The Raging Hearts: The Coltrane Saga, Book 2 (52 page)

She began to pace up and down, picturing in her mind Travis and her son living in Travis’s family home deep in the Louisiana bayou. Travis had often described to her the crude cottage built on tall poles on the riverbank, with swamps and marshes surrounding them for miles around. Travis and his family had lived off the bayou, fishing, selling alligator hides to traders, trapping animals.

Her deep concentration was interrupted by a hesitant rap on the door. “Yes?” she snapped. “Who is it?”

“It’s me, Miss Kitty,” Lottie’s voice filtered through the pine wood. “You got a guest downstairs. I told him you left strict orders you wasn’t to be disturbed, but he said if I didn’t come up here and tell you he was downstairs, he’d come right on up here himself. I didn’t know what to do.”

Sighing with exasperation, Kitty marched over to the door, flinging it open. Lottie stood there with bowed head, twisting her apron in her chubby hands. Kitty was instantly contrite and made her voice gentle. “Who is downstairs, Lottie? Who is demanding to see me?”

“That man.” The Negro woman’s voice broke, and she raised moist eyes to her mistress. “That man what kilt Mistah McRae. He got the nerve to come to this house aftah what he did, and say he gonna see you no matter what.”

“Are you talking about Mr. Danton?” Kitty asked incredulously. “
He
is here? In this house?”

“Yes’m.”

Kitty sucked in her breath. “All right,” she said, curiosity bubbling. “I’ll go downstairs and see what brings that man to this house. I thought he was in jail.”

With a swish of her skirt, she moved by Lottie and walked swiftly down the hall, moving on down the stairway to where Jerome Danton stood, just inside the front door. She spoke no greeting, just stood on the bottom step, her hand resting on the round banister head. She stared at him.

“Kitty, I had to talk to you,” he began, then paused to glance around at two of the servants who hovered nearby, eyes round with wonder. “Is there somewhere we can talk…in private?”

“In the parlor,” she said crisply, lifting her skirts and stepping down to lead the way.

Once inside, with the double doors closed behind them, Kitty whipped about to face him. “All right. Get to the point. Why are you here?”

“You sound angry.” A smile played on his lips. “Kitty, you and I both know I did you a favor by killing your husband. You never loved him. He was cruel to you. You said so yourself. He was a vicious man who needed killing.”

“Then you did not come to pay your respects to the bereaved widow?”

He chuckled. “You are no bereaved widow, and I regret nothing. My reasons for visiting are quite personal.”

“I don’t see that we have anything to discuss, personal or business. And why aren’t you in jail?” She walked to the sideboard and poured wine into two crystal goblets and handed one to him.

He took a sip, then sat down on the sofa and crossed his legs. “I am not in jail because there was a hearing and in view of all the facts, the judge did not find me or my men guilty of murder. It was a land war, a range war, a grudge fight, whatever you want to call it. It’s over. It’s that simple.” He downed the rest of his wine in one gulp.

“Kitty, you wanted financial security for yourself and your son, but now you have no son. You have nothing but this house and all your late husband’s land. I am truly sorry, and that is why I have come. To offer my help.”

“How can you help me?”

“Well, let me start at the beginning. Remember the night that Nancy pretended to just happen to see you enter the hotel and sent word to Corey where you were?”

Kitty nodded.

“I’m no fool,” he snorted. “I knew what Nancy was when I married her, but I needed a wife. I hoped she would change, but she didn’t. For the time being, I was more interested in settling a score with Corey. I admit I am the leader of the local Klan group, but we deal with money-hungry, land-grabbing carpetbaggers and uppity niggers—not helpless widows. When he pinned that on me, the rape of Mattie Glass, I vowed I’d go to my grave before I let him get away with it. Why, we’ve beaten the flesh off niggers’ backs all the way to their backbone for just looking at a white woman the wrong way. Do you think we’d go out and rape one?”

“Get to the point, Jerome.”

