The Alamo Bride Page 13

“I was telling Clay to be watchful while walking around the property. I saw fresh bobcat tracks down by the river this morning, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more than one of them. Best keep a weapon on you if you’re going out to gather herbs tomorrow.”

  She shook her head. “How did you know I was going to do that?”

  He shrugged. “Your mama always did her gathering on Wednesdays. I figure you’re doing the same since you’re taking over for her.”

  She smiled. True, she had planned on filling the emptying stores of herbs before cold weather took them all, but that had nothing to do with the day of the week. Rather, it got her out of the house and away from the men for the day, a much-needed respite given the events of the last week.

  “Yes, of course,” she said.

  Then a thought occurred. So it was Wednesday already. How had that happened? The days had all run together since the soldier landed on the riverbank. She hadn’t given a thought to anything related to a day of the week since then.

  Which meant she’d missed Sunday services too.

  Mama had been kind not to mention it. Or perhaps she’d done what they sometimes did and held church right there in the parlor with Mama playing the out-of-tune piano that she insisted be hauled here from their home in New Orleans.

  Either way, Ellis realized she was due for some time with the Lord. All the better to go out tomorrow looking for herbs. She would bring her book of psalms and hold a little church service of her own right out there.

  She returned to her meal and ate in silence. When the men were done, they took their coffee out on the porch while Ellis washed the dishes and then slipped upstairs. With Clay occupying her parents’ bedchamber, Grandfather Valmont had insisted Ellis move into a room upstairs at the far end of the house for propriety’s sake. He would take her bedchamber so that he could keep watch over the soldier.

  Or at least that was the reason he gave Ellis. She figured it was more likely that Grandfather wanted to keep watch over her and know when she came and went from the upstairs of the house.

  She settled into a bed nearest the window at the front of the house, tucking the quilts up to her chin. For the first night in more than a week, her eyes fell shut before she’d completed her prayers. After rousing herself enough to finish her lengthy prayer list, and adding a prayer for safe travels for Mama and the little ones and a thank-you to the Lord for her new baby brother or sister, Ellis finally settled onto the pillow.

  Outside her window, the murmur of male voices drifted up like woodsmoke on a winter evening, lulling her to sleep.

  Apparently Mack the farmhand had a list of chores that even a man with a limp and a hole in his shoulder could complete. Gathering eggs had almost been his undoing on his third consecutive day of completing the list, however. Clay stepped into the chicken coop only to be confronted with a chicken snake set on finding its breakfast.

  The snake dispatched, he had finished the job and delivered the eggs to the summer kitchen. There he spied Jean Paul Valmont surveying the ruins of the small barn and went over to join him.

  “Looks like it went up pretty quick,” he said when Clay stopped beside him. “I’d say it’s God’s own miracle that you and my granddaughter weren’t harmed.”

  “I wish I remembered more of the details clearly, but I was still trying to get over whatever the ladies had given me for sleep.”

  “I do understand,” he said. “But maybe you’ll remember more than you think once you get to talking about it.”

  “All right,” he said slowly. “What I do recall is that there was a lot of lightning and thunder. And a hard rain. Beating on the roof until you could hardly hear yourself think. Might even have been hail at some point.”

  “We had hail down in Velasco. I was afraid we’d get boats damaged. The Lord was kind and that didn’t happen.” He paused. “Go on. What else do you remember?”

  “Then there was a flash of light that looked almost blue that went down the wall opposite where they were keeping me. Next thing I know the place is on fire and we’re trying to save ourselves.”

  Valmont glanced at him. “Ellis told me her dress caught on the hinge. Said she was stuck with the fire coming right at her.”

  “I reckon she was,” he said.

  “Said you hauled her from right here”—he gestured to the pile of rubble then turned toward the house—“to over there. How do you figure that happened, because I’m trying to sort it out and cannot.”

  “I picked her up and carried her,” he said. “It wasn’t far.”

  He gave Clay a sweeping glance and then shook his head. “Son, you were like as dead a week ago and couldn’t stand up straight without falling over after a few minutes just yesterday. How do you figure you just ‘picked her up and carried her’?”

  Clay looked into the old man’s eyes and gave him the only answer he knew to be true. “Because I was supposed to.”

  Valmont nodded and then looked away. His eyes seemed misty, though he said nothing.

  After a moment, Clay cleared his throat. “I got Mack’s chores done and killed a chicken snake in the process.”

  “Good man. I’ve been after that snake. Mack won’t go in if there’s a snake inside, so I’m glad it was you who went in there this morning.”

  “Sorry, sir, but it would have been hard to miss,” he said, wondering just why a man like Mack was still in their employ when he didn’t have much in the way of responsibilities. He couldn’t even kill a snake?

  “Need a rest yet?”

  “No, sir,” he said, though he probably did.

  “Ellis left without her breakfast this morning. Why don’t you go find her and see if she’s hungry? Bring her a few of those boiled eggs I saved on the sideboard.”

  He nodded and then paused. “Sir, I have noticed that you’re the one who does the cooking around here. First the fish and then the eggs. It is probably none of my business, but doesn’t your granddaughter know how to cook?”

