“Meet your accompanist, Miss Seaforth. Baldwin Whittaker.”
The pianist swiped off his threadbare cap and blinked up at her. “Ma’am.”
She tried to smile. “Good evening, Mr. Whittaker.”
He rolled his soft brown eyes at Tom. “You, uh, do much singing before, miss?”
“Well, mostly in church. But I know a number of songs from when I was a girl.”
“Hmm. Well, what you gonna sing, Miss Seaforth?”
“‘Greensleeves.’ Do you know it?”
“Shore do. How ’bout you stand sorta to one side, facing the bar. That way folks can see you and I can pick up on your cues.”
Clarissa took her position, steadied her erratic breathing and unknotted the shawl around her shoulders. “Like this?”
The man’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, yes, ma’am, just like that! I can hardly wait to see the reaction when the gentlemen clap their eyes on you.”
Well, she could certainly wait! Every bone in her overexposed body wanted to turn tail and run.
Mr. Whittaker turned to the piano keyboard, played a chord and looked up at her expectantly. Clarissa drew in a breath and opened her lips, but nothing came out. The pianist played the chord again, this time rippling it into an arpeggiated introduction.
Dear Lord, let me not faint dead away before I have sung a single note.
* * *
Gray pulled his tired body out of the saddle, tied the gelding up at the hitching rail and stumbled into the saloon. He wasn’t too clear about why he was back in town after a restless night and a grueling day digging a well and putting up new fencing at the ranch, but here he was, and he was plenty thirsty.
Tom reached over the bar to shake his hand. “Welcome back, Gray. I was starting to wonder if you’d got religion in Abilene and turned into a teetotaler.”
“Not hardly. Just been busy.”
Tom snorted. “Yeah? What else is new?” He splashed a shot glass full of red-eye and set the bottle on the bar.
“Nuthin’s new except I finally hit wet sand at the bottom of my new well.”
Tom leaned toward him. “Got a surprise for you tonight, Gray.”
“What is it? Nuthin’ much would interest me but a few barrels of fresh water.”
“Nah. Something better.”
Gray looked up at the stocky man and froze at what he saw reflected in the gold-framed mirror over the bar. A vision in green with long, dark wavy hair tumbling to her shoulders and an expanse of creamy bosom the like of which he hadn’t seen for a long time. Jehoshaphat, that’s Clarissa Seaforth! What the hell is she doing half dressed in Tom’s saloon?
The piano rippled out some notes and a voice like smoky silk rose in a familiar melody.
Alas, my love, you do me wrong,
To treat me so discourteously,
For I have loved you so long...
Gray slammed his shot glass down on the bar top and swiveled around to stare at her. She sang the whole verse while dusty cowboys and card-playing ranchers sat goggle-eyed and respectful. Then she started on the second verse, but suddenly the batwing doors banged open and Caleb Arness lurched in.
She didn’t recognize him. She just kept singing in that low, silky voice while Caleb stumbled to the bar. “Tom!” he yelled. “Wanna drink.”
“Shut up!” someone called from one of the tables. “Can’tcha hear the lady’s singing?”
Arness obviously didn’t recognize her, either. He kept pounding his fist on the polished mahogany surface and yelling for whiskey.
Tom leaned over the bar and said something to him.
“Singer?” Arness shouted. He swiveled around to peer at Clarissa. “A female singer? Why, hell an’ damn, that’s one helluva pretty—”
Gray’s fist stopped the word. It also stopped the song, and an uneasy silence descended.
“Whadja hit me for, ya skunk?” Arness mumbled from the floor where he lay.
“No reason,” Gray said quietly. “Just practicin’. Now, either shut up or get out.”
Arness lurched toward Clarissa. “Ain’t leavin’ without kissin’ that woman! C’mere, honey.”
Gray shot a look at her stricken face and gave her a quick, decisive shake of his head. Her eyes widened. Who? she mouthed at him.
Arness, he silently mouthed back.
She went whiter than a pail of milk.
