Angel's Embrace

by Charlotte Hubbard

  “Sounds like his heart’s gone darker than the devil’s,” Asa muttered. “Mighty long trip fer ’im, just to carry out his orneriness.”

  Billy swallowed another bite of biscuit, recalling Wes’s childhood tricks—wishing such orneriness was all that would happen if his twin came looking for him.

  “Yeah, well, he wants nothin’ to do with that baby, and he’s callin’ Eve a whore who brought her situation on herself,” he answered sadly. “Then he accused me of hidin’ behind her, like I used to hang behind Mama’s skirts when I was little. I wanted to punch him so bad, my whole body shook with it. But I got outta there when I realized how hard things’d be for Eve if I got hurt playin’ the hero.

  “Could be Wes called it right,” he added in a small voice. “Could be I’m too lily-livered for my own—”

  “You did exactly the right thing, son,” Michael insisted, reaching across the table to grasp Billy’s arm. “Nothing wrong with getting yourself out of harm’s way, especially since he was armed and you weren’t. No shame in that, Billy.”

  “No, sir, no shame fer certain,” Asa echoed with a decisive nod. “You was takin’ responsibility, protectin’ what the Good Lord’s given you. You seen that situation for the trap it was, and you knew nothin’ good was gonna come of gettin’ yourself shot fulla holes.”

  “Amen to that!” came a voice from the doorway.

  Billy turned to see Mercy, dressed in her everyday calico with her chestnut hair tied back at her neck. Billy felt such a warmth radiating from her that he dropped his fork and shoved his chair back. She opened her arms and he hugged her fiercely. It was a deep sweetness Mercy Malloy inspired in him: the sense that he mattered more than anything in this world to her, even though she had her own young children. Even though he now stood taller than she did, and held her against his chest instead of being held.

  He felt her sigh with love and relief, and the long breath she let out warmed his neck.

  “Tell us what you need, Billy,” she stated quietly. “You have to make your own way, and you’re facing some tough situations. But we’re your family and we’ll always love you. Always help you.”

  Where would he be without Mike and Mercy Malloy’s unconditional love? What would have happened to that lost ten-year-old boy in the patched pants who stepped off the stagecoach and into their home, had they turned him away?

  You mighta gone just as wrong as Wesley. There, but for the grace of God and these kindhearted folks. . . .

  He hugged her again, and then followed Michael and Asa outside for the morning chores. Snowy and Spot circled him immediately, their eyes still bright despite their age. Billy knelt to accept their licks and grab each dog in turn.

  “These two ole pups was beside theirselves after you left, Mr. Billy,” the old Negro said with a cackle. “Just no consolin’ ’em, when I told ’em you might not be comin’ back fer a while.”

  He indulged in their excited kisses for a moment, realizing how much he’d missed them, and how quiet life would be in Richmond if he didn’t have these faithful border collies sharing his days. “Unless you’ve got something more urgent, I thought I’d ride the fence line along the west boundary today,” he suggested.

  The other two men were kind enough not to quiz him about riding past the unfinished house in the northwest corner of the homestead. Billy gathered his tools, filled his canteens, and saddled Pete, glad for some time to think things through. Way too much had happened these past few days, and he sensed he was at an important crossroads. A day in the blazing Kansas sun, repairing the barbed-wire boundary with only the dust-muffled hoofbeats of his horse and the company of his dogs, would set his mind straight again.

  He stopped briefly at the old log house where Mercy and her first husband, Judd, had staked their original claim. Sedalia Gates was hanging out dresses and overalls, while in the nearest field, her husband Reuben walked behind a plow.

  “You folks doin’ all right?” he called to the colored woman.

  “Yessir, Mister Billy, we’s gettin’ along just fine!” she replied brightly. She was barely bigger around than a handful of cornstalks, yet Sedalia gave him the distinct impression she could handle anything—or anyone—who crossed her.

  “Reckon you’s goin’ to see Miss Emma, aint’cha?” she asked with a glint in her deep brown eyes.

  He had to smile: this field hand’s wife missed nothing, and never hesitated to ask straightforward questions. “I’m mending fence today, but I thought I’d stop by there, yes. Have you seen much of her this week?”

