Billy choked. He gazed toward the river, where the green cottonwoods swayed in the breeze. “But I—I feel like I’m lettin’ you down, almost as bad as I’ve hurt Emma.”
“If your marriage is meant to be, it’ll happen. If it’s love, it’ll survive this separation and you’ll both be stronger for it.”
“What if I don’t come back?”
The thought took him by surprise, like a sob from the bottom of his tormented heart. Malloy’s warm hand landed on his shoulder, but it didn’t help much. Just reminded Billy once again what he was leaving behind.
“Maybe this little shake-up is what you and Emma needed,” Malloy mused aloud. “Maybe someday you’ll see it was for the best that Miss Massena interrupted the wedding. God works in mysterious ways, and he sometimes sends the most unlikely angels to carry out his work.”
“Yeah, well, when I left the porch it wasn’t angels carryin’ on that cat fight! And then Mama and Harte drove in!” he added. “I’d figured on driving Gabe and Miss Vanderbilt into town, but—”
“But you want to collect a few claw marks, eh?” Malloy’s eyes sparkled with mischief that brought back the ornery kid he’d probably been.
“Nobody can accuse you of taking the easy way out, son,” he went on in that patient way Billy knew so well—the voice of reason he would miss more than anything else. “Your brother’s done damage on a lot of levels, yet you’re defending Eve’s honor. Looking after her baby’s future. That little girl’s got a hard row to hoe, and someday you’ll have to explain why you tried to help her. Just like I’ll be telling Joel about his ma and how she loved him.
“Never assume marriage and children are easy,” Mike went on in a lower voice. “And never figure you’ll get far before your deeds—good or bad—come back around to you, Billy. A few moments of careless pleasure gave me that little man who’s struggling to follow in your footsteps. I have a lot of explaining to do someday, because I didn’t honor his mother.”
“He’d be nowhere without you and Mercy.”
Malloy flashed a lopsided grin, “We all know Joel’s like a May beetle with his wings pulled off—not quite whole, since he watched his ma die. No sense of where he’s going, or what he’s supposed to do with himself.”
Michael glanced back at the house as the baby’s wail drifted on the breeze. “Guess I’d better hitch up the carriage, so Gabe and Aunt Ag don’t miss their train. I’ve got the easy part, considering the guests you’ll be entertaining while I’m away.”
Michael’s smile bespoke a love Billy had never known from anyone else.
“Good to hear a baby again,” he murmured. “Not sure why, but Mercy and I can’t seem to make another one. Not that we don’t have enough chicks in our nest already.”
“Olivia,” Billy whispered, letting the name linger in his mouth. “Eve named her Olivia—just to annoy Emma, I suspect.”
“She chose well! Olivia . . .” Malloy repeated tenderly. “We’ll take good care of her while you’re gone, son. She’ll be so spoiled, Mercy might not turn her loose.”
Billy smiled as the woman in question stepped outside to wave him in. Even from a distance, her compassion glowed like the summer sun.
“Somethin’ tells me that between Eve, Emma, and my mother, the conversation has gotten way too interesting,” Billy said with a laugh. “Thanks for taking Gabe and Miss Vanderbilt. And thanks for, well—everything.
“All these years, you’ve made me feel like I belonged here. And now you’re lettin’ me go without complainin’ about the extra work it’ll mean,” Billy went on in a voice that threatened to crack. “I’ll do my dangdest to repay—” “You’re welcome, Billy. And you’re stalling,” Malloy said with a grin. “Time to let the voice of reason resound above the mewing and hissing. Lucky man.”
Billy heard their voices coming from the parlor now, and saw Temple Gates carrying in a tray of lemonade and cookies. His gaze followed the young Negress in, but something told him to remain unseen—get the drift of the conversation, which had taken a more urgent turn now that Mama and Carlton Harte had arrived.
“Tell me about my Wesley!” his mother insisted. She was holding the baby, studying Olivia’s features as avidly as any doting grandmother would. “No matter what you want to believe, Emma, this child is a Bristol through and through. The spitting image of my redheaded sons and daughter when they were born.”
Emma turned up her nose and looked away; took a cookie from the tray Temple offered, and then jammed it into her mouth.
