“Swift, please don’t.”
“It’s my equal time, Amy. Ten more minutes. You’re welshing on our bargain.”
Her gaze fell to his mouth. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe.
“What can happen on your doorstep?” he asked huskily, his mouth coming closer and closer to hers. “Relax, and see for yourself how my kisses feel. Now, while you feel safe, while you have the security of other people nearby.”
She couldn’t deny that his reasoning made sense. As long as no one saw them, it was better that he kiss her here, if he was bent on doing it, than down along the creek somewhere. She tipped her head slightly, bracing herself, quite certain his mouth would be as hungry and demanding as the glow in his eyes.
His warm breath mingled with hers. Amy swallowed and closed her eyes, keeping her teeth tightly clenched. And then his lips touched hers, so lightly, with such incredible gentleness, that the contact seemed whisper soft. Carefully . . . so very carefully that it took her breath and made her want to weep. There was no demand here, no bruising hunger, only a promise of incredible sweetness that made her lips part, wanting and expectant. She clutched his shirt, leaning closer, but he maintained the featherlight pressure, refusing her what she sought. Which was just as well, because she wasn’t sure what it was she wanted, only that . . .
“Amy . . .” Her name came off his lips like a caress. He trailed his mouth across her cheek to her ear, then explored the curve of her neck. “Amy, my sweet, precious Amy. I love you.”
And suddenly she knew what he had meant about giving him the chance to say it his way. His hand trembled on her back. His lips worshiped. No harsh taking, no grasping, no force. Just tender, whisper-soft kisses that set her skin afire and her senses reeling. She couldn’t feel her legs and feared she might fall, but his strong body was there to hold her erect, warm and solid, his heart thudding robustly, a steady cadence in contrast to the wild fluttering of hers.
When he at last lifted his head, she couldn’t move away from him. He ran his hands up her arms, touched her cheek, the tip of her nose, a curl at her temple, soothing her, as if he knew how painfully her heart lurched and how weak her legs felt. The expression on his face when he looked at her made her feel cherished and, at the same time, vulnerable.
“Promise me something,” he murmured.
“Every time I turn around, you’re asking for another concession,” she whispered.
“I know, but this one is important.” He cupped his hand to her chin and looked deep into her eyes. “When you lie down tonight and close your eyes to fall asleep, take me with you. If the nightmares come, dream that I’m there.” He pressed his cheek to hers. She felt wetness touch her skin. “Don’t face them alone anymore.”
She couldn’t have spoken if she tried, so she only nodded. He turned and strode away into the darkness. Amy stood there staring after him for a very long time and then, with trembling fingertips, touched the tear on her cheek.
Swift saw that a light was still burning in the parlor when he walked up the steps to Hunter’s house. Uncertain whether Loretta had left it on for him or if someone was still awake, he opened the front door as quietly as he could. Loretta glanced up from her rocker, her darning needle poised in midair.
“Hello there,” she whispered, flashing him a smile.
“I’m surprised you’re still up,” he whispered back.
She inclined her head at the sock she was mending. “I wanted to finish this first. Are you hungry?”
“Not really.” Swift crossed to the hearth and pulled Hunter’s stool around so he could sit and warm his hands at the fire. The lantern on the small table at Loretta’s elbow made a steady hissing sound that was oddly soothing. “It’s a chilly one out there tonight. Winter won’t be long in coming.”
She lowered her work to her lap, studying him for a moment. “What are you so low in the lip about?”
He forced a smile. “Do I look low in the lip?”
“Is Amy all right?”
“Right as rain. We just got back from a nice long walk.”
Loretta arched a brow, her expression incredulous. “Amy went for a walk? Alone with you? After dark?”
“Just down to the creek. But it’s a start.”
Her mouth turned up at the corners, and a twinkle crept into her eyes. “I’d say you’re making fine progress.”
