by Kaki Warner
Worse? How could staying at the ranch be worse? RosaRoja was the best place in the whole world, the perfect place to raise kids and cuddle by the fire and ...
Brady smiled, remembering the night he and Jessica had stripped down on a moonlit hilltop and made love under the stars while meteors shot in fiery arcs across the—
“It’s not funny, Brady.”
Blinking away those wondrous images, Brady found Daisy glaring at him. He put on a thoughtful expression. “Why don’t you want to marry him?”
She gave him one of those how-can-you-be-so-stupid looks. “And if I did, what then?”
He had no idea.
Luckily she pressed on before he had to admit that.
“How long before his itchy feet send him on his way again?” she demanded, as if somehow Jack’s itchy feet were Brady’s fault. “You know Jack. He can’t stay in one place long enough to cast a shadow. He’ll leave like he always does, and then what’ll happen to me and Kate?” She started crying again.
Pulling a clean kerchief from his desk drawer—after near four years of marriage to an emotional woman, Brady had learned to keep a stash on hand—he passed it over to her.
While she mopped up, he wondered what she expected him to do.
She was right, of course. It wasn’t in Jack’s nature to stay in one place for long. Brady had known that when his little brother had run off the first time twenty years ago to be the capper for a traveling patent medicine salesman. And again later when they’d caught him trying to tag along with a fellow who ran a touring magic lantern show. Jack probably would leave—he couldn’t help it. But on the off chance that Daisy and Kate were the exact thing his little brother needed to settle him down, Brady wanted to see that he was given the opportunity to figure that out. Not that he intended to interfere. He just wanted to point out all the possibilities. That’s all.
“What does Jack say about you going to Rome?”
Wadding his kerchief into a sodden ball, she carefully set it on the corner of his desk, then took a deep, hitching breath. “I haven’t told him.”
Well, that’s typical. Brady rubbed a hand over his bristly chin to hide his look of disgust. Keeping a fellow totally in the dark, then getting mad at him for not doing what she thought he should do, or for what she thought he might do if she had ever bothered to tell him what she expected in the first place.
Women. Hell.
“So what do you want me to do?” he asked. If marriage had taught him one thing, it was the value of those eight words.
“I want you to help me get away.”
“From Jack?”
Nodding, she picked up the kerchief and dabbed at her eyes again.
“He’ll notice.” And be mad as hell.
“I’ll leave a letter for him. It’ll explain everything.”
Another female tactic. Drive a man to a confrontation, then avoid it by leaving a letter instead, giving him no way to answer the charges. Thank God Jessica had more courage than that. Although he had to admit that when she came at him head-on like she’d done this morning, it was a bit unsettling.
Glancing out the window, he thought about what his wife had said earlier. How could she doubt he trusted her? She knew him better than anyone in the entire world.
And yet ...
That last niggling doubt prodded him like an imp with a pitchfork.
He pushed it away. She was still here, wasn’t she? Despite all his mistakes and failures, she was still here.
But no matter how often he reminded himself of that, the lingering doubt always remained. For how long? When would she realize she deserved better than a rough-edged rancher with big clumsy hands and a violent past?
Daisy’s voice brought him back. “So will you help me?”
He looked at her, thought about it for a moment, then suddenly knew exactly what he had to do. Interfering or not, he couldn’t let these two make a mistake of this magnitude without at least giving his little brother a chance to get it right.
“When do you want to go?” he asked.
“As soon as possible.”
Brady worked it out in his mind. He would send the horses out with Langley tomorrow. Then early the following morning, assuming his little brother was up to the trip, Brady would have him take Elena into Val Rosa to catch the stage. And while Jack was there, he could also take care of the horse sale to the Army and pay off the smelter loan to Blake—or Ashford—or whoever. And by the time Jack got back to the ranch, Daisy and Kate would be well on their way to Redemption. An excellent plan, Brady thought.
“You’re sure this is what you want?”
“No.” Daisy blotted away tears again. “But I don’t know what else to do.”
“Then be packed and ready day after tomorrow. You can always back out if you change your mind. If not, as soon as Jack and Elena leave for Val Rosa, Hank will take you to Redemption.”
“Where’s Redemption?”
“In the opposite direction from Val Rosa. A little mining town on our northwest boundary. There’s a spur line that goes from there directly up to the transcontinental.” Brady didn’t mention there was no locomotive left to make use of the spur line and Redemption was all but a ghost town. He’d leave those details to Jack.
As soon as Daisy left, he went looking for Hank.
“How’s your sail-rig coming?” he asked his brother when he tracked him down behind the barn, where he was testing his new gyroscope-auger-post-hole-drilling thing.
Hank stopped digging and wiped a sleeve over his sweating brow. “Why?”
“We may need it.”
“Why?”
Brady told him how Jack had asked Daisy to marry him but she’d said no because she’d rather go study singing with some foreign lady, although she’d never told Jack any of that, and now she wanted Brady to help her sneak away while Jack was taking the horses and Elena to Val Rosa, which Brady didn’t think was fair at all. “So I figure it’s our duty to our little brother to do something about it. You with me, or not?”
