by Avery, Joan
She knew now about the eyes. She knew why they were familiar—why they had drawn her in. She knew where she had seen them every day for the past two years. They were Andy’s eyes.
“Get off my porch. You have no right to be here.” She spoke in an undertone, but her anger sliced through the balmy air. A sudden gust of wind moved through the trees, making the leaves shake vigorously in support of her demand.
The towering figure before her did not move and did not speak. She became even more inflamed.
“How dare you. Do you think you can appear after we’ve heard nothing from you for two years and simply take Andy?”
“I am his father.”
“You are not his father. You have abandoned that right.”
“And you are his mother?” He laughed bitterly. “I think not. You have usurped that right. You said last night that he was your son. He is not your son. He is Lizzie’s son and my son. He will never be yours.”
He could not have said anything more hurtful. He was dredging up all the memories she had buried, all the sorrows she had abandoned.
“Because of you, my sister left everything for the godforsaken wilderness. Because of you, she died horribly, alone in a shabby cabin. Because of you, I have the right to your son.”
He did not answer her. It was as if he were considering what she had just said. When he spoke again, much of the anger had left his voice.
“I thank you for taking good care of him. But you have no claim greater than a father’s. Do you think I will harm my own son?”
“You will if you take him from me. He knows no other mother. If you love him, leave him be. Go back to the hole you crawled into these past two years. Go back to whatever was more important than seeing and caring for your son. Why have you come now? Why?” Her voice was hoarse in desperation and fear.
His eyes hardened to granite. “I came as soon as I could.”
“Well, it was not soon enough.” She stiffened her back.
Last night, he had tried to seduce her before she could find out his vile intentions. Wouldn’t that have been a triumph for him? No doubt he had congratulated himself all the way home. And worse yet, she had almost acquiesced. It was a reality that carried very disturbing overtones. She would never let it happen again. She threw herself back into the desperate battle at hand.
“You cannot take Andy. It wouldn’t be fair to him. We heard nothing from you or about you these past two years. It seemed you had disappeared.”
He cut her short. “So you conveniently assumed I was dead?”
“Perhaps you should have been,” she shouted in an anguished cry.
He studied her again quietly before speaking. His dark eyes never left her face as if he were looking for any weakness on her part. “I have been denied too long. I will have my son. You cannot legally refuse me. My solicitor, Benjamin Ward, will contact you. Until then, you can reach me at the Planter’s Hotel.”
He didn’t leave immediately. Instead he continued to watch her, as if he could not tear his eyes from her. She shifted under his unblinking gaze.
“I told you to get off my porch. Get out of our lives. I will never part from the child. Know that.”
“I want to see my son.” It was more than a statement. It was a command.
“You can’t. He’s not here and I don’t know when he’ll be back. You will have to wait. You’re obviously accustomed to waiting.” Her words were searing.
He did not respond. Her heartbeat counted off the seconds. She struggled not to move, not to flee from him into the house. She forced herself to meet his steady gaze and return it. The duel continued quietly for a few moments more, then he turned and silently headed for the street.
Once he reached the street, he did not stop, but continued across it into the park. She watched until he disappeared along the gravel path into shadows. She stood shaking, trying to regain her composure.
There had been no warning. It was the same as the day the telegram had arrived with the news of Lizzie’s death. Surely you should have a warning when your world is about to be shattered. She had been a fool last night. He must have laughed all the way back to his hotel.
She couldn’t go back inside. Not yet. She leaned her forehead against the smooth grain of the oak door. Tears welled up in her eyes and she fought them.
This stranger couldn’t possibly expect to walk into her life after two years and take Andy. It was cruel and unjust. Surely no court would uphold such a travesty. She must talk to Uncle George. He would know what to do.
Kate grasped the doorknob, but before she could step inside, she heard Andy’s voice behind her.
“Mama, Mama.”
She wiped away her tears and forced a smile.
If he and Fiona had returned only minutes earlier, what would have happened?
“Did you have fun?” She looked down into the cherubic face and the eyes that would forever haunt her. “I can see your fun on your dirty face. It looks like you need another bath.”
“I’ll do it, miss.”
“Thank you, Fiona, but I thought I’d like to bathe him myself tonight. You’re free for the rest of the evening if you like.”
A smile lit Fiona’s young face. “Why thank you, miss. Thank you!”
As Kate carried Andy up the wide staircase, she held him a little tighter than usual. She bathed him and laughed with him about his day’s adventures, and she kissed his forehead when she tucked him in, but she did not leave as she would have normally. Instead she sat in the old rocker beside his bed until he was asleep, and still she did not leave.
Andy lay curled up tight as a fiddlehead, clutching the blanket she had knitted for him when he was still so small she could hold him in the crook of one arm.
How Andy had cried those first weeks, and she had cried with him. Their pain had bonded them more surely than blood. She fought the urge to pick him up and run until she was anywhere far away. But it was not a solution. She didn’t know if there was a solution.
