At once Seth pulled up on the reins and jumped down to calm the skittish animal, his two men following suit. That gave Kari a few moments to compose herself, and when Seth once more climbed up beside her, she was determined not to be caught staring at him again.
Instead of a more leisurely pace as when they first set out, Seth urged the packhorses into a trot, which made the ride even bumpier than before. Kari was certain she would have bounced right off the seat if she hadn’t grabbed his arm this time and held on tight. She would have loved to ask him questions about the surrounding area and the town they had left behind, but he seemed focused now on getting the stallion out to his uncle’s ranch as quickly as possible.
At least she would soon meet the stranger her mother had once loved…or perhaps had loved still to have sent Kari upon such a mission.
She really didn’t want to think about her mother caring for someone other than her father, and had always looked upon her parents’ marriage as one to emulate. She knew her father had dearly loved her mother, and Lara had openly grieved at her husband’s untimely death. Arne had been out in the fields plowing when the draft horse became spooked, dragging him into a dry creek bed where he hit his head on a rock.
Kari closed her eyes tightly, remembering how she and her siblings had gone looking for him only to come upon such a terrible scene. Her father still and lifeless, the plow upended, the draft horse’s front leg broken—
“Miss Hagen, are you all right?”
Seth had slowed the wagon and looked at her with concern, while Kari self-consciously swept a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand.
“Forgive me, I was going too fast,” he said more urgently. “I didn’t mean to frighten you—”
“No, you didn’t frighten me. I was thinking of my father, the day he died three years ago…” Kari sighed heavily. “I must be overtired. It’s been such a long journey. I swore to my mother I’d deliver her letter and then I just want to go home.”
“Tell me about your mother.”
Kari met Seth’s gaze, still filled with concern, and suspected he was trying to distract her from her melancholy thoughts. She smiled gratefully and looked out over the rolling countryside.
“She was sweet-tempered. Kind. Beautiful. As fair as a Viking princess, my father used to say. Long blond hair—my Norwegian father was fair-haired, too, and my two sisters and brother, not like my honey-colored hair at all. It used to make me cry that I looked so different than the rest of the family, but Mama said it only made me more special.”
Kari gave a small laugh as she glanced at Seth to find him listening intently. That made her blush anew to reveal so much to someone who had been a stranger no more than an hour ago, and she shifted the topic to something else.
“What of you? What did you mean that Mr. Walker is your adopted uncle? I’ve never heard of such a thing before.”
To her surprise, Seth’s expression darkened, but then he shrugged as if telling himself whatever unpleasant thought had come to mind was of no consequence to him.
“You know the story of Moses in a basket? Mine is something like that. I was left outside the home of Uncle Caleb’s sister, Molly, when I was a few days old. No one stepped forward as my mother or my father, and Molly and her husband, Dr. Charles Davis, were childless. They adopted me and brought me up as their own.”
Letting his story sink in, Kari slowly shook her head. “Your poor mother, whoever she was. She must have been truly desperate to have given up her baby.”
Now Seth sighed. “You might as well hear it now if you’ll be in Walker Creek for a spell, however short, but some insist I’m part Comanche to be so dark…my uncle included. It’s the blue eyes that have always stumped him.”
Kari didn’t miss the bitterness that had crept into Seth’s voice. Once again, he urged the packhorses into a faster pace by sharply snapping the reins.
“My guess is my mother was some settler’s wayward daughter and they abandoned me when passing through town. Either way, I’m amazed to this day that my uncle made me foreman over Walker Creek Ranch, but that’s more owing to my folks’ influence, especially Ma’s, than any affection on his part. Thank God I’m good at my job. There’s the ranch now.”
Kari was so stunned at how much Seth had revealed—and her, a total stranger to him until an hour ago!—that she didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.
Instead she focused upon the expanse of land ahead dotted with spreading oak trees and fenced with barbed wire. The lowing of cattle, hundreds of them, maybe more, carried to her on the breeze. In the distance, she spied a sprawling two-story house that was bigger than any residence she’d ever seen before, with cedar posts as thick as tree trunks bracing the wraparound front porch.
