Home To Texas - Ransom My Heart Part 32

"Maybe a new place," she suggested.

"Don't you think that would be best? A brand-new place for the three of us.

How do you think that would be, Cupcake?" she asked, holding her breath.

The blue eyes were still troubled at the thought of having to leave the only home she'd known, but Samantha knew her daughter was more adventuresome than she had been at that age. That quality came from Chase.

"Okay, but we'll have us a swing," she said decisively, "so Mr. McCullar can push me every day."

Samantha made no mention of the horses. Mandy wouldn't be able to conceive that Samantha would leave them behind. She was finding it a little difficult to conceive of it herself, but despite Chase's offer, she knew it was the right thing to do--to sell the horses with the ranch. They were too valuable an a.s.set not to. For some reason she couldn't stand to burden Chase with her debt any more than she could take Sam's money and not repay him.

During the next two weeks Mandy had helped her pack their belongings and had welcomed her father into the circle that had before included only the two of them. She delighted in his attention, and Chase was infinitely patient with four-year-old unanswerable questions and "supposes."

Samantha often sat on the railing of the narrow porch, she and the calico cat together, watching while Chase pushed the swing, listening with serious attention to Amanda's chatter.

"Don't you get tired of it sometimes?" she had asked him one night, cuddled into the curve of his ann, as they lay together in the big bed while Mandy slept in the room down the hallway.

Chase always timed his arrival long after their daughter's bedtime, and he left in the predawn stillness of the desert night. She didn't know why that was so important to him, but she accepted that it was.

They both knew there would be gossip about their marriage, a lot of speculation. Chase had said he couldn't do anything about the fact that people would talk, but they weren't going to give them any further ammunition and they weren't going to take a chance on that talk hurting Amanda. But he couldn't seem to stay away and she didn't want him to, so for the weeks before the wedding neither of them ever got a full night's sleep, and neither of them cared.

"I mean, I love her better than my own life, but there are days..." Samantha said, moving her head slightly back and forth against his shoulder.

"I have to confess there are days when I think I can't answer another one of those what-ifs."

"I have a lot of catching up to do. I owe her a lot of answers I missed being here to make during the last four years," Chase said. Then he put his lips against her temple, and she closed her eyes in antic.i.p.ation of his touch.

"I've missed so much--with both of you--that it's going to take me a lifetime to catch up," he whispered.

"Even if I start now. His hand moved downward to find the hem of the nightgown she wore. She wondered why she even bothered to put one on, as the fabric was pushed upward until his hand found what it sought, found and possessed with the sure, unquestioning confidence of owners.h.i.+p. Coming home.

IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING, Samantha thought, she had been expecting Sam to show up. And she wasn't entirely sure if it was the fact she was marrying Chase McCullar that was responsible for his absence. She really believed his feelings about Chase had changed. Maybe he hadn't come because of the betrayal of Jason Drake, because of the fear of what he would see in the eyes of those who knew about his misjudgment. Whatever the reason, as she stood in the back of the small church, she couldn't find that distinctive shock of white hair among the wedding guests, and the day was a little less perfect because of it.

She watched Mandy walk down the aisle, dropping rose petals one by one with serious concentration. It wasn't until the little girl looked up and spotted Chase standing before the altar that she relaxed. Eyes on her father, she began scattering the flowers with reckless abandon, evidently in a hurry to reach him. When she did, she took his hand, her tiny fingers reaching with confidence for his, despite the careful instructions Jenny had given her about where she should stand. Mandy had already decided where that should be.

Samantha's lips curved, watching them together. Finally together. She was aware suddenly that the music that signaled her entrance had begun. Chase's eyes lifted from their contemplation of the pink-clad flower girl to find hers, and in their blue depths was the promise he had already made.

"Together. Me, you, Mandy. Married. A family."

She would never remember her journey down that aisle or even the vows they repeated. Those words weren't necessary.

They both knew that. It seemed that the ceremony lasted only a heartbeat, and then Chase was kissing her, his warm lips pressed over hers, his strong arm around her waist.

Cheris.h.i.+ng and supporting. To love, honor and obey. In sickness and in health. For richer or poorer. As long as we both shall live. At least some of those words had lodged in her consciousness, she realized. The important ones.

When they turned to make their way back down the aisle, the three of them together this time, she saw that Sam was standing at the back of the church, his cream-colored Stetson held tightly in his big gnarled hand. She smiled at him, but he didn't respond, his lips slightly pursed and his eyes unreadable. He had turned away before they reached the double doors, and when they finally made their way outside, past the well-wishers, he had disappeared.

It was only later, at the reception where she and Chase had greeted what seemed to be the entire population of this part of south Texas, that she looked up to speak to their next guest and found her father standing before them. There was a moment of awkwardness, and then she put her arms around Sam's neck. His enclosed her, hugging her too tightly.

"I'm glad you came," she whispered.

"I was hoping you would."

"You look like your mother," Sam said gruffly, pulling away a little so he could look into her face.

"Only you ain't as pretty. n.o.body was as pretty as your mama."

"I know," she said.

"I brought you a wedding present," he said. His eyes had skated to Chase.

"Thank you," Samantha said.

"Not you," Sam corrected.

"You're probably too mule-headed to accept it. Him. I brought it for him. Maybe he's got sense enough."

"What is it?" Samantha asked, fighting a smile. Sam was probably right. She had never willingly taken anything from him, not after she'd reached adulthood. He certainly had ample reason to doubt that she would now---even a wedding present. Knowing Sam as she did, she guessed it would be something expensive and showy that he thought would impress everyone here.

