by Piper, Marie
“A cattle drive?”
“A cattle drive.”
“Jeepers. I’d go out of my head with boredom.”
“Boredom? You left Fort Worth to come here.”
“For your information, this is a fine town. I won’t have you insulting it. Folks here are honest and hard-working.”
“And I’m sure they’ve all just gone out of their way to welcome you.”
“There’s no reason to be cruel. Some folks won’t look past my former profession. That’s their choice. Others, with more open minds, got to know me. In time, I hope more will do the same. Speaking of time, how long were you out there playing at being a cattleman?”
“What day is it?”
“Today is April twentieth.”
Had it been nearly three whole weeks? The whole adventure had flown by, and Emma realized with a start that it was over. She wouldn’t likely be returning to the drive. There would be no more cooking on an open fire with cows and horses wandering aimlessly around. No more cowboys by her side. No more endless land. She pushed aside the sad ache that settled in her heart. Callie expected her to still be The Sparrow, and The Sparrow would never feel sadness over leaving a cattle drive behind. “The days were long, but they went by fast. A cattle drive is the busiest kind of bored there is, I reckon.”
“Reckon?” Callie exclaimed. “You’re even talking like a cattleman.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Emma asked.
Callie folded her arms over her chest. “Each spring, they ride into town and cause nothing but trouble. The McKenzie boys, especially.”
“They’re good men,” Emma argued.
“Andrew McKenzie beat the tar out of Callie last spring,” Haven finally interjected.
The news struck Emma. She’d heard the story of Andrew’s crime, but knowing that the woman had been Callie made it even more personal. Andrew’s vile nature had hurt too many people. “It was you?”
“Yep.”
“And Theo—” Haven closed her eyes, as if she didn’t want to remember. “Theo went after my papa. I tried to stop him, and he came after me. If Matthew hadn’t been there, I don’t want to think about what might have happened.”
“The rest of them aren’t like that,” Emma insisted. “I swear. Pete and Jess, and Saul, they’re good men. They saved my life.”
“Lucky you,” Haven countered. It surprised Emma to hear bitterness in her voice. Something unfriendly lay just beneath the surface. Not for the first time, Emma wondered what had transpired between Haven and Hank.
Callie put a hand on Haven’s leg, and spoke pointedly at Emma. “Cowboys aside, what do you need with Hank?”
“He took my money, as well as my pin—”
“That sparrow pin?”
“Yes,” she replied. “It was from my mother. I want it back.”
“Lord,” Callie leaned back against the wall of the room. “He told me it was from his own mother. I’ll slap him up to Heaven if I ever see him again.”
“I doubt Heaven is where he’ll end up.” Emma slid her whole body down into the tub to wet her hair. The hot water curled around her face, which felt divine. She’d missed hot water more than she’d realized. The soap smelled of lavender; she breathed in the fragrance. Since Hank was no longer in Cricket Bend, she needed to change her plans once again. Could she make the long trip to New Orleans? Did she even want to?
“Have you two known each other long?” Haven asked once Emma had come back up to sitting in the water.
“We barely know each other,” Callie confessed.
“We might have become closer, if you hadn’t run off with my husband.”
“Like I said, he told me you were aware of—”
“He told you lies.”
“I know that now.”
Angry silence filled the steamy room.
Callie tried again. “If you want my advice—”
“I’m not sure I do, honestly.”
“Forget about Hank. Consider the things he took as a loss, and get on with other things.”
“Other things?”
A sparkle shone in Callie’s eyes. “Namely that big, good-looking cowboy out there. The one who looks at you like you fell from the stars and have diamonds between your legs.”
“Callie!” Haven looked wide-eyed at her friend.
“We’re all grown women here.” Callie pointed to Haven’s belly. “Don’t try and tell me you and Matthew are spending your nights chaste and saintly.” She turned back at Emma. “I presume you let Bill keep you warm on those cool nights under the stars?”
