by Anna Schmidt
“Apparently, he is Chet Hunter’s son,” she said as she turned back toward the house.
“How? Why? When?” Roger was sputtering, but she did not answer him. She was not the one who needed to explain anything. That was a job for Chet Hunter.
* * *
Chet was beat, but he couldn’t afford sleep yet. Turnbull had as good as admitted that he’d had a hand in Joker’s disappearance, and that was news that Chet intended to get to the marshal in Whitman Falls as soon as possible, proof or not. His plan was to wait until the rest of the men were sleeping and then slip into town. He could find the lawman, give him the information, and be back in the bunkhouse before the others were up.
But once the herd was settled and he and the others headed for the bunkhouse, he had a gut feeling that all was not right. In the first place, he would have expected somebody from the family to be out in the courtyard to welcome Trey home and hear about his adventures, but there was no sign of any of the Porterfield women. Instead, he spotted a young Mexican woman he had never seen before in the courtyard feeding a baby. She turned away as he rode by, shielding her exposed breast and the child from him.
Could be Juanita and Eduardo’s daughter, he thought. But Rico had never mentioned having a sister and surely Eduardo would have bragged about his beautiful daughter. He kept riding until he saw Turnbull’s horse in the corral. That was odd because the foreman usually left his horse to graze and take water closer to the anteroom off the main house.
He had just pulled the saddle off his horse and placed it on the top rung of the corral fence when he heard a cry of sheer agony from the house. Without any thought for whether or not he should be the one to respond, he took off running.
Apparently, the young woman with the baby had also gone inside to see what was happening, for the courtyard was deserted, as was the kitchen and living room. Chet followed the sound of consoling voices and anguished sobbing drifting from a room at the end of a long hallway. He moved closer. He told himself he only wanted to be sure no one was hurt, but the truth was that he feared that somehow those cries were coming from Maria, and if that was the case, he wanted—no, he needed—to make sure that she was all right.
The door was open enough for him to see part of the gathering inside. Constance Porterfield was on the bed, propped up on pillows, fully dressed, and thrashing about. The cries came from her. Juanita kept trying to dab her face with a cloth while Amanda sat on the side of the bed, stroking her mother’s hands. Maria stood just inside the door, her back to Chet.
“It’s true?” Constance choked out the words even as her eyes pleaded for her daughters to deny whatever she’d been told.
“Yes, Mama, but it did not happen while the men were rounding up the herd. Papa died weeks ago. You’ve been ill and…”
“But I was with him—twice at the creek. I was with him just before…”
“That was not Papa. You only thought it was. You wanted so much to believe that—”
“Then who was that man? And do not tell me it was Roger Turnbull. I would never mistake my Isaac for Roger.”
“No,” Maria said. “It was not Roger. It was the new man—the drifter.”
“It was the baby’s papa,” Juanita added as if that explained anything. She motioned someone closer, and Chet watched as the young Mexican woman laid the baby in Constance Porterfield’s arms. “Remember?” Juanita said softly. And as if a candle had been blown out, Constance seemed to forget all about her grief as she focused all her attention on the child. “Hello,” she crooned. “Hello, little Chester.”
Chet’s heart skipped at least a couple of beats as he tried to come to grips with a world turned suddenly upside down. The women had talked about him being the man by the creek but also about him being the kid’s pa, and now they were calling the infant “Chester.” What the devil was going on here?
Behind him another door along the hallway opened, and he heard a voice he had hoped he would never hear again.
“Could someone please get me some water? This heat is suffocating me and…”
He turned and found himself not ten feet away from Loralei Culpepper. She stepped fully into the hall, dressed in a flowing nightgown and wrapper, staggered toward him and collapsed in his arms. “At last,” she whispered just before she fainted.
* * *
What now? Maria thought wearily when she heard the commotion in the hallway. She glanced at Juanita, who nodded that she should attend to this latest crisis, and left the room.
When she stepped into the hallway, closing her mother’s bedroom door behind her, she saw Chet holding Loralei. Her initial reaction to the sight of him looking up at her like some small boy who had been caught stealing cookies was sympathy, but then she recalled how he had deceived her—and Loralei.
“Well, welcome back, Chet,” she said. “As you can see, your little family has arrived, and we’ve done our best to care for them in your absence.”
“We need to talk,” he said through gritted teeth as he lifted Loralei and carried her back into the bedroom where he deposited her none too gently on the bed. Maria’s instinct was to ignore him and return to her mother’s bedside. But she could not seem to keep herself from moving to the doorway and watching as Loralei apparently regained consciousness and murmured his name even as she stroked his unshaven face.
“Stop that,” he growled, brushing her hand away. The gesture reminded Maria a little of Loralei’s rejection of her child. “What are you doing here, Loralei?” Chet demanded.
Loralei burst into tears and turned onto her side, burying her face in the pillow.
“She has come to bring you your son and to reunite with you,” Maria explained. “Isn’t that right, Loralei?”
The woman offered a muffled whimper of agreement.
“I do not have a son.”
