Lucky Penny

by Catherine Anderson

  “Why?” Her blue eyes widened with anxiety. “Will it run out of magic?”

  “It might if we abuse it by wishing for things that aren’t truly important.”

  “But, Papa, a pony is truly important!”

  David resisted the urge to smile. “No, darlin’, a pony is just something you’d really like to have.” He kissed her forehead. “The proper protocol for getting a pony is to ask your papa for one.”

  “But what if you say no?”

  David couldn’t look into his daughter’s pleading eyes without feeling as if his bones might melt. He needed her mother here, he thought. Brianna would intervene with that no-nonsense manner of hers and quickly regain control of the situation. Left to his own devices, David was beginning to realize he had a problem denying the child anything.

  “If I say no, then you won’t get a pony.”

  Daphne glanced down at her fist, in which she still grasped the penny.

  “Don’t do it,” David warned. Maybe, he decided, Brianna had been right all along and it had been a mistake to tell Daphne the penny was lucky in a very special way. He didn’t want her to grow up thinking she could have anything she wanted simply by wishing for it. “Our penny is to be saved for very special, important wishes, and a pony doesn’t qualify.”

  “But I want a pony.”

  David sighed. “All right, but you’re going to have to earn one.”

  “How?”

  “By doing chores, not only here at the ranch but also at the shop. Nothing worth having in this old world comes free.”

  David gave the child a list of tasks she could do in the barn that afternoon under Rob’s supervision. Daphne bounced off his knee and raced for the door. “I’ll work really hard, Papa. You’ll see! I’m going to earn my pony.”

  David smiled as she exited onto the veranda and slammed the door closed behind her. He had a lot to learn when it came to being a good father. His grin faded as he leafed through the mail. He flattened his fingers against one piece in particular, a thick envelope addressed to him by the Pinkerton Agency: the report on Brianna’s background.

  His stomach clenched. He clamped his teeth together. A part of him wanted to pretend the missive hadn’t come. But it had, and he couldn’t ignore its contents. It was time for him to learn the absolute truth.

  With shaking fingers, he opened the envelope, drew out the documents, and started to read.

  As always, the late afternoon brought a brisk breeze. David sat atop a paddock rail, watching Daphne exercise Acorn within the enclosure. He was acutely conscious of the paperwork he had stuffed inside his shirt. Tears slipped silently down his cheeks. What in God’s name have I done? The question circled mercilessly in his mind. As he watched his daughter, he felt as if his heart might break, for she wasn’t really his. Brianna had told him the absolute truth that day by the stream. Recalling that conversation, David felt sick. She had bared her soul to him, and he’d discounted every word as a lie. And she’d been right to accuse him of mocking her. He had done exactly that.

  Acorn’s hooves kicked up dust as Daphne led him around the pen. The child glanced up at David and reeled to a stop. “Papa, what’s wrong? It looks like you’re—like you’re crying.”

  David forced a smile. “Some dirt blew in my eyes, darlin’. That’s all.”

  He kept his lips curved until the little girl led the horse away. Gazing after her, he realized he was still reeling with shock. How could the child not be a Paxton? She looked so much like his mother. How in the hell could that be? David had no answers anymore. He only knew for a fact that Daphne was not his daughter.

  The orphanage had kept excellent records, and the documents the nuns had released to the Pinkerton agent chronicled the lives of Brianna and Moira O’Keefe, who had indeed been left on the doorstep as infants and grown up within the orphanage walls, cared for by the good sisters. The detective had spoken directly with Mother Superior, who remembered the O’Keefe girls well. Moira had been raped, choked, and beaten senseless in the conservatory by Stanley Romanik, a farmer’s son. The violent encounter had left her pregnant. To the heartbreak of the nuns, their first responsibility was to protect the reputation of the orphanage, and they’d had no choice but to eventually ask Moira to move out. Brianna had gone with her sister. The two girls left with only a few dollars from the nuns and a knapsack of clothing.