Unable to help herself, Emma laughed. “You’re not embarrassed by anything.”
“Never have been.” Callie beamed with pride. “Can’t say I blame you. All of us around here have had the unfortunate experience of encountering the McKenzie boys before, but Bill is far and away the best of all of them.”
If there was one thing in the world Emma knew to be true, that was it. “He is.”
“You keep away from Andrew,” Callie practically growled. “That bastard deserves terrible things.”
“He should have stayed away from me. Had to knock him out, and now Bill’s worried he’s coming here to make some trouble. Ran off from the drive a few days back. Killed a prize longhorn, and started a stampede.”
“Mercy,” Callie whispered. “Anyone hurt?”
Emma shook her head. “Nearly, but no.”
The three women said nothing for a moment, and Emma sat back in the tub. She’d never really be one to have women friends. Was this what it was like? Honest conversations about men and loving, bickering over old feuds, and shared secrets?
There was one secret Emma was dying to know about. She began her inquiry delicately, turning her attention to Callie. “Your son is beautiful.”
“Thank you,” Callie said. “He’s a good boy.”
“He looks like Hank.”
“That’s because Hank’s his pa.”
“Callie!”
“The minute I saw Nate, and his eyes and black hair, I knew. Even now, he’ll give a little smile or squint his eyes, and I see Hank so clearly. He’s the spitting image of the rascal. I’m not surprised you noticed.”
“Hank doesn’t know?”
“I doubt he even knew I was with child, let alone that the child is his. And I intend to keep it that way. My boy will be loved to pieces, and raised right, surrounded by good people. He’ll never have any need of his no-good father. Of course, I don’t need to be telling you. You know better than the both of us what Hank is like.”
When Callie stopped talking, the room fell silent again. Haven picked at her fingernails, fidgeting. Emma pulled her knees up to her chest.
“I’m in need of clothes,” Emma said. She pointed to the pile on the floor. “All I have are those.”
“Those aren’t fit for kindling,” Callie replied. “You’re taller than me, but I have something that might work. Stay right there, and I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Emma took the soap to her shoulders.
Callie left the room.
Emma and Haven sat in awkward silence for a few minutes. Haven fanned her face a bit, before resting a hand on her belly.
“When are you due to have that baby?”
“I got about three more months,” Haven replied. “If I last that long. I’m so tired it feels as if I could sleep for months.”
“Do you keep many secrets from your husband?”
“Very few.” Haven’s eyes turned icy. “I didn’t tell Matthew about the letters because I knew he’d go find Hank and kill him.”
“Does he have a reason to? Were you and Hank lovers?” Emma asked.
“No!”
“I will not hold it against you if you were,” Emma assured her. “I’m sure Hank conveniently forgot to tell you we were married. If he even remembers that himself, which I doubt. He tends to forget things that are inconvenient.”
Haven remained insisten
t. “We were not lovers. We nearly were, but I ran away like a scared colt. I couldn’t do that to Matthew, no matter how confused I was.”
“Does he know that?”
“I told him everything.”
“And he stayed with you?”
“Yes.” Haven spoke with genuine surprise. “Matthew knows I’m not perfect. Everyone does foolish things, things they regret. He was hurt, but he’s forgiven me my indiscretion.”
Emma thought about how badly she’d hurt Bill, which was likely on par with the hurt Haven had dealt Matthew, yet the Franks had gone on to get married, and they were about to have a child. The thought made Emma feel a little hope. Maybe there was a way to fix what she’d done. Maybe Bill could find a way to unclench his heart a little and forgive her, or at least start to.
Haven’s fingers twitched. For all her perfection, the pretty brunette was a terrible liar.
Emma asked a question she already knew the answer to. “You didn’t really burn those letters, did you?”
With no hesitation, Haven came clean. “I hid them. I don’t know why. I’ll get them to you. But you can’t tell Matthew.”
