Wade was along of course. He tagged after Abby everywhere. Strange man. Abby seemed to adore him, and despite a few years of worthlessness in his youth, he’d turned into a decent man. Belle had a hard time hating him, but she did her best. There were six men riding with the Sawyers and those children. The Sawyers had only had two children, didn’t they?
Then her eyes landed on Mark Reeves. Her smile turned hard and fast downward. What was that polecat doing here?
Belle turned and strode toward the house to have a little talk with Emma.
Silas met her before she’d gotten anywhere near.
“I already spotted the Reeves kid and said my piece, Belle. Emma knows how we feel.”
“That she’s too young, and Reeves is a no-account pup who needs a whip taken to his hide?”
“Yep, of course Emma knows you’d never take a whip to a pup’s hide. But I think she’s very sure you’d do it to Mark.”
“Good, then you’ve saved me some time.” Belle turned back to the approaching group.
They were setting a good pace and were in the yard before long.
Belle noticed Emma come outside. Betsy came next. Then Tanner tagged after Sarie, jumping and yelling like always. The child had more energy than ten regular people. It was naptime, or there’d be an even larger group to greet the Sawyers and that polecat Reeves.
“What’s going on?” Silas asked Wade as the man swung down from his horse.
Abby alit next carrying a three-year-old.
And Mark, the polecat, had the pack carrying one child and held a four-year-old who jerked awake with a little cry when he dismounted. The little girl threw her arms around Reeves’s neck and sobbed for her mama. Mark rested a hand on the little one’s back and bent his head to talk with her. Except for one annoyingly welcoming smile in Emma’s direction, Mark was focused completely on the child, talking sweet nonsense, holding the little one gently.
Emma went to the child as if she’d been lassoed and dragged. Belle frowned, but she could fault neither Mark nor Emma for the unhappy child. And as much as she wanted to hate Mark Reeves, the youngster was doing his best to comfort the little girl.
“These are Mandy Gray’s children.” Wade helped Mark swing the pack off his back. “Tom sent us here because there’s trouble, and he wanted to get the children out of the line of fire.”
The little boy in the pack had his lip stuck out, quivering, as he watched his big sister cry.
“Shooting trouble?” Belle lifted the little boy out of Wade’s pack while Wade held on to the leather contraption. “With children involved?” Then another thought struck her. “Shooting trouble Mandy Gray can’t handle?”
Belle turned to Emma. “You remember Mandy Gray, don’t you?”
Emma reached for the crying girl, and the child shrieked and buried her face in Mark’s neck.
Mark gave Emma an apologetic look, then rested one of his big hands on the flyaway white hair and crooned to her.
“Sure. I felt like I’d met a woman after my own heart.” Emma looked worriedly at the crying child, inched just a bit closer, which put her that much closer to Reeves. Emma and Reeves exchanged one more of those blasted understanding looks. “Mandy could swing a rifle into action like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
Sarah came and stood behind Mark’s back and started talking to the little one over Mark’s shoulder.
Another one of the cowpokes came up slightly behind Mark—right next to Sarah in fact—and nudged him. “Need any help there?”
Mark turned to Emma and said, “This here’s my cousin, Charlie Cooper. Charlie, this is Emma Harden and”—Mark looked over his shoulder—“her sister Sarah.”
Belle couldn’t have been watching her daughters much closer, so she noticed clear as day the way Charlie reacted when he looked at Sarah.
And if Belle wasn’t mistaking it, Sarah looked right back.
“Howdy, Emma.” Charlie touched the brim of his hat then reached out a hand to Sarah. “Pleased to meet you Sarah.”
Sarah took his hand and smiled in a way that made Belle want to reach for her shooting iron.
Angela let out a squall that drew Sarah’s attention and probably saved Charlie’s life.
“I’ve got about a dozen little brothers and sisters,” Charlie said.
“A dozen?” Sarah actually looked away from the child, and that was unusual. Sarah had always had a special heart for the little ones. “A dozen or so?” A smile bloomed on Sarah’s face.
