Lavinia inched her way in, the weighty bucket swaying between her legs. Both hands gripped the wooden handle, and water came precariously close to slopping over. As careful as she was, water splashed on her dress and the floor. She made a face. “This is difficult.”
Belle dunked deeper into the bubbles. “Be careful not to hurt yourself. That looks heavy.”
“I am. Scoot to the side so I won’t burn you when I pour this in.”
Belle promptly obeyed. The sound of the door opening was almost concealed by the splashing of water.
“They had everything you wanted at the Toggery,” Emma called while the crinkle of paper being unwrapped and crumpled filled the room. “Two more pairs of pants like you bought before, and two more shirts. That was all of the smaller sizes they had. Mr. Buns, the clerk, will put in an order for the rest of us. It’ll be at least a week before the garments arrive, but he’s promised to send them to the hotel the moment they do.”
Belle smiled at the silly name. She’d met the man on her visit to the shop with Blake. He’d seemed nervous; Henry had told them the shop managers were all aware that one of the girls would be its new owner. Just wrapping their heads around the ranch was so overwhelming, she had no idea when they’d feel ready to divvy up the other businesses.
She’d made an effort to put Mr. Buns at ease; still, he had dropped several items, stuttered twice, and had to search for more than five minutes for the account book. “Thank you,” Belle called to the ceiling. “Wearing those same grubby clothes for another day would have sent me to my grave.”
“Don’t say such a thing,” Emma replied. “What you’re doing out at the ranch is no small feat.” She cleared her throat. “I do have to voice my concern about the Toggery without sounding overly prideful about myself. Whichever sister ends up with that establishment will have a task on her hands. I was horrified to see what they consider a dress-and-hat section. It’s like Mr. Buns doesn’t realize there’s more than one sex. One dress, one hat—that looks as if it’s been there for ten years—no gloves, scarves, or unmentionables. I’d have to guess most women in town sew their own things.”
Belle felt a smile. “I’m sure one of us will bring the place up to snuff in no time. The clerk is nice enough. He was very helpful—when he wasn’t fainting with fear.”
Lavinia and Emma both laughed.
“Yes, I’ll give you that,” Emma said in agreement.
“I’m sorry about taking the last of the riding clothes.” Belle swished the warm water around, enjoying it immensely.
“Don’t think a thing of it,” Emma replied. “I’m planning to stay in town for the time being. I’m not ready to start ranching yet, but I do intend to in the future. We all must make a concerted effort to learn everything we can. Six months will pass quickly.”
Belle lathered her washcloth with the lavender soap and began scrubbing her arms and legs a second time. “Have either of you met Nicole Day?” she asked, keeping her voice casual.
“No. Who’s she?” Lavinia asked.
“The sheriff’s younger sister.”
“Really?” Lavinia said. “How old?”
“Sixteen.”
“We met the handsome Sheriff Dawson yesterday morning,” Emma said. “Are you sure they’re brother and sister?”
“Yes. His half sister. I can find out more about her on the way back to the ranch.”
Lavinia knocked once on the screen and looked around. Belle plunged down into the sudsy water.
“Don’t do that, Belle,” Lavinia said. “Blake will think we’re nosy.”
“He already thinks I’m nosy, and every other bad thing that a person can be. Anyway, I don’t care. We need something to talk about on that long wagon ride back. By the way, where did Mavis and Katie make off to?”
“I’m not sure,” Emma said. “You almost finished? If you get dressed, we can go find out. I like exploring the town. There’re actually quite a few shops and restaurants. I hear with the mining that’s exploded the last few years, Eden has grown quite a bit.”
“Blake says you should be careful where you go. Speak with Henry before wandering off. And if you do go out, go in pairs—not alone.”
“You’re getting to know Blake quite well.” Lavinia’s tone held a mountain of meaning.
“What do you expect? We’ve been working together for three days.” Belle reluctantly stood and reached for the towel folded on the chair. Being careful not to slip, she stepped out of the tub and dried herself. Securing the towel around her body, she crossed the room to the bed, looking over her new clothes.
