Kari (Walker Creek Brides Book 1)

by Miriam Minger

Kari’s fingers trembled as she read the letter’s final words, “I will always love you, Caleb, my true love, my dearest heart. I pray that in spite of all, you remember me fondly. Yours forever…Lara.”

  A stillness fell in the room, Caleb with his back to her at the window. Seth stood close by and silent, while Kari dropped her hand to her side.

  Within a few brief moments, her life had turned upside down, everything changed. Her father wasn’t Arne Hagen at all, but the man who stood only feet away from her. A heavy sigh escaped him as he lifted his head and squared his broad shoulders. Slowly he turned around to face her.

  “Welcome to my home, Kari. I’m sure this news has been as much a shock for you as for me…but you’re my daughter, and not a guest. From this moment, Walker Creek Ranch is as much yours as it is mine. I’ll have rooms prepared for you at once—”

  “Forgive me, Mr. Walker,” Kari cut in lamely, not really sure what she should call him, but not prepared at all yet to call him Father. “Surely you wish me to meet your wife first and your children, and I’d fully intended to find lodging in town—”

  “I’ve no wife. Nor children…at least not until now. You’ll stay here, I insist upon it. Now if you’ll excuse us, Seth and I have business to attend to, my new stallion. Do you enjoy horse racing?”

  She stared at him, as astonished he had no wife and family as that a man wracked by grief only moments ago could have regained full command of himself so quickly. “I’ve never been to one…a race, I mean.”

  “Well, we’ll have to change that. It’s a passion of mine. Are you feeling well enough to be left alone for a few moments?”

  She no sooner nodded than Caleb gestured for Seth to follow him and walked past Kari to the door.

  “Sarah, my housekeeper, will fetch you shortly and show you upstairs. If there’s anything you want, you’ve only to request it.”

  “I’ll need my things—my satchel!” she blurted but Caleb was gone, Seth glancing over his shoulder and appearing reluctant to leave her before he, too, strode from the room.

  She wished he could have stayed with her, wanting to ask him if he’d realized from the start that her resemblance to Caleb wasn’t just coincidence.

  No wonder Seth had said he thought there was something familiar about her! Still holding her mother’s letter, Kari sank onto the settee.

  To have been revived from a dead faint to a whirlwind of gut-wrenching emotion and astounding revelations had sapped her completely. Instead of stunned, she felt numb, and not sure what to think of everything that had just happened.

  No wonder, too, that her mother had wanted her to hand-deliver the letter. If Kari had known its contents, she would most likely have never boarded the train!

  Arne Hagen had been the most wonderful father to her, kind, patient, and encouraging her in everything she did whether schoolwork or learning from her mother how to bake his favorite apple pie. She didn’t need or want another father! She and her siblings were doing just fine, scraping by to be sure, yet perhaps Lara had feared for their survival once she was gone.

  Kari looked around her at the well-appointed parlor, the furnishings more grand than anything she had seen in the finest homes in Faribault that she’d visited as a seamstress.

  Was it simply that Lara had wanted a better life for Kari just as she’d said in her letter, a life where Kari would be protected and provided for…and perhaps her sisters and brother, too? Or had her mother been trying to make amends to the man she’d truly loved by presenting him with the daughter he never knew he had?

  Kari closed her eyes, her head aching from her tumbling thoughts.

  How could Lara have possibly known how prominent Caleb had become? Unless when they had spoken of their hopes and dreams years ago, her mother had always believed he would do well for himself, with or without her at his side…

  A wave of intense sadness swept Kari suddenly for her mother, her father, and Caleb, too.

  Lovers forever separated and love never fully realized for Arne to have married a young woman whose heart belonged to someone else. He must have known Lara carried another man’s child. Surely her grandfather wouldn’t have deceived him, but perhaps had offered Arne enough money to start a homestead if he agreed to wed a tainted bride?

  The letter dropped to the carpeted floor as Kari covered her face with her hands, so many questions tormenting her that would never be answered.

  Another question, too, of a more immediate nature.

