Morning Comes Softly Read online

  “I’m ready,” Beth Ann announced shortly after she’d finished breakfast. She came out of the bedroom, hauling her backpack, which seemed to be stuffed with a wide assortment of items.

  “What are you taking?” Mary asked.

  “The things I want to show Mom and Dad,” Beth Ann announced proudly. She held up a molded clay pumpkin that she’d made in school for Halloween. A quick inspection revealed several paintings, including the one of the five stick figures that had touched Mary’s heart so profoundly.

  Scotty hesitated, as though reconsidering the wisdom of such a visit.

  “You don’t have to go,” Mary felt obliged to tell him.

  “I know, but I am,” he said bravely.

  Mary reached for her own coat. The sky was overcast, and a thick frost had settled over the ranch like a shiny white quilt. Mary strongly suspected it would snow soon.

  She debated whether to tell Travis her destination, then decided against it. He was working with a vengeance in the yard, splitting a pile of wood. He’d removed his jacket and was swinging the ax with an energy that defied description. He wouldn’t be able to maintain the killing pace for long.

  For a moment she watched, fascinated to see his muscles ripple with each swing of the ax. He seemed to be unaware she was there, confirming her suspicions.

  Beth Ann and Scotty climbed onto the backseat. Mary had just started the ignition when Jim came racing out of the house. His blue jacket was in his hands as if the decision had recently been made. He didn’t look at Mary as he scrambled across the yard, threw open the passenger door of the car, and climbed inside.

  “I didn’t think you were coming,” Scotty said, sounding inordinately pleased his brother had chosen to join them.

  “I’m not staying alone with Uncle Travis. Not when he’s being a major jerk.”

  Jim didn’t look at Mary, as though he were afraid she’d say something that would embarrass him. Mary’s heart constricted. She knew Travis’s mood was a convenient excuse and loved him for being man enough to follow his heart. She yearned to tell the boy how proud she was of him, but she couldn’t. Not then, but sometime later, perhaps a few months down the road, she’d be able to speak freely.

  Grandview’s cemetery was located on the outskirts of town, in what looked to have once been a churchyard. Apparently the church had been torn down sometime in the past, but Mary could see where it had once reigned over the area.

  The cemetery was edged by a three-foot-high rock fence. Sunlight splashed and glistened on the frost-covered lawn. Large tombstones, some as high as seven feet, haphazardly speckled the rolling landscape.

  “Mom and Dad are over here,” Jim said, determinedly leading the way. His footprints left deep grooves in the frozen grass. “Here.” He stopped, pointing toward the ground.

  Mary looked down at the two plain marble markers. She read the simple words engraved in the stone. Their names, the date of their births, and their deaths. That was all that was listed. There wasn’t a Bible verse, as there had been with her brother and parents. No epitaphs or words of shared wisdom. It seemed like so little for two lives that had had such a strong impact on Mary’s own.

  The tears came as a surprise to Mary. They seemed to leap into her eyes even before she was aware the emotion was there. They came hard and fast, as if they’d been held at bay far too long.

  Mary wished it were possible for her to speak to the children’s mother. She would have loved to tell Janice what a beautiful job she’d done. This woman who’d given birth to these three seemed very real to Mary. From the little she’d learned about Janice Thompson, Mary knew she would gladly have counted her as a friend.

  “Hi, Mom and Dad.” Scotty spoke first. His hands were folded as though he were in church and about to pray. “I miss you a whole lot. Do you miss me?”

  “Of course they don’t,” Jim said with a snicker.

  Mary reached for Jim’s shoulder and squeezed, effectively silencing him.

  “I made a goal in soccer on the playground, even though I was playing with the fourth-graders,” Scotty continued, and then cast his older brother a dirty look. “Jim got in trouble because he was fighting, and Uncle Travis got real mad at him, and then Mary got mad at Uncle Travis. You know about Mary, don’t you?”

  “Uncle Travis married her,” Beth Ann explained. “We were real glad because he was having a bad time with us. I don’t think he knew what to do with kids.”