“Better than a kick in the fanny, anyway.” He braced the heels of his hands on the stool and shifted his weight. “We just talked, catching up on the years a bit.” He hesitated. “I never realized until tonight that Amy stayed in Texas with her stepfather for quite a while after her mother died.”
Loretta nodded. “For about three years.” She darted her needle in and out through several threads on the sock heel, then tugged the weave tight. “The moment we heard about Aunt Rachel’s death, Hunter and I sent Amy money to come to Oregon. She sent it straight back, along with a nice letter telling us she was perfectly happy in Texas and that Henry needed her on the farm. She didn’t feel right deserting him so soon after Aunt Rachel died, and I can’t say as I can fault her for that. Families should stick together in times of loss.”
“Did she write often?”
“Fairly often. Which relieved our minds.”
“Why’s that?”
Taking more bites with her needle, Loretta touched her toes to the floor to set the rocker in motion. “There was a time when Henry wasn’t exactly what you’d call easy to get along with. Hunter and I were concerned at first about Amy living clear out there alone with him.” She glanced up. “Aunt Rachel always did claim he had some good in him, and if we looked hard enough and long enough, we’d finally see it.” She chuckled. “I reckon she was right. After she died, he was good to our Amy, and that wipes the slate clean as far as I’m concerned.”
The hair on Swift’s nape prickled. “You two didn’t get along well, then?”
Loretta’s hands froze over her darning. After a moment she resumed her stitching. “I guess you might say that once I matured out, Henry tried to get along too well with me.” She wrinkled her nose. “I suppose, me just being his niece by marriage and him being Aunt Rachel’s second husband, he didn’t think of me as being blood kin. He always did have a wandering eye that took him off to the fancy house in Jacksboro about once a month.” Her mouth tightened. “When I got up in years, his eye didn’t have to wander quite so far.”
“That must have been hell for you, living in the same house with him.”
“Luckily, Hunter was there and intervened the one time Henry tried to press the issue, and before it ever happened again, Hunter took me away from the farm.”
Swift gripped the edge of the stool. “What was Henry like otherwise?”
She squinted down at the sock and took another stitch. “After his being so good to Amy, I hate to speak ill of him. He mended his ways. A body should forgive and forget.”
“It’ll never go beyond me.”
She sighed. “Well, to be honest, there was a time when he had a mean streak a mile wide.”
“How was he mean?”
She stopped the rocker, her eyes growing distant. “Oh, nothing that awful, I guess. Although, when I was on the wrong end of a razor strop, it seemed pretty awful, especially when I didn’t feel I’d done any wrong to deserve it.” She met his gaze, her face softening with memories. “Mostly, though, it was Amy who took the brunt. Her growing-up years weren’t easy. For a long while, Aunt Rachel seemed afraid to stand up to Henry. And I was mute after my parents were massacred. Amy was the only one to give him lip. He never quite measured up to her real father in her eyes. And he tended to settle arguments with Aunt Rachel by using his fists. You remember what a little spitfire Amy was. She’d jump right into the fray. Henry wasn’t one to take sass, and sass was her middle name.”
Swift smiled. “More temper than brains, is how she puts it.”
“Yes, well, that pretty much hits the nail on the head. No matter how many times Henry took af
ter her with the strop, she never quite learned the art of keeping her mouth shut if she thought he was doing wrong. Given the fact that he tended to get a little too enthusiastic in the woodshed, it wasn’t a good mix. He never did her any real harm, I guess. But there were times when I’d have made him stop if I’d been big enough.”
She tied off her thread and bent her head to bite the strands in two. Lowering the mended sock to her lap, she looked up at him.
“It’s hard to explain what he was like back then.” A frown pleated her brow. “I always had the feeling—” She broke off and smiled. “Lands, talk about water under the bridge.”
“What kind of feeling?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The feeling he was holding back, that he would’ve been even ornerier if he could have gotten away with it. I think he knew he could only push Aunt Rachel so far.”
“So he kept himself in check?”
