Brianna’s mouth trembled. “No,” she whispered. “Never so far as I know.”
“Then please believe me now. She’s all het up about me breaking it off with her. She feels like everybody in town is staring at her and whispering behind her back. Everything she did tonight was intended to discredit you and save her pride. I’m—” David broke off. “I’m so sorry she humiliated you.” He leaned even closer. “But as bad as it was, I have to say I’ve never been so proud of anybody in my whole life. The way you smacked her in the face with that pie! I almost clapped my hands and threw my hat in the air.”
Some color returned to Brianna’s cheeks and she smiled slightly. “I did let her have it good, didn’t I?”
“You certainly did.” David couldn’t squelch a grin. “I only wish you’d punched her lights out while you were at it.”
Brianna sank back on the chair and covered her face with her hands. “I knew this would happen. I told you, remember? I was so happy, and I feared something would spoil everything. All I can think about now is how Daphne will be hurt.” She dropped her hands. “If she hears a word of this, it’ll break her heart.”
In that moment, David knew exactly why he had come to love this woman so very much. No matter that Brianna had just been humiliated in public and called names. Her biggest worry was for her daughter.
David stepped around the table and drew her up into his arms. “Nothing,” he whispered, “is going to hurt Daphne. I’ll run back over and get her posthaste. In the meantime, my family will circle the wagons to protect her. This will blow over. You’ll see. If I have to, I’ll say Hazel is lying about the whole thing. She’s jealous. Anyone with brains can see that. I’ll just spread the word that she sneaked through my files and is making up stories to get back at me. I won’t suffer a moment of conscience if I do that. She came by the information underhandedly. And if she looks absurd, so be it. My first loyalty is to you and our daughter, not Hazel Wright. She’s the one who tossed down the glove. Now she can suffer the consequences. I never loved Hazel. I’ve told you that, and I meant it from the bottom of my heart. I felt no magic with her. I never felt as if I’d die without her. I’ve felt that way about one woman and only one woman, and I’m holding her in my arms.”
“Oh, David. Do you really think you can smooth this over?”
“I know I can. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. People will believe me. As far as I’m concerned, her teaching career in No Name is finished, and I’ll be glad to see her gone.”
Brianna had just relaxed in David’s arms when a pounding came at the downstairs door of the shop. She and David raced to answer the summons and found Ace and Joseph on the boardwalk. Brianna knew the instant she saw their faces, even blurred by darkness, that something was horribly wrong.
“It’s Daphne,” Ace said gruffly. “She’s gone.”
“What?” Brianna cried.
She tried to bolt outside, but David held her back.
Joseph swept off his hat and slapped it against his leg. To David, he said, “After you left, Hazel continued her rant, wiping apple from her face and screaming crazy accusations to anyone who’d listen. Before anyone in the family could react, Daphne must have heard her carrying on. Ma saw her run from the building.”
“Oh, no,” Brianna whispered. “Oh, God, no.”
“We all went looking for her immediately,” Ace added. “Ma, Caitlin, Rachel, everybody. We’ve searched high and low. There’s no sign of her.”
Joseph broke in. “We left Ma, Rachel, and Caitlin to stand guard at the hall to watch the kids and be there in case Daphne comes back. It’s time for us to execute a full-blown search.” He searched David’s gaze. “It’s true, isn’t it? What she’s saying.”
“It’s true,” David confessed. “I’m sorry I fed you the public version. It seemed best.”
Brianna couldn’t breathe. She clutched the front of David’s shirt. My baby. In that moment, she detested Hazel Wright as she’d never detested anyone. How could the woman do something so cruel to an innocent child?
“Should we go over to the hall and ask for volunteers?” Ace asked.
David took control of the situation. “No, I want to keep this in the family if at all possible. The fewer people who know, the better off Daphne will be when we find her.” He sighed and thought for a moment. “Okay, we need to do this smart, not run every which way, covering the same ground twice.” Esa bounced up onto the boardwalk. David acknowledged him with a nod. “Let’s divide the town into four sections. With only one street, it won’t be that hard to branch out and cover every inch of the town. Ace, you go south. Joseph, you take the north end. Esa can take the east section. Brianna and I will take the west side of Main because it’s where Daphne spends most of her time, either at my office or here at the shop. She’s more likely to come out of hiding if she hears her mother’s voice. If anyone finds her, fire three shots in the air. If not, let’s meet back here in two hours.”
