by Sharon Ihle
"Is there a problem," Kate asked, "with me bringing her and all?"
Hawke shrugged. "Not for me, there isn't. I don't know what neighbor asked Caleb to get him a wife, but if that's what he wrote in his letter, I guess that's what he wanted. He'll make room for her, I expect." Again he pointed at the baggage. "Both of these yours?"
"Mine and Miss O'Carroll's. Shall we wait for ye and the carriage out front of the depot?"
"No. You'll follow me." Hawke lifted the heavy trunk by one handle, then heaved it over his shoulder. His free hand dangling alongside his hip and the sheath containing his finely-honed bowie knife, he shot both women a smirk. "You two should be able to manage the bag just fine."
* * *
Hawke was a man who believed in keeping lists. In his business dealings, he always kept track of advantages and disadvantages along with possible profits or losses on paper. But when it came to his personal life, the list was usually stored in the back of his mind. That's where he kept the considerably lopsided ledger regarding his friend and mentor, Caleb Weatherspoon.
The man had taken him in as a young boy, taught him the tricks of the trapping trade, and even more important, how to survive on his own whether in the wild or among "civilized" citizens. When it became apparent that trapping could no longer earn a man a decent wage, Caleb took up cattle ranching, leaving Hawke to pursue his life's dream—the building of a horse ranch. He'd always figured that he owed his good friend a lot, so much in fact, he was sure he'd never be able to repay him.
Until today.
Hawke took a sideways glance at the women beside him on the bouncing buckboard, and felt the weight of that one-sided list shift toward a more equal balance. Not only did Miss Quinlin view him as somehow less than human, she hadn't stopped complaining about the hard wooden seat or failed tip groan aloud each time the wagon bumped and thumped on its way out of town and onto the long stretch of rolling prairie which lead to the foothills of the Snowy Range Mountains. What had Caleb been thinking of to offer himself to a woman he'd never met? And which of his neighbors had been fool enough to do the same with the younger gal?
Except for an occasional inquiry as to the types of trees they passed along the way, Miss O'Carroll had been silent. Hawke liked that in anyone, female or male, even though something in this female's voice was compelling, almost musical in its effect upon him. It was probably that Irish lilt of hers, he decided, the delicate sprinkling of an accent which tickled his ears in a way the heavy Gaelic brogue spoken by Miss Quinlin could not. The sound was new and pleasant. A morning's diversion.
Judging Miss O'Carroll by those standards alone—quiet, but possessed of a pleasant speaking voice—Hawke decided that she automatically made the better choice between the two mail-order brides. Even so, the young Irishwoman left a lot to be desired as the wife of any rancher in the rugged, unforgiving mountains of Wyoming. Not only did she appear to be too delicate and meek to winter here, but she behaved as if she'd never been in the great outdoors before, much less the wilderness.
She'd been twisting this way and that throughout the entire journey, studying the clumps of sage and vast meadows with open awe. When a small group of antelope bounded across the path just ahead of the wagon a few miles back, she'd let out a squeal as if terrified to have been so close to such odd beasts. Didn't they have elk, deer, or something close to antelope in Ireland? If prey frightened her, what would she do when faced with a predator?—say a wolf, a bear, or a mountain lion? He almost laughed at the thought, something of a rarity for a man who didn't even feel the need to smile, then thought of Caleb and his impulsive decision to advertise for a bride.
Hawke knew why his friend thought he needed a wife—pure loneliness—and why he decided he had to have one of Irish extraction—to remind him of his dear, faithful mother—but it was crazy to bring women such as these up into these hills, sheer, unmitigated lunacy, no matter how long the winters might be or how lonely the nights. Pure idiocy.
After some eight uncomfortable hours riding beside the Irish ladies, Hawke guided the buckskins down a road that ran parallel to the Little Laramie River. Situated just below the tiny town of Centennial, the river's relatively straight banks were crowded with mountain mahogany and cottonwood trees, a colorful background for Caleb's Three Elk Ranch.
After tying the team to the hitching post out in front of the house, Hawke helped the ladies down off the wagon and hoisted the trunk on his shoulder. Then without so much as a "follow me," again he bid the women to handle the traveling bag themselves, and climbed the wooden stairs to his friend's modest frame home. Rapping twice against the whitewashed door, he pushed it open.