“Is that Mr. Walker’s home?” At Seth’s nod, Kari felt a mixture of nerves and apprehension overwhelming her. She really hadn’t known what to expect once she arrived in Walker Creek, but Seth’s uncle must be a wealthy man indeed, to live in such a house surrounded by huge barns and multiple outbuildings.
“Walker Creek Ranch is one of the largest in the county, which keeps me pretty busy.” Seth glanced at Kari, who felt her nervousness only growing. “So my uncle was a friend of your mother?”
Kari took a slow steadying breath to try and calm herself as the wagon turned into a wide avenue lined by newly planted oak trees. “They knew each other years ago, but she told me very little. Only that she’d loved him once and he loved her, but he left Minnesota to return home to Texas and she married my father. Your uncle wrote her letters over the years, but she answered only the first one and told him to forget her. She burned the rest, never opening them. I’d never heard anything about Caleb Walker until the morning she died.”
Seth’s low whistle caught her by surprise, and he’d shoved his hat further back on his head. “So your mother was the woman who broke his heart and turned him meaner than a rattlesnake. Lara.”
Astonished, Kari could only gape at Seth, while he shook his head as if he hadn’t fully absorbed what she’d revealed to him. Now he took off his hat and whopped his thigh with it, and looked at Kari as if really seeing her for the first time.
“Holy moly, I thought there was something familiar about you.”
“I…I don’t know what you mean…”
“Do you have any idea what’s in that letter you’re carrying, Miss Hagen? I’m thinking you don’t, but I couldn’t resist asking. Holy moly…”
Kari shook her head and fingered the silken cord of her reticule looped around her wrist. “No, I’ve no idea at all. I asked my mother, but she wouldn’t say. Then she grew so weak she couldn’t speak any more…”
Swallowing hard, Kari felt tears once more jump to her eyes and Seth must have seen them, too. To her surprise, he reached for her hand and squeezed it.
“You’re braver than most to make such a journey, Miss Kari Hagen, and all by yourself, too. No chaperone, no companion. You must have a guardian angel watching over you, is all I can say. If you find yourself in need of a friend to talk to, just know you have one in me. I mean it.”
He stared at her so intently that Kari had no doubt of his sincerity, or what appeared almost pity as he released her hand and focused once more upon driving the wagon.
Her fingers felt warm from him having clasped her hand so tightly, her cheeks warmed, too, and her eyes still misted with tears.
What could he have possibly meant when he’d said he knew there was something familiar about her? His praise for her courage had touched her more than she could say, but everything else was so confusing. Surely she must have imagined a glimmer of pity in his gaze—heaven help her, none of this made any sense at all!
Exhaustion swept over Kari. All she knew was that she felt dizzy, hungry, and more anxious than ever as Seth steered the wagon around a circular drive and stopped in front of limestone steps leading up to the imposing porch.
Only then did Kari realize with a start that she’d never mentione
d her mother’s given name once to Seth during the ride out to the ranch, and yet he’d known it! Caleb Walker must have spoken to him about her mother, but perhaps had never mentioned her last name though Seth had made the connection.
Kari rubbed her throbbing forehead as Seth jumped down from the wagon, ordering his men to keep an eye on the stallion while he went inside to let his uncle know they had returned. He came around to her side and reached for her to help her from the seat.
“Easy now,” he murmured, his hands feeling so strong and sure around her waist as he set her down carefully.
If she’d felt dizzy before, the unfamiliar Texas heat clearly affecting her, the shiver she felt at his touch made the world seem to spin around her. She must have swayed slightly for in the next instant, Seth caught her arm to steady her.
“Miss Hagen, are you all right?”
“Call me Kari, please,” she murmured, grateful for his support. “You’ve been so kind—oh!”
She jumped as the front door flew open and slammed against the white-stuccoed wall, Seth’s grip tightening painfully at her elbow.
