by Pam Crooks
A brougham and driver were parked in front of the cabin, and Trace stopped short, his thoughts rushing to the Winchester stashed inside. He didn’t even carry a pistol anymore, not since his bounty hunter days were over.
But the man, barely into his twenties and sitting on what passed for Trace’s porch, didn’t act like he had any intention of starting a fight. In fact, he looked bored sitting there, his back against the door with his knees drawn up, holding a smelly cigar. A bowler perched at a cocky angle on his head, and he wore a plaid wool suit with a bright-orange handkerchief stuffed in the jacket’s pocket.
Something familiar about him niggled at Trace’s brain. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, taking the time he needed to pull a name from the depths of his memory.
“Didn’t think you was ever going to get home, McQuade,” the man said.
That slow-talking, nasal twang pulled up a name in a hurry. Trace’s eyes narrowed.
“You gave me a surprise, Johnny,” he said. “How’d you find me?”
“Wasn’t easy, let me tell you.”
No one knew his whereabouts. No one but Sheriff Dowd, who promised to send word to Trace if he ever caught wind of any news about Slick-Shot Billy Hayes.
“Good thing you and Dowd are tight. But then, I’d never have agreed to come out here if you weren’t,” Johnny said.
If the lawman revealed Trace’s location, then he would’ve had good reason. But Trace didn’t push. Didn’t demand answers. He didn’t know yet if he could trust Johnny Wesley, Emma’s misfit cousin.
“Last time I saw you, you were a runny-nosed kid trying to play cowboy in Texas,” Trace said. “Wasn’t having much luck at it, as I recall.”
“Didn’t like being a cowboy much. Changed my ways,” he said.
“Never figured you for a dandy, though.”
Johnny shrugged. “It suits me.”
“How’s Emma?”
“Not good.”
“Yeah?” Trace braced himself. “How do you mean?”
“Not good, as in dead.”
His world tilted. He didn’t breathe. His mind raced to determine if Johnny told the truth—or not.
Trace hoped he wasn’t. Emma was young, much too young ...
Johnny studied the end of his cigar. “She never did recover from that bullet you gave her, you know. Got an infection in her shoulder. She hung on as long as she could, but then”—he shrugged—“it got her in the end.”
His belly roiled. “Sorry to hear that,” he said, meaning it, his voice rough. “Real sorry.”
“She never held it against you, though. She wanted you to know that.”
“She told you?”
“Right before the good Lord took her.”
Trace had no reason not to believe him. He clung tight to the words and the comfort they offered, though they did little to chip away at the guilt that haunted him from having shot a woman.
And now, he’d killed one.
Finally, Johnny stood. “One thing, though. She figured you owed her a favor, considering.”
Trace’s gaze stuck on him like glue to paper. “Favor?”
“That’s right.”
Johnny moseyed over to the carriage and opened the door, revealing, for the first time, a woman inside dressed real fancy, her face painted with enough cosmetics to hint at a less-than-respectable profession.
She handed Johnny something.
Something large and white.
A wicker basket with handles and a pint-sized, sleeping person inside.
Trace nearly choked. He took a quick step back.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” he growled.
“Emma’s daughter,” Johnny said simply, holding the basket toward him. “She wants you to take care of her.”
“Take care—are you crazy?”
“I’m not the crazy one, McQuade. Might be she was. I’m just the messenger.”
Johnny took a step closer. Trace took another one back.
“Who’s the father?” he rasped. “Billy?”
“So she said, though she claimed never to have told him.”
“He deserves to know.”
“You know that. I know that.”
“It’s his kin. He’s the one—”
“You find him, you tell him.” Again, he held out the basket.
“I’ll do that,” Trace said, making no effort to take what was being offered, even though the vow was useless. How long had he hunted for the outlaw? Turned over every rock and searched every shadow, only to fail? To chase a trail long gone cold? “Where is he?”
“No one knows.”
“Mexico? Is he still in Texas? Where is he?” Desperation threaded his voice and shot out the questions, fast and furious. “There’s got to be sign of him. Somewhere.”
