Heartbreak Creek

by Kaki Warner

  Declan was desperate to see Ed again but dreaded that homecoming, knowing as soon as he rode up with Sally, everything would change.

  “Well, this is odd.” Maddie frowned at the letter she’d been studying ever since bellboy Billy had brought it to the room several minutes earlier. The ladies were in the habit of taking breakfast in Lucinda’s quarters, preferring the privacy and quiet there to the constant interruptions whenever the hotel owner was downstairs. “What do you make of it?”

  Lucinda took the missive and read it over, pausing on the signature at the bottom. “Who is Reginald Farnsworth Chesterfield?” she asked, passing the letter on to Edwina.

  “My publisher.”

  Lucinda poured more coffee into her cup, then set the silver pot back on the hot tray. “Do you have any idea who this person is that he says has been asking about you?”

  “ ‘Tall, overbearing, unpleasant,’ ” Edwina read, then handed the letter back to Maddie. “Sounds like someone you’d do well to avoid.” Picking up her fork, she cracked off the top of the softboiled egg perched in her eggcup. “A devotee of your work, perhaps?”

  Maddie stared off into the distance, a frown drawing a ridge between her auburn brows. “Perhaps.”

  “Luckily your publisher didn’t tell him where you were.”

  “However, he did say that the man was ‘persistent and determined,’ ” Edwina reminded her. “Which he certainly proved by tracking you to your publisher even though you aren’t signing your photographs with your full name. So I shouldn’t be surprised if he showed up here.”

  “Most curious,” Lucinda mused, nipping off the corner of a toast point.

  “Well,” Maddie said, brightly. “I shall simply have to see that my little gypsy wagon is finished as soon as possible. That way, if he does track me to Heartbreak Creek, I shall be long gone on my photographic expedition. Could you please pass the sausages?”

  Lucinda rolled her eyes as she passed them over. “Pray tell me you aren’t still insisting on heading into the Rocky Mountains alone.”

  Maddie shrugged. “How else will I find trappers, and mountain men, and miners, and buffalo hunters, and suchlike. Besides, I won’t be alone. Wilfred Satterwhite is coming with me for protection.”

  Lucinda reared back in astonishment. “Wall-eyed Willy? You might as well take a corpse. The man must be ninety.”

  “He’s a spry seventy-three.” Maddie chewed a bite of sausage, swallowed, then grinned. “But not too spry, if you take my meaning. I would hate to have to fend off unwanted advances.”

  Just the idea of Wall-eyed Willy advancing on anyone with amorous intent gave Edwina the shudders. “Perhaps Declan will lend you Chick or Amos,” she suggested. “They’re rather at loose ends here in town, and both are deathly afraid of women.”

  Lucinda looked at her over the rim of her coffee cup. “Isn’t Chick the one with the rather distinctive odor?”

  “Sadly so. But he—”

  Edwina broke off as footfalls pounded down the hall, then all three women flinched when the door burst open with such force it bounced against the wall.

  “They’re back!” Joe Bill shouted. “R.D. saw the soldiers coming! Pa, too, and he’s got someone with him!”

  “Pru!” Bolting from the table, Edwina ran out the door on the heels of Joe Bill. As they cleared the narrow rear hallway and passed the open mezzanine that overlooked the lobby, Edwina called over the railing to R.D., who stood in the open double doors into the hotel. “Do you see him? Does he have Pru?”

  R.D. nodded and grinned. “I think so.”

  “Pa!” Brin hopped up and down on the boardwalk, the overlarge hat her father had given her falling down to her nose with each bounce. Shoving it back, she grinned to Lucas beside her. “Look! It’s Pa!”

  Edwina clattered down the stairs, Lucinda and Maddie close behind, charging through the door just as the troopers filed past. At the rear of the column was Declan, his wide shoulders obscuring the figure riding double behind him.

  “Pa! Pa!” his children chorused.

  Safe. Edwina felt such a sudden and overwhelming surge of relief her legs began to shake. Tears burned in her eyes, and she had to press her hand to her mouth to keep from bursting into sobs right there on the boardwalk in front of everyone.

  Thank you, God, thank you.

