Stolen Little Thing (Little Thing Series Book 1) (4 page)

The wagon rumbled across the bridge and onto Luke’s ranch. Esme marveled that this property was Luke’s now. Esme remembered Uncle Simon telling her the neighbor’s ranch belonged to Charles Crosby and his wife Eleanor. The couple, retired missionaries, had been childless until they took Luke in when he was ten.

The road curved toward a cluster of buildings, and she saw a red barn, several small sheds, and a chicken coop. To one side was a cabin, where a stream of boys spilled through a screened door, rushing to greet them. There were five in all, varying in ages from about ten to sixteen. They wore blue denim jeans and white shirts, all starched and pressed. The older boys wore boots. The youngest went bare-footed.

“Uh!” Esme grumbled. “Where did all these children come from?”

“They’re kids from the Episcopalian foster home in town,” Nolan explained. “They’re lost boys. Kids left behind and abandoned by their parents. Father Ted, the pastor at St. Mark’s, is Luke’s uncle. Mr. and Mrs. Crosby got the idea to bring boys out here to show them how to train and ride horses so they’d have some skills when they turned eighteen. Something other than panhandling or pickpocketing.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Crosby started doing that?”

Nolan nodded. “Charles Crosby and his brother Ted were orphans, and they always said they would never forget being given a hand up when they were young. Luke kept everything going after Charles and Eleanor died. It ends up being a pretty good trade-off for all concerned. The boys help him with the cattle, and in turn, he helps them learn ranching. The hard work and Luke’s steady hand keep them in line. For the most part, anyway.”

Esme watched as Luke swung a leg over his horse and dropped to the ground. He greeted each boy with a handshake or a tousling of their hair. The screen door slammed and a round-faced Mexican woman walked out, wincing with each step as if her feet hurt. Frowning at Luke, she chattered in Spanish.

Luke suppressed a smile as he turned to the youngest boy, who sported a darkened eye. Esme drew in a sharp breath. The skin was a deep purple, but the eye showed no sign of swelling. Indignation rose in her chest. The poor child, the smallest of the band looked as though he’d been in a terrible scrap. Esme frowned at each of the boys in turn, wondering which one was the culprit and how severely he would be scolded.

“What happened, Henry?” Luke asked.

The boy folded his arms over his chest. “Nothing worth talkin’ about, sir. Me and Salvador had a fight’s all.” Henry shrugged, looking indifferent until the boy next to him elbowed him and whispered something Esme couldn’t make out. This caused a ripple of laughter, making even Henry loosen his stoic stance to flash a smile.

“Did you take it to the corral?” Luke asked.

Henry nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Nolan leaned in to Esme. “That’s Luke’s main rule. No fighting in the house. That’s how windows and furniture get broke. Got a problem with someone, you take it the corral. There’s one more, something about bathing regular, but other than that, the boys make their own rules. Luke says they handle themselves better when they figure things out on their own.”

Esme eyed the corral. A lone burro stood near the hay crib chewing, his eyes half-closed. She turned back to look at the lost boys, as Nolan called them. They grinned at each other as though it were all a grand joke. Aside from the black eye, there was no lingering sign of the violence, no evidence of hard feelings or simmering resentment. If this were St. Adelaide’s, the girls would still be in a furor. Esme smiled. Perhaps she should write to suggest the headmistress have a corral built. Right next to the dining hall would be just the place.

“Who started it?” Luke asked.

“I did, sir, but I finished it too,” Henry explained. “Sal gave me a shiner, but he took back what he said.”

Luke nodded and then addressed the group. “Go help untack horses, and then get to your chores.” Luke turned to Nolan. “I’ll take her home. You and the boys go out to the north pasture and separate the calves from the cows. We need to brand them in the next day or so.”

Nolan jumped down from the wagon, turned and lifted his hat to Esme. “Nice meeting you, Miss Esme.”

“Thank you, Nolan.” Esme gave Luke a look of concern. She hadn’t counted on him taking her to Simon’s ranch. He hadn’t even apologized for his prior behavior. What was to stop him from trying something again?