“He’s disappeared, McQuade. That’s all I know.” With a martyred sigh, Johnny stepped past him, back to the porch, and set the wicker basket down. He strode back toward the carriage.
“What about her pa?” Trace demanded, his boots rooted to the earth, the shock roaring through him. “He’s kin, too. If anyone has a responsibility to his granddaughter, it’s Bert Wesley.”
Johnny took the knapsack the woman handed to him. “Dear ol’ Uncle Bert is spending a little time in the hoosegow these days. The price he had to pay for the rustling operation he ran with Billy.” He set the bag next to the basket. “And Emma’s poor mother, long gone. No one else but you, McQuade, to take care of her kid.”
Trace’s mind raced, frantic for the perfect solution. “You’re wrong, Johnny.” He willed his voice to turn lower. Softer. More persuasive. “You’re kin. The responsibility falls to you—”
Johnny whirled, holding his hands up, looking aghast. “Hey. Do I look like I want a kid? I don’t want no part of fatherhood, believe me.”
“She’s got your blood, Johnny. You’re responsible—”
“The only part of me being responsible is delivering her to you. Uncle Bert paid me—handsomely, I might add—to get me where I needed to go, and now I’m done. I did my part, and I’m done.”
He pivoted toward the carriage and lifted one foot to the step. Trace lunged and grabbed him by the collar of his dandy-plaid suit coat, but too quick, Johnny twisted and whipped open a switchblade, all in one blinding motion.
“Let me go, McQuade, y’hear me?” he snarled, the gleaming tip inches from Trace’s throat. “Or I slice you to ribbons.”
“You do, you’ll have to take the baby back, won’t you?”
“Nah. I’d just leave you both here to die.”
Trace’s breath rasped in his chest. There was little to convince him that Johnny would do otherwise. In a surge of disgust, he gave up and released him, so roughly the lowlife had to take a quick step to keep his balance.
Johnny shrugged his shoulders, refitting his jacket into place. The switchblade snapped closed again. “You were always a smart one, McQuade, but don’t go getting any ideas about tracking me down. I got friends, and not all of them are nice.”
A litany of curses rose up onto Trace’s tongue, eager to be hurled, but he swallowed them down. Hard. He’d lost this game. He needed time to plan, to figure out a strategy that would enable him to win in the end.
Johnny climbed up into the brougham and slammed the door closed behind him. The driver cracked the reins, and the team pulled away, leaving Trace with a baby on his doorstep and a growing sense of despair over what he was going to do about it.
Chapter 3
If the basket held a tangle of rattlesnakes, Trace couldn’t have been more apprehensive about looking inside.
Sure enough, there was a baby lying there, sleeping, with one miniature fist curled next to her cheek. She wasn’t much more than four or five months old. She had more hair than most, at least compared to other babies Trace had seen. Dark, with ends that curled over her ears and temple.
Slick-Shot had curly hair, too.
The knowledge churned inside Trace. Cruel twist of fate that
the man’s bastard daughter had been forced upon him. Wasn’t it enough the outlaw had stolen the woman Trace once loved, and worse, shot and killed Robbie? Who wouldn’t be angry over it? Who wouldn’t try to refuse?
Trace wallowed in a thick pool of righteous indignation, for sure, but the longer he stood there, the harder it got to pull his stare off the infant. He couldn’t see much of Emma in her, but that part might come out later. Too early to tell what kind of woman she’d be, too. If she’d have her father’s inclination for crime, or if she’d take on a more lawful frame of mind.
Regardless, the baby was innocent of her father’s murdering ways and Emma’s poor decision-making. A miniature human being that, through no choice of her own, now depended wholly and completely on a stranger—on Trace—for survival.
He blew out a breath from the immensity of it.
But he’d not be beholden to this child just because Emma wanted him to be. Trace had plans, Nebraska plans, and none of them included taking care of an outlaw’s baby.
He just had to get through tonight, that’s all.
