Chapter 15
Late the following morning, Caitlin opened her eyes and stared sleepily at the unfamiliar surroundings. The spacious room smelled of saddle soap and fresh-mown hay. Shane’s room. She was alone in his bed, she realized. And she was as naked as an egg.
All that had happened the night before between her and her husband came rushing back, and she uttered a sleepy sigh of contentment and stretched. The sunshine was pleasantly warm on her face, and a fresh breeze drifted in through the open window. She had never felt more alive.
“Shane . . .” she whispered. Then she yawned.
In truth, neither of them had gotten much sleep . . . or had wanted any. Warm shivers of delight rose in her breast as she remembered the intense feelings and emotions induced by Shane’s glorious lovemaking.
She’d never imagined that sexual union could be so wonderful between a man and woman, or that she could be so devilishly wanton in her husband’s arms.
Caitlin pulled Shane’s pillow into her arms and curled around it. If every night were like the last one, how would she ever get any work done? She rubbed her eyes and wondered just how late it was.
Her hair was all a tangle, and her nightgown . . . Where had she left her nightgown? She couldn’t wander into the hall wrapped in a sheet; Justice or Mary might see her. Surely Derry was awake by now. She’d be—
The echo of footsteps on the stairs broke through her reverie. Shane pushed open the bedroom door.
Caitlin’s heart leaped at the sight of him, so tall and brawny. He wore a faded blue shirt she’d not seen before and brown pants that clung to his hips and legs like a second skin. He’d shaved and he’d slicked back his hair with water, but stray curls were already springing free around his face.
Last night she’d threaded her fingers through his silken hair. She moistened her lips as she remembered.
“Mary sent this up to you.” He smiled as he brandished a steaming tin mug.
She suddenly realized how much of her was exposed and snatched the sheet up to cover herself. “Good morning, Mr. McKenna.”
“No need to hide from me. I saw more than that last night, and I like you in the altogether.” He came to the bed and sat down beside her. “The least you could do is kiss me.”
“The least?”
“After last night. You wore me out, girl. Look at me. The sun standing at half past nine, and I’m not even out of the house.”
“Half past nine?” She sat up, holding the sheet and blanket over her breasts. “What about Derry? Is she—”
“Had her breakfast. Dressed and braided so tight, her eyes are beginning to look like Mary’s. The two of them are inspecting the papaw tree and digging wild ginger, or maybe it’s digging ground nuts. Mary’s English can be vague when she wants it to be.”
“Are you sure Derry will be safe?”
“As safe as she’d be with you. Mary’s taken a likin’ to your little colleen, in spite of herself.” He leaned over and kissed her. “Good mornin’, Mrs. McKenna.”
“Mmm,” Caitlin murmured. “Will you promise to wake me up every morning like this, husband? And tell me that’s tea I smell.” He handed her the cup, and she felt a rush of excitement as her fingers brushed his.
“Not likely to the first question, and I can’t say to the second,” Shane replied lazily in the quaint Missouri drawl that Caitlin found endearing. “Mary steeped the brew herself with some of your tea leaves and some of her own. She may be turnin’ you into a prairie skink for all I know.”
“A skink?”
“Sort of a lizard.”
“Great.” Caitlin flashed him a mischievous smile and took a sip from the cup. “Ummm, whatever it is, it’s good. Flavored with honey.” She held the mug out to him. “Taste.”
Shane shook his head. “I’m gun-shy. Mary made me a potion to break a fever once, and it tasted worse than polecat stew. I stick to coffee when I can get it, and chicory when I can’t.”
“I’ve seen you enjoy a cup of tea.”
“Aye, proper Irish tea, not Mary’s Indian roots and sumac lemonade.” He took the mug from her and held it out of harm’s way while he kissed her again.
Caitlin closed her eyes and savored the touch and scent of him. For an instant she thought that Shane was going to make love to her again. But when he retreated and skimmed a callused thumb across her lower lip, she opened her eyes and stared at him.