Luke climbed up to the buckboard’s seat, his expression stern. She edged away from him.

“Don’t give me that look.” He growled at her and then snapped the reins on the horses’ back. The team pulled away from the barnyard. “I’ll be a perfect gentleman. Who’s at Simon’s waiting for you?”

“Simon had a girl named Marta working for him. She minded the house after he went to Warm Springs and has agreed to stay on with me.”

Luke stared straight ahead, his jaw set in an obstinate manner that made Esme consider jumping off the wagon and walking the rest of the way alone. She could see him working up a lecture.

“I’m going to send Nolan over before nightfall. He can sleep in the bunkhouse till you hire a man or two to stay on.”

She said nothing. It was clear that he said the words not as a question but a statement of fact. “All right,” she agreed.

Soon, they were back on the road, and Esme realized she’d forgotten entirely about Luke’s wife. Shouldn’t the woman have come out to greet her husband after his absence? Clearly, his wife was lacking in basic social graces. Esme smoothed her skirts. A smile tugged her lips. Smug superiority warmed her heart. Mrs. Crosby was a woman of inferior manners. It was the only pleasant discovery of the day.

They passed the miles without speaking, an uncomfortable silence between them. Luke radiated tension, his body coiled like a spring. She glanced at him. He looked angry. He’d wanted her property, she reminded herself, and now he was delivering her to the very ranch that could have been his.

The road curved, and in the distance she could see Simon’s house nestled in a grove of ancient oak trees. Esme closed her eyes. She wasn’t prepared for the sight of the property after all the years she’d been away. The house, the barns, all so near to her heart, sat deserted under the harsh, afternoon sunlight. No horses extended their heads through the half doors of the barn to watch them pass. The swing swayed in a ghostly breeze, the sight of it making Esme shiver.

Luke pulled the team to a halt and tied them to the hitching post. He helped Esme down, his hand clasping hers.

“You haven’t been here in a long time,” he said.

“Not since I was fourteen.” A foolish fourteen-year-old girl, Esme thought bitterly as she faced the house. One who wrote in her diary that she’d shared her first kiss with a boy she was in love with. A foolish girl, who, with just a few strokes of a pen, revealed her heart to the prying eyes of her mother, and was forbidden to ever again visit the ranch.

Esme gently tugged her hand from his grasp as she felt a wave of anguish wash over her. To return after so long brought on a cascade of memories and regrets. Her father hadn’t allowed her to visit Simon until he grew ill, and it became clear he would die. By then, he’d been brought to the sanatorium in Warm Springs and had wasted to a shadow of his former self, blind, delirious, and smelling of the infection festering on his legs. Esme stayed with him until he passed. It didn’t take long for him to succumb to the diabetes.

How she’d missed him! Her eccentric, brilliant and kind-hearted Uncle Simon, dead now a year. The tears that threatened must wait until she could weep in private.

They walked slowly up the stone-lined path and ascended the steps as the wood creaked beneath their feet. Luke pushed the door, and it swung open. They stood side by side, staring at the sight of the house before them. Everything Simon had left was all precisely the same except for one major difference.

A pecan tree had fallen through the middle of the house.

“My God,” Esme whispered. “Where’s Marta?”

Luke called the woman’s name. A note lay on a nearby table.

`“Miss Esme,” Luke read. “The tree fell last night in a storm. I am at my sister’s and will come when you need me.”

“Thank Goodness she’s safe,” Esme whispered.

Luke looked at the roof, the walls and the floor. “At least it didn’t rain into the house.”

Esme said nothing as the shock washed over her. The tree, a giant that Simon’s grandfather had planted a century ago, had crashed through the roof, splintered beams, and scattered shingles. The walls appeared to be intact at least from what Esme could tell. It was just the roof that had a twenty-foot gap running down the middle.

“How much does a roof cost?” She spoke quietly, walking around the tree, stepping over branches and debris.

Luke shrugged. “Plenty. Not only that but you need to find the workers and be able to supervise them.”