Eve didn’t look any more comfortable about the direction the conversation had taken, but she straightened in her chair and held her head high, the way his sister Christine used to do. It made her neck look endlessly inviting, so Billy closed his eyes and tried to fill in the gaps he might have missed in this story.
“What can I say?” the brunette replied brusquely. “Wesley always took what he wanted, regardless of who got hurt, so—”
“But he’s well?” Mama demanded. “Hasn’t been shot up by any of those Missouri gunslingers? I can’t believe he’s become one himself. You must be—”
“No, ma’am, your son’s a sly one,” Eve countered. “You’ve probably read in the papers about the James boys and the Youngers causing such a stir, but Wesley has evaded the Pinkertons. Which, considering how they’ve bungled their attempts to capture Frank and Jesse, doesn’t take much.”
Billy saw Carleton leaning closer, listening intently. The quiet, mustachioed man now worked as a telegraph operator in Topeka. They’d moved east, to that larger town, when Mama married him. He’d done a multitude of things to prove his love, at Virgilia Bristol’s whim, yet Billy sensed his mother’s new husband still kept a few professional secrets—maybe some about Mama’s other son.
What Eve Massena didn’t know was that Harte had served as a Pinkerton operative himself. It was only natural for the quiet, unassuming man’s eyes to burn a little brighter when Wesley’s rejected lover mentioned outlaw activity.
“The way I hear it, the James boys garnered a lot of local sympathy when an explosion went awry and cost their mother an arm—and a younger boy,” Carlton remarked. “Notoriety like that always spawns imitators, too.”
“Yes, sir,” Eve replied, “Wesley Bristol’s got his own band of marauders now, similar to the Border Ruffians who kidnapped him. But he knows how not be seen when the lawmen come too close.”
“And how would he know that?” Mama asked.
“Well, you recall how it was after the war!” Eve exclaimed, raising her hands in graceful agitation. “Frank and Jesse have been crowned as kings for getting back at those damn Union sympathizers and politicians who ruined us! So when the Pinkertons move in, or Governor Woodson cracks down, those outlaws lay low with neighbors, or in the caves and woods.
“Then they pull off another outrageous bank heist or train robbery, and write a letter of denial to the newspaper editor,” she went on in a strident voice. “Everybody knows who did it! They’re just rubbing the governor’s nose in it—baiting all those operatives who can’t catch them.”
Billy observed the faces in that room: Emma sat with her arms crossed, peeved because she could no longer badger Miss Massena; Mama cooed at Olivia, while Carleton’s bushy mustache concealed his interested grin. Temple Gates had chosen a chair near the girls, who sat on the floor: Solace, Lily and Grace were politely sipping their lemonade under their teacher’s watchful eye, their crossed legs covered by their skirts.
“So why would my son risk his safety to see you?” Mama asked pointedly. “I can’t believe he’d associate with the family who foreclosed on his home! He had to know about that, even if he was kidnapped.”
Billy’s heart skipped a beat. A muscle in Eve’s rosy cheek twitched, but those deep green eyes didn’t flicker.
“I may have been reduced to earning my keep as a school marm, Mrs. Harte,” she said in a cool voice, “but your son has a legendary eye for the ladies.”
“And why sh
ould I believe Leland Massena’s daughter took up teaching?” Mama huffed. “You were no more inclined to earn a living than any of us in—”
“Teaching’s a damn sight more respectable than forging land office sales, or organizing fake lotteries to—”
“I’ll thank you to watch your language, Miss Massena,” Temple Gates cut in sharply. “We have impressionable young ears in this room.”
Mama arched a triumphant eyebrow at Eve, without a hint of remorse for the wayward life she’d once led.
Eve, however, lifted her chin with a feline grace Billy recognized immediately: She had a conversational ace up her sleeve, and was now itching to play it.
“Your darling boy Wesley used me, Virgilia—as though what he did to Daddy weren’t enough!” she whispered bitterly. “Daddy was paying him handsomely to scare landowners off their ranches so he could seize them for nonpayment of their mortgages and resell them. Though I’m not proud of how my father operated, he did not deserve the way Wesley and his gang members blackmailed him. Mother wouldn’t be giving piano lessons, living in only two rooms of our house, if he were still alive!”
