Mountain Laurel

  “Maddie, these questions are ridiculous. We love each other. We can work this out.”

  “We can work it out by my singing in the theater you build for me?”

  “I can’t see that that’s so bad. We’ll make Warbrooke into a haven for opera lovers. People from all over the world will come there to hear you. I’ll build a hotel just to accommodate them, and, of course, we can transport them on Warbrooke ships.”

  “Buy me. Buy me. That’s all you can think of. If you have your way, I’ll die never having achieved anything on my own. On my tombstone will not be written that I was a great singer, but that my husband bought everything for me.”

  “Maddie, you’re not being reasonable.”

  She turned on him, tears in her eyes. “Reasonable? You don’t know what reasonable is. All you know is what you want. You’ve been so spoiled in your life that you have always had whatever you wanted. If you wanted to run the family business when you were just a child, then you were allowed to do so. If you wanted to join the army, then you were allowed to do that too. And now you’ve decided that you want a little songbird for a wife, so you expect to be allowed to do that as well.”

  “Maddie, you’re becoming hysterical. And you don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve always had to work for what I have.”

  “Like you worked to get me?” Her voice was rising in anger. “You planned your attack on me like you’d plan a battle campaign. You decided that you wanted me, you figured out how to get me, and then you put your plan into motion.”

  “You make me sound cold-blooded. I admit that I did do a bit of planning, but I can’t see that it was so wrong. I love you and I want you.”

  “Do you? Do you know me from…from Edith? Or did it just fit into the plan of your life to marry an opera star? Wouldn’t it look nice with the illustrious Montgomery name to tie it to the great LaReina?”

  “You’re going too far now,” he said softly.

  “Oh, I’m not to step on the toes of the magnificent Montgomery name, is that it? Oh, God, ’Ring, why did you do it? Why did you work so hard to make me fall in love with you?”

  “Because I loved you and I wanted you to love me in return.”

  “Me!” She almost shouted at him. “Me? You don’t know anything about me. I told you long ago that unless you know about my singing then you know nothing about me. You seem to think that knowing what kind of food I like or my favorite color is knowing me. Those things have nothing to do with me.”

  She could see by his face that he didn’t understand a word she was saying. Her anger left her, and she turned back to her horse. “I wish you hadn’t done it. If you’d wanted a housewife, someone to wear the pretty dresses you buy her, someone to be at home waiting for you when you returned, then you should have found her and married her. You should have chosen to love a woman who was what you wanted in a wife and left me alone.” She leaned her head against the horse and fought back tears. “Why couldn’t you have been content to just take me to bed? That seems to be what most men want from a woman, but not you. You wouldn’t even make love to me until I loved you. And now you make me choose between you and my music.”

  “I’m not asking you to give up your music.”

  She began to tighten straps that were already tight. “No, you’re just asking me sing for you while I’m in a cage.” She turned on him. “Damn you! Damn you to hell, Christopher Hring Montgomery! Do you even know enough about me to realize that I am not a frivolous woman and that when I love I love forever? I have seen so many singers, singers with great voices, who gave up singing after only a few years simply because they fell out of love with singing. But me, once I love someone or something, I love them forever. I don’t change affections for people or animals or for what I do.”

  He put his hand on her arm. “I don’t know why you think that I love someone I don’t know, but it’s you I love. I saw a long time ago that you love with all your heart. When I found out that you were here singing for these men who don’t appreciate your voice, and all because you wanted to save a sister you hadn’t seen in years, I was sure that I loved you. Maddie, don’t you yet see how much alike we are? I could never love someone who didn’t have the intensity that I have. Were I to marry one of those little women who is content to live her husband’s life, I would terrify her.” His hand tightened on her arm. “You can’t leave me. After I deal with Yovington I have to go back to the fort. Wait for me there. We can work things out. Maybe after we’re married we can go to Paris or London every summer and you can sing there.”

  “How can we ever work anything out? You don’t know the meaning of compromise. I am the only one to compromise. Just me. Never you. You don’t compromise at all. If you decide we’re to spend three days chained together, then it’s your decision and yours alone. You never even ask my opinion. If you decide you’re going to go after my sister, you go, never saying a word to me, just sneaking off and leaving me a note signed with your initials. Now you’re telling me I’m to marry you and do whatever you want for the rest of my life.”

  She glared at him, then shook her head. “You really don’t understand, do you?” She sniffed back her tears and put her chin up. “Let me explain it to you as clearly as I can. You are not the only person in this world who has to do what he must. Just as you feel that you have to go after the kidnappers all alone and anyone else’s opinions be damned, I have to sing. I have to sing for other people, not people who are purchased by you, but people who choose to hear me sing. I am not going to live your life, I am going to live my life.” She jerked out of his grasp.

  “You mean that you’re going to walk away from me, don’t you? You’re going to give up what we have without even trying to work out our problems?”

  She swung into the saddle and looked down at him. “You are the one who doesn’t seem capable of seeing anything but your own point of view.” She picked up the reins to the horse. “I hope your high principles keep you warm at night.” She started to move away from him, then stopped. “Like hell I do! I hope you’re miserable for the rest of your life. I hope that every time you read that I’m singing somewhere in the world, it makes you cry.” At that, she kicked her horse forward.

