Trey frowned, as if recalling something unpleasant. “You believe that?”
“I don’t know what to think. I have never read a story where so many children were traveling together on a train, or heard tales about it either.”
She’d looked high and low when she got old enough to question her own mind. Ramona never told her such stories, and she was sure that her mama hadn’t either.
Her daddy must’ve tossed out that reasoning for lack of a better one. Yet, deep inside, that excuse bothered her on a whole other level.
“Sounds like those trains that carried unwanted orphans West,” Trey said.
Her gaze drifted back to the headstones of her daddy’s first family. He’d had a life here that he never talked about.
It was as if he was hiding something, maybe the pain of losing so much. Saying nothing about them was his way of keeping the past locked away where it wouldn’t plague him.
Would he have done something similar to her, thinking he was protecting her? It had always left her uneasy when she’d ask him about events that had happened to her before she’d lost her memory. His answers were always vague.
Even Ramona, who would wax on about events that had involved everyone at the ranch, couldn’t give her the details of her childhood. It was as if she was hiding Daisy’s past from her.
“I don’t know anything about the orphan trains.”
“Somebody must have told you about them,” he said, his voice oddly flat and his gaze far off now, as if he was caught in a memory that troubled him too.
She wanted to ask. Wanted to wrap her arms around him and just hug him, but that was too easy. And it brought back clear memories of them together that were best forgotten.
So she closed her mind to Trey and focused on carrying on a conversation, on getting past this awkward moment. “Those trains were horrible. The children had to cluster outside in the cold and rain and get picked over like cattle at market.”
“So I heard,” he said, and finally took his hand from her shoulder. “You just did it again.”
“What?”
“Gave details about something that you claim to know nothing about,” he said. “Only two ways you could know that. You either read about the trains and knew how things went. Or you saw it.”
She closed her eyes and saw a flash of children getting off a train, of the hiss of smoke filling the cold air. Of feeling the bite of the wind. The fear of having strangers gawk at her.
“I saw it,” she said. “My God, I was there.”
But she didn’t know how that could be. Didn’t know why she saw herself on that platform clutching the hand of another girl. Saw herself being dragged away and breaking free. Running. Crying for help.
That’s where the memories always ended and a new fear began.
Her daddy had told her she’d taken a bad fall when she was young. Nothing had been broken, but she’d cried for days.
Could the two be connected?
“Maybe you were in town once when the orphan train came through,” Trey said.
That was the logical answer, but she didn’t think it was true. There wasn’t a reason for her daddy to hide that from her.
She shook her head and stared into his eyes again as if searching for an answer, for somebody to finally see how much this troubled her. She wanted to lift that veil on her childhood, to talk to someone about the unknown that troubled her. To have someone listen for once.
“I see the children leaving the train.” She hugged herself, for the ideas swirling in her mind like a frigid, wet blizzard chilled her to the bone. “I can feel the cold and fear deep inside me. But I couldn’t have been there. I couldn’t have known what happened.”
“You’d know if you were one of them.”
She stared up at him again and shivered at the odd emotion banked in his eyes. “That’s impossible. I’m Jared Barton’s daughter. Everyone knows that.”
He looked away, his body so tight she could almost hear his nerves twanging like discordant fiddle strings. Surely he thought her crazy. Surely he believed that she was weaving a tale that had the substance of smoke, because to her it did.
A name, a place, a face would pop into her mind, then vanish a heartbeat later. They’d come to her sporadically all her life and were impossible to dredge up again at will.
Yet after the fall from the loft they’d occurred more often, the images lingering to haunt her. She could even recall tiny details about two of the strangers now.
The first was a young boy with a wealth of unruly brown hair and soulful brown eyes, a boy far too serious for his young age. The other was a girl her age. They slept together on a small cot in a huge, drafty building, and huddled together on a bench seat on a train. Clasping hands and crying silent tears together.
She clearly could hear the girl scream her name, scream “Daisy,” then the memory faded to black. It was those times that she was nearly numbed with the confusion, the pain, the fear.
Of course she’d told her daddy about these visions. That’s some imagination you got, Daisy.
And that’s what they must be. These phantom vignettes had to be some quirk of her mind, perhaps something that was born from the accident that kept the first eight years of her life locked in her memory.
“As children, we tend to believe what we’re told again and again, whether it’s the truth or not,” Trey said, drawing her attention to him and those memories of them that remained crisp and vivid.
She blinked, stunned that the man of few words was actually attempting to engage in more conversation. Had they finally found something in common?
“I suppose that’s how we learn,” she said.
He slid her a quick sideways look that startled her, for she read the disillusionment in his eyes and saw it in the taut set of his jaw. “Or how we’re hoodwinked.”
She stared at this tall cowboy who projected a devil-may-care attitude, yet who was clearly a pessimist. “What would make you think that way?”
He stared at his boots, and for a moment she thought he’d share some more of his past with her, more of the deeper thoughts that troubled him.