  “He couldn’t cook, either,” Scotty interjected. “And he was extra rude to Mrs. Johnson, and the social workers didn’t like him very much. Everything’s much better now that Mary’s here.”

  “I broke my arm,” Beth Ann told them, and held out her right arm, encased in the plaster cast, as though waiting for them to comment. “It hurt worse than anything. I tried real hard not to cry, but it hurt too bad. Doc Anderson hurt me more. I don’t like him anymore.”

  Mary moved behind Beth Ann and cupped the small shoulders with her hands.

  “Do you get to talk to God?” Scotty asked.

  Jim snickered again, but Scotty ignored him. “Jim’s mad almost all the time. The next time you talk to God ask him if He can help Jim not be so mad.”

  Beth Ann stuck her hand in her bag and brought out a blue ribbon she’d been awarded for knowing all the sounds of the letters of the alphabet. She squatted down and placed it on the marble headstone.

  “I want Mommy and Daddy to have it,” she explained, looking up at Mary.

  Mary nodded her approval, knowing deep within her heart how very proud and pleased Lee and Janice would be. “Do you want to say anything?” she asked Jim after a silent moment.

  The youth shook his head. “No.”

  She was sure that he did, but he wasn’t comfortable doing it when his brother, sister, and Mary were there listening. “I’ll take Scotty and Beth Ann to the car,” Mary whispered, sensitive to his unspoken needs. “You can meet us there in a few minutes.”

  Mary steered the two younger children toward the station wagon. “What’s Jim doing?” Beth Ann quizzed, looking over her shoulder toward her older brother. “We aren’t going to leave him, are we?”

  “No,” Mary assured her, “we won’t leave him.”

  “You shouldn’t have tattled on Jim,” Beth Ann said, glaring at her older brother. “He’s not mean all the time. Just sometimes.”

  Scotty climbed onto the backseat and reached for the seat belt. Snapping it into place, he released a deep sigh. “I feel better,” he announced as though recovering from a lengthy illness.

  “Me too,” Beth Ann echoed. “Can we come again?”

  Mary nodded. Inexplicably she felt much better, too.

  Jim joined them a few minutes later, and Mary noticed his eyes were red. She yearned to comfort him but knew he wouldn’t welcome her touch. Given the opportunity, he would shun her the same way Travis had earlier that morning.

  When they returned to the ranch, Mary was surprised to find Travis still chopping wood. Heaven only knew how he’d been able to maintain such a killing pace. Just watching him made her want to cry out that he stop.

  “Go inside,” she instructed the children.

  She waited until they were in the house before she called to him. “Travis, for the love of heaven, stop.”

  He pretended not to hear her.

  “Travis, please.” She tried again, more desperate this time. It was killing her to see his mindless struggle with emotional and physical pain.

  “Mary.” Standing on the porch, Jim called for her. “There’s someone on the phone for you.”

  “For me?” Mildly surprised, she pointed to herself. There were only a handful of people she knew in town. She ran up the steps and into the house.

  “This is Mary Thompson,” she said into the receiver.

  “Hi, it’s Tilly.”

  “Is everything all right?” It sounded as though the waitress had been crying. She certainly didn’t seem to be her chipper self.

 
“I’m fine. I guess I caught a cold last night at the carnival. It’s nothing. I…was wondering if we could have lunch together one day next week. There’s something I’d like to talk to you about…that is, if you have the time.”

  “I’d like that very much,” Mary said, touched by the invitation. “Would Wednesday be all right?” She had several library books to return and was hoping to do some shopping. Spending the afternoon with Tilly held a good deal of appeal.

  “Great, I’ll see you on Wednesday, then.”

  “You get over that cold, okay?”

  “Sure,” Tilly said almost flippantly. “I’ll be fine by then.”

  “Good.”

  When Mary replaced the receiver she turned to find Jim standing at the back window, studying Travis. When he found her watching him, he released the curtain and turned away.