  Was Caleb Walker even pleased that she had arrived upon his doorstep? He’d acknowledged her as his daughter, but almost dispassionately as if he’d had no emotion left to extend his hand to her or to give her the briefest of fatherly embraces. Instead he spoke of his passion for horse racing…horse racing!

  “Miss Walker, your rooms are almost ready,” came a pleasant-sounding Irish brogue from just inside the room, a plump, middle-aged woman with dark curls standing there. “I’m Sarah Murphy, the housekeeper—”

  “My name is Hagen, Kari Hagen.”

  “Oh, forgive me. Mr. Walker said the other, but of course, we’re all a bit flustered at such happy news. His own daughter come home to live in Walker Creek!”

  “No, no, I won’t be staying,” Kari corrected her, rising from the settee. “My home is in Minnesota. I have family waiting for me to return.”

  Sarah folded her hands across her ample middle, her tone placating as if she spoke to a child. “Whatever you say, miss. Shall we go?”

  Kari nodded, but first she retrieved her mother’s letter and set it upon a table.

  She imagined Caleb would look for it later. She traced her finger tenderly across Lara’s handwriting and then with a sigh, followed the housekeeper out the door.

  Chapter 4

  “Still up, boss? It’s midnight already and morning comes early round here. What’s eating you?”

  Seth didn’t respond to the skinny old-timer joining him on the bunkhouse porch, Lucius Dean taking a pull on his hand-rolled cigarette. As fragrant tobacco smoke curled in the air, Seth went right on staring at the distant house gleaming a ghostly white in the moonlight, only one window on the first floor still lit.

  The window to Caleb’s study, where Seth had no doubt his uncle sat at his desk throwing back another glass of whiskey as he stared at the letter he’d probably memorized by now.

  His lost love Lara’s letter, Seth still staggered by everything he’d witnessed earlier that day.

  His gut instinct hadn’t been wrong, though he couldn’t help shaking his head that he’d guessed the familial connection between Kari Hagen and his uncle well before the astounding showdown in the parlor.

  Astounding? That wasn’t even the word for it!

  Never would he have imagined Caleb would break down weeping right in front of him—and his uncle hadn’t wasted any time when they had gone to check on the stallion in demanding that Seth never speak a word to anyone about it. In fact, that had probably been more on Caleb’s mind than his new racing stock, his expression thunderous and almost threatening.

  Seth shrugged, though his hands at his side had tightened into fists.

  He always told himself it didn’t matter what his uncle truly thought of him, but deep down, Seth knew it did. A man shouldn’t be judged by things over which he had no control, like his parentage, but his character, integrity, and sense of honor.

  Especially now.

  The quartet of windows on the second floor that belonged to Kari’s rooms had never brightened, so he knew she slept on from earlier in the day. When he’d returned to the house with his uncle to discuss the upcoming week’s tasks, Sarah had told Caleb that after a hot bath and a meal, Kari said she was exhausted and lay down for a nap.

  That report had been hours ago and she’d not awoken, but was that surprising after such a long journey and then the emotional upheaval of discovering that Caleb Walker was her true father?

  Seth had seen how pale her face had grown and how her fingers had trembled when
she read her mother’s letter, the shock of comprehension reflected in her lovely blue eyes.

  He had stood so close to her and wanted nothing more than to reach out and comfort her.

  To draw her into his arms and assure her that everything would be all right in spite of her life abruptly changing in the blink of an eye.

  He felt it now too, the same gripping realization in his gut as when he’d told her that she’d made quite an impression on him…and that if she needed someone to talk to, he was the friend she could turn to.

  The realization that he didn’t intend to be just a friend for long. He had always been a man that when he’d made up his mind, he meant it, and he’d settled his mind upon Kari Hagen. He didn’t want her to face any challenges or troubles in life without him.

  Sarah had told Caleb, too, that Kari didn’t plan on staying but that she intended to return to her family in Minnesota. Well, if discovering the truth about her father wasn’t enough to make her want to remain in Texas, hopefully some serious courting would change her mind about making a new home in Walker Creek.

  As Mrs. Seth Davis…his bride.