  From there, tracing the O’Keefe girls’ whereabouts and activities had taken more investigative work. Brianna had rented a small room in a tenement building and worked at any job she could find to care for Moira, who was sick all during her confinement and hemorrhaged if she was on her feet. A midwife ordered complete bed rest to save the babe. The precautions worked; the infant lived, but Moira died only minutes after delivery. Shortly thereafter Brianna went to a nearby hospital to report the advent of Daphne Rose O’Keefe. The birth certificate named Brianna as the child’s biological mother. The name of the father was omitted.

  Tears still burned in David’s eyes as he watched Daphne work with Acorn. Sweet Christ. She had such a way with horses, yet another Paxton trait. How was it possible that she wasn’t his? That first day in Glory Ridge, Brianna had indeed lied, sticking to the story she had fabricated to attain the position as Charles Ricker’s housekeeper years before. Looking back on it now, David figured Brianna had felt she had no choice but to cling to her original tale. He’d waltzed into the community, convinced himself Daphne was his, and then relentlessly waged war, determined that he would not leave that one-horse town without his little girl. During their audience with the judge, Brianna had fought with everything she had to keep her child. She must have been terrified. Far too often, the courts ruled against mothers in custody issues.

  The regret David felt was so intense that his bones ached. He’d ridden roughshod over Brianna, forcing her to come with him to No Name, so damned determined to be a proper father that he could think of nothing else. And now, just look at the mess he’d created. Daphne loved David and his whole family. He’d done such a fine job of putting his own spin on the story that even Daphne believed she was a Paxton by birth. She often touched a finger to her cheek and said, “I’ve got Grandma Dory’s dimple!” The child had a sense of belonging here. Even worse, Daphne now preferred to be with David and his family than to stay in town with Brianna. What had he done?

  Simple answer. In his arrogant disregard for anything Brianna had said, he’d gone at being a great father as if he were killing snakes—spoiling Daphne, luring her in. Well, he’d succeeded, hadn’t he? He’d stolen from Brianna the only thing in the whole world that mattered to her.

  David was only vaguely aware of Daphne as she called for him to watch her do this or that. To him, the sunlight had blinked out. The grassland had vanished. In his mind’s eye, he was in Boston a little more than six years ago, seeing Brianna at a younger age, impoverished, living in a tiny room, and hovering over a dingy mattress while her twin labored to give birth and then began to hemorrhage. He could see it all so clearly. Brianna dealing with her sister’s death, then standing over a pauper’s grave, probably in the rain or snow, with precious little by way of wraps to protect her and the baby from the cold and damp. He even imagined Brianna’s stomach snarling with hunger, and the baby’s thin wails for want of her mother’s milk, which Brianna, despite all her love of the child, hadn’t been able to provide. Then he pictured that younger, slump-shouldered Brianna trudging along the rain-slicked streets to keep her vow to her sister and claim the babe as her own.

  A sour bitterness filled David’s mouth. He could no longer delude himself. He wasn’t merely starting to fall in love with Brianna. It was already a done deal. Thinking back, he couldn’t remember exactly when he’d lost his heart to her. Maybe it had been that day by the stream when she’d slapped him with such pent-up fury that she’d knocked him on his ass. Or maybe that night when he killed the three sourdoughs and realized, in the height of rage, that she had been hurt during the exchange of lead. Fo
r several heart-stopping minutes, he’d believed she had a bullet lodged in her skull, and he’d been so afraid he had trembled.

  Before he knew it, he’d been in so deep that he could never resurface, and learning the truth about Daphne’s real father hadn’t changed how he felt one whit. He loved Brianna, not only because she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever clapped eyes on, but because she was so damned brave. Thank God for that Irish temper she so ruthlessly controlled and her infernal stubbornness as well. It had been only the latter that enabled an impoverished girl to raise a babe not her own. It had taken a lot of grit for her to sneak food from the restaurant and garbage barrels to feed her niece even as she weakened with hunger herself. Had she never yearned to stuff some of that sustenance into her own mouth? David had experienced hunger, so he knew the strength it had taken for her to leave her belly empty in order to fill Daphne’s.

  Now what? David watched Daphne lead Acorn in figure eights, stopping after each pass to praise him and give him treats, undoubtedly supplied by Rob. Was he going to shatter that little girl’s whole world by recanting now and telling her she wasn’t his?

