Christophe stepped closer. His eyes were bright with emotion. “You are strong, ma petite. Much stronger than you look, and far stronger than you consider yourself to be.”
She shook her head. That’s what her mother used to say. “I’m tired of being strong, Christophe.”
Lord Marchand’s gentle sigh drew her attention back. “Through a connection Lord Descantes has established, I have hired a gentleman who will meet you in New York City. I posted a missive with instructions to him this very morning. Lord Descantes will inform him of your date of arrival once that is determined.” A tender smile accentuated the traces of vanished youth about Lord Marchand’s eyes. “According to your mother’s wishes, and in keeping with my promise to her, this gentleman will accompany you to the Colorado Territory, to the last known whereabouts of your father—a town by the name of Willow Springs.”
CHAPTER | ONE
Near Big Hill, Oregon Trail
March 1871
KNEELING OVER A DESOLATE PATCH of drought-ridden valley, Jack Brennan slipped off his hat and briefly closed his eyes. An early morning sun warmed his back and cast a long shadow over the familiar plot of earth. Slowly, reverently, he placed his right hand over the unmarked place.
Moments accumulated in the silence.
A zealous spring breeze swept fine granules of dust over and between his fingers. Without pretense of a marker, this unadorned spot in southeast Idaho held what had once meant everything to him.
He studied the grave that cradled the bodies of his wife and their only child and welcomed the haze of memories that always huddled close when he came back to this place. The place where it had happened. The memories were brief in the reliving, and yet those precious recollections were what had sustained him through his hardest times.
It had taken years, but healing had come. Finally, and completely.
Gradually his gaze was drawn to the lone wild flower sprouting up right where a headstone might have been placed. Braving the desolate landscape, the delicate petals of the yellow owl’s-clover bloom bore the palest shade of its name. Its leaves were sticky to the touch and edged in a fine fur that gave the plant a grayish color. The slender flower lifted heavenward, bespeaking courage and a persistence not easily worn down.
An apt flower to be covering his Mary’s grave.
Jack let out a held breath and surveyed the western horizon, far in the distance, where the brown plains blurred with the gauzy blue of sky. “This will be my last visit here, Mary.” He spoke quietly, relatively certain she could hear him and knowing that he needed to get these things said. One thing he was sure of—if Mary was listening, it was from somewhere other than beneath his feet. Despite knowing that, something had compelled him to return here year after year.
He knew this location as sure as he knew every trail, hill, creek, and riverbed—both dry and running—from here to California and on up into Oregon. He’d traveled the fifteen hundred mile stretch from Missouri to the western territories so many times he didn’t feel at home anymore unless he was on the move. Or at least that’s how it used to be.
Over time, things had changed. He had changed.
In the past thirteen springs of guiding wagons west, he’d made camp at this spot each time, the families traveling under the care of his leadership never having been the wiser. Grief was a private thing. Not something to be hoarded and turned into a shrine as he’d seen others do when they lost a loved one, but rather a formidable adversary to be met head on, without hesitation and with a due amount of respect. Otherwise a man might never find his way through to the other side, where grief became less an enemy and more a venerated, even trusted, teacher.
He scooped up a fistful of dirt and let it sift through his fingers.
Slowly, he stood. “For years, Mary, not a day passed but what you didn’t occupy my every thought. I’d be wishing I could hold you close again, that we could . . . make love just once more, like we did the night we made our son.” He shifted, and sighed. If not for the faded daguerreotype buried deep in his saddlebag, her exact features might be lost to him now. Time had a way of erasing even that which at one time seemed unforgettable.
“Sometimes I try and picture where you and Aaron are, what you’re doing . . . what he looks like now. If he’s a young man approaching full grown, or still the little tyke I carried on my shoulders.” He glanced behind him, remembering.
He’d long since released the guilt of being unable to prevent the ropes from slipping and the wagon careening downhill, crushing the two people he would have gladly given his own life for. Life wasn’t always fair, nor did it repay a person kind for kind. A man didn’t live thirty-eight years on this earth and not learn that early on.
