Sophie's Daughters Trilogy

by Mary Connealy

  It was almost a comfort to decide what she was feeling wasn’t her fault. In fact, it cheered her right up to blame this on her mother.

  Twelve

  Logan slashed at the canvas with a kind of victorious violence.

  He loved painting like this, with a knife instead of a brush. Thick paint, vivid colors. Sunlit scenes … and faces.

  He’d brought a lot of supplies with him this year, thinking to ride into Yellowstone with Babineau as he had last year. The agreement he’d made with Babineau was the same as the year before. They’d meet at the train station. Logan would leave half the supplies stored at the train depot and Pierre would help him haul the rest into Yellowstone. Logan would paint there for three or four weeks then they’d take his finished work back to the train, ship it home, pack the stored canvas and paints, and ride to the cabins, where Wise Sister waited. She never followed after Babineau when he went wandering.

  Except Logan had arrived and waited. Waited several days. Precious days of the short Rocky Mountain summer. But Logan finally had to admit that Babineau wasn’t coming. He’d left word, bought some pack horses, loaded his supplies, and gone into Yellowstone himself. He’d survived somehow. In fact, he’d gotten lost in his work.

  While he was in Yellowstone, he’d painted Old Faithful and a dozen other geysers. He’d spent an entire week doing sketches of the waterfalls and the Yellowstone River. He’d also painted the new bridge spanning the river and the tent city that had grown up around Yellowstone like an ugly sore on the beautiful land. These he might be able to sell to newspapers or magazines. He might write about the people coming to Yellowstone, too, try his hand at a bit of storytelling to go with his art.

  He’d done it all alone and found pride in knowing he could handle it. Then he’d packed the paintings back to the railroad station, crated them, and shipped them home. Then he’d picked up his stored supplies and set out for the cabin. He’d ridden there several times with Pierre and he’d known where he was going. He’d hoped.

  He’d also hauled in the supplies he’d known were needed for the summer at the cabin. He’d found his way easily, wondering where Pierre had gotten to. He’d found Wise Sister alone, with a fresh grave that told its own story.

  Wise Sister had gone on with her life and taken care of Logan’s house, and Logan had let her. He’d never considered that he was asking too much of the woman.

  He’d wanted to load six or even ten horses with canvas and paint. In fact, he’d planned to do just that next year if he sold enough of his paintings. But the grass was sparse up here, the corral small. Wise Sister took the horses daily to graze and drink water, and now Logan realized how much work that was. He couldn’t add more horses to her daily chores.

  But this style of painting was going through his supply of paints fast. Soon he’d have to be content with sketches. That chafed like wool on a sunburn. Maddening to know that, for lack of paint, he’d have to give up on this task that burned him alive with passion and pleasure. Next year he’d bring more. He had to, somehow.

  As he painted, the sun lowered in the west. The mountain peaks would swallow it up long before true sunset. He felt exhilaration in the movement of his muscles and the emotion that flowed out from him onto the canvas. And as those emotions rose, another painting nudged him, haunted him until his mind wouldn’t stay on this canvas.

  Before he lost the light, he set his paints aside for a blank canvas and returned to his more traditional style of painting. Slowly Sally’s face emerged. Her expression was perfect, the exact way she’d looked after he kissed her. It was the face of a woman in love. He doubted that she was, at least not in a deep and lasting way. But at that very moment, when she’d been in his arms, maybe there was a trace of truth in it. What would he give to have Sally look at him like this every day for the rest of his life?

  The painting drew him just as powerfully as his slashing knives and violent red sunsets. It awakened something in him that burned in a different way than the pleasure of painting. But burned just as hot. Nothing—no one—had come close before.

  He looked away from his work to watch her fashioning a crutch out of the sturdy forked branch Wise Sister had left behind. Practical woman, handy with a knife. She’d been at it all day, whittling at the wood and stitching a leather pad for her arm. She was an artist in her own way, though she’d probably punch him for saying such a thing.

