Angel Creek by Linda Howard
He strode to meet her as she walked back to the well. She would have gone past him without even glancing at him, and his temper erupted. He jerked the bucket out of her hand and hurled it across the yard. “What in hell are you trying to do?” he yelled. “Kill yourself?”
She pulled her shoulders up very straight. “Thanks to you,” she said softly, “I’m having to water my garden by hand.”
“Goddammit, Dee, it’s too late!” He grabbed her arm and dragged her over to the garden. “Look at it!” he raged. “Open your eyes and look at it! You’re pouring water on dying plants! Even if you could get some of them to bloom again, winter will be here before they can bear.”
“If I don’t have a garden, then I don’t eat,” she said. She tugged free of his grip and walked over to pick up the bucket.
He followed her and kicked it away from her outstretched hand. “Don’t pick it up,” he said with clenched teeth. She had been almost back to normal when she had left him, now she was noticeably thinner, and dark circles lined her eyes. Her face was pallid and drawn. “You’ve lost,” he said. He put his hands on her shoulders and shook her. “Damn it, you’ve lost! It’s over with. There’s nothing left out here worth having. Get your clothes, and I’ll take you home.”
She jerked away from him. “This is my home.”
“This is nothing!” he roared.
“Then I’m nothing!” she suddenly shrieked at him.
He tried to regain his control, but his voice was iron hard when he spoke. “You have two choices. You can take the money I offered you for the land and live in town, or you can marry me.”
She was taking deep breaths, searching for her own control. Carefully she said, “Why would you want to buy worthless land? I don’t want your conscience money, and I won’t take charity.”
“Then we’re getting married.”
“Those are your choices, not mine.” Her hands were knotted into fists. “If I won’t take your money to ease your conscience, you can bet I won’t marry you for the same reason. My choice is to stay on my land, in my own home.”
“Damn it, you’ll starve out here.”
“My choice, Cochran.”
They faced each other like gunfighters. In the silence that stretched between them they heard a deep rumble, and a cool wind played with her skirt.
Lucas lifted his head, a frozen expression on his face. He sniffed, catching the unmistakable scent of dust and rain.
Dee looked up at the bank of dark clouds advancing toward them. The sky had been clear for so long that she stared at them in stupefaction. Rain clouds. Those were actually rain clouds.
They saw it coming, a misty gray wall sweeping down the slope. Within a minute it had reached them, slapping at them with scattered raindrops so big that they stung when they hit and made little dust rings fly up from the earth.
Lucas took her arm and propelled her up on the porch; they reached it just as the rain became a deluge. Thunder boomed so loud that the ground shook.
They stood in silence on the porch and watched the rain blow in sheets. It became apparent that it wasn’t going to be a brief summer thunderstorm as the rain settled down to a hard, steady downpour.
He had seen it before and knew it for what it was. It was a drought-buster, the signal of a change in the weather, and just in time, too. None of the surrounding ranches had gone under, but another week would have seen cattle dying. Everyone had survived the drought.
Everyone but Dee.
The hard rain would replenish the ground water and refill the wells. It would save ranches and herds, bring grass springing back to life. Runoff from the mountain would fill Angel Creek again, but it would only be temporary. The valley would revive, but it would be too late for her, too late for the garden. When it was all said and done, everyone had made it through the drought except her.
She turned and walked into the cabin, quietly closing the door behind her.
She hadn’t cried before, but now she did. She had kept herself under strict control, forcing herself to work automatically instead of thinking, but she could no longer keep the thoughts at bay.
Lucas could not have chosen anything designed to hurt her more. She had fought so hard for her independence, had carefully carved out a life for herself that she had loved, and he had destroyed it. If it had been Kyle Bellamy, she could have understood it; she could have been angry and hostile, she would have done what she could to prevent it, but she wouldn’t have been so totally stunned by betrayal. It wouldn’t have devastated her emotions if she hadn’t loved Lucas, but she did. Even now she loved him. And he had demonstrated more clearly than she could ever have imagined that she meant nothing to him at all.
Lucas stood outside the door and listened to her crying, the sound mixing with that of the rain until sometimes they were indistinguishable, or perhaps they were the same.
He had never imagined Dee crying. He had never imagined that the sound of it would tear at his soul and leave it ravaged.
He had never imagined that he could hurt her, and now he knew just how stupidly arrogant he had been.
22
LUCAS REMEMBERED WHAT LUIS HAD SAID: IF DEE loved Angel Creek so much, she would be too hurt to see beyond the pain. He had known she loved it, but he had disregarded her feelings, assuming that he knew what was best for her. The truth was, he had done what was best for himself, not only in securing water for the ranch but in trying to manipulate Dee so that she had no choice but to marry him. Not once had he considered that losing Angel Creek would break her heart, though he should have; he loved the Double C in the same way. He loved it so much that he would never, ever forgive anyone responsible for destroying it.
But he had done exactly that to the woman he loved.