Two thoughts had assuaged his grief. First, believing there was something better waiting after this life. And the second, akin to the first, trusting that the good-byes said on this earth weren’t meant to be forever.
He breathed in the scent of prairie grass and sunshine, and distinguished a pungent scent of musk on the breeze. For good measure, he retrieved the rifle on the ground beside him and scanned the patches of low-growing brush surrounding the area. The gray mare tethered nearby pricked her ears but gave no indication of alarm.
After a long moment, Jack lifted his gaze skyward. He kept his voice soft. “Things have changed so much in the fifteen years you and Aaron have been gone, Mary. It’s not like it was when we first set out. There’re forts and stagecoach stops along the way now. Miles of telegraph wire stretch across the prairie as far as the eye can see.”
If it was quiet enough, he could sometimes hear the whining hum as messages zipped along the woven strands of copper from one side of the country to the other.
It seemed as though the Union Pacific rarely paused for breath these days. Journeying from Missouri to California used to take four months of slow, arduous travel. Now it took two weeks by rail. Many of the railroad lines, such as the Santa Fe, had built tracks directly over the old dirt trails, replacing them forever. All of these things combined, though good in their own right and an indication of a growing country, signaled the end of his livelihood—and the end of an era.
“This country’s changed, Mary, and I’ve had to change with it.” He looked away for a moment. “I used to see your face in a crowd and my heart would about stop right then and there.” He shook his head. “ ’Course it wasn’t you. I knew that. It was just someone who favored you.”
But that hadn’t happened in a long time, which made him even more confident that his decision to return one last time was the right one.
He slapped his hat on his thigh, sending out a cloud of dust, then slipped it back on. “I’ll always carry you in my heart, Mary. Same goes for you, son.” He thought back to the morning Aaron was born. Losing a wife and losing a child carved deep, but very different, scars. He’d be hard-pressed to define which loss had borne the greater burden through the years, but it went against the nature of things for a parent to bury their child. Of that he was certain.
“Part of me thinks you’ve been waiting a long time for me to do this, Mary. And that maybe you’ve even been encouraging it somehow, but . . .” He cleared his throat. His heart beat a mite faster. “I’m movin’ on. I sold our land up in Oregon a while back. I just never could settle down there without you and Aaron with me. Didn’t feel right somehow.”
Mary’s soft-spoken ways had made it hard for her to express her feelings the first time their opinions had differed. “You always said my stubborn streak was as thick as the bark on a blackjack, Mary Lowell Brennan.” He eyed the wild flower again, smiling. “But you’d be surprised at the patience God’s taught me through the years.” And what a difference living with you, even for those three short years, made in my life.
Bowing his head, Jack offered up a final wordless good-bye.
He walked to the mare and loosened the tether, then swung into the saddle. He sat astride and studied the scene that lay before him, wishing he possessed the ab
ility to capture such landscapes on paper. He’d even purchased a sketch pad and pencils a few years back—to fill up some of the lonely nights on the trail. And though he could draw enough to get his point across, sketching with any sense of artistry was a talent that clearly eluded him, and therefore was one he admired all the more. To be able to capture how the young spring grasses, barely calf high, bent in the wind as though bowing in deference to the One who created them—and how the prairie, though seemingly flat for mile upon endless mile, actually rose as it stretched westward, in gradual measures until finally reaching the foot of the great Rocky Mountains, where a new beginning awaited him. At least that was his hope.
The gray mare shifted beneath him.
Jack leaned down and gave her a firm stroking, smiling when she whinnied in response. “Steady, girl. We’re ’bout ready.”
When guiding his last group of wagons from Denver to Idaho, then on to Oregon last summer, he’d met a couple by the name of Jonathan and Annabelle McCutchens. About a week into the journey, Jonathan had taken ill, and they’d been forced to leave him and his wife behind. But the day before that happened, Jonathan had asked him to mail a letter, and had told him about the town of Willow Springs.