Arness made a grab for her. “Now, come on, honey, be nice. You come on over here and I’ll show you a real good time.”
Right then Gray knew he had to get her out of there. “Tom,” he muttered to the barman. “Keep Arness busy.”
Tom rose to the occasion by knocking over a bottle of whiskey, spilling it all across Arness’s filthy trousers. While Arness mopped at the damage, Gray strode to Clarissa and bent to speak in her ear.
“Don’t scream. I’m getting’ you out of here.” He leaned toward the piano player.
“Cover for us, Whitt. Play something loud.”
Gray grabbed her around the waist. “Come on.” He hustled her into the back room, out the rear door and into the dark alley outside.
He ushered her into the hotel. “Which room?”
She turned fear-dilated eyes on him. “N-number six.”
He reached over the counter and snagged the key off its hook.
“Emily will be asleep,” she protested.
“Good.” He unlocked the door, pushed her inside and marched in behind her.
“Mama!” Emily sat up in the big double bed, rubbing her eyes. “And Mister Cowboy! It is tomorrow already?”
“No, darling. It’s still nighttime.” Clarissa sank down on the bed and wrapped her arms around her daughter.
Gray laid his hand on her shoulder and she looked up at him. Her eyes looked kinda funny. Dazed-like. “He doesn’t know what you look like,” he said in a low voice. “But Tom’ll tell him your name and that’ll let the cat out of the bag for sure.”
She nodded.
“I’m going over to the livery to get another horse.”
She blinked. “Why?”
“I’m takin’ you and Emily out to my ranch.”
“But—”
“Pack up,” he ordered. “And bolt the door while I’m gone.”
Chapter Four
In spite of the voluminous puffy green taffeta skirt, Clarissa managed to mount the animal Gray held for her and watched while he lifted Emily into his saddle, settled her on his lap and folded her tiny fingers around the saddle horn.
“Hang on real tight, Emily.”
“Okay.” She sent a happy grin up at him, and Clarissa felt a stab of unease. Children were so trusting! And so was she, she reflected. Imagine, letting a man she had met only once kidnap her and take her home with him!
Gray grabbed the reins of her sorrel and kicked his black gelding into a canter. When they reached the edge of town, he moved into a gallop, but he still kept hold of Clarissa’s reins. She couldn’t bring herself to admit she had been on a horse only once in her life, and that was on her tenth birthday.
In the dark everything looked oppressive—thick stands of towering trees, tangled brush, shadows. There was a sound of rushing water. And no light anywhere. She was used to a measured out grid of orderly streets, gaslights, houses with candles in the windows. Her skin prickled. It was like riding into hell. If she allowed herself to feel anything, it would be a wash of pure terror.
After what seemed like hours, they moved through a wide swinging gate, then trotted up a long lane. Gray still held on to her reins with one hand and kept the other firmly planted around Emily’s middle.
Clarissa was exhausted, so winded she could scarcely breathe and her backside was numb. Inside she was still shaking, but knew she was sa
fe now, swept away from a terrible fate. Caleb Arness was a drunkard. And a liar. She was well rid of the man, but her narrow escape had left her unnerved.
But what now? Why, oh why, had she ever left Boston? She didn’t know anything about the West. She didn’t even know where she was.
Good heavens, Clarissa, pull yourself together. You must be strong for Emily. You have to protect your daughter.
They came up on a gentle rise and up ahead a light winked in the blackness. Oh, thank God, civilization! How long had she been joggled along on the animal beneath her, one hour? Two? It felt like ten years.
Mr. Harris—well, she guessed she should call him Gray, since he had rescued her and Emily from that odious man Caleb Arness. She would be grateful to Graydon Harris to her dying day. How could Caleb have lied to her like that, telling her he was an upstanding citizen of Smoke River, a friend of the sheriff and all the ranchers within fifty miles? A family man who would welcome her and her daughter into his Christian home? The man was nothing but a slovenly drunkard.
The horses slowed to a walk, and now she saw there were two lights—one inside a big white house with a wide verandah across the front and the other swinging from a shadowy man’s hand.