“To a degree. All heck broke loose when he found out I was pregnant with Chase Kelly, though. He threatened to kill the baby when it was born—because Hunter was Comanche. Aunt Rachel finally stood up to him then and taught him some manners at the business end of a Sharps carbine. Up against three feisty females who’d had enough of his foul temper, his disposition improved remarkably.” She smiled again. “I guess he got into the habit of being nice and got to liking it, hm?”
Swift’s face felt stiff. “I guess he must have.” After gazing into the fire for a moment, he ventured, “Amy never mentioned Henry being ornery to her after her mother died, did she? In any of her letters or after she came out here?”
“No. Why? Are you aware of something I’m not?”
“No reason. Just curious, that’s all.” Swift rolled his shoulders and rubbed the back of his neck, recalling the frantic look on Amy’s face when she’d stressed that she had never wanted anyone to know about what he had learned. The problem was that he still wasn’t sure what it was he supposedly knew. “I—” He drew his hand from his neck. “I guess if she never said anything, he must have treated her good.”
“I’m sure she would have written and come to Oregon if he hadn’t.”
Swift couldn’t argue with that. “And in her letters everything sounded fine?”
“Better than fine! Real cheery—telling us about all the improvements Henry was making on the house, about her garden and the things she put up for winter, about her sewing projects. She sounded happy as a bug.”
“If she was so happy, why’d she leave?”
“Mostly just loneliness, I think. The nearest neighbors were miles away. She sent us word that she was working up in Jacksboro for her board and room until she received the money from us for her trip out here. She said the isolation on the farm had been driving her crazy. And Henry was pretty much over losing Aunt Rachel. I reckon she must have felt a long enough time had passed for her to leave.”
“How did she get from the farm to Jacksboro?”
“I don’t recollect that she ever said. I just assumed Henry took her. Why?”
“No reason. Just curious. Jacksboro’s quite a way from the farm, if I recall.”
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” she asked softly, her large eyes filled with concern.
Swift forced another grin. “No. I’m just piecing the years together, that’s all. Amy’s changed a lot. Sometimes I get to wondering if something might have happened—something she never told.”
Loretta’s face relaxed. “Amy has no secrets from me.” She studied him a moment. “Don’t expect too much, Swift. Amy went through a terrible ordeal with the comancheros, you know. You can’t expect her to have come through the years unaffected.”
Swift swallowed and looked away. “No, I don’t suppose so.”
“Give her time. Good things come to he who waits. Deep down, Amy never stopped loving you. That makes her vulnerable. I imagine it’s mighty scary to her when she thinks on it.”
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “I’m trying to be patient, believe me.”
Smiling, she stowed her darning in her work bag and pushed up from her rocker. “It’s been a spell, you know. Amy has to get to know you all over again.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “Let her do it in her own time.”
He nodded, keeping his gaze averted. He heard her stifle a yawn.
“Well, it’s time this old woman got some rest for her weary bones. Good night, Swift.”
“G’night, Loretta.”
“I’m pleased to hear you convinced Amy to take a stroll.”
“No more pleased than I am.”
She gave him a pat as she walked past him. Swift returned his gaze to the fire. He heard the soft click of the bedroom door as Loretta closed it behind her. On the heel of that sound, he heard the echo of Amy’s voice. I walked. Got a bee in my bonnet one night and set out walking. He curled his hands into fists, remembering the haunted look in her eyes.
Over the next week, Amy’s routine was altered to accommodate her tutoring sessions with Swift. For every hour they spent at lessons, Swift demanded that she give him an hour of her company, during which she had to venture away from the settlement with him. Since she taught school during the day and he worked in the mine, their walks occurred at night, after study hour. Amy soon lost her fear that anyone would see them and draw the wrong conclusion. She found herself worrying instead that no one would see them, that some night, after luring her away from town, Swift might take advantage of their aloneness.