Instead he shrugged. Squinted at the horizon again. She knew before he spoke that he’d shut off a part of himself from her again.
“Why’d you think your brother’s name was Dade?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It felt right.”
The name had popped into her head and settled in, like it’d always been there just waiting for her to open that door on her memory and let it out. Even knowing she’d been wrong hadn’t made it go away.
“But I was wrong,” she said. “I imagined it in my mind, just part of dreams that have no rhyme or reason.”
“Such as?”
She shook her head and cast an apologetic glance at Davis’s marker. “I dreamed about a boy holding me close when I cried in the dark, telling me everything would be all right. That he’d protect me.”
“Sounds like something a brother would do,” he said.
“Yes, if he’d lived,” she said. “But Davis was dead years before I was born. Maybe this Dade who I imagined was just my guardian angel sent to watch over me.”
He said nothing for the longest time, just stared at the graves with a frown pulling his brow. But she sensed the change in him—a tension that charged the air and set her nerves snapping like a flag caught in the wind.
Trey made a face that was as close to conveying guilt as she’d ever seen, then swiped a hand over his mouth as if erasing it, and cut her a curious look.
“How old were you when you took this fall that scrambled your memory?” he asked.
“I was told I was six or seven years old, but I don’t remember it. I don’t remember anything at that age or before.”
“And you’re how old now?”
“Twenty-four,” she said, and frowned when he began quietly ciphering. “What are you doing?”
Again he fell silent, only this time her tension dou
bled. She’d never seen him act nervous. Never seen him be anything but assured. But right now he looked jittery as all get-out.
“You’re scaring me, Trey. What’s going through your mind?”
“Something I damned sure don’t like thinking,” he said. “I told you my foster brother had a sister. Daisy was her name.”
“Yes, I remember. It’s a common name.”
“Maybe so. But how many Dades with sisters named Daisy do you reckon are out there? How many Dade and Daisy Logans could there be?”
Just hearing the names together felt right. But they always had in her head and her heart, as if they held special meaning just for her.
And then she realized what he was implying. His foster brother’s sister bore her name.
She rolled the names over in her mind. Dade and Daisy. It sounded right. Familiar. Yet how could it?
A sudden chill whispered over her, as if a fierce storm was moving in from the mountains to trap her in its icy grip. “Dade and Daisy Logan? Your foster brother is my brother?”
He dipped his chin, his expression hard. Unreadable.
He thumbed his hat back and stared at her like she was a prime piece of horseflesh up for auction. “The orphanage had too many to care for, so they decided to send some west to find good homes.”
She swallowed hard. “The orphan trains.”
He nodded. “Dade’s sister had just turned six when they sent her west. She was a little bit of a thing. He worried that he’d lose the only family he had forever.”
“What happened to her?”
He shook his head, his expression scaring her now. “Don’t know for sure. I’m guessing a rich Texan adopted her and claimed her as his own.”
She reeled back, knowing he implied that’s what had happened to her. “If so, I hope she is with a good family.”
And if that rich Texan was Jared Barton?
Daisy’s stomach quivered with unease. It made sense if she was the orphan. It explained part of the odd snatches of memory that plagued her.
Yet it hurt to think that her daddy wasn’t really her father. That he’d lied to her all her life. Why would he do such a thing? Was he afraid that one day she’d go looking for her blood kin? That she’d leave him?
Did she have a brother looking for her? One that Trey March knew well and called his foster brother?
The possibility rocked her to her soul. If she was Dade Logan’s sister, that bond between brothers would surely be tested if the whole truth about her and Trey ever came out.
The next morning, Trey walked Daisy back to the house after they’d laid Sam Weber to rest. He’d said no more about his suspicions that she was Dade’s sister, but he was more certain than ever that she was.
It surely put him in a fix, for Dade wouldn’t take kindly to knowing that he’d taken Daisy’s innocence. That he was right now trying to work a deal with her to own this ranch.
Take kindly?
Hell, Dade would kick his ass ten ways to Sunday if he ever found out. Just like Trey was doing to himself right now.
A man was judged by his word, and there was a time when the three brothers had made a blood vow to protect one another and Daisy should they ever find her. Trey had done just the opposite.
Never mind that he hadn’t known her identity at the time. When he’d first heard the big boss’s daughter’s name was Daisy, he’d been reminded of Dade, who constantly spoke of his lost sister. He hadn’t looked beyond that, because he hadn’t wanted to dredge up his own painful memories of his youth spent in an orphanage. Of folks coming by from time to time and looking past him. Of knowing he’d been unwanted by his own family.
He’d ignored any niggling in his mind when Daisy had told him she’d lost her memory of her earliest years. Or he’d tried to ignore it.
Fact was, once, when he was taking a rest from mucking out the stalls, he’d overheard Daisy ask her pa about the fall that had blotted her early memories from her mind. She had sounded desperate to know what had happened.
Barton had simply told her there was nothing to tell, that she’d taken a spill and hit her head. The doctors claimed there was nothing that could be done to bring back her memory. In fact telling her specifics about her early years could do more harm.