Sam fished an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to Chase. Samantha held her breath, afraid that Chase's pride or his feelings that Sam still didn't find him good enough might get in the way of what appeared to be an attempt at a reconciliation.

Chase studied the old man's face for a moment and then he took the envelope. It wasn't sealed. Chase removed the single sheet it held. After only a cursory examination of what was printed there, his eyes lifted to his father-in-law' s.

"What the h.e.l.l is this supposed to mean?" Chase asked.

"You can see what it means. You're smart enough to figure it out."

"What is it?" Samantha asked, more than a little apprehensive at the tone of that exchange.

Instead of explaining, Chase handed her the sheet the envelope had held. As quickly as he had, she recognized what it was--the deed to Chase McCullar's land.

"How in the world did you get this?" she asked, trying to make sense of what it meant.

"The usual way," Sam said.

"I bought the place.

stock and barrel."

Her eyes lifted to his.

"You were the buyer Blake found?

But ... why, Sam? Why would you do that? You must have known why I was selling the ranch."

"To pay me back. I knew. I figured all along you'd do something mule headed like that."

"Then why..."

"Blake told me somebody else was real interested in the property."

"Who?" she asked.

"Trent Richardson."

"Senator Richardson? Why would he want--" She stopped because she had suddenly realized why. He was buying it for Jenny. To put the McCullar land back together for Jenny. She wondered if Chase knew about Richardson's determined pursuit of his sister-in-law, and then decided this wasn't the time to get into that. There never would be a good time for that revelation. Apparently Sam felt the same way, because he ignored her interrupted question.

"Besides, I like owning land," Sam said.

"You know that. I hear this little bit can be a gold mine. Somebody's been raising some mighty fine horses down there. Everywhere I go, people tell me how good the breeding is. Those stables were just beginning to make a name for themselves, beginning to occasionally compete with Kincaid stock."

"I can't take this, Sam," she said softly.

"I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I sold it all to get the money to pay you back."

"So pay me. The money's in your account--most of it, anyway. Enough of it. And my check's good," he said, mocking his own wealth.

"But ... that defeats the whole purpose. If you buy the ranch and then give it back to me--" "I ain't giving it to you, baby, much as I'd like to. I know you won't take it. Too much like me, I guess. But him," Sam said, gesturing with a movement of his head toward Chase, "I'm hoping he's got more sense than the two of us. Hoping he's less mule headed I'm giving this land to my son-in-law as a wedding present. Maybe a... welcome-to-the-family present."

Samantha looked down at the deed she held. Her father's words made the print blur a little, but she managed to fold it up and hold it out to her husband. The slight vibration of the paper revealed that her hands were shaking.

"Maybe I ain't such a good judge of character," Sam continued, "but I

usually don't make the same mistake twice."

It seemed an eternity as she waited, holding out the deed, watching both of them. She had no role in what was happening here, and she even understood that.

"We got us a daddy, Granddaddy Sam," Mandy said, materializing suddenly out of the crowd to latch on to Chase's leg.

"Just like you told us to."

"I know you did, Cupcake," Sam said, but he didn't look down at her.

His eyes were still locked on the other ones, the same McCullar blue.

"Somebody who'll take care of you and your mama when I'm not around to do it anymore. I reckon you found the best man for that job."

"I know," Mandy said.

"I helped Mama pick him out."

"Congratulations, McCullar," Sam said.

"You got sense enough to realize what a lucky man you are?"

Another eternity pa.s.sed before Chase's fingers closed over the paper Samantha held out to him. The deed to his heritage, his home, once more McCullar land--free and clear and in his name.

"d.a.m.n straight I do," Chase said softly, and then he smiled at Sam Kincaid.

Epilogue.

The sound was something he had lived for for almost five years. He had fantasized about it through endless days in the worst prison in Texas, locked up for a crime he hadn't committed, for a murder he'd had no part in. Finally the gate of that h.e.l.lhole had slammed shut behind him, and he was standing outside in the strong suns.h.i.+ne of a late-August afternoon .

The lines and angles of his dark, beautiful face were set and hard, almost rigid with the control that was second nature to him now. His cold eyes traced over the road that stretched in front of the gate.

There was n.o.body there to meet him, of course, but he hadn't been expecting anyone. Somehow the empty desolation of the landscape that surrounded him seemed appropriate.

It matched the emptiness of his soul, a burned-out sh.e.l.l where once there had been the same feelings and dreams other men cherish.

But that was something he had learned quickly in-side--not to have feelings. Not of any kind. Not about anything.

And that dreams were what you clung to late at night when the lights were out and the familiar daytime noises had faded to the low, ever-present hum of hundreds of men existing together in a s.p.a.ce that was too crowded and at the same time too empty.

He picked up the bag that contained his few belongings.

One of them was a bus ticket, compliments of the state of Texas. They take five years from your life and in exchange they give you a bus ticket. A one-way ticket home.

There would be no one waiting for him there, either. His mother was dead and his father had never even acknowledged his existence. He supposed people in that small south Texas community would question why he was coming back. Let them question and be d.a.m.ned, he thought bitterly.

He didn't care what any of them thought anymore. That, too, had been burned out of him.

Rio Delgado was going home--not because he had any fond memories of the place and not because he had left anything there that he really wanted to go back to. He was going home for one reason and for one reason only. Because he had a score to settle with the man who had stolen the last five years of his life.

Rio's story, Whisper My Love is an April Silhouette Intrigue . Don't miss it.