  He couldn’t do that. It was time for a powwow with Shamrock. Time for them to dispense with all the bullshit that had created such a wall between them. Time to start dealing honestly with each other. The truth, and nothing but the truth. He would beg for her forgiveness, on his knees if necessary, because he’d done her a horrible injustice.

  “Hey, Daphne!” David called. He leaped off the fence rail and strode out to where his daughter stood with the horse. Yes, by God, his daughter. “How would you like to stay overnight with Grandma Dory, Uncle Ace, Aunt Caitlin, and your cousins?”

  Daphne glowed at the suggestion. The wind caught her golden curls. Paxton gold. Even now, David looked at her and saw the striking resemblance to his mother.

  “Are you staying overnight there, too?” she asked hopefully.

  “I can’t, pumpkin.” David crouched down. “I have some unexpected business in town. Will you be okay without me? Sam can stay there with you.”

  Daphne grinned, showing off the new tooth that had appeared recently to partially close one of the gaps in her smile. “I love it there. Maybe Grandma will show me her scrapbook again and tell me more stories about when she was my age.”

  “Maybe so. Or maybe you can get Aunt Caitlin to make fudge.”

  “Fudge?” Daphne giggled. “I wish Mama had come. She loves fudge.”

  Two hours later, David guided Blue into the livery stable south of town. Chris Coffle, a stout man of short stature with black hair and brown eyes, met David before he could dismount. The aging bachelor, who wore his everyday outfit of blue dungarees and a checkered work shirt, took Blue’s reins. He flashed David a grin.

  “I been at this long enough that I know the routine. Rub him down, give him the best hay I got, and a ration of grain. Yes, the water will be fresh. Yes, I’ll be here all night. And, yes, I’ll make sure no fool comes in here with a lighted cigarette.”

  David had to laugh even though his heart felt like a lead weight in his chest. “I guess you know my horse is mighty important to me.” And so was his daughter. David trembled inside when he thought of the upcoming conversation with Brianna. “Take good care of him for me.”

  As David left the stable, he took a deep, bracing breath. He thought about stopping at one of the saloons for a couple of stiff whiskies. False courage. He wouldn’t face her liquored up. He’d need to be sober and thinking straight. He stared at his feet as he walked. His boots sent up puffs of dust, heralding the end of spring and the arrival of summer. David could only hope that was a good omen, that this evening would mark the beginning of things for him and Shamrock, not the end.

  He went first to his office to place the Pinkerton report in his desk drawer. He would tell Brianna that he’d hired investigators back East, but he didn’t want to slap her in the face with proof of it. The information would be safe locked in his desk. His deputies fiddled with surface stuff, but they both knew anything in the center drawer was for his eyes only. The spare key, hidden in a niche of the wall, was only for emergencies.

  Rory came out just as David was pushing away from the desk and hooking his keys back on his belt. “Hey, boss, I thought you left for the weekend! No trouble, I hope.”

  David shook his head. “No.” He met his deputy’s curious gaze. “My daughter is with Ace and his family, so I sneaked away for an evening with my wife. Maybe I’ll take her to Roxie’s for a special supper or something.”

  Rory chuckled and nodded. “I get you. Having a kid around all the time—” He shrugged. “My people are big on family. Nothing is more important to us than our children. But, hey, every once in a while a man needs a little room.”

  A picture rose in David’s mind of the lonely cot he’d occupied for a month, in the same room with his wife but not with her. He needed more than a little space, damn it. The heartbreak was he’d done nothing to earn it. He’d ignored Brianna when she tried to tell him the truth. He’d made light of her story, which must have half killed her to tell. When she’d laid him out with a slap, which he now realized had been well deserved, he’d told her to put her fist into it next time so she might give him a bit of a jolt. He’d screwed up in every imaginable way, mocking her, calling her a liar.

  He could only pray God would have mercy on him. Stupidity had to count for something up there. Surely a man couldn’t be condemned to hell on earth for being a pigheaded son of a bitch.