  Chapter 16

  Maddie stood by her horse and looked out over the beautiful landscape that was near her father’s house and felt like crying. But she couldn’t cry—or at least she was not going to cry. She’d done enough of that already.

  It had been three weeks since she’d left ’Ring, three miserable, long weeks. When she’d arrived at her father’s house, she’d been glad to see her parents and the old mountain men, but being near them hadn’t made her feel a whole lot better. Hears Good had ridden into the front yard ten minutes after Maddie and Laurel had arrived, and he’d regaled his friends with stories of Maddie’s escapades with the army officer. There had been a time when Maddie would have found the stories hilarious, but not now. She had done little more than greet her family, then she went outside and left them to their telling of stories.

  It was her mother who had come after her, and it was in her mother’s arms that Maddie had lain while she choked out the truth of what had happened. Maddie told of her fear for Laurel, of her fear while singing, and, most of all, she told of her love for’Ring.

  “But he wants to put me in a cage,” she said.

  Her mother had said very little, had just listened, making no comment.

  For the first two weeks of Maddie’s stay her father’s friends had tried everything to make her stop moping. Bailey sang three new songs for her, terribly vulgar things, and asked her help with the tunes, but Maddie just said that he was doing fine on his own. Her father asked her to go hunting with him, but Maddie didn’t want to go. Linq asked her to help him find young trees to make new skis for the coming winter, but Maddie said that she’d rather stay at home. Thomas said he was writing about his adventures as a young man and needed Maddie’s help, but she couldn’t keep her mind on the subject. Hears
Good tried teasing her, but she just looked at him with blank eyes.

  Laurel lost patience with her sister. “You’re better off without him!” she yelled. “I didn’t like him at all. He thought he knew everything. He thinks he’s the only one who can run that company of Jamie’s, and I bet that Jamie could run it all by himself. He—”

  “Jamie couldn’t stop flirting long enough to do anything,” Maddie said tiredly. “You know nothing about ’Ring. He takes care of people. He takes on the responsibility of the world. And now he’s going to be all alone.”

  “He won’t be alone. He’ll find someone else. And you’ll find another man and he—”

  “It took us all our lives to find each other, and we won’t find anyone else. I will continue singing and…” She trailed off. Until she’d met ’Ring she’d thought she’d had everything there was to have in life, but now nothing seemed to mean anything without him.

  “Why don’t you sing?” Laurel asked softly. “Everybody wants to hear you sing. Bailey says that you don’t remember how. He says that that man made you forget how to sing.”

  Maddie blinked back tears. The last time she’d sung had been for ’Ring, when they had made love for days on end.

  Now, standing on the hill, looking out at the countryside, she didn’t know what she was going to do with her life.

  “Still haven’t made up your mind?”

  Maddie turned to see her mother standing behind her, and she smiled. The rest of the world thought that Jefferson Worth had single-handedly explored the West, but Maddie knew how much her father’s life had been involved with his wife’s, and how much Amy Littleton had influenced him.

  “Made up my mind about what?” Maddie asked.

  “About how much love means to you.” Maddie didn’t answer, so her mother kept talking. “When your father asked me to marry him, I was so very happy. I immediately started talking about our life together, how we’d go back to Boston and live in my father’s house. I said that Jeff could run my father’s freighting business. I even talked of the beautiful clothes that I would buy for Jeffrey.”

  Maddie looked in puzzlement at her mother. She knew that her mother’s father had been quite wealthy and that one of Jeff’s objections to taking a young woman up the Missouri River to paint had been her life of ease and luxury. But Maddie couldn’t imagine her father living anywhere but in the West, couldn’t imagine his wearing anything but buckskins.

  Amy continued. “For a while I thought I was going to have to give him up. I was sick unto death of the dirt and the sickness of the West. I was tired of the same food day in and day out. I was tired of men and their filthy habits. I wanted to go back east and live with people who could say a whole sentence without using a vulgar word. I wanted books and music and porcelain dishes. I wanted pretty clothes.”

  A few years ago Maddie wouldn’t have wanted to hear this about her parents. Always before she wanted to think they’d been in love forever, that they’d never had any problems. “What did you do?”

  “I left him. I knew what I wanted, and he couldn’t give it to me. I went back east and lived for a whole year without him.” Amy smiled in memory. “But I hadn’t bargained for how much I had changed in that year. I wasn’t the same young lady who had left. I was annoyed with my women friends when they were so easily frightened by things like a skittish horse. When you’ve been trapped without water for three days while Apaches are shooting at you, a nervous horse doesn’t mean much. And I was always shocking people with my observations. I could not bear the pretense of ‘society’ any longer.”

  “So you went back to Dad?” Maddie said.

  “By then they had a steamboat going up the river, and I got on it and went to him.”

  “And begged him to take you back.”

  Amy laughed. “Not quite. In fact, a long way from begging. I told him what he’d have to do to keep me.” She smiled. “It didn’t take much to see that he was as miserable without me as I was without him. I told him I wanted a proper house and that I was not drifting about the West as he tended to do. I said that he was free to travel whenever he wanted, but I was staying in one place.”