Emma smiled as Belle picked up her new shirt and looked over the garment. “Whoever thought I’d be so excited over a man’s shirt?”
“I’ll drop off the dirty clothes at the laundry house for you,” Emma said. “I spotted it one street over.”
“You’re learning the town.” Belle couldn’t hide her envy.
“And you’re getting to know Blake and the ranch. The ranch hands and all the rest. We all must do what we can and then share our knowledge.”
Belle brightened. She was beginning to feel a little down about leaving soon. “That’s a wonderful idea. Today’s Monday. Let’s plan a meeting as soon as most of the work with the roundup is done. We’ll each give a short talk on what we’ve learned. How does that sound?”
“How does what sound?” Mavis asked, stepping through the door.
“That after a few days, we get—”
Mavis stepped quickly to the bath screen and looked behind it. “Where’s Katie?”
Belle gaped at Lavinia and then Emma. “We thought she was with you. She must be in the other room.”
“No. I stopped there first,” Mavis said, shaking her head. “I’ve been across the street at the mercantile.”
The walls closed in on Belle as she dropped the towel and quickly pulled on her unmentionables, not caring who saw her nakedness. “She’s probably downstairs in the café. Did you look there?” All that mattered was Katie, and that she was safe.
Blake made it quite clear we weren’t to go off on our own.
Mavis had assumed a general’s posture. “I glanced in on my way to the stairs, looking to see if any of you were there. Did she say anything about going anywhere?”
“No,” the three said at once.
“The last time I saw her, I was going to my room.” Belle fumbled twice with the stiffness of her corset. “And she went into hers. You left with her to fetch Emma’s book. That’s why I thought the two of you were still together.”
Mavis’s mouth was a hard, straight line. “She was still there when I departed for the mercantile.”
Finished lacing, Belle slipped her arms into the shirt and quickly fastened the buttons. Next she pulled on trousers. The girls were already headed for the door. “Wait until I pull on my boots,” Belle barked. “And we need a plan. We can’t just fly out the door.” She buttoned up the fly and, with her fingers, quickly racked her wet hair back and tied it with a ribbon.
“Belle’s right.” Lavinia stood with hands on hips. “Mavis and I will find Blake and tell him. Then we’ll search up and down Main Street, as well as that small touristy area where we went to supper. Check all the stores and alleys. Someone may have—”
Lavinia’s voice broke, and Belle gently put her hand on her sister’s shoulder.
“Nothing bad has happened to Katie.” Belle prayed her words were true. “Emma and I will go alert Henry and then search up and down Falcon Haven and the Old Spanish Trail that runs through town. She’s just wandered off. Distracted by . . .”
“That handsome Santiago Alvarado?” Emma whispered. “She wouldn’t, would she?”
“No, she wouldn’t.” Belle headed to the door. “She has more sense than taking up with a man she doesn’t know.” She let the others precede her through and then locked the door with a shaky hand, shoving the key deep into her pocket.
Nothing would be worth losing Katie. Not all the money in the w
orld, or even learning about Father and our history. We have to find her, and quickly. A deep dread began to burn inside. As she followed the girls through the hall and then down the stairs, she wondered if this had anything to do with Praig Horn. Moses’s beaten face and broken ribs flashed through her mind. That man better not have touched my little sister or I’ll kill him with my bare hands.
Plunging out the front door of the hotel, Belle grasped Emma’s arm and followed Mavis and Lavinia, already on their way to the mercantile to look for Blake. When she and Emma reached the building, they bounded up the outside steps to Henry’s office, but the room was empty. Belle crossed the office and pounded on the door that led to his private rooms. No answer.
How could he be gone when we need him most?
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
What now?” Emma gasped, looking around Henry’s vacant office, the fear and panic in her voice all too evident.
“We head one street over,” Belle stated firmly. “We’ll enlist the sheriff as we pass his office. He’s supposed to keep citizens safe.”
