Heartbreak Creek (40 page)

The air cooled as the sun dropped. Seeking warmth, they lingered by the fire, the women using a log for a seat, Thomas hunkered beside Pru, and Declan on a stump across from them. No one spoke.

Before long, Pru was nodding off. Helping her to her feet, Thomas led her to the canvas and brush shelter he and Declan had constructed for the women earlier. When he didn’t return right away, Declan figured he was staying with her until she drifted to sleep or until Sally came.

Resting his crossed arms on his raised knees, Declan glanced across the dying fire at his wife—his only legal wife, now—and found her staring back at him through a veil of smoke. She looked much better—cleaner—than she had earlier. With her blond hair combed back and her mouth pressed in a belligerent line, and that angry glint in her hazel eyes, she looked so much like Joe Bill when he was in a snit it was a bit disconcerting.

“Why didn’t you come for me, Bobby?”

He’d been expecting the question. But he still didn’t know how or where to start his answer. And he was more surprised than he should have been that her first words were about herself, and not the children she’d left behind.

“I did look for you, Sally. Then troopers found what was left of the stage you were on, and several burned bodies, and they said you were dead.”

“You believed them?” Her voice dripped scorn. And fury.

“One of the bodies was your—was Slick Caven’s. The others were too burned to tell who they were. But they showed me your bloody dress and the locket you always wore. So yes, I believed them.”

She looked off, blinking against tears or the sting of smoke. Or both.

“I’m sorry about Slick,” he said.

“I’m not.” When she faced him again, that anger was back, brighter, harder, reflecting in her eyes like twin flames on polished glass. “He tried to save himself by trading me to them. ‘Take her, take her,’ he kept saying. But Lone Tree just laughed and pulled out his knife and had his fun. I wasn’t sorry at all.”

Declan didn’t know what to say. So he remained silent, which seemed to fuel the anger until her thin body shook with it and her voice vibrated like taut wire in a high wind. “Four years, Bobby. For four years I was beaten and kicked and forced and treated worse than the lowest dog. And you never came.”

“I would have had I known.”

“That doesn’t account for much now, does it?”

He had no defense, so he said nothing.

“I’ll never forgive you for that. For giving up and leaving me with them. Don’t even ask me to.” She started to say something more, but broke into a coughing fit that bent her over her knees, her hands pressed to her mouth. When the spasms passed, she straightened and wiped her palms, leaving red smears on her tattered buckskin skirt.

“Consumption,” she said, her voice hoarse from the coughing. “Lone Tree’s mother had it, and my task was to nurse her or be beaten.”

“We’ll go see Doc Boyce as soon as we reach town.”

“Don’t bother. I know what’s ahead.”

Silence, except for the snap of the fire and a whiffling snore from a nearby soldier. Somewhere on the picket line a horse whickered, and two men spoke in low voices as they shared a smoke. Sad, lonesome sounds.

Declan tossed a small branch onto the coals. After the flames flared in a shower of sparks that spiraled up to fade against the stars, he said the words he’d been putting off. “I took another wife.”

She watched him through the smoke but said nothing.

“About a month ago. I needed help, and . . .” He stumbled to a stop, not knowing how to go on from there. “Her name is Ed. Edwina.”

“I’m your wife. Your only legal wife.”

He looked at her.

“What do you intend to do about her?”

“I don’t know.”

Another long silence.

“Well, take heart,” she finally said, rising to her feet. “You won’t have to fret over it long.” Then she turned and walked into the darkness toward the shelter.

Declan continued to stare into the fire until weariness overcame him. With a sigh, he dropped his head onto his folded arms and closed his eyes. His last thought as he sank into an exhausted sleep was that Sally still hadn’t asked about her children. By now, though, he was no longer surprised.

When he awoke, it was morning, Thomas and Pru were gone, and the soldiers were already breaking camp.

He roused Sally. After a quick breakfast of jerky, hardtack, and coffee, they mounted up and set out, knowing that they had a hard day ahead if they were to reach home sometime tomorrow morning.

Declan was desperate to see Ed again but dreaded that homecoming, knowing as soon as he rode up with Sally, everything would change.

