Charlton’s grim mouth twitched in the barest smile. This man saw little humor in life.
“I took the train, but the ride to and from San Angelo is rather long.” He cut a sharp glance at Trey. “I need to speak with you in private, Mr. March.”
“Sounds serious,” Trey drawled, and Daisy knew he was digging in his heels, drawing out the moment just to keep Charlton on edge.
And he had the nerve to call her stubborn!
“It is very important that we talk,” Charlton said, impatience making his tone sharp.
“This have to do with the Crown Seven?”
“Partly,” Charlton said. “I’d prefer discussing this inside.”
Daisy knew if she didn’t take a hand in this now, these two would be in a standoff out here half the night. “Please, do come in, Mr. Charlton.”
“Thank you,” the gentleman said and dismounted. “Am I to assume you are Daisy Logan?”
“Yes,” she said, leading the way to the house and hoping she could make a decent pot of coffee. “Though I didn’t realize it until recently.”
“I’m sure the man isn’t interested in your personal business,” Trey said, dogging Charlton’s steps and looking annoyed as all get out.
She guided Charlton to the small parlor. “Make yourself at home. Would you like coffee?”
“That would be most welcome.” Charlton removed his hat and hung it on a hook before taking a seat by the window.
Trey pulled the chair from the desk and turned it around, straddling it so he could prop his arms on the back. She shook her head, wondering why he was struck with these bouts of defiance around anyone with authority.
“I’ll be back in a bit with coffee,” she said, sending Trey a warning look to be civil before she scurried off and let these two strong men alone.
Trey had had a real bad hunch he wasn’t going to like anything this dandy said from the moment he laid eyes on him. For one thing, he’d bought their ranch out from under them. Never mind that Trey had thought he’d lost his shares last year.
Then there was the fact that this man opened a letter intended for Reid and had the gall to ride down here to confront Trey. Yep, he didn’t have a good feeling about this at all.
“Get on with why you’re here,” he said.
Charlton’s mouth thinned into a line of disapproval. “My reasons are twofold. First, you should know that I purchased the Crown Seven from Erston.”
“Congratulations,” he managed. “It’s a fine ranch.”
“That it is, though my wife and I have no intentions of living there.”
He wasn’t surprised. Charlton looked the city type to him, not a man who’d be comfortable living out on the wild Wyoming high plains.
“You buy it as an investment or are you running stock on it?” he asked.
Charlton showed the first signs of nervousness, rolling his shoulders and fidgeting with the knot in his tie. “Actually, I bought it because of you.”
That surprised the hell out of him, but he was careful not to show it mattered one way or the other. “I can’t imagine why.”
“Yes, I’m sure this is all rather confusing to you,” Charlton said.
“That’s putting it mildly.”
Charlton heaved a sigh. “If you’ll just hear me out, my reasons will all be quite clear when I’m finished.”
Trey nodded. “Fair enough.”
“Reid Barclay has told us much about your life in the orphanage and how you came to be there.”
“Us?”
“My wife and myself spent the holidays with the Barclays.”
Barclays? Just what was going on at the Crown Seven?
“That so?” Trey said, struggling to hold on to his patience.
If Charlton picked up on his annoyance, he hid it well. “Mr. Barclay told us that you grew up in the same orphanage.”
“The Guardian Angel’s Orphan Asylum. I was left like a basket of kittens on the doorstep.”
The man muttered something under his breath, a name or maybe just a curse. “You’ve no idea how my wife grieved that her son had been treated so cruelly.”
Trey leaned back and tapped his fists on the chair back, his nerves snapping with the anger that simmered in him whenever he thought of how little his mother must have cared for him. How she hadn’t even bothered to name him.
“Sounds like she didn’t know what became of him.”
“She didn’t.” Charlton’s features hardened like stone, and his eyes blazed with fury. “Disposing of the baby was her father’s choice, not hers. She nearly died giving birth to her son. When she recovered and learned he’d been taken away, she nearly grieved to death.”