Emma slipped back under the water to rinse the soap from her hair. The world was full of little miracles, and hot water was perhaps the best of them all.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
Bill
Just as the women left the saloon, Bill noticed that Matthew immediately ordered a beer. No doubt the surprise of learning Hank had written to his wife made the man want a drink.
Bill hated bringing trouble.
Matthew Frank was a good man; he was the one who’d brought Theo’s body back to the drive so he could be buried by his family. A year earlier, Bill had noticed something was gnawing at the young deputy. Something had him lost in thought, and cast a shadow over his blue eyes. Knowing what Bill now knew, he wondered how much of Matthew’s trouble had been due to their current confusion regarding Hank Porter.
“New Orleans,” Bill began with a shrug, He carried his own beer to the table where Matthew sat. “That’s a damn sight farther than two days’ ride.”
Matthew’s grip on his mug tightened. “When you run into Porter, tell him, if he ever writes my wife another letter, I’ll find him, and kill him where he stands.” From the coldness of Matthew’s voice, Bill knew he wasn’t lying. Maybe Haven had been smart not to tell him about the letters before. “He caused enough damn trouble while he was here. He doesn’t get to do it now that he’s gone.”
“Understood.” Bill nodded. “I look forward to delivering that message. You want me to deliver it with my fist?”
A small grin appeared on Matthew’s face. “I won’t be mad at you if it happens that way.” He took a drink. “Emma is Hank’s wife. How about that?”
“Yep.”
“Damn.”
“Yep.” Bill reclined in his seat. “He took her money and some other things. Caused her lots of trouble.”
“That’s his way,” Matthew replied. “Trouble every step of the way. Forgive my asking, but are you sure you can trust her?”
It was a valid question; Bill had wondered about it himself. He could tell Matthew the whole story, start to finish, and maybe the deputy could share some insight which would clear Bill’s jumbled thoughts. Maybe Matthew would respond with something that would break down the walls of confusion and set him straight on what exactly he was supposed to do.
“I love her,” Bill said. It was the only answer he had to give.
Matthew understood. “Well, that’s a good enough reason.”
The two men clinked their beers and drank.
“So you’re a husband now, getting ready to be a father, and Callie’s taken over this place.” Bill noted the fine shape the saloon was in. “What’s Braxton up to these days?”
“Wish we knew. A couple months after everything happened, he went off to take a body back for the bounty and never came back. We haven’t heard from him. We’ve got posters out, and telegraphed every operator around, but we haven’t heard anything going on eight months now. It’s like he up and vanished. Or worse.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I liked that grumpy bastard.” He remembered Jack Braxton, scowling and irritable. He’d accompanied Matthew to bring Theo’s body to the drive the year before, and though he’d certainly not been a friend of Andrew’s, Bill had figured he was the kind of man he could trust his life with.
Matthew nodded. “Me too. So, New Orleans.”
“New Orleans,” Bill repeated. “I’ll send a telegram up to Sweetwater. Someone from the drive will get it, so they don’t think we’re lost.”
Matthew stood up. “We got maps of the best routes over at the jail. You want ’em?”
“That would be a big help. Thank you.”
After finishing their drinks and a trip to the jail for a lengthy perusal of the maps, Bill and Matthew studied the routes to New Orleans. Traveling by boat would be easiest, but Bill wouldn’t leave Orion and Maggie behind. It would have to be a land journey on horseback, so they set a route.
Bill bid the deputy farewell and went for a shave, vowing to find a few minutes to get a bath before he left town again. Getting rid of his beard, which he’d grown since the day the drive had let Laredo, felt good. Between that, and the journey that lay ahead, it felt like a new start.
When Bill saw Emma again, she wore newer, cleaner trail clothes. The pants and shirt she wore this time around were obviously meant for a woman; she no longer swam in them. The brown trousers didn’t need a belt to stay up, and the blue long-sleeved shirt she wore clung better to her lean shape. Her hair had been pulled back into a braided twist, and she carried herself with more grace than Bill remembered.
