Angel Creek by Linda Howard
She made a noise, but nothing that resembled words.
He gripped her arms, holding her back a little from his chest. She was utterly boneless. “Dee? Damn it, answer me.”
“Leave me alone,” she mumbled.
He eased her back down onto his chest, stroking her hair away from her face. “Do you want to go to bed now?”
“Mmm.”
He smiled and closed his eyes. God, it felt good to hold her, to feel her safe and warm in his arms. It felt good to thrust into her and let go of his control, to feel the deep linking.
He shifted her in his arms so she was lying sideways again and awkwardly pulled up his pants with one hand while he supported her with the other. She looked blissfully asleep and didn’t stir even when he got to his feet. He placed her on the bed, removed the nightgown, shed his own clothing, put out the lamp, and got into bed beside her. He settled her against him, feeling the contentment now that she was where she belonged. If he had his way, she’d never spend another night away from him.
He normally woke before dawn, and the next day was no exception. He was achingly hard. Dee stirred against him, and he mounted her, sliding into her with a total lack of haste.
This time it was slow, almost leisurely. She responded drowsily, and he tried not to make any great demands on her. The demands of her own body, however, eventually dispelled her lassitude, and she began moving under him with increasing urgency. The morning sun, already hot, was rising over the mountains by the time they relaxed, mutually replete.
Realization of what he had done hit him like a poleax. He propped himself up on his elbow, his hand going to her belly. “Damn it, we didn’t use the sponges.”
Her eyes opened, and they looked at each other in silence. He didn’t say, “If you get pregnant, we’ll get married,” because she didn’t respond well to ultimatums, and that’s essentially what the statement would be. What he said was, “If we had a kid it would have to be a pure hell-raiser,” and a slow grin spread across his face as he contemplated the idea.
“Don’t look like that,” she grumped.
“Like what?”
“Like the idea tickles you.”
“It does. Just think what a fighter a son of ours would be.”
“It would serve you right if you only had girls,” she announced, “and every one of them was just like you. Just think of all the young men prowling around.”
The idea was mind-boggling. He fervently hoped he never had any daughters, because he didn’t think his heart could bear up under the strain, especially if they were anything like their mother. Dee didn’t know it yet, Lucas thought to himself, but she was going to be the one having his kids.
Two days later they had visitors at the Double C. Dee was sitting on the porch, and Lucas, who had made a point to stay close by since she had truly begun recovering, was in the barn. He walked up to the house when he saw a pair of riders approach.
Dee got to her feet and walked to the steps. One of the riders was Olivia. Betsy had been full of the gossip about Olivia marrying a Mexican gunman who just happened to be the very same man who had risked his life to help Dee during the fight with the Bar B men, of which he had been one. All of that had confused Dee, because she hadn’t known anyone was helping. It certainly explained why she had been able to hold them off for so long, however. And she had never even met the man whom Olivia loved.
But she was about to meet him, for the man riding with Olivia was tall and lean and darkly handsome, and the way he wore his gun said that he was very proficient with it. She looked at him curiously and felt a little shy.
“Oh, Dee, you’re looking so well,” Olivia said warmly as she slid from her horse. With a small sense of shock Dee realized that Olivia had been riding astride, something she would never have suspected her of doing. It was something that she herself did all the time, but Olivia was different.
“I feel fine,” Dee said, smiling as she went down the steps. “I don’t have my full strength back, but every day I’m a little stronger.”
They hugged each other, aware as they did so that their lives had changed over the course of this summer and would never again be the same. Olivia’s eyes misted over, and Dee bit her lip to keep her control.
Luis dismounted and stood beside Olivia, his dark eyes surveying Dee with obvious approval. She felt herself blushing a little and was surprised at herself. There was something in that very male look, which was in no way insulting, that made her soften. “This is my husband,” Olivia said with pride. “Luis Fronteras. Luis, this is Dee Swann, my best friend.”
Dee held out her hand, but instead of shaking it Luis folded her fingers tenderly in his and carried them to his lips. “Miss Swann, you were amazing with that shotgun. It was something to see.”
Her hand still tingled where he had kissed it. She looked down at it in amazement, then back up to Luis. “I owe you my life,” she said simply. “Thank you.”
“Thank Mr. Cochran,” Luis said, nodding toward Lucas, who was striding toward them. “If he hadn’t arrived when he had, I think we would both be dead.”
Lucas shook Luis’s hand and kissed Olivia’s cheek. “Congratulations,” he said to Luis. “You have a wonderful woman for a wife.”
“I think so,” Luis said peacefully.
“Come inside and have something cool to drink,” Dee invited. “It’s too hot to stand around out here.”
Lucas put his hand on Dee’s elbow as she went up the steps. She was feeling the effects of the heat far more than anyone else, which indicated how far she was from complete recovery.
There was iced tea to drink, for Orris had been making it for Dee. Lucas and Luis each took a glass, and their eyes met ruefully, but they didn’t say anything. Dee and Olivia, of course, saw nothing unusual in drinking tea.