Belle had to admit that comment caught her own interest.
Charlie laughed. A great laugh. So great it made Belle a little sick to her stomach.
“My ma and pa adopted me when I was about ten, off an Orphan Train.”
“What?” Sarah’s brow furrowed. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
Nodding, Charlie went on. “I’ve never rightly counted, but Pa said I was about the twentieth child he’d adopted. And he kept on doing it all his life.”
“Your pa adopted children? Not your ma?”
“Yep. He started before he and my ma got married. Then they kept doing it afterward, and they had a few children of their own.”
“How many were adopted, and how many were their real children?” Sarah seemed overly fascinated.
“We’re all real.” With a brief frown, Charlie said, “I don’t rightly remember which are their own and which are adopted. But I reckon we’re all real enough. I’ve got two little brothers with sort of strange speckled greenish brown eyes, though. They look a lot like my pa. I’m pretty sure they were born to my parents.”
Then Charlie reached a hand out, and for a second Belle thought he was going to touch Sarah, but instead he tapped Angela on the chin. Looking at Angela, but talking definitely to Sarah, he added, “My parents are wonderful people with a heart for children without homes. I’d be glad to tell you all about them.”
Which would give him time with Sarah. Which wasn’t going to happen.
Charlie touching Angela turned Sarah back to the unhappy little girl. With skill far beyond her years, Sarah cajoled Angela out of the crying, but the little one didn’t quit clinging to Mark until Tanner ran into Mark Reeves’s leg and sent him stumbling forward into Emma. Emma caught him, and the two shared a smile.
Belle decided then and there she needed a horse whip. And no horse was in a bit of danger.
“Thanks, Em.” Mark stayed far too close to Belle’s daughter.
The collision distracted Angela from her tears, but it had almost the exact opposite effect on Belle. She thought Mark took way too long apologizing and asking if Emma was hurt, as if the girl was made of spun sugar or something. And Charlie reached out a hand to rest it on Sarah’s arm as if she’d almost fallen in a heap.
“Anyone want a molasses cookie?” Sarah had the knack, and no one could deny it. Though offering cookies to little children was no stroke of genius.
Angela rubbed at her eyes. Emma went to relieve Abby of the child she carried.
The little girl, younger than Angela, screamed, “No! I want Mark.”
Abby rolled her eyes, but Mark came over, and Abby passed the child to him.
Shaking her head and smiling, Emma said, “Maybe this one will let me hold him.” She took the stout little toddler from Belle.
Even the baby boy stared at Mark but allowed Emma to carry him. They headed for the house with Tanner running between them hollering. Betsy tagged along. It usually fell to her to ride herd on Tanner. Belle had a moment to praise the Lord that Betsy had been able to keep her roughhousing little brother alive all these years.
Charlie didn’t go with them—which kept Belle from dropping him with a butt stroke—but he was looking way too long after the little group, and his eyes didn’t seem to be stuck on his cousin.
Though her arms remained tight around Mark’s neck, Angela now looked between her sister, in Mark’s other arm, and Tanner. The racket Belle’s son made seemed to drive all thoughts of crying out of Angel
a’s head.
Belle needed to keep an eye on Emma and Mark, but first she needed some answers. “What’s going on?”
Abby did the talking as usual.
“Of course they can stay.” Silas gave the house a concerned look.
Belle wondered if he was considering building on. “And we appreciate the cowpokes to help guard the gaps. We don’t keep drovers, so we’d have our hands full posting a guard around the clock on both of them. And it sounds like we’ll need to do it.”
“We need to get on home,” Wade said. “We’ve been gone from our own young’uns for too long. But with the six men from the Linscott place, you should have plenty of help.”
“Five men,” Belle said. “Only five are staying.”
“Why only five?”
“Because that no-account Mark Reeves has to go.”
“Mark’s my cousin. He’s a top hand,” Charlie assured Belle.
“Four, I want you out of here, too.”
“What did I do? I know how to keep watch.”