  Sedalia shook a wet dress so hard it snapped like a firecracker. “Miss Emma was never one to come aroun’ here, even ’fore her mama died, so I cain’t tellya how she and her daddy’s gettin’ on. But it ain’t a happy household,” she added, shaking her head. “No sir, them grasshoppers ate more’n the crops and the clothes last summer. They ate big ole holes where that man’s heart was—and his daughter’s, too.”

  Billy nodded, wishing he didn’t feel responsible for some of that heartache. “Tell Reuben I said hello—and tell him his sister’s even more of a godsend now that Eve and Olivia have come back with me. Temple’s a saint, the way she keeps all those kids corralled!”

  “You tell her we send our love.”

  With a nod, Billy nudged Pete into a trot and continued over to the far side of the Malloys’ combined homesteads. He rode north then, along the fence of barbed wire and wooden posts that followed the property line farther than his eye could see. This boundary had been a joint effort between the Clarks and the Triple M Ranch, to prevent herds of cattle from trampling their fields of corn and wheat. Nowadays, the big drives from Texas were only a memory—outlawed by the people of Abilene, who’d despised the damage done by drunken cowboys and the spread of disease from their tick-infested longhorns.

  Billy dismounted and deftly patched a bottom strand of the wire, under the close supervision of his two dogs. He recalled how he and Gabe and their four border collies—hardly more than pups then—had ridden hellbent-for-leather to prevent a massive herd from stampeding through one of their summer Sunday gatherings of neighbors.

  He blinked hard. In his mind, Billy could still hear the heavy plodding of those longhorns’ hooves and see the sleek black-and-white dogs dodging and nipping to escort the herd down the road. Judd and Nathaniel, a fine Negro hand, had been alive then . . . he and Gabe had been inseparable . . . and Emma had been so impressed with his cowboy competence, she’d kissed him soundly on the cheek for the first time, that day.

  So much had changed.

  So much more change loomed ahead of him, and Billy wished he felt better about it. He remounted, his eye on the horizon as a modest house came into view. The walls were solid and the roof was on. They’d hung the doors and put plate glass in the windows, too, but otherwise the little house sat unfinished—a stark reminder of how things stood between him and Emma Clark.

  He intended to speak to her, but he half hoped she’d be back at her daddy’s house. After all, what was here for her? Just rooms that echoed when she walked the plank floors, and an emptiness that bespoke broken promises. He hoped Emma had gathered her inner strength—like the tomboy he’d known as a kid—and was figuring out a new purpose for herself.

  But no, a lone figure stood on the front stoop, staring out across the prairie. There was no way around greeting her.

  Some fences need mending, and I’m just the one for the job.

  Mama’s voice ran through his mind. And she’d been right, as far as making things work—on the surface, at least—between Eve and her mother. When Emma turned toward the sound of Pete’s hoofbeats, gripping her broom handle, Billy sensed he wouldn’t be nearly as effective as his mother. Or as lucky.

  “Mornin’, Emma.” He halted the horse a few feet in front of her, praying he’d say the right things, while his panting dogs joined her two in the shade beside the house. “Didn’t figure you’d be here. Not much reason to stay.”

  The blue
eyes that had once adored him looked dull. “Yeah, thanks to you that’s about right,” she replied in a tight voice. “I s’pose that fine Miss Massena and her baby are still the light of everyone’s lives—including yours?”

  Billy winced. She was in no frame of mind to hear how they’d narrowly escaped his brother’s gunfire. “They returned from Missouri with me, yes. Eve sorta fixed things up with her mother. Brought back her paints so she could—”

  “How lovely for her.” Emma looked into the distance, as though she’d rather not talk to him. She wore a faded blue gingham dress and her straw-blond hair hung limply around her shoulders—a far cry from the fetching sight she’d made as a bride.

  Billy’s pulse throbbed in his temples. He reminded himself that sharp words—or suggestions that she find someone else to love—would only make her more bitter. More brittle. And he owed her better than that.

  But why has Eve accepted her mistakes with Wesley and moved on?

  He didn’t have an answer. Some girls could wallow in their misery and hold a grudge until Kingdom Come, but he’d never, before this summer, suspected Emma Clark would be one of them.

