Children of Destiny Books 1-3 (Texas: Children of Destiny Book 9) Page 16

Amy didn’t dare disobey. She dressed quickly, silently. He didn’t stay to watch.

  They drove in silence to the airport. Except for greeting Megan briefly before she seated herself in the cockpit, Amy and Nick maintained their tense silence. Nick was always especially nervous on airplanes, but he was more so today. When they took off and the jet careened over the blue Pacific, his tan hands clutched the armrest of his seat. Moisture beaded his brow.

  Before she thought better of it, Amy had reached across and touched his hand in reassurance. Abruptly he jerked his hand free from hers, got up, and left her, vanishing into the cockpit to join Megan.

  Left alone in the cabin, Amy felt jealous and left out. She knew Nick had known the beautiful Megan for years. As a child when Nick had spent his summers in Texas, Megan had always been there. Her mother had run off first, then later, her father. Her older brother had moved overseas. Megan had been raised on the ranch during that difficult period, and Amy knew Nick had the greatest admiration for her. He had always spoken of her affectionately, saying that she was wild and fun loving, that she’d been the only one on the ranch who ever dared to disobey Jeb.

  Amy could hear Nick and Megan talking and laughing together. For once Nick seemed to have found a means of distracting himself from his fear of flying. Nick was snubbing Amy, treating her as though she didn’t exist.

  Perhaps the beautiful Megan had made him forget her completely.

  Amy couldn’t endure it.

  But she had to.

  By the time Nick and Amy got to the ranch it was noon. Amy had never been to Texas and was stunned by the vastness of the open mesquite range spreading out beneath an endless blue sky. A ribbon of blacktop with heat waves shimmering off it seemed endless, too, as the road meandered into the distance. Amy thought the ranch had a stark, lonesome beauty unlike anything she’d ever seen before. They drove for miles, after passing through the front gate, beneath billowing white clouds, through tangled oak motts, beside oil wells, and past herds of Santa Gertrudis and Angus cattle before reaching the white Big House.

  “It doesn’t look all that impressive,” Nick said coolly, “but beneath all those cow hooves and cactus thorns and that dry caked dirt there are millions and millions of barrels of oil and gas. I guess Texas was built on its bigness, brag, and petroleum. At least that’s what this ranch is founded on, according to my brother Jeb.”

  Amy made no comment. She could see that the Jackson Ranch was a world unto itself, an empire carved out of the desert land between the Rio Grande and the Gulf of Mexico.

  Mercedes greeted them warmly, offered them coffee, and told them that Triple was at the corral. Kirk MacKay, Megan’s brother, was teaching him to ride.

  “You mean you’ve turned Triple loose on a cowboy?” Amy asked dubiously.

  Mercedes’s smile was indulgent. “Kirk’s our horse-program manager, and he’s no ordinary cowboy.”

  “Kirk’s a former CIA agent,” Nick said dryly. “For once Triple has a competent sitter.”

  As soon as they could, Nick and Amy left Mercedes. As they approached the pasture nearest the corral, they saw a tall, powerfully built, Indian-dark man leading a little boy on a docile, velvet-brown pony. Except for having the same green eyes, Kirk bore little resemblance to his red-haired sister. Megan was all spirit and fire. There was a coiled tenseness about this silent man, a fierce, indefinable ruggedness about him as if there was nothing on earth that could frighten him—ever again. And yet there was a quiet gentleness in him when he turned his attention to the horse and child. When Kirk saw them, he waved in greeting. Sensing their need to be alone with their child, he cocked his Stetson in a salute and lifted Triple down from the saddle before leading the pony back to the barn.

  Triple hesitated, looking torn and uncertain. Behind him a windmill groaned as its blades whirred in the wind. A mother quail was leading her feathered nestlings in a parade across the road.

  Triple stood in the pasture with the wind ruffling his golden-brown hair. He hesitated, a tiny figure in a vast world, and his proud, aloof stance clawed at Amy’s heart.

  “Triple!” she cried out, her voice choked with emotion. She opened her arms. Her face was illuminated with a mother’s unmistakable love for her child.

