A Long Tall Texan Summer: Tom / Drew / Jobe

Tom’s eyebrows lifted. “She’d have me stuffed and baked if I walked in the door. Either that, or she’d smother me in all that tomato sauce you said she made.”

“No guts, no glory,” Luke reminded him. He looked at the child, who was just joining them. “Crissy, what would you think if Mr. Walker came to dinner tonight?”

“I’d like that,” the child said seriously, grinning up at him. “I’d like to know all about Indians.”

Tom sighed. “I only know family lore, and not much of that,” he confided. “Kate and I went to live with our grandmother, and she didn’t like that side of our family at all. She refused to let us talk about it.”

“How mean,” Crissy muttered.

“It was, wasn’t it?” Tom agreed, having just realized that it was a form of discrimination on the old woman’s part. “But my sister’s husband knew someone on the Sioux reservation who was related to our great-grandfather—and therefore to us. He asked for the history, and Kate went to see the woman and wrote it all down.” He searched the little face so much like his own. “One of our ancestors was at the Little Bighorn, and we have distant relatives in Canada and South Dakota among the Sioux.”

“Do you visit them?” Crissy asked, wide-eyed.

“I haven’t yet. I think I might like to,” he added. He smiled. “Maybe you and your mom could come along.”

“You could ask her,” Crissy said doubtfully. “She doesn’t like to go places.”

“You said she took you to a powwow,” Tom reminded her, cherishing the memory.

“She liked it,” Crissy agreed. “She told me all about the Plains Indians and about that place where General Custer got shot, too.”

“Colonel Custer,” Tom told her. “He had a Civil War battlefield promotion to Brigadier General, but that was a brevet commission. He was only a colonel in the 7th Cavalry.”

“Touchy subject, hmmm?” Luke teased.

“Very,” Tom replied. “And isn’t it a hell of a thing that it should be? I haven’t paid a lot of attention to my ancestry before now.” He looked at Crissy. “But it’s in the genes.”

“It sure is,” Luke replied amusedly.

“I want to catch a big fish for you to eat at our house,” Crissy said. She tried to throw the hook into the water, but she wasn’t tall enough to cast the line out.

Tom squatted just behind her, holding her with one arm while he guided the small hand holding the line. “Like this, sweetheart,” he said gently.

She grinned at him over one shoulder. “Thanks. You smell nice,” she added.

He chuckled, hugging her close. “So do you, tidbit.”

He got up, leaving her to hold the pole tight in both hands. He’d never used endearments, but the child seemed to invoke them effortlessly. He stared down at her with pure pride, unaware that Luke could see that pride.

“She’s very like you,” Luke remarked quietly.

“Yes,” came the reply. Tom went back to his own pole, baited the hook and tossed the line out into the lake. His thoughts were dark ones. He knew Elysia wasn’t going to want him in her house, but he had to try to make his peace with her. He glanced at his daughter and knew that it was worth the effort.

They caught five big bass between them, which Luke volunteered to clean. “Come over about six,” he told Tom.

Tom glanced from the child’s eager face to Luke’s. He grimaced. “I don’t know…”

“You have to,” Crissy pleaded. “Me and Uncle Luke and Mama can’t eat all these big fish alone. Please?”

“Okay,” he relented. “I’ll see if I can rent some body armor,” he murmured to himself. “Boy, am I going to need it!”

He went home to clean up, wondering how Luke was going to fare when he broke the news to Elysia. It would probably be bloody.

“You what?” Elysia exploded.

Luke held up a hand. “Go upstairs and clean up, pumpkin,” he told Crissy.

She hesitated. “Mommy, you have to say it’s okay,” she told her mother somberly. “I invited Mr. Tom to come help us eat the fish. He helped us catch them.

I like him,” she added belligerently. “He’s going to tell me all about Indians.”

“Go on,” Luke prompted, smiling. “It will be all right.”

Crissy went, glowering at her white-faced parent on the way.

“You can’t,” Elysia cried when her daughter was out of sight. “You can’t have him here! If he’s around her enough, he’ll see…!”

“He already has,” Luke said.

He jumped forward and helped her into a chair, because she looked as if she might faint.

“You told him,” she accused hoarsely.

“I did not. Crissy did.”

“Crissy? But she doesn’t know!”

“She told him that her dad was redheaded,” he explained. “It wasn’t a great leap of logic from that to the way she resembles his sister—not to mention himself.”

“Oh, dear God,” Elysia whispered, closing her eyes. “Dear God, what’ll he do?”

“Nothing, judging by this afternoon,” Luke said. He knelt by her chair, one hand on hers in her lap. “Listen, he’s not vindictive. He doesn’t blame you. He’s got secrets of his own,” he added, hoping to get her attention.

That did. She looked at him through misty eyes. “He does?”

“You remember what we were speculating about?” he asked. “Well, we were right on the money. Sex was a taboo at home. Their father beat them for showing the slightest interest in the other sex. He said his conscience was eating him alive about you. He thought he’d go to hell for sleeping with you.”

She gasped. “Good heavens!”

“He said that it’s taken all these years for him to come to grips with it,” he continued quietly. “The main thing that came out is that he was angry at himself, not at you. It was guilt and shame that caused him to let you go without a word, and kept him from coming after you. He didn’t even consider that you might become pregnant. His father taught him that desire was nothing more than sick lust.”

She closed her eyes and shivered. “How he must have felt,” she whispered.

“He’s a case,” he agreed. “I don’t suppose there was a woman brave enough to chase him at all until you came along. That cold reserve of his is rather formidable, even to other men.”

“I’ll say,” she agreed, remembering the Tom of six years ago. She looked up. “Why is he coming to dinner?”

“Because I invited him.” He held up a hand. “This can’t go on,” he informed her. “Half the town’s talking already about the way the two of you avoid each other. We all have to live here. It’s time to make peace. Or at least, a public peace. This is the first step.”