Cassandra looked down and then back up as she brushed away a tear. Once more he could see she was trying to find her voice but still couldn’t. He turned away and looked down at the figure in the bed, his voice continuing to break.
"I'm supposed to tell Bright Feather how the girl was showering the boy with her love and adoration for him, and how drunk beyond all reason she, she leaned over and kissed him? And I'm supposed to tell her this drunk, immature boy reacting on a purely physical level, who should have pushed her away but didn't, ignoring all thoughts of how wrong it was, how it's his half-sister for the love of God, all that unable to pierce through his drunkenness. But no, he didn’t push her away before the door flung open, their older sister standing there turning three shades of red …"
Cassandra at long last seemed to find her voice, and she turned away from him. "Stop! I was there! I don't need to hear this."
“You were there all right. You beat the shit out of me, but I deserved it.”
Whirling back around at him she frothed, “Well, I couldn’t tell Pop, it would have killed him if he ever found out what you two did! Someone had to handle it.”
“Like I said, Cass, I deserved it. I was drunk, but I should have immediately pushed her away, but I let it get out of control. It was a mistake.” His mouth fell open as Cassandra’s face turned harder than he’d ever seen it—ever.
"No! That was not the mistake. You were two drunk kids, and things went a little crazy. Alcohol is going to do that to you! No, the mistake was what you did afterward!" Dutch's mind whirled, struggling to grasp what she was trying to say.
“What did I do? I’ve spent that day to this trying to make it up to her. I should have been the responsible one. Hell, I was the one whose idea it was to steal Dad’s whiskey!”
Cassandra drew up next to him again. He’d faced men in battle before from Johnny Rebs to Apache braves, but none were more intimidating than this woman when she wanted to be. At this moment they might as well be children again with Cassandra lording it over her little brother, he thought.
“That was your mistake—you went too far trying to make it up to her. You were extra nice to her, extra attentive, all it did was stoke the mixed-up fires inside of her making her, making her care for you in a way she shouldn’t.”
“Are you trying to tell me that I’ve been too nice to her? Listen to yourself,” he fumed, burying the little brother and becoming the man that he was now.
"You listen! You've been subtly encouraging her all these years without even realizing it! Goddamn, Dutch! Every time you use her Chinese name, Beautiful and Graceful One, that fanned the flames. You might as well be throwing kerosene on the fire!" Cassie persisted, jabbing her finger into his chest. When she used to do that as kids, he always wanted to grab her hand to stop her, but he knew better. Not now though. In a flash he grabbed her wrist, startling her.
“Who do you think you are lecturing me that I was too nice to her? You were the one …”
"I know what you're going to say," she said as she yanked her wrist free of his grasp. "I told you I shared the blame for the way she is. I was an immature brat! I wasn't like that with Honor and Catalina because I KNEW their mothers. I watched them being born—to come into the family naturally—but Lijuan. Pop just shows up one day after being thought dead for a year and presents this baby saying she's our sister, and I was supposed to love her automatically?"
Dutch smashed his fist into the palm of his other hand, “I did, and I was proud to be a big brother at last!”
Cassandra's eyes were blinking rapidly, overcome by it all but still, she continued in a voice that dripped with remorse and regret, "I was a little bitch. I didn't even believe for the longest time that this baby was really our sister. It was Miss Lizzie that finally convinced me that she truly was. I remember her telling me she was going to give birth to a baby that wasn't going to look like us either, but that baby was indeed going to be part of our family, and I needed to look at Lijuan the same way."
"Yes! So, you finally believed she was a Wilde, but still, you were horrible to her right up until that day you caught us in the shed."
A smile, at last, found its way to her face as she stared off embracing a memory. "Because that was the first time she ever stood up to me. Drunk off her ass, still she sprang up and jumped me when I was whaling on you. Gone was the mousy girl I'd been running roughshod over but, in her place, was a hellcat."
