This Loving Land - Dorothy Garlock [115]
“Sam was not my real father!” He shouted the words, trying to penetrate the wall of hysteria that surrounded her.
Through the storm that shook her, Summer heard the words, but couldn’t comprehend them. Then the insistent pounding of the words: Not my father . . . not my father. Could they be true? Was he lying to cover up what they had done? The forearm of his bandaged hand was striking her arm, shaking her.
“Stop! Stop!” she cried, and jumped to her feet, tears streaming down her face and into her mouth.
“Don’t go, Summer! Please, don’t go! Jack and Bulldog will tell you it’s true. I was going to tell you. I swear I was going to tell you. I never dreamed it would be so important.” There was pain, anguish, pleading in every fiber of his voice.
“Important?” She felt as though she was about to fly into a million pieces. She sank to her knees, her face covered with her hands. She wanted to believe him. Oh, how she wanted to believe him!
“I promised Sam I would never tell. Ellen and Travis would have taken the Keep if they had known.”
“You’re . . . sure?” she whimpered.
“I’m positive. I’ve got letters my mother wrote to my father thinking he was still alive. I’ll tell you the whole story. There’s no doubt, sweetheart. No doubt at all. Come to me, my summertime girl. Come let me hold you. God, what I’ve put you through by not telling! Come to me. I’ll make it up to you. I swear I’ll make it up.”
He lay back with arms outstretched. She crawled to him, like a small, wounded animal, and nestled against him, her wet face pressed in the curve of his neck. His arm came around her, and with surprising strength clasped her to him. The safe haven of his arms was wonderful, glorious! He murmured love-words and nuzzled his face in her hair. His heart was thumping wildly and a clammy film of perspiration covered his bare chest.
Summer didn’t want to talk. She wanted only to be close to him, savor the delight and enjoy the wonder of being held by him in love. They both felt fatigued and weakened by the emotional ordeal they had been through. Minutes passed without words. Low moans came from Slater’s throat as he kissed every part of her face he could reach with his lips. The sweetness of it caused the tears to come again.
“It all seems like a bad dream,” she sobbed. “Tell me again. Tell me we didn’t have the same father.”
They lay close, lips never far apart, breathing the same air, and Slater told her the story of his mother and father and the part Sam had played in their lives.
“Sam and my pa were boyhood friends back in Scotland. They were close as brothers; closer than Sam was to his own brother, Scott. Sam came to Texas and filed a claim. Times were hard for my pa in Scotland, and Sam wrote for him to come to America. In the meanwhile, Pa had married. My ma was a gentle girl, and crossing the ocean to a new land was a frightful experience for her. The ship they sailed on landed in New Orleans, and from there they took a smaller boat to Corpus Christi. At that time, Corpus was just a frontier trading post and rougher than a cob. It still is, for that matter. Sam went down there to meet them, but before he arrived, my pa, a big brawny Scot, tried to break up a fight and a sailor stabbed him to death right before my mother’s eyes. She never recovered from the shock, never believed he was dead. When Sam got there, he saw there was but one thing for him to do. She was pregnant and alone. He married her and brought her back to the Keep, where I was born. No one knew I wasn’t Sam’s son. It was a long time after my mother died that Sam told me. He wanted me to know about my real pa. He showed me letters my mother had written to him over the years, believing he was still in Scotland and would come for her. Sam wouldn’t have made such a thing of keeping it a secret, but Scott, his brother, and Ellen held that McLean land went to blood McLeans. Sam said it was true in the old country, but this was a new land. There were never any papers to make me Sam’s legal son. You would