  The old man chuckled. “Of course she does, but I enjoy it more than she does. Why? Are you worried she’ll starve her husband when she marries?”

  It was his turn to smile. “I doubt a man who marries her will be worried about whether she will starve him. He’d have much bigger problems than an empty belly if he were to take that lady on as a wife.”

  As soon as the words were out, Clay cringed. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. It’s just that she’s …” He shook his head. “I can’t even define it, but I can say that Ellis Valmont is someone I will never forget, and that’s coming from a man who can’t remember most of his life.”

  Valmont patted Clay’s shoulder. “Trust me,” he said. “I know what you mean. You should have met her great-grandmother.” He paused. “And yet my father survived, as will whatever man is privileged enough to be allowed close enough to Ellis Valmont to wed her.”

  “I’m sure she’s got plenty of choices.”

  “To be certain,” he said. “But that girl is stubborn and knows what she wants. So far it hasn’t been any of several dozen suitors. And counting.” He looked at Clay as if sizing him up. “I wouldn’t get my sights set on her if I were you. She’s not hunting for a husband, so if you’re aiming to think that direction, you ought to think again.”

  “What?” Clay shook his head. “Me? No. That’s not at all what I was thinking. Look, I am just going to go get those boiled eggs and see if I can find her. Any suggestions on where she might be about now?”

  “Try north of the smokehouse up in the thicket. Her mama has a little patch of herbs that she keeps up there behind a fence. Says the deer stay out of them up there. If she’s not there, then I’d head east from that point. She helped a lady named Lyla give birth last week, so she will probably go see her and Jonah while she’s out and see how things are going there. Take a walking stick with you, though. I’ll fetch one.”

  “North of the smokehouse or east to Lyla and Jonah’s home,” he repeated as he slung a rifle over his
shoulder and accepted the walking stick, then bid the older man goodbye. His speed was excruciatingly slow compared to the swift pace he would have preferred as he set off on his mission to feed the herbalist.

  Or was she a healer? Yes, that’s what he’d heard her call herself, although where he was from she would have merely been called a doctor.

  Clay froze. Where he was from? And exactly where was that? An image tried to rise in his mind, something with trees and a mountain ridge off in the distance.

  Definitely not New Orleans.

  And yet Ellis had told him he was Claiborne William Andre Gentry from New Orleans, and she was certain of it. She had declared she’d seen him sign the roster herself, hadn’t she? That much he thought he remembered.

  The image of the hills, however, felt very real. What else could he recall? Clay stood very still under the pecan tree and begged another memory to rise.

  Nothing.

  He tried again and failed, so he set off down the path, leaning heavily on his walking stick and stopping frequently. Finally he heard what sounded like snip, snip, snip.

  Clay followed the sound until he found Ellis halfway up a tree balancing a basket on her elbow and reaching for something hidden in the branches.

  “I hope you’ve got a plan for how you’ll be getting down from there,” he called. “I doubt I can repeat the adventure from the other day and carry you home again.”

  Her laughter carried across the distance between them and made him smile. A moment later, she scurried down the tree and landed on the ground with ease.

  “You’ve done that before,” he said as he paused to catch his breath.

  “Since I was a child,” she told him. “I’ve been teaching Mack and Lucas in anticipation of the day I no longer want to be the one climbing, but so far only Lucas has taken to it. Mack gets a little distracted.”

  “About this Mack fellow,” he said. “I know that many of the men have gone off to fight, so that would limit the ones who are available to work. However, I hope you don’t pay Mack much.”

  Ellis covered her smile as she walked toward him. “We don’t pay him at all, actually.”

  He nodded. “That explains why you keep him employed here. Took me longer the first couple of days, but today I completed all of his chores in less than an hour. Did you know that according to your grandfather, when Mack goes into the henhouse, he leaves the snake if there’s one in there? What kind of farmhand is that?”

  She reached him and allowed her smile to show. “The kind of farmhand who just had his sixth birthday.”

  “Wait.” Clay shook his head. “Mack is a child?”

  She laughed as she pressed past him to walk down the path. “Mack is my youngest brother. He loves to gather the eggs, but we don’t trust him with the snakes yet.”

  “I’d say not.” Clay turned to follow and then had to stop to catch his breath. “So this Lucas fellow?”

  “Also my brother,” she called over her shoulder. “He’s eight, going on nine he would tell you, and is missing his front teeth, but he does everything I tell him to do without question.”

  “This is beginning to make sense now.”

  She paused and turned around. “What do you mean?”

  Clay began walking toward her, leaning heavily on the walking stick. “Your grandfather doesn’t think I’m well enough to do actual chores around here so he’s giving me child’s work.”

  “I might argue with you, but you look terrible right now,” she told him. “Put your bag and rifle down and let’s rest.”

  The bag. He’d forgotten all about the reason for following Ellis. When she’d settled on a grassy spot beside the path, he eased himself down and prayed he could stand back up again when the time came.

  “Your breakfast,” he said as he handed her the bag. “Your grandfather said you left without eating.”

  “I suppose I did.” She opened the bag and retrieved the tin to remove a boiled egg. “Have some,” she told him.

