Night Flower (Gone-to-Texas Trilogy) Read online

  Jim made a grimace of mock horror. “Well, I waited for you, so be grateful, woman. Anyway, you're not upset he's married at twenty-two; you're just upset that you weren't there to play cupid.”

  “But she's from an old, proper Mexican family. Lee is a Tejano. ”

  “Who should have a Tejana for a wife,” he added with a smile. “Well, it was his choice, Charlee, not ours.”

  “I know.” She sighed. “I only hope she's able to fit in here. I do so want him to stay and do what he's always dreamed of.”

  “Rebuild his parents' ranch?” Jim replied. “Yes, I guess he did always want that, but you must realize, Cat Eyes, he's just spent nearly four years at the university in Mexico City, living with his uncle. The eighteen-year-old Texas boy who left here may just be a tad different and more mature when he returns. Maybe a little more Hispanic.”

  With a worried look clouding her bright green eyes, Charlee nodded. “That's what I'm afraid of.”

  When a messenger arrived the following morning to advise them that Lee and Dulcia would be arriving in San Antonio that afternoon, Jim could not discourage Charlee from heading straight to town. “I've started dinner and Lena is here to oversee it, so Weevils can't do too much damage,” she insisted.

  “You could give that young lady”—Jim pointed at her belly—“and your own backside a rest and let me escort them to the ranch.”

  “Who says this is a girl? Anyway, I have to set Dulcia a good example and show her the stuff we Texas women are made of.”

  “That's what I’m afraid of,” Jim replied dryly.

  * * * *

  As he stepped off the coach, Lee looked around the Main Plaza with the sweeping glance of a plainsman, taking in much quickly. Then, he carefully helped his dusty, exhausted wife from the crude wooden conveyance. The sun shone brilliantly and the air was dry and crisp, a typical late January day, the perfect welcome for them. Thank heaven no blue northers had struck yet. He must get Dulcia safely to Bluebonnet before anything else befell!

  Looking from San Fernando Cathedral to the old cabildo clock, hearing the rustling of the tall cypress trees and the twangy oaths of a Yankee teamster as he lashed his mules, Lee knew he was home. He watched Dulcia survey the wide expanse of the city's center with its unique mixture of Spanish adobe and Anglo frame buildings. Around the plaza, the larger limestone buildings dating from Spanish times still predominated. “Isn't it beautiful? Smell the air, Dulcia. No rotten oysters or wharf stench here.”

  A brisk, light breeze caught Dulcia's bonnet as she gazed around her in a daze. “It is very picturesque, Leandro. Larger and more like Mexico City than so many of the towns we've traveled through,” she replied carefully.

  “Look! Here come Jim and Charlee, and that must be little Will!” He pointed excitedly across the square to where a tall blond man was leaping lithely from a wagon with cougar like grace.

  Dulcia watched the rough frontiersman and realized that, except for the startling difference in their coloring and clothing, he and her husband were much alike. Lee looked elegant in his wool suit and gleaming dress boots, but he wore two of those terrible side arms. Jim, dressed in a homespun shirt and buckskin breeches, was armed with a frightening arsenal of pistols. When they left Houston City, Lee had insisted he must carry weapons as they traveled into the interior.

  With each day's journey, he seemed less the gallant, handsome young scholar she had married, and more the Tejano, watchful and quiet, almost dangerous. The man striding toward them was older and harder but cast from the same mold, right down to the blinding-white smile and faultless Spanish with which he greeted her.

  “Mrs. Velasquez, Dulcia, I am charmed to meet Lee's bride after all the letters he's written praising your beauty.” He kissed her hand gallantly, then turned to introduce his wife and son.

  The boy was a squirming, wide-eyed version of the father, but the woman! Well, at last Dulcia would meet the companion of Lee's youth. Charlee was as slight as she, fine-boned and slim with wide-set green eyes and a great mass of unruly multitoned tan hair. Her face was not classically beautiful, but instead was vivacious and strong with a zest for life that rather overpowered Dulcia, especially when the young woman reached out her arms and embraced her as if they were sisters.

  When she did the same to Lee, Dulcia was truly scandalized; for Charlee Slade was very visibly pregnant! Apparently, she was as shockingly unconcerned with her condition as Lee, who practically threw her up in the air, laughingly commenting on how she had gotten fat in his absence!