  Declan reined in at the hitching post in front of the hotel. He looked worn and weary and dusty and was such a joy to Edwina’s eyes she almost leaped off the boardwalk and into his lap.

  Then his gaze met hers, and she saw the pain and anguish in his eyes and knew instantly that something was wrong.

  Please, not Pru.

  Dread building, she glanced at the figure slumped behind her husband. “P-Pru? Is she—”

  “She’s all right,” Declan cut in, his voice hoarse with weariness. “She’s fine. She’s with Thomas. She’s all right.”

  “B-But . . . then who . . .”

  Joe Bill stepped to the edge of the boardwalk, his body rigid, his whole being focused on the figure who clung to Declan’s arm as she slid down from behind the saddle.

  A woman. Blond. Dressed in a tattered, filthy buckskin dress.

  “Ma . . . ?” R.D. moved up beside his brother. “Ma, is that you?”

  Ma?

  The woman turned.

  Edwina saw a thin, sun-browned face haloed by flyaway blond hair, eyes the same hazel as Joe Bill’s, a smile that matched Brin’s.

  Her heart began to pound. A buzzing rose in her ears.

  “Yes, darlings. It’s me.” Bending, the woman held out her arms.

  Edwina stood frozen as the children rushed past and jumped off the boardwalk, her mind unable to grasp what was happening.

  Ma?

  Her lungs seized. Something pressed against her chest. Openmouthed and gasping, she looked at Declan, saw the terrible truth in his eyes, and her mind spun away.

  Somehow she made it to her room. Her chair.

  Maddie and Lucinda hovered close by, Maddie flapping a hanky in her face, Lucinda trying to get her to drink from a glass.

  The door opened. Heavy footfalls crossed the floor, and the next instant, Declan’s strong, hard arms scooped her from the chair and held her curled body tight to his chest.

  She smelled sweat and dust and Declan and turned her face into his neck, breathing him in.

  His heart pounded against hers. Bristles scraped her temple and warm breath fanned her cheek as he stood rocking her in his arms and whispering softly into her ear.

  “I’m sorry, Ed. I’m sorry. I love you.”

  She clung tighter and let the tears come.

  He held her that way a long time, until her tears were spent and his arms began to shake. Lifting her face from his neck, she pressed a salty kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Put me down before you drop me,” she whispered and kissed him again.

  After he lowered her back into the chair, he sagged into the other one, his elbows resting on his knees, his long fingers threaded through his dark hair. “Christ amighty,” he muttered to the floor. “Jesus Christ amighty.”

  “Is there anything we can do, Mr. Brodie?”

  Edwina had forgotten Maddie and Lucinda were still there. She sent up a grateful smile when Lucinda held out a half-filled glass of whiskey.

  Taking it, she leaned forward and stroked a hand down Declan’s arm, felt the ripple of tension there as he looked up. His beautiful eyes were as bleak and tortured as a cornered animal.

  “Here,” she said, and held out the glass.

  He took it, tossed back the liquid in a single gulp, then set the empty glass carefully on the table beside the chintz chair. With a nod of thanks toward Lucinda, he slumped back.

  “Where are the children?” Lucinda asked.

  “They’re with her.”

  “Do they need anything? Does she?”

  He shrugged, rubbed a hand over his face. “Doc Boyce left her some medicine. Said he’d come by tomorrow with a tonic.”
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  Edwina frowned in confusion, unaware that the doctor had been called. Or that the woman was here at the hotel.

  The woman. Sally. His legal wife.

  A hard knot of despair swelled in her throat.

  “She’s got consumption.” His voice was weary. Defeated.

  “Oh, dear,” Maddie murmured.

  “How bad?” Lucinda asked.

  “Bad. A few months. Years, maybe. More if she goes to the desert. Apparently it’s fairly common in the encampments. Lone Tree made her nurse his mother who died of it several months ago.”

  Years? The desert?

  As if sensing her mounting despair, Lucinda rested a hand on Edwina’s shoulder. “Are the children at risk?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll talk to Doc tomorrow. Christ, what a mess.”

  Edwina sat numbly as the reality of the situation pressed like a weight against her chest. He would never leave a dying woman. He wouldn’t abandon the woman who had borne his children. She knew Declan. She knew the kind of man he was.

