by Linda Broday
Emily had held on as long as she could. Finding a loving home for her daughter had freed her. Callie was determined to be the best substitute possible.
One day she’d tell Wren about the woman who’d given her daughter life and how bravely she’d faced the end.
* * *
Rand and his brothers were putting the baby’s things into the wagon when a sudden shot rang out. The bullet pierced the crown of Cooper’s black Stetson.
They dove to the ground. Because of the wedding, they’d removed their weapons. Rand had never felt so vulnerable.
“Who the hell would try to kill me on my own damn land?”
“Gotta be Nate Fleming.” Rand raised his head and looked around.
“I haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since that first day.”
“Just because you haven’t seen him doesn’t mean he wasn’t there,” Brett reminded him softly. “You know that.”
One of Cooper’s ranch hands peered out from behind the wagon and pitched him a rifle.
Rand scanned the tree line, where Brett had seen signs of someone. If he were Fleming, that’s where he’d hide in order to take the shot. A second later, an orange flame spat from the shadows. This time the bullet lodged in the side of the wagon.
“He’s in the trees, Coop.”
“I saw.” Cooper sprang to his feet, followed by Rand and Brett. By that time, it seemed every hand on the ranch was there. All released a fierce volley of firepower.
Minutes went by and nothing moved. Cooper cautiously stole toward the place where the shot had come from. Rand walked on one side of him with the pistol that one of the men had pressed into his hand raised and ready to fire. Brett flanked him on the other.
Whoever had crouched there had fled. Remains of a cigarette lay in the dirt. And nearby was a playing card.
The king of diamonds.
Rand sucked in a ragged breath. Someone had burned the eyes out.
Cooper picked up the card. “He left this for a reason. What the devil is it supposed to mean?”
“It’s possible that he views himself as some sort of king. Someone superior to others. And maybe the eyes are burned out because he doesn’t want people to see what he’s doing.” If evil existed anywhere, it did in Fleming. The outlaw made Tolbert Early look like a choirboy.
God help him, he’d keep Callie safe if it took every last ounce of strength he had. No one would harm her. Not this day or any other.
Taking painstaking steps, Brett appeared to be following the tracks. Soon the trees and undergrowth swallowed him.
“Well, he for sure knows where I live. I’m betting he knows the way to your home too, Rand.” Cooper pocketed the card. “We’ve gotta keep our women out of the crosshairs.”
“Yep. For a fact. What are we going to do about the man in the meantime? We really have too much ground to cover.” The reality of the situation frustrated Rand.
Cooper stared into the distance. “We learned the hard way from chasing Tolbert Early how difficult it is to find one man in the bush when we have no leads. Don’t even have a direction to start. Besides, I have a feeling if we were to take out after him, he’d double back and get Callie and Toby. Maybe Delta too.”
Brett crouched on his heels, staring at the ground. “He wants us to play into his hands. For now, we must defend ourselves and the ones we love. We have no choice.”
“I agree,” Rand said. “I’ll keep my guard up for any sign of him.”
“If he comes into town, I’m arresting him on the spot,” Cooper declared. “And if he doesn’t come peaceful, I’ll shoot him.”
When they got back to the house, Delta and Callie were waiting on the porch. Both women’s eyes were red rimmed.
Callie hurried toward Rand. “We heard shots. What was it?”
How was he going to break this to her on their wedding day? Rand swallowed hard. “Someone in the woods fired at us. Can’t be sure who. He was gone when we got there.”
Cooper reached into his pocket for the card. “Does this mean anything to you?”
“Oh God, no!” Callie gave a cry and clasped her hand over her mouth. “He’s here. It’s Nate.”
“How can you be sure, sweetheart?” Rand asked gently, wishing he could take away her fear and put happiness in its place.
“It was his way of warning a person he was coming after them. He left one for me before, when I tried to help my sister get away from him.”
“Reckon that settles it.” Cooper took the card from her shaking fingers and slipped it back into his pocket. “From now on, Delta will have an escort every time she goes outside. I won’t leave her unguarded for a moment. I’d suggest you do the same, Rand.”
“I plan to, brother. I’ll also keep a closer eye on Toby.”
“I want you to teach me how to shoot, Rand.” Callie’s voice shook a little, but she put a good helping of determination in it.
It was a heck of a thing to have your new wife ask you to teach her to shoot on her wedding day. Still, if she wanted to learn, he’d darn sure teach her.
And anything else she wanted.
Fifteen
Emily’s funeral took place on the Long Odds Ranch the following day with the ranch hands forming a protective circle around them. No one would get through. They buried her high on a hill next to her husband.
In the midst of singing “Rock of Ages,” a mourning dove flew down and rested on Emily’s burial spot. The sight made Callie’s voice waver as the words tried to get past the lump in her throat.
She gazed at Rand’s bowed head and wondered what he was thinking.
They’d stayed at the Long Odds because of fears that Nate would ambush them in the dark. “I won’t put you or the children at risk,” Rand had declared, putting an end to the discussion.
Rand gave her the bed and he slept in a chair. Several times in the night she’d awakened to find him staring out the window into the blackness. He didn’t have to tell her he was looking for the trouble that was riding hell-for-leather straight at them. The foreboding hadn’t helped in getting the rest she’d needed.
He’d disappeared before dawn, and she hadn’t seen him until it was time to walk up the hill to the little cemetery. He’d carried something wrapped in a piece of burlap.
Slipping her hand inside his now as they stood beside the mound of fresh dirt covering the rough wooden box, Callie leaned close, borrowing from his warmth. “I’m sorry, Rand. Losing a friend is very difficult.”