Trey scrubbed a hand over his mouth, reluctant to believe this man’s story, that the young mother had been just as much a victim as the child she’d birthed. “Why’d her father do it?”
“He was a bitter man, filled with hate over the fall of the South. Over going bankrupt and losing his plantation. Having his daughter lose her heart to a Yankee was intolerable.”
“Mighty sad tale,” Trey said. “What’s that got to do with me?”
“There really is no easy way to broach this subject. So I’ll get right to the point. My wife is convinced that you are the son who was taken from her at birth.”
Of all the things he thought this gentleman would say, that had never crossed his mind. He studied Charlton, looking for some resemblance they shared. But he found nothing.
In fact, the man didn’t look one damned bit happy about revealing his reason for being here. That old sense of being unwanted loomed large inside him.
“I take it you don’t share your wife’s belief,” Trey said.
“I am a skeptic by nature,” Charlton said. “I’ve allowed her this fantasy of finding her son for years.”
Her son. Not his. “You’re not the father then?”
“No. Jeremy was a cousin of mine, a Union officer who was charged with maintaining law and order in Atlanta while the South was undergoing the Reconstruction. He was shot dead as he was leaving his Army post.”
Trey went still, feeling an odd connection to the man who might have fathered him, for he’d nearly suffered the same fate at Durant’s hands. All because Daisy was with child.
If you’re the son this woman’s been looking for, you have a mother. You have kin, and they now own your home.
Nope, he wasn’t going to believe it. He needed proof. If he guessed right, so did Charlton.
“So after you read the letter intended for Reid, you came down here to check me out first,” he said.
Charlton pinned him with a dark glower. “Let me clarify one thing. Reid read the letter first, then passed it to his wife. She in turn gave it to me while he made plans to travel to Colorado in hopes of finding Dade.”
Reid was married? Well that explained why he’d said Barclays.
“Wait a minute. I thought you said you owned the Crown Seven now. What’s Reid doing there? When did he get hitched?”
“They exchanged vows last Christmas and continue to live on the Crown Seven. As for the shares of the ranch, we mutually decided to extend the deadline until we were sure if you were my wife’s son.”
“If I’m not?”
He exhaled heavily. “I’ve left that decision up to my wife. She’s woven quite the touching story about three orphans finding a benefactor to create a family.”
“It was more than that,” he said. “As children, we were of a like mind to escape the fate planned for us. We knew there was power in numbers. The bond we made then was forged stronger after we were on our own. That’s what made us closer than brothers.”
“So Reid told me. It couldn’t have been easy for any of you living on the streets.”
It was hell, but they had stuck together. Cold. Starving. Yet being free was a better fate than being shuffled off to apprentice in some factory.
“Happening on Kirby Morris was the godsend we hadn’t anticipated,” he said. “He ga
ve us what we’d never had in our lives. A home. Nothing’s going to bring that back.”
“You don’t believe you’re my wife’s lost son?”
He shook his head. “Sounds farfetched to me.”
“Perhaps, but your birth date and age match his.”
Trey read the doubt in the other man’s eyes and smiled. “Nothing saying that I was really born on that day. Hell, maybe that’s when they found me.”
“I’m of a like mind.” Charlton pushed to his feet and paced the room, clearly not anxious to suddenly have a stepson. “We’ve visited many orphanages and found several young men who lifted my wife’s hopes. I certainly wouldn’t say for certain that you are her son just by what we know now.”
Trey nodded, admiring the man’s honesty. Hell, sounded like he was just trying to protect his wife. Trey would do the same with Daisy.
“That all you’re going on then? My birth date and age?”
Charlton shook his head. “There is more to it. Phoebe swears she’ll know her son on sight, and then there’s the birthmark that he had inherited from his father, passed down generation to generation. It’s never failed to show up, so, naturally, I place more stock in that.”