Tomorrow, he’d make arrangements. Whatever he needed to do for the baby’s best interests—and his own.
His mood lifted. Careful not to jar the child into waking, he cradled the basket and knapsack in his arm and entered the cabin, quietly latching the door behind him. He managed to set the basket onto his bed with little more than a faint stirring from the baby, then opened the knapsack, hoping its contents would make caring for a child easy and quick.
Not surprisingly, the bag yielded several sleeping gowns, diapers, a can of condensed milk, a contraption for a feeding bottle and a letter.
Taking it, he ripped open the envelope, unfolded the paper and read the feminine handwriting:
Trace,
You took care of me once. Now I’m asking you to take care of my daughter. Her name is Harriett, and she was born on January 28, 1881.
There’s no one I trust more than you.
Emma
Trace’s lip curled. She might as well be standing right beside him, speaking the words in her Texas drawl. It was just like her to expect such a thing from him, too, taking on the care of her daughter as if the girl was a geranium in a pot, needing only watering now and then. Trace could imagine Emma’s lashes fluttering and her smile coy, cajoling his promise to do what she wanted. As if he had nothing else to do with his life.
Then he remembered how she’d suffered because of him. A physical pain that would’ve paled compared to the knowledge she wouldn’t live to see her baby daughter grow up. The prospect of leaving her behind and forcing her into the care of a stranger, well, hell. Trace couldn’t think of anything worse.
Emotion welled up in his chest. He owed Emma, for sure. He’d take care of Harriett as long as he could. Until he found someone better capable and more deserving.
Emma trusted him to do at least that.
A whimper intruded into his thoughts. He tossed the letter aside and strode back to the wicker basket. Seeing him, Harriett suddenly quieted. Her dark eyes fastened onto him and rounded. Then, her little face scrunched, turned red, and she filled her lungs with a howl that reached to the rafters.
The girl must’ve known Trace wasn’t familiar. Might be she was even afraid, and Trace scooped her up and put her to his shoulder to offer some comfort.
A wet diaper soaked into his shirt. Grimacing, he rummaged one-handed through the pillowcase stuffed at the foot of the basket for something dry to put between them, only to discover it held more diapers, just as wet and soiled with who knew what else, carrying a godawful smell that nearly felled him to his knees.
Trace stuffed it closed again and bolted toward fresher air. The howling grew to a fevered, shrieking pitch, and no matter how he patted and soothed and bounced, no matter how hard he tried to think of the best thing to do, he had no choice but to accept the cold, hard truth.
It was going to be a very long night.
The Next Morning
“He impressed me the minute I met him,” Morgana’s father said, returning to his place at the breakfast table after answering a knock at their door. He shook his head. “Seemed like the dependable sort. I never expected him not to show up for work this soon after hiring.”
“Hmm.” Her mother’s mouth pinched in disapproval. “Difficult to find good help these days.”
“Oh, Trace was good help. Able-bodied and knowledgeable. LeRoy had nothing but the best to say about the widow’s walk he’s been building. If the man was unsatisfied about something, he gave no indication.”
“Carpenters are a dime a dozen, Stan,” Lila said. “You’ll find another.”
“Not in Wallace, I won’t.” Her father sighed and bit into a piece of bacon.
Morgana spread peach jam onto her toast and hoped she did a better job of hiding her disappointment than he did. Despite her mother’s cynicism, Morgana much agreed with her father. She never expected it of Trace, not after the kindness he showed her yesterday.
“Perhaps he’s taken ill,” she said. “Does anyone know where he lives?”
“Outside of town. Rented a cabin from Calvin Lombardo at the livery,” her father said.
“Someone should ride out and check on him.”
Dodie carried in a coffee pot from the kitchen and met her glance. Her slight frown indicated her puzzlement. As the Goldwaters’ housekeeper, it wasn’t Dodie’s place to join in the conversation, but she’d gained a favorable opinion of Trace McQuade, too. Indeed, she and Morgana had spoken of him often yesterday afternoon.