She leaned over, resting her head in her hands. She tried to make sense of the man who had sent her perfect world crashing around her. Who was this man whom Lizzie had met in Denver while visiting friends? How had he captivated Lizzie so quickly and convinced her to marry him without any family present? How had he captured Kate, herself, so effortlessly? She felt so betrayed. She finally straightened. She would never again let him work his charm on her.
Chapter Four
Stephen Worth awoke with a start, his face drenched with sweat despite the cool room. He remained very still while his heart pounded wildly. His own screams had awakened him.
He grasped for the place and time. After a moment’s disorientation, he could put a name to the place. The softness of a feather bed enveloped him and the comforting weight of a thin blanket covered him.
He moved slightly and moaned in pain. When the pain lessened, he studied the room in which he lay. The awning outside and the heavy lace curtains on the large double window filtered the bright sunlight. A delicate lace canopy hung over the elegant bed. He inhaled slowly. The smell of beeswax and lemon polish permeated the room. Beneath his rough fingertips, the ironed percale felt glassy smooth—a luxury he had almost forgotten. Everything was in vivid contrast to the room he had inhabited only days ago.
Outside, the sky was blue, as blue as... He suddenly had a clear image of Lizzie’s eyes the last time he had seen her alive. They were bright with trust, as clear as a mountain lake, as blue as the bright sky that today mocked him.
He rolled to his side and grimaced with the pain. He had telegraphed his attorney in St. Louis from Canon City. He had been assured that there would be few legal problems in obtaining the boy. The only impediment was Katherine Barker.
He had not been prepared for her. Each time he saw her, his whole body reacted viscerally to her, first to her beauty and then even more to her spirit. Just thinking of her now sent disturbing feelings coursing through him. Was he betraying Lizzie? It had been so long since he
had felt his wife’s touch and enjoyed her comfort.
Katherine Barker was clearly not Lizzie. Gentle, sweet Lizzie would not have been capable of such fiery passion. But Katherine Barker’s passion spoke to her love of Andy.
There had been fear in her eyes—fear no doubt proportional to the devotion she had for the boy. Did he have a right to do this to her?
He had little choice. He had no time to waste.
He raised a hand to his sweat-covered face and rubbed his eyes. He needed to persuade her. Needed to convince her of his love for the boy. It wouldn’t be easy. And time was of the essence, for if Katherine Barker found out where he had spent the last two years, she would have every reason not to give him his son.
He moved to sit on the edge of the bed and again the pain shot through him. He looked back at the bed. He studied the fretwork of scarlet traces on the pristine white of the imported percale sheets.
The fine slashes of blood were the roadmap of his life for the past two years. They marked the agonies that had threatened to overwhelm him. Yet he had survived—survived to retrieve his son and to avenge Lizzie’s death.
A week of hard travel had not helped his back. He should never have let Ward talk him into going almost immediately to the ball. It had been a mistake in more than one way. He would have to make a stop before he saw Ward this morning. Medical care was a luxury he had not had in the past. Now, he could look forward to seeing a doctor, and more importantly, seeing his son.
…
Kate hurried along Market Street oblivious to the heavy early morning traffic of carriages and horse-cars. She had only one thing on her mind, how to prevent Stephen Worth from taking her son. Andy was her son, as surely as if she had borne him. No piece of paper, no stranger could tell her otherwise.
She stepped out to cross Fourth Street.
“Mein Gott im Himmel. Whoa Gerthe. Whoa Gelde.” The driver of a freight wagon was forced to pull up a large pair of dray horses to keep from hitting Kate. He cursed her in German. She barely heard.
She continued her distracted walk until her destination appeared. The striped awnings of the Merchant’s Exchange were still covered with dew, but the building already hummed with activity. At the pillared entrance, she hurried up the same steps she had shared with Worth. She harshly drove the thought out of her memory.
This morning, she barely glanced at the three great porches that surrounded the vaulted arena. The clamoring of the hundreds of brokers bidding on lots of grain disturbed her this morning. She hurried past the marble-topped tables at which the dealers nonchalantly took pinches of flour between thumb and finger and scattered them over the floor to judge texture and quality. Only one or two of the men greeted her with a nod.
Anxiously, she left behind the chaos of the brokerage floor. It only echoed the turmoil in her head.
“I’ve come to see my Uncle. I tried to reach him at his house. They said he was here.”
The thin, balding, beak-faced clerk almost jumped from his desk. He removed his small, round glasses. “Yes, miss. He’s here.”
“Tell him it’s urgent that I see him immediately.”
“Yes, Miss Barker.” The clerk scurried across the room to the carved oak door that marked her uncle’s city office.
Knocking once, he entered. Kate walked over to the high, arched window of the clerk’s outer office. Already, the signs of the previous festivities were coming down. It was an omen.
“Mary Katherine. Come in. Come in, my dear. Is there a problem? I looked for you after the ball, but your friends said you had left already.” Her uncle was in the doorway.
When she did not respond, his face wrinkled into a frown and he extended his arm to guide her into his office. He quietly shut the door behind them.
She wanted to be in control, but she couldn’t, not when her life had been so violated. She ran to him, throwing herself into his arms with an agonized cry. “Oh, Uncle George, what am I going to do?”
