Southern Charms

by Trana Mae Simmons

  Darn it. Why hadn’t Withers told her he knew so she’d have someone to work this out with?

  Because he thought your knew it already, what with you being magic, her mind repeated.

  “Mortals!” she spat.

  The bed sank, and she looked up to see Pandora ponderously moving toward her from the other edge of the mattress. The cat sat down and fixed Fatima with a stern, cat look.

  “Meow’r,” she said, the sound strangely similar to the word “mortals” and the tone chastising Fatima’s disgust with that race of beings. Then Pandora paced to the edge of the bed once more and leapt to the floor. Tail curved over her back and nose high in the air—darn it, Pandora looked like she was trying to imitate Withers’ supercilious posture—she pranced out of the room after Withers.

  Fatima curled into a miserable, lonesome ball, finally falling asleep hours later.

  * * * *

  As tired as though she hadn’t slept a wink, although she had sobbed herself to sleep finally sometime between midnight and dawn, Ellie made her way into the kitchen the next morning. She barely glanced at Fatima, only long enough to see that she wore a stark black gown this morning. It gave Ellie a start for a second to realize her own vision of the fairy woman was in the guise of the dowdy housekeeper she displayed to the rest of the world, but Ellie didn’t feel like puzzling it out at the moment. Instead, when Fatima ignored her in turn, Ellie went over to the stove and poured herself a cup of coffee.

  Back at the table, she sat down and took a sip of the coffee—nearly spat it back out. It tasted like Fatima had boiled a cup of kerosene in it. Shoving the cup aside, she waited to see if Fatima would offer to serve her.

  Fatima did, but a moment after the plate was placed in front of her, Ellie wished she hadn’t. The biscuits were as hard as rocks, and she couldn’t even cut them to spread the butter. The eggs were greasy, with a crust of burnt edges, and the bacon crumbled to pieces when she tried to pick up a piece.

  Giving a sigh of disgust, she rose and left the kitchen. Maybe Cookie would have something extra left over.

  Ellie was just finishing a plate of Cookie’s fried mush and ham when Withers hesitantly entered the bunkhouse.

  “Do you think perhaps I might get something to eat out here this morning, Miss Ellie?” the valet asked.

  Ellie waved him to the chair beside her. “Fatima’s mad at you, too, huh?”

  “Devastatingly,” he said.

  “What’s her problem with you? Have you been childish, too?”

  “I’m not sure.” He grabbed a plate from the end of the table and reached for the ham. “Does obtuseness fall under the same definition as childishness?”

  “Probably. At least as far as your punishment is concerned.”

  Ellie finished her meal and stood, then remembered what her plans were for that evening. “Would you mind taking an invitation in to Mrs. Morgan for dinner this evening?” she asked Withers. “Tell Elvina about it, and I’m sure she’ll prepare one for you.”

  “Madame Morgan?” Withers swallowed audibly. “Madame Morgan as in Master Shane’s mother?”

  “He didn’t tell you that she’d arrived in town?”

  “No. No, he didn’t.” Withers shoved his plate away as though he’d lost his appetite and rose to his feet. “I’ll let Madame Parker know. I gather you invited Madame Morgan to dinner this evening? And Master Shane?”

  “Yes,” Ellie confirmed.

  “Oh, lordy,” Withers muttered. “I wonder if you should ask Master Cookie to do the meal?”

  “Surely Fatima wouldn’t embarrass us like that. Would she?”

  Withers shrugged. “I’ll do what I can.”

  He left the bunkhouse, and Ellie followed after him. Withers strolled toward the house, very slowly and hesitantly to Ellie’s mind.

  The heck with it. Fatima was Elvina’s problem. Let the two of them work it out. She had enough other things on her mind.

  One of those other things rode out to join her and her men barely an hour after they hit the range. She wasn’t truly surprised at his arrival, although the ravaged look on his face, mirroring her own troubled night, niggled a serious hole through her anger. As he rode toward them, she debated whether to ask her men to turn him away. But all three of them looked at one another and turned their horses in some unspoken agreement, riding off and leaving her to meet Shane alone.

