Texan's Touch

SIX

IT WAS LATE afternoon as nichole watched the three brothers walk back from the small graveyard. They looked so much alike yet were so different. Wes with his hard exterior, Daniel with his silence, and Adam in his private war within himself. They walked almost shoulder to shoulder, yet each walked alone.

“These babies got to be fed,” Wolf mumbled from the kitchen table where he sat staring at the twins nestled in two shoe boxes. “I wish everybody would get back and take over watching these two. I got to ride to town and check on any answer from the men.” He talked about those who served under him during the war as if they were still organized. In truth, only Tyler and Rafe stayed with Wolf, more because they had nowhere else to go than out of loyalty to any cause.

“Doc Wilson drove to a farm just north of here to find a wet nurse,” Nichole answered her brother. “He should be back soon.”

She almost laughed at Wolf. For a man who cared for little in this world, he’d done his share of fretting over the babies. Though the day had been warm, he’d insisted on the stove burning low just to keep any chill from creeping into the room. And he watched them even though he probably had no idea what to do if one cried out.

“Wes offered me his room upstairs for the night. I think we should leave come morning,” Nichole mumbled. “It would feel good to have a night’s sleep in a bed before we board the train.”

There was no reason to stay. She’d done what she planned to, she’d returned the bag and finished the kiss. Anything more had been daydreams on her part, for Adam had his life here. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, or hoped. But finding Adam engaged to be married and with a sister-in-law delivering babies hadn’t crossed her mind. His thoughts were so full of worries, he’d hardly noticed her being in the house.

Wolf spoke to the babies as he answered her. “We’ve got our own problems at home to worry over, and sorrow don’t want company around. Besides, that woman Bergette showed up for the funeral so I reckon she’ll stay here with the babies and take over the womanly duties.” He took a deep breath. “But we both could use a night’s sleep before starting home.”

“Don’t bank on Bergette’s help,” Nichole whispered to Wolf as she heard Wes and Adam stomp onto the porch. The McLains entered, both looking exhausted. Nichole didn’t know what to say. She knew Adam blamed himself for May’s death, and Wes blamed the world, but she wasn’t sure how either would react if she tried to comfort them. Wes only needed time and a few more bottles of whiskey to recover. But Adam was a thinker who thought he needed no one. She’d never been around such a man.

Bergette followed the brothers in when Adam held the door for her. She seemed far more concerned with removing her hat and veil without damaging her hair than with anyone’s grief or with taking over the care of the infants. She paid no notice to Nichole or anyone else as she walked to the washstand and faced the mirror.

The sharp sound of an ax splintering wood pulsed through the air with a pop.

Everyone paused listening as the sound came again, and again.

“It’s Daniel,” Wes answered a question no one had voiced as he poured himself a mug of coffee, then laced it with whiskey. “He’s chopping down the barn door. Might level the entire barn before he’s finished.”

No one said a word to hint that the action wasn’t totally normal. Nichole listened to the chopping, thinking that in some strange way it sounded like a heart beating. Dan hadn’t spoken since May’s death. At least the noise proved he was alive.

Nichole watched as Bergette glared first at Adam, then Wes, with the pouty lip of a child. When neither looked in her direction, she stormed, “Aren’t you going to make him stop?”

Wes didn’t bother to answer her and Adam only mumbled “No” as he looked at the now-sleeping babies.

Bergette seemed to long-sufferingly endure two more blows, then she moved to the doorway in a sudden fit of displeasure. “I must be going,” she announced as though her exit were of some great importance. “I’ll send a cook over to help you tomorrow. And a housekeeper. Lord knows this place could use a good scrubbing.” Her gaze darted around the room from the handmade table and chairs to the clothes hanging on pegs along one wall.

“Don’t bother,” Wes answered. “We can manage.”

Bergette looked to Adam for a kinder reply, but he only held the door open for her.

“I will see you tomorrow, won’t I?” she asked as she moved to the porch in a rustle of silk.

“I don’t know,” Adam answered. “Tell your butler to drive you home slowly. The roads can be tricky this time of night.” He didn’t offer a touch or a kiss and neither did she.

When Adam returned, Nichole didn’t miss the hurt in his stare-a kind of pain that made his brown eyes seem stormy. A suffering like that of an animal who might turn on anyone who tried to help. She thought he looked as though something inside him was dying. Or maybe he’d protected and cherished a memory for years only to find it decayed and molded when he finally drew it out. Bergette’s lavender perfume suddenly smelled stifling like the smell of too many flowers at a wake.

Wolf stood as soon as Bergette was gone and nodded toward Nichole as he reached for his hat. He’d be to town and back in the time it would take Bergette’s buggy to reach home and she wouldn’t see him pass her either way.

