Heart Stealers

by Patricia McLinn

  It wasn’t the only thing getting harder. But he didn’t let on.

  After he’d followed her directions and parked by the main barn at the home ranch, he took a few minutes getting their lunch – a carton of fried chicken, potato salad and soft drinks – to give himself a cooling off break before following her into the barn.

  Kendra was at the far end, saddling a reddish-brown horse. The big doors at both ends of a central aisle had been swung open to catch the dry breeze. Luke Chandler settled a hefty saddle on the back of a dappled gray horse.

  “Luke’s getting Ghost ready for you,” Kendra called out.

  She’s enjoying this.

  But what exactly was she enjoying? Taking control of this afternoon after he’d railroaded her into it? The hope of seeing him make a fool of himself on horseback? Or simply the prospect of riding on the ranch she loved on a bright Indian Summer day?

  “Can you ride?” Luke asked as he adjusted the girth straps.

  “What I can do is fly. What I’m going to do is ride.”

  Luke glanced in Kendra’s direction.

  Daniel nodded, seeing no sense in denying the obvious. “That’s right. Riding a horse is today’s hoop to jump through.”

  Luke’s expression didn’t change and his capable hands didn’t hesitate. “Don’t know a lot of men who’d like jumping through hoops for a woman.”

  “I don’t know any who’d like it,” Daniel amended with enough feeling to draw a flicker of a grin from Luke. “But I figure the least I owe her are a few hoops.”

  Luke gave a noncommittal grunt.

  The foreman found a plastic pouch to put the chicken and salad containers in, and stowed those in one saddlebag, the sodas in another and strung on a canteen.

  “Think you’re going to have trouble staying in the saddle?” Luke’s voice held mild curiosity, no more.

  “I’ve been up a few times. Not what you’d count as riding, but unless you’ve given me a bucking bronco, I should be okay.”

  “Ghost’s no bucking bronco.” From Luke’s deadpan delivery, Daniel guessed the horse was closer to the opposite.

  The foreman held Ghost’s head while Daniel mounted – he wouldn’t get any style points, but he reached the saddle on the first try and that counted for something.

  Kendra had brought her sidestepping horse nearby. Daniel couldn’t take his eyes off her. The sun caught strands of loose hair beneath her hat, burnishing them to red. Her eyes sparkled almost pure green and her cheeks glowed with anticipation.

  Luke checked the stirrups, slapped Ghost lightly on the butt, and they were on their way.

  “This path used to be paved,” Kendra said as they followed a trail away from the barn. “My grandfather’s sister got polio as a child. She loved the ranch so much... they paved this path for her wheelchair.” The trail abruptly changed, narrowing from a broad, defined, straight path to a narrow, meandering line through the brush. “This was as far as she could go.”

  Daniel thought he heard an ache of sympathy in Kendra’s voice. If so, she regretted letting it show, because she immediately launched into a technical discussion of cattle ranching.

  He followed most of it – despite her best efforts to leave him behind by rushing over complicated points – though some of the technical terms went by too fast. At least, he thought, she hadn’t tried to lose him on the trail. So far.

  He hadn’t seen buildings for a good half hour. The only clues he had to their direction were the sun, beginning its slide toward the west, and the mountains. Otherwise range land rolled out to all horizons, with dips and creases that never repeated, yet weren’t recognizable enough – at least to him – to form landmarks.

  “You know an awful lot about it for only being back a couple years after some summers spent here as a kid.”

  “I’m a part owner. Marti runs it, of course, and she owns sixty percent, but my cousin Grif and I each have twenty percent. Grandfather’s will set it up with twenty percent to each of his four daughters – Aunt Nancy, my mother, Marti and Amy – with twenty percent for whoever’s actually running the ranch. Aunt Nancy’s share went to Grif, and mother left hers to me. Marti inherited Amy’s share, plus she has her own and the share for running Far Hills.”