  Billy sighed, knowing that whatever he said would be wrong. Might as well get this over with so he could get on with his fence work.

  “Emma, I’m sorry for the way I—”

  “You broke my heart, Billy Bristol! You ruined my life!” she cried. “So why are you sittin’ here tormentin’ me about it?” Emma’s face grew red and two tears dribbled down it.

  “I—I came to apologize,” he faltered, “and seein’s how you like to spend time here—I thought I’d offer to paint the rooms and—”

  “And what good will that do?” she retorted. “I’ll feel beholden to you then—obligated to bring your meals and tolerate your presence while you work. And then I’ll have to pretend I’m grateful and have some sort of a life, just because you finished this house before you left me for good!”

  His throat tightened around a large lump. Not so much from what she said, for he deserved every hurtful word she was hurling at him, but because she sounded helpless. Hopeless. Stuck here. Forever.

  “Emma, you’re a fine woman, and you’ll make some man a—”

  “How can you say that?” she shrieked. Her face contorted and she gripped her broom, ready to swing it at him. “You, who left me for that—that floozy and her misbegotten daughter! You, who left me to wither up and die!”

  Hattie and Boots trotted around the house at the plaintive rise of her voice, and Spot and Snowy came along. Four black-and-white bodies tensed and four sets of eyes followed Emma’s broom as she stirred up the dust on the stoop, sweeping with a vengeance. Pete whickered, shifting restlessly, so Billy let the gelding retreat a step or two.

  “That’s it! Back away—just get out of my sight!” Emma whined. “It’d suit me fine if I never laid eyes on you again, Billy!”

  His heart bottomed out. He was at a total loss for words, or for ways to ease Emma’s bleak outlook.

  “Stop gawking at me that way, dammit! Just go!” With a flourish of her broom she came at him, and Billy didn’t hold his horse back.

  “I’m sorry this happened, Emma,” he said from a few yards away. He gripped the reins tight, so he could finish what he had to say. “And I’m sorry you tore up that letter Eve wrote last spring—’cause maybe if I’d seen it, things would’ve gone different when she showed up at the wedding. But we’ll never know that, will we?”

  Chapter Seventeen

  After enduring the hot July sun and the words of a woman who’d grown as sharp as fence barbs, Billy was glad to be back at the Triple M that afternoon.

  “Whoa, Pete,” he murmured when Spot and Snowy shot ahead of him. A big grin overtook his face: Solace was riding his former horse, Mr. Lincoln, around the training corral, and danged if she wasn’t bracing herself—adjusting her rhythm to his—so she could stand up on his back! Like the trick riders they’d seen at the Centennial Circus a couple months ago.

  Thank goodness the other kids were in the house: one raised voice or distraction might send the seven-year-old daredevil flying backward off her mount. For a few glorious moments, Solace rode with her bare feet on either side of Mr. Lincoln’s spine. What a picture she made, with her arms extended for balance, her denim pants flapping around her spare body, and her rich brown waves blowing back in the breeze.

  Her triumphant, terrified smile was something Billy would remember forever.

  She caught sight of him then, and thank goodness she knew to fall forward and grab the sturdy gelding’s neck. Solace crooned her praise into the horse’s ear as he continued to canter around the ring. She was riding him so effortlessly, she could have been an extension of the small Morgan she’d inherited when Billy had received Pete for his last birthday.

  Spot and Snowy had settled themselves inside the fence to watch her, ready to race over if she took a tumble. The two dogs adored that girl, and for Solace, it went far beyond the mere love of pets: ever since she’d been big enough to frolic with the collies and sit in Billy’s lap when he rode, she’d shown an intuitive talent with animals. A gift from her father Judd Monroe, no doubt.

  “You’re dang lucky your mother wasn’t watchin’ that!” he said as he stopped Pete beside the corral.

  Solace grinned, her tanned face lighting up like the sun. “Mama doesn’t scare me! Didn’t I tell you, after we watched those circus riders in town, that I was gonna try it, too?”

  Billy couldn’t help returning her grin. “And didn’t I tell you that was a good way to get your neck broke, if you didn’t plant your feet right?”