His expression was pensive. “You are a rare woman,” he said as he fumbled in his shirt pocket and produced a thin, silver Celtic cross on a chain. “I’ve never given you a wedding ring,” he continued almost brusquely. “I don’t have one now to give you, but this cross was my great-great-grandmother’s. Her name was Regan O’Driscoll, and ’twas told in our family that she risked death from the English to wear it. My own grandmother, Ciannait McKenna, gave it to me when she was on her deathbed, and I took a beatin’ from my da for hidin’ it and not tellin’ him where it was. I know you’re not a Catholic, and I’ll not hold it against you if—”
“You want me to wear it?” Shane’s being Catholic when her family was Church of England had been one of the things her father held most against him, but it had never been a big obstacle to her.
Shane’s lips tightened and he nodded.
“I’d be honored to wear your grandmother’s cross, Shane.”
“You would?” A smile began at the corner of his mouth and then spread like sunshine over his rugged features.
“It’s the most precious gift anyone’s ever given me,” she replied. “Thank you.” She leaned forward so that he could fasten the chain around her neck.
“My fingers aren’t made for this,” he grumbled as he pushed the hair at the back of her head aside. Then he lowered his head and kissed the nape of her neck.
A tremor of joy flashed through her. “Thank you,” she repeated.
After a few tries he managed to hook the tiny silver clasp. “There,” he said as he stood back and admired the cross hanging between her breasts.
“It has a good feel.”
Shane nodded. “My grandmother said it had special powers to protect the wearer.”
“I’ll cherish the cross always.”
“Now I want you to get dressed, have some breakfast, and come outside. I’m goin’ to teach you to shoot a gun.”
“But I don’t want to learn,” she protested. “I hate guns. I’m afraid of them, and—”
“I asked you to wear the cross, but I’m tellin’ you this. It’s an order, Caity girl. I want you to—”
“I said no.” The room had suddenly become cold. “I’ve seen enough of death and dying. I’ll not argue with your ways, but I’ll thank you to respect mine.”
His jaw hardened, and a stubborn gleam flashed in the depths of his stony gray eyes. “Roses, you may have, woman. You can paint my walls and line the tables with teapots, but your safety is my concern. Earl Thompson’s wife might be alive today if she’d had a rifle to fight off her attackers. This is not County Clare. There are bad men out here, and I’ll not lose you to them if I can help it.”
She sighed impatiently. “You don’t understand. I don’t want to—”
“An hour, Caity. Meet me near the creek in an hour. And wear something beside silk and lace.” With that, he turned and left the room.
She stared after him, annoyed and puzzled. What had happened to the tender words and the sweet feel of his mouth against hers? An order, he’d said. She didn’t know if she was ready to take orders from a man, even if that man was her husband. But short of throwing a temper tantrum or outright rebellion, she didn’t know what to do.
“I won’t,” she muttered. “I’ll not give in about his guns.” But her argument sounded weak in her own ears. This was something Shane seemed to want badly. Was it worth antagonizing him over? She fingered the silver cross thoughtfully.
“Pick your battles,” her grandmother had always said. “Fight when you must, Caitlin, but use your head first.”
She wondered if this was one of those times when discretion was better than insisting on having her own way.
“You never make things easy, do you, Shane McKenna?” she declared into the empty room. She set her teacup aside without finishing it, and slid out of Shane’s bed.
“Men,” she grumbled aloud. “Naught but trouble from start to finish.”
As she reluctantly came from the house an hour later, Caitlin heard Derry’s laughter. She looked around and saw that Derry and Shane were together at the base of a large chestnut tree that grew near Mary’s cabin. Shane was pushing Derry on a swing—a swing that had not been there the day before.
Caitlin hurried toward them. Derry saw her and waved. “Hold on!” Caitlin warned. “You’ll fall.”
Derry squealed as Shane pushed her again.
As Caitlin drew near, she saw Mary sitting on a stool beside the open cabin door and Justice stretched full length on the ground. The boy appeared to be investigating a small mound of dirt.