  “I’m going to my room.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “I know it’s fine,” he snapped, and raced down the hallway as though he couldn’t get away from her fast enough.

  Mary walked over to where Jim had been standing. Travis’s arm swung the ax with punishing force against a fat section of log. The force of the blow was so strong that two thick slices fell away. He paused, leaned against the ax handle, reached for another section of wood, and placed it on top of the block. He staggered but caught himself.

  Mary decided to try once more. She had to, otherwise she feared he’d grow careless and hurt himself.

  The sun hid behind a thick gray cloud as Mary stepped outside the house. Standing on the top step, she gazed into the angry sky. Fat drops of rain fell onto the dry, moisture-hungry ground. Small round puddles formed in the dirt.

  “Travis,” she shouted, “you’ve got to stop.”

  Again it was as though he hadn’t heard her. His actions had slowed now as physical exhaustion set in. It was almost more than he could do to lift the ax. He seemed to stagger under the weight of it. His body rocked right, he caught himself, then he rocked left, only to brace himself before falling once more.

  Mary hurried down the steps. “Travis, please.”

  He ignored her, lifting the ax high above his head and letting it slam down against the wood.

  Wobbling, he fell to his knees. Mary rushed to him and removed the ax from his unresisting hands. Kneeling beside him in the soft dirt, she wrapped her arms around his middle and held on to him.

  His breath came in strangled gasps as if he couldn’t get enough oxygen to fill his lungs. It was a miracle he hadn’t collapsed earlier. Her heart felt wide open and vulnerable, heating with her love for him, with her desire to help him deal with his pain. He made it so difficult, rejecting her at every turn. No longer. She couldn’t allow this torment to continue. Somehow she had to find a way to reach him.

  Suddenly she couldn’t bear it. Tears flowed from her eyes.

  “Travis, dear God.” Her hand trembled as she reached up and cupped his face. Her touch seemed to ripple through him, and with it came a sob imbedded deep within his chest. It worked its way upward and escaped on a low, howling moan of such grief that Mary buried her face in his neck, sobbing.

  The rain pounded the earth, first in greedy drops that teased the soil, then in a wild torrent. Within moments Mary’s hair was plastered to her face. The cold water ran unrestrained down the small of her back. She hardly noticed.

  Travis’s shoulders shook, and the low moans eased into sobs that rocked his torso with such force, it was as if he were being lifted physically from the ground.

  “Why Lee?” he shouted with such vengeance and fury that Mary gasped. “Why not me?” he demanded.

  His arms reached for Mary, and he hauled her against him with enough force that the air was knocked from her lungs. Burying his face against her shoulder, he wept as she’d never heard a man weep before. His sobs tore at her soul. Over and over she stroked the back of his head and between her own tears whispered reassurances.

  The sound of the downpour obliterated her words, she realized, but it didn’t matter.

  Grief seemed to claw at him. She circled his neck with her arms, holding his head against her, weeping with him. His tears fell without restraint now, without thought, mingling with hers.

  Travis raised his mouth to hers, and the kisses were wild. His lips feasted on hers, his passion a greed he couldn’t seem to satisfy. Their tongues warred and caressed and danced with each other. The rough fierceness of his touch frightened her, yet she trusted him completely. In her heart she knew Travis would never knowingly hurt her.

  When he tore his mouth from hers, his breathing was labored and erratic. He clung to her, his arms protecting her from the cold and the rain.

  “He had everything to live for,” Travis whispered. “A home, Janice, the children. He loved them so much…they were his life.”

  “I know.”

  “God in heaven, why would anyone want to kill him?”

  Mary had no answers, no solutions. All that was left were questions.

  Fifteen

  Travis needed Mary again. No more than a few hours had passed since they’d last made love, yet his body ached with renewed desire. He was a beast, a sexual glutton. His wife was a lady; he couldn’t wake her and ask that they make love again. Not until a respectable time had passed.

  If he did wake her, she would know how weak he was when it came to loving and needing her. She’d realize how badly he craved her touch.

