Open Country (22 page)

Molly scarcely heard her, worry over Charlie eclipsing all else. Her nephew had nightmares enough. What new night terrors might a “meat hunt” bring out?

“Don’t worry, Molly,” Jessica added. “They’ll watch over him.”

“I’m sure he’ll be safe physically. It’s just that he’s so fragile right now. After the death of his mother . . .” She let the sentence hang.

“Hank knows that. He won’t push the boy. He has a magical touch with children.”

Children too?
Molly thought peevishly. As well as fractious horses, balky mules, and any kind of machinery? The man should join a traveling circus.

It was late afternoon before the hunters returned. Molly had positioned herself in the rocker by the main fireplace and was practicing what she would say to Hank when she heard deep voices and heavy footfalls on the front porch. A moment later, the door swung open and the man with the magical touch entered with Charlie in tow.

A smiling Charlie, Molly noted. With a bit of a swagger in his walk.

So maybe she’d been foolish to worry. But magical touch aside, she was still piqued that Hank would take her nephew on a hunting excursion without discussing it first with her. Although, as his “supposed” stepfather, he probably thought he had the right to make the decision on his own. But still.

She waited for them to remove their outer wear, all set to confront him, when Hank turned and saw her sitting there. He gave her that bone-melting smile, scattering her thoughts like thistledown on the wind, and before she could gather them up again, he walked over and kissed her as if he had a perfect right to do that as well. Which, as her “supposed” husband, he probably thought he did.

Molly didn’t complain. In fact, she was so befuddled she couldn’t speak at all, and it wasn’t until he left the room, trailed by Charlie, that she even remembered what she had wanted to say. Letting out a rush of air she wasn’t even aware she’d been holding, she turned to find Brady looking thoughtfully down at her.

“He’s shaving,” he said.

She blinked at him, still addled. “Charlie?” Surely Hank wouldn’t put a straight razor into the hands of an eight-year-old.

“Hank. He never shaves unless he’s courting.”

“Oh?” She feigned nonchalance. “And does that happen often?”

Brady scratched his chin in thought. “Maybe once in ten years.”

That girl from the fort that Martha Burnett had mentioned. “What happened?” she asked, trying to sound only marginally interested.

“Ask him.” Then with a last probing glance, he strolled from the room.

 

 

THAT NIGHT SCREAMS SENT MOLLY BOLTING UPRIGHT IN BED.

Terrified that Fletcher had found them, she leaped out of bed, half-asleep and so disoriented she almost stumbled into the door before she got her bearings. Rushing across the hall, she burst into Charlie’s room to find him huddled against the headboard, sobbing.

“It’s all right, Charlie. I’m here.” Taking his rigid body into her arms, she rocked him while he wept. “You’re safe. It’s just a bad dream. You’re all right.”

“H-He’s coming—I s-saw him—he’s c-coming to get us.”

“No one is coming, Charlie. We’re safe here. It’s just a dream.”

Charlie drew back. “Is P-Penny all right?” He swiped the sleeve of his flannel nightshirt across his running nose. “W-Where’s Papa-Hank?”

“Right here, Charlie,” a deep voice behind her said.

Turning, Molly saw Hank coming through the doorway, struggling one-handed with the buttons on a shirt with a split left sleeve. He looked tousled and sleepy and such a welcome sight to her frantic mind, she sagged in relief.

“Hey, fellow, what’s wrong?” Crossing to the opposite side of the bed, he settled beside Charlie. Immediately the child lifted his thin arms and threw himself against Hank’s broad chest, causing Hank to wince as a bony elbow hit his sore ribs.

Looking rattled, Hank frowned across the boy’s auburn curls at Molly as if asking what he should do now.

Molly shrugged, as surprised as he.

Moving awkwardly because of the cast, he patted the small body almost dwarfed by his own. “I’m here, Charlie. I’ll keep you safe.”

“P-Penny too?” Charlie asked, his voice muffled against Hank’s chest.

“Penny too.”

“A-And Aunt M-Molly?”

Hank’s gaze found hers again. “Always.”

