STANDING
BETWEEN LOVE AND BETRAYALSTANDING
BETWEEN LOVE AND BETRAYAL
CHAPTER TEN
Cody had unexpectedly stumbled into the marshal’s office early so that he could be in and out without having to face the wrath of any of his family members. His plans did not work out to his benefit. He walks into the office and abruptly slams the glass door just a bit too hard.
“Careful with the door, Cody. Teaspoon doesn’t want to have to pay for the next one we break,” Jimmy spoke sitting at the desk going over paperwork.
“I’m not in the mood for you this morning, Jimmy,” Cody spoke boldly.
Teaspoon gets up from his chair and walks over to stand in front of Cody. “Why are you here in this office so early?”
“To be honest Teaspoon, I thought I could sneak in and sneak out without having to deal with you or Jimmy,” Cody spoke in a matter of fact tone.
Teaspoon gets right in Cody’s face not allowing him access to the files he came in the office for that sit on the edge of Teaspoon’s desk. The same files that Jimmy has helped himself to many times for interesting reading material.
“The truth is you know how wrong you are concerning Buck and Jane, and you don’t want any of us telling you how wrong you are,” Teaspoon spoke angrily.
Cody gets a disgusted look on his face. “It bothers me that Buck’s happiness is all that matters here. To hell with Cody’s happiness!”
“That isn’t true. The truth is that Buck and Jane are in love. You’ve been trying your best to sabotage their love since the moment you realized that they were in love,” Teaspoon spoke louder than he actually intended to.
“I should be out investigating these murders. Instead, I’m at the jailhouse arguing over who is the best man for Jane!” Cody hollered angrily.
“I ain’t arguing with you about who the best man is for Jane! I’m telling you that Jane and Buck are in love. They are having a few problems. If you had just stayed out of it, I’m sure Buck and Jane would have been able to work their problems out.”
Cody grins at Teaspoon with a wiseass smirk. There’s no way Cody is going to give Jane time to rethink her feelings for Buck. He has to move in on her quickly because he knows just how deep Jane’s love is for Buck. That love shows in Jane’s eyes everytime she gazes at Buck. Cody has noticed how Jane’s eyes don’t just stayed fixed on Buck’s face. Cody has seen the way Jane’s eyes roam all over Buck. Even though she’s broken their relationship off, he has witnessed Jane’s quiet moods. Moods when she is obviously thinking about Buck Cross and what it would be like to make love to him. Cody knows about these quiet moods. They are the same moods he gets in everytime he thinks about Jane.
“Cody!” Teaspoon hollered to a man caught up in a daydream.
Jimmy has been listening intently to the conversation that is going on between the older man and the army officer. He looks away from his paperwork to see why Teaspoon has had to yell at Cody.
Teaspoon startles Cody out of his daydream. Cody gazes at the marshal with a smirk of achievement.
“In time Jane will love me more than she could ever love Buck.”
“You’re wrong, Cody,” Jimmy spoke flatly.
Cody walks over to the front of the desk and stands positioned over Jimmy. “What makes you an expert on love, Jimmy?”
“I’m not an expert, Cody. I just can see the way Jane looks at Buck and I’ve witnessed the way Jane has pinned Buck down on the sofa a few times, attempting to…well…you know…attempting to get Buck’s clothes off of him. Admit it Cody. Jane don’t act that way with you.”
“Shut-up, Jimmy!” Cody hollered as he stomps out of the jailhouse.
Jimmy looks up at Teaspoon. “We should
be able to do something to get Jane and Buck back together.”
Teaspoon turns away from the door and sits back down in the chair that is in
front of the desk Jimmy is seated at. “I ain’t so sure we should interfere.
I think Buck and Jane are gonna have to realize on their own just how much they
love each other.”
“And, what if they don’t?”
“Then they will be lost to each other forever.”
“Yeah, forever sure is a long time to be without the one you love,” Jimmy spoke disheartened.
Teaspoon senses that Jimmy is talking about himself more than Buck and Jane at the moment.
“You got some problems with Hannah, Jimmy?”
Jimmy thinks for a brief moment that he should tell Teaspoon about the black leather glove that he discovered in Hannah’s purse. He isn’t so sure that Teaspoon would work with him to find out the truth. More than anything Jimmy doesn’t want Cody involved. Hannah would be guilty in Cody’s eyes before a court could give her a fair trail. “It isn’t anything Hannah and I can’t work out. I don’t have Cody standing between myself and Hannah the way he’s standing between Buck and Jane.”
Rachel sits in a chair in front of Buck in his bedroom. She is trying to get Buck to eat his supper. Buck refuses to eat so Rachel is trying to spoon feed him the vegetable stew that she has prepared. Buck won’t accept Rachel feeding him, and because of his stubbornness the stew has become cold.