“Where the devil have you been?” thundered an older man in a tailored pin-striped suit who stormed from the house to the top of the steps, his face beet red with fury. “My prize stallion tied like a mule to the back of the wagon, Seth? I thought you were going to ride him back to test him out—and just who the hell is this?”
The man’s hazel eyes blazing into Kari’s, she stared back at him, unable to speak, the world spinning even faster around her.
As if from a great distance she heard Seth’s tightly controlled voice saying, “Miss Kari Hagen, Uncle, come all the way from Minnesota with a letter for you from her mother,” and then she heard no more, collapsing beside him.
Chapter 3
“Blast it all, Seth, give me those smelling salts.”
Shoved away from the settee by his uncle, Seth did his best to control his surging anger as Caleb passed the small vial once more under Kari’s nose. She gasped and fluttered open her eyes, but Seth could tell at once that she was disoriented.
He had to restrain himself from pushing his uncle out of the way and gathering Kari into his arms to assure her everything would be all right—but would it? After her first impression of Caleb Walker, Seth wouldn’t be surprised if she insisted he take her right back into town to await the first train out of Walker Creek!
“Good, she’s coming round,” muttered Caleb, straightening to brush past Seth and begin pacing the parlor with impatience. “Did she say where she kept the letter? Her reticule, most likely. Open the bag, Seth, and retrieve it for me.”
“I think it would be best that she give it to you herself,” Seth said as he drew closer to the settee, trying to keep his voice calm and steady. “If you’d give her a few moments to recover herself—”
“A few moments?” Caleb shouted, his expression thunderous again. “I’ve waited twenty years to hear from Lara again and now you’re asking me to wait longer?”
“It’s here.”
Kari’s small voice made Caleb abruptly stop his pacing, while Seth knelt on one knee next to the settee. She lay there with her head propped on a tasseled pillow, her face so pale, her slender fingers shaking as she opened her reticule, that Seth could not stop himself from turning to Caleb to say tightly, “Her mother is dead, Uncle.”
The sharp intake of breath from Caleb wasn’t half as startling to Seth as his uncle’s face, gone stark white.
Everything had happened so fast with Kari, Seth sweeping her into his arms and carrying her into the house while Caleb had shouted for the housekeeper to fetch smelling salts, that little else had been said between them. Regret stabbed Seth as his uncle sank into a nearby chair, but not enough that he would have taken the words back. Why delay the truth any longer? Seth turned back to Kari, who pulled a wrinkled letter from her reticule and handed it to him.
“Please…if you’ll give this to Mr. Walker.”
Seth nodded, but he was no more on his feet than Caleb lunged from the chair with an agonized groan and snatched the envelope from Seth’s hand. Seth thought his uncle might tear the letter in his haste to open it, his hands shaking, and he retreated to the nearest window and pulled aside the velvet drapery to read the missive.
Caleb was a tall man and of stockier build than Seth, but now with his head down and his shoulders hunched, he looked older to Seth than his forty-six years. His thick goldish-brown hair was tinged with more gray than Seth recalled, too, in the midday sunlight streaming into the room. If there was such a thing as aging in a day, Seth felt he was witnessing it right in front of him.
A hoarse sound like a muffled sob burst from his uncle, Caleb’s palpable grief clearly overwhelming him. Given that Seth had rarely seen any emotion other than anger or disdain from his uncle, Seth could but stare now, stunned.
Kari looked on, too, her heart going out to the man who had so startled her just before she fainted. Thankfully she felt better, the room cooler than outside, and she sat up, righting her bonnet that had been knocked askew. At once Seth held out his hand and she took it, allowing him to help her to her feet.
Another stifled sob came from his uncle, Caleb Walker now leaning up the windowsill as if for support. She had no doubt he must have deeply loved her mother, Kari never having seen such heartrending grief in a man.
With a glance at Seth to reassure him that she felt well enough to walk, Kari left his side and moved toward Caleb, but he turned from the window before she made it halfway. His welling, red-rimmed eyes swept her from head to foot as if seeing her for the first time.