Charlie wiped his face against Hank’s shirt, then pulled back to look up at him. “You promise?”

“I promise.”

Molly looked away, blinking hard, weakened by a confused mix of emotions. Although she was moved by Hank’s tender care of the boy, and grateful that Charlie drew comfort from it, she was also a bit disturbed by Charlie’s sudden dependence on a man with whom they had such an uncertain future. What would happen when the truth came out? Would Charlie’s brittle trust be another casualty of this deception?

Sickened by the prospect of the additional heartache the boy might suffer because of her actions, she turned to the door. “I’ll check on Penny.”

Once in the hall, guilt overcame her, and she leaned against the wall, one hand pressed to her stomach. How could she let this go on? How could she allow them all to become attached to a man destined to send them away?

Anguish churned in her belly. She wanted to explain, to tell him how in a moment of desperation she had made a terrible decision, and then had compounded it with silence because . . .

She bent over, teeth clenched, as realization burned through her.

Because she was so afraid. So weak. So loath to return to the lonely sterility of her life.

Tears burned hot on her cold cheeks.

 

 

ONCE HE WAS SURE THE BOY WAS SLEEPING, HANK LEFT

Charlie’s room and stepped into the hall. For a moment he stood listening, but all was quiet and dark except for the soft light coming from Molly’s room. Resolved, he crossed toward it.

The room was empty, lit by coals from the dying fire and a single candle burning on her night table. Stepping into the room, he closed the door quietly behind him and went to stoke the fire. He had something to ask his wife and he wanted enough light to see her face when she answered.

After stirring the embers, he added kindling until it caught, then more logs. By the time it was crackling, Molly returned. He didn’t see her come in, but he felt her watching from the doorway into the dressing room, her gaze like a warm hand sliding over his back. Adding more logs to a fire already blazing, he waited for her to speak.

“How is he?” she finally asked, moving to one of the chairs flanking the hearth.

Hank looked over at her, saw the puffiness of her eyes, and knew she’d been crying. He wondered why. He wondered what she would do if he walked over and put his arms around her and kissed the haunted look from her eyes. He wondered what her skin felt like beneath that silky robe.

“Asleep,” he said and turned back to the fire.

Unfolding the throw laid across the back of the chair, she sat and draped it over her hips and legs. “Thank you for helping him.”

“He’s my responsibility, too, Molly.” As he said it, he shot her a glance, but she didn’t meet his gaze. He thought she might be hurt because Charlie had turned to him after his nightmare, rather than her. Most likely she was upset that he hadn’t told her about the hunt and probably thought that was the reason behind the nightmare. He decided to put that to rest first.

“I guess I should have asked you before I took him hunting.”

“Yes. You should have.”

He studied her, trying to gauge the level of her anger, but she was looking down at a pleat she was working on in the blanket on her lap. He decided to wait for her to speak first.

It didn’t take long. “You know how fearful he is,” she said. “I’m not sure I want him playing with guns at such a young age.”

Definitely mad. Which sparked his own anger. “We don’t
play
with guns, Molly. We hunt.”

“Charlie’s too young—”

“Charlie didn’t hunt and he never touched a gun,” he cut in. “He wasn’t even there for the shoot or when the other men dressed out their kills.”

She looked so surprised, it felt like an insult. “Did you think I’d bring harm to the boy, Molly? Have you so little faith in me?”

He watched a flush move up her neck and across her high cheekbones. Her eyes were great wounded pools that shimmered in the firelight.

“I worry,” she said.

“Don’t.” Regretting that he’d snapped at her, he jabbed at the fire with the poker. How could he have forgotten this woman? How could he feel about her the way he did now, and not have a single memory of her from before the derailment?

Unless there were no memories.

The thought came from nowhere—so sudden and shocking he mentally recoiled from it, unwilling to examine it too closely or acknowledge that there could be any truth in it. But like a scrap of tune that wouldn’t let go, it kept circling in his mind until finally he had no choice but to face it.

If there were no memories, then it was all a lie and everyone around him was in on it . . . even his brother. But why would they do such a thing? To what end?

There was no logical reason for it.

