This Loving Land - Dorothy Garlock [114]
It was coming sooner than she expected, and for a second she felt acute panic, her tongue suddenly thick, her breath wanting to leave her. Slater’s voice crashed against her eardrums.
“Tell me! I’ve got the right to know! I went through hell to get back to you . . . I’d have died out there, but I couldn’t die and leave you! You should be pleased to know, it was heaven when I opened my eyes and you were there. What are you? A whore? A slut to go straight from me to another man? I’ll tell you this . . . I’ll kill you and I’ll kill Jesse before I’ll let him have you!” Slater’s anger, his humiliation and disillusionment were total.
Summer recoiled at the verbal assault. For an instant, she was stunned by the viciousness of what he said, until she understood how he would be driven to say such things. He was easing his own pain by hurting her.
“Don’t blame Jesse. I asked for his help.”
“You what?” His voice echoed through her head painfully.
She winced and repeated herself. “He’ll tell you. I asked for his help.”
“Goddam right he will! He’d tell me anything, when I’m fixin’ to hack off his balls!” His nasty voice was blistering and her face reddened.
“You’ll not blame him,” she said stubbornly. “He’s a good man, a friend when I needed one badly.”
Hurt, anger and bewilderment surfaced in his smoldering eyes. Grim-faced and shaking with fury, he snarled:
“You needed him, but not me? Is that what you couldn’t tell me?”
“The letter,” she said softly; then, more firmly, “the letter was not from me.” Her eyes caught his and held them defiantly. “It was from my mother.”
“Your mother!” His voice dripped with sarcasm and disbelief.
“Yes, my mother.” Summer’s back stiffened at his scathing tone. “She wrote the letter to Sam McLean over five years ago. It came to the fort and was delivered to Ellen by mistake.” Her voice sounded like that of a stranger. “Ellen read it. She said Sam was killed before she could deliver it, but now we know he was killed because of the letter. She couldn’t stand the thought of Sam and . . . my mother.” With determination, she stilled her trembling lips. She had to finish, had to get this over with. “The letter was in my mother’s handwriting and on my mother’s paper. There’s no doubt in my mind that she wrote it.” She looked away from him, she couldn’t see him anyhow, for tears suddenly blinded her. “The letter said that I am . . . Sam McLean’s daughter.” There! It was out! She had said the words!
She was glad she couldn’t see his face. This must be a terrible shock to him. Suddenly, she was afraid of what he would say. Her body tensed. There was a long moment while she held her breath, while her heart almost stopped beating. Then the hoarse, whispered words reached her through the silence.
“My God! I should have known.”
The visions that came to her, illuminated in her mind, were of the times they had lain together, naked and desperate in their need for each other. Help me, God. Help me to help him. I’ve had five days to accustom my mind to this. If I could bear the pain, the humiliation he is feeling, I would gladly do so. His next words, when they finally penetrated, were as shocking to her as hers had been to him.
“I had started to suspect.”
“Suspect?” She felt a terrible sinking sensation.
“Little things you did that seemed familiar.”
“You suspected that you and . . . I, and yet you . . . we. . . .” The horror of it was written on her face. “You . . . how could you?” She gasped for breath, choked, made a gurgling sound in her throat. “You’re an animal!”
Slater struggled to sit up, his bandaged hand reaching out to her.
“No! It isn’t like that! Summer, listen! We did nothing wrong . . . darling . . . sweetheart . . . we did nothing wrong!”
If Summer heard, she gave no indication. She had clasped her hands over her ears and was shaking her head in wild denial.
“Nothing wrong?” she gasped. Dazed,