  “When's the blessed event, chica?” he had asked as he put her down.

  “In about four months, maybe a little less. There's plenty of time for me to be in Austin for the ceremonies,” Charlee replied.

  Jim shrugged helplessly, a smile lighting the harsh angles of his face. “You see what Will and I have to contend with?”

  Lee shifted his attention to the boy who sat in his father's arms, observing all the laughter and confusion of the reunion. “So you're William August Slade, eh?” When he switched to English, Dulcia could not understand all the words; but his manner and the way the boy responded to him made the meaning obvious. The child's serious, puzzled face split into a grin, revealing a goodly number of neatly spaced baby teeth as he reached out to leap into Lee's arms.

  “I'm your Uncle Lee, and this”—he turned to his wife—“is your Aunt Dulcia.” Once more he switched to Spanish and said, “Let's hope we soon have some cousins to play with you and your soon-to-be brother or sister.” He winked at Charlee, who laughed delightedly and looked over at Dulcia, who crimsoned.

  Sensing the young girl's embarrassment, Jim interjected, “We have too much catching up to do to stand here in the street. Charlee, why don't you escort Dulcia to the wagon while Lee and I see to the baggage?”

  Charlee nodded and reached out for the sturdy little boy. Will went unquestioningly from Lee to his mother, who hefted him easily despite her delicate condition.

  Speaking to Dulcia in Spanish, Charlee suggested, “Let's pull the wagon up closer to where the driver dropped off your trunks. Oh, my, I bet you've brought gowns that would turn Deborah's purple eyes as green as mine with envy.” Charlee giggled, seeming for a moment to be as frivolously girlish as Dulcia's school friends.

  “Deborah?” Dulcia said uncertainly. Lee had spoken of so many people in Texas that her head spun with the names.

  “Deborah is my dearest friend and a real Boston lady who loves beautiful things. She used to own my boardinghouse. Now, she lives with her husband and children on a big ranch several hundred miles north of here in a rather isolated area.”

  As far as Dulcia could see, all of Texas was isolated, but she was too taken aback by the rest of Charlee’ s matter-of-fact statement to think of that. “You own a business—a boardinghouse?” Ladies did not work! At least not in Mexico. Did they in Texas?

  Charlee smiled, measuring the confused and tired young girl before her. “I bought it from Deborah when she and Rafe left San Antonio over three years ago. But then Jim and I got married. It was too much bother to try running it myself from the ranch, so I hired a manager. I'm in town often enough to oversee it. I kinda like to keep my hand in, I guess. I suppose Yankee women seem different to a lady from Mexico, Dulcia, but this is Texas—one of the few places in the world where a woman at least has property rights outside her marriage.”

  Dulcia's blue eyes widened. “But—but if you love your husband, why would you need laws or courts to give you property?” she asked in puzzlement.

  “Because I earned my property. So did Deborah. Oh, don't mistake me. We don't need protection from our husbands,” she added with a wicked grin lighting up her small face, “but some women do. If a man has the right to protection under the law, so does a woman.”

  “I suppose there are cases...” Dulcia's voice faded into uncertainty again as they reached the big wagon, drawn by a team of enormous chestnut horses. Effortlessly, Charlee tossed young Will up on the
spring seat and then climbed up, heedless of her ungainly belly.

  When she offered her arm to Dulcia to assist her up, the younger woman reddened in chagrin. “Please, I can manage. I wouldn't want you to strain yourself in your state.” As the girl very carefully lifted her skirts and climbed slowly up the big spokes of the wheel onto the wagon seat, Charlee laughed.

  “My state is very pregnant, and I'm just as healthy this time as last. Best thing a woman can do to assure an easy delivery is to keep active. Words of advice from several of my older and wiser friends.”

  Despite her mortification, Dulcia was eaten up with curiosity; since she suspected that she at last might be carrying a child, too. “You aren't worried about the bouncing of the wagon?”

  Slapping the reins, Charlee laughed easily again. “Can't hurt! I still ride Patchwork, my horse, although Jim sees to it I keep her to a rather tame trot!”

  “But how can you position yourself properly on a sidesaddle?” Dulcia asked, almost in awe by now.