“Really?” Maria clenched her fists. What was it about men that they thought they could get away with blatant lies? Did they truly believe the female of species was that naive? “But you admit you know this woman?”
He ignored the question and came a step closer. Maria held up her hands to stop him. “Just answer the question.”
He ran his hand through his tangled hair. “Look, I don’t know what she’s told you but…”
All of a sudden Loralei sat up and glared at him—once again not a tear was in evidence. “You deserted us, Chester Hunter. Your own child, not to mention me—the woman you professed to love.”
“I have never said anything to you about love, and as for the kid…” He turned back to Maria. “On my mother’s grave, I swear to you that I have never—”
Again Maria held up her hands—this time to stop his words. “You work for the Clear Springs Ranch, Chet. Your private life is your business and your mess to straighten out, and as long as that does not interfere with your work here, you and your family are welcome to stay on. I have settled your…Loralei and the baby and the wet nurse we found in the anteroom, although Loralei has been unwell, so has been staying here for now. In any event, Roger will move to the bunkhouse. And now I need to attend to my mother, who has suffered a great shock today.”
She stalked down the hall, fully prepared to wash her hands of all men. She was reaching for the knob of her mother’s bedroom door when Chet called out to her. “Maria—Miss Maria—please wait.”
She hesitated, then said firmly, “No.” She entered her mother’s room and closed the door.
* * *
“Chester?”
Loralei’s voice was soft and pleading. There had been a time, back in the days when Chet had worked for her family, that Loralei’s childlike plea could get to him. Her father had been a hard man—hard to work for and hard on his family. Sometimes Chet had felt sorry for Loralei because it was clear that her father kept her on a tight rein. He’d gone out of his way to be nice to her, even though he and the other h
ands were fully aware that she was a hopeless flirt who was bound to be headed for trouble one day. And trouble did come—for him.
“Whose baby is it?” he asked, still looking at the door Maria had closed in his face.
“Yours, sugar.”
He wheeled around. There was no way. He had never lain with her—had never even come close. He moved closer to the bed where Loralei was watching him and saw that she was scared out of her wits.
“What’s going on, Loralei? Tell me what’s happened to bring you all this way.”
She tossed her mane of hair and narrowed her eyes. “When Daddy realized that I was with child, he just wanted to make things right for me, Chet.” She nodded her head several times as if trying to convince herself of the lie.
“This is why your pa went so crazy that morning?” He’d been startled awake by the barrel of a shotgun pressed to his chest. Loralei’s father was standing over him, yelling a list of instructions. He was to get his worthless self cleaned up and be at their table for dinner that noon. He was to ask to speak to him privately and ask for Loralei’s hand in marriage. The wedding would be large and lavish, as befitted an only daughter. Chester would be on his best behavior and play the devoted suitor through it all, or he would be killed and his body dumped in the Everglades for the gators to enjoy.
Chet had done the only thing he could. He had agreed, played his part right up until the first chance he had to take off, and then he had run. He wasn’t sticking around to see what a man as hard as her father was capable of once he got a crazy idea in his head. But then men had been sent after him—men who tried to hurt him—and Chet had been too scared to go to his own family, afraid of bringing trouble to their door, so he’d left Florida and never looked back.
Loralei had gone quiet, and he saw that she was watching him closely. “I swear I didn’t mean for it all to get out of hand, Chet. Daddy just…” she said, reaching for his hand.
He let her take it. “Loralei, I don’t know what’s happened, but I know if you are here, then you are in trouble. I will do whatever I can to help you, but we both know that boy is not mine.”
Her face crumpled, and her eyes welled with real tears. “Marry me, Chet, and give him your name. Otherwise—”
“I can’t do that.”
She frowned and glanced toward the door. “It’s that woman, isn’t it? You’ve fallen for her.”
He stood up and moved toward the door, his mind reeling with this new set of problems. “This has nothing to do with her.”
“Oh really. You certainly wouldn’t be the first man to set his sights on the rancher’s daughter, Chet Hunter.” This last was shouted as she picked up a pillow and flung it at him.
“Get some rest, Loralei. We’ll figure this out.” He picked up the pillow and laid it on the bed and then left the room.
As he passed through the kitchen, the young woman he’d seen handing the baby to Mrs. Porterfield was now washing the child’s face and hands. “What’s your name?” he asked gently.
“Ezma,” she replied.
The kid grinned a toothless grin. “And this is?”
“Chester,” she murmured, her thick Spanish accent giving the name a certain beauty.
The kid let out a gurgle of delight and splashed both chubby hands in the pan of water next to where he sat on the table.
“Thank you for caring for him,” Chet said, and he started to leave, then turned back. “He’s healthy?”
“Oh, sí.” Ezma smiled and rubbed noses with the child, bringing a fresh burst of gurgles. “He is a good little boy.”
“Glad to hear it. Gracias, Ezma.” This time, he kept walking out into the courtyard. But behind him he heard Ezma whisper to the child, “That was your papa, little one.”
Bunker and the other hands pretended to be busy with other things when Chet joined them outside the bunkhouse and started to rid himself of the dirt and grime that resulted from weeks on the trail. Bunker was trimming his beard when Chet pumped fresh water into a wash pan and scooped it up with his hands to wash his face.