“Don’t matter if either of you can lasso the moon and break it to ride. Mark’s sparkin’ Emma. He can’t stay here. If I had my way, I’d post a guard at the gap to keep him out. And I saw the way you just looked at my Sarie. You’re leaving, too.”
The drovers laughed.
“I’m not joking.” Belle had long ago perfected a glare that shut most people up. It didn’t fail her now.
Except with Abby. “My brother insisted that Mark ride along, and you can see why. The children took to him more than anyone else. Tom’s their pa now, and he said Mark had to stay with the little ones. They’re a sight upset by all this commotion around their ma when they’re used to just living in that house with her alone. Tom would never have sent them here if he didn’t think the danger was serious. And you’ll need six men to stand shifts on two gaps. You can’t do it right with less.”
“Mark’s had one or more of ’em on his lap the whole time,” Wade added.
Belle thought of her own girls and how completely she’d raised them alone. They’d have been devastated if she’d died and left them with strangers. And the older girl especially had clung to Mark. All of them had looked to him. No denying it.
“I suppose it’ll upset the children if I have to beat Mark over the head, too.” Belle glared at the house. Then she looked back at Charlie. “But I doubt they”ll mind over much if I carve a notch out of you.”
She thought Charlie got the message, judging by his wide eyes and respectful silence.
Silas went to the drovers and discussed where to put up their horses while Belle said good-bye to the Sawyers without even getting an edge put on her knife.
Then she turned to her house, bulging at the seams with children, and one polecat.
She strode to the house. She didn’t think all those little ones and Sarie combined were quite good enough as chaperones.
Besides, getting those children to trust her and her girls was now top priority. The second job on her list, as soon as she’d earned that trust, was booting Mark Reeves out of her valley.
Thirteen
Emma, if you come stand right beside me and talk to Catherine and Angela, with Jarrod in your arms, I think they’ll calm down. See, Catherine is already watching her brother.” Mark tilted his head so he could look little Catherine in the eye. “Aren’t you, honey?”
Mark looked up and smiled at Emma, who’d come right on over. Mark had a passel of little brothers, and he’d learned a long time ago that a man carrying a baby was a lure to a woman. He’d used it many times in his earlier years. Before Emma he’d never been serious about women, but he’d always liked their attention. Now he used these little ones as tasty bait.
“I only had brothers growing up.” He looked at the girls in his arms. Sure he was baiting an Emma-trap, but he sincerely cared about Mandy’s little tykes. “My folks only had boys.”
Emma kept her eyes on Catherine, her voice gentle and sweet, her hands stroking Jarrod. “Hi, Catherine. I only had sisters until Tanner was born. There were four of us girls.”
“Four?” Mark looked around the room, blond Emma, redheaded Sarah, black-eyed Betsy. “Who’m I missing?”
“I’ve got an older sister who’s married.”
Mark smiled and Emma seemed caught in the smile. Jarrod in her arms, Catherine and Angela in his. He could see them as a family. Children of their own. Blue-eyed and blond-haired, Mark reckoned, though obviously Emma came from a family that could churn out children of all descriptions.
“So, you’ve got a lot of little brothers?” Emma was a tough Montana cowgirl. Mark knew that and it suited him. A woman needed to be strong to settle the West. Mark figured if he touched her hand he’d find calluses as tough as boot leather. And he almost reached out to check but thought better of it. Having two children in his arms slowed him down, too.
She was close to him now, and she’d stay here if he didn’t make any false moves. She was as pretty as a spring rose, and her voice washed over him like warm rain.
The thought of having children with her was almost more pleasure than Mark could take. “Yep, five when I left home. But my folks have one every onest in a while, so who knows? Ma’s getting older now. She has to be almost forty I reckon.”
“My ma’s almost forty, and she just had a new baby.” Emma tipped her head toward a crib where a little one slept. “Your ma must’ve been young when you were born.”
“She’s not my real ma. My ma died having me and my two brothers.”