  “Easy. I ride astride with a safe, solid stock saddle.” Realizing how much Lee's child bride had to learn about Texas, Charlee let that sink in, then went on to tell her, “February nineteenth is the big shindig in Austin. Jim and I are taking Will. It'll be a historic occasion and I wouldn't miss it for anything—the Texas Republic will officially become the twenty-eighth state in the United States!”

  “You will travel all that way to appear at a public ceremony in your condition! I mean, oh, I would be frightened, I suppose. In Mexico such a thing would never be permitted,” Dulcia finished weakly, hoping she had not offended Lee's friend.

  Charlee put her small but strong hand over Dulcia's small, fragile one. “You're in Texas now, Dulcia, married to a Tejano,” she said gently. “You'll have to learn new ways. Some of them will seem pretty unconventional to you.”

  Before Dulcia could reply, they pulled up where the men were sorting through an immense array of boxes and trunks.

  “This one's too heavy by half to be women's frou-frous,” Jim said as he hefted one leather-bound portmanteau on his shoulder.

  “Books. Uncle Alfonso was afraid my mind would languish in the Texas wilderness,” Lee replied laughingly.

  “Sort of like water in the desert, eh?” Jim said ironically, knowing how thoroughly Lee had used the extensive library at Bluebonnet while he was growing up.

  They switched the conversation effortlessly from English to Spanish, Charlee included, as they loaded the wagon, deferring to Dulcia, whose understanding of English was very limited. Wanting to befriend the frightened girl, Charlee said as they rode out of town, “Lee taught me Spanish when I first came here from Missouri. The least I can do to repay the favor is to teach his bride English.”

  Dulcia returned her smile gratefully but prayed in her heart of hearts that she and Leandro would not be in Texas long enough for her to master the language.

  * * * *

  Austin, Texas, February 19, 1846

  “I hope we're not late, Joe,” Melanie Fleming said as she kicked her horse into a slightly swifter pace and scanned the outskirts of the capital city.

  “If we hadn't stopped to help them settlers with their broken wagon wheel, we'd have made it in plenty of time,” her nine-year-old brother, Adam, said impatiently.

  “Those settlers,” Melanie corrected automatically.

  “Folks in trouble got a right ta expect a hand. That's Texas's unwritten law, youngun. Yew know thet,” Joe De Villiers sternly admonished his young charge, who had pulled his horse alongside the slim half-breed's. “I 'spect we'll git there afore all th' speechifyin' is done, worse luck.”

  “Just so we get to see the flag raising,” Adam said excitedly. “I wish Mama and Papa could’ve come—‘n Lucia, too!”

  Joe De Villiers grinned. “Yore folks got them more important bizness ta attend to 'n seein' th' Republic join th' Union.”

  “I don't see why havin' an ole baby is more important. We already got us—er, have Caleb,” Adam replied, petulance etched across his dark, finely chiseled features as he referred to his three-year-old brother.

  Melanie smiled encouragingly. “Maybe this time you'll get a baby sister,” she said devilishly.

  “Huh? I already got a big one! Who needs two of you to gang up on me ‘n Caleb? ‘Sides, Lucia ‘n Joe already got a girl. Too many females on our ranch.”

  “Thet's where you're wrong, mon ami,” Joe replied. “Lucia ‘n me 'spect ta have a whole dozen daughters. Won't be long ‘n yew'll git happier ‘bout there bein' so many females round. Jist wait.”

  Melanie giggled, pushing a straggling lock of ebony hair from her forehead as she watched her young half brother squirm. In the years since she had come to live with her father and stepmother, the sullen, frightened twelve-year-old daughter of Lily Duval and Rafael Flamenco had been transformed into Melanie Fleming, a laughing, carefree sixteen-year-old of singular beauty and self-confidence.

  When he came to Texas to reclaim his runaway wife, Deborah, Rafael had become a Texian rancher and built a new life for himself. Here he was known as Rafe Fleming, co-owner with Cherokee Joe De Villiers of Renacimiento, the largest ranch in northern Texas. He and Deborah had lavished their love and understanding on his octoroon mistress's cast-off daughter after the child's grandmother had been killed in an accident over three years ago.