“I can supervise them. I’ll be here anyway.”

“I can hire the men and I’ll supervise them,” he declared.

Esme cast a suspicious glance. He probably cut the tree down to begin with. She should check to see if there were axe marks on the trunk. But no, that would be too wicked even for Luke Crosby. He was conniving and shrewd, but not to the point of destroying the house he coveted. She went into the study that flanked the den. It was Simon’s favorite room, the shelves were filled with his books and the fragrance of his pipe tobacco lingered. Sadness tugged at her again. Simon was gone. His home crushed beneath a tree. Part of her had expected to find him waiting for her in the parlor. She ran her fingers along the shelves and studied the spines of the leather-bound volumes. Her heart tightened with grief.

Luke followed her. He stopped at the threshold and leaned against the door frame.

Esme kept her back to him and took a volume of Don Quixote from the shelf. She inhaled the fragrance of the book then slid it back in place.

“How much would you guess the roof will cost?” she asked a second time.

Luke thought that she might dissolve into tears or hysterics right about now with the tornado, the tree, and who knows what else was going through her head. He was impressed. If she felt overwrought, she was doing a good job hiding it.

“Did Simon leave you any money?” he asked.

She turned to face him. “I don’t know. My father didn’t mention it, and I was in such a hurry when I left, I never pressed the issue.”

Luke was sure Simon had a bank account in Blanco, but he would keep that bit of information to himself for the time being. He rounded the desk and sat down in the chair. “I’ll lend you money for the roof, if you let me supervise the work.”

Esme shook her head. “I might not have the money to pay you back.”

“In that case, you can sell me acreage to cover the debt.”

Esme sat down across from him. “What else? I can tell you’re not telling me something.”

Luke shifted in his chair. He didn’t like concealing information from her, but he wanted her to agree to more. “You’ll stay at my house until I get this mess fixed for you.”

Esme shot to her feet. “How could you suggest such a thing? I can’t stay with you, Luke.” She could feel her color rising, heating her skin, color crawling up her chest to her face. In a moment her ears would be red. “After this morning, Luke, how could you ask me to come to your home? What am I supposed to think?”

Luke leaned forward in the chair and folded his hands in front of him. “There’s nothing inappropriate here. Trust me, Consuelo would never allow anything to happen under that roof.”

Esme sank back down to the chair. Of course, his wife would be there. If she were to agree to his invitation, Esme would be living with a married couple. An image of a delicate, dark-eyed beauty fanned the embers of the Esme’s jealousy.

“I think it would take about ten days,” Luke said. “And in that time, we could get a crew of good men to work the ranch. I know the people around here, Esme. Let me find them for you.”

Esme pondered his offer. She would have to endure living under his roof with his wife, the mother of his children. She would have to witness the evidence of their domestic bliss every day and receive hospitality from Mrs. Crosby. She shuddered at the humiliating turn of events. Luke awaited her response. She folded her arms obstinately.

Luke got to his feet, his expression darkened. “Simon would not want you here by yourself.” His irritation made the words taut. “Get in the wagon. I either take you to my ranch or back to San Antonio. That would give me a chance to say hello to your father. I’m sure he’d be delighted to see me.”

Esme followed him out of the house, hurrying to catch up. “I thought I was escaping tyranny when I came out here.” She followed him past the wreckage in the parlor and out the door.

“You’ve been sore with me ever since I first wrote you,” Luke muttered, slamming the door behind her. He strode to the wagon. “I’m trying to help you, keep you safe, and you act like I’m some sort of villain. I’m sorry I kissed you this morning. I promise not to lay a hand on you if you stay with me, and it’s either that or back to your parents.”

Esme pulled herself up to the buckboard. “Fine. I’ll stay with you then. And I’m not mad at you. I have absolutely no reason to be mad at you. What possible quarrel could I have?” She fluffed her skirts and straightened them, glaring at him.

Luke settled on the seat beside her and flicked the reins. “I don’t know, Sweetheart, but over the next ten days I plan to find out.”