  I’ve lost him.

  The realization made her throat burn and her mind reel. She sat shivering, wanting to rage at God for the cruelty and unfairness of it.

  I’ve lost him.

  Lost him to a woman who didn’t even love him—a woman who cast him aside for another man, and who took money to leave her children behind—a woman who would bind him to her with chains of guilt.

  The pain of it stole her breath away.

  She looked over to find him watching her, his haunted eyes filled with sorrow and regret.

  No! Don’t do this! She wanted to shake him. Make him listen. You don’t deserve a loveless life. Nor do I!

  Fearing she would burst into tears again, and knowing that would only add to Declan’s burden, she took a deep breath, let it out, then forced a smile. “Tell us about Pru.”

  Twenty

  “She’s different than I remember,” Joe Bill muttered, hanging his trousers on the bedpost of his and Lucas’s bed in the boys’ bedroom of the suite they shared with Edwina and Brin.

  “She’s sick.” R.D. plopped down on his narrow cot between his brothers’ bed and the wall. “Besides, you were barely six when she left. You probably don’t remember her much at all.”

  “I remember she cried a lot.” Lucas tugged off a boot and dropped it to the floor. “I thought she was mad at me. She said she wasn’t, but after she left, I wasn’t sure.”

  “No one was mad at you, Lucas,” Declan said, stepping into the room. He’d been standing in the hall, trying to get the energy to go in and reassure his sons. But he’d felt so drained he didn’t know if he could face their questions, until he’d heard Lucas trying to take the blame for his mother’s defection.

  Lucas looked up, his brows scrunched in worry. Seeing that troubled frown back on his son’s face made Declan realize he hadn’t seen it in a while. Not since Ed came, in fact. “Then why was she crying, Pa?”

  “Who knows?” Declan lifted the covers for Lucas and Joe Bill to slide in, then reached down to ruffle his youngest son’s light brown hair. “Women do that sometimes. They’re emotional that way.”

  “Not Ed,” Joe Bill defended.

  “No. Not Ed.” Not usually, anyway. “What’s this?” he asked, pointing to two unfamiliar shirts draped over the foot rail.

  “Ed gave them to us,” R.D. said.

  “Said she meant to give them to us before Brin’s birthday,” Joe Bill added. “But she was so worried about you and Pru she forgot. I think maybe she figures since she’s not our ma anymore she’d better give them to us now before . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “Before what, son?”

  Joe Bill shrugged and fussed with the covers. “I don’t know.”

  “And look what she gave me.” Lucas held up a book. “It’s about watches. She said once I read it all, I could probably fix her pa’s watch. It has lots of pictures.”

  Declan felt a jolt of unreasoning anger. Even now, in the midst of this terrible situation, Ed was thinking more about his children than their own mother was. “That was nice of her.”

  “Yeah.” Lucas studied the book. His grin faded. “What’s going to happen to her, Pa?”

  “To Ed?”

  “Now that our real ma is back, does she have to leave?”

  “I don’t want her to leave,” Joe Bill burst out, not meeting Declan’s gaze.

  Surprised, Declan sank down onto the foot of the bed. “You want her to stay? Even though she’s crazy?”

  “She’s not that crazy. Not crazy in a crazy way, anyway.”

  “Maybe Ma will go instead,” R.D. offered.

  Declan looked over at him. “Why do you say that?”

  R.D. shrugged.

  But Declan knew his son well and knew evasion when he saw it. And with sudden sharp clarity he realized that R.D. had known about his mother all this time, and had known that Sally had run off with another man before being attacked by Indians. Declan hadn’t told the children that, not wanting them to know the mother they loved had abandoned them, and it saddened him that R.D. had carried that knowledge around for the last four years.

  “You could turn Mormon,” Joe Bill suggested.

  Declan blinked at the notion. Earlier this spring, a Mormon family had been stranded by North Creek with a busted wheel. Declan had put Amos and Chick in the barn so the family of three wives and six kids could stay in the bunkhouse while the husband rode into Heartbreak Creek to have the smithy fix the rim and make a new hub. Joe Bill had become fast friends with the oldest boy, and had thought it highly unfair that the poor kid had three moms bossing him around. “You could keep both our moms if you turned Mormon.”