As quickly as her smile came it faded again. "But the fact remains because I shut her out she gravitated towards you. I bear the responsibility for her having to come to depend on you to feel love. So yeah, I'm to blame, too. I drove her towards the sibling that accepted her and showed her love. Know this, Dutch. I hate myself for the way I was to her. It's my greatest shame. I love that woman so much that I don't know what I would have done if she'd died in that canyon. There were so many wasted years I was mean to her that I can never get back; when I should have been loving big sister all I could do was be cruel but yes, you've been too nice."
A weariness crept over the pair as their tongues grew tired, and they just stared at each other for a long while. This confrontation had been long in coming, but it had been inevitable. Finally, Dutch raised his head and looked at her.
“So where do we go from here?”
"I know that it's going to be hard, but you have to keep distancing yourself from her as you did at the party. Not cruelly, of course, but you must, Dutch. It's going to hurt her, but you must. For God's sakes, half the men she sleeps with look like you. That's no coincidence. This has to stop."
Out in the hallway, Kincaid retreated from where he was eavesdropping and looked down the hall at his image in the mirror. Annabelle Detweiller’s words the night of the party echoing back to him on how much he resembled the brother of the odd mixture of women. The look of revelation that came over his face was still on it as he turned back to listening to hear what Cassandra Wilde was saying now.
"You have to do this for her sake and yours. You can't deny how this must be wearing on Bright Feather—Lijuan's open hostility towards her—and your love doesn't even know why. Do you really want to lose the woman you love because of your sister? It will make you hate Lijuan if you do, and that would be worse than keeping her at arm's length."
"Does it really have to be this way?" he asked forlornly, knowing full well there could only be one answer. He'd already hurt Lijuan so severely and now this?
"You know that it does. You can't do anything in any way that encourages whatever these mixed up crazy feelings she has for you. You have to do this before it destroys us all. I'm sorry. In the end, she will be so much better for it."
Cassandra extended her arms wide, and Dutch stepped into her embrace. Unknown to them, facing away from them, Lijuan lay just as awake as she had been from the moment they had first come into the room. She fought to keep her eyes closed, but when they fluttered open, tears flowed with abandon down her face staining her pillow.
CHAPTER 33
As Whip sipped the newly delivered tea, Catalina snatched the satchel off the desk and headed for the door, but her father’s commanding voice halted her in her tracks.
“Whoa there, Peppercorn! Sorry about all the interruptions, but why did you ask me if Miguel Corderro tried to buy back Cedar Ledge?”
“Ah, it was nothin’. Just somethin’ the Reaper said. Didn’t mean anythin’ at all,” She said now wishing she had left the subject untouched.
“Why would Victor bring that up?” At that moment he now sounded a whole lot like a judge she thought, issuing questions from the bench. She knew she'd best leave now, or he was liable to get the entire story out of her.
"I don't know, Papacito. The man wasn't playin' with all his cards. Look at what he did to valley folks that were his lifelong friends." She crossed back and gave him another kiss on the cheek. "I'm headin' out. This here money is liable to burn a hole clean through this satchel! I'll be back later!" she said breaking into laughter, hopi
ng it would distract him. It seemed to work, and a moment later she was out the door.
***
In the hallway, Kincaid was still listening intently, but from what was being said now he knew the jig was about to be up.
"Come on, Dutch. Let's go down, and I'll make you something before you ride back to McCallister. I owe it to you for manhandling you like that before. You're my brother, not one of the jaspers I'm always tangling with."
“I know you only did it because you want what’s best for her, for all of us.”
Quickly looking around, Kincaid hurried toward the top of the stairs but decided his best bet was to retreat into one of the rooms until the cavalry officer and his sister came out and went down the stairs to wherever the kitchen was in the sizable home. Ducking into the room opposite the top of the stairs, he took a quick look around. A frilly canopy bed graced the room, and all the décor screamed this was a lady's room. The only oddity he saw was a brass telescope pointed out the window. From what he knew of the Wildes, he correctly guessed it was Honor Elizabeth's room, given all the talk he heard in town how the mulatto carried herself just like any high society full-blooded white woman. He waited until he heard the door close to Lijuan's room and the sounds of a pair of feet going down the stairs until only silence remained. The coast he assumed was clear.