  She straightened her shoulders and held Cinder’s reins firmly as the gelding danced sideways at Blackjack’s approach. Shane halted the stallion within touching distance of her, but to what she found was her dismay, he kept his hands away.

  “I’m not leaving today until we talk,” he said without greeting. “I left my mother a note, so don’t think after you hear what I have to say that she’s the one who sent me out here. This is between you and me alone, Ellie. If you have even one iota left of the love you claimed to have for me, you’ll hear me out.”

  “And if I don’t, you’ll call me childish just like Miss Fairy Woman Fatima, I suppose,” Ellie said childishly.

  Shane frowned. “What’s Fatima got to do with this? And why did you call her that?”

  Ellie might as well tell him, since he appeared to be on an honesty mission this morning. Part of her musings, however, were still that—musing suspicions. Maybe Shane would confirm or deny some of them.

  “You did admit that you’ve noticed that Fatima and Withers are a couple.”

  “I’ve noticed,” Shane agreed.

  “Then since Withers knows about Fatima having magical capabilities, I assume you also know. And that’s something else you’ve been hiding from me. All of you have let me think I’m going bonkers and might be carted off to an asylum any minute.”

  Shane’s frown deepened into a scowl, and he shook his head at Ellie. “I don’t know anything about Fatima being magic, Ellie. But I wouldn’t presume to make a judgment on your feelings and declarations about such a thing. I’ve come to know you fairly well, although not completely. What I do know about you tells me you have a valid reason for saying what you’ve just said, as crazy as it sounds.”

  “Then you believe in magic?” Ellie asked in astonishment.

  “Not necessarily, but I do know there are things that can’t be explained logically in this world. I found that out during and after the steamboat explosion. People lived and died at seemingly arbitrary mandates, even me. My mother believes that I had things left to do here—and that maybe one of those things was to find you.”

  Shane stared away from her for a moment. “When I was fighting for my life the first few days after the explosion, my mother swears my father came to her in New York. That he left, telling her he would stay with me until she got there. I remember something in the room with me, but I can’t decide now if I really felt it, or if it’s what my mother later told me was there.”

  Recalling the evidence of his fight for life on his back, Ellie had to hold Cinder’s reins tightly and remind herself about the problems between her and Shane. Otherwise, she would have been off Cinder in a heartbeat, sharing Blackjack’s broad back with Shane and holding him to help him fight the misery of his remembered pain. But when he looked back at her, there was wonder, not pain on his face.

  “So if there is magic in the world, all it can do is make it a better place, not a worse one.”

  “What Fatima does isn’t spiritual magic. It’s not something like Fate or angels or a Being Who can perform miracles. It’s things like new dresses and doing her housework by magic. She probably even uses it for her cooking.”

  “Does she have a reason for using it?”

  Ellie avoided his gaze this time. Yes, the fairy woman had what she considered a very valid reason—to help her matchmaking attempts. So far, however, it hadn’t worked with that. Thank goodness Fatima drew the line at tampering with human will.

  Startled at the thought, Ellie sat up straighter in her saddle and studied Shane. His direct eyes held shadows of worry, an indication of just how much
Ellie’s anger was bothering him. Fatima hadn’t interfered and explained anything to either one of them. But, of course, Fatima had no idea what to do about Ellie’s deep anger at Shane’s deceiving her.

  Other than to tell Ellie she should quit acting childish and confront Shane. Listen to his explanation.

  She turned Cinder away from Shane’s stallion. “It’s not far to the creek. It’ll be a cooler place to talk there.”

  As soon as the words left her mouth, she wished she could take them back. Wished she could blame Fatima for putting them in her mouth and that she had thought of another place to go. But she couldn’t. The yearning to be at the creek again with Shane, to be where she had first made love to him, was undeniable.

  And she couldn’t ignore the fact that her hopes were high that they could make a new beginning at the place where the full impact of their love had hit her.