“It’s about time you came out.” Shane’s twinkling eyes drew the smart from his brusque words.
“Be careful with her,” Caitlin warned. “She’s just a baby.”
“Not a baby!” Derry proclaimed. “Big.”
“Not very big,” Caitlin answered. It was true that she was growing like wild heather. Next week would be her third birthday, and dresses that had fit the child well when they’d arrived in Missouri seemed suddenly too tight and too short.
“Big,” Mary put in. “Big girl help Mary find good plants. Listen. Watch. Remember. Good eyes.”
Caitlin smiled at this unexpected praise for Derry. Not knowing what to say that would not destroy Mary’s mood, Caitlin glanced at Justice. “What are you doing?”
“Boy lazy,” Mary said. “Watch ants work. Learn.”
Caitlin wasn’t sure that this wasn’t a joke on her. “Watching ants,” she repeated. She looked at Shane, but he only grinned and kept pushing the swing.
Caitlin shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“Gabriel teach boy break horse,” Mary explained. “Easy jump on horse, spur, ride to earth. More work, talk soft, move slow, learn to think like horse.”
“Gabe breaks colts the Indian way,” Shane said. “He gentles them. He’s been working Star’s mother for you. Justice is training a gray to the saddle, but he was too impatient to suit Gabe or Mary. I think watching the ants all day is a punishment of sorts.”
Mary shifted her unlit pipe from one side of her mouth to the other and paused in sewing beads on a leather vest. “Not punish,” she corrected. “Osage not punish child. Teach. Ants good teacher.”
“Push me!” Derry reminded Shane. He did as she ordered, and the child giggled and kicked her feet.
“Careful,” Caitlin cautioned.
“Let girl be,” Mary said. “She fall, next time remember hold on tight.”
“I don’t want her to fall,” Caitlin said. “She might hurt herself.”
“Better teach girl swing high, hold on,” Mary observed.
Caitlin bit back a sharp retort and sighed. “Did you make the swing for her?” she asked Shane.
He nodded. “She was swinging on the kitchen door and the barn doors. She told me she needed a swing.”
“Big swing,” Derry said.
“You’ll have to swing yourself now,” Shane told her. “I’m going to teach your mama to shoot a rifle. You stay here with Mary and Justice. I don’t want you anywhere near us. Do you understand?”
Derry nodded solemnly.
Shane’s gaze met Caitlin’s. “Ready?”
She shrugged. “As ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose. I still think this is a terrible idea.”
“This rifle is light, accurate, and dependable. I could teach Bessie to shoot it,” he replied.
She trudged beside him as he rounded the house and started toward the creek bank. “Wonderful. I’m certain your mule would enjoy it more than I will.” She hated guns, despised the noise and smoke, and was terrified of the damage they could do.
“You’ll have to trust my judgment on this.”
Caitlin didn’t answer. She could hear Derry’s high laughter behind them, and the rush of the stream just ahead. The sunshine was warm on her face and the sky as blue as a robin’s egg. A few lacy clouds floated along the western horizon, but the day was lovely by any standard.
She was happy, Caitlin realized. Just being there with Shane and Derry, knowing there would be food on the table and a roof over their heads. Missouri might be lonely, but it was beginning to feel like home.
“That story you read the other night . . .” Shane said.
“The book? After supper, you mean?”
“Aye. It was a good story. Justice and Gabe were talkin’ about it. Maybe you could read some more tonight.”
“Maybe.” She averted her eyes so that he wouldn’t see her amusement. “It’s a long story.”
“That’s all right.” They reached the edge of the creek, and Shane took her hand. A line of rocks formed a stepping bridge over the fast-flowing water. “Watch your step,” he warned. “The rocks can be slippery.”
His hand tightened around hers, and she liked the sensation.
“I could teach Justice his letters,” she suggested. “He must learn to read, Shane.”
He nodded. “You’re right. And if he’s to learn, it will have to be you that teaches him.”
“Because there’s no school nearby?”
