Painted by the Sun

by Elizabeth Grayson

Ty finished his count and recapped the camera lens.

  "We're going to make a second exposure to be sure we got the photograph," Rand informed them, as Ty closed the slide on the first plate and withdrew the holder.

  Who would have thought, Cam found himself wondering, as Ty posed them for another photograph, that the stranger he'd brought to the farm last fall would change all their lives? Especially his.

  Especially his.

  Without his even realizing, his secrets and the law had been draining away his strength and optimism. Since resigning his judgeship in March, he'd bought some cattle, ordered seed, and plowed up the bottomland in preparation for planting. He was looking forward to running his beeves, tending his crops, and watching them grow. He was rebuilding his soul. Facing his past had been the start of it, and with Lily's concern and Emmet's friendship and Shea's love he was changing a little every day.

  Once Ty had exposed that second plate, Shea and the boys disappeared into the house to develop it. While they were gone, Lily and Emmet and he rejoined the party.

  It was well past dark when the last of the guests drove down the lane, and not long after the family gathered at the gate for their final good-byes. Cam stood with Ty tucked under one arm and Shea snuggled tight in the other as they waved Emmet's carriage out of sight.

  "Oh, goodness!" Shea said on the breath of a happy sigh. "Hasn't it been a lovely day!"

  "It's going to be an even better night," he whispered against her hair.

  She stifled a laugh and wriggled out of his grasp. Still, something in the curve of her lips and the spark in her eyes made him want to swoop her off her feet and carry her directly to the bedroom.

  "I had fun, too," Ty put in, reminding Cam that he and his new wife weren't quite alone out here.

  Shea went to Ty and planted a kiss on the top of his head. The boy squirmed a little, but Cam could tell he liked it.

  "I was very proud of you today," she told him. "You behaved like a perfect gentleman and were able to take two excellent photographs all by yourself."

  "Geez, Ma!" Ty shrugged and took care to put a little space between them. "You taught me all about taking photographs, and Rand poked me in the ribs every time I started to do something he didn't think I should."

  "Nevertheless, I was proud of you," she told him. "But it's late and you need to get to bed."

  "I don't have to go to school tomorrow," he pointed out.

  "Yes, but I'm afraid the stock doesn't know it's Sunday," Cam reminded him.

  Cam thought he saw a flicker of uneasiness cross Ty's face, as he turned to him. "Can you come up and talk to me before I go to sleep?"

  Cam was surprised by the request. Shea usually took care of tucking Ty in. Cam nodded anyway. "Sure."

  "Now what do you suppose that's all about?" Shea murmured as they watched Ty scuffle and bang his way into the house.

  "I'm not sure," he answered and drew her into his arms. "But I've got something I'd like to do while I'm waiting."

  Her smile was saucy and wry. "And whatever could that be?"

  "I'd like to kiss my wife," he said, lowering his mouth to hers, "right here in the yard."

  Things might have gone a good deal further than kissing if Ty hadn't been waiting. As it was, Cam arrived in what had been Rand's room until yesterday, and found Ty seated and fidgeting at the edge of one of the narrow beds.

  The lamp on the nightstand cast a soft, yellowish glow around the slope-ceilinged room. As far as Cam could see, the only change Ty had made in the place was setting the tintype Shea had taken of Ty and his father at the mining camp beside the lamp.

  "Mind if I have a look?" Cam asked and gestured to the photograph.

  "Sure, go ahead."

  Cam lowered himself to the opposite bed and picked up the small, cardboard-framed photograph. In it Shea had managed to catch a precious moment in time, a moment when Ty had been happy and Sam had been sober. A time when both of them had come together to be painted by the sun.

  Cam settled the tintype back on the nightstand and turned to the boy seated knees-to-knees across from him. "Well, then, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

  Ty lowered his head and looked at Cam from beneath the froth of his curly forelock. "Well, I figured since you married Shea, that sort of makes you my father now."