  Chapter 23

  Shane dismounted at the creek and reached to help Ellie down. She ignored his polite gesture. Longed for it, but ignored it anyway. Childish rang in her mind, but she ignored that, too.

  Foreboding, which had been building incessantly during the ten minute ride to the creek, burgeon through her, almost as though some magical warning told her she wouldn’t like what she was about to hear. Told her that her future hung in the balance of some spiritual justice scale, which was ready to tip one way or the other in the next few minutes.

  Shane’s face didn’t even hint at any clues. As blank and uncommunicative as during the ride, only the uneasiness and misery in his tawny eyes hadn’t changed. For some reason, that permeated her with guilt.

  She shoved guilt aside, also. She had lived with guilt all her life. Guilt because she must have done something to make her parents not want her—to send her on an orphan train rather than keep her and love her. Guilt she hadn’t been able to make the Parkers love her like their own either. Newer guilt that she succumbed to Shane’s proffered love without building a firm foundation for it first. That she had wanted for once in her life to have a love all her own so badly, she may have mistaken passion for love.

  Was that what Shane meant to tell her? Was he about to give her an affirmation of her accusations last night, when she threw the allegations of their love being a sham at him—of it being a portion of the mountain of deceit between the two of them?

  Shane loosened Blackjack’s girth strap while Ellie did the same with Cinder, and they turned the horses loose to graze while they talked. Ellie made for the downed log, but Shane wandered back and forth on the creek bank, head bent in concentration. The longer he kept her waiting, the more agitated Ellie grew, until at last she either had to explode or descend into a icy calm. She chose the false calm, resolutely waiting for him to open his mouth, as she had done many times previously in their relationship.

  Still, when he finally faced her, Ellie wondered if she was ready for this. Knew she wasn’t but had no choice.

  “I’m not going to pussyfoot around,” Shane said. “I did mislead Rockford, but I’ll take care of that immediately this afternoon. I’ll have him get in contact with one of my managers in New York who has the experience the Van Zandts need to expand, and make funds available to him.”

  Ellie nodded her head carefully, certain from his attitude that he had more than this to say. “Darlene will be ecstatic.”

  But how come she wasn’t overflowing with happiness herself? Ellie wondered. Because something on Shane’s face told her what was coming was going to be worse than his deceit to Rockford?

  He dropped his head again as though gathering strength, then stuck his fingers in his back pockets and faced her directly.

  “I came here at my mother’s request initially. She employed the Pinkertons over seventeen years ago, and continued the search she began until recently.”

  As his words sank in, Ellie’s heart pounded so thunderously she had to strain to hear his voice. A little over seventeen years ago was when she had been put on the orphan train, at least according to George Parker. Shane’s further explanation heightened her confusion and failed to alleviate her anxiety one bit.

  “Mother seemed to think the last Pinkerton report she got meant she had finally been successful in tracing a child who was kidnapped in New York when she was a little over two years old,” Shane informed her. “The child of my mother’s best friend, Rose Spencer. Everyone associated with the child’s disappearance died shortly after it happened, but Mother refused to give up. She sent me down here to check out the Pinkerton’s report, and after she saw you yesterday, she’s certain. She feels you’re Cynthia Spencer, the missing heiress to the Spencer fortune in New York.”

  Stunned, Ellie couldn’t move. Many nights she had dreamed just such a dream—fantasized that her parents had indeed wanted her, but had lost her though no fault of their own. Dreamed that someday—

  Oh, lordy, she recalled the childhood dream now. She had imagined that her fairy godmother would show up in her life and make everything right. Would take her back to her true parents, who would sob with gratitude at her return. Who would hold her and hug her and love her to pieces.

  Had her yearnings actually brought Fatima into her life?

  Had Fatima put the wheels into motion to make Ellie’s dream a reality? To right the wrong that had been done to a young child?

  She clenched her hands in her lap and looked at Shane. “You said everyone is dead. My parents?”

  Shane started toward her, but she held up her hands in protest.