Hank just looked at him.
“Good. Here’s what we’ll do.” Brady explained that after Jack and Elena and the horses left for Val Rosa, Hank was to take Daisy and Kate and the sail-rig to Redemption. With the spur line shut down and no locomotive, the only way to reach the transcontinental would be to ride twenty miles on horseback over a treacherous mountain pass, which Daisy wouldn’t be able to manage on her own with a little kid—or to take a handcar, which she wouldn’t have the strength to pump uphill. “In other words,” Brady concluded, impressed with his own ingenuity, “she’ll be stranded in Redemption until Jack gets there.”
“How will Jack know to go there if he’s not supposed to know she’s gone?”
“I’ll tell him, of course. Just as soon as he gets back from Val Rosa. And don’t look at me like that. If Molly ran off and I knew where, wouldn’t you want me to tell you?”
Setting down the auger, Hank pulled a kerchief from his back pocket, wiped his hands, and muttered something under his breath.
“I know, I know.” Brady waved a hand in impatience. “You think I’m interfering. But I’m not. I’m just giving Jack the opportunity to make his case—if, of course, that’s what he wants to do—although he’d be a fool not to. Plus, I’m providing a nice, quiet, safe place where they can hash it all out in the privacy of your little house there.” Brady grinned. “Sort of like putting two wolverines in a burlap bag, shaking it up good, then sitting back to see who comes out first.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“And once they’ve worked everything out,” Brady went on, “they can decide to either return here and set up house in Jack’s wing, or go join up with Daisy’s singing teacher. Which is where the sail-rig comes in. If they decide to go on up to the main line, it would be much easier to get there by sail than pumping a handcar for twenty miles.”
Hank sighed and shook his head.
“Well how else can they get over the pass to the t
ranscontinental?” Brady argued. “We sold the locomotive, remember?”
“Whose idea was that, I wonder.”
“The point is,” Brady pressed, “after what he’s been through, Jack is in no condition to pump the handcar over a pass. The sail-rig is their best bet.”
“It’s never been tested,” Hank reminded him.
“What’s to test? The wind blows, the sail fills, the handcar moves. Simple.”
“And if there’s no wind?”
“Then Jack can pump until there is.”
“What if there’s too much wind? Or a gust lifts it off the tracks?”
“Then he can cut the sail. He’ll know what to do. He was a sailor for Crissakes. Now quit whining and get it ready.”
“And if the wind dies before they clear the top?”
A sudden picture filled Brady’s mind—the sail going limp, the car losing momentum and rolling back down the long incline, moving faster and faster as it picked up speed, metal squealing, Jack frantically yanking on the smoking hand brake. That’d be something to see, he thought with a grin. But his amusement abruptly faded when he remembered Daisy and Kate would be on the railcar too. “I guess you’d best test it first,” he told Hank.
“I’m not testing it. You test it.”
“It’s your damn contraption. Have you so little faith in it?”
Hank glared at him.
“Good. Have it ready day after tomorrow. I’ve got to go talk to Jessica.”
Muttering under his breath, Hank picked up the auger again.
Twenty-two
“WILL YOU SEW SOMETHING FOR ME?”
Molly lowered the pamphlet she’d been reading and looked up from her chair beside the unlit bedroom fireplace to see Hank standing in the doorway with a huge wad of canvas sheeting under his arm.
“Making a covered wagon, are you?”
“A sail.”
“For what?”
“A handcar.” Stepping into the room, he dumped the cloth onto the bed. “It’s got to be done by day after tomorrow. Just one seam. A six-inch flap that I can run a rod through. Then maybe a dozen tabs. Really sturdy. It’s not complicated.” He gave her that dazzling smile that made women titter.
She barely refrained from doing so herself, even though she was aware he was using it to manipulate her. As if.
“If it’s not complicated,” she said, picking up the pamphlet again, “then you do it.”
He blinked at her. “I don’t sew.”
She loved his eyes. They were the color of the richest, darkest chocolate. And every bit as addictive. “I only sew people,” she reminded him.
His mouth tipped up at one corner. “This won’t be as messy.”
“One would hope not.” She studied him a moment, then held up the pamphlet she had been reading. “I found this on the bureau. Do you know how it got there?”
“I put it there.”
“So I would find it?”
He shrugged. Leaning his shoulder against the tall post at the end of the bed, he crossed his arms over his wide chest and looked down at her.
She studied the pamphlet. “It’s an interesting concept, the Orphan Train—sending parentless and abandoned children to the West to find new homes.”
He didn’t respond. But she felt him watching her.
“I didn’t realize there were so many children without families,” she went on, flipping a page. “Thousands, it says.”
When he still didn’t speak, she looked up to find him studying her, a thoughtful, almost sad look in his eyes.
“Were you thinking to adopt an orphan or two, Hank?”
This time she waited him out, turning back on him the silence he so deftly used on her. Several moments passed before he spoke, and when he did, she watched him closely to decipher the emotion behind the words.
