“Darling!” she cried. “I can’t believe you’re home.”
When he reached for her, she stepped away. “But sweetheart, you’re dirty!”
Adam looked down at his uniform. It had several days of trail dust on it, but compared to what he’d lived in of late, the uniform didn’t look all that bad. Yet, compared to Bergette, he looked filthy. She was a brilliant butterfly standing next to a mud dauber.
“I didn’t take the time to change,” he mumbled in half apology, half explanation.
“Well, don’t worry,” She waved at the butler to bring tea and moved into a room larger than most officers’ barracks Adam had seen. “You’ll have time to dress before tonight. Even though father is in the capital, I must have a party to welcome you home.” She clapped her hands and danced around like a figure on top of a music box. “We’ll have the most delightful dinner.”
“Then you’re glad to see me home?” Adam smiled. It wasn’t the greeting he’d hoped for, but she certainly looked happy. He had to slow down and remember she was a lady, sheltered from the war, protected from hard times. She was the same as when he’d left, only more mature, more beautiful. It would take time for them to feel comfortable around one another again. But she was every ounce as perfect as he remembered.
“Oh, yes, I’m glad you’re home. I’ve planned for years, and I’ve kept the servants ready since the war ended. We’ll have a small dinner party tonight, then a grand ball in a few weeks. An ever so grand ball!”
“After we’re married?” Adam added. Every man in town would be jealous when he walked with her on his arm. “I’ll dance with my wife at the ball.”
“Oh, no.” Bergette’s bottom lip came out in a pout that broke any defense he might have built. “I’d planned on marrying in early spring. It’s too late to wear my dress now. It will be fall before I could dream of putting a wedding together. When the war ended in April, I thought you’d be home by May. When you weren’t, I stored the grown.”
“I had to help the wounded make it back. The hospitals needed doctors for a few months longer.” Adam saw from her bored expression that his explanation mattered little. “It took time for some to be well enough to travel, and sometimes weeks to find hospital space for those who hadn’t recovered.” He was wasting his breath.
“It doesn’t matter.” Adam tried to hide his disappointment in both the wait to be married and her reaction to his reasons. “I can wait till spring. It’ll probably take me that long to find a house here in town and set up an office.” He couldn’t stop looking at her. Her hair was the color of sunshine. “I thought I’d get a place where I could have my office in part of the house, that way I could be close to you.” He could almost picture her smiling as he dropped in to check on her when she was as rounded as May with his child. He’d want his office close enough where she could call him if she needed anything.
Bergette shook her head as if he weren’t being logical. The young girl before him had grown to be an independent woman. She spoke her mind, saying that she had already started planning for their new house, and that they would talk of it later.
He admired her for having her own ideas, but felt uneasy with what her plans might be. Adam told himself he’d have to give her time. His life with her might have been his only dream for four years, but she’d had her own dreams. Only he found it interesting that during the hour he stayed at her house she showed no interest in even hearing his ideas.
His admiration slipped another notch later when he came down all dressed and ready to go to his welcome- home party and found his brothers still in their work clothes.
“Aren’t we eating at Bergette’s tonight?” Adam asked.
“Nope,” Wes answered without further explanation.
Daniel suddenly grew busy hauling water for May.
Only his meek little sister-in-law faced him. “It wouldn’t be proper for me to go anyway this far along in my condition. And Daniel would never go without me.”
“What about you, Wes?” Adam could feel the tension in the room. Tension that had never been there before.
“I saw that fine fiancee of yours in town an hour ago. She said she was real sorry she didn’t invite us, but the guest list was full.” He took a long drink from his cup. “Don’t know if I’d go anyway,” he mumbled. “I’m really looking forward to May’s supper.”
Adam couldn’t believe Bergette had forgotten to invite his family to a homecoming party. It made no sense. The one dream of the future he’d let himself believe in because it had been tucked away back home was beginning to crumble.
“Go, Adam.” May tried to smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Have a good time. We’re all tired and want to get to bed early anyway. All your friends in town will be happy to see you again. And after all, Bergette has a right to ask for a little of your time. She’ll be in the family soon enough and have to put up with all of us.”
Adam reluctantly left, but when he arrived at the party, he was more unhappy than ever. The people Bergette had invited were the most important people in town, but none were his friends. Most he’d only heard of and had never talked with past a howdy. By the third course, he realized this was Bergette’s party, not his. He only provided the excuse. She was the center of attention. All the stories were about her hard time while Adam was gone. The hardest one seemed to have been her battle to remove an old lady from this house so she could buy the place.
By the time the men moved to have their cigars in the library, Adam was feeling completely out of place. He hadn’t been able to say a single word alone to Bergette. When she slipped into the study and motioned for him, Adam thought he’d finally have his chance. She must be as anxious to be alone with him as he was with her. They had a thousand things to talk about, a lifetime to plan.
“Darling,” she whispered as she pulled him into the hallway and held him at arms’ length when he would have moved closer. “There’s a man who wants to see you.”
Adam thought she looked a little frightened, but he couldn’t tell if it was from fear of some man or from the possibility that someone might ruin her evening.
“A man?”
“Actually, there are two. One came right up to the front door and said your brother told him he’d find you here. I tried to send them away, but the man at the door said you treated him for a wound and you had to take a look at the healing. The other, waiting in the shadows, was twice the size of Charles, my butler. I told them to go around to the kitchen and left orders to let them come no further into the house than the butler’s pantry.”
Adam raised an eyebrow. He’d treated hundreds, but couldn’t remember one being from anywhere near his home. Rarely had there been time to ask.
“Send them away, darling!” she cried. “I can’t have people like them ruining my party. I swear, one looked more like a bear than a human. You’d think those kind of people would have sense enough to come to the back door.”
“But what if one of them is in pain?” Adam started down the hall to the dining room.
“Then let Dr. Wilson take care of him. I can’t have this kind of thing happening.” She followed Adam. “If you let them come to our home, before you know it they’ll be bleeding all over the rugs.”
Adam wasn’t listening. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear anything she was saying. “Which way to the kitchen?” he snapped at her. Perfection was crumbling before his eyes.
She waved in the direction of a closed door at the back of the dining area. “I hope Charles managed to hold them back. I couldn’t very well have the strangers mingling with the guests.”
“No,” Adam fought down his anger as he stared at her. Her hair wasn’t sunshine, it was gold, cold hard gold. “We wouldn’t want them dying past the butler’s pantry, would we, Bergette?”
She look disgusted. “You don’t think he’s dying, do you?”
Adam moved down the row of dining chairs pushed back from a huge mahogany table. “Did these men give a name?”
Bergette’s full skirts kept her from following him. “I heard the thin one call the huge one Wolf. Wolf, what a name.”
He reached for his gun, but no holster was about his waist. It must be two of the Shadows! If Nichole’s brother had followed him for four months to kill him, one gun might not be enough. Besides, the war was over. Hadn’t this Shadow rider gotten the word?
“Stay with the guests!” he ordered. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He moved through the dining room thankful that Bergette hadn’t argued. As he approached the far exit, a tall form pivoted slowly around the doorjamb, opening the door as he moved.
