Turner's Rainbow 2 - The Rainbow Promise

WARNER BOOKS EDITION

Copyright © 1989 by Candace Camp

All rights reserved.

Cover illustration by Max Ginsburg

Cover design by Barbara Buck

Warner Books, Inc. 666 Fifth Avenue New York, N.Y, 10103

Warner Communications Company

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing: September, 1989

10987654321

SHE WOULD BE HIS... ALWAYS AND FOREVER

Beautiful Julia Dobson had known love years ago. And it had broken her heart. Now she was back in the little frontier town of her childhood, living in her brother Luke Turner's house, a stranger to the happiness he had with his wrfe, Sarah. For while Sarah's love had redeemed Luke from a wild, lawless past. Julia still burned with shame at being born a Turner, a pretty rag doll of a girl from a tarpaper shack.,.a girl not good enough for Dr. Banks' handsome son James to marry.

Yet in this tiny Texas town Julia could not avoid James for long. And when their eyes met, desire washed over her just as it had before. She knew some things never change, that he could never marry a lowborn woman like her. But she couldn't forget her dream of a love that comes once in a lifetime...or her secret promise that this time she wouldn't let him go.

"IT'S JUST LIKE IT WAS."

James' hand tightened on Julia's, and his other hand came up to her face. He leaned forward and kissed her. A long tremor ran through Julia, and she couldn't stop herself from kissing him back. Their tongues met and tangled. They kissed forever. He wrapped his arms around her, pressing her body into his.

He pulled his mouth away from hers and kissed her cheek and ears and neck. "So sweet," he mumbled, his voice thick with passion. "It's just like it was."

James lifted his head and stared down into her eyes. His hands cupped her face, holding it immobile. His eyes were fierce and compelling. "Do you remember that, Julia? Do you remember how it was between us? How good it felt, or was that only me?"

L
uke Turner's hands gripped the wooden handles of the plow, his arm muscles bulging with the effort of keeping the plow in place as he followed the two-mule team. The plow's half shovel attachment bit into the ground, peeling back the black earth, breaking it up for him to return with the plowshare and make furrows.

The sun lay warm on his back, and the fresh smell of newly cut earth filled his nostrils. Luke loved the land, loved it more than anything except Sarah and their child. He found a deep, primitive pleasure in feeling the earth in his hands and beneath his feet and a welling pride as he imagined the green shoots coming up in the spring and the tall corn and the thick white cotton bursting its hard bolls at harvest time. He even loved the sweat and the backbreaking work that stretched his body to the limit.

The land was good anytime—in the heat of summer, in the winter lying fallow, at harvest—but the best of all was now: spring, when everything was beginning, when he sank his plow into the fertile earth and started the growing process all over again. The days were warm, not yet mercilessly hot as they would be in summer. The trees were flowering and turning green with buds. In the pasture and along the rise behind the house, the spring flowers were thrusting up from the earth—deep purplish blue bluebonnets and blazing orange red Indian paintbrush, yellow buttercups, wild daisies, and pale pink evening primroses. The world seemed new and sweet, and anything was possible. Luke was filled with the strength and promise of the land, as full of rising life as the trees and plants.

He reached the end of a row and turned the team. He paused, wiping back his hair from his forehead. His hair was damp with sweat and clung to his forehead and neck. Even though the day was mild, he was hot from the daylong effort of holding the plow in place. The muscles of his arms and back ached. He glanced at the sun. It was getting late, and soon Sarah would start worrying. He would finish this row and go home, or else Sarah might take it into her head to come looking for him. He didn't want her putting herself out in her condition.

Luke clucked to the team, and they cut another row, then started for home. When they reached the barn, he unharnessed the team and turned them loose in the corral. He started toward the house, then stopped and gazed at it for a moment, truly looking at it instead of merely accepting it as part of his life and routine. He saw afresh the old house, two stories tall, repainted white just last fall, with green shutters at the windows. A small porch and three steps led down from the side door into the yard, and, only partially visible from this angle, another porch ran the length of the front, with a swing for sitting in and a trellis of honeysuckle sheltering one end.

Sarah's grape arbor stood in the back; soon it would be leafed out and cool inside. Not far beyond it was a huge oak tree, suit bare of leaves. Its massive trunk split into two about four feet from the ground, and one trunk curved down and out, spreading across the yard. In the summer its deep shade was the coolest place on the farm. There was a pear tree, already showered with white blossoms, and two small peach trees that he'd planted three years ago. A bright yellow forsythia bush and Sarah's jonquils bloomed along the side of the house. More fruit trees grew in front, and down close to the road was the chinaberry tree where he'd stood that morning he first came to work here, shivering and coatless, watching the lit-up windows. Then Sarah had come out and called him inside.