  “But I did! I told Mr. Lincoln to keep it steady, around and around the corral, so’s I could feel his rhythm and balance with it!” she explained, as though it were a perfectly normal thing for any seven-year-old to do.

  “I know better’n to tell you to quit,” Billy admitted, “but come get me when you wanna practice, all right? I know a few things about horses myself, so—”

  “Oh, Billy, you are so fulla bluster sometimes!”

  “—maybe I’ll convince Mr. Lincoln to learn some tricks with you,” he continued in a conspiratorial voice. “If you get good enough that your daddy doesn’t string me up for helpin’ ya—and your mama doesn’t lock the stable on us—I’ll pick you out a yearling we can train from scratch. He’ll be all yours, Solace. He can grow up with you, and perform in whatever exhibitions you set your sights on.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “You promise, Billy?”

  Lord, but he loved those big brown eyes and that toothy grin with the gaps in it! He had to be careful, or this little tomboy would talk him into things he knew better than to allow.

  “You got my word on it, sweetie.” Glancing around the yard, he realized no one else was in sight, which was unusual in a family this big. “So how come your sisters aren’t out here—”

  “Screechin’ like scaredy cats and tattlin’ on me?” She rolled her eyes. “They’re inside playin’ with Olivia. Watchin’ Eve paint a picture.”

  “And Joel is—”

  “Muckin’ out the stalls. He back-talked Mama this mornin’, so now he’s all mad at Daddy for comin’ down on him.”

  Billy nodded at this familiar pattern. “I’ll put Pete in the pasture for a bit then, so’s not to interrupt Joel’s chores. And after I go inside, I do not wanna see you flyin’ butt-over-teakettle off the back of this horse. You hear me?”

  Solace’s cheeks dimpled with a wry grin. “Loud and clear, Billy. Just like I heard you say you’d help me with my trick ridin’—and sharp shootin’, too! Just like the guy—”

  “No guns for you, little girl!” he objected, ruffling her loose hair. “Your folks’d tan my hide for sure if I agreed to that! So don’t start on me!”

  Before she could talk him into anything else, Billy led Pete through the gate that opened to pastureland and the shade of the cottonwoods along the Smoky Hill River. When he’d put his tack and blanket by
the stable door, he saw that Solace had taken Mr. Lincoln out of the ring, as well.

  He moseyed toward the house then, taking in the way the late afternoon sun blazed against its white frame walls, a sharp contrast to the leafy green lilac bushes Mercy had planted along one side. The scent of honeysuckle tickled his nose as he stepped onto the back porch, and when he opened the door into the kitchen, he closed his eyes in ecstasy: Asa had baked pies for Sunday dinner. Aromas of cinnamon-sugared apples and tart cherries made his mouth water.

  The steam was still rising from the lattice-top crusts, or Billy might’ve been tempted to sample a slice. It was hardly fair that Wes had hobbled off with an entire pie for himself—a pie made by none other than their Beulah Mae. But voices in the dining room warned him he’d get caught, sure as sin, if he snitched anything.

  So he stood in the doorway, his heart swelling at the sight: Lily sat in a chair by the window, where the light made her face and blond ringlets glow, holding very still while Eve sketched her. The ginger cat sat in Lily’s lap, while Gracie watched the pencil lines take shape on the paper from beside Olivia’s basket.

  And from what Billy could see, Grace had every reason to be enthralled: Miss Massena was deftly roughing in Lily’s hair . . . her puffy, ruffled sleeves . . . the arch of the cat’s fuzzy back as it nuzzled her chin. A few strokes more, and he saw the pinafore with its edge of lace, and individual fingers appeared at the front and back of the cat.

  But it was Eve his eyes lingered on. With her hair pulled up into a topknot, wearing a dress from Mercy’s wardrobe, the girl from his childhood appeared as she must have looked before the war—and Wesley—brought her privileged life to an end. Her hands flew gracefully, and her neck arched just so as she gazed at Lily before adding facial details.

  When the little blonde brightened at the sight of him, Eve turned.

  “Billy!” she said, her voice lilting in his ears. “You look like you’ve had a hard, hot day.”