She was the prettiest trail hand he’d ever seen.
“You shaved,” Emma noted.
“I did,” he rubbed his jaw. “You look good.”
“Callie scrubbed me until I thought my skin would bleed,” she answered as she came down the steps toward him. She stopped two steps from the ground, making herself just a tiny bit taller than he was. “And Haven looked at my ankle, says its healed well.”
“That’s good,” he answered. “I figured out our route from here to New Orleans.”
“Our?”
“Yes.”
“I assumed we’d be going our separate ways from here.”
“I told you back in those woods that you were stuck with me until you got where you needed to go. And Cricket Bend ain’t it, it turns out. So, we’re going to New Orleans.”
“We,” she repeated, as if she couldn’t believe what he was saying.
“I’m right here, ain’t I?”
“I wish I knew why.”
“You know why.”
Emma came down the last two steps to the ground. “How long a ride is it?”
“Two weeks.”
She groaned audibly. “If we go all that way, and Hank isn’t there, I’ll kill him.”
Bill nodded. “Not if I kill him first. I figure I’ll stop at Harper’s store and get supplies. It gets greener the more east we go from here, so there’ll be rivers and ponds aplenty, and we won’t have to haul a water barrel. Matthew gave me a route that should cut around some swampland that the horses wouldn’t be able to cross.”
They started walking, side by side, discussing what to purchase for the ride. Rain slickers were a must, as they’d be getting into the wetlands and rain was more common. They’d also need dried beef and pork, and some potatoes and beans. They went behind the buildings, aiming for the stable and the horses. “Did Haven say anything about where exactly Hank is supposed to be?”
“Not yet.”
“You been to New Orleans?”
“Always wanted to go,” Emma said. “I hear it’s like nothing else in the whole world.”
Voices interrupted them—a man’s and a woman’s, both raised. Bill picked out Haven’s voice first. They were about to wind up right in the middle of an argument between the F
ranks. Quickly, he pulled Emma into hiding behind a pile of crates. There wasn’t much room, so she backed against the wall, and he pressed against her. Bill’s hand lay on her waist, and she took hold of his coat to pull him in even more. They stayed still and silent.
“Matthew—”
“Letters. I can’t believe that son of a bitch wrote you letters.”
“Only two,” Haven replied. “And I burned them, I told you.”
“That ain’t the point. I can’t stand knowing he’s still in our lives,” Matthew protested. “That bastard nearly…everything we have he nearly stole away. I worry every day that he’s going to come back and take you away from me.”
“He won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I told him not to. Besides, he can try all he likes. I won’t go with him.”
As they talked, Bill had plenty of time to realize how close he and Emma were, how their bodies were gently pressed together. He felt her breath, and he inhaled the soft floral smell of her hair. Bill slightly shifted his weight, and looked down at her as he did so. She looked up at him, and they found their lips only an inch apart. Damn, but he wanted to kiss her.
Matthew’s voice interrupted them. “Hank might not give you a choice. Wouldn’t put it past him to steal you away, same as he did before.”
“I’m big as a house right now,” Haven retorted. “You can rest easy. It’d take at least two men to lift me, and I pity the poor horse they put me on. Echo can barely handle me these days.”
For a moment, there was silence. Matthew started to laugh. As Bill peeked, Haven kissed Matthew, and he lovingly wrapped his arms around his wife. Bill wondered at the way a husband and wife, who cared for and understood one another well enough that they didn’t have to use words, could be so familiar with each other. An embrace could be forgiveness. A kiss could be a promise.
He’d thought Emma had kissed him with promises.
He wanted to forgive her. With her lips only inches from his, he nearly did right there and then.
“Are you tired?” Matthew asked.
“I’m always tired these days,” Haven answered. “And it’s been a big day. Can we go home?”
Bill watched as Matthew and Haven went off together, arms around each other.