Trey relaxed at that. “Afraid I’m not the man she’s looking for then. Got plenty of scars, but I don’t have any birthmarks.”
“Yes, you do,” Daisy said from the doorway. “There’s one on the back of your neck.”
Silence boomed in the room while tension sparked the air.
If that was so, then why hadn’t he known about it before now? “That can’t be,” he said.
“Are you sure?” Charlton asked at the same time.
She nodded, looking from the older man to Trey and jiggling the tray of cups and coffee pot she clutched. He got out of his chair and took the tray from her, his legs feeling stiff and his mind a jumble of questions.
“I’m positive,” she said in answer to Charlton’s question, then she looked at Trey and added. “Just the edge of it shows on your nape.”
He set the tray on the table with hands that shook, afraid to believe it could be true. That he did have a mother who’d wanted him. And a grandfather who despised him so much that he had him taken away.
Before he stepped back, Daisy quickly filled cups with coffee. She pressed one in his hand before turning to Charlton, a surprise for she was a stickler for serving guests first.
“Cream or sugar?” she asked Charlton.
If Charlton noticed the slight, he didn’t mention it. “Black is fine.”
Trey took a sip of his coffee and welcomed the strong jolt from the brew. He found it hard to believe nobody had ever remarked about the birthmark before. But then again, he’d always worn his hair long.
He set his empty cup down and caught the older man staring at him, his expression pensive. “So what happens next?”
“My wife will query me on your birthmark. May I see it?”
“Sure, why not.” He couldn’t very well refuse, not when this could just as easily disprove that he was this lost son.
He dragged his hat off and gave his back to the man. He felt the slight tug on his hair as Charlton pulled the strands apart, barely drawing a breath as time crawled by.
Finally Charlton grunted and let go of Trey’s hair. He faced the man again, impatiently waiting while he drank his coffee, noting Charlton looked more unsettled than pleased by his discovery.
“Well?” Trey asked when Charlton just stared at him.
“It looks the same as my cousin’s, though his was more visible. Phoebe will know for sure.”
“This is a lot to swallow,” Trey said.
“Very much so,” Charlton said, staring hard at Trey and likely still searching for more family traits.
By his guarded expression, Trey guessed that he didn’t favor Charlton’s cousin Jeremy at all.
“We’ll return by the end of the week. I trust that is agreeable to you both?”
Hell, what could he say? That he was tickled to have found kin? That he could hardly wait to see the woman who’d given birth to him?
The bottom line remained that he wasn’t about to open his arms to a stranger, whether they were kin or not. In that regard, he and Daisy agreed, for she wasn’t about to bow down to a brother she didn’t remember.
Trust had come hard for him all his life. He wasn’t about to change now.
“Makes no never mind to me,” Trey said.
That sparked a deeper scowl from Charlton. “Young man, I can understand that this is a shock. I certainly don’t expect you to fawn over Phoebe either. But she has searched for you for nearly thirty years and finding you will be extremely emotional for her. I ask that you afford her the utmost courtesy and hear her out.”
Trey nodded, holding his deepest fears close to his vest as well. He hadn’t a clue how a man acted around a mother. Couldn’t imagine what kind of woman she’d be. Didn’t see any way that he could have anything more than a polite relationship with her at this stage of his life.
“I’ll polish up my manners,” he said. He was surprised when Charlton nodded.
“Very well. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way.” Charlton stopped before Daisy and gave a brief bow. “Thank you for your hospitality, Miss Logan.”
“Please, stay the night,” she said, her smile tight.
“I don’t wish to inconvenience you,” Charlton said, glancing from Trey to her.
“You won’t be,” she said. “There’s a small bedroom right at the top of the stairs.”
Between their rooms, Trey thought with a wry grin. Having a guest would keep Trey in his room this night.
“Very well,” Charlton said. “I promise to leave before daybreak.”
“Hollis will have breakfast on in the cookshack by then. Help yourself,” she said.