Hank wasn’t much of a talker and he rarely showed expression. But over the last year she had learned to read the subtle changes in his facial muscles, especially around his eyes and mouth, and she was beginning to understand what each quirk of his lips meant, and how his eyes widened when an idea caught his interest, and his voice deepened when he spoke of something intensely important to him. And from what she deduced now, this Orphan Train idea was very important to him.
Pushing away from the post, he walked over to hunker beside her chair. He took her hand in his and said, “You’re a good mother, Molly. I know you were unsure when you first took on Penny and Charlie. But look at them now.”
Unsure? She had been terrified. Having spent most of her youth training with her father, she had little experience with young people. And when she had unexpectedly found herself responsible for two bewildered and frightened children, she had felt utterly overwhelmed and out of her depth. She might have learned how to be an adequate healer, but she knew little else. She had been an awkward, socially inept woman who hadn’t the slightest idea how to interact with healthy people—especially men and children.
Then Hank had come into their lives.
“That’s because of you,” she said. “The children adore you. They have from the first.”
He said nothing, but she could see the softening in his eyes. He loved her niece and nephew. He loved children. He deserved to have them in his life.
But it was his children Molly wanted. And even though that now seemed an impossibility, it was hard for her to abandon the notion altogether.
Besides, there was no telling what these poor children had suffered, or how damaged by their circumstances they might be. They could be diseased, or incorrigible, or perhaps had fended for themselves in street gangs for so long they wouldn’t be able to fit into a normal, ready-made family.
Then she thought of Charlie, and how angry and frightened he had been when his mother died and Molly had whisked him and Penny away from their vicious stepfather. But today he was a happy child again. A hopeful child. She and Hank had given him that. Perhaps there were other children out there they could help. Other children they could love.
“Is this what you want, Hank?” Reaching out with her free hand, she brushed a fall of dark brown hair from his brow. “To adopt one of these homeless children?” Before he could answer, she let her hand drop back to her lap and gave him a stern look. “I won’t have an indentured servant. I won’t take a child on those terms. If children come into this house, it will be as members of the family, not as servants.”
Hank nodded, a smile in his eyes.
Molly studied the pamphlet again. “There’s a name here. Charles Loring Brace of The Children’s Aid Society. Have you contacted him?”
“Not yet.”
Molly looked toward the window, which was open to the beautiful spring day. Children’s laughter drifted in with the fresh breeze. She recognized Ben’s voice and Penny’s shout and Abigail’s squeal of delight. Charlie was off somewhere with Dougal, Kate was on the other side of the house with Daisy, and the twins were probably running the Ortega girls ragged in the nursery. Was there room for another child in this crowded household?
She turned back to her husband. “It says they send the children to specific towns where people are waiting for them. After checking them over, they pick the one they want, and take them home.”
Hank continued to watch her, his thumb gently stroking the back of her hand.
“It sounds rather cold, doesn’t it?” she said, feeling a prick of sympathy. “Almost like a livestock auction.” She knew what it felt like to be on display, to be judged and found wanting. She could still feel doctors and other medical men scrutinizing her, wondering what kind of woman would venture into their male domain, wondering when she would falter or make a mistake.
And what if a child wasn’t chosen? Perhaps was too ugly, or crippled, or deemed unlovable? Was he or she sent back?
That would be unbearable.
She remembered always being on the outside looking in. She remembered how it hurt to feel like she didn’t belong.
Until Hank.
And this lovely family.
They had given her back herself and, in accepting her as she was, had allowed her to become the person she was meant to be.
How could she not do the same thing for someone else? Especially a child?
She looked into her husband’s wise brown eyes and saw the acceptance and unquestionable support he had always given her. How could she deny him anything?
She would pick the homeliest, most awkward, most seemingly unlovable children on the train. Then she and Hank would make them shine.
Leaning over, she gave her husband a quick kiss, then straightened. She held out the pamphlet. “Then write to him,” she said. “While I sew your sail.”
He took the pamphlet and set it aside, then smiled at her in that familiar way that made the nerves beneath her skin quiver in anticipation. “Maybe later.”
BRADY DIDN’T CATCH UP TO JESSICA UNTIL LATE THAT afternoon.
He hadn’t exactly avoided her, but with so many things to settle before the horses left for Val Rosa, and Elena left, and Daisy and Kate went on their way, he barely had time to think, much less come up with what he wanted to say to his wife.
And why should he have to explain himself anyway?
She should know him well enough by now to realize how intolerable it would be to him to have to ask her for money. He might as well hand her his balls on a plate. He would try to explain that to her—not in those exact words maybe—no use giving her ideas—but somehow he had to get it across to his wife that he had everything under control and she had nothing to worry about.
The ranch was secure.
Her home and her family were safe.
He trusted her.
Always.
He found her up in the hilltop cemetery, sitting on the little stone bench beneath the mesquite tree, where she always went when she was upset or needed time and space to think. The sun was sinking toward the mountains to the west, and the tombstones, silhouetted against the last bright rays, looked edged in gold. Tattered pinkish-purple clouds clung to the mountain peaks, and the breeze out of the east was warm and fragrant and alive with the music of RosaRoja—crickets, cattle lowing, distant voices and laughter from the bunkhouse and cabins.