  "I suppose it sort of does," Cam offered. "But I don't expect you to call me Pa, and I'll never try to take your father's place."

  "Well, no," Ty agreed as if he hadn't needed the reassurance. "Pa's Pa, and always will be. And you're Cam."

  "Then that wasn't what you were worried about?"

  "This is something else," Ty admitted and chewed his lip. "Something I need to tell you man to man."

  Ty sounded so serious that Cam shifted to Ty's bed and put his arm around him. "All right, son. Go on," he encouraged him. "It's usually easier to just say things straight out."

  "Well—" Ty swallowed hard. "—I thought—thought you should know my folks didn't get me the usual way."

  "The usual way?" Cam echoed, taken aback. What would Ty know about "the usual way"? But then, he figured any child who'd learned to cheat at poker had probably learned a whole lot of other inappropriate things sweeping up in Denver's saloons. "What exactly do you mean by 'the usual way'?"

  "They got me"—Ty ducked his head again—"from one of those orphan trains."

  Cam felt like he'd been sucker-punched.

  "Just like you got Rand," the boy hurried on. "That's why I'm telling you instead of Shea, because I figured you'd understand it better than her."

  Cam very much doubted that, but he tightened his arm around Ty's shoulders anyway. "Of course I understand."

  "I was really little when they got me," Ty said, still staring down at where his hands were knotted together in his lap. "I don't remember the train at all. I don't remember much of anything before the farm we had in Missouri."

  "Missouri?"

  "Yes, sir," Ty said with a nod. "We had a farm outside St. Joe until I was seven. When Ma died, Pa didn't care no more about farming."

  Sam hadn't cared about much of anything. He hadn't even cared much about Ty until the weeks before he died, so Cam figured in some ways what had happened was a blessing.

  "So since you and Shea are my folks now," Ty went on, "I figured I ought to tell you."

  Cam took a moment to catch his breath. "I'm glad you were brave enough to tell me the truth," Cam said looking down at him. "It's never good to lie to people who love you."

  Ty was still worrying his lower lip. "You don't think Shea will be mad about me being from an orphan train, do you?"

  Of all the people in the world, Ty couldn't have found anyone to mother him who understood about children from orphan trains better than Shea.

  Cam pulled Ty closer. "It won't matter to Shea one bit. I think she'll love you even more because of it."

  "You think she will?" The magnitude of the relief in Ty's voice stirred a sweet hot current in Cam's chest.

  "I've never been more sure of anything in my life," Cam said softly.

  "Well, good," the boy said, and let out his breath as if he'd been holding it a week. "I got the papers the orphan train people gave Pa, and I want you to keep them someplace safe."

  As he spoke, Ty drew two wrinkled, dog-eared pages from inside his pillowcase. He extended them to Cam, his small, blunt-fingered hands shaking just a little.

  Cam could guess how much telling him this had cost him, how afraid he'd been that this would make a difference in how Shea felt about him, that it would make her send him away.

  As he reached to take the rumpled papers from Ty, he looked down at their hands. Ty's were small for a child his age, yet blunt and capable. His fingers were short, spatulate, stained a little at the tips from the chemicals he and Shea had used to make the photographs this afternoon. They were oddly familiar hands.

  Down in the pit of his belly something stirred.

  He found himself staring at Ty's hands, no
ticing the scuffed knuckles, the almost circular nails, and the odd way his little fingers crooked.

  Just like Shea's did.

  A frisson of recognition chased up his back. A jolt of certainty thudded against his diaphragm. Cam lost his breath.

  He looked at Ty as if he were seeing him for the very first time, took in his short stature and wiry build, at his tousled curls and the shape of his face, at the flecks of green in those wide brown eyes. He looked at Ty's hands again, and he knew.

  He knew with a conviction he would never in a million years be able to prove that this was Shea's son. Ty was the child she'd given up. Ty was the child she had been searching for all this time. And somehow Ty had come to her now—after years of grief and longing—through some incredible twist of fate.