The parlor rang with a tense silence. Billy blinked, realizing just how difficult things had been for the Massenas—how the tangled web Leland had wove had caught his entire family. Was it really Wesley’s fault, or was Eve playing on everyone’s sympathy?
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Carleton murmured, as though to defuse the escalating tempers in the room. “May I ask how your daddy died?”
“He hanged himself in the barn!” Eve rasped. “I found him myself. I only responded to Wesley’s advances to get my revenge, but he turned the tables—left me with a bun in the oven, after promising to marry me!”
“So you’re not only a whore, you’re a fool!” Emma crowed.
“Miss Emma!” Temple Gates stood up, glowering at the blonde as she gestured for the girls to precede her out of the parlor. “Please excuse us, but I’ll not expose these young ladies to any more of this vile, upsetting conversation!”
As the three girls in their flounced dresses caught sight of him in the hall, they grinned knowingly. Billy rumpled Solace’s thick sorrel waves and squeezed Grace’s little shoulder, giving Lily his best smile.
Temple Gates had a good point, though, and it was time to make his own. He entered the parlor, taking the chair Temple had vacated. The sparkle in Emma’s blue eyes told him she was glad to see him—but not because she’d forgiven his change of mind and priorities.
“Billy!” she began, “we’ve been hearing how Wesley’s caused all sorts of commotion—and how he blackmailed Eve’s daddy, and—well, your hometown must be a den of robbers now! And Eve has admitted to being his fallen woman! What do you say to that?”
Miss Massena’s dragonlike scowl prompted him to speak up while he still had a chance. Each of these ladies seemed intent on outgossiping her adversary, and he had more important things to discuss.
“Emma, do you recall that story in the gospel where the Pharisees bring Jesus a woman who was caught in adultery?” he asked quietly. “They were set on stoning her to death, till Jesus said ‘Let him who has no sin cast the first stone.’ And by golly, they all walked away, didn’t they?”
Emma’s face reddened. “And just what do you mean by that? What gives you the right to go quotin’ Jesus, as though—as though—”
“As though you didn’t rip up that letter and the painting I sent him?” Eve demanded. “If you hadn’t meddled in Billy’s mail—”
“Hush now! Both of you!” To make his point—and to make an escape before these cats clawed him to pieces—Billy stood up. The parlor was so quiet, so tense, that the clock on the mantel sounded like a warning from God himself when it chimed ten o’clock.
“I’m goin’ back to Missouri to find my brother—the father of that little girl right there,” he said, nodding toward the baby asleep on Mama’s lap. “But I’m goin’ back for my own reasons, too. And nothin’ you ladies can say is gonna change that.”
Emma jumped to her feet. “I get the picture!” she whispered tersely. “You’re usin’ this as a chance to back out of our marriage, like a coward with his tail between his legs. Well, go on then! Go to Missouri and get yourself shot! I’m liable to shoot you myself if you stay around, after the way you betrayed me!”
Her tears made his own cheeks sizzle with the pain he’d caused her. Was he a coward? Had he seized upon this opportunity not to marry her? Hunting his outlaw twin sounded like a happier risk than spending his life with the Emma Clark he’d seen these past few days! Or was that a dishonorable way to look at this situation?
She stumbled from the parlor, not caring that everyone saw her tears and felt the heat of her shame—probably hoping he’d follow, to comfort her, as he had after her mother died.
But Billy stood firm. The eyes in that room watched every flicker of his eyelashes as he considered his options.
“So, you’re going to Richmond for Olivia—to see Wesley—rather than to give me the help I asked for?” Eve demanded.
She rose slowly, widening her eyes at him. “And what will that accomplish, Billy? Your home’s in such a state it’ll break your heart—and your twin’s farther gone than that. He will shoot you down, Billy. Or he’ll find a way to use you for his own devious purposes.”
Billy sighed. Her words rang with truth, but also with a wheedling need for him to take her part.