  For her solitary chocolate-dunking party, Brianna had chosen to make David’s wonderful coffee with a dash of salt instead of her usual tea. She sat at the round oak kitchen table, determinedly thrusting a piece of chocolate into the hot brew, sucking away the melted part, and then trying with everything she had to savor the taste. Only it wasn’t the same without Daphne. She missed the little slurping sounds her daughter made and her muted groans of pleasure. Nothing, she realized, was the same without the child. And she missed David. His laughter warmed the rooms. His music lifted her spirits. The deep, velvety sound of his voice always soothed her. She dreaded going to bed this evening because he wouldn’t be there, only a few feet away on the cot, to fill the night with his presence.

  She’d fought not to love the man. She’d been betrayed a hundred times by the males of her species, and in as many ways. The kindly bosses who had turned into lecherous monsters. The bar patrons who’d gone from flirtatious to forceful, using their fists when strength of arm alone failed to overpower her. The bar owner, a wonderful old man, had come to her rescue each time, using a whiskey jug as a club. To this day, Brianna remembered that gray-haired gentleman in her prayers, and she probably always would. He had saved her from meeting with the same fate Moira had, and he’d given her extra money to buy goat’s milk for the baby.

  As Brianna dunked the chocolate again, she pressed a hand over her breasts. During Daphne’s infancy, they had ached and become swollen, as if her body was reacting to the baby’s needs and desperately trying to produce nourishment. Nothing had come forth, of course, and Brianna would always feel that her own flesh had betrayed her. She and Moira had been so close, identical physically, connected emotionally. There had been an inexplicable mental link between them. If Moira experienced pain, or if she felt afraid or sick, Brianna always knew, and vice versa. Even the afternoon of the rape, Brianna had sensed Moira’s terror. With a cry, she’d raced from the kitchen, sped through the hallways, and finally spilled out into the garden. Her sister, who had been assigned the task of trimming the roses and collecting bouquets, had been nowhere in sight.

  But Brianna had known where Moira was. She’d gathered up her skirts and run for the conservatory. Now, all these years later, when she recalled that moment, the sound of her own screams echoed inside her mind. She’d found Moira sprawled on the floor, her body battered, her torn clothing soaked with blood.

  The nuns, heralded by Brianna’s terrified cries, had come quickly. Moira had been
carried into the orphanage kitchen. Brianna couldn’t remember if she’d helped to carry her sister or if she’d followed behind the nuns. One of the cots from the pantry had been dragged out so they could lay Moira’s limp body on it. Brianna couldn’t recall the rest, at least not clearly. All she saw in her mind’s eye was a blur of crimson, bruises, and her sweet sister’s face.

  What had come later, after Moira had been saved, would haunt her for the rest of her life. For in the end, Moira had recovered initially only to die a horrible death later, her life’s blood seeping slowly from her body.

  Brianna dropped the hunk of chocolate onto the saucer and nearly gagged on the taste. Moira’s favorite thing had been dunking chocolate. Brianna had tried to pass along the tradition to her daughter. Her whole life revolved around that child, and now Daphne no longer needed her.

  Sobs built in Brianna’s chest. The tears in her eyes made everything swim. She tried to steer her thoughts to the practical. She should fix something for supper. She should stitch seed pearls onto her gown. Instead she sat there and cried.

  After leaving the marshal’s office, David stood on the boardwalk in the deepening twilight, grabbing for a sense of calm that eluded him. He’d never been good with words, and he’d need to be tonight. He loved that woman and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, but now that he knew the truth, he couldn’t in good conscience force her to remain in the marriage. What if she wanted to leave No Name? He couldn’t stop her. Hell, even if he’d had that kind of power over her, he wouldn’t use it. When you loved a woman, really loved her, you wanted her to be happy. Making Brianna stay with a man she didn’t love would be cruel.

  With a weary sigh, he walked to the dress shop, used his own key to let himself in, and then moved up the stairs. A thin line of light shone at the bottom of the door, telling him that Brianna was inside, undoubtedly sewing seed pearls on her gown. She used every waking moment to accomplish something.

  As he walked into the room, David expected to see her in the rocker with the lantern at her elbow. Instead she sat at the table with her face cupped in her hands. She jerked when she sensed his presence and straightened. Her eyes were puffy from crying, her pale cheeks still wet with tears.