  Cam's own hands shook a little as he tucked the papers inside his jacket and drew Ty closer.

  "I know it wasn't easy for you to tell me this, and I thank you for being honest. But, Ty—" He stroked back the boy's curly hair, hair that had the same texture and vitality as Shea's. "I want you to know that whether you'd told us or not, you're our son. You'll always be our son. We'll always love you."

  He hugged Ty hard, holding him against his chest, pressing his cheek for a moment to the froth of his curls. Holding Shea's son, and loving him every bit as much as he loved Shea.

  "Now don't you worry about any of this," Cameron said, sitting back. "Everything is going to be fine from now on. But now it's time for you to get some rest. It's been a big day for all of us. Today we truly became a family—all of us together."

  Rising to stand over him, Cam helped Ty slide beneath the covers. He drew the clean, fresh sheets up across his narrow chest.

  "Are you going to tell her?" Ty asked in a very small voice.

  "Don't you think I should?"

  "I guess."

  "This won't make any difference to her, you know," he reassured him, "except that she'll be so proud of you for being honest."

  Ty nodded and Cam bent and squeezed his shoulder again as he blew out the lamp. "Good night, son," he said from the doorway.

  "Good night, Cam. I'm glad you're going to be my new father."

  Cam was still reeling a little from the shock of what Ty had told him, as he made his way downstairs. He still felt shaken by his own discovery. He took a moment to look over the papers in the kitchen, then shook his head.

  Cam had no proof that Ty was Shea's son, he just knew. He knew Ty was her son as surely as he knew his own name, his own heart. He knew it as surely as he knew he loved this boy the way he'd always loved Rand.

  He wandered through the house and finally found Shea out on the veranda, nestled into one corner of the swing. She was rocking softly, looking more at ease and contented than he had ever seen her.

  He sat down beside her and took her hand. The contact of flesh to flesh carried a depth of connection that warmed him all the way to his bones.

  "So what did Ty want?" she asked him, still swinging gently.

  He hesitated, wondering if he should prepare her somehow, then decided just to tell her outright.

  "He wanted to give me these," he told her, and withdrew the indenture papers from his pocket.

  She took the pages and turned them to the light. She'd read no more than a few lines at the top of the page before she looked at him. "Ty was sent west on one of the orphan trains?" He could hear the waver of surprise in her voice and knew exactly what she was feeling.

  He reached across and took her hand again. "He must have been adopted in St. Joe the same time we got Rand. They were probably on the train together. The dates are right—and their ages."

  "But—but how is that possible? Why wouldn't Ty tell us?" Shea asked, incredulous.

  "He just has."

  "Why wouldn't Sam Morran have told me when he asked me to take care of Ty for him?"

  He raised his fingers to her lips, the gesture more of reassurance than seduction. "He probably thought you'd change your mind if you found out Ty wasn't really his, if you found out where he'd come from."

  "Sam must have known how I cared for Ty," she said, her voice full of reproach. She looked down at the papers again and rubbed them tenderly between her fingertips, almost as if she were caressing the child himself.

  "Shea," Cam went on, softly, urgently. "Ty's your son. Your son."

  She raised her gaze to his. He saw a sequence of intense emotions cross her face. And then she laughed.

  "Of course he's my son," she said. "Just as Rand is my son. Just as any children you and I may have will be our sons and daughters. Our family."

  Cam opened his mouth to argue, to ask her to look at Ty's hair and eyes. And at his hands—smaller, but identical to the hand he was holding in his right now. Then he closed his mouth again. He had married a woman with a true and generous heart—a heart big enough to love a world of children. Big enough to give him a place of his own inside it.

  It's why he'd wanted to make her his wife, why he wanted to live with her for the rest of his days. Why he wanted to lie with her tonight and experience again that sense of warmth and security and home.