  “It’s that pretty little filly, isn’t it? Mr. Walker’s newfound daughter.”

  Lucius’s query followed by a knowing laugh, Seth glanced at the man he had always trusted as a friend and not just a ranch hand.

  “You heard?”

  “Heard? You think news like that doesn’t travel like wildfire? The housemaids talking, the hired hands talking, why, soon the whole town will be talking if not already!”

  As Lucius gave another gravelly laugh and took a last draw on his smoke, Seth glanced back at the house to see that Caleb’s study window had gone dark.

  “See? Your uncle’s gone to bed, and you’d best get some shut-eye, too. You’ve got a hard row to hoe in front of you, Seth, you don’t need me telling you so—and I’m not talking about the hearts you’ll be breaking around the county.” Lucius flicked his cigarette into the dirt beyond the porch, his voice grown sober. “His iron fist is likely to clamp as tightly around her as he controls everything else round these parts, being his daughter and all. Nope, it ain’t going to be easy. Goodnight.”

  “Night.”

  As Lucius’s boots scraped across the porch, the older man disappearing into the bunkhouse, Seth knew he’d better turn in, too.

  He had waited a long time to meet a woman like Kari Hagen, lovely and brave, resilient and yet tenderhearted, the mere touch of her hand making his heart thud in his chest like a schoolboy’s. She hadn’t left his mind since he’d last seen her, and he couldn’t wait to see her again. If this was what falling in love felt like, he was falling, hard.

  Seth had never fallen in love before, no, not once no matter the hearts Lucius had claimed he would be breaking, and he’d always treated women with respect. He wasn’t blind to flirtatious glances or ignorant that some entertained the thought of him as a husband, but something had always told him to be patient, the right one would come along. Yet to think he’d almost missed her arrival!

  He’d been so focused upon Caleb’s prize stallion that he hadn’t noticed Kari standing on the train platform, until a tiny slip of an elderly woman came up beside him and sighed, “Poor child, she seems a bit lost, doesn’t she? You see, she’s looking this way. Do you think perhaps she might need some gentlemanly assistance?”

  Seth had turned from the woman and caught Kari’s eye, tipping his hat to her, but she’d spun around as if in embarrassment. He had taken only a moment to ensure his men had secured the high-strung animal and when he’d looked back, the older woman who had pointed her out to him was gone and Kari still stood all by herself…that is, until Dirk Brodie—

  “Nothing like honey to make the flies come buzzing,” Seth said under his breath, his resolve only deepening to stake his claim early and get it out in the open.

  The right woman had come along, no matter she was Caleb Walker’s daughter.

  Seth was an adopted nephew after all, no blood relation between them, and his uncle had never let him forget it. At least in this instance, he was glad for that fact for the first time in his life, though his hands had curled into fists again.

  Lucius had been right and Seth knew it, which was why he intended to make his intentions about Kari known first thing to her and then to the strongest ally he had.

  His mother, Molly.

  “Come in, Kari. Have some breakfast.”

  Kari nodded from where she stood in the arched doorway to the dining room, Caleb sitting at one end of the immense table and gesturing for her to join him.

  She didn’t know why she had hesitated, but she felt so nervous upon seeing him again.

  She really didn’t know what to expect from the man, one moment explosively angry and then the next so overwhelmed with grief that her heart had gone out to him. Now he looked so calm that she might have imagined such extremes of emotion, but perhaps his composure unnerved her the most. His expression wasn’t unkind, just oddly calculating as if appraising her as she approached the table.

  “Good morning, Mr. Walker—”

  “Please, call me Caleb. We’re still strangers to each other, but I hope that will be remedied in time. Sit. You must be hungry.”

  He didn’t rise to assist her, but instead gestured for an older Mexican gentleman standing nearby to pull out her chair. Kari was astonished by the servants she’d already encountered—Sarah Murphy, a trio of housemaids who’d brought buckets of hot water last night for her bath, a cook’s helper who had appeared with a savory pot roast supper, and a pretty young woman named Maria who spoke little English but indicated this morning that she was there to help Kari dress and fix her hair.

