Travis was quickly regaining his composure and his anger. “Get out of here, Kitty.”

“What are
you
doing here?” Kitty ignored him and addressed herself to Nancy, who was staring back at her insolently, making no move to cover herself.

A loud buzzing began in her ears, and her whole body began to tremble with a mixture of shock and anguish. Nancy, here, naked, in bed with Travis.

“I might ask you the same thing.” Nancy sat up in bed.

“I have every right to be here,” Kitty snapped. “I brought my son to his father—”

“Oh, Kitty, are you still trying to pass that kid off as Travis’s? Everyone in town knows the truth. Goodness knows you worked hard enough to trap Corey into marrying you. The least you could do is be faithful to him.” Nancy’s hair hung loose and wild about her face, and she gave it a toss. “You know, that’s a rotten trick, even for you, taking Corey’s kid arid telling another guy it’s his. What do you want from Travis, anyway? Corey’s given you the world and everything in it.”

Kitty kept her voice even. “I’m telling the truth when I say this is Travis’s son!
You
have spread your lies, just as you did about Nathan’s death. The only reason you haven’t turned the town against Travis and had him shot in the back is because you saw a chance to use him to hurt me. Tell me, Nancy, where does Jerome think you are tonight?”

Nancy’s eyes narrowed. “That’s none of your damned business.”

“All right, you two, that’s enough.” Travis stepped forward, grabbing Kitty’s arm. “Take that baby and get out of here, woman. I made it clear the other night I want no part of you and your scheming. I don’t know what you’re after now, but you aren’t going to get me involved.”

“No, I’m not leaving. Nancy is leaving, because you and I are going to talk, alone. And if she doesn’t leave, then I’m going to run down those steps, screaming at the top of my lungs that Jerome Danton’s wife is up here naked in bed with the marshal. Do either of you want that? I think not. Nancy, you have exactly one minute to get your clothes on and get out of here.”

Nancy looked to Travis, her face red, body trembling in rage. He scratched at his beard thoughtfully, realizing Kitty was not one to make false threats. “Do as she said, Nancy. I’ll hear her out and be done with her. She wants a big scene, so she’ll get it, but we don’t want trouble with your husband. So go.”

Nancy dressed quickly, but as she reached the door she turned and gave Kitty one final, hating glare. “I’ll fix you for this, you little bitch. I’ll fix you for all time.”

With the door closed, Travis turned to Kitty and sighed wearily. “All right. Say what you’ve come to say and then get the hell out of here.”

“Travis, there is so much to say.” She blinked back tears, fighting back the emotions quivering from the depths of her soul. How she had longed for this moment, prayed for it. Now it was here. But she had wanted him to look upon her with love and longing, not loathing.

She pulled the blankets back from their son. “Look at him,” she said tenderly. “Travis, look at him. Is this the son of Corey McRae? I see you every time I look at him. If he were awake, if you could see the way his eyes are turning from baby blue to the color of your own, you would know. You should know in your own heart. Doesn’t it stir something within you to gaze upon your own son? He was born in December, Travis. December! Think back to those last precious hours we had together at the end of March, just before you left. He was conceived then. You left your seed in my body. This is the product of that seed. I didn’t even know Corey McRae at that time. I was fired from the hospital because everyone knew I was carrying your child, and Nancy had everyone hating both of us because of the lies she told. I had no place to go.”

She swallowed hard, but the tears would no longer be held back. “It’s such a long story, Travis, but you have to believe me.
This is your son.
”

He turned away, his expression stony. “Why are you doing this, Kitty? The man is rich. He gave you what you wanted. So what do you want of me?”

“I want you to acknowledge your son!” she screamed, unable to keep her voice down any longer. “Here, take him. Hold him in your arms. He’s your flesh and blood, Travis. Yours!”

He whirled around to face her, fists clenched at his sides. “You expect me to believe you? You never wrote to me! That goddamned land of yours meant everything to you. I meant nothing. I tried to get you to go with me, but no, you had to stay here, to hang on to your precious land. You latched on to McRae because he had something I didn’t—money. I know how the Southerners were losing their land right and left once the war was over. I should have known you would stoop to anything to keep yours. But, fool that I was, I kept on writing to you, sending messages, explaining why I was delayed. You got scared that I just might come back and mess up your little tea party, so you even had men sent to kill me. They almost succeeded.”

He ripped open his shirt with one quick yank, and she winced at the scar below his left rib cage. “They almost did me in. Me and Sam got them, all right, but nobody to this day can figure out how I managed to live. Sam got it out of one of them before he died, how a man named McRae sent them. I didn’t, connect it all with you till I got back here and pieced the story together.”

