Heartbreak Creek (36 page)

“Where’s she supposed to wear a dress?” Joe Bill asked, then looked around in confusion as more giggles erupted.

Edwina shot him a warning look that missed. Boys were so dense.

But Brin wasn’t. She stared stonily at the table before her, color blooming across her cheeks.

“Church,” Edwina said loudly, trying to divert attention to herself. “I think it will look lovely on her when we go to church tomorrow.”

“Church?” Snorting with laughter, Mary Lynn rocked back in her chair, pudgy hands over her mouth. “They’d never let her in after last time.”

“They let you in,” Joe Bill said, nastily.

“I didn’t bring a dead rat.”

Stepping in before Joe Bill erupted, Edwina said, “Yes, church. It’s a place where they teach kindness and generosity. Have you never been?”

This time, it was Joe Bill who snickered. Edwina adored him for that.

Mary Lynn stuck out her tongue at him. “Wouldn’t let you in, either.”

“Would, too.”

“You stink.”

“Don’t, either.”

“I think it’s a pretty dress,” Lucas mumbled, then blushed furiously when the Martinez twins looked his way.

With an elaborate yawn to indicate that this whole birthday thing was so tiresome she could hardly stay awake, Brin plopped down and began bouncing her heel against the leg of her chair.

R.D. yawned back and grinned.

Edwina wanted to hug him almost as much as she itched to slap that smirk off Mary Lynn Waltham’s fat face.

Luckily before she did either, Maddie rushed in from the kitchen, clapping her hands. “Who’s ready for cake?”

Instantly diverted, the five little girls all bounced in their chairs and squealed, “Me, me, me!” The three brothers just grinned.

Brin took advantage of the distraction to cram the dress back into the box with grim-faced efficiency.

“Why did I invite that nasty child?” Edwina muttered as she followed Lucinda into the hotel kitchen to get the cake. “She’s as bad as her mother. Now I’ll never get Brin in a dress.”

“The rag doll was a hit,” Lucinda offered in a soothing tone.

“With the other girls, perhaps. Brin was more taken with the hat her father got her. What kind of man gives a hat like that to a child? Is she a cowpuncher? No. She’s a little girl and should be treated like one.”

Lucinda laughed softly. “Take heart. The hat’s so big even her ears can’t hold it up. Hopefully, by the time it fits she’ll have no desire to wear it. Now take these and try not to hurt the children.” She handed Edwina a stack of plates with forks on top. “I’ll bring the cake.”

The rest of the gathering passed without incident, and after the last parent came to pick up the last child, and the boys had taken Brin and the slingshot Joe Bill had given her out behind the hotel to try it out, Edwina collapsed, exhausted, into a chair. “I’m never doing that again.”

“Not until the next birthday, anyway.” Lucinda plopped on a chair beside Maddie.

“I think it was lovely,” Maddie said, apparently unfazed by the icing smears, cake crumbs, and lemonade stains on her dress. “I love to watch children enjoy themselves.”

“You would have made a wonderful mother,” Lucinda observed.

Maddie’s smile faltered. “Sadly, we’ll never know.”

“Don’t be silly,” Lucinda argued. “Cross your Angus off as a lost cause, announce yourself a widow, then find another man. It’s not as if anyone from England or Scotland would ever find out.”

Maddie looked thoughtfully out the window where Brin chased Joe Bill with a stick. “Dead is so final.”

“Well, that’s the point, dear. I know you cared for your husband, but really, enough is enough.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

But she didn’t look convinced. Nor did she seem to be enjoying the turn in the conversation. Hoping to steer them toward a happier subject, Edwina asked Lucinda if she had ever been married.

An odd look crossed the blond woman’s face, then was quickly masked by a bored smile. “Almost. But luckily I came to my senses before the vows were said.”

Maddie tsked. “Left him at the altar, did you? Not well done of you, Luce.”

“Actually I left him at his lawyer’s office.
After
he signed over several hundred railroad shares as my wedding gift.”

“You robbed him?”

Lucinda’s self-satisfied smile faded. A hard look came into her green eyes. “As he robbed the poor workers who died like flies making him rich. Waste no pity on him, Maddie. He deserved what he got, and more.”

