The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,329

around them as they dipped and swayed. Within a few moments, they were joined by more than a dozen other couples, until most of the room was awash in rhythm and dance. When the music was as loud in Robert Lee’s ears as the thunder was in his heart, he leaned forward.

Letty felt his cheek slide against the side of her face. She could smell the witch hazel from his shave, as well as the scent of the man, himself.

She shivered.

He felt it.

“You are so beautiful,” he said softly.

Letty surprised him when she leaned back in his arms enough to meet his gaze.

“So are you.”

A sharp glint came and went in his eyes.

“Are you teasing me again?”

“No.”

He tightened his grip at her waist. His voice was shaking as he whispered again.

“You know what’s in my heart.”

He felt her sigh, then saw the corner of her mouth tilt slightly upward.

“I know.”

He swung her around again, following the couples circling the room until the people around them seemed to have danced out of sight.

“You don’t have to love me,” he said. “I love you and your son, and your crazy family enough for the both of us.”

“Is that so?”

He ventured a look. She was smiling.

“Jesus, Leticia… just say what’s on your mind and put me out of my misery before I die at your feet.”

“You’re what’s on my mind,” she said softly. “Have been for some months now. I guess what I’m needing to know now is… if you’re as good in person as you are in my dreams.”

He stumbled, stepped on both of her feet and then cursed.

Letty laughed out loud.

The echo of it rocked him all the way to his toes, just as it had the night her son had been born.

He didn’t know what it was going to be like to be married to a woman who could laugh at giving birth, as readily as she could at making love, but he was damn sure going to enjoy finding out.

Epilogue

The war had been over for four years. Letty had been married to Robert Lee for eight.

On his seventh birthday, Little Bit announced he was going to black the eye of the next person who called him by that name, except of course if it was Mama, although he would certainly appreciate it if she would stop and just call him Slade.

He was tall for his age, and in Robert Lee’s opinion, the spitting image of his mother in all the ways that count.

He had her dark hair and blue eyes, and most times, her disposition, which meant he was mule-headed, but enough like Eulis to find a way to keep out of most troubles.

Robert Lee went to sleep every night knowing that if he died before morning, his life thus far would be enough.

Letty had bloomed under Robert Lee’s love in a way she would never have believed possible. The home she and Eulis had built had become the center of Denver society. The grounds once awash with wild flowers and knee-high grasses were now clipped and landscaped, with the help of three gardeners.

They had a stable of horses, and a six-foot high rock wall around the perimeter of the mansion, with only one way in and one way out.

Robert Lee had never gotten over the sight of seeing Letty held captive under a stranger’s gun, and wasn’t going to make it easy for anyone to repeat the deed. The protectiveness he’d felt toward her then had multiplied a thousand times since their marriage. He didn’t have words to explain what she and her son meant to him.

Three years ago, they’d built Alice a home of her own down in Denver. Katie had gone back East to a finishing school, and had come home last Christmas with a fiancé. Alice had wept copious tears, and then set about planning a grand wedding, which was to take place within the next six months.

Mary had taken ill and died the spring after Letty and Robert Lee married. She was buried two spaces over from Eulis, and next to Alice’s baby girl.

The spring after Little Bit turned three, Delilah was introduced to a new lawyer who’d come to town. Within months, they were married.

Except for Letty, there was nothing but roosters in the hen house these days, and few left down in the growing city who even remembered what that meant.

There was a steadfastness in Robert Lee that Letty treasured above all else. She loved him in a way far removed from