  For a long moment Triple held himself rigid, his troubled eyes betraying a heart in turmoil. Then he could hold back no longer. Suddenly he was running through the dry, waving grasses. In his eagerness to see them he forgot that they were the very pair he had run from and threw himself into his parents’ arms.

  “Triple, why did you run away?” Amy asked gently after a while, tousling his curls and hugging his sturdy little breathless body as she knelt beside him. Her eyes were filled with tears of joy.

  “I wanted to fly. But then it was awful. I was scared. It was so bumpy.”

  Nick smiled grimly. His eyes were brilliant with a keen understanding. Amy saw his brown hand tighten on Triple’s shoulder. “Son, for anyone with a drop of Jackson blood, flying’s hell.”

  “Why did you run away?” Amy repeated.

  Triple looked from his mother to his father, and the warmth and understanding the child saw in their faces seemed to reassure him.

  “I heard you talking to Aunt Lorrie. I didn’t think I was your little boy anymore, and maybe you wouldn’t love me anymore.”

  Gently Amy tilted his face up to hers. “I will always love you. Always,” she said.

  “I don’t want Aunt Lorrie for a mother.”

  Amy’s fingers lovingly caressed Triple’s cheek. “I will always be your mother.” Her gaze swung to Nick, who seemed so uncomfortably silent. “Just as Nick will always be your father.”

  Triple glanced dubiously toward his father and then back to his mother. “Really?”

  “Yes,” she whispered fervently. “Nothing will ever change that. Nothing in the past. Nothing in the future. He loves you as much as I do. You are our little boy. You have to believe that.”

  “And I can live with both of you? All the time? Can everything be the way it was?” Triple’s small hand tightened its grip on his mother’s fingers pleadingly.

  Amy’s imploring eyes met Nick’s. A small, agonized sound slipped through the constricted muscles of her throat. More than anything she longed to give her child the answer he wanted to hear, but she couldn’t.

  It was Nick’s voice that broke the silence.

  “Yes,” Nick said. “We’ll all be together. All the time.”

  “Really, Dad?”

  “Really.” Nick was folding Triple into his arms, and Triple was staring trustingly into his father’s eyes.

  “Don’t lie to him,” Amy pleaded desperately. “Please, no more lies.”

  She couldn’t bear to hope, for Triple to hope, if there was no chance. It would be too cruel.

  “Have I ever lied to you?”

  She shook her head as Nick’s grim gaze met hers. “Then trust me for a change,” he whispered softly, ironically.

  She gave a swift silent nod, and then got up and left them together. It was very important that Triple know how much Nick wanted him.

  Amy hadn’t walked far when Triple gave a shriek of pure joy. She whirled and saw that Kirk had returned and was lifting Triple into the saddle again while Nick watched.

  Suddenly Nick’s gaze riveted itself to the solitary woman standing apart from them.

  “Amy!” he shouted, calling her back.

  She wanted to run to him, to believe that he’d meant it when he’d promised they would always be together. She wanted to stand with him, to hold his hand, to watch their son as he rode Nugget. Nick’s tall, bronzed form blurred through the mist of her intense emotion.

  She turned away and began to run from him, blindly, stumbling through the deep grasses. Behind her she could hear the muffled thunder of Nick’s heavy boots chasing after her. He caught her just short of the Big House and spun her around in his arms.

  “Let me go!” she wept.

  “Shut up!” His r
aspy voice was harsh and angry.

  Amy strained to push him away, but he merely tightened his brutal grip. “Don’t come after me if you don’t want me! I won’t blame you…if you don’t want me.”

  She licked her dry lips.

  A muscle jumped convulsively at the corner of his mouth. Rage glittered in his eyes. “Why do you always doubt me? Why the hell did you run?” Nick jerked her onto her tiptoes. “You’ve been running from me, turning your back on me for years and years. Don’t ever do it again.” He covered her mouth with his in a savage kiss that betrayed a bewildering mixture of emotions—rage, desire, tenderness.

  Amy shuddered away from his touch with a moan, but he pressed his body into hers, and she felt the rigid contours of his taut, male body.

  Just as abruptly as he’d seized her, Nick released her. He pushed her beneath the dense shade of a gnarled live oak. Her slender, graceful figure was dwarfed by the immense size of him.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Amy demanded, trying to hide her trembling from him.