“You all right, Hunt?”
“I will be,” he grumbled.
Bunker gave another snip of the scissors and then studied his image in the hand mirror. “You thinking of running again?”
“None of your business.”
There was a pause, then another snip of the scissors. “Nope. It ain’t nobody’s business but yours. Just thinking that there comes a time when a man needs to take a stand, and maybe this is your time.” Bunker hooked the scissors back onto a nail and laid the hand mirror on the narrow shelf before starting back into the bunkhouse, crossing paths with Turnbull as he did.
“Well, well, well, Hunt,” Turnbull said when he saw Chet. “How’s your little family doing?”
Chet decided to ignore him. He dumped the dirty water onto the ground and returned the wash pan to its hook. Although the rain had broken the oppression of constant temperatures above a hundred degrees, it was still so hot that his hands and face had dried in the seconds it took to perform this single action. He beat his hat against his thigh to rid it of dust as he started for the bunkhouse door.
Turnbull blocked his way. “I asked you a polite question.”
“As I told you once before, a sister back in Florida is all the family I’ve got, Turnbull, and seeing as how we’ve been out on the trail for some time, it’s been weeks since I’ve had any news from her. So can’t really say. Now if you’ll pardon me…”
“There is no pardon for you, Hunter. You are what I told Maria you were when I first set eyes on you—the lowest of the low. A man who won’t take responsibility when it’s staring him in the face is nothing but scum.”
Chet locked eyes with the foreman. “You done?”
“For now.”
“Then let me pass.”
“Nope. I had Rico move your stuff to the anteroom. You don’t belong here, Hunter. Go play house with your whore.”
Then Chet did the one thing everything he knew about handling men like Turnbull had taught him never to do—he hauled off and punched the foreman in the jaw.
Nine
The sounds of fighting reached the open window where Maria and her sister had finally gotten their mother settled.
“Oh for heaven’s sake,” she muttered as she went to the window to see what all the ruckus was about. She might have guessed. The fighters were Roger and Chet—of course. “Stay with Mama,” she instructed Amanda as she ran out the door, down the hall, past the room where Loralei was preening in front of a mirror, through the kitchen where Ezma was holding the baby as she and Juanita pretended to ignore the fracas in the yard, and out into the blazing hot sun that matched her temper.
“Stop that,” she shouted to no avail, her voice drowned out by the shouts and catcalls of the men encouraging the fight. At least Bunker was restraining Chet’s dog. She passed by the saddle that Chet had left thrown across the corral fence. Spying the sand-colored whip that had become his trademark, she grabbed the leather-wrapped handle and kept walking toward the fight, the long rope of the whip trailing on the ground behind her. “Stop now!” she ordered.
A few of the men closest to her grew quiet and stepped aside to let her pass. Others moved well away when they noticed that she was carrying the whip. Chet and Roger continued to wrestle on the ground, rolling around, landing punches, grunting like pigs. She raised the whip and snapped her wrist the way she’d seen Chet do on those occasions when the men gathered in the yard to entertain themselves with various games and stunts. She heard a satisfying crack as the tail of the whip arched high in the air and fell to earth again.
The sound of the whip was followed by a dead and absolute silence. Roger, astraddle Chet, his fist poised to strike, froze. Chet looked up at her, blood running down his cheek and one eye already nearly swollen closed. Roger didn’t seem to be in any b
etter shape—his lip was puffed up and bleeding, and there were ugly cuts on his face.
“My mother has suffered a great shock today,” Maria announced. “We have only just now managed to calm her. If you gentlemen are determined to beat each other to bloody pulps, please have the courtesy to do so somewhere that will not disturb her or the rest of our family.” She dropped the whip, turned on her heel, and marched back to the house. She had one more task she was determined to complete.
“Loralei,” she said, startling the woman as she entered the room. “I am pleased to see that you appear to have made a full recovery. I have asked Ezma to help move your things to the quarters that you and your—that you and Mr. Hunter will be sharing for the time being.”
“But—”
“We are not having a discussion here. My family has done more than what might be expected for you and your child. Please get dressed so you can tend to the baby while Ezma takes care of moving your things.”
“But—”
Maria reached for the door and pulled it closed. “Half an hour should give you time to dress and gather your belongings,” she called as she continued on down the hall. She was aware of something like a shoe hitting the door, and she was sure the uttered cry of protest might have started with the letter B but was not even close to Loralei’s usual but.
Things did not get any better as the day wore on. Amanda was sure that their mother’s relapse meant the party was off, or at least would be moved to another ranch. Trey was beside himself worrying about Chet and whether or not Roger would fire him. He wrestled with his loyalties to both men but was clearly more upset about Chet’s future than he was about Roger’s dislike of the drifter.
“But how could he not even know he had a son?” he asked that night at supper.
“We are not discussing this, Trey,” Maria said, and every word was laced with a warning not to cross her.
“Besides, we’ve got more important things to worry about,” Amanda added. “What if we can’t have the party? We already set the date and—”