“I wanted to see for myself that you were recovering,” Olivia said to Dee, “and to tell you and Lucas good-bye. Luis and I are leaving tomorrow.”
“Where are you going?” Dee asked. “Will I ever see you again?”
“Of course you will! We won’t be gone forever. We’re going to go to St. Louis and take a train ride.” A look of ecstasy came into Olivia’s blue eyes. “We’re going to go as far as the tracks will take us. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”
Dee thought about it. She had always thought of traveling as what you had to do to get to a definite destination; she had never considered traveling just for the sake of traveling. If that was Olivia’s dream, she could scarcely have picked a better husband for herself. She wished them all the happiness in the world.
Lucas and Luis were talking quietly, and without being able to hear what was said Dee knew they were discussing what had happened at Angel Creek. Their faces were too serious for it to be otherwise.
“Bellamy hasn’t been seen in town,” Luis said. “Opinion is pretty strong against him.” He eyed Lucas. “I heard you beat the hell out of him.”
“I tried hard enough,” Lucas replied grimly.
“Tillie has been staying out at the Bar B with him, taking care of him.”
“She loves him,” Lucas said. “I don’t understand it myself, but she does.”
“Yet she still rode out here to get you to stop him.”
“And she was crying the whole time. She begged me not to kill him. I guess I would have if it hadn’t been for her. If Dee had died, I’d have killed him anyway.”
“Is Dee truly all right?”
Lucas glanced over at her. “Stronger every day. She’ll want to go back to Angel Creek pretty soon.”
Luis grimaced. He knew what Lucas had done, because he’d heard rumors and had ridden out to Angel Creek himself to see if they were true. He hadn’t told Olivia, knowing that she would be very upset on Dee’s behalf. His dark eyes were grave. “I don’t envy you, my friend, when she finds out.”
Lucas grinned. “It’ll be interesting for a while, but she’ll eventually see reason.”
“If she loves it so mu
“And I’d do it again,” Lucas said quietly. “I’d sow every acre of it with salt if that was the only way I could keep her safe.”
21
DEE WOKE UP AND STRETCHED LAZILY, DELICIOUSLY aware of Lucas next to her in the bed. They had slept together every night for over two weeks, and she had cherished every moment of it because she knew it couldn’t last. She lay in the early-morning darkness and faced the knowledge that the time had come for her to go home. She was fully recovered; there was no need to stay and every reason for her to leave. She had so much work to do that she didn’t know if she would be able to handle it, but she had to get started or lose her entire garden. Vegetables wouldn’t wait indefinitely without spoiling.
Lucas stirred and reached for her, tucking her in close against him. “I’m going home today,” she said quietly.
He stiffened beside her, then got up and lit the lamp. His beard-roughened face looked harsh in the mellow light. “Why?”
“Because it’s my home. I can’t stay here forever. People are already talking, not without good reason.”
“You could marry me.”
She looked both rueful and sad. “You don’t have to offer. Kyle Bellamy’s sense of timing couldn’t have been worse. I had just decided to let you graze your cattle in the valley, to get you through the drought. From what I’ve seen, though, you’re still in good condition. You don’t need Angel Creek.”
“You don’t either,” he said roughly, stricken by her offer. Damn her generosity; she made him feel doubly guilty. “If you hadn’t lived out there, none of that would have happened.”
“It doesn’t matter now. I just wanted you to know that you don’t have to marry me to have access to the valley.”
“Marry me anyway.” His eyes were fierce. “You know it isn’t just Angel Creek I want.”
“I know.” She thought of his ambitious plans, his fine house, and knew that she was out of place. “You want the Double C to be an empire. I can’t be part of that, Lucas. I couldn’t bear it in Denver, not even temporarily. I would make you miserable. People would ridicule you because of me. I’m not very good in social situations,” she said with a wry smile that did nothing to ease his expression. She tried another way to make him understand. “When—when my parents died I was terrified. All of a sudden I had no one, and I thought I might die, too, because I had no reason not to. But I had the land. Somehow, living there, making things grow—it helped. It isn’t just that I love it, but that I need it. Angel Creek valley doesn’t belong to me nearly as much as I belong to it.”
“Damn the valley!” His outburst was violent. He thrust his fingers through his dark hair, wishing it could have been put off for another week. “There’s nothing out there now. I diverted the creek.”
Dee blinked at him, not certain she understood. “What?”
“I diverted the creek. Angel Creek is dry now. Your valley isn’t worth a hill of beans without water.”
Dee got out of bed, her face blank with shock, her mind reeling from the enormity of what he’d done. She reached for her clothes.
“I’d do it again,” he said harshly. “I would have eventually done it anyway, to keep the ranch going. Come hell or high water, I’ll do what I have to do to protect the Double C. But that damn valley was going to get you killed, and you’re too stubborn to admit it. Without it you’ll be safe, you can sleep without having to keep one eye open. I did what was necessary.”
She didn’t look at him as she finished dressing. She spoke slowly, still feeling numb from the shock. “Then you should understand that I’ll do whatever’s necessary to keep my garden.”
