Summer eyed the money hesitantly. “Reed wanted you to have it.”
All expression left his face. “I don’t care what he wanted. Our bargain was between you and me.”
In the eternity before she took it, Lance felt his heart contract with a feeling almost like panic. Summer had her sister back now. She didn’t need him at all, except maybe to escort her safely back home. But he wouldn’t let her off the hook. He wouldn’t take money in exchange for finding her sister. Summer was still his wife. She still owed him.
When she took the bills, he felt his taut muscles relax the slightest degree. “You’re going to be here when I get back?” he asked, trying not to let his worry carry in his tone.
She looked at him blankly. “Of course.”
At her answer, his heart stopped its slow slamming and eased into a more normal rhythm. “If there’s trouble, take your sister to the stage station in Belknap. Jeb Burkett will look after you. I’m leaving you one of my rifles.” He turned to heft one of the Henrys from its saddle scabbard and handed it to her.
“Lance…please take care.”
He looked at her, wondering if she really meant it. Would she be sorry if he didn’t come back? Or would she be relieved to be spared a future with him, a lifetime of living on the outskirts of society as the wife of a half-breed? If he didn’t return, she could pretend this was all a bad dream.
Shifting his gaze away, he forced his doubts to crawl back under the rock where they belonged. Summer was his wife. She would keep her word.
“Is Amelia going back to Round Rock with us?” Lance asked gruffly.
“I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me what she wants to do.” Summer hesitated. “I may have to stay here with her for a while, to make sure she’s all right.”
“She has a few days to decide.”
He didn’t kiss her. Instead he gathered the reins of the other horses, including Summer’s, and swung up on his own. “I’ll take your mounts back to Burkett. They don’t need to be eating their heads off in the Truesdale barn while I’m gone.”
Or provide you a way home, his suspicious thoughts insisted on adding. Without horses, Summer would have to wait for his return.
He felt her gaze on him as he led the horses away, and was struck by how similar this leave-taking was to those between them in the past—him riding away, Summer watching him go.
But this would be the last, Lance swore silently to himself. If he had anything to say to it, this would be the last time Summer was separated from him.
He glanced back over his shoulder, his heart leaping at the sight he found. Summer was still standing where he’d left her in the late afternoon sun, her hand raised in farewell. If he didn’t know better, he would think she looked almost like a true wife waving good-bye to her husband.
Or maybe he just wanted so bad to believe it that his imagination was playing tricks on him again.
When Lance was finally out of sight, Summer smoothed her skirts and forced herself to enter the Truesdale house, although she dreaded it.
Finding the three of them in the kitchen, she paused in the doorway. Mrs. Truesdale bustled around the large room, straightening things that didn’t need straightening, while her son, Billy, sat at the table, his expression stony. Amelia cradled a mug of coffee in her shaking hands, but she wasn’t drinking. Instead she simply sat there, tears streaming down her face, as if, having come this far, she had reached the end of her strength.
When Summer heard mention of Mary, she realized they were discussing the daughter who had been killed in the same raid in which Amelia had been taken captive.
“I sent Nan back east to her grandma’s,” Mrs. Truesdale was saying bitterly. “Where it’s safe. I couldn’t bear to lose her the way I lost Mary. We’re leaving, too. Soon as I find a buyer for this place.”
Summer doubted that anyone else would be foolish enough to risk the danger of settling here, although she didn’t say so. With all the raids and Indian depredations, the Texas frontier had been steadily retreating since early in the war, when most of the available fighting men and resources had been expended on fighting the Union rather than protecting the farmers and ranchers.
“Do you know what happened to Tommy?” Billy interjected grimly. “His folks will want to know. The last anyone saw, he was carried off with you.”
“Tommy…” Amelia whispered to herself, her face contorted as if remembering some unseen horror. “They killed him. I couldn’t do anything to help him…They wanted him to be quiet, but he wouldn’t stop crying, so one of them…They…they killed him with a spear and left him there on the side of the trail…They just left him there…”
She was sobbing openly now, mourning the murdered child who had been taken captive with her. It was the first time Summer had heard her sister speak about the raid, but she didn’t think it could be good for Amelia to dwell on it.
Entering the kitchen, she crossed to Amelia’s side and put her arms around her. “Melly…please don’t cry. It’s over now. You have to forget.”
Martha Truesdale whirled, fixing her venomous stare on Summer. “What do you know about it? You didn’t lose anybody to those vicious devils.”
Summer clenched her teeth in an effort to keep her voice calm. “I know what it’s like to lose someone I love, Mrs. Truesdale. My mother was killed in a Comanche raid when I was very young. Amelia needs time to grieve, yes, but she needs more to get on with her life. It won’t help her to dwell on what happened.”
r /> “You stinkin’ Injun lover, what do you know?” The older woman picked up the closest object at hand, which happened to be an iron frying pan from the stove. “Squaw! Comanche squaw!”