  "I love you, Shea." He rose to stand over her and drew her to her feet.

  "I love you, Cam," she whispered back.

  "I want to show you just how much I love you," he said and kissed her with all the tenderness and passion in his soul. "Will you come with me and let me do that?"

  "Oh, yes," she breathed against his mouth.

  He swept her into his arms and carried her across the threshold. It wasn't the first time he'd done it. It wasn't the first time he'd placed her in the center of his big bed. It was the first time he'd followed her down, and lain beside her.

  He pulled her against him and nuzzled her throat. "I'm so glad this is our wedding night," he whispered. Shea laughed and kissed him.

  The End

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  Moon in the Water

  The Women's West Series

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  Moon in the Water

  The Women's West Series

  Book Five

  by

  Elizabeth Grayson

  Award-winning Author

  MOON IN THE WATER

  Awards & Accolades

  Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award

  American Historical Romance.

  Romance Reviews Today's Best Book of the Year

  Historical Romance: Americana/Western category (2004)

  "...readers will feel as if Ann and Chase are personal friends."

  ~Publishers Weekly

  "Readers will want to savor every bit of this powerful, poignant and sweetly passionate romance."

  ~John Charles, Booklist.

  "Stunning... Grayson greatest achievement yet. A true keeper."

  ~Kathe Robin, Romantic Times.

  "...beautifully written with strong and well-defined characters... A tender and satisfying love story. Heartily recommend.

  ~Historical Romance Writers Book Review

  March 1867

  St. Louis, Missouri

  It was a proposition that would tempt a saint.

  Chase Hardesty stared across Commodore James Rossiter's massive mahogany desk. "Let me get this straight," he said. "What you're offering me is the captaincy—"

  "Not just the captaincy," Rossit
er corrected him. "I'm offering you the chance to own the Star Line's new stern-wheeler, commissioned out of the Carondelet shipyards just this morning."

  "And you'll give me ownership of the Andromeda," Chase clarified, "in exchange for marrying your daughter."

  When the commodore nodded Chase whistled under his breath. He made no secret that he came from simple folks, that all he knew was the river. He'd climbed aboard a riverboat when he was thirteen, worked his way up from cub engineer to master pilot and never once looked back. The only dream he'd ever had was to own and captain his own steamboat.

  "If you don't mind me asking, sir," Chase cleared his throat. "Why are you offering your daughter to me?"

  He'd never picked up the polish and social graces some pilots did. And though Rossiter paid him well, Chase never seemed to find more than lint in his pockets.

  The commodore paced to the window that overlooked the garden. "Well, you're unmarried," he began. "And might never be able to be master of a steamer of your own, I thought you'd find the offer—intriguing."

  What the man was saying was that Chase had ambition enough to be hungry but poor enough to be bought. Which made him wonder what it was Ann Rossiter had done to deserve being offered to him.

  "While I'm complimented that you consider me worthy of joining your family," Chase answered grappling for the exact right way to couch his answer, "I've never once set eyes on your daughter. And as far as I know, sir, she's never once set eyes on me."

  "You would be willing to meet her, though, wouldn't you, Hardesty?"

  Chase's nerves tingled. "Well, I..."

  "A man could gain a great deal by marrying her."

  A man could get in over his head wanting things he had no business aspiring to. Or a man could make his dreams come true.

  "I can arrange for Ann to meet you in the parlor in ten minutes," Rossiter cajoled.

  What could it hurt?

  "Of—of course, I'll meet her."

  Chase regretted the words the moment they were out of his mouth.

  * * *

  At first Chase didn't see her.

  What he did see when Commodore Rossiter escorted him into the town house's deep double parlor was two enormous gilt-framed mirrors that gave back reflections of soft-green silk wallpaper, the rose-velvet settees, and plush Aubusson carpets. The room smelled of lemon polish, bayberry candles and extravagance. But the silence, broken only by the ticking of the ormolu mantel clock, was the most unexpected luxury.