 

 

“Well, this is odd.” Maddie frowned at the letter she’d been studying ever since bellboy Billy had brought it to the room several minutes earlier. The ladies were in the habit of taking breakfast in Lucinda’s quarters, preferring the privacy and quiet there to the constant interruptions whenever the hotel owner was downstairs. “What do you make of it?”

Lucinda took the missive and read it over, pausing on the signature at the bottom. “Who is Reginald Farnsworth Chesterfield?” she asked, passing the letter on to Edwina.

“My publisher.”

Lucinda poured more coffee into her cup, then set the silver pot back on the hot tray. “Do you have any idea who this person is that he says has been asking about you?”

“ ‘Tall, overbearing, unpleasant,’ ” Edwina read, then handed the letter back to Maddie. “Sounds like someone you’d do well to avoid.” Picking up her fork, she cracked off the top of the softboiled egg perched in her eggcup. “A devotee of your work, perhaps?”

Maddie stared off into the distance, a frown drawing a ridge between her auburn brows. “Perhaps.”

“Luckily your publisher didn’t tell him where you were.”

“However, he did say that the man was ‘persistent and determined,’ ” Edwina reminded her. “Which he certainly proved by tracking you to your publisher even though you aren’t signing your photographs with your full name. So I shouldn’t be surprised if he showed up here.”

“Most curious,” Lucinda mused, nipping off the corner of a toast point.

“Well,” Maddie said, brightly. “I shall simply have to see that my little gypsy wagon is finished as soon as possible. That way, if he does track me to Heartbreak Creek, I shall be long gone on my photographic expedition. Could you please pass the sausages?”

Lucinda rolled her eyes as she passed them over. “Pray tell me you aren’t still insisting on heading into the Rocky Mountains alone.”

Maddie shrugged. “How else will I find trappers, and mountain men, and miners, and buffalo hunters, and suchlike. Besides, I won’t be alone. Wilfred Satterwhite is coming with me for protection.”

Lucinda reared back in astonishment. “Wall-eyed Willy? You might as well take a corpse. The man must be ninety.”

“He’s a spry seventy-three.” Maddie chewed a bite of sausage, swallowed, then grinned. “But not too spry, if you take my meaning. I would hate to have to fend off unwanted advances.”

Just the idea of Wall-eyed Willy advancing on anyone with amorous intent gave Edwina the shudders. “Perhaps Declan will lend you Chick or Amos,” she suggested. “They’re rather at loose ends here in town, and both are deathly afraid of women.”

Lucinda looked at her over the rim of her coffee cup. “Isn’t Chick the one with the rather distinctive odor?”

“Sadly so. But he—”

Edwina broke off as footfalls pounded down the hall, then all three women flinched when the door burst open with such force it bounced against the wall.

“They’re back!” Joe Bill shouted. “R.D. saw the soldiers coming! Pa, too, and he’s got someone with him!”

“Pru!” Bolting from the table, Edwina ran out the door on the heels of Joe Bill. As they cleared the narrow rear hallway and passed the open mezzanine that overlooked the lobby, Edwina called over the railing to R.D., who stood in the open double doors into the hotel. “Do you see him? Does he have Pru?”

R.D. nodded and grinned. “I think so.”

“Pa!” Brin hopped up and down on the boardwalk, the overlarge hat her father had given her falling down to her nose with each bounce. Shoving it back, she grinned to Lucas beside her. “Look! It’s Pa!”

Edwina clattered down the stairs, Lucinda and Maddie close behind, charging through the door just as the troopers filed past. At the rear of the column was Declan, his wide shoulders obscuring the figure riding double behind him.

“Pa! Pa!” his children chorused.

Safe.
Edwina felt such a sudden and overwhelming surge of relief her legs began to shake. Tears burned in her eyes, and she had to press her hand to her mouth to keep from bursting into sobs right there on the boardwalk in front of everyone.

Declan reined in at the hitching post in front of the hotel. He looked worn and weary and dusty and was such a joy to Edwina’s eyes she almost leaped off the boardwalk and into his lap.

Then his gaze met hers, and she saw the pain and anguish in his eyes and knew instantly that something was wrong.