He had been so arrogant that he had blithely assumed living on the Double C would more than compensate her for losing Angel Creek. He had assumed that she would merely be angry, and that he would eventually be able to wear her down.
He should have remembered her deep, fierce passions, and the way she had looked that morning when he’d found her in the meadow, her face so radiant it had hurt him to look at her. He had discounted the strength of her love and made the worst mistake of his life. How could he convince her that he loved her after he had deliberately smashed the very foundation of her life?
Everyone was jubilant about the rain, almost giddy as they watched water holes refill and streams begin to run. Even the Bar B had managed to get by. Lucas felt savage as he watched it rain again the next day, and the next. It had all been for nothing, everything that Dee had endured. Bellamy had attacked her for nothing. He, Lucas, had destroyed Angel Creek valley for nothing. Fate and nature had mocked them by sending the rain just in time for the ranchers, but far too late for one woman.
He had her bull and two cows returned to her, and he bought some chickens to replace the ones that had left when he’d diverted the creek. He didn’t take them himself because he didn’t think she would be glad to see him under any circumstances just then, and maybe never.
Dee forced herself to go through the motions of living. She was too stubborn to let herself give up, but she did everything automatically, without hope or purpose. As Lucas had so caustically pointed out to her, she had been wasting her time pouring water on dying plants. None of them had recovered enough to bear.
No matter how she looked at it, she was in a hopeless situation. She still had some of last year’s bounty that she had canned, but not enough to last through the winter, unless she could live on milk and eggs. She didn’t have enough money to repair the cabin and buy food, too, but she wouldn’t be able to stay in the cabin through the winter without repairing it. If she repaired the cabin, she would starve. Every alternative she explored brought her to a blank wall.
Unless she could find a job, she didn’t know how she could live through the winter. And even if she did, what about next year? Could she manage a large garden without Angel Creek to nourish it, relying only on what r
She could grow just enough for herself and manage to eat. But there wouldn’t be any money for repairs, or for clothes. Not that she had that many clothes now, she thought, picturing her utilitarian garments, but she had always been able to replace them as they had worn out.
If she found work, she could survive, but it wouldn’t be much more than that. She wouldn’t be able to garden, wouldn’t have the time.
She had loved it so. The rich scent of the earth in the mornings, the cool, silky feel of the dew, the tangible rewards of harvest, the almost blissful satisfaction of seeing the life and bounty that, with her care, the earth had given so generously. There had been a sublime rhythm to the seasons. She had followed nature’s timing, renewing in the spring, flourishing in the summer, harvesting, then lying dormant through the long winters. No matter what she did now, it seemed she had lost that, the very thing she had most loved.
But people all over the world faced shattering disappointments, even tragedies, and went on with their lives. Time was inexorable. She had to either cope or give up. She knew how to do the first, but not the second.
The first person she went to see about a job was Mr. Winches at the general store. He peered sharply at her. “What’s that?”
“A job,” she replied calmly. “It doesn’t matter what. I can do your books, put up stock, sweep the floor.”
“I can do all that myself,” he grumped.
“Yes, I know.”
He was still staring at her. He chewed on his lip. “Sorry about what happened to your place. Guess that’s why you’re here.”
“Yes.”
He sighed. “Wish I could help you, but the plain fact is it would be stupid for me to pay anyone to do what I can do myself. The store just ain’t big enough to call for it.”
“I understand,” she said. “Thank you.”
She didn’t even feel disappointment, because it was exactly what she had expected. If she did get a job, no one would be more surprised than she would.
She tried the dry goods store, but Mrs. Worley was just managing to support herself. An employee was out of the question. It was the same situation at the hat shop.
She walked up and down the streets, going into every business. The bank didn’t need any more clerks. The two restaurants were family-owned, and hiring anyone to help meant a family member would be left with nothing to do. Likewise at the two hotels. It was a fact of life. In a family-run business the jobs went to family. She had known the situation before she began asking, but she asked anyway on the off chance that someone might be laid up and unable to work.
The one seamstress in town didn’t need any help. Most women did their own sewing; there just weren’t enough people in Prosper who paid to have their sewing done.
Dee even asked about cleaning houses, and Mr. Winches let her put a notice up in his store. No one contacted her. The people who could afford to have someone do their cleaning already had someone to do it.
What she had told Lucas when she had first met him was the literal truth: The only job for her in Prosper was in one of the rooms over the saloon.
The one asset she had had—the land—was worthless now. She might be able to give it away, but no one was interested in buying it. She knew that Lucas would give her his guilt money in exchange for the deed, but it would be nothing more than disguised charity, because he certainly didn’t need it. He had plenty of water—the sweetest, clearest water imaginable, inexhaustible. He had the Angel Creek water.
It wasn’t called Angel Creek over on that side of the mountains. She didn’t know if it even had a name. It wouldn’t have the same character over there, for the Double C was wide grazing land, and the effects of the water would be muted. In her narrow little valley it had been miraculous, creating a small paradise. That was why it had been called Angel Creek. She had never thought of it as just a cut in the ground with water running through it; Angel Creek had been alive, with its own personality, its mystery, a full partner in the bounty her garden had produced. She grieved for it as if a person had died.