  Dress and fix her hair! Never in her life had anyone helped her except for her mother or her sisters, but usually Kari and her siblings had looked after themselves. She murmured her thanks to the manservant and took her seat at the table graced with a white tablecloth and silver utensils, the grandness surrounding her truly overwhelming.

  “We don’t thank them, Kari. It’s their job.”

  So startled that Caleb would correct her for using common courtesy, Kari could but stare at him, though an instant later, she blurted, “My mother taught us that we’re all equal in God’s sight.”

  Caleb blinked, the mere mention of her mother clearly affecting him, but his voice remained composed all the same. “True, but they’re servants nonetheless. It’s best they remember their place…and you remember yours as my daughter. Now have some breakfast. I’ve an excellent cook. Did you enjoy your supper last night?”

  As a plateful of steaming scrambled eggs, thick slices of bacon, and a fluffy biscuit was placed in front of her, and hot tea poured into a porcelain cup, Kari nodded, though suddenly she didn’t feel very hungry.

  How could her mother have been drawn to such a man? He must have been very handsome, was handsome still, though frown lines furrowed his brow, his mouth slightly downturned. He looked so austere, so cheerless, even, his demeanor so opposite that of her mother as he shook open a newspaper and began to read.

  Lara had lightened every room with her lovely smile and laughter, Kari’s childhood truly a happy one. At that moment she couldn’t imagine Caleb Walker smiling or laughing, but then again, he and her mother had known each other years ago. A lifetime ago—

  “I took the liberty of sending a telegram to your family in Faribault, your sisters, Ingrid and Anita, and your brother, Andreas, to let them know you arrived safely. I’ve also wired funds to the local bank to supplement any lost income while you’re here. I believe you told Sarah you work as a seamstress.”

  Kari found it difficult to swallow her mouthful of scrambled eggs, the housekeeper clearly having informed Caleb of what Kari had shared with her last night. Somehow she did swallow, finally able to say, “My mother taught my sisters and me to sew, though Ingrid helps out at the school as well. She hopes one day to be employed as a teacher.”

  “We’ve a fine schoolho
use here. I can arrange something for her if she and your siblings decide to join you in Walker Creek. We’ve a new playhouse, too. I believe Sarah said that Anita has a flair for theater. I could make contacts for her in Austin and San Antonio, and we have several blacksmiths who’d be happy to employ Andreas—ah, but there will be time enough to discuss such matters. Go ahead and finish your breakfast. I’ve arranged a busy day for you.”

  Staring wide-eyed at Caleb, now Kari truly didn’t feel like eating as she realized he was quickly and matter-of-factly taking matters that concerned her into his own hands. Had he wired her sisters and brother, too, about the schoolhouse and playhouse and local blacksmiths?

  “Mr. Walker—”

  “Caleb. Please. I can understand you might not be comfortable yet in calling me ‘Father,’ but I hope one day…” He didn’t finish, but folded his newspaper and looked intently at Kari. “I know you spoke to Sarah about returning to Minnesota, but I ask you to consider staying for a while, at least until we’ve had time to become better acquainted. I’m sure Lara—your mother, would wish it as well. She asked me to protect you and I fully intend to do so, if you’ll allow it. Will you give me a chance, Kari, to finally know the daughter so long concealed from me?”

  She didn’t know quite what to say, her first instinct to tell him she intended to stick to her plan and return home as soon as possible.

  Yet his request was reasonable enough, she had to admit. She remembered what she’d considered yesterday, that Lara might have wanted to make amends to Caleb at last for withholding Kari’s existence from him, just as he’d said. Slowly, she nodded, and for the first time she saw the barest hint of a smile on his face, though it didn’t reach his hazel eyes.

  “Good, it’s settled then. If you’re finished with your breakfast, I’d like to accompany you into town. You need new dresses, and whatever other items to go with them—no offense, of course, to your handiwork. I assume you made that yourself?”

  Kari murmured “Yes,” feeling somewhat self-conscious at the plainness of her dark green dress, the second of only three she’d brought with her. She hadn’t planned to stay very long, after all.