Emma’s brow knit with a frown. “Three babies at once?”
“Yep, triplets. We’re the only ones I’ve ever heard tell of.”
“I didn’t even know babies could be born three at a time. And it killed your mother to have you?”
“Yes.” Mark had been having fun until now, luring Emma closer, flirting a bit, acting like a hero because the children took to him. But it hurt to think that his birth had done his ma in. “Pa raised us for the first five years alone. Then he remarried.”
Thinking of his pa’s second wife helped him shake off that strange guilt. “She was real young. Seventeen when they got married. I have twin brothers who were ten when Pa married her, so she’s closer to their age than his.”
“Twins, too?” Emma shuddered. “Did the rest of your little brothers come in batches like that?”
Mark shook his head. “Nope, and I’m glad, because Ma is a good’un. I’d have hated to lose her.”
Angela picked that moment to rest her head on Mark’s shoulders and fall asleep as if someone had switched off a light. Mark smiled down at her. He’d seen his little brothers do this.
Emma reached up and ran one work-scarred finger across Angela’s cheek.
Catherine snuggled closer to Mark and looked to be the next one to nod off.
“You’re good with them,” Emma whispered.
“I’ve had my share of practice. And I like little ones.” Mark looked down at the little girls.
Angela’s eyes, closed in sleep, were still rimmed with tears where her lashes lay white and spiked from all the salt water. Catherine sighed and leaned her head on Mark’s shoulder as if the weight of it was more than her neck could bear.
Forgetting his flirting for a second, Mark said, “They’re powerful lonely for …” He looked at Emma and arched one brow. “Ma.”
“It must have been bad for … her … to leave them. A … person … doesn’t leave little ones easily. I remember when we first met her. She was just in the country from Texas. A young thing to be married. Though a sight older than Lindsay, my big sister.”
“You met Mandy when she first came here?” Mark felt the stirring of excitement. If they knew her, it must be all right to tell them he knew Mandy from way back.
“We helped her and her first worthless husband build a cabin. A great little cabin not that far from Helena. There was no need to move up there where they went and build what I’ve heard called a castle. Ma wrote a letter to her
folks back in Texas letting them know Mandy was safe and settled for the winter.”
“So you know she was a McClellen, too?” Mark’s tone finally pulled Emma’s attention away from the children.
Emma leaned closer and spoke in a sharp whisper. “Too? How do you know her? Do you know these children from before?”
Mark might well be imagining it, but he thought he caught just a hint of something from Emma that could count as jealousy.
“I’ve never seen her children before, but I know Mandy.” Mark kept whispering so Emma would have to stay close to hear. Besides, Catherine needed quiet to sleep, now didn’t she? “I grew up with her in Texas. We went to school together.”
“Did you come up here to see her?” Again that little bite of annoyance.
Mark had to fight to suppress a smile of satisfaction. “Nope, I had no idea who Tom was bringing home. I mean, I heard Lady Gray. I heard the rumors about her being a hermit.”
“A witch. Which was ridiculous. She was a nice woman. Ma and all my family took a powerful liking to her from the first.”
Mark nodded. “Then when we rode out to meet Tom, I couldn’t believe my eyes when he had Mandy. And she recognized me, too. I think the children took to me partly because I felt the connection to them ‘cuz I knew their—” Mark stopped himself from saying “ma” and looked down at Catherine, whose eyelids were nearly closed. “I knew Lady Gray.”
“Connection?” Emma still sounded a bit tart.
“She’s married, Em.” A smile just would not be held back.
“Widowed you mean.”
“No, I mean married to Tom Linscott. They saw to it before all the trouble started. Mandy was my mortal enemy when we were kids. I was always up to some nonsense in school, and she was the bossiest, most scoldingest girl I’ve ever met. But I haven’t seen anyone from home in a while. And then knowing what I knew about Lady Gray, then seeing Mandy … well, I know her and her family, and they’re good folks. I can’t stand by and see Mandy come to harm.”
Sophie's Daughters Trilogy Page 74