  Eggs were not his favorite, but Clay picked one up to be polite. “How many did he think you would eat?” he asked as he counted at least ten eggs remaining.

  “Grandfather always cooks for a crowd. Too many years of living in New Orleans where any number of family members could drop by at a moment’s notice, I suppose.”

  Clay found himself at a loss for words. He had no idea if he had a similar story or if his family was smaller. Perhaps even nonexistent.

  There was just a blank where that memory should have been.

  He turned his attention to Ellis. She wore a more traditional day dress today, made of pale green cotton and sprigged with yellow flowers. Her hair had been captured into a thick braid that hung down her back.

  “Something wrong?” she asked him.

  He swiveled to face her, rolling the boiled egg around in his palm. “During the time I had fevers, did I ever talk about my family?”

  She looked at a spot off in the distance and then returned her attention to him as a warm breeze blew past. “I don’t think so. Why? Did you remember something?”

  Clay toyed with a blade of grass and then tossed it away. “Possibly. I have this memory—at least I think it is a memory—of green hills and trees with a house down in a valley and …” He shrugged. “Well, that’s about it. I don’t know where it is, but I feel certain it isn’t New Orleans.”

  “No,” she said with a chuckle. “There are none of those things in New Orleans. Well, there are houses, of course, but that’s where the similarity ends.” Ellis paused. “Do you truly think this image you’ve seen in your mind could be your home?”

  “I do,” he said. “Although I cannot tell you why I would think so. It makes no sense, and yet it feels like it’s supposed to be my home.”

  Ellis pressed an errant strand of hair away from her face. “Maybe your memories are returning.”

  “That is possible.” He let out a long breath. “It is frustrating not to know what I don’t know. If that makes sense.”

  “It does.” Ellis appeared ready to say something more, but then she shook her head.

  “I would like to earn your trust,” he told her.

  Her gaze jolted toward him. “Why?”

  He affected an innocent look. “Because I like you. I mean, now that you aren’t forcing that sleeping potion down my throat, that is.”

  “Sleeping medication,” she corrected, though he thought he noticed the slightest twinkle in those green eyes.

  “Whatever you call it, I think that foul-tasting medication either helped me remember or caused me to forget.” He plucked another blade of grass and glanced at her. “What do you think? Did I happen to say anything that might fill in where my memories are blank?”

  Immediately he knew he had struck a nerve. Though they had danced all around the subject before, there was no doubt she had just answered in the affirmative.

  Ellis had made much of the fact that she did not trust him. Was this just a way for her to deflect the fact that it was he who should not trust her? Whatever side he was on in this conflict—if indeed that was what brought him to Texas via the Greys—was it possible that the flame-haired beauty might be on the opposite side?

  He would certainly never find out this way. With little time left before the day of his mysterious meeting, Clay decided to take a different approach.

  “You know what?” he said as he stood and dusted himself off and then offered his hand to help her up. “I think you and I have just about exhausted this topic. If I said anything or if I didn’t, neither of those things matter right this minute.”

  As he expected, Ellis looked confused. She picked up her basket and then returned her attention to Clay. “No?”

  “No,” he said as casually as he could manage while he retrieved his rifle and slung it back over his shoulder. “If the Lord wants me to remember so that I can be where He wants me to be, then He will make that happen. In the meantime, I have work to do here.” Clay paused to offer a smile. “Apparentl
y I am about to graduate to doing the chores of a seven-year-old.”

  “Eight,” she corrected with a grin.

  “Yes, that’s right. Eight. So I might need to get in a few more days of healing before I can manage that.”

  Her expression went serious. “Are you having any more pain?”

  He was, but he wouldn’t admit to it. Nor would Clay tell her that he felt weak as a kitten after walking just from the farmhouse out here to find her.

  He’d had enough of being treated like a sick man to last a lifetime. And although he did have an ulterior motive for changing his tune and ceasing the conversation about his missing memories, he was also ready to think of himself as whole again and not in need of being cared for by a woman.

  “I’m fine,” he told her.

  “And you’ve been changing the bandage on your shoulder and leg?”

  “Every night after I wash up.”

  Finally he’d had enough. “Ellis,” he said firmly, “change the subject. I am healing in my body and am tired of talking about whether I’m going to be healing in my mind or not.”

  Her expression told him he’d spoken too harshly. “Sore subject,” he said gently. “Pardon the pun. So why don’t you tell me what was so important that you were climbing a tree and risking your pretty little neck to cut it?”

  Had Clay Gentry just called her pretty?

  As she fell into step beside Clay, Ellis launched into an explanation of the supplejack vine and its usefulness in taming coughs and strengthening the blood. As she spoke, she was aware that Clay appeared less attentive to her words and more concerned about something behind her.

  His hand traveled slowly to the stock of his rifle and remained there. Far from a casual gesture, it appeared he had gone on the defensive. But against what?

  “Is something out there?” she said as she glanced behind her to see nothing other than foliage that crowded the path through the woods.

  “Ellis,” he said slowly, his voice even. “Come stand behind me, please.”

  “Why are you speaking like that? What is—”

  He hauled her behind him in one swift, firm move and then drew his rifle.