  Declan bit back a smile, picturing how hot-tempered Ed would take to that suggestion. “I think being Mormon is more complicated than that. At any rate, it’s not something you children need worry about.” Rising from the foot of the bed, he said, “I have to do my sheriff rounds now, so keep an eye on Ed and your sister until I get back.”

  “Our other ma, too?” Lucas asked.

  “Her, too.”

  When Declan went downstairs, he found Lucinda Hathaway and Aaron Krigbaum, the mine owner, deep in conversation in the lobby. When Lucinda saw him on the stair, she beckoned him over. “Mr. Krigbaum says he’s closing the mine.”

  Declan sighed. Was there no end to the bad news? Now, in addition to trying to manage two wives, four fretting children, and keeping an eye out in case Lone Tree came sneaking back into town, he would have two dozen angry, out-of-work miners to contend with. Wearily he lowered himself into one of the stuffed chairs arranged around a low table on which a potted plant spread lacy fronds in all directions. “When?”

  “Soon. This vein is played out.” Krigbaum picked up a spittoon made out of a tin can with a wire handle, pinged a stream of tobacco juice against the bottom, then returned the cup to the floor beside his chair, unmindful of Lucinda Hathaway’s look of distaste. “Heard they found placer gold along the Alamosa River. Several of my miners have already headed into the mountains, hunting the mother lode. Soon as they find it, I’ll be moving my equipment up there. Just wanted you to know.”

  “Thank you for keeping us informed, Mr. Krigbaum,” Lucinda Hathaway said.

  Declan seconded that with a nod, wondering how Lucinda Hathaway became one of “us” and who the “us” was. Not that it mattered anymore. Without the mine, the town was dead. He’d be out of a sheriff job he had never wanted, and the ranch would be that much farther from supplies.

  “Well.” With a sighing groan from his lungs and a grateful creak from the chair, Krigbaum pushed his considerable bulk to his feet. “Best be heading home. Cynthia fixed beef tonight. Helluva cook.”

  “Don’t forget . . . that.” Lucinda motioned to the spittoon.

  “Right.” With another groan, Krigbaum bent and picked it up. “Ya’ll take care now.”

  After the double doors closed behind him, Declan said, “I guess that’ll be
the end of Heartbreak Creek.”

  “Not necessarily, Mr. Brodie. If you have a moment, I’ll tell you how I think we can keep this little town alive and prospering.”

  It was past midnight when Declan finished his rounds with his new deputy, Buck Aldrich. Buck was a capable, intelligent young man who had lost his left hand in an accident up at the mine. He had worked for a time in the mercantile, but with people moving out, business had dwindled, and Cal Bagley had let him go a month past. The young man was grateful for the deputy job and took to it well, since it required more brains than hands and would allow him to stay in the Heartbreak Creek canyon his family had called home for over twenty years. It also worked well for both of them that with no wife or house of his own, he was able to take up residence in the back room of the sheriff’s office, thus freeing Declan from night duty.

  “I’m only guessing Lone Tree will actually come here,” Declan said as they headed toward the hotel after making their stops throughout the slumbering town. “All we can do is be on the lookout for any strange horses tied up where they shouldn’t be, especially at night. I doubt he’d ever come into town in daylight.”

  “And you think if he does come, he’ll head straight for you?”

  Declan nodded. “Which is why we’ll be staying at the hotel until this is finished. It’ll be easier to defend. Chick and Amos are taking turns keeping an eye on the house.”

  Stopping outside the double doors into the hotel, he added, “I found the telegram you left in the office from Judge Witherspoon. He’s supposed to be through here tomorrow sometime. Let me know if you see him before I do.”

  “Yes, sir.” The younger man pulled off his hat, tucked it under his shortened left arm, then scratched his blond head with his right hand. As he replaced the hat, he nodded to the stump where his left hand should have been. “This arm still pains me some, Mr. Brodie, so I’m a light sleeper. You need me, fire a round. I’ll hear you from the sheriff’s office and come running.”