  She stopped her horse and scanned the horizon sweeping endlessly to the east. When she spoke again, he had the feeling she was saying aloud something she’d thought many times.

  “And my share will go to Matthew some day.”

  “Unless...” He let it hang there until curiosity drew her eyes around to meet his. “You have more children.”

  Awareness flared across her eyes before she dropped her lids to shield them, then rode ahead.

  “You about ready for lunch? There’s a spot over the next rise.”

  “I’m hungry,” he confirmed, and was rewarded by the sight of a ribbon of red between her collar and the back of her hat.

  He allowed himself a grim smile. Maybe he wasn’t suffering entirely alone with this hunger that no amount of fried chicken would fill.

  The creek where she halted her horse wasn’t much more than a trickle. Dead leaves skittered away before their passage. Down the creek bed, bare-branched trees mingled with the fading gold of a few aspen, parched brown cottonwoods and the occasional fir, which advertised the others’ tongue-hanging-out thirst by its own vibrant green. She shook her head over it as they dismounted.

  “I sure hope we get some rain soon,” she said. “It’s been such a dry season, and with it staying warm so late, it’s getting worse. I’ve never seen this creek so low. Or the brush so dry.”

  “You came here often?” He leaned back on one elbow, watching her face.

  “Yeah. This was one of the spots where we used to have campfires when I was a kid.”

  “It meant so much to you...” He remembered her voice in the darkness of their refuge from Aretha, the peace that came into it when she spoke of her ranch. And he’d wondered what it must be like to have a place you loved so much. A place where you fit the way she fit at Far Hills Ranch.

  “This was the only stable home I ever knew. From the time I could remember, we were moving from place to place. First, following my father to Air Force bases, though I don’t remember that. Or him. Then, he went missing. It was a year or so before they knew he’d died. Afterward, my mother kept taking us to new places, certain each one would magically solve all her problems as she would surely find the perfect man. A man just like my father.”

  “He must have been quite a man.”

  Apparently unaware of the thread of bitterness in her voice when she’d spoken of her father being perfect, she shrugged in a show of indifference. “I don’t know. My memories of him are all from photographs. As for my mother, she thought he walked on water. Though from the examples of her men-picking skills I saw later, she wasn’t much of a judge.”

  “But your father...” he prompted.

  “Everyone says he was a fine man. You know I was named after him? Ken’s baby daughter Kendra. If they’d had a second child, that one probably would have been named after him, too, like the boxer George Foreman naming all his kids George.” She stowed the garbage back into the plastic sack.

  “There are worse things than having a mother who loved your father. Even if...”

  “She loved not wisely but too well? Trouble was, she made a habit of loving too well and not at all wisely.” She stared at the creek, and he suspected she was seeing it as it was two decades ago. “That’s what made coming here each summer a blessing.”

  “But?”

  “But what?”

  “That’s what I want to know. You said it was a blessing, like maybe it wasn’t all a blessing.”

  She shrugged again, as if that would be all her answer. He waited, and eventually his patience was rewarded.

  “I suppose, like most blessings, it was mixed. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade those summers for anything. And later, having a place like this to come to when –” Her
eyes flickered as she broke off what she’d started to say, her gaze not quite reaching him. “– when I needed it. I’m grateful for that, too. But as a kid the reality of going back to wherever Mother had landed most recently seemed all the more difficult. Another interchangeable one-bedroom apartment with a sofa bed for me in the living room in another interchangeable town with another interchangeable ‘uncle’ hanging around.”

  She stood abruptly.

  “We better start back.”

  For an instant there, she’d sounded almost as open with her words – and with herself – as she’d been during the hurricane. Now that was gone.

  “Okay.” But, once they’d mounted, he tried the lure of memories to see if it would return her to that openness. “What was it like spending summers here? What did you do?”

  “We did chores and rode and explored and went swimming and helped move irrigation pipe and had cookouts. We had traditions. We slept out under the stars the last night here – no matter what the weather was. We went to the rodeo. And Marti always told us stories around the campfire, especially...”

