“I hated him,” he said softly. “More than anybody else. I never forgave him for not doing more for my mother. He could have saved her a lot of grief by marrying her, but he was too damned proud to marry a whore, too worried about what people would say. He loved her, but he wouldn’t help her when she needed him.”
“Perhaps he regretted it,” Summer offered.
Lance made a scoffing sound deep in his throat. “Sure he did. After she died. It wasn’t till then that Peace decided he was sorry he didn’t do right by her. Too late to do her any damn good. He felt guilty enough to offer me a home when she died, though.”
“Did you take him up on it?”
Lance gave a harsh chuckle. “Hell, no. No way was I going to let him ease his conscience. He deserved to suffer a little bit. Course, it probably hurt me more than it hurt him. No doubt I was biting off my nose to spite my face. But right then I didn’t give a damn. I was hurting too bad from losing Ma.”
“How did she die?” Summer asked, hearing the pain in his voice even now.
“A wasting disease of some kind. Peace paid for doctors, but they couldn’t do anything for her except try to ease her suffering.”
“It must have been difficult for you to see her so ill.”
Lance nodded silently. It had nearly killed hi
m to watch his mother die, to watch her take her last painful breath. And in the end he’d gone half-crazy. “Ma, don’t go!” he’d screamed, clutching her ravaged shoulders as tears poured down his face. “Don’t leave me!” He’d held her to him in a fierce grip as he rocked her lifeless body—even when Tom Peace had tried to pull him away.
“Come on, son. She’s gone.”
“Get your hands off me, you bastard! And her! Don’t touch her, God damn you! God damn you to hell!”
He’d struck out at Peace with his fists and managed to inflict some damage—a split lip, a bloodied nose—for even at twelve, he’d been wiry and strong. But Peace had grabbed him and held him tight, subduing his struggles while he sobbed out his grief. He’d hated Peace even more because of that. Because he’d dared to offer comfort. It was only years later that he realized Peace had been hurting, too.
“Peace didn’t want to stay in Austin after that. He worked a stock ranch there, but he sold it and moved to Round Rock to start a livery. Offered me a job and a place to live if I wanted to come with him, but I wouldn’t take it. I didn’t want anything to do with him—or anybody white, for that matter.”
Summer caught her lower lip with her teeth, more affected than she cared to admit by this unexpected, vulnerable side of her husband. She could picture Lance as a boy, alone, afraid, the one person in his life who had loved him, dead. And even then, he’d been too defiant, too proud, to accept help or comfort, or even simple human warmth.
“That was why you went in search of your father,” she prompted gently.
“Yeah.”
“Did you enjoy it, living with the Comanche?”
“Parts of it. I liked the feeling of belonging. The Comanche eventually accepted me as one of their own—although after all the scorn and insults I’d suffered from whites, I guess I would have taken acceptance anywhere I could get it. It was harder than I expected to become a warrior, though. I had a lot of catching up to do. I didn’t know the first thing about what a Comanche considers important. I had to bear the taunts of kids half my age until I learned to hold my own. But my father and Fights Bear taught me, and they were the best. Nobody better.”
“But if you wouldn’t take help from anyone else, why would you accept theirs?”
“I guess because I wanted their respect. And it was a matter of survival. I’d thrown in my lot with them, and I was going to become a Comanche or die trying. Literally.”
“Did you? Become a Comanche?”
“No. Not fully.”
“Why not?”
His hand stilled in her hair, but for a moment he didn’t answer.
“If you enjoyed living with them,” Summer pressed, “then why did you leave?”
“I didn’t fit in after all.” Lance let out his breath in a long sigh. “Not like a true Comanche. I couldn’t stomach the killing. You heard about that battle when my father was killed? We were on a war raid…my first. Some white settlers died. I helped kill them.”
Summer clamped her lips together, trying not to exclaim in horror. Knowing that Lance had participated in the terrible atrocities committed against the Texas settlers—the kind of depredations her sister had suffered—appalled her. And yet he said he’d regretted it. He’d repudiated that life, which meant he wasn’t beyond redemption.
She took a deep breath. Lance had gone still, as if waiting for her reply, yet she couldn’t trust herself to make one. For a span of several heartbeats she thought he might say something more—perhaps to try and justify actions that couldn’t be justified—but thankfully he didn’t.
“My father had died by then,” Lance added finally when she didn’t speak. “There didn’t seem to be as much reason for me to stay.”