They raced out the door and took the stairs at a run. Belle caught her toe but righted herself before falling face-first into Emma’s back. When their feet hit the street, they took off, Emma struggling to keep up in her dress.
Who can we trust? Is the handsome Santiago to blame? She’d noticed the way his eyes feasted on Katie. Did Emma remember Praig, and the trouble with him? She’d not bring that subject up now and worry her, since doing so wouldn’t help their situation.
Breathing hard, they clamored into the sheriff’s office only to find it empty as well.
“Where is everybody?” Belle blurted in frustration. Each moment without Katie was another moment something atrocious could be happening. She stepped outside and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Sheriff!” she shouted. She called out a few more times before a tall man she assumed was Sheriff Dawson came running up the street.
He pulled up. “What’s wrong?”
“My baby sister is missing! We fear for her life.”
His gaze cut in several directions and then back at them. “How long has she been gone? What makes you think she’s in trouble?”
“We’re wasting time.” She glanced at Emma questioningly.
“Over an hour, Sheriff,” Emma said. “Not much more than that.”
He gave a noticeable sigh, relaxing his stiff shoulders. “That’s not long. Maybe she’s visiting and forgot to tell anyone.”
Belle narrowed her gaze. The last thing she wanted to do was stand here and argue. “Who does she have to visit? She doesn’t know anyone!”
He put out his hands as if they were hysterical women who needed to be calmed. They weren’t hysterical—yet. They needed to know that Katie was safe.
“It’s plenty of time for any number of things too despicable to name to happen,” Belle said. “As well as being kidnapped or killed. Have you forgotten so quickly about Moses? I assume his attacker is still running free since I was just in your jail and all the cells are empty.”
His mouth twisted at that. “I just got in an hour ago—after searching all night for Praig. And I’ve sent more than a dozen telegrams to outlying towns. Finding someone who’s on the run is more difficult than you might think.”
His voice grew louder with each word, but she didn’t care. Perhaps he didn’t like being questioned by a woman many years his junior. That’s just too bad! I’ll question President Hayes if I have to. Nobody was as important to her as her sisters.
She stomped her foot. “Blake’s told me there’re places in town respectable women shouldn’t go alone. What if Katie accidentally wandered there? Are you refuting that claim?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Are you going to help?”
His jaw clenched. “Of course. Where’s the rest of your band?”
“Band?”
“Now you’re the one wasting time.”
“We split up,” she answered quickly. “They’re searching the north part of town, and we’re taking the south part and the Old Spanish Trail. We need your help.”
The sheriff spotted a young boy walking their way. “Dan, go ring the bell at the Protestant church. When people begin to congregate, tell them we’re looking for the youngest Brinkman girl. Her name is Katie. Been missing for about an hour.”
“Sure, Sheriff.” Dust kicked up as the kid bolted away.
“All right. I’ll go down to the end of town and come up the Old Spanish Trail. You two look into the shops on Falcon Haven. When we’re finished, we’ll meet back here. Same if you find her.”
As the sheriff jogged away, Belle’s heart trembled. She glanced at Emma to see her sister’s teeth worrying her lower lip as they hurried along. They couldn’t handle any more tragedy. They’d been through enough these past two months—and that wasn’t even taking into consideration all the years their guardians had been lying to them about their father. Katie’s joyful laughter wafted through Belle’s mind.
Not Katie, Lord. Please don’t take her too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Blake was at the livery, a wooden box of horseshoes hefted in his arms, when the tolling of the church bell brought him up short. Shoving the container over the open tailgate of the buckboard, he looked across the vacant field and picnic grounds to the church. A small boy was hauling up and down on the bell rope.
Maverick Daves, the smithy, stepped to his side. He wiped his smudged hands on a towel looped through his thick leather belt. His bare arms were moist from his work over the forge. Rings of sweat stained his shirt. “I wonder what that’s about.”
Several townspeople had already gathered around.