  “We’ve got to talk.” His raspy voice was harsh. His lips were clamped so tightly together that there were white lines beside the edges.

  “Y-you shouldn’t have lied to Triple about us all being together.” Her words seem to tremble uncontrollably. Her eyes were golden and luminous, mute in their appeal.

  His expression softened as he cupped her face. She felt his other hand wrap around her throat. To her amazement his hands were shaking.

  “I wasn’t lying,” he said. “Like I said—I’ve never lied to you. Do you really think I could live without you? I’ve tried that. The one thing I learned was that no matter how much I wanted to forget you, I couldn’t crush all the memories. I couldn’t block out the smell and the taste and the feel of you. The harder I tried to, the more I wanted you. I want you too badly, still, to give you up.”

  It had been the same for her.

  “I didn’t use Triple to get money from you or Sebastian, Nick,” she whispered. “I needed the money for Triple, not for myself.”

  His hands held her face still, and he read the agony in her eyes.

  “I believe you,” he said quietly at last. “I believe you.”

  “But can you ever forgive me?” Her low voice throbbed. “What I did was so wrong. My only excuse is that I thought I was protecting my family.”

  As Amy gazed up at him her pain seemed to reach out and touch him, hurting him as much as it hurt her. Then she buried her face in the hollow of his neck, drawing a deep, shaking breath and closing her eyes.

  He groaned. Then he drew her closer, his hands moving over her body caressingly, soothingly. “We’ve all suffered—you no less than I. You were trying to protect someone you loved. You were young. You made a mistake. I can’t blame you. You did what you believed was right. Hating you is like hating part of myself. I’ve never felt as alone as I felt last night. Losing you, finding you, losing you again. It was unbearable.”

  “For me as well,” she said.

  “I told Triple we would legally adopt him. He would be our little boy. Ours alone. Just as he’s always been. He couldn’t be any more precious if he were my own son.” Nick’s eyes were shining. “Darling, don’t you see, you have given me back something of Jack.”

  “Do you really think we’re going to be...a real family?”

  “Yes, darling, I do,” he said hoarsely. “That’s what I’ve always wanted and never had—to be at the center of a real family.”

  He kissed her throat gently and then her lips more passionately.

  “We’re going to have to find someplace to be alone,” she whispered after a long time.

  He smiled down at her. “Believe me, darling, that’s not too hard in Texas.”

  *

  It was the second lay day of Antigua Race week, and a lazy stillness pervaded the sultry Caribbean island. In some hotel or thatched hut nestled behind a wall of lush purple bougainvillea and crotons, reggae music was playing. It was a dull, throbbing, repetitious sound that seemed to go on and on, endlessly crooning just as the aqua waves endlessly caressed the sugar-white sand.

  The tiny harbor was overcrowded. A multitude of expensive racing yachts from all over the world were jammed side by side and docked. Sebastian’s Marauder, the sixty-five-foot Swan ketch that Nick was racing in the series, was anchored out in English Harbour, a safe distance from the other yachts that were also anchored in the still, green-blue waters of Antigua’s Hurricane Hole.

  Not a breath of air stirred the protected waters. Amy and Nick were alone on the deck of the gleaming yacht drinking iced drinks, relaxing for the first time after days of hectic racing. Triple had gone ashore to participate in the lay day dinghy races for children. The rest of the crew had gone as well, encouraged by Nick to participate in the sail-bag races, drinking contests, or the lascivious-leg contest. Mercedes and Wayne were ashore, too, ensconced in the lavish splendor of their air-conditioned hotel suite.

  “Whoever heard of bringing a child on a honeymoon?” Nick teased, his gaze drifting over his wife like an intimate caress.

  Her eyes sparkled. “Some honeymoon. Whoever heard of bringing an entire crew along—as well as your parents?”

  “We need the crew to race,” Nick declared practically.

  “That’s just the point. We’re supposed to be honeymooning. Not racing.”

  He flashed her a hot, eager look. “Thank you for reminding me,” he said, pulling her into his arms.