Nichole closed her eyes, hoping the news he found would be good. Wolf had sensed trouble. The man who’d taken their land during the war would stop at nothing to keep it. She only hoped Tyler and a few of the others could make peace before Wolf and she returned. But the soft rain against the window seemed to wash away her hopes.

Wes poured himself another cup of coffee and took Wolf’s place across the table from Adam. No one felt any need for conversation. Nichole curled into the chair by the window and listened to the rhythm of Dan’s chopping. Somehow, it was almost a song. A song too sad to have a melody.

Just after dark, the old doctor arrived with a young girl. He’d loaned her his coat, but Nichole noticed her feet were bare and mud covered. The look of her reminded Nichole of the poor folks who lived far back in the Tennessee hills.

Wilson explained quietly, as she looked at the babies, that she’d lost her month-old son three days ago. Apparently she’d never had a husband, and her pa had beat her regularly all during the pregnancy. “She’s simple-minded,” the doctor whispered. “But as sweet natured as they come. Her baby hadn’t been healthy since birth, but she’d taken care of him as well as any mother could. Even walked the four miles to town to bring him to the office several times, knowing her pa would beat her for not finishing her chores.”

Adam knelt by where the woman sat with one of the babies on her lap. She seemed half woman, half child in her homespun dress and faded blue apron. “Hello.” He smiled. “My name’s Adam.”

The girl didn’t look away from the infant. “I’m Willow,” she said. “I had me a baby, but he died.”

“Would you like to live here and help us take care of these two, Willow?”

The girl giggled and raised her head. Adam noticed bruises spotting her round face and swelling the corner of her bottom lip.

“Doc told me you might ask so I brought my roll of clothes.” She looked like she was about to cry. “I’d like to stay, but I’m not much good around the house. I drop things and forget. My pa wallops me but I don’t learn. I heard him tell the doc that if you’re a-willing to feed me, good riddance to my no-good bones.”

“All we want you to do is take care of the babies. If you do that, you’ll earn your keep.” Adam patted her shoulder. “And no one here will ever lay a hand on you as long as you’re with us. I give you my word.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“They got names?”

Adam glanced toward the door and the sound of the chopping. “Dan will get around to naming them in time. We could sure use your help, Willow.”

Willow smiled with pride. “I got milk. Lots of it.”

Without hesitation, she pulled her blouse open and offered one baby her pink-tipped breast.

Wes shot from the room like a cannon, and Adam couldn’t hold his laughter. After a few tries, the baby took to the breast hungrily, making Willow giggle.

“That’s good, Willow,” Adam managed to say before he followed Wes to the parlor. There he broke into a round of chuckles everyone in the kitchen heard.

“Shut up!” Wes snapped. “You sound like a fool.”

“I wish you could have seen your face.” Adam tried to hold down his voice.

“Well, you saw what she did. Pulled that breast out like it was no more than a pitcher, and she was offering drinks.” Wes paced in a circle around the parlor table.

“That’s pretty much it.” Adam laughed. “We did need a wet nurse. And with two to feed every few hours, it might be a blessing she’s not overly shy.”

“Overly shy! I’ve seen cows with more modesty.”

Adam couldn’t argue.

“Well, maybe we should look around for someone else,” Wes continued. “This Willow couldn’t be more than fifteen, and like the doc says, she’s simple.”

“We don’t have time. The infants need to be fed.”

Wes paced faster. “Couldn’t we let some family take care of them? Just till they’re old enough for Daniel to handle.”

“You know as well as I do that most families got more than they can feed now. Besides, I doubt Daniel would let them out of his sight. From the look of her face, Willow needs a home as badly as those babies need a nurse.”

“Well, I’m not sitting around at the dinner table looking at some woman’s breast. Daniel can handle that when he fights through the grief. I’m heading for Texas day after tomorrow, and if you had any sense, you’d go with me and pray Texas is far enough away from Bergette.”

Wes stormed out of the parlor, ending the conversation. He almost collided with Nichole standing just outside the door. For a moment, he looked at her, then pointed with his head toward the open parlor door. “My brothers are both crazy, you know.”

Nichole didn’t argue.

“Between saving the world and healing it, there won’t be a sick sinner left within a hundred miles before long,” he mumbled.

She smiled.

Wes wagged his finger at her. “I know what you’re thinking. It’s only a matter of time before they turn on me. Well, I’m not staying around long enough for that.”

He grabbed a whiskey bottle and tried to cross the kitchen without looking in the direction of Willow and the table. “I’ll be outside watching Danny destroy the barn!” he shouted. “By the time he’s finished, I’ll have us both too drunk to stand. Then we’ll bed down on the porch, it’s always too humid in the house after a summer rain.” His voice dwindled as he hurried outside.