  This crippling desire was something he didn’t understand himself. Mary had awakened his vulnerability and made him feel again. Hell if he knew what to do about it. He didn’t like being vulnerable. If he was going to concentrate on emotions, then they should be anger and vengeance, not her goodness, not her sweetness.

  When he was buried deep inside Mary he felt powerful and alive. Her softness wrapped silken cords around his heart. The softness of her touch, the softness of her life, lured him like nothing he’d ever experienced.

  He’d never needed her more than he did right then. This craving went much deeper than the physical. He craved her softness as an absolution, to obliterate his hate, if only for a moment, because the price of maintaining it was so damn costly.

  Stuffing a groan, he rolled onto his side, away from her, hoping that would help. He closed his eyes and forced his mind to other matters. The renegade wolf had struck again. Rob Bradley had phoned with the news. It couldn’t continue. If the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service couldn’t capture the beast, then the local cattlemen had no choice but to take matters into their own hands. That, however, could be an expensive proposition, especially if they were caught.

  The mattress shifted as Mary rolled, tucking her warm body against him. Her breasts flattened against his back. Her nipples puckered and seared his flesh. Travis stifled a groan.

  “Mary,” he whispered, and faced her. His hand cupped her breast, lifting it in his palm.

  “Hmm?”

  “I’m having a bit of a problem sleeping.” If ever he’d made an understatement, this was it.

  “Hmm? Do you want me to get you something?” she asked sleepily.

  “Not exactly, but you might be able to help.”

  “Okay.”

  Okay! She didn’t even know what she was agreeing to and yet she was willing. From the time she’d flown to Montana to be with him and the children, Travis had recognized that he’d found a rare and good woman. He hadn’t fully appreciated how much until this moment.

  His mouth claimed hers in a moist, gentle kiss, and his hand eased past the elastic waistband of her pajamas. He flattened his palm against the smooth, heated skin of her abdomen, not daring to go farther just yet until she understood his unspoken request.

  “You want to make love…again?” She sounded both surprised and pleased.

  Travis would have preferred not to voice his wants, especially since he was self-conscious about it. His teeth captured her earlobe, and he sucked on it while inching his fingers lower until he encountered the downy curls that n
estled her femininity.

  Mary kissed him, her hunger growing as his hand eased between her legs. She was wet and warm and ready. Travis felt humble with the strength of his desire. Grateful for this woman who so willingly gave of herself.

  He tugged her free of her bottoms, removed his shorts in a frenzy of movement, and positioned himself over his wife. Her arms reached up to him, her body poised and ready to receive him. Gratefully Travis entered her. They sighed their pleasure in unison. Travis gathered her in his arms, almost afraid to breathe, so intense was his gratification.

  He held Mary for a long time afterward, his breathing hard. She pressed her mouth to his throat.

  “Can you sleep now, cowboy?”

  He chuckled, warmed by her love. “Like a log.”

  “Me too.”

  Travis didn’t know who drifted off first, but when he woke, he couldn’t remember a time he’d slept better.

  Mary felt wonderful. Clara Morgan had called to invite her to attend the monthly meeting of the Grange ladies. The older woman’s invitation came on the heels of Tilly’s offer to join her for lunch.

  Mary felt she was making friends. She longed to become an accepted member of the community. She continued attending church, but most of the meetings were in the evenings, and there always seemed to be so much to do after dinner. Perhaps later, when she was more familiar with the roads and unpredictable driving conditions of late autumn and winter, she’d join the choir.

  Monday and Tuesday were her busy days. She did the wash and the deeper cleaning and baked fresh cinnamon rolls, which generally disappeared by Wednesday afternoon.

  While the rolls baked, Mary wrote Georgeanne a long, chatty letter, telling her about the Harvest Moon Festival plus a detailed synopsis of the children’s activities. As she reread her letter, Mary realized how much she sounded like a proud mother, bragging about her children. It was the way she felt. She was happy, happier than she’d anticipated.