“The point is, I kicked Nancy out after all this was over with. Don’t ask me where she went, because I don’t give a damn. She’s gone for good. It’s just me now, me and my money and my men. And I want to help you get your son back.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “How do you propose to do that?”

“Well, are you going to sit back and let him get away with kidnapping your baby?” He got up and went to the sideboard and poured himself another glass of wine.

He turned to give her a probing look. “Do you think he’s going to bring him back? Hell, no. That boy is gone for good unless you go after him.”

“I have wanted to find him, but I haven’t yet been able to figure out how.”

“I’ll take you to Louisiana to find your son and bring him back.”

He said it so matter-of-factly!

“Are you mad?” she cried. “I have no idea where Travis took John. I wouldn’t know where to start looking.”

“Let me handle that part. We’ll go to Louisiana, and we’ll set up a headquarters in New Orleans. I’ll hire detectives to inquire around. I’ll send scouts into the bayou. Oh, we’ll find where Travis Coltrane lives, all right. Then I’ll hire enough guns to go in there and bring your son out. It may take awhile, but I’m willing to take that time.”

She moved to the window and stared out at the morning glory vines twisting about the white columns of the porch. The sweet fragrance of wisteria blooming along the railing touched her nostrils. The lawn was a carpet of green velvet. Roses bloomed in carefully planned patterns among the magnolia and pecan trees. The world was alive again. It was time for a new life.

“What is in all this for you?” she asked, a bit startled to find him so close, and there was a strange, dazzled look in his hazel eyes. “Why should you want to help me get my baby back? You walk with a limp because of a ball I put in your leg, one that I intended for your heart. We have always been enemies. So why do you come here and offer to put yourself out so? Is there to be some sort of bribery?”

“Bribery?” His smile was soft, his breath warm on her face. He was standing too close. She tried to move back but found herself pinned against the window.

“No, Kitty. We have never been enemies except in your mind. I came to you once, remember? I gave you fair warning about that nigger Gideon slipping on to your place at night to see his mother. I came for another reason, also.”

“Yes, you certainly did. You said I would see the day I would beg you to buy my land. Well, that day is not going to come. I can hire others to take me to Louisiana. I surely don’t intend to be bribed—”

His hands moved to clasp her shoulders. “No, Kitty, you didn’t let me finish, just as you wouldn’t let me say all I came to say that day. It’s you I want.”

“Me?” she gasped, reaching to yank his hands from her body. “How dare you?”

“I dare because you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I mean you no harm. I only ask for a chance to court you. I know you’ve been through a lot, Kitty, and it may be years before you can open your heart to another man. I ask only that you give me a chance when the time comes. Now will you let me take you to Louisiana to find your son?”

Kitty tried to see inside him. Was it a trick? Was he going to be like the other men in her life?

Kitty managed to smile. “All right, Jerome. I won’t promise you anything, and do not ask me for anything. I accept your kind offer to help me. And I thank you.”

With eyes shining brightly, he bent his head slightly, lips eager, but Kitty ducked beneath his outstretched arms and bobbed around to move away. “I said not to ask me for anything, Jerome.”

“Not even a kiss to seal the bargain?”

“We have no bargain. You offered to help. I accepted that offer. No more. We’ll let the future take care of itself. For the present, I want no man.”

“Ahh, you still carry a torch for that Yankee, don’t you?” He sounded bitter. “Kitty, where is your pride? He doesn’t want you. What kind of man would take a baby from his mother? Coltrane kidnapped that boy. That’s a crime. We’ll have the law in Louisiana to help flush him out of that swamp he’s gone to. The man is as conniving as Corey McRae, and you’re better off without him.”

“That’s not true!”

They both whirled about to see Sam Bucher standing in the doorway.

Neither had heard him come in, and while he stood glowering, Lottie pushed her way in to say, “I tried to tell him you was busy, Miss Kitty, but he wouldn’t listen. He just barged right on in here.”

Kitty nodded. “It’s all right, Lottie. Go and leave us alone.” When the door was closed, she walked over and clasped Sam’s hand, startled to find it cold and unyielding. “Sam, whatever is the matter with you? Why are you so angry?”