Nichole moved into the darkened parlor. The room seemed cold and smelled musty, unlike the rest of the house. She should just go, she told herself. Adam had his problems, his family, his life. He didn’t need or hadn’t asked for her to come to add additional worry. He wouldn’t have accepted her help with May, if there had been any way he could have done it alone. When Wolf got back, they’d make plans to leave by dawn.

“Adam?” she whispered as she moved through the shadowy room. “I came to tell you I’ll be leaving at first light. Wes offered me his room for tonight and said he’d bunk on the porch.”

The air was so still she wasn’t sure Adam was there. He could have passed through the door on the other side of the room. He’d shown no interest in talking to Bergette. Why had she thought he would want to talk to her?

She reached a hand out and touched the thick cotton lace cloth that covered a round table in the center of the room. “Adam?” She wanted to say his name one more time even to an empty room. “Adam?”

He moved in the darkness.

She waited. Listening. Her trained senses judging where he stood.

“I thank you and your brother for the help.” His words were forced, almost hard. “The McLains are in your debt. If there is ever a way to repay, name the price.”

“There’s no need-”

“The McLains pay their debts,” he interrupted with words laced in anger.

Before she could think of anything to say, he was gone out the far door and taking the stairs three at a time without a word of good-bye.

Nichole returned to the kitchen. She watched Willow with the babies for a while. When both infants were fed and sleeping, Nichole offered the girl a bowl of stew. While Willow ate, Nichole pulled a cot from the downstairs bedroom.

“I think Daniel would want you to sleep here by the babies.” Adam and Daniel had moved a cradle by the stove a few hours before the funeral. “Daniel may not be in tonight but he’ll know you are watching after the twins. Will you be all right here?”

Willow nodded. “Long as I got water. I get mighty thirsty after they feed.”

Nichole checked the pitcher.

“And,” Willow turned her head down and to the side as if afraid to ask, “would anyone mind if I ate that bread on the table if the little girls wake me up tonight? This stew is the first meal I’ve had today. Pa never lets me eat until all my chores are done.”

“No one will mind,” Nichole answered. “And help yourself to the jam May made.”

“May?”

“May was their mother.” Nichole couldn’t help but smile at the sleeping infants. “I didn’t know her well, but I think she’d be pleased if you ate what she made. From what I hear, she was a great cook. Remember to tell the twins that when they’re older. And tell them she was brave, very brave to the end.”

“I will,” Willow answered as she lay down on her cot. “And I’ll tell them how their pa chopped down a whole barn the night after they was born.”

Nichole lifted her holster from a peg by the door and lowered the lamp’s glow before heading upstairs. Halfway up, she realized she hadn’t asked Wes which one of the small rooms on the second floor was his.

But when she reached the landing, one door was closed tightly. Somehow she knew that room was Adam’s.

He’d closed himself off. If she left at first light, she might never see him again. Nichole stood in the hallway, letting the weight of the day move over her like murky water, pressing against her lungs until she could hardly breathe. She closed her eyes and tried to slow her heart to the rhythm of Dan’s chopping. A kind being had passed from this earth only hours ago, and no one might ever speak of her except Willow to say that she could cook. The twins might never know how dearly the three men downstairs had loved their mother and how much their father had cherished her. And how hard they’d all fought to save her. Nichole shook with the pain May’s death had caused all in the house.

Suddenly, a hand touched her arm. Nichole jumped, bolting to run as she grabbed for her weapon.

“Nichole?” Adam whispered from only inches away. “Are you all right?” His hand moved gently along her shoulder.

Before she could think that he might not welcome such an action, she wrapped her arms around him and held tightly, preparing to fight if he tried to push her away. The McLains might need no one, but she needed to hold on tight for a few minutes.

But he didn’t pull away. He hugged her back with all the hurt and anger and sorrow he had bottled up inside.

For a long while, they just hugged, sharing a weight each was tired of bearing alone. There was so much they didn’t know about one another. But it didn’t matter at this moment. All that mattered was that her lean body molded so perfectly against his… her arms held him grounded to earth… and his grip pulled her safely from drowning.

He moved away just enough to brush his cheek against hers. “Stay with me tonight,” he whispered against her hair. “Like you did the night we met. Make everything but your warmth go away for a few hours.” He kissed her cheek lightly. “Let me hold you.”

Without a word, Nichole followed him through his open doorway. She placed her holster on his bedpost and lowered herself to the bed.

Slowly, he closed the door, circled and slid beside her, pulling her against him as he spread a blanket over them both.

She moved her hand over his chest and felt his heart. Some pains are too great for words. He’d come home, to the place he’d probably dreamed of all during the war, to find his dreams shattered in silence.

Touching him lightly, she tried to smooth away the pain. His body seemed to relax next to her. Within minutes, he was breathing slowly, deeply.

Nichole stretched and kissed his cheek. “Good night, Yank,” she whispered.

The chopping continued, blending with the rain. Beating with the rhythm of a clock as the minutes of the night passed.