She had definitely heard someone a moment ago.
With a frown, she walked into the parlor where they had placed the Christmas tree and toys. To the right of the tree, hidden in the shadows, she found her daughter, Diana, cradling the doll St. Nick had brought her.
Catherine paused, staring at the product of her love for Michael. Diana was a bit small for her four years. She had Catherine’s long, wavy dark hair and Michael’s silver-gray eyes. It never failed to amaze Catherine that something so pretty and smart had come from her.
Smiling, she approached her daughter who looked up, her eyes brimming with tears.
“Diana, what is it?” she asked, instantly concerned as she knelt by her side. She brushed the dark bangs back from her daughter’s face.
“He didn’t come,” Diana whimpered as a solitary tear fell down her face.
“Of course St. Nick came, sweetling. You have the doll and everything.”
“No, Mama, he didn’t come,” she repeated, hugging her doll even closer as more tears fell. “It was all I wanted for Christmas and he didn’t come.”
“Who, baby?”
“Daddy,” she sobbed.
Catherine’s breath caught in her throat at the unexpected word. Diana had only started asking about her father a few short months ago, and the fact that he had shown up in the night…
It was enough to give one the shivers.
“What are you talking about?” Catherine asked her daughter.
“You told me St. Nick could make miracles, remember, Mama?”
“Yes.”
“And I told you I wanted a special miracle.”
“I thought you meant the doll.”
Diana shook her head. “I wanted St. Nick to bring me my daddy. I wanted to see his eyes like mine.”
Catherine wrapped her arms around her small daughter and held her close. She wasn’t sure what she should do. Part of her wanted to take Diana into the bedroom to meet her father, and the other part of her was too terrified of how Michael might react.
She should have told him last night, but she had turned coward.
It was one thing for him to abandon her. She could deal with it. But hurting Diana was another matter.
No, it would be best to wait and tell him about their daughter when Diana wasn’t around. That way only she would be hurt if he ran for the door. Again.
With the edge of her shawl, Catherine wiped Diana’s eyes. “No tears on Christmas, please?”
Diana sniffed them back.
She kissed the top of Diana’s little dark head and squeezed her tight. “I’ll talk to St. Nick after breakfast and see what I can do.”
“But he’s already gone back to the North Pole.”
“I know, sweetling, but didn’t anyone ever tell you that mommies have a special way of letting St. Nick know what their babies want?”
Diana wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “After breakfast?”
Catherine nodded. “Keep your fingers crossed and maybe he can manage something.”
“I will. I promise.”
She smiled at those silver-gray eyes that shone with innocence. “Good girl. Now go check your stockings and see what else St. Nick might have left while I go start breakfast.”
Diana scooted out of her arms and Catherine rose slowly to her feet.
In truth, she felt ill. Her stomach knotted. How would she break the news to Michael?
Would he even care?
Taking a deep breath for courage, she knew one way or the other she had to tell him. Even an irresponsible scoundrel deserved to know he had fathered a beautiful little girl who wanted nothing more than to meet him.
“Just don’t hurt her,” she whispered. “Because if you do, I’ll kill you for it.”
O’Connell came awake slowly to the smell of bacon and coffee, and the sound of children laughing outside his door. At first he thought it was a dream.
How many times had he yearned to experience just such a morning?
Many more times than he could count.
“Catherine, do I need to set extra plates for whoever was at the door last night? I didn’t know if he, she, or them stayed, or what.”
He heard Catherine’s mumbled reply through the walls, but couldn’t make out any of her words.
All of a sudden the memory of the night before came crashing back through him.
It had been real. All of it. This was no dream. He was, in fact, sleeping in Catherine’s bed on Christmas morning.
O’Connell leaned his head back into the pillow as an overwhelming joy ripped through him. He felt like shouting or singing or doing something. Anything to celebrate such a glorious event.
Impulsively, he pulled Catherine’s pillow to him and inhaled the fresh sunshine smell of her. Intoxicated, he listened to the children sing “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” as someone jingled china and silverware.
“It’s not a dream,” he whispered.
He laughed softly as raw euphoria invaded every piece of him. He had his Christmas miracle.
Smiling, he rose from the bed and dressed, then made the bed up. Catherine had always complained he twisted the sheets into knots and she hated a messy bed.
This would be his gift to her.
He left the room warily and made sure no one spied him lest Catherine have some serious explaining to do. The last thing she needed was a tarnished reputation, and the last thing he needed was nosy questions he couldn’t answer.
He saw the stairs behind him and made like he was coming from one of the rooms upstairs.
As he drew flush with the kitchen door, he saw Catherine standing in front of the stove, frying eggs.
He delighted at her trim form. She’d left her hair long in the back with a braid wound about the top of her head to keep it out of her eyes. Her dark green dress hugged every one of the curves he had feasted on the night before. And a white shawl draped becomingly over her shoulders.
Never had he seen a more glorious image, and he wished he could stay here forever.
“Rebecca?” Catherine called, stepping back from the stove and looking out the doorway on the opposite side of the room. “Are the children still outside?”