  The glow radiating from his face was warm and intense and Amy basked in its loving light. In the months that had followed their reconciliation, she had never known a more complete and serene happiness.

  “I had to race,” he murmured. “Sebastian’s orders. I couldn’t leave you behind. Do you really mind…so much?”

  “I really mind,” she whispered, drawing his open palm to her lips and kissing his fingers. “All I want…is to be alone with you. When you’re racing, you never think of me.”

  “And when I’m not, I never think of anything else.” He gathered her close to him in a fierce, possessive embrace, and she reveled in his nearness. His head lowered gently to hers, his mouth claiming hers in a passionate kiss that rocked her senses. A wild, hot glory filled her. She didn’t mind anything as long as she was with him.

  She was breathless when the kiss was over, and the tingling sensation remained as Nick nuzzled his face into her raven black hair, his mouth trailing kisses of fire along the sensitive skin of her throat. A tremor shook him, and she knew he was no more immune to the sensual thrill of their embrace than she was.

  “I love you,” she said softly.

  “I love you, too,” he murmured. “Maybe we’d better go below...”

  “In a minute. There’s a little confession I need to make first. A little something I haven’t told you.”

  “A little something...” He was remembering her last confession all those months ago, when Nick had learned their son’s true parentage. Nick pulled away and as he studied her suddenly grave face, he grew even more alarmed. “Dear God! Not another secret! Not again.”

  “Yes.”

  “What? I thought you’d learned your lesson.”

  She smiled softly into his startled face. “We’re going to have a baby. You and me...”

  His fingers lightly touched her cheek. The expression on his dark face was incredulous. “For a minute there...” His brows drew together. “What the hell have you been doing on this boat, working as hard as the men?”

  “I was just going along with your idea of a honeymoon.”

  “Not anymore,” he pronounced emphatically. “The men can tail the jib sheets without you. You should have told me sooner, sweetheart.”

  “I’m not made of glass, you know.”

  “I’m not letting you take any chances. We’ll get you a hotel room. No more hot nights on this boat.”

  “Nick,” she protested softly, laughing at him. “I like our hot nights.”

  �
�No argument,” he insisted arrogantly. “You and our baby are much too precious to risk.” His arms encircled her gently, lovingly. “This is the happiest day of my life.” Gently he traced the lines of her face with his fingers. “I never dreamed...it could be like this. Our child—a beautiful, black-haired little girl like you.”

  Amy laughed. “I was sort of hoping for a golden-haired little boy. We could call him Sebastian.”

  “Sebastian, hell! What’s wrong with Nicholas?”

  “Nicky it is,” she whispered.

  Nick bent his head and kissed her—a long, deep kiss. Amy slid her arms around his neck, rising on her tiptoes.

  It seemed that their souls met, touched, and came together.

  “Darling,” he said in an aching murmur against her lips.

  Once she had asked him not to call her that ever again.

  But that unhappy time was a lifetime away.

  The sky above the soft green island and its shimmering, azure waters was iridescent pink and blue. A golden band of sunlight trailed away into infinity.

  Nick lifted his wife into his arms and carried her below.

  DESTINY’S CHILD

  TEXAS: CHILDREN OF DESTINY

  BOOK 2

  ANN MAJOR

  This book is dedicated to my dearest friend—

  Diana Gafford—for being one of the most beautiful

  people I’ve ever known.

  One

  It was a wild, moonless night with a bank of low clouds hiding the stars—the kind of South Texas spring night when the darkness itself seems alive. A man could get tired just being out in it. Every branch in the dense oak motts and mesquite thickets twisted and groaned. Every blade of thin, brown bluestem lashed at Caesar’s hooves as he picked his way wearily across the sandy pastures. The heat of the day lingered in that billowing wind—thick, humid, inescapable.

  Jeb Jackson had been slumped in his saddle since dawn inspecting some of the more remote parts of his ranch, which he couldn’t reach in his four-wheel drive because the pastures were choked by ebony, shin oak, granjeno and huisache. Usually Jeb left the brute work of scouring these deep and thorny thickets to his vaqueros, but there were times when he gave in to a certain edginess in his nature and took a day away from the office, the telephone and his board of directors, so he could personally inspect his windmills, fences and cattle.