  She glanced at him, as if she were aware of his every move, even with her attention firmly fixed on her carpentry work. Then her eyes went past him to the painting.

  He watched the play of feelings cross her face and wanted to sketch every one of them. Annoyance, unwilling fascination, curiosity, he thought maybe he even saw just a flash of respect. He loved her expressiveness. She hid nothing of what she felt, a completely open and honest human being.

  “That is a stupid painting.”

  Painfully honest.

  “You made me look dumber than an empty-headed maverick calf.”

  He’d made her look like a woman who’d just been kissed and wanted to be kissed again. And maybe, from her point of view, that equaled dumb.

  “I paint what I see, Sally. I saw that look in your eyes the moment after I kissed you.”

  She pointed the razor-sharp knife she’d brought over the cliff with her at his nose. He was glad he was a few steps away.

  “We aren’t going to talk about that. We agreed.”

  Smiling, Logan looked at what he’d created, what he’d found in her. His heart ached as if he’d taken that knife right between the ribs because he knew Sally would never stay here with him. She thought he was a fool.

  Not only did she not want him, he didn’t want her. Not really. He’d be a bad person to tie in with. He was obsessed with painting. Look at poor Wise Sister; she’d been working like two people and he’d never noticed. He got so caught up in his painting he was thoughtless of everyone else.

  “I’m too selfish of a man to ever kiss a woman.” Logan didn’t look at her. He was afraid of what he’d see. Despite her anger, he knew she longed for there to be more between them. But despite that longing, she’d leave. It wouldn’t take much for him to be on his knees begging her to stay. “I—I shouldn’t have done that. It’s dishonorable to give you hope there could be something between us.”

  “I have no such hopes.”

  The anger in her voice made him look.

  “My hope is to get out of here.” She glared, that wonderful expressiveness, those blazing eyes, that perfect, silken skin. He’d never seen anything more beautiful, and while he drank her in, he saw her hand tightened on the knife. “If you think I’m hoping you’ll decide I’m worthy of the great artist—”

  “I know you’re leaving,” he cut her off. Logan was tempted to smile, but mindful of the knife and her temper, he didn’t. He loved her spirit, her strength, even her honest disparagement. At least he could trust her to say exactly what she thought. But he thought it was fair to at least fight for her good opinion of him. “That day you went over the cliff, you were dressed like a man.”

  She didn’t stab him, so he continued. “That’s what you like. That’s how you’re happy.”

  She arched her brows, as if surprised he knew that and accepted it.

  “That’s odd behavior for a woman, but I find I like it well enough. It makes sense to me that you’d dress in a way that’s comfortable and, even more importantly, safe.”

  “My thinking exactly.” Sally sniffed and turned her knife back to working on her crutch.

  He knew it would soon be done. Then she’d either walk out of here or her family would show up and take her away. Whichever happened, the end was the same. The prettiest, most fascinating woman he’d ever known would be gone.

  What’s more, he didn’t want her to stay. He knew himself well enough to know that she’d come to hate him. The sun would be coming up, or setting, and the land would be ablaze with violet light or a crimson glow, and he’d ignore her and race agains
t the movement of the sun and the fading of the day to catch the color and depth of it.

  She didn’t have much respect for him, but she didn’t hate him. If she stayed, if he begged her and cajoled her and made promises that might be beyond his ability to keep, she might be persuaded. A few more moments in his arms and all the pretty words a man could say, and he might catch himself a wife. But she’d end up hating him. The very thought broke his heart.

  “So, why can you be different, live to suit yourself, turn up your pretty little nose at conventions and I can’t?” Logan quit talking and waited.

  She set her knife on the table. “It’s different, what I do.”

  “How?” He set his own knife aside.

  “What I do makes sense. I may be different but I’m practical. I dress like this to get my work done.”

  “So, I live out here and paint because that’s my work. I don’t see how you can disdain what I do while you go around doing exactly as you wish, even though it’s not a bit normal.”

