“Aye,” Cornelia stated, narrowing her eyes. “What of it?”
“There is something inside him that makes him what he is,” Lea said.
“I’ve heard tell it’s some kind of creature that gives him his powers. You afraid it
might jump out at you and say boo?”
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Charlotte Boyett-Compo
Lea’s lips stretched in a reluctant smile. “No,” she answered, and then the smile
wavered away. “But I don’t want it in me either.”
Cornelia was seated in her favorite rocking chair. She set the chair into motion, her
hands in the pan shelling peas. “Who says you have to have it in you to be married to
him?”
“Being married to a man means having to do whatever he tells you,” Lea said.
“He’d have the right to demand things I don’t want to do. He’d have the law on his
side.”
“Does he know you don’t want the creature?” Cornelia asked.
“I’ve said as much,” Lea answered.
“And he agreed that you didn’t have to have it ’less you wanted it?”
“We haven’t really talked about it, but I won’t ever accept having such a thing
inside me. If I marry him, he’d have the right to insist. I’ll live with him, be his mate, but
I won’t take the Joining vows with him,” Lea declared. She shrugged. “And he hasn’t
asked.”
“If you don’t take his hellion,” Cornelia said, showing she had more than a slight
notion of what was inside the Reaper, “you’ll die long before he does. Reapers mate
only once, girl, and it will be a long, lonely life for him after you’re gone.”
“I know,” Lea said, “but that can’t be helped. I won’t ever marry Bevyn Coure.”
“I can’t ask her to marry me,” Bevyn was saying at that exact moment as he and the
sheriff halted their buckboards so they could tighten down Buford’s load.
“There will be those who’ll look down on her for living with you outside the bonds
of matrimony,” the sheriff warned.
“They’d best not do so and let me know about it,” Bevyn snapped as he jerked on
the tiedown.
“That’s just human nature, milord,” Buford said. “Can’t keep folks from yapping
about what bothers them.” He took off his hat and blotted the sweat from his brow with
his bandana. “Why don’t you want to make an honest woman of the girl?”
Bevyn’s eyes flashed auric fire but he didn’t chastise the older man for his words.
He’d given Buford leave to talk to him as he would his own sons, but the man’s
question still rankled.
“She doesn’t want one of my parasites and if we were married, I might renege on
my promise not to give her one,” he growled.
“Is having one of them things in you so bad?” Buford asked.
“If you’d asked me that when it was first put in, I’d have said ‘aye’, but I’ve had a
long time to adjust it. It takes some getting used to, that’s for sure, but the benefits of the
relationship are such that I have come to accept the negatives like the need for tenerse
and to drink blood, transitioning to a wolf-like state four times a year or so.”
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Her Reaper’s Arms
Buford braced the undersides of his forearms on the wagon bed. “Can I ask what
kind of benefits there are, milord?”
“A long, healthy life for one,” Bevyn answered. He too took off his hat and armed
away the sweat. “Then there’s the strength of ten men, the ability to influence minds, to
speak to the Shadowlords though they’re thousands of miles away, the facility to
rearrange the molecules in the air to fashion clothing.”
Buford had no idea what a molecule was but didn’t want to annoy the Reaper by
asking. “Seems the benefits outweigh the negatives to me,” he commented. “Can’t see
why the girl wouldn’t jump at the chance to have all that.”
“I can’t either,” Bevyn said, “but it seems to frighten her so I’ll leave it like it is.”
They climbed up on their respective buckboards and set the horses into motion. It
was only a few miles more to Orson and the sun was already high, the day becoming a
sweltering distraction.
Lea and Cornelia had been joined by a half dozen other women who had prepared
lunch for the workers readying the building site. His lady was pouring iced tea for a
group of diggers, who were stripped to the waist, when Bevyn drove his wagon onto
the lot. She looked up, smiled at him, but then went on with what she was doing.
“Miss me?” he asked as he came over to her.
“I did,” she said, and was amazed that he would give her a kiss on her cheek in
front of everyone. She saw glances exchanged, for no doubt the others were as
surprised by his public show of affection as she was.
“Got any food left for me and Buford?” he asked.
“It’s just chicken salad sandwiches, veggies and fried sweet potato chips,” she told
him. “Will that be enough?”
“Sounds great to me,” he said. “Let me wash up.” He unbuckled his gun belt and
hung it and his hat on the wagon’s brake then headed for the water pump behind the
mercantile store.
Lea set about preparing him a plate while Cornelia made one up for the sheriff. She
watched him out of the corner of her eye as he splashed water from the big white
enameled basin, washed his hands and then dried them on a big towel. He and Buford
were talking and then the Reaper laughed, drawing everyone’s attention.
“Now that is a content man,” Cornelia observed. “Don’t see that often in one of his
kind.”
Lea watched men and women greet her lover as he came striding toward her. She
saw him smile, nod his head in passing and stop to answer a question put to him by
Nate Bundy—the foreman of the work group. She saw amazement spread over Bundy’s
face when the Reaper slapped him casually on the back before walking away.
After downing five sandwiches and a fresh batch of sweet potato chips, an entire
bowl of tomatoes and several glasses of milk, Lea was shocked to see her man
unbuttoning his shirt and stripping it off.
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Charlotte Boyett-Compo
“Oh my,” she heard one of the women say, and every female eye there gravitated to
the