If there was anything she had it was pride, yet as the days passed she was forced to the realization that she might yet have to swallow that pride and accept Lucas’s money. There was nothing for her there, but she would be able to start again somewhere else.
Lucas! She still couldn’t let herself think about him. The pain was still too fresh, too enormous. She lived every day with the knowledge of it, but she didn’t take it out and examine it, or try to understand it. It was simply there. As long as she could ignore it she could function, but if she ever let it out it would destroy her.
Her body, whose rhythms were as inexorable as the seasons, told her that she didn’t carry his child.
She should have been relieved.
Yet, against all logic, she had hoped. A baby now would be a disaster for her, but still she had hoped. Those two unprotected times with him had been her last chances to conceive. She no longer cared about her reputation, if any of it was left; she would have loved his baby with all of the fierceness of her nature, just as she loved him. She wouldn’t hurt so much if she didn’t love.
It took Dee a moment to recognize the woman who rode up to her cabin. She wore a stylish riding habit and an impossibly chic little hat with a plume curling around the brim and sat gracefully sidesaddle. But the dark red hair was the same, and the liquid brown eyes. It was Tillie, the saloon girl who had ridden to the Double C for help. Dee supposed she owed her life as much to Tillie as she did to Luis Fronteras or Lucas. They had all played their parts.
The two women faced each other. “Good morning,” Dee said quietly. “Would you like to come inside?”
Tillie dismounted and walked up on the porch. It was the first time in ten years that she had been invited into a respectable home. The cabin was humble and severely damaged, but not many people would have asked her inside or even greeted her civilly.
“Thank you for what you did.”
Tillie gave a little smile. “It was only partially for you. I couldn’t let Kyle destroy himself that way.”
“I heard you’re living on the Bar B now.”
“Yes. We’re getting married. But we may not stay in this area. I don’t imagine folks will ever forget what happened, or forgive him. It’s lucky both of us are good at starting over. And thank you. You could have stirred people up against him even more, but you didn’t.”
“There didn’t seem to be much point in it. Lucas almost killed him.” Colorado was a state now, she realized, but statehood hadn’t changed the way folks handled things. If there was a dispute, people settled it without bringing the law into it. Kyle had received more punishment than the blows from Lucas’s fists; he was virtually an outcast, his reputation destroyed.
Looking around the cabin, Tillie said, “You’ll be starting over, too. I came to offer you some reparation for the damage. I know I can’t make up to you for what happened to your place, but it will help you get by.”
Starting over. Dee’s heart thumped. How could she start over? “Kyle didn’t cause this,” she said. “Oh, he’s the cause of the damage to the cabin, but Lucas Cochran is the one who ruined this valley.”
“He wouldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been for Kyle,” Tillie said gently. “It was a hard decision, and a hard thing to do, but then Lucas is a hard man. He knew that as long as you had Angel Creek there would be someone trying to take it away from you, and you’d always be in danger. So he took away the only reason anyone would have for wanting the valley. He did it to protect you.”
A look of utter desolation came into Dee’s eyes.
“Lucas couldn’t have risked it. He loves you too much.”
Dee said slowly, “When I walk outside, what I see doesn’t look like an act of love.”
“I know. Like I said, it was a hard thing to do. It was hard for me to ask Lucas to help you that day, knowing that Kyle might be killed because of me. Not many people would have seen that as an act of love, but it was. I would have done anything to have stopped him, even if he had hated me for it.”
“I don’t hate Lucas,” Dee said, and it was the truth.
“But can you forgive him?”
“No. Not now. Maybe not ever. I just feel empty, like a huge part of me is gone. But it isn’t a matter of forgiveness, it’s a matter of living. Right now I’m not very interested.”
Tillie had seen that look before in other women’s eyes, even in her own eyes on occasion. It was the look of someone who had nothing to lose. That kind of bleakness went deep, and if the person ever recovered, she was different, changed in ways that were hard to understand.
“I brought the money with me,” Tillie said briskly, changing the subject.
“I don’t want Kyle’s money.”
“It isn’t his, it’s mine.”
Dee looked at her in surprise. “All the more reason not to take it. You shouldn’t have to pay; you aren’t responsible for any of this. If anything, I owe you for saving my life.”
“But Kyle’s debts are mine,” Tillie insisted. She smiled wryly. “It’s part of loving someone.”
“Thank you, but no.” She might eventually have conquered her pride and accepted Kyle’s money, she thought, because this was partially his fault, but it was out of the question to take money from Tillie.
Tillie hesitated. “I hear you’ve been looking for work in town.”
“Yes, but there isn’t any.”
“Then take the money. I can afford it, and you need it.”
Dee thought about the money and starting over, but it wasn’t money she needed; it was water. She went still, staring at Tillie as if she had never seen her before. What was wrong with her brain? Anything that had been done could be undone. A creek that had been diverted once could be diverted again.