Brianna’s knees were quivering. She watched David’s brothers leap into the street, each heading his own way. She turned a frightened gaze on her husband. “Oh, God, David. What if we don’t find her?”
He pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. “Don’t be silly. It’s a small town. Of course we’ll find her. Grab your shawl.”
Minutes later, they entered the marshal’s office. David pulled his key ring from his belt to open the center drawer of his desk. “I want to make sure Hazel doesn’t have that report in her possession,” he told Brianna. “If she starts waving that under people’s noses, we’ll be sunk.” He huffed with relief when he saw the Pinkerton report lying on top of the other documents, right where Hazel had left it. “Thank God,” he said, stuffing the thick envelope inside his shirt and then relocking the drawer. “Now it will be my word against hers. She’ll have no proof to validate a single thing she says.”
“David,” Brianna whispered.
His gaze followed hers to a yellow scrap of paper lying on the desk blotter. It was a note, written in Daphne’s childlike cursive.
I hate you both!
Brianna held the piece of paper over her heart and sobbed. “Poor Daphne. She knows now, David. She knows all of it. How must she be feeling, and what foolish things might she do when she’s this upset?”
David vowed that he would make Hazel Wright regret her actions this evening, but dealing with her had to wait. Right now, he needed to find his daughter.
Two hours later, David stood with his brothers again in front of the marshal’s office. Nobody had found a trace of Daphne anywhere. Ace suggested that they repeat the search with lanterns. “She must have found a clever hidey-hole,” he said, “and isn’t answering when we call her name. We’ve got to look harder, leaving no stone unturned.”
David could feel the tremors that shook Brianna’s body and knew she was fighting down rising panic. He squeezed her close, trying to help her stay calm. As Ace suggested, they repeated the search with lights, checking every possible place a child might hide. Being so thorough took even longer, and another three hours had passed by the time they met in the street again.
“Where the hell could she be?” David said. “In a town this size, how can a child possibly vanish?”
David knew he had to keep it together. His wife needed him to be strong for her. But it wasn’t easy. Daphne had now been missing for more than five hours. Ace cursed under his breath. Joseph spat. Esa hung his head, making David suspect he was praying.
“I’ve got a thought,” Ace said. “Maybe she hid in one of the boxcars. A train left for Denver about five hours ago. The time frame is right. If she ran straight toward the tracks after she left the hall, she might have climbed in one of the cars and stayed inside when the train started to move.”
“Denver?” Brianna’s voice came out in a tremulous wail.
David almost lost his composure then. Denver had become a fairly large city. Daphne could easily lose her way there. Dear God. If she wandered into a bad area,
there was no telling what might happen to her.
He must have expressed his thoughts aloud, because Joseph spoke up. “Her shadow is also missing.”
“Sam, you mean?” David glanced around. He’d been so worried about Daphne that he hadn’t spared a thought for his dog.
“Yep, Sam,” Joseph replied. “I’m guessing he’s with her, wherever that may be. I haven’t seen hide or hair of him. Normally he’s right at her heels, David.”
“You’re right,” David agreed.
Esa spoke up. “If Sam is with her, nobody will harm a hair on her head without going through him first.”
It comforted David to know that Sam might be with the child. Then, as he thought about it, he knew there was no maybe to it. If the animal had been left behind here in No Name, he’d be with David. And he wasn’t.
The train wasn’t scheduled to return from Denver for four hours. Ace offered to send out another engine. “To avoid a collision on the tracks, I can telephone Denver to make sure the first train doesn’t head back this way until the engineer is given the go-ahead.”
“Do it,” David bit out.
“Be at the depot in a half hour,” Ace said. “The train will be ready to roll by then.”