“Making snow angels, last I saw,” a woman called as she came into the room. The petite brunette stopped dead in her tracks as her gaze fell to him.
Catherine caught the woman’s gaze and turned to face him.
“Morning,” he greeted them.
Catherine blushed, and he didn’t miss the light that came into the short brunette’s eyes.
“Morning,” the brunette said warmly, suggestively.
Catherine cleared her throat. “Rebecca, this is our visitor from last night.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Rebecca said. “Mister… ?”
“Burdette,” he said, falling into his most recent alias. “Tyler Burdette.”
He glanced to Catherine, who took his name in with a frown.
“I’ll just go set another place at the table for you, Mr. Burdette,” Rebecca said.
As soon as they were alone again, Catherine approached him, waving a spatula dripping with hot grease dangerously near his nose. “Tyler Burdette?” she asked in a miffed tone. “Is there something you need to tell me?”
That was a loaded question and he wasn’t sure how to answer it. Luckily another visitor, a man, spared him a few moments to think.
But to be honest, all he thought about was the fact that the distinguished-looking, gray-haired man spent a little too long staring at his Catherine.
“Miss Catherine?”
“Marshal McCall,” she said, stressing the title, no doubt for his benefit.
And it worked. O’Connell was immediately on guard.
By the look on the man’s face, it was obvious he wanted to ask Catherine something of a personal nature. Worse, the man stuttered and shifted nervously before he came out with, “I just came for my morning cup of coffee.”
O’Connell’s gaze narrowed. The damn
man was infatuated with his wife.
He flinched as an image of her in the marshal’s arms tore through his mind.
Would the insults never cease?
As Catherine moved to fetch a cup of coffee, the marshal glanced to O’Connell. “How do?” he asked amiably enough.
“Just fine, Marshal,” O’Connell returned, trying to remain pleasant in spite of the urge he had to choke the man. “And you?”
The marshal frowned as he looked him up and down. “Don’t I know you from someplace?”
Probably from about a dozen or so wanted posters, but he didn’t dare say that. Instead, O’Connell shook his head. “I don’t know any marshals.” He made it his habit to avoid them at all costs.
“No?” the marshal asked. “You sure look familiar to me. You got any family in Reno?”
O’Connell shook his head. “Not that I’m aware of.”
He seemed to accept that. But still he took a step forward and extended his hand. “Dooley McCall.”
“Tyler Burdette,” he said, shaking his proffered hand.
“Burdette,” the marshal repeated. “Nah, I don’t reckon I do know you after all.”
Catherine handed the marshal his coffee.
“Thank you, Miss Catherine. I keep telling my deputies no one on earth makes a better pot of coffee than you do.”
“Thank you, marshal.”
O’Connell didn’t miss the blush staining her cheeks. For a moment, he had to struggle to breathe. How dare she blush at another man. So what if he had been gone five years, it still didn’t give her the right to do that for someone else.
She was his wife, not the marshal’s.
The marshal nodded, then took his coffee and left.
O’Connell wasted no time sneaking to the doorway to see the marshal sitting in the parlor with a paper, sipping his coffee as if everything were right in the world.
“What the hell is a marshal doing here?” he asked Catherine in a low voice.
She gave him a haughty glare. “He lives here.”
“Lives here?” he repeated.
“I run a boardinghouse, remember? He’s one of my regular tenants.”
“Why would you let him live here?”
“I don’t know,” she said sarcastically. “Maybe I like having him here because it keeps out the riff-raff,” she said with a pointed stare, “and he pays two months’ rent in advance.”
Catherine didn’t miss the heated glare Michael gave her. Licking her lips, she felt a wave of misgiving run up her spine. Michael was entirely too interested in the marshal.
Something was wrong.
“Are you wanted?” she asked all of a sudden.
He stared at her with those clear silver-gray eyes. “It depends,” he said in a serious voice. “I was hoping you’d want me.”
Her breath caught. Did she dare hope that he might actually be able to settle down with her and Diana?
“And if I did?” she asked.
He looked back at the marshal. “This is a bad time. I really need to leave.”
“Leave?” she gasped. “You can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because you just got here. You can’t just show up on my doorstep, roll around in my bed, and then take flight as soon as the sun comes up. I thought we had shared something special last night. Or were they all lies again?”
He winced as if she’d struck him. “I’ve never lied to you, Catherine.”
“No. But you lied to my boarder and housekeeper. Is that not true, Mr. Tyler Burdette?”
“I – ”
“Miss Catherine, Miss Catherine?” An excited boy came bursting through the kitchen with Pete’s saddlebags in his hands. The blond head bobbed as the kid jumped up and down. “I just found these outside by the front door, and look,” he said, flipping one open. “They’re filled with money! Can I keep it?”
O’Connell went cold as everything came together in his mind.
“I found this little orphanage in a town called Redwood,” Pete had said. “You’d probably like it a lot, Kid. It had a real homey feel to it.”
O’Connell cursed as his stomach drew tight. Pete knew. He had sent him purposefully to find Catherine.
Panic swept through him. That meant Pete wouldn’t be far behind. He had to get her to safety before his brother showed up and used her to drag him back into robbery.