  “Especially what?”

  “Oh, an old legend about the Susland ancestors. You probably have a slew of them about the Delligattis.”

  “Can’t say I do.”

  Kendra turned in the saddle to get a better look at him.

  Did he think she didn’t realize what he’d been trying to do? Trying to get her to spill her guts the way she had on Santa Estella.

  And she had... some. Despite her best intentions. Despite knowing her confidences had been given the first time only because he’d deceived her and nature had threatened them both.

  But now, did he truly think he could clam up on her this way? Shut the door, turn out the light and pretend nobody was home?

  Oh, no you don’t, Daniel Benton Delligatti. It’s not going to work that way. Fair is fair. And, more important, I’m going to know enough about you to answer at least some of my son’s questions when he’s old enough to ask them.

  She waited until Ghost came abreast of Rusty, the horses taking the familiar ground at an easy walk.

  “You said I should go ahead and ask my questions.”

  “There you go, Kendra.” Once again he’d used Paulo’s pronunciation. It struck her that he used it to throw her off stride by reminding her of that other time, those other people, who’d been all too vulnerable – to nature and to each other. Or maybe to protect himself. Because he was vulnerable now?

  “You said you’d answer –”

  “You’re right. I did. And I will. Just telling you, you’re not going to like the answers.” His voice had a new tension. He grinned, but she didn’t buy it.

  She’d intended to push him into talking about the past. She’d laid the groundwork, even bringing up some of her own past. More than she’d meant to. Now she had a right – a responsibility – to know these things for Matthew’s sake. Besides, he owed her the truth.

  But she had the oddest impulse to tell him never mind. To change the subject. Steer away from the past – his past. To talk about something else, anything –

  “I can’t tell you whether Matthew’s taking after me or not. I have no idea when I walked or when I talked. I have no idea who my parents were. Evidence points to them being South American. Maybe Argentines, maybe not.”

  She’d learned in reporting how silence could draw out more information than even the best question. Her silence now, though, was not the result of such calculation, but of not knowing what to ask. Or perhaps of how to ask all the questions jumbling through her mind.

  “First thing I remember,” his expressionless face was as unreadable as his voice, “was a woman who called herself Tia – aunt – slapping me across the face for messing up a con she was running. I learned real quick to play them her way. You could say the landmarks of my childhood were learning to beg, pick pockets and steal.”

  “Daniel...”

  Something flickered across his face, quickly subdued. His tone remained matter-of-fact. “Don’t waste any sympathy on me. I was lucky. I saw thousands like me, all trying to stay alive. A lot of them didn’t make it. We hit so many towns and cities in South America, I can’t remember which ones, or where we started.”

  He paused, clearly waiting for her to respond, while she tried to absorb not only what he said but all that he hadn’t said.

  “I suppose that explains how you blended in so well in Santa Estella as Taumaturgio... and as Paulo.”

  Yes, she had to remember those aliases – two among how many? She shouldn’t get too caught up in sympathy for the boy he was describing. How did she even know that was the truth?

  Because it has the ring of truth.

  Okay, it had the ring of truth, but she’d already learned how with this man her skepticism, even her instinct for self-preservation could let her down.

  “So you weren’t born Daniel Benton Delligatti, and the name is another –”

  “It’s mine. It’s real. It’s legal.” None of the calm of a moment ago, none of the gentleness of Paulo, none of the generosity of Taumaturgio remained in those words. So where did this cold-eyed, hard-jawed presence fit in?

  In a way she understood it; she’d sat across from such presences in many an interview. It was familiar and would never slip past her guard the way Paulo Ayudor had.

  “So, are you going to make me ask a question for each step of the way or are you going to tell me how a South American street kid came to be an American named Daniel Delligatti working in Santa Estella as a crusader going by the name Taumaturgio.”

  Her tart tone seemed to lighten the grooves around his month.

  “I told you, I got lucky.”

  “That’s all? You got lucky?”