Dread building, she glanced at the figure slumped behind her husband. “P-Pru? Is she—”

“She’s all right,” Declan cut in, his voice hoarse with weariness. “She’s fine. She’s with Thomas. She’s all right.”

“B-But . . . then who . . .”

Joe Bill stepped to the edge of the boardwalk, his body rigid, his whole being focused on the figure who clung to Declan’s arm as she slid down from behind the saddle.

A woman. Blond. Dressed in a tattered, filthy buckskin dress.

“Ma . . . ?” R.D. moved up beside his brother. “Ma, is that you?”

The woman turned.

Edwina saw a thin, sun-browned face haloed by flyaway blond hair, eyes the same hazel as Joe Bill’s, a smile that matched Brin’s.

Her heart began to pound. A buzzing rose in her ears.

“Yes, darlings. It’s me.” Bending, the woman held out her arms.

Edwina stood frozen as the children rushed past and jumped off the boardwalk, her mind unable to grasp what was happening.

Her lungs seized. Something pressed against her chest. Openmouthed and gasping, she looked at Declan, saw the terrible truth in his eyes, and her mind spun away.

Somehow she made it to her room. Her chair.

Maddie and Lucinda hovered close by, Maddie flapping a hanky in her face, Lucinda trying to get her to drink from a glass.

The door opened. Heavy footfalls crossed the floor, and the next instant, Declan’s strong, hard arms scooped her from the chair and held her curled body tight to his chest.

She smelled sweat and dust and Declan and turned her face into his neck, breathing him in.

His heart pounded against hers. Bristles scraped her temple and warm breath fanned her cheek as he stood rocking her in his arms and whispering softly into her ear.

“I’m sorry, Ed. I’m sorry. I love you.”

She clung tighter and let the tears come.

He held her that way a long time, until her tears were spent and his arms began to shake. Lifting her face from his neck, she pressed a salty kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Put me down before you drop me,” she whispered and kissed him again.

After he lowered her back into the chair, he sagged into the other one, his elbows resting on his knees, his long fingers threaded through his dark hair. “Christ amighty,” he muttered to the floor. “Jesus Christ amighty.”

“Is there anything we can do, Mr. Brodie?”

Edwina had forgotten Maddie and Lucinda were still there. She sent up a grateful smile when Lucinda held out a half-filled glass of whiskey.

Taking it, she leaned forward and stroked a hand down Declan’s arm, felt the ripple of tension there as he looked up. His beautiful eyes were as bleak and tortured as a cornered animal.

“Here,” she said, and held out the glass.

He took it, tossed back the liquid in a single gulp, then set the empty glass carefully on the table beside the chintz chair. With a nod of thanks toward Lucinda, he slumped back.

“Where are the children?” Lucinda asked.

“They’re with her.”

“Do they need anything? Does she?”

He shrugged, rubbed a hand over his face. “Doc Boyce left her some medicine. Said he’d come by tomorrow with a tonic.”

Edwina frowned in confusion, unaware that the doctor had been called. Or that the woman was here at the hotel.

The woman. Sally. His legal wife.

A hard knot of despair swelled in her throat.

“She’s got consumption.” His voice was weary. Defeated.

“Oh, dear,” Maddie murmured.

“How bad?” Lucinda asked.

“Bad. A few months. Years, maybe. More if she goes to the desert. Apparently it’s fairly common in the encampments. Lone Tree made her nurse his mother who died of it several months ago.”

As if sensing her mounting despair, Lucinda rested a hand on Edwina’s shoulder. “Are the children at risk?”

“I don’t know. I’ll talk to Doc tomorrow. Christ, what a mess.”

Edwina sat numbly as the reality of the situation pressed like a weight against her chest. He would never leave a dying woman. He wouldn’t abandon the woman who had borne his children. She knew Declan. She knew the kind of man he was.

The realization made her throat burn and her mind reel. She sat shivering, wanting to rage at God for the cruelty and unfairness of it.

Lost him to a woman who didn’t even love him—a woman who cast him aside for another man, and who took money to leave her children behind—a woman who would bind him to her with chains of guilt.

The pain of it stole her breath away.