But how? She’d never leave her business or her orphans.
“This is bad,” he whispered. “Real bad.”
Catherine looked into the saddlebags. “Where did this come from?” she asked the boy.
“I was told it was stolen from you,” O’Connell said as he double-checked where the marshal sat.
Looking up at him, Catherine frowned. “By whom?”
“Is it yours?” O’Connell asked, seeking to delay the inevitable explanation of how he’d come by her money. “Were you robbed?”
“Yes, we were. But how did you get it?”
So much for delaying the inevitable.
She looked at him sternly. “Did you take it?”
“No!” he barked. “How could you even ask that?”
“Well, what am I to think?” she asked as she set the saddlebags on the table and excused the boy.
She moved to stand just before him, hands on hips. “I thought I knew you, and yet every time I blink I learn something about you that scares me. Now tell me how it is you have my money.”
O’Connell didn’t have a chance. Before he could say a word, the back door opened to show Pete holding one of Catherine’s little girls in his arms.
“Knock, knock,” Pete drawled. He flashed an evil grin to O’Connell, then lifted the little girl’s face to where O’Connell could see her tear-streaked eyes. “Look what old Uncle Pete found out in the yard.”
5
O’Connell felt the air leave his lungs as he gazed into a pair of eyes indistinguishable from his own. They were set in a face that looked identical to Catherine’s, right down to the dark brown curls spilling over Pete’s arm.
In an instant, he recognized his daughter.
Sobbing uncontrollably, the girl looked to Catherine. “Help me, Mama! Make the mean man let me go.”
Catherine took a step toward the girl, but O’Connell grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop.
No one approached his brother. If Catherine tried to take the girl, there was no telling what Pete might do to her.
“Let her go, Pete,” O’Connell said, his calm voice belying the volatile state of his mind and body.
Pete gave an evil smile. “I told you in Oak River, you can’t escape me, Kid. Now I ask you again, are you coming with me or what?”
“Oak River?” he heard Catherine repeat under her breath.
That was the town where he’d left her. Only then, Pete had used Catherine as his leverage. It was either go with Pete to rob another bank or see his wife hurt.
After the robbery, O’Connell had lacked the heart to go back to her. He couldn’t face her after what he’d done for Pete. Worse, he knew that sooner or later Pete would show up again with the same threat.
And the last thing he wanted was to kill his brother for hurting his wife.
So long as there was life in his body, he would protect his Catherine.
You’re my second chance. That’s what O’Connell had told her on their wedding night. Catherine hadn’t known what he’d meant by it. But he had.
For a time, he had been stupid enough to believe it. But second chances were for fools.
And Catherine could never again be his.
“I’ll come with you, Pete. Just put her down.”
Pete nodded. “Good boy. I knew you’d see things my way once you saw them again.” Pete squeezed the girl’s cheeks and tilted her head up to where he could look into her face. “She is kind of cute, isn’t she?”
Rage infused every cell of O’Connell’s body. “Take your hands off her, Pete, or I’ll kill you for it.”
Hi
s brother met his gaze and for several seconds they stared at each other in mutual understanding. “You know. Kid, I believe you would.”
“You can count on it.”
O’Connell didn’t breathe again until Pete set the girl on her feet, and she ran to Catherine’s outstretched arms.
Pete glanced to Catherine and the little girl. “Since it’s Christmas and all, I’ll give you five minutes with them. I’ll be waiting outside by the horses.”
O’Connell waited for him to leave before he turned to face Catherine, who cradled the little girl to her chest.
His daughter.
He felt so much pride and delight, he thought his heart might burst. But the joy died as he remembered his brother waiting for him outside.
O’Connell reached a hand out to touch the dark brown curls. The softness of his daughter’s hair reached deep inside him, carving a place in his heart.
“She’s beautiful,” he breathed.
Catherine saw the pain deep inside him and she noted the tenseness of his hand on Diana’s hair. “Her name is Diana.”
He gave a bittersweet smile. “Named for your mother?”
She nodded.
“Why didn’t you tell me about her in Nevada?” he asked, his eyes misting.
“I didn’t know I was pregnant until after you left.” She narrowed her gaze on him as she finally understood everything that had happened. “You left because of him, didn’t you?”
“He’s my brother,” he said simply. “I had no choice.”
“We always have choices.”
He shook his head. “No, we don’t. You don’t know what kind of man my brother is, but I do. I know he’s cruel, but I owe him. If not for Pete, I’d have never survived after the death of our parents. He’s harsh because that’s the way the world made him.”
“He’s harsh because he’s – ”
O’Connell stopped her words by placing his fingers on her lips. His heart tearing apart, he leaned over, kissed her gently on the mouth, and whispered, “Until the day I die, I’ll always remember you.”
He touched Diana’s hair one last time, then he turned and walked away.
O’Connell met Pete by his pinto, which Pete must have saddled. His brother was as fair-haired and fair-skinned as O’Connell was dark. The two of them had always been opposites in most everything. Even Pete’s eyes were a brownish green.
Dark Bites (Dark-Hunter World) Page 59