“Ramon,” Gray called out. “Get Maria!”
The swinging lamp disappeared into a small, dark cabin a few yards to one side of the big house, and in the next minute Gray dismounted, pried Emily’s fingers off the saddle horn and lifted her down onto the ground. Then he came toward Clarissa’s sorrel.
“Miss Seaforth, I’ll help you dismount.”
“Where are we?”
“My ranch, the Bar H.” He reached up, circled his hands around her waist and lifted her out of the saddle. The instant her feet touched the solid earth her legs collapsed under her and she cried out. Gray caught her under the arms and leaned her up against the horse.
Emily skipped to her side. “Mama, how come you can’t walk?”
“I can walk perfectly well,” she said as steadily as she could manage. “In...a minute.”
“Take your time,” Gray murmured. “You don’t have to prove it.”
It took a full ten minutes before she trusted her limbs to keep her upright, and even then Gray had to half carry her up the porch steps.
“She is ill?” the man called Ramon asked.
“Nah. Just tuckered.”
“Maria...she is inside.”
Seven steps later Clarissa stood in the doorway of the house and met the startled glance of a short, plump Mexican woman.
“Ay de mi, Señor Gray, what have you done?”
“Nothing. Maria, this is Clarissa Seaforth, and—” he glanced left and then right, but no Emily “—her daughter. Clarissa, meet Maria Rocha, my housekeeper and cook.”
“Ah, no, I am not cook anymore, remember? Not since I get my new stove in my own kitchen. Just housekeeper.”
The man with the lantern swung up on the porch with Emily’s hand in his. “I find her outside petting your horse, señor.” He relinquished her to Clarissa and set the lantern on the mantelpiece of the stone fireplace.
“Ramon’s my foreman,” Gray explained. “Ramon, this is Miss Seaforth. And Emily.”
Ramon bowed. “Señorita. I have already meet Emily,” he said with a wide smile.
Clarissa untied her shawl and lifted it off her shoulders. Maria’s sudden gasp reminded her she was still wearing the green taffeta with the too-low neckline.
The housekeeper marched up to Gray and poked her finger at his chest. “Señor Gray, I ask what you do, and you say ‘nothing’? Is obvious you do something, and now you bring her home!” She shook her head in disapproval.
“Hold on, Maria. It’s not what you’re thinking.”
“Eh? And what I am thinking?”
Clarissa took a shaky step forward. “Mrs. Rocha, Gray rescued me from a very bad man in town.”
Maria’s black eyebrows folded into a frown. “Is so?”
“Is so,” Gray said with a sigh. “Caleb Arness.”
The Mexican woman crossed herself. “Very bad man. Very bad.” She pointed to the kitchen. “Come. I make coffee.”
Gray caught her arm. “Maria, wait. Would you move the things in my bedroom to the room in the attic? Miss Seaforth’s gonna be with us for a while.”
“Maria,” Clarissa said quickly. “Please don’t move any of Mr. Harris’s things. Emily and I will sleep in the attic.”
“But is all dusty up there,” Maria protested.
“I can dust.”
“And with even cobwebs!”
Clarissa suppressed a shiver. “I can deal with...with a few spiders.”
Emily grasped her hand. “I wanna deal with spiders, too! Can I, Mama? Can I?”
* * *
The attic room was at the top of a steep staircase, and while Clarissa saw no spiders, a thick layer of dust lay over the chest of drawers and the night table. And the bed! My gracious, when she plopped the suitcase down on top of the quilt, a cloud of dust puffed up into her face.
Maria appeared in the doorway, her arms loaded with bed linens. “Señorita, I bring sheets and pillows, with feathers. And—ay-yi-yi!—the air up here is make my eyes water!”
“Me, too!” Emily chimed. “It feels real sneezy, doesn’t it, Mama?”
“So, the little one is your daughter?” Maria sent a pointed glance at Clarissa’s exposed bosom. “But you not married lady?”
“Emily is adopted,” Clarissa said quickly. “Actually, she is my brother’s child. Her mother died in childbirth.”