Charlton dipped his chin. “Thank you, Miss Logan.”
She watched Charlton leave for his room, then turned to Trey. Her mouth was pinched in a tight knot, but it was the disappointment in her eyes that made him edgy.
“Why do you push people away?” she asked.
He rubbed his nape, but touching his neck only reminded him of the damned birthmark that would tie him to Mrs. Charlton. Phoebe, he’d called her.
A stranger to him.
“I don’t push them away,” he said. “I’m just careful who I let get close to me.”
“Don’t delude yourself,” she said. “You’ve put up a wall around your feelings, and nobody can touch you.”
He strode to her and slid his hands around her narrow waist. “I let you touch me all you want.”
She shook her head and gave him a pitying look. “No, you don’t. Not emotionally at least. That makes me wonder if you feel anything at all when we make love, or if it’s just a physical release for you.”
“I feel plenty when we’re together.”
“Like what?”
He scrambled for words to describe the riot of emotions that erupted in him when he kissed her, held her, drove into her and absorbed her tremors and little cries into his soul. “It just feels good. Right.”
“My God.” She pushed his hands from her and stepped back, eyeing him as if he were a stranger to her. “You’ve closed yourself off from everyone and everything for so long you’re incapable of normal emotions anymore.”
He swore loud and long, not liking the picture of a cold, unfeeling bastard that she painted of him one damned bit. But it was so close to the truth that he couldn’t voice a denial.
“I don’t know any better because I wasn’t offered much kindness when I was a child,” he said.
“Why?”
“There were a lot of kids in need of comfort. Reckon I’d gotten what little there was to give when I was a baby, but once I got age on me, I became just another mouth to feed.”
“What age would that have been?”
He shrugged. “Four or five.”
“You were still just a child,” she said.
; “Like I said, I was one of many, Daisy. The lucky ones got chosen by families when they were babies. Next to them were those who were just walking. Once we got past four or five, folks looked past us and we learned to exist.”
She dropped onto the sofa, seeming deflated by that unvarnished fact. “That’s horrible. Don’t you remember any times when you were shown affection?”
He shrugged and forced himself to sift through those early memories of growing up in the Guardian Angel’s Orphan Asylum. “I have a fleeting image of an older woman rocking and singing to me. Mrs. Peach. I can’t recall her face clearly, but I always feel warm inside when I hear that lullaby.”
“What else?” she asked, watching him closely, like she expected him to recite a list of similar instances.
He frowned, thinking hard now. “I took sick once. They put me in the infirmary for a week. Mrs. Peach sat by my bed, talking softly to me and keeping my head cool with damp cloths.”
“She sounds like she was a very good woman,” she said.
“She was. But one day she wasn’t around anymore,” he said. “I remember asking about her and being told she’d died.”
“You must have grieved for her,” she said.
He shrugged. “Guess so.”
He’d cried in silence that night in bed, but he didn’t tell Daisy. He’d never told anyone, though Reid had heard.
She crossed to him and cupped his face with her small hands. Warmth flowed into him, as if he were sitting beside a fire on a cold night, thawing the ice from his feet and his heart.
“See, you’re not incapable of feeling,” she said. “You just don’t know how to express it. Why, I bet there were other instances of someone comforting you. Befriending you.”
Damned few, but he nodded just the same. “Hank caught me outside once bringing in wood. Shoved me down. That’s where I got this scar on my forehead.”
She glided a gentle finger over the old wound and damned if he didn’t feel healed. Feel whole. But what the hell did a man call that sensation?
“I hope he was reprimanded,” she said.
“Nobody saw but Reid, and we all knew telling on Hank did no good,” he said. “Reid grabbed Hank by the collar and slammed him up against the shed until Hank begged him to stop. He did, and warned him if he ever laid a hand on me again or did me harm, he’d have Reid to answer to.”
Cowboy Come Home Page 26