Trey couldn’t imagine why, but he’d never heard the subject brought up again. At least Daisy hadn’t commented on it. She didn’t argue either, which was typical of her.
Daddy’s girl. She did what he wanted.
Except where Trey was concerned. Their dalliance had remained secret. Or so he’d thought.
He’d seen her one more time before he’d been waylaid. And yep, she’d been on his mind then.
Hell, who was he kidding? She was always on his mind. He’d gone from lusty thoughts of her to thinking about getting back at her and Barton. Now?
Now was a whole other thing to consider, because he wasn’t sure if Daisy Barton was really Daisy Logan. It was so much easier to think of her as Barton’s daughter, but this business about her recalling a brother named Dade just wouldn’t let go.
She couldn’t have plucked that name out of thin air. It had to have meaning for her, even if she didn’t remember why. That left one logical thing.
She was his foster brother’s sister. The girl that he and Reid had promised to help find. The girl sent west on an orphan train.
Trey sure as hell had done more than find her!
Now that he and Daisy had history together, it was anyone’s guess what he should do with her.
He cast her a sideways look, noted the slump to her narrow shoulders, and let a stampede of curses gallop across his mind. There was only one thing he could do—get word to Dade.
Even that had to be thought out. He sure couldn’t write, Dear Dade: I think I found your sister. Didn’t know it was her until after I’d had a roll in the hay with her ...
Yep, if he told his foster brother the truth, he’d likely find himself the guest of honor at a shotgun wedding. Didn’t matter that he wasn’t the marrying type. Dade would demand he do the honorable thing.
So why don’t you? If he married Daisy, he’d own both ranches. He wouldn’t have to scrimp and save and slave. Hell, that’s what Ned had had in mind.
Just the idea of another man romancing Daisy piqued his temper. He didn’t like that possessive streak in himself any more than he liked the idea that his and Daisy’s destinies would twine together into something binding.
Of course, there was a good chance Dade would take one look at Daisy Barton and say she wasn’t his sister. Then the only guilt eating at Trey would be his own for romancing Daisy in the first place.
Yep, he had to get word to Dade. Best chance he had of finding him was to send a letter to the Crown Seven. Hopefully Dade was there, holding on to his shares of their legacy.
If so, he’d hightail it down here. The rest would depend on if Daisy truly was Dade’s sister.
“I’m going into San Angelo,” he said when they reached the house. “Anything you need from there?”
She bit her lower lip, which was already fuller and redder from her worrying it at the grave. “It can wait until I can go to town myself for it.”
He gave a curt nod, telling himself he should be glad she was letting him off the hook, that she wasn’t insisting on tagging along with him. Except it annoyed him that she didn’t want to find out about Fernando and his family firsthand. That she’d rather wait for him to come back with news.
Yep, he should be content to let her.
Instead he heard himself saying, “You can ride into town with me if you want.”
“When are you leaving?”
He shrugged. “Soon as I get a letter written and then saddle the horses. We’ll make better time with them than with a wagon.”
She stared at him, as if stunned that the likes of him could write a letter, let alone that he’d have somebody to send one to. But then why would she think otherwise when he’d professed to have almost no kin and damned fe
w friends?
Right now she was clearly debating the wisdom of riding off to town with him on horseback. But he wasn’t changing his mind.
Taking a buckboard or her fancy buggy would give them too much time to talk. Too much temptation to stop the damned thing and take her in his arms like he’d ached to do since laying eyes on her again.
Yep, riding a horse to San Angelo put her beyond arm’s reach and made talk less easy if he set a brisk pace. He damn sure intended to do just that.
He expected her to realize he was asking her along just to be polite, that he didn’t really want her company. He thought she’d thank him and stay right here where she belonged.
He should’ve known that Daisy wasn’t an easy one to read. She smiled, big and wide and warmer than the sun, and something inside him just melted, because he’d seen that smile in his dreams countless nights and wondered if he’d ever see it again.
“I’ll fetch my hat and gloves and join you in a minute,” she said, before dashing into the house.
“Take your time.” But he doubted she heard him.
He waited for his annoyance to kick up a notch, but he liked seeing her happy for a change.
Enjoy it while you can, buddy. It was a sure bet his life was bound to change yet again.
He headed into the parlor. Found a stationery box holding yellowed paper and envelopes and the stub of a pencil.
Then he wrote a short letter that would likely get him leg-shackled. And damn it all if he didn’t find himself smiling over that prospect.
Chapter 10
On the ride into San Angelo, Daisy longed to ask Trey who he’d written to. But it was clear he wasn’t in a mood to talk, and she didn’t feel like prying.
No, she had bigger things on her mind—namely whether she was really Jared Barton’s daughter.
“If Daddy took me off an orphan train, then he had to have traveled a goodly distance to find one back then,” she said, as they rode down Clairbourne Street.
“Nothing saying he didn’t meet one of those trains when he drove cattle to the railhead.”
Cowboy Come Home Page 12