“Papa not want daughter?”
“He was lost in a shipwreck at sea.”
“Ah.” Maria tossed the armload of sheets onto a chair and patted Emily’s red curls. “Pobrecita!”
Clarissa snatched the patchwork quilt off the bed and gave it a good shake. The air filled with dust. Maria spread the clean sheets over the mattress and plumped up the pillows while Emily scrambled into a white lawn nightie and launched herself onto the bed. “Look, Mama, it bounces!”
She stepped out of the green taffeta gown and into her batiste nightrobe. “Maria, what time will Mr.—will Gray be up in the morning?
“Early,” Maria said. “Before the sun. Señor Gray likes his breakfast at six.”
Six! She was so tired she wanted to sleep until noon.
“You cook food for him?”
All at once Clarissa remembered that the smiling Mexican woman was Gray’s housekeeper, not his cook. “I—” Good heavens, what should she say? She had no skill whatsoever in the kitchen, or anywhere else. In Boston they had employed servants before... But she couldn’t think of that now. “Um, I can try.”
With a nod, Maria left a candle on the nightstand and made her way heavily down the stairs. Clarissa tumbled between the sweet-smelling sheets and tentatively ran the fingers of one hand over her derriere. She couldn’t feel a thing.
“Mama?”
“Yes, Emily?” she said with a yawn. “What is it?”
“I forgot to say my prayers. Can I say them in bed?”
“Of course.” She would say a few hundred herself.
Emily folded her little hands under her chin and closed her eyes. “Forgive us our trash baskets,” she whispered, “as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets.”
“What? Oh, honey—”
“Shh, Mama, I’m not finished yet. God bless Mama and Mister Cowboy and Ramon and Missus Maria and...and that pretty black horse I petted.”
Clarissa mentally added a special blessing for Graydon Harris and for Maria. Then she lay awake, staring up at the thick wooden beams over her head, studying the blue-painted walls and the single grimy window on the opposite wall. Every flat surface was covered in dust. Being “out West” was th
e farthest thing she could imagine from civilization.
But perhaps there was one bright spot—she hadn’t seen a single spider! Still, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the fix she found herself in. No money. No job. No husband to give her and Emily a home. And absolutely no idea what to do next.
With a ragged sigh she leaned over and puffed out the candle on the nightstand.
Chapter Five
Gray faced his foreman across the woodstove in the tiny cabin. “You took that woman away from Caleb Arness?” Ramon slapped the side of his head. “Señor Gray, have we not trouble enough?”
“Yeah, guess I did take her away. And, yeah, we have plenty of trouble all right. More than before, that’s for sure.”
“But, señor...”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Arness is bad news.” Real bad news. Ever since he’d outbid the rival rancher in the auction when he’d bought the Bar H, Arness had been hounding him to sell and making threats. Not idle threats, either—real ones. Not only were his cattle being rustled, but Gray had also found fences pulled down, water holes fouled and his ranch hands had been threatened.
Ramon plunked his mug of coffee onto the stovetop. “You are, how you say, playing with the devil, you know?”
“Playing with fire, you mean?”
“I mean fire. Yes.”
“Heck, Ramon, when it comes to Arness I’m not playin’. I’m fightin’ for my life.”
“Si, that I know. And I am helping, but you don’ need no lady to stir up the hornets.”
Gray clapped the slim Mexican on the back and headed to the house for breakfast. Hornets he could deal with. He could even deal with Arness when it came down to it, and he guessed it would, sooner or later.
Emily met him in the kitchen, a crust of bread in her hand. “Mama can’t walk,” she announced.
“Oh, yeah? Well, that happens sometimes after a long horseback ride.”
The girl propped her small hands at her waist. “It won’t happen to me, ever! I want to ride your horse, that shiny black one.”
“No, you don’t, Emily.” Clarissa’s voice came from the staircase. In the next instant she stood in the doorway, one hand clutching the edge. “I may be crippled, but I am still your mother.”
Western Spring Weddings Page 3