Uncle George enclosed her in a warm embrace. She had no doubt upset him with her peculiar behavior. He had always counted on her to be level headed.
“Katherine, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“He’s come for Andy.” The words came out distorted by her tears. Wavering and half-swallowed, they hung in the air suspended by pain.
“Who, my dear? Who’s come?”
She wiped at her eyes, only to soil her white gloves with the grime from outside that had settled on her face. “Stephen Worth, Uncle George. Lizzie’s husband.”
Shock register on her uncle’s face. Was this what Stephen Worth had seen on her face when she had discovered his identity?
“When did you see him?”
“He was at the ball—the English viscount. No one knew who he really was. Then he appeared on my doorstep last night demanding Andy.”
“Did he offer any explanation? Give any indication as to where he’s been?”
“No. I don’t understand.” She shook her head in disbelief. “How can he abandon a child for over two years and then suddenly expect me to just hand Andy over to him?”
“We should have searched for him. I think our love for the child blinded us. Once we had Andy, we could not bear to part from him. We are no doubt both at fault.”
Guilt colored Kate’s cheeks. She had to admit that her own selfishness played into the scenario that was unfolding. Her love for Andy had blinded her. She could see no excuse that could explain away the father’s absence.
She walked toward the sunlight of the window. She felt its warmth on her wet cheeks. She clasped her hands tightly before her and marshaled her arguments as to why she hadn’t searched for Stephen Worth.
“You and I both know why he married Lizzie. Lizzie would have inherited a fortune when she turned twenty-five. That was why we never met Worth, why he convinced Lizzie to marry him so quickly, so far from home, so far from us. He was afraid we would make her see reason. That’s why he whisked her off into the wilderness immediately after their marriage.”
Kate continued, growing more sure of herself as she voiced the little liturgy that had been the rationale for her actions so long ago.
“No doubt he had to flee England because of his horrendous behavior. Isn’t that always the reason, Uncle George? He is, after all, a Remittance Man.” She spit out the despised title. “He was afraid we would find out about his misbehavior and force an annulment.”
Her diatribe only partially resolved her turmoil. Last night’s confrontation had been disturbing for more than one reason.
Why did the man in the crowd, the man on her doorstep, bear no resemblance to the nefarious creature she had imagined? Why had she seen pain on his face? Why was she tempted to believe that he meant every word he spoke when he said he could not come any sooner?
An idea was dawning. “He is hiding something. I can feel it.”
“I don’t understand,” Uncle George said.
“He should have offered an explanation for where he was these past two years. It would have been to his advantage to justify his delay in reaching us. He offered nothing. He is hiding something—something that we might use to prevent him from taking Andy.”
“How can you be sure about this?”
She was determined to solve the riddle. “I’m as sure as I’ve ever been about anything in my life. Can’t we hire an investigator?”
“I can telegraph Mr. Pinkerton in Chicago. He could send a man out to Colorado.”
“Do it, Uncle.”
“It will take weeks, months, perhaps even longer, you realize.”
“I know.” Frustration was evident in her voice.
“I’ll contact our attorneys and attempt to forestall Worth’s taking Andy.” Uncle George paused before he continued. “The man is Andy’s father. He has a solid legal claim. Ours is much more tenuous. I fear we will not be able to prevent him from taking the boy. We certainly can’t stop him long enough to get a report back from Mr. Pinkerton’s man. Perhaps you should consider ot
her options. Think about Andy—”
“I am thinking of him.” She was in danger of breaking down again. “Perhaps if we offered Worth money. After all, that’s why he married Lizzie.”
“Do you think that he would abandon his rights to Andy for money?”
She wanted desperately to think that Stephen Worth would take money for his son. She would pay anything to see this man walk back into oblivion, but there was something about him, something almost frightening in his intensity, that denied the possibility.
She shook her head. “No, I don’t think he would.”
“Then you must steel yourself for the worst.”
She looked up. The pain on her beloved uncle’s face was as clear and as deeply felt as her own.
“I will not let this man—this stranger—walk into our lives and disrupt our family again. I will not allow him to tear Andy away from us. I will not be party to handing Andy over without a serious fight.” Her tears made the ramrod straight figure of her uncle waver before her.
When he responded, it was quietly and with more emotion than she had ever heard from him before. “In the end, it is Andy we must think of. We cannot tear him apart in the process of satisfying our own desires. Love makes us do things we never imagined ourselves capable of...think about it, Mary Katherine. Promise me you’ll think about it.”
“I promise only that I will find a way to protect Andy while we wait to hear from Mr. Pinkerton’s man.”
Her uncle clearly wanted more from her, more than the words of hatred she had given him. “What is he like?” he asked.
“I don’t know, Uncle George. I really don’t know.” She could tell his heart was breaking for her, for them both. “But I surely intend to find out.”
“Let me first talk to our lawyer, William Brent,” her uncle offered. “Will you be home later?”
“Yes, let me know what he has to say.”
…
It was early evening before George Barker reached his niece’s home. He entered with a bowed head and a slowed gait.