  “Damned lucky. I was adopted. Annette and Robert Delligatti. They named me Daniel Benton Delligatti.” One side of his mouth lifted in a self-mocking half grin. “At first I was irked they’d given me such a long name to memorize. It took a long time to realize it was the last one I’d have to remember.” The grin twisted. “At least until I became Taumaturgio.”

  “You were in an orphanage?” She almost cringed at the memory of the Santa Estella orphanage where Emily had been before Marti adopted her. And that had been one of the better facilities on the island.

  “No, no orphanage. A market square, picking pockets. That’s where I was. And I’m sure the last thing Annette and Robert Delligatti expected to find was a kid they’d adopt. Especially a kid who ended up with Robert’s wallet.” This grin was more genuine, though still thin. “Scared the hell out of me when I flipped it open and saw the American government I.D. I was about seven by most estimates, but I knew that was trouble.

  “When I felt the grip on my shoulder I thought I was dead. The policia had me, and they’re not known for their tender care of street kids. They were getting ready to take me in, when Annette objected. They took me to the consulate instead. That’s when they realized I had no family, no real name, no identity. They sent somebody to the shack where I’d been living, but Tia had seen me caught and she was long gone. Why the Delligattis didn’t ditch me, I’ll never know.”

  An image of a skinny, ragged boy, a blend that bridged the gap between the man he was now and the baby Matthew was, and yet was neither of them – came into her mind and she thought she could understand very well why the Delligattis hadn’t ditched him. They’d seen the intelligence, the character, the heart...

  She forced that image out of her head, concentrating on questions.

  “So, you were adopted and had a normal family life?”

  He laughed. A genuine laugh, she thought, with a tinge of underlying sadness. “I wouldn’t say that. Not if you mean a Leave It to Beaver kind of family life.”

  “Wait a minute, if you spent your childhood on the streets of South America, how do you know about Leave It to Beaver?”

  “You never heard of re-runs? Those old shows are in a lot of countries. Wherever the Delligattis were stationed,
there’d be those old shows. That’s how I learned a lot of English. Other than the swear words I knew from the streets.”

  “So you moved around a lot with your adoptive parents? Just them and you?”

  “They had one son, Robert Junior, but he was in college when they picked me up. He made no secret of thinking they were crazy. Hell, they were nearly fifty, liked classical music, reading and quiet strolls in whatever country we were living in. I was a wild kid from the streets. I must have aged them several decades in those first few years. They’re good people, but I think they must have been ready to lock me up and throw away the key until...”

  She watched him as closely as she could with the movement of the horses. Otherwise she might not have caught the mixture of intensity and calm that came into his eyes. She’d seen that look during the hurricane. When they held each other... he’d leaned over her, his face close, his weight pressing against her body –

  She jerked her mind away from the memory, unthinkingly twitching the reins, too. Rusty sidestepped in irritation at her rudeness, and the movement brought Daniel’s attention back to her.

  “Until?” she prodded abruptly.

  “Until I stowed away in a plane when I was twelve.”

  “Good Lord, why?”

  “I was running away. I’d picked the Belgian ambassador’s pocket at a party at the Chinese Embassy in Bangkok. The ambassador wasn’t too irate – not after he got his wallet back – but the Chinese wanted to flog me, because I’d dishonored their hospitality. Robert Junior was visiting, fresh from finishing one of his litany of advanced degrees, and I overheard him saying, in his usual dispassionate way, that maybe turning me over to the Chinese would be the best thing for me. I didn’t stick around to hear their answer. I lit out. Found my way to a nearby airfield and got into the first plane I found open.”

  “How on earth did your parents find you?”

  “They didn’t. The plane took off. I was lucky they didn’t lock the hold area, because it got real cold. I went up front – it was like I couldn’t help myself. I’d been in big jets when we moved to a new posting. but never anything like this, where you could feel the flying. Where there was no past, no future. Just now. Just you and the plane and the sky.”