  Glaring as if she could burn a hole straight through him, Sally sat, her jaw clenched into a tight, straight line. At last she leaned back in her chair and relaxed. “I suppose that’s fair. Though I don’t see how drawing your pictures puts food on the table. I help take care of my family. You do nothing but draw.”

  “You said you have a sister who’s a doctor, right?”

  A smile curved Sally’s lips, and Logan could see how fond she was of her family. “Beth’s a doctor, that’s right.”

  “Well, how does doctoring put food on the table? Does she go hunting after her workday is done?”

  “They buy food at the general store.”

  “I buy food with the money I earn painting.”

  “No, you don’t. You make Wise Sister go hunt it for you.”

  “But I pay her to handle that. If she’s working too hard, I didn’t realize it, and she’s never come out and said it’s too much for her. I can fix that. I can help her more or hire someone else to help her. But hiring her is the same as your sister, Beth, and her husband going to the general store.”

  Sally stared at him. Then her eyes went to the picture he was painting of her and slid on past it to Blazing Land. “You think you’ll find someone to pay you money for that picture of me?”

  Logan would never part with this one, not for any amount of money, but he decided not to tell Sally that. “I’ve found a good, steady market for Western art back East. I’ll load my work onto my packhorses in the fall, before the winter closes down on me, take the train back to New York, spend the winter painting from my sketches and my memory, and sell the finished works. I’ll make enough to come back next summer.”

  “And that’s it? For your whole life? No family, no children?”

  The thought of no family and children, while pretty Sally sat there, was an ache in his chest. “This is my calling. I feel it as if God had carved it into a stone tablet.” He looked out the wide-open windows and saw the herd of elk, his herd of elk, wander out of a draw about a hundred yards away. “And I’m—I’m self-centered. You’ve convinced me of that. I’d make a bad husband, a worse father, because if the light was right, and the clouds were a perfect shade of red, I’d pick up my paints and work.”

  He thought of how he’d been able to ignore his father. Logan could never have been a doctor, he knew that, but that didn’t mean he had to be disrespectful of his father’s wishes and wisdom. “I’d pick my art over my family every time. God may judge me for a sinner, but He also gave me this passion, this burning need to put the world on canvas.”

  “You could be less selfish. You could put the sin aside and live a better way and still paint.”

  “I can’t.” Logan studied the bull elk as if he held the meaning of life. “I’ve known myself long enough to know I can’t.”

  The young upstart in the herd lowered his antlers and pawed the ground, and the bull turned to face the challenge yet again.

  Seeing the elk pulled Logan’s attention to the table in the corner. Yet another type of art he was attempting. He stepped toward the object covered with a wet towel.

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  Her voice stopped him and made him realize that once again his art had come before someone’s needs. She sounded sad, which made him want to comfort her, and that reminded him of their kiss. She had a right to believe he wouldn’t be kissing her if he couldn’t have an honorable interest in her. And he’d just admitted he didn’t.

  “Can’t or won’t, in the end, the result is the same, Sally. A wife would end up being hurt. That’s reason enough to never take one.” To take his mind off the unruly image of Sally being his wife, he strode to the table and lifted the damp cloth to reveal an elk, fashioned out of clay. The animal stood proud, its chest out, its antlered head tilted nose up, mouth open, bugling to the sky.

  Logan had found clay along a riverbed last year, so this winter he’d studied with a sculptor in New York and had come to love the touch of the clay on his hands. He studied the statue, nearly a foot tall, including the elaborate antlers, then went back to studying his living subject out the window. The bull and his young adversary circling each other. Sparring, charging, angry, violent. Logan wanted to capture it all.

  A slow, quiet sigh pulled his attention away from the elk. And he lost all interest in the struggle of the two strong male creatures and turned to something a hundred times more interesting.

  Sally.

  Their eyes met and that kiss was between them like a living, breathing, burning thing.

  “I reckon then,” Sally said after far too long, her voice unsteady, “you’d better not kiss me again. You’d better stay away from me.”