It made no sense.

Still, the doubts ate at him, leaving a dark emptiness where trust used to be.

The fire popped and hissed, sounding loud and intrusive in the quietness of the room. Somewhere out in the valley a coyote yodeled.

Staring into the dancing flames, he tried to calm his turbulent thoughts. Brady would never lie to him. The one unshakable truth in Hank’s life was his faith in his brother. Since the day Brady finally told him the truth about Sam’s death, Hank had never doubted him.

And he wouldn’t start now.

Rising gingerly so he wouldn’t jar his ribs, he moved to sit in the chair across from Molly’s. He studied her. In the firelight she looked tired and sad and defeated. He focused on that, rather than the doubts, and posed the question he had come to ask. “What aren’t you telling me, Molly?”

She wouldn’t look at him, but stared down at her clenched fists instead. He watched them loosen, the fingers straightening one by one, as if each movement was forced rather than a slow release of tension. When they lay stick-straight on her thighs, she still hadn’t spoken.

“Why is Charlie so troubled?” he persisted.

Her head flew up. “Charlie?” She shot him a quick glance before her gaze shifted to the fire. But in that single instant when their eyes had met, he had seen profound relief. Why? Again, that feeling that she was hiding something.

He waited, having learned that Molly, like most people and especially his brother, found his silences intolerable and, when confronted with one, felt compelled to fill it with words. This time was no different.

“After the children’s father died,” she began in a faltering voice, “my sister remarried. It turned out he wasn’t a very nice man. Nellie learned to distrust him, and the children grew to fear him. Before Sister died, she made me promise to keep Penny and Charlie safe and take them someplace far from his reach.”

Hank remembered Penny saying “steppapas hurt.” Now he guessed why, and he didn’t like it. “Did he hurt them?”

“I think he hit them, but I’m not sure. Nellie said he was ‘up to something bad,’ was the way she put it. Something about a new war. She didn’t explain what she meant and was too ill to question, so I didn’t press it. That night, I took the children and left Savannah. That was six weeks ago.”

Savannah?
Savannah was thousands of miles away. Yet they’d been back at the ranch for almost two weeks, and the week before that, he’d been in the infirmary in El Paso. Could that be right? He counted again. He and Molly had gotten married within days of meeting each other? That made no sense either, but he put it aside to puzzle through later. “Where were you headed?”

“There’s a doctor in California—a colleague of my father’s—I thought maybe I could work in his clinic.”

“Then you met me.” In Sierra Blanca. Thousands of miles from Savannah. Only days before the derailment.

Her fists clenched again. “Yes.”

The questions were piling up fast, but for now, Hank concentrated on the children. “Is their stepfather trying to find them?”

“Charlie believes he is. If not him, then someone he sent. Penny told me she thought someone was following us, but she has a rather vivid imagination sometimes.” She looked up, her face showing confusion. “My sister said Daniel lost some papers. He thought the children had them, but when I questioned them, they seemed to know nothing about it. So I don’t know why he would come after us.”

A memory skirted Hank’s mind . . . something Penny had said when he was sick. But the thought faded before he could grasp it. “Did I know him?”

“Fletcher?” The question seemed to rattle her. “No. You never met.”

Daniel Fletcher.
Hank reminded himself to remember that name.

“You tell Charlie he’s safe here,” he said. “You’re all safe here.”

She nodded, but didn’t say anything.

He thought of something Charlie had said a few minutes ago when Molly had left to check on Penny. “The hunt today didn’t set off his nightmare, Molly. After you left, he asked about Penny again, then you. Even me.”

She watched him, her almost-green eyes reflecting back the firelight.

“He seems worried that something will happen to us,” he went on.

“That he’ll lose us like he’s lost the other people in his life. I think he feels powerless to save us, and that’s what makes him so afraid and angry.”

“Save us from what?”

He shrugged. “His stepfather? Who’s Mappa?”

She seemed to draw into herself. Her gaze dropped to the hands clasped in her lap. “His grandfather. My father. His name was Matthew, but when Charlie first learned to speak, it came out ‘Mappa’ instead.”