“I don’t like hearing that kind of talk about Travis. Few people know him like I do, that’s true, but it still gets my dander up to hear him cut. He isn’t conniving, and while I don’t know his reasons for doing what he did, I’m sure he thinks they were pretty good or he wouldn’t have done it. Now what’s this I heard him talking about?” He gave Jerome a look of contempt. “What did he mean when he said he’d have the Louisiana law flush Travis out of the swamp?”

“We’re going to Louisiana,” she told him, ignoring the angry furrow of his brow. “Mr. Danton has kindly offered to escort me there. We’re going to set up a headquarters in Louisiana and hire detectives to find Travis and get my baby back. I can’t live without my baby, Sam. He’s all I’ve got.”

Her voice broke, and when Sam reached out to pat her back with a burly hand, she fell against his broad chest for comfort as she had done so many times in the past. “I reckon I didn’t expect you to just sit back and let him get by with it, Kitty,” he said gruffly, eyes warily locked with Jerome’s. “That’s why I came, to tell you I’m going there myself to try and reason with him. Like I said, I’m sure he thinks he had a good reason. I’ll try to make him listen, though.”

She pulled back to give him the stubborn look he knew so well. “I’m going, too. I don’t care how far away it is, or how long it takes to get there. I’ll walk, if need be, but I intend to get my son back.”

Sighing, Sam said, “All right, but Danton stays.”

“Danton does
not
stay!” Jerome exploded. “Kitty agreed to let me take her. We’ll get the job done. You plan to go in and plead, and Travis Coltrane doesn’t understand that kind of language. He’ll understand my kind, believe me.”

Sam threw his head back and laughed. “And you’ll wind up as dead as all the others who thought they could face up to Travis Coltrane. He’s a hell of a man anywhere, but down in that bayou he’s king, and he knows it. You’ll do well to take your butt back to town and stay out of this, mister.”

Jerome crossed the room and put his hand on Kitty’s arm. “We have an agreement. I am going with Kitty.”

Sam laughed again. “Oh, another one.”

“What do you mean by that?” Jerome snapped, moustache quivering.

Sam stopped laughing. Kitty had never seen him look quite so ominous. “I mean you’re another man after the prettiest woman God ever set on this Earth. But I got news for you, mister. There’s only one man for her, and she knows it. You’re wasting your time.”

Cocking his head to one side, Jerome said quietly, “But does
he
know it, Marshal? Does he want her? I think not. I think one day very soon Kitty will realize that fact and open her heart to someone who can give her the love she deserves.”

“Well, it won’t be you.”

“You don’t know that.”

Kitty stepped between them, hands pressed against her ears. “Stop it, both of you! You sound like children.
I
will be the judge of what goes on in my heart, not you two. So stop it, please.”

A strained silence fell over the room.

Kitty pulled her hands down. “All right.” She spoke very quietly. “Jerome, you go back to town and make the necessary arrangements. How soon do you think we can leave?”

“Tomorrow. It’ll take me the rest of the day and most of the night, but I’ll have everything ready and be here to pick you up shortly after sunrise.” He shot Sam a triumphant look.

Sam was undaunted. “I’ll be here, too.”

“Nobody said anything about you tagging along.”

Ignoring Danton, Sam put his arms across Kitty’s shoulders. “You will let me go along and try to reason with Travis, won’t you? Remember, I know where he’s gone. No one else does. And it is a long trip. You want to be alone with this scalawag all that time?”

“Bucher, you’re pushing your luck.”

“You’ve already pushed yours.”

Kitty cried out once again. “I said stop it! I’m not going to have this quarreling. Yes, Sam, you may come along. If you can go into the bayou and reason with Travis, it may save us all a lot of trouble.” She looked at Jerome. “And I am sure you can understand that it would be best if we weren’t alone for such a long journey. What if one of us got sick or something? We need all the help we can get, and Sam knows the way.”

Jerome sucked in his lower lip petulantly. “All right, but he’d better stay out of
my
way.”