“Yes, you pieced it together from the lies that Nancy was so anxious to tell you, and you believed her. Why didn’t you come to
me
? You not only believed her, you took her to bed.”

“I didn’t come to you because you happen to be another man’s wife now. And who I take to bed, and when, is my business. I see yours didn’t stay empty for very long.” He threw a sneering look at the baby. “Hell, I always knew you were made of grit and hell, Kitty, but this beats everything. I know Corey is a son of a bitch. I know he was behind the attack and rape of that Glass woman, but I can’t prove it. I know he and Danton’s Klan bunch are responsible for every bit of trouble in this part of the country, but damn it, you’re McRae’s wife, you’re the mother of his child; so why don’t you get the hell out of this room and out of my life before something else happens?”

“This is
your
son, Travis! Yours! Corey sent those men to kill you, not me. I swear on my father’s grave that I knew nothing about it. I wrote you letters, and Dulcie, my maid, admitted to me that she was forced to turn them over to Corey. He destroyed them. What do I have to do to make you believe me?”

He had been standing with his back to her, drinking slowly from the bottle of whiskey on the bedside table. The room was small and dirty, and the air was fetid. He turned slowly, and his eyes were filled with misery as he whispered hoarsely, “Kitty, I’ll never believe anything you say, ever again. If you had really loved me, the way you swore you did, you would have left here with me last year.”

“You
know
why I had to stay.”

He sent the bottle hurling across the room to smash against the wall. “You stayed because of your goddamned land! Well, you’ve got it. So why are you here trying to make me believe I’m the father of that baby? Why? When Corey McRae finds out you’ve pulled this stunt, he’s going to be madder than hell, and I don’t blame him.”

The glass shattering had awakened John, and he began to cry lustily. Kitty moved him to her shoulder, patting his back soothingly. He continued to cry. Travis covered his ears and stumbled away. “Get him out of here, will you? And don’t ever come back. I just want to finish what I came to do and then get the hell out of North Carolina and go home. I wish I’d never come back.”

Kitty was not about to give up. Walking over to the mussed bed, she laid her crying son down. His arms and legs flailed the air with fright, hunger and anger, all mingled together in his lusty wails. “Look at your son. Just look at him, Travis.”

He stormed over to the bed, stared down at the infant. “There are thousands of men who are fooled into thinking they’ve fathered babies that aren’t really theirs. You think by looking at him I’m supposed to suddenly claim him as my son? Wake up. What we had, or might have had, is in the past, over, finished, forever. Go home to your husband. You have your life to live and I have mine. For God’s sake, woman, where is your pride?”

Her spine stiffened as she met the icy glare of the man she had loved with all her heart. “I only came because I love you, Travis, but I suppose I was a fool. What we had never meant anything to you. And you’re right. I have no pride, or I would never have come here.”

“Hell, I know why you came here…” He reached out and pulled her into his arms, his lips bruising against hers. Just as quickly, he released her. “For this. You want me now as you wanted me when we were together. You always were a hot-blooded woman. Oh, sure, you tried to hide it, didn’t you? But when I took you in my arms and held you like this, you couldn’t hide your passion. No more than you can now.”

He crushed her against him, kissing her again, his tongue thrusting inside her mouth. She beat upon his back with her fists, her body trembling with the sobs that ached for release.

He maneuvered her down on the bed, beside the baby, who continued to cry. Ripping at her dress, he forced her thighs apart and jerked at his own clothes until she felt him shoving inside her roughly. “This is what you wanted,” he said. “This is all you ever wanted from me. Well, I’ll give it to you, and then you can go home to your husband.”

The baby stopped crying, staring about the room vacantly. The rocking of the bed had soothed him. Kitty lay helpless beneath Travis, allowing him to have his way with her. She refused to struggle. He could take her body, take what he wanted, but she would not return his passion. Everything within her had died.

The past danced before her closed eyes in slow motion—hours of laughter and love, moments spent dreaming of a lifetime of happiness together. Never did she think it would come to this degradation. She had loved him. She had tried her best to find him. She had given him a son. All was in vain. She was no more to him than a harlot, a woman in red feathers.

With one final thrust, it was over. He lay on top of her, gasping. She smelled the whiskey, realized how drunk he was as he finally moved away, lurching to his feet. “Now get out of here,” he said in a rasping voice. “And take that baby with you. Go home to your husband. Get the hell out of my life.”