“None yet, but if there was, he still couldn’t go. Most folks wouldn’t stand for a kid with Indian blood sittin’ beside their children.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of!” she exclaimed.
“Might be, but it’s truth. I told you: the color of a man’s skin counts out here.”
“Justice isn’t a man; he’s just a little boy.”
“Folks figure that if he goes to school with their kids, he might expect to court one of their daughters. And that’s just not gonna happen. It’s a pity, but there’s no changin’ it. Take Gabe, now. A more decent man never walked the face of the earth. He’s smart, and he’s honest. He’d like to walk out with Rachel Thompson, but Big Earl would see him hangin’ from a rope first. People like Big Earl put Indians somewhere below mules.”
“It’s wrong,” Caitlin said. “It’s not Christian. The good Lord made Gabriel as he made Mr. Thompson.”
“Maybe so, but Gabe can’t set foot on Thompson land so long as Big Earl or Beau live, not if he wants to keep breathin’.”
“That’s ignorant.”
Shane shrugged. “Life’s not always fair. I can’t help what other folks do or think.” He stopped and pointed to a tin can sitting in front of a large oak tree. “That’s your target, Caity.”
“That little thing?”
“By the time we’re done, you’ll be hitting the center of that can every time.”
“You can teach me to do that today?”
Shane chuckled. “Not unless you’re a better shot than I think you are. It will take a while, but I’m a patient man.”
“I doubt that,” she grumbled. But she gave him her undivided attention as he began to show her how to properly load the rifle:
Shane wasn’t satisfied with her marksmanship in days, or even in a month. But as the weeks passed and summer turned to autumn, Caitlin began to lose her fear of the weapon. Every afternoon in good weather, Shane took time to take her out beyond the creek for target practice. And three times a week, he had her mount Bessie and ride around and around the paddock under his watchful eye until her back ached and her thighs were chafed by the mule’s rough gait.
And evenings, after supper, Caitlin read to Derry, Shane, Gabe, and Mary. In time, she finished the A Thousand and One Nights and began another book, Robinson Crusoe. Persuading Justice that he had to learn his ABCs was easier than she’d thought it would be. For once, Mary, Gabriel, and Shane agreed that the boy needed to learn to read. Faced with such an array of formidable foes, Justice gave in with good grace and applied himself so enthusiastically that he memorized the entire alphabet in three days.
“I want to read books,” he insisted. “I don’t need to write letters.”
“You will when you’re a man,” Shane insisted. To Caitlin’s surprise, he joined the two of them in the dining room for lessons every night after Derry was tucked into bed.
“You don’t,” Justice replied.
“No,” Shane admitted. “I don’t read or write, and many’s the time I’ve regretted my lack of schoolin’.”
“I could teach you,” Caitlin offered.
Shane grimaced. “Not likely.” But she noticed that he paid close attention to everything she told Justice.
Caitlin’s days were full. Her roses flourished, and she had hopes of seeing them blossom in the spring. Her riding improved, and Shane began to take her out with him to ride fence lines or check on the livestock.
When the day was finished and the house was still and locked, she and Shane made love and then slept wrapped in each other’s arms. They had moved Derry into Shane’s room, and Shane had joined Caitlin in the larger, corner bedchamber.
Why can’t I be satisfied with what I have? she mused one night when the only sounds she could hear were the chirp of crickets outside and the steady murmur of Shane’s regular breathing as he slept beside her.
But she wasn’t satisfied.
In the shadowy recesses of her mind, Caitlin knew that Shane still questioned her honesty and her ability to survive on the frontier. She had seen again this morning the brooding look on his face when he talked with Gabriel, and she wondered how many concerns her husband kept from her . . . and how many secrets.
He made glorious love to her, but he’d never told her that he loved her. They could have no chance at a lasting marriage so long as each continued to doubt the other. And until she knew that she was staying on Kilronan, she feared becoming pregnant.
“And I want to be certain of you,” she whispered as she stroked Shane’s tousled hair. “I want it with all my heart and soul.”