As Jack turned the mare westward and nudged her flanks, Jonathan’s words replayed in his memory as though it were yesterday.
“I didn’t find what I came looking for in that little town, but I discovered what I’d been missin’ all my life.”
Jack urged the mare to a canter and, sensing her desire, gave her full rein. One of the first things he planned on doing when he reached Willow Springs was to deliver the letter in his pocket from Annabelle to a preacher by the name of Patrick Carlson and his wife, Hannah. He’d been given specific instructions to hand it to them personally and had gotten the distinct impression that Annabelle wanted the three of them to meet. He looked forward to it.
The next thing he wanted to do in Willow Springs was to visit the banks of Fountain Creek and pay his last respects to Jonathan McCutchens, who had died on the trail. Passing through Idaho, Jack had taken the opportunity to visit Annabelle and her new husband. Thinking of that visit again brought a smile. He couldn’t help but think of how much Jonathan McCutchens would have approved of her choice.
Just as he would approve of Jack’s right now.
Something in the way Jonathan had spoken about the town, about what he had discovered there, had kindled a spark of curiosity inside him. Jack needed a fresh start, and he hoped he might find it in a little town tucked in the shadow of Pikes Peak.
CHAPTER | TWO
Willow Springs, Colorado Territory
April 5, 1871
VÉRONIQUE WAS THE LAST to exit the stagecoach in Willow Springs. She’d scarcely stuck one booted foot out the door before a group of half a dozen gentlemen—and she used that term loosely—were already at her disposal, hands extended, smiles expectant. A bit too expectant.
She chose the one man out of the fray who she knew truly fit the description—the garrulous older gentleman who had served as her escort from New York City all the way to this vast, barren wilderness these Americans had the good humor to call the Colorado Territory. If by territory they meant a vacuous, drought-ridden, desolate piece of God’s earth, then they’d chosen the correct term. With one unapologetic exception—
The grand range of rugged mountains so proudly scaling the western horizon.
One peak in particular rose in confident splendor, towering over all else in its shadow until it surely crested the threshold of heaven. The highest summits sat shrouded in a fresh falling of snow, which wasn’t surprising with the lingering chill in the air. Breathtaking beauty! And she had to admit that the air smelled so fresh it tingled her lungs—quite the opposite of the cloistered air in Paris that trapped the smells of decay and détritus.
“Watch your footin’ there, miss.” Monsieur Bertram Colby grinned as his callused hand engulfed her small gloved one. “This first step’s always a mite big for someone your size.”
Holding her unopened parasol, Véronique managed to gather the folds of her skirt in one hand and place her foot on the rickety stool. After three weeks of traveling in Monsieur Colby’s care, she’d grown accustomed to the man’s usual warning and was able to keep her balance with his aid. Though her first impressions of Americans had been left wanting—on the whole she found them to be brash, boisterous, and far too outspoken—she readily admitted that Bertram Colby had proven to be every bit a gentleman, regardless of his rough exterior.
“Thank you most kindly, Mr. Colby.” Véronique detected the twinkle in his eyes. “Merci beaucoup, monsieur,” she added more softly, rewarded with the expected raise of his brow.
He gave a hearty nod. “I sure like it when you talk your own way, ma’am. It’s right pretty, and surely becomes you.”
Several of the men standing nearby nodded in unison, right before their collective attention moved from being focused on her face to an area considerably lower, and behind—to her bustled skirt.
Véronique glanced down at the ensemble she’d chosen that morning. Though she’d grown more accustomed to the attention her clothing drew, she still felt uncomfortable with it. The jacket with floral appliqués, and the ornately-bowed skirt, once an eye-catching emerald green, had taken on a decidedly duller hue with layers of dust coating it. Numerous women had paid compliments on the bustled style of her dresses. More so the farther west they’d traveled. They had also commented on her feathered chapeau trimmed in ribbon and ostrich feathers, which she wore fashionably angled over one brow. Some insisted they’d never seen such elegant fashions.