David took Brianna into his office to warm her up with a cup of coffee. Rory had returned from the social, and he’d be keeping an eye on things until Billy Joe relieved him early in the morning. The pot of brew on the stove was fresh. David had just filled a cup and handed it to his wife when the telephone rang. Everybody jumped. They seldom got calls at the office because so few places outside the greater Denver area yet had service.
His blood ran cold as he stepped over to grab the receiver from the hook. “Hello.”
An operator with a nasal voice asked, “Is this Marshal David Paxton?”
“It is.”
The woman said, “Please hold, Marshal. I’m patching you through to the Denver sheriff.”
An instant later, a deep male voice came over the line. “Hello, Paxton. This is Sheriff Hansen. I need to powwow with you for a few.”
David frowned and glanced at his watch. “I’m sorry, Sheriff, but you’ve caught me at a bad time.”
“Well, you might better hear me out. About an hour ago, I was called downtown because a dog went berserk.”
David’s heart caught. “What kind of dog?”
“Yellow and white, fluffy like a collie. He looks a lot like the dog that was with you when you visited my office a couple of months back.”
“Sam,” David whispered, closing his eyes briefly. He felt Brianna clutching his arm. “Sounds like Sam’s in Denver and attacked somebody,” he told her.
The sheriff heard what David said. “You got that right. Some drunk down by the tracks went to pat a little girl on the head and damn near lost his hand for his trouble. He’s got a record for accosting women on the streets, so I think he had it coming. The child refuses to give me her name, and I can’t get close enough to collect her without shooting the dog.”
“Oh, God, don’t shoot him,” David said. “The girl is my daughter. He’s only protecting her. He loves her like no tomorrow.”
“I figured that,” the sheriff replied. “I’ve got two deputies standing guard over her, but they’re keeping a safe distance away. It’s a rough section of town. You need to get your ass up here.”
“Thank you for your trouble, sir. I’ll get there as fast as I can.”
The sheriff gave David directions to where the child was located. When the phone conversation ended, David repeated what had been said to Brianna. “I can’t believe Sam bit someone. He’s growled a warning to me sometimes when a stranger comes around, but other than that, the worst he’s ever done is bare his teeth.”
“Thank God he did more than that tonight. That man might have harmed Daphne,” Brianna said, her face as white as milk. “Please, David, we must hurry. Even with Sam there, she may be in danger.”
David grabbed her arm and led her from the office.
Never had a trip lasted so long. Brianna kept turning to David, telling him that something had to be wrong. The train wasn’t fueled correctly and was going too slow, or the engineer was lollygagging, not realizing the urgency.
Each time she complained, David glanced at his pocket watch. “We’re moving along at a fast clip. It just seems slow because we’re so anxious to get there. We’ll be with Daphne soon.”
Soon wasn’t soon enough for Brianna. After getting off the train, David led her along grimy, trash-littered streets with unerring accuracy until they finally came to the right place. It was a bad section of town, with windows boarded up and bars over all the doorways to prevent burglary. Bits of debris blew willy-nilly in the brisk night wind. Straining her eyes, Brianna finally saw Daphne. She was huddled against a building, her thin arms locked around her raised knees, her head hanging. Across the way, horrible, predatory men staggered along the walkways with whiskey jugs dangling from their hands. On Daphne’s side of the street, two armed deputies stood apart at a distance under light posts to divert all foot traffic so no one would get close to the child.
Brianna’s first instinct was to run to her daughter. David held her back. “Let me go first. She’s not near a light, and a canine’s eyesight isn’t that good. In this wind, Sam may not be able to catch our scent right away. If he’s going to bite somebody, I’d rather it be me.”
When David tried to approach the child, Sam lunged forward, teeth bared, acting as if he might rip out David’s throat.
“Well, now,” David said softly. “I’d say you’re all het up.”
To Brianna’s amazement, David sat down cross-legged right in the middle of the walkway. She stood well back, afraid of Sam for the first time. He had a crazed look in his eyes, and froth dripped from his jowls.
