"I don't want it!" Garret fairly bellowed.
It was as if, in that instant, something snapped in the woman's sea-sprite face. The delicate, soft gold angel transformed before his eyes into a steely-eyed tigress. "Then I do."
"Woman, it took you half the night to find me in the Double Eagle. How the hell do you expect to find some little patch of dirt farm in the middle of goddamn Texas?"
That impudent chin bumped up another notch. "Mr. Jones said that you would take us."
"Iwould—son of a bitch!" If he weren't so furious, he'd be laughing his head off. "Listen, lady, I've done a helluva lot of stupid things in my life. But saddling myself with a woman and a pack of whining kids in the middle of the wilderness isn't one of them." He snarled the words, hating the crawling sense of fear he felt for her and the children.
She paled, her eyes blue fire. "Then we'll just have to trust to God and find the land ourselves."
"That simple, eh? Well, that shows just how ignorant you are! It's no damn church social out there, Sister. And the Comanche wouldn't care if you were the Virgin Mary herself when it came time for 'em to lift your scalp."
"At this point, Mr. MacQuade, I'd like to see them try!"
The words cracked out whiplash fast, hard.
"I should take that damn deed and feed it to the fire!" Garret raged.
He saw her wince, her eyes cloud, but the determination never left that soft, kissable mouth.
"You do what you have to do, Mr. MacQuade."
He stared at her, seeing the challenge there, the fear. "Oh, I get it. Do what I have to, but it won't make any difference, will it? If I burned the deed, you'd just hare off on some other brainless goose chase. Find another way to get the lot of you killed."
"I managed to make it all the way from Ireland on my own. Brought the children this far."
"Maybe there is a God after all. 'Cause lady, from what I've seen the last few minutes, your getting clear to West Port Landing is a cursed miracle."
"I believe in miracles, Mr. MacQuade."
Garret took a step toward her, his face a bare whisper from hers, her rapid breath warm on his skin. "Where the hell was the angel that was supposed to be watching out for Kennisaw when he was shot, Sister Mary Ashleen? Huh? Where was your miracle then?"
He felt the urge to kiss her fire through him again, a fierce need deep in his loins. It was as if he needed to show her how brutal real life was, how little hope existed, how little good—starting with Garret MacQuade's own jaded soul.
But she already knew what a bastard he was. Had known it from that first moment in the Double Eagle.
With an oath Garret turned away. "The hell with it, lady. The hell with you. You want to get yourself killed, courtesy of that crazy old coot, far be it from me to stop you. Just get the hell out of my life."
Garret started to shove past her toward the wagon's tailgate, but her hand flashed out, gripping his steel-tense arm. "Wait."
He wheeled on her as if he'd like to take her damn head off. Glared at her.
"There was something else Mr. Jones wanted you to have. And a message he wanted me to give you."
She was holding something toward him—the rattiest-looking scrap of paper Garret had ever seen. He snatched it away from her, one corner of the sheet tearing. He shook it open, eyes locking upon the image inscribed there.
He had thought he'd known what grief was.
He hadn't even suspected how devastating it could be.
His mother smiled out at him, so real he could hear her laughter. His father stood alert as ever, watching them all frolicking to the tune of Kennisaw's fiddle. Little Beth had been singing that night, breathless as she'd danced, the new dress Mama had made out of one of her old ball gowns from back east swirling about the little girl's delighted form.
Beth had begged Garret to dance with her that night, but he had been buried too deep in his sketching to succumb to her wish.
He still saw her, still heard her lisping voice pleading with him in his most anguished nightmares.
Garret crumpled the paper in his fist and dropped it as if it had burned him.