“You won’t get your strength back if you don’t eat,” Rachel spoke gently to the Kiowa who is staring blindly toward Rachel’s garden in the backyard.
Rachel sighs heavily while getting up from her chair and leaving Buck alone. She takes the soup with her to reheat it with hopes that Buck will eat it later.
She walks out through the living room and into the dining area to find that her husband is wiping off the faces of Addison and Daniel. Cody and Jane are seated at the table eating their meal.
Rachel places Buck’s stew on the table and immediately Jane notices that Buck hadn’t touched his stew at all.
“You two boys go on upstairs and get ready for bed,” Rachel spoke softly to her children.
Addison and Daniel make a run for the stairs.
Rachel turns her attention back to her husband. “Could you please go in and talk to Buck. He won’t eat, and I’m really worried about that stubbornness of his.”
Teaspoon glances at Jane hoping that she will volunteer to talk with Buck, and that perhaps they can clear their problems up, but Jane won’t even look up at Teaspoon and she doesn’t make a move to suggest she go in to see Buck.
Cody had noticed what Teaspoon is trying to do. He clasps unto Jane’s hand that she has resting on the table.
Teaspoon witnesses this action and wonders just how much of Jane’s breaking Buck’s heart was her decision. It seems to Teaspoon that between Charlene and Cody that Buck and Jane would be together if those two weren’t fighting so hard to keep them apart.
“Go on ahead, Teaspoon. Jane and I can keep yourselves company till you get back,” Cody spoke with a grin.
Teaspoon gets up from his chair at the table in a disgusted manner. He throws his cloth napkin at his place setting. He doesn’t blame Buck for not having an appetite, because he has just lost his own.
Rachel walks away from the couple at the table. If Rachel didn’t know any better she would swear that at this moment Jane is the unhappiest woman that Rachel has ever known.
Teaspoon knocks softly on Buck’s bedroom door. He gets no response. He really didn’t expect Buck to inform him that he may come in. There is complete silence. Teaspoon knocks again only this time a bit louder.
“Buck,” Teaspoon spoke flatly, but he still doesn’t get an okay from Buck to enter his bedroom.
Teaspoon waits only a brief moment before he decides that he could stand out here all night hammering on Buck’s door, and Buck wouldn’t make any attempt to allow Teaspoon to enter.
Teaspoon finally decides to take his chances with the Kiowa, and he opens the door and steps inside. Once inside Buck’s bedroom, Teaspoon closes the door quietly. Before walking to Buck, he glances at the Kiowa sitting in a chair with a blanket pulled up over his legs. To Teaspoon, Buck looks like a man that doesn’t want to get any better. He looks worn out and tired from all the lies and deceit that have been a part of his life for so long.
Teaspoon walks over to Buck quietly, and sits down in the chair that Rachel had obviously placed in front of the Kiowa.
“Rachel tells me you won’t eat your dinner,” Teaspoon spoke softly.
“I’m not hungry,” Buck spoke disheartened.
It is what Teaspoon had suspected. Buck is too upset over everything that has gone wrong between him and Jane to want to eat and get well.
“You ain’t going to get better if you don’t
eat.”
“Who cares?”
“You know that all of us do.”
“Not Jane.”
“Jane wants you to get well. Buck, I don’t know what happened between the two of you to cause Jane to turn away from you, but I just witnessed the terrified look on her face when Rachel told me that you aren’t eating. I’m telling you that woman still loves you. If you want Jane back, you’re gonna have to get strong enough to fight for her.”
Buck gazes at Teaspoon with confusion. “I don’t understand why I should have to fight for Jane. I don’t even understand why she turned away from me. Jane never gave me a reason for ending our relationship.”
“If Jane never gave you a reason for ending your romance, then you should ask her why. Don’t let Cody get the upper hand here.”
“Cody isn’t about to back away from Jane just because I want her back. Cody claims he loves Jane just as much as I do. I’m sure he’s enjoying every moment he gets with Jane.”
“Talk to her Buck. Don’t let so much distance get between the two of you that you can’t find your way back to each other.”
Jane walks Cody out to the front porch. She has grown very tired so she has asked him to go home for the evening.
Once out on the porch, Cody turns and bundles Jane up in his arms. “Are you sure you just don’t want to go over to the bunkhouse with me? I would keep you real warm all night long,” Cody asked as he kisses her with some passion.
The kisses that Cody bestows onto Jane are not to her liking. There is simply no amount of passion that Cody has for her that will ever make her return that passion. She can’t lie to herself. She simply doesn’t feel anything when Cody kisses or attempts to touch her. Jane pulls away from the kiss and embrace that Cody is desperately trying to keep on her.
“Is everything all right?” Cody asked upset that Jane continues to pull away from the intimacy that he so desperately wants with her.