“But you
stole
!” Maddie stared at her friend as if she had never seen her before. “Why would you do such a thing?”

“Simple revenge.”

Maddie looked at Edwina, her expression mirroring the same shock and bewilderment Edwina was feeling. Neither had ever seen this side of their friend. “Revenge for what?” Edwina dared to ask.

Lucinda sat forward, her clenched hand on top of the table. In a voice vibrating with a fury Edwina never would have guessed smoldered beneath that cool façade, she said, “For watching my parents die of too much toil and too little food. For being cast penniless and parentless on the streets of a dangerous city with nothing but my wits and hate to keep me alive.”

As if suddenly realizing she had said too much, she abruptly sat back. Her hand relaxed. “But here I am.” She made a languid off-hand gesture that belied the pain still lingering in her eyes. “Very much alive. Very rich. And very happily
un
married. Revenge at its sweetest.”

Blinking hard, Maddie reached over and put her hand over Lucinda’s. “Oh, Luce. How you must have suffered. I’m so sorry he did that to you.”

Lucinda shifted in the chair. “Not him . . . exactly. But his kind.”

“His kind?”

“Fat, rich industrialists with their stinking factories. And railroaders. They’re awful. All of them.”

But Edwina heard something else in her voice. Regret? Was that why Lucinda was spending all her stolen money on this poor little town? To atone for what she had done? Did she care about the man she had wronged?

Maddie gave a weak laugh and sat back. “What a pitiful group of ladies we are. Edwina with a mail-order stranger for a husband. Me with my indifferent husband. And Lucinda with her almost-husband.”

Edwina felt a sudden sting of tears.
And Pru?
Where did Pru fit in all this? As happened so frequently over the last days, whenever she thought of Pru and Declan, Edwina’s spirits would plummet. How could they sit here chatting and enjoying cake while the two people she loved most in the world were possibly hurt or in danger? “He’s not a stranger,” she blurted out. “He’s my husband. And I love him.”

Lucinda and Maddie turned their heads to look at her.

Embarrassed to talk about such a private thing, Edwina was nevertheless driven to share with her dearest friends the intense feelings churning inside of her. “It was a surprise. He was a surprise. Like an unexpected gift that you didn’t know you wanted until you opened it up and saw it and realized it was exactly what you had craved all your life.”

Maddie’s eyes glittered with tears. “Oh, Edwina. I’m so happy for you. Although I knew it would happen. Luce, didn’t I say just the other day that those two are meant for each other?”

Lucinda didn’t answer, but continued to study Edwina, her expression thoughtful. “He returns your feelings, I trust?” she asked after a moment.

“So he says.” Edwina tried to cover her blush by sipping from her glass, then set it aside with a barely suppressed shudder. Despite all the lemons and sugar, the water still tasted rank. “He acts like he does.”

“Ah. And by that smile I’m guessing consummation has occurred?”

“Repeatedly.”

“Oh, I just love consummation.” Maddie sighed. “I think that’s what I miss most. That, and Angus’s smile. He usually strives to be so stiff and correct, but when he smiles . . .” Her voice trailed off as that dreamy look came into her eyes.

“Stiff is good,” Lucinda observed.

It took a moment for the words to sink in. Edwina and Maddie stared at Lucinda in shock, then all three women burst into laughter, which instantly swept away any lingering emotional tension. It was the first time Edwina had laughed in days, and it felt good.

“Are you truly attending church tomorrow?” Maddie asked her after the merriment had faded away. “If so, I might join you. Send up a prayer for Prudence and Mr. Brodie, as it were.”

“I’ll go, too,” Lucinda said thoughtfully. “If we’re going to have a church in this town, it should at least have a coat of paint and something other than a draped tobacco crate for an altar.”

“I doubt they could afford it,” Edwina said.

Tipping her head against the back of the chair, Lucinda closed her eyes and smiled. “No, but I can.”

 

 

“You piss like a buffalo, white man,” a voice quipped.

“Hung like one, too,” Declan quipped back. Fastening the button fly on his Levi Strauss denims, Declan tightened the rope he was using in place of his belt and turned to see Thomas limping out from behind a tall spruce.

“Haaahe,”
he said, greeting the Cheyenne is his own language. He was pretty sure it meant “hello.”