“Maybe I’m like Doubting Thomas, touching the nail holes and the wound in Christ’s side,” Billy murmured. “Have to see things for myself—”
“The last thing I need is a do-gooder spouting Bible stories!” she cried. “Mother did enough of that when she kicked me out! I need a hero, Billy—somebody who’ll make my world right again. I can see it won’t be you.”
With a toss of her pretty head, Eve Massena strode from the room. Despite her exhaustion and the plain calico dress Temple Gates had loaned her, she held herself like a queen—at least until he could no longer see her.
Billy admired that. It reminded him of his sister Christine’s manipulations when they were kids.
But he let Miss Massena go, too. This trip to Missouri was for his own peace of mind, and on the behalf of Olivia, although he couldn’t believe Wesley would act anything like a daddy to her.
The time and opportunity have arrived. They might be God’s way of telling you it’s time to go home.
Billy blinked, and then looked at the expectant expressions of Mama and Carleton. Relief washed over him when he saw the serene acceptance on Mercy Malloy’s face. At least these three wouldn’t hound him about his decision.
“Guess I’ll get my gear together,” he said quietly. “Might as well head out first thing tomorrow.”
Adult responsibility weighed heavily on him as he crossed the glossy hardwood floor, in a room that glowed with light shining through the beveled window. He saw the same glow on three little faces when he reached the kitchen, where the girls sat at the table with Temple, counting out forks, knives and spoons for the meal Asa would serve everyone in a couple hours. He would miss their sweetness . . . their innocence.
“Is it true, Billy? Are you really leavin’?” Solace blurted. Her dark eyes shone with concern, and she looked so much like her father, Judd Monroe, Billy had to swallow hard.
“Yep. Goin’ to see the brother I haven’t laid eyes on for more than ten years,” he replied. “And I’m goin’ because Olivia needs a chance at a daddy—just like you girls have had.”
“Are you gonna be a daddy, Billy?” Gracie piped up.
He smiled, swinging her up from her chair to his shoulder. At six, she was a wisp of a thing in her ruffled dresses, and she spread sunshine with the same exuberance she’d scattered flower petals at his wedding yesterday.
“Well, it would help if I’d get married,” he confessed, gazing into those tawny eyes so like Michael’s, “but sometimes life surprises us. Sometimes things happen out of the blue—like when Temple and
Reuben and Sedalia came to stay with us. Now things go a whole lot better, don’t they?”
He returned the young colored woman’s smile, for Mercy Malloy relied on her assistance as much as Temple had needed the home they’d provided.
“Amen to that, Billy,” she replied, gazing fondly at her charges. “And we need to pray for Miss Emma in her time of trial, and for Miss Eve—because just like her, I was betrayed by a man who used me for his own selfish purposes.”
“Pray for me, too,” Billy added. His voice hitched because he was leaving this family who’d loved him when his own could not. “Ask God to keep me safe so I can come back—and so I can be a daddy and have girls just like you.”
It was Lily’s tight smile he saw then. As the oldest of this trio, she clucked over Solace and Grace, because Joel would have none of her mothering. Now, however, she looked troubled.
“And what about my father?” she asked quietly. “Michael’s our daddy, but Solace and I aren’t his true children—”
“You’re his girls in every way that counts,” Billy assured her quickly. “Your mama can give you a better account of that than I can. But I recall when we found you on the porch in a big basket tied up with pink ribbons, after we came home from Solace’s baptizin’ that Easter. You were the best present we ever had, Lily. Whoever your daddy was, God convinced him to leave you with this family.”
“I can see it’s time to talk about that story, tonight after devotions.” Mercy stood in the kitchen doorway, drinking in the sight of her daughters. She smiled at Billy, and then wrapped her arms around his shoulders.
“I haven’t hugged you for the longest time,” she said as she squeezed him, “because you got too big and embarrassed by such things. But our love goes with you to Missouri, Billy. You’ll be in our hearts and prayers until we see you again, and we’ll ask the angels to keep you safe. All right?”
As his arms encircled Mercy’s slender waist and he inhaled her clean scent, he suddenly wanted to cry on this angel’s shoulder—as he’d done when he was a little boy hurting from life’s bumps and bruises. This woman had loved him when he doubted his own mama did, and the wetness in his eyes was sheer gratitude for all she’d given him.
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