A child sat on the bottom step of the side porch, digging in the dirt with a stick, her hair a spot of bright gold, glinting in the dying sun.

Luke's throat clogged with a pleasure so sweet and intense it was painful. This was his home. He hadn't ever thought to have a home, certainly not one like this. He had grown up in a sharecropper's shack, with no mother and a father who was worse than none at all. After that he had known only the harsh confines of prison. The first place that had ever been his, that he had really wanted to be, was here on the McGowan farm in the small room in the barn.

This house was a place out of his dreams, and it never ceased to amaze Luke that it was also his reality. It had taken over a year for him to stop thinking of it as the McGowan place, but as his home.

The child raised her head and saw him, and a grin burst across her face. "Daddy! Daddy!"

She ran toward him, her short legs pumping. As usual, there was mud on her white stockings, one shoe had come unbuttoned, and the ribbon in her hair was loose and flapping.

"Sweetcake!" Luke met her halfway and lifted her into the air, tossing her high over his head and setting her squealing with delight and laughter.

The side door opened and Sarah came out, shielding her eyes with her hands. "Luke." She smiled and started down the steps.

Luke settled Emily on his hip and went to the porch. "No. Don't come down."

Sarah shook her head, amused. "I'm not an invalid. I'm only six months along, you know."

"Still, no point in your going up and down any extra stairs."

Luke looked up at his wife from the foot of the stairs. She wore an old blue dress, faded by many washings and hours on the line, and the waist was loosened to accommodate her swelling body. Her thick brown hair was braided and coiled at the base of her neck severely, but around her face, soft strands had come loose and clung to her skin. She wasn't a beautiful woman, more pretty than anything else. But her translucent skin had the glow of pregnancy, and her cheeks were flushed with color from the heat of the kitchen. Her expressive hazel eyes shone, and she appeared to Luke to be the most breathtaking woman in the world.

Some said that Luke Turner worshiped the ground his wife walked on, and he guessed that was true. She was more than his wife, more than the woman he loved. She was the center of his existence, the bedrock on which everything else was founded. His life had been hard. He had known poverty and neglect. He had known the contempt of others, the humiliation of trial, and the awful helplessness of conviction for a crime he hadn't committed. But the one thing he had never known was love. Until Sarah.

She had given him trust, understanding, and compassion. She had given him free-flowing love and the sweet treasure of her heart, body, and mind. Luke knew he would love her until the day he died—and after, if that were possible.

Luke set Emily down and went up two steps, so that his head was on a level with Sarah's. He spread out his hand on her belly, as he often did, eager to feel the life within her "How are you?"

"Fine." Sarah brushed back a lock of his damp hair. "How about you? Tired?"

"No. I'm fine." Trust Sarah, carrying a child and with all her work and a lively two-year-old to take care of, to be worrying about whether he was tired. "All I did was break some dirt."

He kissed her on the lips, meaning to give her only a peck, but her lips were so soft and inviting his mouth lingered. He thought about sliding his tongue across her lips, opening them, but decided he'd better not. Emily was right there, after all. He had the evening chores to do. And it would only make him want more what he couldn't have.

A small foot scraped across the wall of Sarah's abdomen beneath Luke's hand. Luke jumped, then grinned. "No need to ask how he's doing." He tilted his head toward her stomach.

"No. He's doing very well."

Luke leaned forward to whisper in her ear, "And well he should be. He's living in the sweetest place on earth."

"Luke!" Sarah gave him a playful push, her cheeks burning even more brightly; but there was pleasure in her eyes, and her hand lingered for a moment against his chest.

Luke stepped back reluctantly, knowing that he ought to avoid temptation and not wanting to. "I have to do the chores."

Sarah nodded. "Supper'll be ready in a few minutes."

Luke turned and walked to the barn. Sarah remained on the porch, watching him. She liked to look at him walk. He moved with a loose, lean-hipped stride, his hands thrust into his back pockets. Below his rolled-up sleeves, the musculature of his arms was rock hard. Sarah knew well how he looked beneath the flannel shirt and worn denim, smooth and sleek and tough, without an ounce of extra flesh. She knew, too, the strength of his arms and legs and the tenderness of his hands. Sarah shivered. It always surprised her a tittle how much she wanted him, how easily desire for him came to her Just the sight of him, just his whispered suggestive comment, just the feel of his breath against her ear, and she was as soft as putty, eager for his touch.

Sarah suspected that the hunger she had for her husband would shock most people. She was that nice Sarah McGowan, whose only reprehensible act had been to marry Luke Turner, from the trashy Turner family, a man who'd spent five years in Huntsvillc prison for rape.

