"I think she was happy enough. Hell, she didn't see the dirt and the bugs or feel the heat any more than you do. She didn't know she was working herself to a shade, or that her dresses were faded and worn."
"Are you saying your father didn't take care of her well enough? Didn't provide—"
"He would've strung her a necklace out of stars if she'd asked for 'em. And he would have laid down his life for her." Garret stopped, grief carving deep in his face. "In the end he did. I can still hear her screaming his name, clawing at that bastard Garvey, trying to get to Pa. I think he would've sacrificed even Beth and me to hold Ma again just one more time."
"You were lucky to grow up in the midst of so much love," Ash said. "My mother never laughed, and my father... when he did, it was usually because he's been guzzling Padraic O'Hearn's poteen."
"But don't you see? It only made it worse in the end. The way they loved each other—it made them suffer. Garvey shot Pa, and while he was still alive the bastard gunned down my mother before his eyes."
Ashleen reached up to frame Garret's lean face in her hands, those features, so beloved, wavering before eyes brimming with tears. "Even if some fairy had shown your mother the future in some mystical pool, she would have followed your father gladly. I would, Garret. Follow you."
"Ashleen—"
"I would rather die. Rather both of us die the way your parents did than to walk alone forever in a living death without you. Whatever time we have is precious. I want to wake up every morning in your arms. I want to give you sons and daughters with mist-gray eyes and hair like spun midnight. I want to trace a baby's lips with my fingertips and smile because that tiny mouth is just like yours." She ran her thumb across lips trembling with emotion, heard a strangled sound rise in Garret's throat at her caress.
"And when I'm an old woman, in a cabin no longer echoing with children's laughter, I want to sit, quiet, as twilight lingers, and hold on to your hand."
Tears spilled free of her lashes, trickled down her cheeks. With a groan Garret pulled her into his embrace, his lips closing over hers, hungry, desperate.
She wanted to fill him with all the love he had denied himself through a score of barren years, wanted to draw away the brutal curtain of memories spun of the Garveys' violence and leave him with images of the beauty—that treasured, rare beauty—of the love his parents had shared. A love worth any risk.
Her hands delved back into his long, silky hair. Her mouth opened under his, her tongue tasting him, trying to gift him with hope.
His heartbeat thundered against her breasts, his passion, heady, raging through her like the fiercest storm. She could feel the need in him—his arousal hard against her thigh, his hands roving her back, her buttocks, sounds of pain, sounds of need rumbling in his chest. It was as if he wanted to devour her very soul, to carry it with him always. And she would have given it to him. Gladly. To drive away the haunting in that bewitchingly handsome face for just a little while.
Shudders rippled through him, his hands shaking, his mouth seeking, and as her lips tracked fiercely across his cheeks, along his jaw, she tasted salt born not of sweat, but of sorrow.
"I love you, Ash... God help me, I do." The words were wrenched from him, his hands almost hurting her in their desperate questing. "But I can't... can't..."
Ash was drowning in his body, in the feel of him, in the sound of his voice, was drowning in the way his mouth was moving against her skin. The thundering of his heart seemed to fill the very core of her, seemed to expand to fill the whole prairie.
She could feel it, hear it, rushing down upon them.
She wanted to plunge deeper still into the passion he offered, and she would have, but a scream split the air.
Fear surged through her as she sprang away from Garret, both of them wheeling toward the strip of road below.
In a split second Ashleen's heart froze, terror such as she'd never known lancing through her as the vision branded itself in her mind—oxen crashing wildly along the road, the wagon careening at a breakneck pace over ruts and stones. Bestial horns tossed as a terrified Renny shrieked commands, trying to stop them, turn them from their path.
Shevonne and Liam ran in the wagon's wake, screaming as the vehicle plunged onward. But fifty yards ahead of the lethal, slashing hooves a tiny yellow sunbonnet was visible above the prairie grass. Meggie stood paralyzed in raw horror as death charged toward her with huge, tossing horns.
Chapter Eighteen
Ash screamed, grabbing at Cooley's reins, but the skittish horse reared back in fear, bolting across the hillside.
The gelding's coat blurred and was lost in a splash of roan and white as something streaked by. Garret. He was plastered low over the paint's neck, the horse flying down the hill at a mind-numbing pace. But if the beast had been born of the Apocalypse, he could never have outrun the crushing death charging toward the helpless little girl.
"God... please, God," Ashleen begged as Garret's horse plunged toward the child, the huge oxen closing in at the same time. Sweet God, they would both be crushed.
Ash saw Garret leaning over the side of his horse, saw that strong arm reach toward Meggie.
There was a horrible neighing sound, and Ash screamed as the paint stumbled and went down.
Dust swirled up, nightmarish, as wagon, oxen, horseman, and child disappeared, a sickening sound of hooves striking flesh driving like a knife into Ashleen's stomach.
She ran down the hill, terrified as the wagon plunged past. Hooves splashed into water, and before the dust could clear the stampeding animals slowed. The wagon tipped crazily, then righted itself as the beasts sloshed to a halt, sucking greedily at the water before them.
Nettles tore at Ashleen's skirts as she ran stumbling down the hillside.