Blake pondered the same thing. The Brinkman girls? Naw, couldn’t be. But I won’t get a lick of work done until I know.
“I’ll go see,” he called over his shoulder, already on his way.
“What’s this about?” Blake called out as soon as he was close enough.
The boy stopped ringing. “Sheriff had me sound the alarm. Seems a girl’s gone missing. John Brinkman’s youngest. Her sisters think she’s in trouble.”
Blake cut his gaze up the road. “Where are they?”
“Don’t know.”
Confound it! He should have left one of the hands with them at all times, just until they were familiar with the town and with what they could and couldn’t do alone. If they weren’t so shorthanded, he’d have escorted them himself.
He ran back to the livery, informed Maverick what was going on, then veered behind the building, cutting through the paddocks. May as well begin with the older, rougher part of town, he thought, taking the footpath to the Old Spanish Trail.
Scents wafted over from Mrs. Gonzales’s food stand. The old woman was hard at work over her comal. The flat cast-iron pan appeared plenty hot as she fried a large white tortilla over an open fire.
“Buenos días, senor Harding,” she said as she watched him approach, sweeping her leathery arm over her offerings of tortillas, black beans, and rice. She hadn’t yet started her beef strips, but when she did, the aroma would pervade the whole town. The small shed with a long, colorful Mexican blanket hanging over the door was her office, and gave her a bit of shade to work in. In less than an hour there would be a line ten men long, waiting patiently for a midmorning meal. “Why the bell? Trouble?”
“I’m looking for a young woman.” He put out his hands and mimed a pretty shape.
Her creased bow crinkled.
“A niña. Gringo. Pretty. You see this day?”
She took a moment to flip the tortilla, which was browning nicely around the edges. “No.”
“No?”
She shook her head.
“All right. Have you seen anyone leaving town?”
“Vendedor ambulante,” she said, pointing to the trail leading past the Spanish Trail Cantina toward Santa Fe.
“A peddler’s wagon?” he mumbled to himself. On its way out of town. Surely Katie would know bette
r than to engage with a stranger. “How long?”
Her brow wrinkled again, and then she held up her hands, placing one finger over the other.
Half hour. He needed a horse. He’d come to Eden in the wagon, but there was no time for that now. “Gracias!” he called over his shoulder as he sprinted toward the cantina. The town seemed unusually quiet. Horses were usually tied everywhere, and now he didn’t see a one. He took the cantina steps two at a time and crashed through the front door. The old man the Alvarados had tending bar looked up, as did the few men at the bar. Santiago appeared on the landing at the top of the stairs.
“You have a horse saddled?” Blake called up.
“Yes, my gelding out back. What’s—”
“I’m taking him!”
“No problem, amigo.”
A few seconds later, Blake galloped down the trail, the sun glaring under the left side of his Stetson. Today would be unseasonably warm. But that didn’t matter. All he could think about was Katie in the back of that peddler’s wagon.
The narrow road was no more than five or six feet wide. Ironwood, scrub trees, and taller pines spotted the surrounding hummocks, making visibility difficult. The road swung around a slight hill to the right. Blake knew this territory well. Too bad he’d shed his weapon when he’d gotten hot, stashing the Colt under the wagon seat. He felt naked without a gun.
Instead of following the road, he reined the gelding to the left to climb the gently sloping ground. He slowed as the terrain became steeper, letting the animal catch his breath. Women were bought and sold around these parts all the time—a crime, of course, but a crime difficult to stop with so many men and so few women. Heading straight up, the horse dug in, pushing off with strength on every step. Nearing the top and wanting to stay out of sight, Blake dismounted, tied the reins to a tree, and proceeded the rest of the way on foot.
There it was, just moving out of sight: a small peddler’s wagon and a rider alongside. The red-and-white paint made the wagon easy to spot in the distance. He knew a few of the dealers that came through Eden, and some even stopped out at the ranch now and then, but this wasn’t one of them. He backtracked to the horse, mounted, and galloped off.
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