“Or maybe harm has come to him.” Morgana finally voiced the worst of her concerns. “Someone lawless, who—”
“Morgana. That’s quite enough.”
She stiffened at the sharpness in her mother’s tone. She’d gone too far, of course. Even bringing up the possibility resurrected terrible memories better left buried.
“He’s only a laborer,” Lila said, gentler. “No concern of yours.”
“Actually, he’s a bounty hunter,” her father said.
Morgana’s interest sharpened at that. A bounty hunter?
“Tells me he hung up his gun belt, though,” he went on, accepting a fresh cup of coffee from Dodie. “Wants to get into cattle as soon as he can.”
As quickly as it flared, her interest died. Of course. Most everyone in Kansas ran cattle one time or another.
Her mother appeared unfazed. “Well, if harm has come to him, the sheriff would've informed us.”
“By then, it’d be too late, wouldn’t it?” Morgana shot back, exasperated.
Lila leveled her with a vexed expression. With her graying hair perfectly coifed and every gown she owned of the latest fashion, she was an attractive, gracious woman. But most times—except for that awful tragedy their family endured last summer—she lived in a narrow, pampered world that shielded her from the realities of the one everyone else lived in.
“What is it about him that has you so enamored?” she asked.
“I’m hardly enamored, Mother.”
“Just because he got that paint out of your hair yesterday doesn’t make him overly special. In fact, he quite pushed the boundaries of good manners in doing so. No gentleman I know of would’ve taken such liberties.”
“Lila.” Stan frowned. “Under the circumstances—”
“It’s because of him that my hair is normal again.” Morgana spoke succinctly, not caring if her impatience showed. How much longer before she could move out of her parents’ house? Two months and seventeen days. “I’m exceedingly grateful to him.”
“For all the good gratitude will do you,” her mother sniffed. “It’s apparent you’ll never see him again.”
A knock sounded at the door, the second one in a matter of minutes. A rarity for the hour, and though Dodie set the coffee pot onto the buffet before responding, as was her customary duty, Morgana stood first. Abruptly.
“I’ll get the door,” she said, tossing her napkin onto her jam-covered toast, s
till without a bite taken from it.
“Fine,” her mother said, sounding miffed.
Morgana swung about, flaring her skirts, and strode from the dining room to the front parlor. She couldn’t identify the tall shape beyond the sheer curtains over the door’s window, but she could only assume it’d be LeRoy again, the man who ran the lathe that made the spindles, perhaps bringing more news about Trace McQuade. She opened the door.
She did not expect to see Trace himself standing there.
In the flesh. Rugged, lean, broad-shouldered, and so manly her blood skipped in her veins.
“Oh!” she couldn’t help blurting, blaming her blood-skipping on her complete and unequivocal surprise. “It’s you.”
His Stetson rode low over his forehead, leaving much of the strong angles of his face in shadow, yet failed to hide the lines at the corners of his brown eyes or the stubble on his cheeks.
What was it about a man’s stubble that made him so ... appealing?
“Morgana,” he said, his voice low.
A muted noise unlike any Trace might have made jerked her gaze downward ... to the baby he cradled in his arm. A tiny, bunched fist lifted and swerved; little fingers opened and clutched a handful of Trace’s cotton shirt.
She couldn’t keep from staring. Not once had it ever occurred to her he’d be married. With a child, no less.
Her spirits sank like a stone in a creek.
“Is Dodie here?” he asked.
Her gaze lifted again. “Dodie?”
“I’d like to speak with her, if she is.”
“Yes.” Morgana stood a little straighter, gathering her wits about her with a grace that would’ve made her mother proud. It was silly to think he might’ve come to see her. Or to check on her hair to make sure they’d gotten all the paint out. Stupid, in fact. Why would he? “Of course. Come in.”
She stepped back. He moved forward, into the parlor, making the room feel smaller than it was. She closed the door behind them.
Her father appeared, one hand clutching his napkin. Clearly, he’d left the table so quickly he hadn’t thought to leave it behind.