David held out his hand. “Sam, old man, it’s me. Sniff the air, buddy. Get my scent, you myopic mutt.”
Sam crouched, his body bunching to leap, but he also whined, the tone questioning. Brianna’s gaze was fixed on her daughter. Daphne looked so dejected. If the child heard David’s voice, she gave no sign of it. She sat with the small of her spine pressed against a building, her head resting on her knees. Brianna wanted so badly to run to her, but she held fast, waiting for David to calm the dog down first.
“Well, now, Sam,” David said, “ain’t this a hell of a note? I raised you from a puppy. Get your head out of your ass. I know it’s been a terrible night. But, hello, it’s me. Stop acting like an idiot.”
David thrust out his hand, and Sam dropped to his belly with a whine. Then he scooted closer, and then closer. Just as David was almost able to touch him, the dog scrambled back to Daphne, circled her, and barked joyously, wagging his nubbin of a tale until his whole rump quivered.
David pushed to his feet and moved forward. “Good job, Sam. It’ll be fine cuts of beef for you for at least a month. Aren’t you something? I think I’ll hang a deputy badge on your chest. What a dog you are! The very best! You fought for her, didn’t you, and by God, you drew blood. You are amazing.”
Man and dog met in a collision of strong arms and fluffy fur. Sam was so agile that he was able to leap up and tag David’s jaw with glad kisses. David caught the squirming animal to his chest, released quickly, and then intercepted another joyous jump. Sam was clearly relieved to have reinforcements. Brianna, still standing back, felt tears slipping down her cheeks, and she knew she would adore that silly dog until he died.
But what held her gaze was her daughter. Daphne didn’t react to the glad reunion taking place in front of her. She looked like a child who had dissolved and become nothing but skin, clothing, and a flow of hair draping over her clenched arms.
Brianna knew—sensed, as she had once upon a time with Moira—all of the child’s feelings. Daphne was flesh of her flesh, blood of her blood, and heart of her heart. Sam, who now recognized Brianna, allowed her safe passage to her daughter. She sat down, drawing the folds of her burgundy gown close to her
bent knees, not caring if her skirts were ruined.
Brianna tried to speak. Tears blinded her. Moira’s face floated in her mind. She had so many things she wanted to say, important things that Daphne needed to hear, but she’d lied to the child for so long that the truth was difficult, if not impossible, to express. All that she could say was, “Daphne, I love you.”
The child cringed away from her. “I hate you! Go away! I never want to see you again.”
It nearly broke Brianna’s heart to hear Daphne say that, but when she searched deep, she couldn’t really blame the child. This was her fault, all her fault. Along with all the stale bread and cheese, she’d fed Moira’s daughter lies. From the time Daphne had been old enough to understand the word papa, Brianna had spun grand stories, telling the child about her nonexistent father who was looking for gold but loved her so much. Empty dreams, falsehoods. Daphne no longer had anything solid to believe in.
David finished praising Sam and came to sit at Daphne’s other side. The dog promptly lay in front of the child, as close to her toes as he could get. Brianna could think of nothing she might say to soothe the child’s pain. Regret stabbed her like a knife, and she wanted to weep, but she couldn’t allow herself that luxury. She needed to be calm right now and think. The problem was, her heart was breaking.
David sighed and crossed his legs at the ankle. The men beneath the nearby light posts tipped their hats to him and walked away. David waved good-bye to them. Then he settled back. Brianna wanted him to say something, but he remained silent, apparently waiting Daphne out. The child refused to look up. When the wind lifted her hair, Brianna saw that her small face was puffy from crying.
“Go away!” Daphne finally screamed. “Just go away! Both of you! I hate you! I don’t want you here! You’re not my parents!” She sent Brianna a fiery look. “You aren’t my mama. You’re only my aunt!” To David she cried, “I don’t have any of your blood. You said you were my papa, but you’re not! You’re both liars.”
Still David offered no response. At his silence, Daphne rushed on. “I don’t have a real mama and papa, only fake ones! I’m going to run far, far away, and neither of you will ever, ever see me again.”
Lucky Penny Page 43