"You up and about, and decent, Caleb?" he shouted into the room. After a moment of grunts and groans, his friend answered.
"I am now. Come on in!"
Hawke stepped into the wide-open room that served as kitchen, dining area, and living room, dropped the trunk on the freshly shellacked floor, then turned and gestured for the ladies to follow him inside.
Nurse Quinlin marched through the door with her head held high, but Lacey, who'd been left with the traveling bag, hung back. After what she'd overheard at the depot, she knew her arrival wasn't expected, and maybe, not even welcomed. She figured she was better off standing out on the porch at least until Nurse Quinlin—whom she was to address as "Kate" from here on out—had made the private introduction of her husband-to-be. Their escort, an unfriendly sort who wore a mountaineer-style hat with an inverted brim that hid most of his dark features, had other ideas.
He marched back through the door, took the grip from Lacey's hand, and snapped at her in a gravelly voice which made her feel like she'd done something wrong.
"Get on in here so I can close the door. Caleb doesn't happen to like flies in his soup."
The man's arrogance and gruff way of speaking were beginning to wear thin, but Lacey was much too new to both the country and her circumstances to do anything but obey him. Keeping her silence, she hurried across the threshold and took up a stance next to a huge pair of antlers that were nailed to the wall. Right behind her, this John Winterhawke pulled off his hat, hung it on one of the antlers, and stopped to stare at her. He held her trapped in his gaze for several moments, his deep-set eyes both green and gray at the same time and watchful, almost predator-like in the way he looked down at her from beneath the prominent ridge of his wide, strong brow. His open perusal of her was so intense and direct, Lacey honestly didn't know where or how she found the courage to keep looking up at him.
But she did.
He had very long hair for a man, long enough that he'd tied the coffee brown lengths into a kind of tail at the back of his neck, leaving it to hang down between his shoulder blades. Lacey had certainly never seen anything like that before, not even during the long journey across the American wilderness by rail! What manner of man was this? she wondered as he abruptly broke away from her and walked over to the stove.
Hawke lifted a pot from the burner and poured himself a cup of coffee. Turning back toward the stone fireplace, he blew across surface of the brew as he addressed his friend. "Is everything in order over there? Got the right woman, and all?"
Caleb, who was stretched out on a long couch positioned in front of the fire, gazed lovingly at his intended. "Couldn't be better, friend. I thank you agin for fetching my darling Miss Quinlin to me."
Kate blushed. Caleb was as rough and Craggy on the outside as a weathered fence post, and he looked to be close to ten years her senior; but there was something about him that stirred her blood and made her feel cherished in a way she'd never known before—not even during the months of illicit trysts she'd had with her first and only true love.
"'Tis I who gives thanks for ye, Mr. Weatherspoon."
Caleb beamed. "See what I mean Hawke? I expect we'll be getting along like two pups in a basket."
Hawke cocked a thumb in the direction of the hat rack. "Three pups unless you've already sent for whoever ordered her."
Caleb glanced Lacey's way then, noticing her for the first time, and started with surprise. "And who might you be?"
Kate answered quickly. "'Tis the friend ye said I could bring along with me. The bride for yer neighbor?"
Caleb, a portly man whose girth was a perfect complement for Kate's apple dumpling figure, gulped audibly. "This here's a, a bride for... aw, dadgummit. I forgot about that. My memory'd make a better sieve these days."
Hawke, who'd shed his thigh-length leather jacket and dropped it on a kitchen chair, strode over to the couch, coffee in hand. "I'm having a hell of a time figuring out just which neighbor asked you to get him a wife. Willard over at Box-T swore off women after that squaw of his went crazy and cut him up with his own knife, and if I remember correctly, Big Jim at Dirt Creek not only has a wife, but she's swollen up with their eighth child. That just leaves those moth-eaten miners around Centennial, and I can't imagine—"
"She's for you," said Caleb, plain and simple.
Hawke froze in mid-sip. Then in slow, molasses-like movements, the coffee cup slipped off the ends of his fingers and shattered against the shiny floor. The hot brew splattered his boots and leggings, soaking through to his skin, but Hawke didn't even flinch.