  Logan nodded and moved closer to her. “You’re right.”

  Their eyes held. The moment stretched.

  Reminding himself that art was truth and he needed to be as honest in his life as in his art, Logan said, “I think I probably will kiss you again, Buckskin Angel.”

  His determination to stay away battled the force of his attraction and made him think of the mountains, made of stone, and the fact that they weren’t all that solid. In fact, there were avalanches all the time. “I’m not sure if I can stay away from you.”

  Shaking her head, Sally turned her attention to the elk statue. “You made that, too?”

  “Yes.” Logan heaved a sigh of relief at the new subject. “I’ve been studying sculpture. I wanted to try and get all the sides of a subject instead of the flatness of painting.”

  “So it dries and you haul it back to New York, too? It’s made of clay, isn’t it? That isn’t very strong, especially not the antlers. You’ll never get it all that way on a train without breaking it.”

  Logan nodded. “Probably not, but I’m going to coat it in plaster to take it home. Then when I get there, I’ll cut the plaster away from the clay and have a perfect mold of my statue. I’ll cast that mold in bronze and have something that will last forever.”

  “Plaster? You have plaster here?” Sally sat up straighter.

  “I brought some because I knew I wanted to attempt this.”

  “Where is it?”

  Logan pointed to a chest near the back of the cabin.

  “We can make a cast for my leg with that. My sister did that when a patient had a broken bone. It’ll be sturdier than this leather boot, and I can ride a horse more easily. With a plaster cast on my leg, I can get out of here.”

  She sounded so excited, Logan’s heart sank. Of course she wanted out of here. She wanted to be on her way. She wanted to find her family and get on with her life.

  He wanted that for her, too. But it made him sad that she sounded so excited. In fact, it made him more than sad. It made him a little angry. He was tempted to refuse her the use of the plaster. She only needed to stay a bit longer. Another week or two and her leg would probably be fully healed.

  Besides, he wasn’t done painting her yet. He wasn’t done kissing her either.

  Wise Sister picked
that moment to come home.

  Logan smiled to think that the old woman had just saved Sally from finding out all the things Logan wasn’t done with.

  Thirteen

  Wise Sister came into sight through Logan’s oversized windows and saved Sally from wiping that smug smile off Logan’s face with her fist.

  Wise Sister moved quietly, smoothly, with no apparent haste, but she was a woman who got things done. She’d left this morning, probably before dawn, and now here she was back with a haunch of venison over her shoulder.

  Sally couldn’t wait to hear what had happened. She stood, grabbing her crutch.

  “Stay put. You’ll fall.” Logan stepped away from his sculpture toward his stupid painting that looked nothing like her. Well, truly it did look like her, except for that empty-headed expression on her face.

  “I’m fine. Go back to your picture.” Sally, slowly, experimenting with the pain and the balance, moved to the door. The crutch, tucked under her right arm, worked well to substitute for her broken right ankle. She’d have her hands full getting on and off a horse, but she could manage.

  Somehow.

  She might need to make a second crutch. Rig a strap to them to hang over the saddle horn. And she’d helped Beth once plaster a broken arm, so she knew how to do that, too. Two crutches and a plaster cast and she was on her way.

  She wondered where in the world she was and how to get to Mandy’s from here or find Luther from here. The thought of Mandy picked up the pace of Sally’s heart. She felt a growing desperation to get to her sister. Or maybe to get away from Logan, she couldn’t be sure, but the result gave her both: distance from the painter and her sharpshooting sister at her back.

  She thought of Logan’s warm kisses and her own odd expression in that painting and did her best to think about everything except here. She swung the door open just as Wise Sister came up to the cabin. “Did you see anyone?”

  “I found tracks. Two groups. Four men. Much hunting.” Her dark eyes gleamed. Sally felt like she knew this woman right down to the bone and she adored her. Smart, strong, quiet. A woman molded by the brutal West and thriving.