“I’m not ready for that kind of relationship, Cody.”
“In another words, you don’t love me?”
Jane hates what she is doing to Buck, and now she will also hurt Cody with the answer that she must give him. “I don’t love you the way that a woman loves a man that she wants to make love to. Buck is still that man. I told you Cody that it won’t be easy for me to forget the feelings that I have for Buck. If you can’t give me the time that I need to erase the love that I still have for Buck, then we may as well call it quits right now.”
Cody doesn’t even have to think about Jane’s request. “I can wait an eternity for you, Jane. Although, I must admit I hope it doesn’t take that long.”
Jane smiles weakly at Cody. He kisses her lightly on the cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“That would be nice,” Jane spoke quietly.
Cody leaves her alone on the porch.
Jimmy had pretended to be asleep so that Hannah would fall into a blissful sleep after the two had made love several times.
He reaches over and lightly places a kiss on her forehead. She doesn’t make a sound. He praises himself that he must have worn her out.
Jimmy quietly gets out of the bed that he shares with a woman that he is falling in love with. He tip toes over to her purse. He doesn’t want to bring the gloves up to Teaspoon until he is sure beyond any doubt that Hannah is the killer that they have been searching for the last couple of months.
Jimmy carefully opens her purse to discover a pair of black leather gloves! He pulls them out of her purse. He feels something rough on them, but he can’t see in the darkness of the hotel room that they are in. Jimmy walks over to the moonlight at the window. He is totally shocked when he holds up the gloves, and discovers that they have spots of dried blood on them!
Jane had sat out on the porch for the good part of the last hour thinking about her life since she moved to Rock Creek. She has people in her life from The Kid & Buck Horse Ranch that treat her like a member of their close-knit family. She has met a man that she has fallen totally in love with only to shatter his heart because she’s afraid to love him. She had thought perhaps the night air would clear her head enough to give her the answers that she needs to fight the feelings she can’t seem to get rid of concerning the lose of her father.
Jane decides to go back inside the Hunter home when the night air becomes too cold for her to be outside. She walks through the living room to get to the stairs when she suddenly stops in her tracks! Buck is just standing up from the sofa in the living room looking directly at her!
Jane can tell by the hurt in his eyes that he wasn’t expecting to run into her tonight. She has given Buck enough pain to last him a lifetime. She certainly doesn’t want to hurt him further. Jane tries to just walk past Buck to get to the stairs, but he isn’t about to let her escape so easily.
“I want to know why you are doing this to us?” Buck asked disheartened.
Jane tries to back up so Buck’s close proximity to her doesn’t drive her into his arms, but her legs won’t allow her to move. She doesn’t want to look at the heartbreak that invades his liquid warm ebony eyes, but Buck is forcing her to deal with the pain she is giving him.
“I just realized that we don’t belong together.”
Buck is confused by Jane’s answer. “How can you say that after all we meant to one another?”
“What did we mean to one another, Buck? Are you referring to the nights on the sofa that we almost made love? Are you referring to the clearing where we almost made love before Jesse’s bullets zinged by our heads?” Those feelings were lust, that is all.”
“I thought those feeling were much deeper than lust. I know that my feelings for you run much deeper than just the two of us making love. I can’t believe that I was so wrong. Why am I so wrong, Jane? Is it because I’m part Indian that you can’t allow us to be together? Did you suddenly realize that if you allowed us to make love that you’d be giving yourself to a half-breed?”
Jane doesn’t want to hurt Buck this way. She is well aware of how much pain and heartbreak her answer will bring to him. He has grown up with people hating him simply because he is a half-breed. That trait about Buck has never bothered Jane, and therefore has never been an issue between them not even seven years ago when they first meet. For her to tell him that yes now it is a part of him that she can’t deal with would significantly rip his heart in two. Buck would be forever lost from her. She wouldn’t have to tell him her true fears. She wouldn’t have to deal with any more confrontations with him that only end up causing them both an agonizing amount of emotional pain.
“The fact that you are of mixed blood does have me wondering what kind of life I will have if we should marry and have children that would also be of mixed blood,” Jane spoke quietly almost dreading the hurt that she will see in Buck’s eyes once she has made her confession to him.
Buck has a difficult time keeping his feelings inside. He needs to get away from Jane before he can’t help but let her see how much her words have devastated him emotionally. Without saying a word to her, Buck slowly turns away from Jane and walks into his bedroom.
Jane doesn’t try to stop Buck from leaving her alone in the living room. It is better this way. When she hears his bedroom door shut quietly, she allows the tears that she kept locked in her eyes to fall. “Oh God! Why do I keep hurting you like this?”
Buck gazes out at the garden that Rachel has been working on for the past few years in the backyard of the her home. The moonlight shines in on the silent tears that he allows to escape in the privacy of his bedroom.