That she trusted Swift so little seemed to amuse him, and he made a point at least once every evening of tormenting her about it, making it clear he could take advantage if he chose, but that he didn’t choose to that particular night. He was very careful in the way he phrased it so that she didn’t misconstrue things and think he meant that he never would. Amy remained uncertain from one moment to the next of what he might do.
That didn’t seem to bother Swift in the least. It was as if he were saying, “Think the worst. I don’t care. Watch every move I make. Sooner or later, you’ll let down your guard.” Amy wasn’t certain why he toyed with her. Sometimes she longed for him to promise he would never touch her, even if it was a lie, so she could relax and enjoy being with him.
But Swift came with no guarantees.
Her experiences with him were many and varied. One moment he would be serious, the next teasing. Memories of yesterday became steady companions for her. She glimpsed the old Swift sometimes, the carefree boy she had loved so dearly. But usually she was escorted by Swift Lopez, a man with a harsh face and somber, shadow-filled eyes that ached with sorrows she couldn’t begin to name. She could only guess at the pain he had suffered, the loved ones he had lost, the hopelessness he had felt.
The following Saturday, a dance social was to be held at Wolf’s Landing. Swift asked her to make an appearance there.
“I never go to the socials, Swift,” she replied nervously.
“I’ve only met half the people here in passing. Please, go, Amy. Just for a while. Who am I going to stand with?”
“Don’t go.”
“I want to go. I’d like to get to know everyone better. I see people on the street, but it isn’t the same. And with my reputation on their minds, they’re leery. The social will give me a chance to show them I’m just ordinary, like them. That I want to be part of the community.”
Swift, ordinary? “I’ll think about it,” she conceded.
“Think real hard. It’s just one silly social. If you hate it, you don’t ever have to attend one again.”
Amy agonized for three days over whether or not she should go, her heart slamming every time she imagined dancing with Swift. In all her adult life she had never attended a real dance, and the thought gave her butterflies. What if she went, and Swift didn’t come? What if she didn’t, and he did? He might be left standing alone, shunned by the townspeople. Or he might meet someone else. . . .
That thought panicked Amy, though she wasn’t willing to analyze why. If he found someone e
lse, it would be so much the better, wouldn’t it? She sought Loretta’s advice. Loretta immediately searched her wardrobe for a dress Amy might wear.
“This one is perfect!” Loretta cried, swirling around her bedroom with a blue silk gown held before her. “It’s just the color of your eyes, Amelia Rose. Swift will take one look at you and think he’s died and gone straight to heaven.”
“But, Loretta . . .” Amy fingered the low-cut bodice. “I can’t wear this. It’s beautiful, but it just isn’t me.”
“Lands, Amy, do you think Swift doesn’t know you’ve got bosoms? This dress is modest compared to most. Be a little daring for once in your life. I’ll help you with your hair. You’ll be so lovely. Why, I’ll bet he pays a fortune to buy your dinner basket so he can eat with you.”
“I’m not taking any dinner basket.”
“But all the unmarried women take dinner baskets to the auction. Either you’ll fix one or I will. Do you want him buying someone else’s?”
“I’ve never even attended a social before, and I’ve sure enough never taken a dinner basket to the auction. And I’m not going to start now. It’s undignified, women letting strange men bid for their company.” Amy wrinkled her nose.
“You’re just afraid someone besides Swift might buy it.”
“Maybe I wouldn’t even want him to. If I spend an evening with a gentleman, I want it to be because I choose to, not because he’s paid five dollars of his hard-earned money. I’d feel obligated to spend the entire evening there.”
“Oh, Amy, what will Swift do if you leave early? I’d like this evening to go well for him. Why not go all out? Take a basket to auction. Swift will be hungry after working all day.”
“I can pack a basket and not put it up for auction,” Amy reminded her, swatting wrinkles out of the dress’s skirt.
“What fun would that be? You’re not an old married woman like me. It’s supposed to be exciting, having a man pay through his nose to spend a night with you.”