They had picked up the warrior’s trail earlier and had made no effort to mask their movements, hoping he would hear them and circle back to see who was following him. Which apparently he had. “How’s your leg?”

Thomas shrugged. His gaze flicked past Declan’s shoulder. He frowned. “Your soldier friends do not look happy.”

Declan glanced around to see Guthrie stomping toward him, Sergeant Quinlan on his heels. “I just now told them who it was we were following.”

“And who am I,
nesene’
?”

“You’re a Heartbreak Creek deputy who also happens to be a Cheyenne Dog Soldier. You don’t make this any easier, you know, when you paint yourself up like that. Especially with that bruise.”

“Do I frighten them?”

“Hell, you frighten me.”

Thomas gave one of his rare laughs and pounded Declan on the back. “
Va’ohtama, hovahe.
I am glad to see you, Declan Brodie.”

“This your deputy?” Guthrie asked, coming up. “Looks more like a goddamned savage to me.”

The Cheyenne warrior graciously tipped his head. “
Nia’ish.
”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Thank you,” Thomas said and smiled.

Declan could see where this was headed. “If you two dogs are done sniffing, can we tend to business here?”

Guthrie cursed and spat. Quinlan remained silent, either accustomed to the lieutenant’s bluster or struck dumb by Thomas’s garish war paint.

“Lone Tree’s encampment is two hours north,” Thomas said. With a stick, he drew a map in the dirt, showing the ox-bow bend in the canyon that sheltered the village, where the tipis were, and how many warriors and ponies he had counted. He poked the stick into the dirt. “Cliffs rise across the river here, on the north. The river circles around the village on the east and west. South is the only way in. They will see us coming.”

“Forty-five of them against fourteen of us,” Guthrie muttered. “I don’t like those odds.”

Thomas tossed the stick into the brush and rubbed the dirt off his fingers. “Not all of them will fight.”

“How do you know?”

“Many are from my old tribe. They will not fight me over a woman. Nor will I fight them.”

“Then how do you expect to get her back?”

“I will challenge Lone Tree for her.”

“No, you won’t.” Declan had been expecting this, knowing Thomas would feel obligated to avenge Pru since she had been in his care when the Indian took her. But this wasn’t just about Pru. This was about Sally’s death, and Declan’s determination to keep his children and Ed safe. Besides, he’d started this mess in the first place—he should be the one to end it. “I’ll deal with Lone Tree. You just keep the rest of the tribe from joining in.”

“No,
nesene’.
” The smile Thomas gave him carried a wealth of evil intent. “I will fight Lone Tree. I will get Prudence Lincoln back.”

“Damnit, Thomas! There’s no need—”

“There is every need!”

The explosive outburst startled the two soldiers into reaching for their pistols. Declan threw out a hand and told them to stand down. When they reluctantly did, he returned his attention to Thomas.

And waited.

The Cheyenne stood rigidly for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision. He let out a deep breath and said in a calmer voice, “There is every need,
nesene’.
Prudence is my woman.”

It was unexpected, but not surprising. “For true?”

“Soon.”

“Your woman?” Guthrie burst out. “I thought she was your wife’s kin, Brodie. If I’d known she was just some damn squaw who ran off—”

Declan rounded on him with such savage suddenness the soldier stumbled back a step, almost falling into Quinlan. “Don’t! Not another word.”

Silence. Quinlan blinked at Declan over the lieutenant’s shoulder, his mustache quivering with indignation. Or fear. Hard to tell.

Muttering under his breath, Guthrie looked away, chewing hard and fast on his wad of tobacco. “Goddamn Indians.”

Declan turned back to Thomas. “You’re not going in alone.”

Thomas shrugged.

“Are you even sure she’s there?”

“She is tied to a pole outside Lone Tree’s tipi.”

Declan cursed. “Bastard’s using her for bait.”

Thomas nodded. “He expects you to come.” He smiled that smile again. “Instead he will get me.”

“Then what the hell are we here for?” Guthrie demanded angrily, raring to make up for his momentary loss of backbone.

“Are you so ready to kill Indians, blue coat?”

“Hold up!” Declan stepped between the two men, palms raised. “There may be no need to put your men at risk, Lieutenant. We might be able to do this without bloodshed. Just hear me out.”