"Me?" he said, incredulous. "I never ordered me a bride! What in hell's wrong with you, Caleb? Have you lost your feeble mind?"
Caleb stretched himself up as tall as he could, although sitting there with his leg splinted from boot to butt, the gesture didn't add much to his squat stature. "Now don't go getting yourself all riled up," he said, working to calm his friend. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
"It did?" Hawke's gruff voice was booming. "And what time might that have been, friend? I wrote all of your courtship letters for you, but I don't recall scribbling down anything to suggest that I might be on the lookout for a bride!"
Blushing a little, Caleb admitted, "Well, I kinda added the suggestion to the last letter we wrote cause I know what you're a needing even if you don't. I figured what you're a needing, is a wife:"
"Like hell, I am!"
"Ah, if ye'll be excusing me, gentlemen?" Kate's tentative brogue cut into their conversation. "Me thinks I best go have a little chat with me companion so ye can have some privacy."
Pinning his half-breed friend with a purposeful gaze, Caleb said to his intended, "Thank you kindly, Miss Kate. That sounds like a fine idea. Me and Hawke got some straightening out to do."
With that, she maneuvered around the far end of the couch—the end which didn't feature the formidable obstacle in the shape of one Mr. John Winterhawke—and hurried over to where Lacey stood. "I canna believe what a dreadful affair I've got ye into, lass." With one eye on the Men as they argued in hushed tones, she kept her voice to a whisper. "Yer only hope is that my dear Mr. Weatherspoon will sport ye the passage back to Ireland."
"Ireland?" Lacey dug in for a fight. "I'm not going back to the homeland, no matter what happens here."
"But girl!" Kate stared over at the men, her eyes huge. "Haven't ye noticed something... different about Mr. Winterhawke? Me thinks he's one of those wild Indians ye know of 'em, heathens who'd just as soon peel the hair from yer head as pluck the bloom of a fuchsia to trim it."
"You really... think so?" Tremors of both awe and fear raced up her spine. "How can you be so sure?"
"Take a good look at him, lass, see for yerself!"
Needing no further encouragement as she'd been sneaking brief glimpses of the intensely mesmerizing man anyway since the moment they first stepped into the tidy little cottage, Lacey cast a furtive, glance his way. Now that he'd removed the coat from his tall, lean body to reveal a rawhide shirt with fringe which swung down from his elbows, she could see how that, added to his rawhide trousers, colorfully-embroidered leggings, and hat which featured a pair of eagle feathers hanging over the brim, might give credence to Kate's theory.
Lacey had certainly never seen a man dressed in such a manner before, but something more supported the notion that this man might indeed be a wild Indian; his skin was reddish-brown, looking bronzed by the firelight, and he possessed a rather reckless, uncivilized countenance. John Winterhawke had a way of moving which all but said, "go to the devil." That, along with the feral gleam in his eyes insinuating that he might just be the devil, was enough to convince her that he could be the heathen Kate suggested he was.
Lacey shivered at the prospect of calling such a man, "husband," but she vowed not to turn back now. "I-I don't care about Mr. Winterhawke's heritage. I t-think he looks j-just... fine. If he'll be agreeing to marry the likes of me, then I'm staying."
Kate shot her a look of both anxiety and relief, as if she were worried about Lacey, but too eager to be rid of her to argue the point further. "If yer sure ye'll not consider returning to Ireland, lass, I'll do what I can to see that ye and... that the pair of ye are wed."
Across the room and in tones much louder than the womenfolk, the men were still slinging verbal mud at one another. Smarting from his protégé's latest accusation—that maybe he'd gone numb north of his ears—Caleb muttered under his breath, "Well just maybe you've gone blind as a post hole! Have you snuck a good peek at that gal?"
Grumbling to himself, Hawke said, "Isn't much to see of her all wrapped up in that cape the way she is, but I don't care if she's the best looking thing since the spring thaw. I don't want or need a wife!"
"Cape's off," Caleb said in a low whisper. "Take a look at her, have a gander at that nice skin. I'll bet that gal's face is softer than the inside of a school marm's thigh."