Stepping out of the room he had sought refuge in, he looked down at the base of the stairs just in time to see Catalina Wilde finish buckling on a holster and reach for her bullwhip that hung on a peg. The Mexican woman’s eyes went as wide as pair of full moons as she saw him standing there clutching the roses. The woman morphed into an erupting volcano at the sight of him.
"What the hell?!?" and she began her charge up the stairs. As she flew towards him she began to swing her bullwhip over her head, the leather just barely missing the wall. His only defense was the bouquet that he held out in front of him. With a snap and a whoosh, the bullwhip sang its tune as the lash cut the flowers in half. He only had a moment to drop the stems before Catalina came barreling into him knocking him against Honor Elizabeth's door. Two claw-like hands seized the lapels of his suit and began shaking him.
“What are you doin’ in my house?! What were you doin’ comin’ outta Honor’s room! Talk, Kincaid, before I knock your teeth out!!”
“I’ve never hit a lady before, but I’m about to make an exception. No, I respectfully rescind that as you’re no lady!” he bellowed.
“Damn straight!”
The wind exploded from his lungs as she let go of his jacket and pile-drove one of her fists into his abdomen. She was bent over unleashing a burst of mocking laughter as he doubled over and staggered for a moment before launching towards her and managed to head butt her bowed head knocking her backward. This ended the woman's laughter and sparked her into a frenzy as she slapped him as hard as he'd ever been hit. Just down the hall as his ears rang he heard a voice shouting for Catalina to stop.
The plea had no effect as the Mexican slapped him almost as hard across the other side of his face. He balled his fist wondering if he really was going to strike a woman for the first time when the voice shouted once more. This time they both turned.
Lijuan was standing in the hallway in her bathrobe with her hammer in her good hand, which she slammed against the hallway wall so hard it punched a hole in it.
“Catalina Mercedes Wilde, I said stop!!”
Still in a fury, Catalina whirled on her sister. “You get the hell back to bed! I found a polecat nosin’ around in our own home! And you know what happens to polecats!”
“He’s no polecat! This is Mister Killian Kincaid. He’s an attorney and a gentleman from town!”
Kincaid cleared his throat. "Yes, I was just coming to see you. I had recently heard about your travails in Mexico, and I wanted to wish you well. Unfortunately, despite my directions from the elderly Chinese woman, I got lost and entered your sister's room by accident."
Stunned, Catalina spit out the words, “You know him?”
Lijuan walked over and pushed her way in between them.
"Yes, of course. He's a friend. He was very kind to me the night of the party when I needed kindness." Lijuan admitted with a softness to her voice.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. I won’t have you treating a guest of mine like this, Catalina!”
Feeling smug, Kincaid faked a rueful smile, “I had brought you some lovely flowers, but I’m afraid they were no match for a bullwhip.”
Lijuan walked to the top of the stairs and looked down in something akin to wonder at the destroyed bouquet and turned to look back at Catalina, darkness sweeping across her face as she did so.
“Catalina, what have you done?”
“How can you be friends with this sidewinder? He’s an out and out liar! He helped try to railroad a friend of mine right into prison.”
“I was a defense attorney doing my job. I, too, was duped by my client.”
Lijuan peered once more at the destroyed flowers and then beyond them to the satchel resting at the base of the stairs.
"You look like you have somewhere to be. So why don't you be on your way, Cattie, to make the deposit? Mister Kincaid, if you would so kind as to see me back to my room?"
Catalina’s voice took on a pleading tone. What was wrong with her? “Lijuan, this here snake is a jasper of the highest order!”
