Honor Bound(62)

"I'm going to take a shower," he said quickly and left the room before he disgraced himself further.

When he left the bathroom, Aislinn was in the other bedroom, bending over Tony's crib. "Let me hold him a minute," Lucas said. He had calmed down considerably. He was still wet. Drops of water clung to his teak-colored skin. He was naked save for a towel that cut a swath across his loins and looked much like the breech-cloths his ancestors had worn. He looked primitive and dangerous except for the lambency in his eyes when he lifted his son and held him close to his face. He murmured Navaho love pledges he remembered from his childhood and kissed Tony's cheek before laying him in the crib. The child fell asleep instantly.

"He looks so peaceful now," Aislinn said with a tired sigh. "I wish he'd sleep till morning. I'm exhausted."

"Why is he waking up so much lately?"

"I don't know. Gene's going to give him a checkup when they get back. Oh, I almost forgot about this," she said as they entered their bedroom. She picked up an envelope that was lying on the dresser and handed it to him. "This came in the mail for you today."

He studied the envelope for several moments before tearing it open. Aislinn feigned disinterest, though she was consumed by curiosity. The return address was the warden's office of the prison camp where Lucas had been incarcerated.

After he read it, Lucas refolded the letter and stuffed it back in the envelope. His face gave away nothing and Aislinn couldn't stand not knowing. "Is it something important?"

He shrugged negligently. "Warden Dixon thinks I should be exonerated. He thinks he knows the men responsible for the violence that broke out at that demonstration. They've been convicted and sentenced for similar crimes. If he can get them to sign affidavits as to my innocence, he thinks he can get a judge to have me vindicated."

"Lucas, that's wonderful!" she cried. "That would mean you could be reinstated to the bar."

He whipped the towel from around his waist and got into bed. "I've learned not to trust anybody's promises. Especially an Anglo's."

She got into bed beside him. His harsh words hadn't fooled her. She had seen his face a second before he switched off the light. He might pretend to be nonchalant over this unexpected ray of hope. But he wasn't.





* * *





Chapter 11



She had learned where the worst chuckholes were and how to avoid them. Recently Johnny and Linda Deerinwater had gone to Scottsdale and offered to drive her car back when they returned. She and Lucas's pickup had never had a meeting of the minds, so driving her car again was a pleasure.

Today she barely noticed the pitching and rolling as she drove her car up the uneven road toward home. She was happy on several accounts, and when Lucas came riding up on a roan gelding to meet her and Tony, that was an extra bonus. She braked the car and lifted Tony out of his safety seat, just as Lucas swung his long leg over the saddle and dismounted.

"You were gone longer than I expected," he said.

Could that mean he was worried about her, she wondered. Or was he concerned only for Tony? She wanted to think she was included. "Gene's clinic was overflowing. There's a virus going around. He and Alice had their hands full."

"How are they?"

She grinned, her blue eyes glinting mischievously. "Positively glowing. I've always thought your mother was beautiful, but wait until you see her now. She's radiant. And Gene wears a perpetually sappy grin."

Lucas smiled and chucked Tony under the chin. He was holding the reins of his horse in his free hand. "What did Gene say about Tony?"

"He has a slight cold. Actually Gene called it an upper respiratory something-or-other. He gave him a liquid decongestant that should take care of it in a few days."

"Is that why he's been crying so much?"

"Not solely. There's something else."

"What?" he asked, his brow beetling.

"Tony is hungry."

"Hungry?"

"Yes," Aislinn said, blushing under the tan she had acquired. "He's not getting enough milk. Gene suggested that I switch him to formula and start him on fruit and cereal."

Lucas shifted from one booted foot to another. "So you won't be, uh, breast-feeding him anymore?" Aislinn kept her eyes trained on the buttons of his shirt as she shook her head. "How do you feel about that?" he asked.

"I'll miss it. But of course I want to do what's best for Tony."

"Of course."

"I stopped at the grocery store and bought bottles and cans of formula and baby food."

"One little baby can eat all that?" he asked incredulously.

She followed the direction of his gaze into the back seat of her car and laughed when she noticed the cartons stashed there. "Only part of it. Most of those boxes contain the chemicals I had ordered. They were waiting for me at the post office."

"Will your darkroom be operable now?"

"Yes. All I needed were the chemicals." She had taken his silence on the subject of the darkroom as consent and had proceeded to convert the kitchen area of the derelict trailer.

Much to her surprise she had come out of the house one morning to find Lucas painting the trailer. Before she even posed the question, he said querulously, "This paint was left over from the house. No sense in letting it go to waste." Besides giving it the paint job, he had done some repairs that made the portable building more habitable.