“She says that you know nothing of why she wrote to me.”
Kari nodded, her throat tightening at his grief-laden voice. “That’s true. I didn’t know anything about you until her last hours.”
“Oh, God…oh, God.” Shaking his head, Caleb looked at the letter and then back to Kari, a tear spilling down his ashen cheek. “Was she in pain at the end?”
Kari blinked back tears, her eyes welling now, too, and shook her head. “It was a miracle, really. She suffered for so long, but she died peacefully. We were all with her, me, my sisters and brother—”
“I should have been there! Why couldn’t she have written me sooner? Why?”
His agony almost too personal to witness, Kari didn’t know what to say. What could she say? At least Caleb had the letter now, her task done, her promise to her mother fulfilled.
“Perhaps…perhaps you might wish to be alone,” she murmured, glancing uncertainly at Seth. He looked so somber, and shifted uncomfortably as if anxious to leave his uncle to his grief, too. Instead Caleb drew closer to Kari and thrust out the letter to her.
“Go ahead, read it. Much of it concerns you.”
“Me?”
Caleb nodded, studying her again as if searching for something in her face. “You resemble her, you know…except for her hair. I’d never seen such fair hair before, like sunlight glistening on the surface of a lake. Lara was so beautiful…so beautiful. She was to be my bride. My wife. Shall I tell you where I met her?”
Kari didn’t answer, silently accepting the letter he held out to her, the paper damp from his tears. Strangely, she couldn’t bring herself to read it, a deep intuition dawning upon her as she gazed at the color of his hair…a deep honeyed brown a few shades darker than her own.
“I was a Confederate soldier, a prisoner of war. The Union Army needed more men to protect the settlers along the northern frontier, so they gave us a choice. Remain in prison and most likely die of disease like hundreds of others, or switch sides and become a Union soldier. I chose life and was sent to Fort Ripley in Minnesota where your mother’s father was an officer.”
“Yes, my grandfather, Captain Bernhard Olavson. I never knew him. He died only weeks before I was born—”
“May he writhe in hell, too! The letter says he forced Lara to marry another man when he discovered she was carrying a child. Our child! He didn’t be
lieve she would ever hear from me again, and he despised me anyway for being a Johnny Reb. I was mustered out of the Army when the war ended and decided to return to Texas, but I asked Lara to wait for me to send for her. I wasn’t sure what I might find in Walker Creek after the war, if it was safe. If the town hadn’t been burned to the ground. God help me, I would never have left her side if I’d known she was pregnant—if I’d known!”
Caleb had turned back to the window while Kari stood there staring at him as if made of stone. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, his words echoing in her brain.
Our child…our child. Her gaze drifted down to the letter in her hand, her fingers oddly grown numb. Could it be true that Arne Hagen wasn’t her father after all, but instead Caleb Walker…?
“When I finally had enough money and sent a letter to Lara with train fare, she sent the fare back to me with a note that she was married and to forget her. I figured her father had something to do with it, hating me like he did, but I never guessed there might be a baby. Oh, God, forget her? As if I ever could…”
Caleb’s voice so desolate that Kari’s throat tightened again, she lifted the letter at last so she might read it herself.
Her mother’s shaky handwriting seemed to burn into her mind…confirming everything Caleb had revealed and so much more.
How much Lara had loved Caleb.
How her heart had broken when she’d agreed to marry Arne Hagen to save her father’s reputation.
How Arne had been a good man and accepted Kari as his own, and that Lara had borne three more children.
And how much she wanted Caleb at last to know his daughter, to protect her and to protect her other children, too, if he could find it in his heart to help them.
Last, she asked Caleb for forgiveness that she only wrote to him now, never answering any more of his letters, but her faith would not allow her to forsake her marriage. Then she’d become ill, a wasting shadow of the young woman he remembered, and she couldn’t bear to see him again only for him to watch her die.
Kari (Walker Creek Brides Book 1) Page 2