But the only reaction she’d received from any of the opposite gender were overlong stares. Though much was different in this new country, it seemed some things never changed.
With a tilt of her head, she acknowledged the men gathered round, not wanting to appear rude but neither wishing to encourage future discourse. With a practiced flourish, she opened her parasol, then lightly brushed at the dust clinging to her skirt, with little success. No doubt the skirt and jacket were ruined.
“Don’t you worry about that dress, miss.” Monsieur Colby delivered a look to the other men saying that she was not to be pursued— a look he’d well mastered—and guided her across the street to a three-story building bearing the name Baird & Smith Hotel. He kept his hand beneath her elbow. “There’s a woman here in town who takes in laundry. She scrubs the daylights outta my clothes and they come back good as new. She’ll have that fancy getup of yours cleaned and fresh as spring—I guarantee it.”
Véronique smiled as she climbed the steps to the boardwalk. “I appreciate that, Mr. Colby,” she answered, all the while imagining the aforementioned laundress dunking her fine garments in a filthy washbasin and “scrubbin’ the daylights out of them,” as he had so aptly described it.
With silvered-dark hair and full beard, Bertram Colby was an impressive-looking man, in a rugged way, and was no stranger to this untamed life. Though far from the gentil, cultured men she’d known back home, Monsieur Colby’s polite character was beyond question. She guessed him to be around sixty, but couldn’t be certain. The deep lines of his tanned face bore silent testimony to his countless miles of experience as a “trail guide,” as he called himself, in this sun-drenched territory. And one thing was indisputable—Monsieur Colby bore the kindest countenance she’d ever seen. He always looked as though he were waiting for another reason to smile.
He nodded toward the hotel. “You go on inside and get your room. I’ll see to all your trunks.” Taking the steps from the boardwalk down to the dirt street—not a cobblestone to be found, she noticed— he threw his parting words over his shoulder. “You can get settled and rested up before supper, and then I’ll take you to Myrtle’s for some good eatin’.”
She offered her thanks but doubted he heard her over the noise of the street traffic. Pausing for a moment, she watched him move through the crowds. As he nodded to men and tipp
ed his hat to women, Véronique saw every one of his gestures returned. He had a definite way with people, a natural ease with them. It was an attribute she greatly admired and wished she possessed to a greater degree. She’d grown more reserved in recent months, despite having been relatively confident in her abilities back in Paris.
Never one to second-guess herself before—it seemed now a daily occurrence.
Bertram Colby had proven to be a most satisfactory traveling partner over the past three weeks, even if his informal nature breeched her level of comfort on occasion. She’d found these Americans to be far less inhibited in their conversations, and if there was one thing Monsieur Colby was overly fond of, it was conversation. But as a newcomer to this country, she’d found his stories both entertaining and enlightening, though right at the moment she would have traded every last pâtisserie in Paris for a hot bath and a moment absent of chatter and curious stares.
Thoughts of those sweet pastries from home served as a reminder that she hadn’t eaten since that morning. The food offered along the stagecoach route had been tasteless fare, either undercooked or over, and unfit for consumption—which described most of the entrées they’d been served since leaving civilization back East. Surely her stomach had forgotten how it felt to be full and contented.
Véronique retracted her parasol and entered the hotel lobby, thankful to find the establishment clean and orderly looking. The hotel’s furnishings were simple but tastefully coordinated, a welcome change from the roadside inns they’d frequented along the stagecoach routes.
A young girl entered from a side door adjacent to the registration desk. Her arms were loaded with folded bedding, and from her intent expression she was clearly focused on her task. She brought with her a delicious aroma that smelled like freshly baked bread. Véronique’s mouth watered at the thought of a warm slice smeared with fresh butter and a side of fresh berries with cream—a treat she and her mother had often shared in the evenings.
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