  Secure in her place in the Fleming family and her life in Texas, Melanie's childhood scars were forgotten on this sunny day, so full of promise for them all. Texas was to become the twenty-eighth state in the Union and she was going to see Anson Jones, the last president of the Republic, hand over the reins of the government to the first governor of the state, J. Pinckney Henderson. Her mother's old friends Charlee and Jim Slade were going to be present, as well. She could hardly wait!

  At the time of its creation in 1839, the capital of Austin had housed a scant ninety souls on an outpost of the Comanche frontier. Now, after nearly seven years of rivalry between Houston and Austin, the capital was to be permanently situated on the banks of the Colorado River. The log huts with their dog-trot porches, so common across the Texas frontier, were giving way to neat saltbox cottages and temple-fronted dwellings. The population, by now grown to a permanent base of over six hundred, looked forward to conducting the business of government, leaving crass commercialism to its rival on Buffalo Bayou.

  “Shore is different 'n San Antonio,” Joe said as he and his young charges surveyed the wide, orderly grid of streets and the Yankee architecture.

  “So many people are here for the ceremonies, I hope we can find the Slades,” Melanie said, observing the milling crowds around the capitol grounds. Men in frock coats and tall stovepipe hats strolled between grinning teamsters in ragged breeches, while hard-looking, buckskin-clad mountain men leaned on their long rifles and watched the proceedings with shrewd eyes. Dogs and children ran everywhere as farmers sat around makeshift campsites, pitched beside their wagons. Everyone was here to see the end of one era and the beginning of another.

  “Let's stop at Miz Evans' boardin' house 'n' see if th' Slades been there yet,” Joe suggested. It was a familiar rendezvous place for respectable ranchers and their families.

  “Aw, I want ta watch the fiddlers. Look, Mellie, ” Adam said, pointing across the street to where a group of men with violins and banjos were tuning up for the celebrations. “I bet Ole Sam'll be coming down this very street!”

  “Mr. Houston's new title is United States Senator now, Adam, never 'Ole Sam’ to the likes of a nine-year-old boy,” Melanie scolded. She hoped secretly to catch a glimpse herself of the war hero who had twice served as the Republic's president. Deborah and Charlee both had met him and had told her tales of his wit and gallantry. He and Jim Slade were friends of long standing since Slade's service under him during the Battle of San Jacinto.

  “Yew wait here and rest yer backsides whilst I check fer th' Slades. Now mind, don't go wanderin' off like a couple o' jug headed mustangs,” Joe admonis
hed. Melanie and Adam dismounted, waving Joe on while they watched the show. Living for most of the year in the wilds of north-central Texas, the two young Flemings were relishing this sampling of city life as an incredible break from the daily chores and lessons of the ranch.

  “Hey! Mellie, there's Billie Bledsoe. I knew his folks'd be here, I just knew it!” With that, Adam dashed into the street and vanished into the press of horses and pedestrians, with Melanie in hot pursuit.

  “Adam! Come back here! You heard Joe,” she shrieked, pulling up her skirts to run after the speeding imp who was already across the street, engaged in a giggling exchange with his young friend from a neighboring ranch.

  Intent upon retrieving her errant charge, Melanie collided with the solid chest of a tall stranger before she could stop her headlong rush. Breath knocked from her, she stumbled backward, only to find herself steadied by a pair of strong hands. Mortified, Melanie raised her flushed face to apologize, but the words froze in her throat as her eyes widened in recognition. “You!”

  Lee's black eyes narrowed to slits as he appraised the luscious little morsel who had just flattened herself against him. She was tiny of stature but very well put together; her sheer mustard silk shirt revealed a full bosom, heaving from her headlong dash. His hands could span her fragile waist. He took in the enticing curves of her hips under the scandalous split leather riding skirt. Expensive clothes but not what he'd allow his wife to wear. As her gasping single word of recognition registered in his ears, his eyes traveled up to her face.

  And an exquisite face it was. Delicately arched brows rose over enormous golden eyes fringed with thick black lashes. Those eyes were slanted, following the arresting lines of her high cheekbones. A generous pink mouth was pursed in shock over a pointy, stubborn chin. Her complexion was flawless, an olive-gold hue that was complemented by masses of gleaming ebony hair spilling down her back and around her shoulders. She knew him, but who was she?