Kincaid held out his arm, which Lijuan took with a smile, and they turned and headed back towards her room as Catalina raced down the stairway fuming, the slam of the door echoing back up to them.
Rounding the house, Catalina made her way to the stables roiling inside as she threw her saddle on Pretty Feet making ready to head for the Detweiller Savings & Loan. Something had come over Lijuan, and she didn't know what it was, but it had blinded the normally mistrusting and defensive woman to the oily sidewinder. She would be halfway to town by the time she calmed down and even then, she had decided after the bank she would need to blow off some steam, and she knew the place for it by paying the school marm a visit at her boarding house. Catalina and Evangeline Summers had long ago come to an understanding that based on Eva’s position they couldn't be seen together, but whenever Catalina dropped by it meant one thing. Over the years both had agreed that the arrangement had proven to be a most beneficial among the two friends.
Back at Cedar Ledge after they had they had heard the door slam at the bottom of the stairs as Catalina had charged off the pair made their way down the hallway stopping at the door to Lijuan's room.
“I’m sorry about that. We sisters are protective of each other like that. She means well.”
“I understand. I must say I am pleased to see you have recovered nicely. I’d heard about your brush with death in Mexico.”
“We all had our brushes down there. I just got the worst of it. But thank you for your concern, and for the flowers, what’s left of them,” she said with a wry smile.
“I meant every word of it.” For a moment he looked back down the hallway and briefly caught sight of their images in the mirror. It was time to take things up a notch, he told himself. “I understand that Lijuan means beautiful and graceful. Is that true?”
“Yes!” she said, clearly enthused at his knowledge of the Chinese meaning of her name. “How did you know that?”
“After I met you I asked around,” he lied. “I must say that its most appropriate.”
Lijuan seemed aglow as she thanked him. Kincaid nodded pleased that this was going exceptionally well. By chance, he had learned what made this woman tick, and he intended to take full advantage of that in any way possible. The shocking dynamic between the siblings in this family was ripe for some type of exploitation. Just what the nature of that would be he was unsure, but he would figure something out and when he did there would be profiting to be had—his profiting!
EPILOGUE
DETWEILLER SAVINGS & LOAN
Alamieda, Arizona Territory
Annabel
le Detweiller sat at her desk in the well-appointed office of the vice-president of the newly opened branch of the bank that bore their family's name. Today she was completely in charge as her father's even more lavish office remained empty as her father was away back at the home office. The bank had been founded several generations ago by their family, but years back Augustus Detweiller had lost his control due to a colossal error that had cost the bank a considerable sum. Now he had to answer to the board of directors, and that was where he had gone to for the next day or two.
There were ledgers aplenty sprawled out before her on the desk, but she couldn't focus on them. Instead, her eyes drifted to the corner of the office where a vase of roses now sat atop the filing cabinet. Earlier, the haughty lawyer she had met at the Wilde family party weeks ago had dropped by to ply her with the flowers, still attempting to get her to accept his invitation to have lunch. Once more she had refused, but it had been much harder this time. The blond-haired, blue-eyed man was well built and handsome, but the hint of deviousness about him had also attracted her. Annabelle could sense that underneath his polished exterior there was something of a bad boy at heart and that drew her to him.
She liked the notion lurking beneath his refinement there could be something that was perhaps even a bit dangerous. The fact that it was hidden appealed to her. Her twin sister Abigail liked bad men, of course, and since they had arrived in town, she had taken to running with them, much to her father's chagrin. Those men, however, were simple gutter trash in Annabelle's opinion with their ways of cheating at cards, picking fights at the saloons and general rabble-rousing, and there was Abigail right in the middle of that menagerie of undesirables. Her sister would never appreciate a man like Killian Kincaid who could keep a sheen of respect over whatever less than above board tendencies that dwelled within him.
The Boot Hill Express: Special Edition HBH Version (Half Breed Haven Book 12) Page 23