  He halted. “I’m very sorry, Ellie. Yes, they both died in a fever epidemic. As did your aunt, whom Mother believes was responsible for your kidnapping.”

  Slowly Ellie rose to her feet. She should feel something, some sort of grief. But she hadn’t even known them, and her turmoil over Shane’s revelations was barely held in check. If she let the barriers down, she might collapse.

  “What name did you mention? Cynthia?”

  “Cynthia Spencer. Your parents were Rose and William Spencer.”

  Suddenly she stared at Shane in misery. “But you came here to prove I wasn’t this Cynthia Spencer, didn’t you? Otherwise, you would have told me openly why you were here.”

  He spread his hands. “You have to understand, Ellie. I didn’t know you at the time, but I love my mother. However, in all honestly, I didn’t come here to prove or disprove anything. I came here to find out the truth, one way or another.”

  “So some charlatan wouldn’t deceive your mother. As you deceived me.”

  “After Mother saw you—”

  “You’ve been with me for over two weeks, Shane. You’ve made love to me. You’ve told me you loved me. Yet it was only yesterday that you believed I truly might be Cynthia Spencer? Just who did you think you were falling in love with? Or didn’t you care? Was your declaration of love also a lie?”

  “No! Ellie—”

  “I really need to be alone, Shane. Please leave.”

  “No, damn it! I—”

  “Then I’ll leave. Please don’t follow me. I’ll throw your own words back at you. If you have any feelings at all left for me, give me some time alone right now, Shane.”

  She walked up the creek bank, aware with every particle of her being of Shane’s eyes on her, his unmoving stance. His obedience to her request to leave her alone.

  Damn it, she almost wished he would ignore her demand. Would race after her. Capture her in his strong arms and wipe away her fear and distrust. But she called Cinder to her without interference on his part, tightened the girth and swung into the saddle.

  “Ellie?”

  His voice was soft, and she realized she had been hoping desperately that he would at least say something. And she couldn’t ignore him any more than she could have performed one of Fatima’s magic feats. She couldn’t answer, either, through her clogged throat. Instead, she sat on Cinder, waiting.

  “I want you to know, Ellie, that there was one thing I never lied to you about. Whether your name is Ellie or Cynthia, I love
you. Maybe I’ve deceived you about my reason for being here, but I think if you’re fair with me, you’ll realize I had to do things the way I did. At least, I thought I had to at the time.”

  He took a deep breath, pulling his hands from his back pockets and removing his hat. “I started to tell you at one point all about this, but if you’ll remember, we got sidetracked. I’m not making excuses. I’m just being totally honest with you now.”

  Tears misted her eyes, but she resolutely blinked them back. “I can’t think straight. What you’ve told me is a tremendous burden on my mind right now. I need to be alone to sort everything out.”

  “I see.” He started to say something further, bit it back, then lifted his head at though deciding to continue. “Maybe you’re the one who’s having trouble being honest, Ellie. Both to me and to yourself. The way I look at it, if you cared for me, you’d fight for what we have. Or have the potential to have. Instead you’re allowing the misunderstandings to take control of our lives. Instead of attempting to work things out, you’re letting something beautiful die.”

  She pondered his words, admitting the truth of them yet unable to handle doing what he wanted at the moment.

  “You don’t understand. You aren’t the one who’s had your entire life turned topsy turvy within the last few minutes.”

  “The life I thought I had was shattered not that long ago,” Shane reminded her.

  She shook her head. “You had to handle that your way, and I have to handle this mine. I can’t explain it any better than that. I’ve always had to go it alone.”

  “Maybe in the past, but you have a choice now. You can let me into your life to share it, or you can let the past—your past, a past you had no control of—freeze me out. I’m willing to work things out, but I won’t wait forever.”

  She stared at him for a long moment. Then she neck-reined Cinder around and urged the gelding into a gallop. But no matter how fast Cinder ran, Ellie couldn’t outrun her thoughts. Couldn’t outrun the knowledge that what Shane said made perfect sense, but that something inside her refused to break loose and allow him inside.