He lost control of his temper in the face of her obstinacy. “Forget the damn garden!” he yelled. “You don’t need it. I’ll give you the money you would have earned from it.”
She straightened and faced him. Her eyes were terrible in their glittering clarity. “Keep your money, Cochran. I told you the day I met you that I wouldn’t make a good whore, and nothing’s changed.”
It was worse than a nightmare, because she could wake up from a nightmare. She had imagined the garden overrun with weeds, the vegetables overripe. She could have salvaged something from that, put by enough to get her through the winter even if there wasn’t enough to sell at the general store.
What she saw was the complete opposite of the overripe bounty she had expected. The vegetables had literally withered on the vine, seared by the heat, deprived of the water that had nourished the earth. The ears of corn hadn’t filled out. When she examined the stunted ears she felt only a few dried kernels beneath the husks.
Angel Creek was dry, and the valley was turning brown. She walked out into the meadow, the one that had been full of wildflowers that glorious dawn when Lucas had made love to her lying on the soft meadow grasses. There were no flowers now, no sweet, rich scents to delight her.
Without the rushing whisper of water the valley was eerily quiet. She walked up the creek bed. She could see it was dry, but somehow she had to verify it. How could she mourn unless she truly understood the depth of what had happened there?
And Lucas had done this to her, deliberately destroyed her home.
She wanted to feel the energizing rush of anger, clean and hard, but this went beyond anger. She felt numb, as if a part of her had ceased to live.
She went back to the cabin and stared at the boarded-over windows. That would also be Lucas’s doing, she guessed. She supposed she should be glad he had made the effort.
The cabin was in ruins, but remembering the barrage of bullets that had assaulted it, she hadn’t expected anything else. She had been prepared for that. It was the death of the valley that shook her to the base of her soul.
Work had always soothed her, so it was a good thing she was facing such a mammoth chore. She hardly knew where to begin in the cabin. So much had been damaged, and little of it could be salvaged. She swept out all of the broken glass, then drew up a bucket of water and spent an hour on her knees trying to scrub the bloodstains from the floor.
It took an hour before it registered. Water. She sat back on her heels and looked at the water bucket. The well was still good.
Hope ran wild, making her giddy. Dropping the scrub brush, she dashed out to the garden and walked down the rows, examining each plant.
The corn was totally lost; it was too dependent on water during the growing stages. But what about the beans and tomatoes, the onions and squash? Some of the plants had been sturdier than the others and still had life in them.
She ran back to the well and dropped the windlass, listening for the life-giving splash as it hit water.
All of her determination centered on the well. It took more strength than she had ever realized to draw up a bucket of water, and she was trembling after she had done it three times. Three buckets of water, at half a bucketful to each plant that looked as if it had a chance at survival, equaled only six plants. The intensely dry heat seemed to suck it out of the ground almost as fast as she poured it on, but she was careful to pour at the base of the plants so the root systems could get as much as possible.
The sun was too hot. She paused and looked up at it, wiping her face on her sleeve. It was wasting water to pour it out in this kind of heat. Nighttime would be better; the plants would get more of it that way, and she would be able to work more comfortably in the cooler hours.
With that decision made she returned to the cabin and the work there. The results were discouraging. There was so little left that didn’t have a bullet hole in it, even the pots and pans. Her iron skillet had survived, of course, but other than that she found only two pots that were usable. Even her biscuit pan was a casualty, and the coffeepot had so many holes in it that it resembled a sieve.
But no matter how useless it seemed she didn’t let herself stop. If she stopped, she would think about Lucas, and she would break. She would sit down and howl like a
She had become soft during the past weeks. When the night finally cooled it was all she could do to force herself to move instead of collapsing in bed, as her body kept insisting she do. Everything was too dry for her to risk carrying a lamp out to the garden, so she worked by starlight.
She found that after a while she became so numb that she no longer felt her exhaustion. She hauled up bucket after bucket of water and trudged to the garden to empty it on what seemed like endless rows of plants.
It was some time after midnight when she realized she had been standing at the well in a stupor, holding an empty bucket in her hand. She didn’t know how long she had been standing there.
Her legs felt as if they had lead weights attached, and her hands had no feeling. She was so tired she couldn’t lift her feet. She went back to the cabin, fell facedown on the bed, and didn’t stir until noon.
That first day set the pattern for the days that followed. She tried to sleep as much as possible during the day, and at night she hauled water to the garden. She didn’t think about it, didn’t try to assess her progress, she just did it. She knew that if she ever stopped she would have no hope left.
Eight days after she had left, Lucas rode over to Angel Creek. It was late in the afternoon, but cooler than it had been in weeks. He figured eight days had been long enough for her to stew; now they could have a thunderous fight and clear the air.
Every day he had resisted the urge to check on her, to ride out there and see if he could talk sense into her. Damn, he missed her. He hadn’t had nearly enough time with her. It would take a lifetime to satisfy him.
The first thing he saw when he rode up was Dee carrying a bucket of water out to the garden and carefully pouring it around the plants.
Anger seared him. That damn garden! He should have pulled the plants up by the roots and burned them. Why couldn’t she see how useless it was?