"You think so?" Hawke said sarcastically. "I wouldn't know that kind of soft, now would I."
Caleb ignored the reference to the fact that no self-respecting white woman would allow a half-breed to touch her, and went on with his argument. "Just take a look at the gal, damn it. A good look—she's a beauty, Hawke, a real beauty. I swear, if'n I hadn't already made a pledge to Kate, I'd go after that young one myself."
Because Caleb was so adamant, Hawke grudgingly cast a disinterested eye in Miss O'Carroll's direction. What he saw surprised him with its impact, capturing him as surely as he'd captured Phantom, the renegade mustang stallion who now serviced the mares at Winterhawke Ranch. It wasn't just the delicate features he'd noticed earlier beneath the hood of her cape, but the way her hair and porcelain skin set them off. Hawke had never seen a woman with hair the color of a new penny, or skin so smooth and pale. She wasn't beautiful exactly, but stunning and alluring, the kind of woman who made a man stare at her with an almost morbid fascination. Hawke's mind told him to look away from her, that he was making a fool of himself, but for some reason, he couldn't react with his usual swiftness.
"Not so bad after all, eh?" said Caleb, delighted by his friend's response.
Finally able to look away from the young woman, Hawke furrowed his brow. "Yes, she really is very handsome, which makes me wonder—why would a good-looking white woman like that agree to marry a half-breed like me? What do you suppose is wrong with her?"
As Caleb mulled this over, Kate returned. "I hope I'm not interrupting ye, but I thought I'd let ye know that Miss O'Carroll has agreed to uphold her end of the bargain to marry Mr. Winterhawke. I assume that he's in agreement as well?"
Hawke turned on her. "You may as well assume that you never left Ireland, in that case, because—"
"Hold up a minute," said Caleb, cutting him off. "You know I've never called any markers in on you before, Hawke, and I didn't cause I never really figured that you owed me for all I done for you. I done what I done cause I like you and wanted what's best for you. Still do." He leaned back against the arm of the couch, resting his aching back, and leveled his friend with his gaze. "I'm calling in a marker now. I'm asking you to do this one thing for me; give the gal a chance. Give her time to prove herself to you, say till the preacher comes to marry me and Kate."
Hawke groaned. How could Caleb have put him on such a spot? There was no way in hell that he coul
d deny the man his request—not if he wanted to enjoy his peace of mind and the solitude he'd grown to love, that is. He would have to at least look as if he were "giving the girl a chance," whatever that meant. Then, if he lived through it, he would simply declare this unwanted bride as unfit. There was really no other choice.
Speaking quietly and without enthusiasm, Hawke said, "I guess I could give her a try. Just what is it you want me to do?"
Caleb beamed. "Not much. Just test her a little, see if you don't find that having a wife around is a blessing, not a curse."
"Test her?" asked Kate, alarmed. "In what way? I'll not stand for any improper behavior."
"Don't worry your head, Miss Kate." Caleb winked at her, then gave Hawke a meaningful look. "I guarantee you that my friend here won't be compromising your friend in any way. He can be trusted. Ain't that right?"
Hawke nodded, glanced at the young woman who still stood quietly against the far wall, and sighed heavily. "How do you want me to go about this 'test,' Caleb?"
"Why don't you come by tomorrow morning, pick Miss O'Carroll up—and in a wagon by the way—then take her back to your place for the day to see how she'll fit in?"
Again Hawke glanced at the woman, and again he wondered: What's wrong with her? Keeping a puzzled gaze on her, he asked, "Is that all right with you, ma'am?"
Lacey, who hadn't taken her eyes off the Indian since Kate had left her alone, had to glance away so intense was his scrutiny. "'Tis a good idea, I suppose, though I do not know what you'll be expecting of me."
"Not too much." Hawke strode over to the chair where he'd left his jacket, donned it, then proceeded on to the elk rack where he'd hung his hat. "Just the usual things," he said, speaking directly to her as he fit his hat to his head. "Cooking, cleaning, mending, a little help in the barn. Think you can manage those few chores?"
Rising to the challenge she heard in his tone and saw in his unnerving gaze, Lacey set her chin. "In my sleep, Mr. Winterhawke. In the dead of night."