Sarah's lips thinned. It still made her angry to think of what had been done to Luke—of the way he had been accused by a woman almost any man could have with no need for rape and then railroaded by indifference and lifelong prejudice into a prison sentence. Neither Sarah nor her father had believed Tessa Jackson's story that Luke had raped her. She had been obviously pregnant at the trial; but Sarah was sure Tessa had claimed Luke raped her simply to escape the beatings of her wild-eyed fanatic of a father. People had believed (or chosen not to disbelieve) her story simply because Luke had had a bad reputation. He had drunk too much and had run with a bad crowd. He had beaten up Jimmy Banks at the Fourth of July dance one year. He had been constantly in trouble at school. He had spent his time with loose women, and there had been an aura of sexuality about him, a look of knowledge and experience far beyond his eighteen years. It had been easy to believe that Luke was a seducer of women—and how far was it from that to rape? He had bad blood, anyway; everybody had known that.

Only Sarah had seen the goodness in Luke, She hadn't believed that he had raped Tessa, and when he had been released from prison almost four years ago and her father had hired him on as a Held hand, she had discovered Luke's kindness, loyalty, and hard-working nature. Gradually, layer after layer of the defiance and anger covering him had been stripped away, and Sarah had come to know the man inside, the essential core of goodness that had been twisted and tarnished by the years of scorn and defeat. When Sarah's parents had died, she had married Luke because it seemed the only way to remain on the farm she loved; but as the months passed, she had realized that she loved Luke. With each day for three years she had grown to love him more. Sarah could not imagine a life without Luke's love and strength. Without the sizzling desire he awakened in her.

"Mommy, Mommy." Emily tugged at her skirts, and Sarah pulled herself from her contemplation of her husband, "Wanna eat."

"Yes, dear. I know. Let's finish supper."

Sarah went inside, Emily at her heels. The kitchen smelled deliciously of apricots, which she had stewed this afternoon and made into fried tarts. She glanced at the half-moon tarts cooling on the counter and smiled to herself Luke loved her apricot tarts, and she could guess how he would greet the tangy-sweet smell of the kitchen. Sarah stirred the pots of black-eyed peas and turnips on the stove, then pulled open the oven door and peered inside. The sweet potatoes were browned and oozed trickles of syrup when she pierced them with a fork. Sarah removed them and pressed a finger against the baked cornbread. She shoved it back in to bake a little longer. After stirring the pots again, she began to set the table. Emily carried the utensils for her and laid half of them out in a haphazard fashion before she caught sight of the cat and was lured away, Sarah finished laying the places and added a dish of butter, the milk pitcher, and a jar of strawberry perserves. She pulled the pan of cornbread from the oven, sliced it into squares, and set them on a plate. She dished up the peas, turnips, and reheated remains of yesterday's pork roast and carried them all into the dining room.

Luke entered the kitchen and stopped, sniffing the air. A cat-that-ate-the-canary smile spread across his face. "I must have died and gone to Heaven, Apricot tarts."

He reached out toward the counter, and Sarah playfully swatted his hand, "Not until after supper."

"Yes," Emily piped up. "Mommy told me."

Luke chuckled. "I'm sure. Well, if you're going to be tough ..." He went to the washstand and poured water from the large pitcher into the bowl to wash his hands and face. He joined Sarah and Emily in the dining room, where Sarah was filling Emily's plate and spreading her food out to cool. Luke slipped an arm around Sarah's waist and squeezed her. "You're the best wife in the world."

Sarah smiled and leaned into him. She wasn't, she knew, but she loved to hear him say it. And if she wasn't the best, she knew for sure that she was the happiest.

They sat down and bowed their heads, and Sarah said a quick grace. Then they dug into their food, eating with the simple hunger of people who had worked hard. They talked little at first except to request that something be passed, but as the first pangs of hunger were assuaged, Luke and Sarah began to chat about the day's events—small, ordinary things, nothing earth-shattering, but the essence of their world.

When the meal was over, Sarah brought out the plate of tarts and poured coffee for herself and Luke. She sat back and watched happily as Luke and Emily devoured the sweet fried pies.

"Mmmm, still warm."

"Enjoy them. That's the last of the dried apricots. No more until the new crop comes in."

"Then maybe I'll eat only two. Save the others for later."

Luke speared another one with his fork, "What's the matter? Aren't you having one?"

Sarah grimaced, one hand going to her stomach. "I've been eating too much. I've gained weight."

"You're supposed to."

"No. I mean, in other places." Sarah's fingers went to her cheeks, poking at the new fullness there.