  Maddie looked back toward the mountains and smiled. It had worked for her parents because every summer her father had gone exploring, visiting his friends in different tribes, and some of the old mountain men still living in the hills. For five of those summers Maddie had gone with him, and Gemma had nearly always gone with their father.

  “Am I to go to ’Ring and tell him that I must sing and he must go with me?” Maddie asked.

  “I don’t know. I just know that I loved your father and I went with him and I have never regretted it.”

  “In that case it was you who had to give in, but now ’Ring is the one who has to give in to me.” Maddie put her hands over her face. “I don’t even know if he’s alive. He went to that awful town after that man who took Laurel. If’Ring is killed, it will be my fault. Laurel was taken because the man wanted to hear me sing, and if’Ring—”

  Amy put her arms around her daughter. “You can’t blame yourself. It was his decision.”

  “All decisions are his,” Maddie said bitterly.

  That night she didn’t sleep much but lay awake, staring at the ceiling. She came up with no answers, but long before the sun rose, she got out of bed and dressed.

  Outside the long adobe house it was still dark, but her father was waiting for her.

  “I’m going after him,” Maddie said, her mouth set in a firm line. “I shouldn’t and I may regret doing it, but I’m going after him.”

  Her father gave her a little smile. “I thought you would. We Worths usually go after what we want. You wanted to sing and you did it.”

  “And now I want this man.”

  Jeff grinned at his daughter. “You get that from your mother.”

  Maddie looked up at him. ’Ring had said that Jefferson Worth must be old by now, but he was still quite handsome and Maddie couldn’t imagine being alive when he wasn’t. On impulse, she threw her arms around his waist and hugged him.

  Jeff stroked his daughter’s hair. “We’re wastin’ time. Let’s go get him.”

  By the time they were ready to go, their horses saddled, and their packs filled, Thomas, Bailey, and Linq were ready to ride with them. And when they were mounted, Amy, Laurel, and Hears Good joined them.

  Maddie couldn’t bear to look at them. Always, her family had been there for her.

  “Let’s go save this boy of yours,” Bailey said impatiently. “I been wantin’ some excitement. Too quiet around here. Though what we’re gonna be able to do with a bunch of women and children along beats the hell outa me.”

  “I can outshoot you,” Laurel said. “You’re too blind to see past the end of your nose.”

  “Jeff, that girl of yourn ain’t respectful,” Bailey grumbled.

  Maddie smiled at her father, and they started down the mountain.

  It was on the second day of travel that quite suddenly Thomas and Jeff halted, Hears Good dismounted and slipped into the trees, while Linq and Bailey moved the three women into a circle of protection.

  Maddie held her breath. It had been years since she had lived like this, where every movement might mean danger. All of them were as quiet as they could be while they listened. At first Maddie could hear nothing, and she wondered at her father and the other men for being able to hear so well.

  When she did hear something she wasn’t sure what it was, but then her eyes widened and she sat up straight. “It’s him,” she whispered.

  Her father turned and scowled at her. He had taught her not to speak when they might be in danger.

  But Maddie ignored him as she kicked her horse forward and started down the mountain, the others close behind her.

  She hadn’t sung a note for over three weeks, but now, atop the galloping, slipping horse, she began to sing. She wasn’t sure what she was singing, but she thought it was from Carmen, when Carmen sang about her soldi
er.

  ’Ring came tearing up the side of the mountain toward her, and when he reached her, he pulled her onto his horse and began kissing her eagerly.

  “I couldn’t do it,” he said. “I couldn’t lose you.”

  Maddie didn’t care about any words, she just wanted to hold him and feel him and touch him. They sat on top of the horse kissing, their bodies entwining, while around them people began to gather, Maddie’s family on one side, ’Ring’s on the other.

  After a while the two families began to grow restless, and Jamie nudged his horse forward. “I’m James Montgomery and that’s my brother ’Ring,” he said to Thomas and Jeff. There was a bit of awe in his voice at meeting these men who were legends to him.

  It was ’Ring who became aware that he and Maddie had an audience, and he kneed Buttercup forward so that they were hidden from view in the trees.

  ’Ring pulled Maddie away from him. “We have to talk,” he said.

  Maddie was afraid of talk. When they kissed or made love, everything between them was fine. It was only when they talked that they got into trouble.

  “Later,” she whispered, kissing him again.

  “No,” he said firmly, then he dismounted and lifted his arms for her. When she was on the ground, he held her at arm’s length. “I want to say this now, while I still can, because I’m not sure that I’ll have enough courage to say it again.”

  “Courage?” Maddie’s heart began to pound. “Courage to tell me what?”

  He moved away from her, his back to her. “Courage to say that you were right,” he said softly.

  Maddie blinked at the back of him, then walked to stand before him. “Right about what?”

  “Well…maybe you were right about several things.” He looked at her and she saw that there were dark circles under his eyes. He hadn’t been doing any more sleeping than she had. “I started to Desperate. I had every intention of taking Yovington back to stand trial, but I kept hearing you say that I was after revenge.”