“Nothing harder,” he said low, wiping his eyes. “Never thought when we buried Joe that we’d bury his wife a few months later. Guess we never know.”
“That’s why it’s terribly important to live each day with no regrets.”
His crystal gaze made her breath catch. “Do you have any about marrying me?”
“No, we did the right thing, Rand.” It surprised her that she didn’t have a moment’s hesitation. “I shudder to think what would’ve happened to little Wren. We’ll give her the love she needs so she can grow up strong and healthy.”
A shadow crossed his face. He pulled free from her touch. “At least we can do that, if nothing else.”
His black mood frightened her a bit. She’d never seen this side of the easygoing man she’d married.
As the last of the mourners began the trek down the hill, he removed a wooden cross from the burlap sack. It had Emily’s name carved into it along with the appropriate dates. Rand stuck it deep into the soil and ran his hand across Emily’s birth date.
“What is it, Rand? What are you so angry about?”
“I’d cuss a blue streak if you weren’t here.”
“Why?”
“I’m fighting mad that we married solely for the sake of a child. How can we give her a proper home and the love she desperately deserves when our marriage isn’t real?”
“I don’t know. All I can say is that I’ll be by your side as we figure everything out.”
“Then, there’s this damn funeral. Emily and Joe are gone. Other than Wren, what do they have to show for their life here? And there’s the problem with my mother. But the thing that angers me most is that when the time comes for me, I have no dates to put on my marker. Most everyone knows when their life began. Not me. I don’t have a beginning. Near as the people at the orphanage could determine, I was around five years old when I came. I can’t recall celebrating a birthday.”
“You could ask your mother,” Callie said gently, her eyes smarting. Cooper was right about the deep hurt that had festered into almost unmanageable pain. If only she could do something to help. But she seemed to have heaped more on top of the old wounds.
“Don’t you think I have? Claims she can’t remember, that she was sick for months following my birth and nearly died. She says my father wrote it down in the family Bible, but by the time she returned home from her tour out West, someone else lived in our house and they’d gotten rid of all of her belongings, including the Bible. She was gone for over a year.”
How very sad not to know when you were born. It must be an awful feeling. Some people believed a birth date was tied to a person’s purpose in life. To not have one stole clarity. Rand must feel only half a person. Callie was only beginning to understand this complicated man she’d married.
“What about your father? You were with him for the first years of your life. Didn’t you celebrate a birthday?”
“Can’t remember one time. Once my mother left, my father didn’t want to celebrate anything. That is, when he was around. Most times I rarely saw him. I stayed with a friend of my mother’s until she got tired of me.”
“Then we’ll simply give you a birth date. Do you have a favorite month?”
He brushed her cheek with a finger. “This one.”
“January? Why?”
“It’s when I met you. When my life changed. When I found meaning. You’re my beginning, Callie.”
“Oh, Rand.” Tears clogged her throat. She didn’t know what to say. That she meant so much to him brought meaning to her life also…in addition to an enormous responsibility. Therein lay a problem.
“I can see that I’ve overstepped my bounds. Guess it’s time to load up the kids and go home, Mrs. Sinclair. Where I can make a fool of myself in private.”
When he turned away, Callie grabbed his arm. “You’re not making a fool of yourself. What you said touched my heart and left me speechless. I’m proud to be your beginning. I declare that henceforth your birthday shall be January 1. We’ll celebrate it every year.”
A grin curved his mouth. “Thank you for understanding and not fearing you’ve tied yourself to a madman.”
She tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow. “Let’s go home.”
* * *
Rand kept his Winchester in his lap while his sharp eye scanned both sides of the road as they made their way toward the Last Hope. He released the breath he’d held when at last they turned onto the property.
Toby had chattered nonstop. The boy was enthralled with his new little sister and asked fourteen million questions. His main concern was how long they were going to keep Wren. He hadn’t stopped grinning since they’d assured him it was a forever kind of deal.
“Just like me?”
“Yep, just like you,” Rand said.
Not even lye soap and a wire brush could’ve scrubbed the grin off the lad’s face. The grin still persisted when they pulled up to the house. Biscuit raced from the barn to greet them, and the last thing Rand heard was Toby telling the dog all about Wren and how they had to protect her.
Over the next hour and a half, he moved everything from Callie’s room by the kitchen to the bedroom upstairs across from his. Then he added the baby’s cradle, crib, and the dozens of other things Cooper and Delta had thrown into the wagon.
Rand could’ve sworn they were still tossing things into the back as they pulled out. He’d never seen so much stuff in his entire life. The child had more clothes than the law allowed.
When they got everything arranged, along with the tall chest of drawers from his room, he draped an arm around Callie’s shoulders. “Will this do?”
“It’s perfect. Simply beautiful.” She moved out of the circle of his arm and laid Wren in her cradle. The infant gave a deep sigh and smiled in her sleep as Callie covered her with a fleece blanket.
Watching it all, Rand thought his new bride had never looked so lovely. If Fleming hadn’t thrown a pall over everything, she would be beaming. It was clear she already loved Wren as though the babe were her own child.
Though he longed to have Callie in his bed so he could reach out and touch her and keep her from leaving, it gave his soul peace to know she was so near.
* * *
The shooting lessons commenced once Rand had everything in the house to Callie’s liking. They bundled up Wren and brought her outside in a basket. Toby parked himself beside the babe with one hand holding hers. Biscuit found a rabbit to chase and disappeared into the woods.
“Are you ready, Callie?” Rand walked back from a stump where he’d placed an old peach can and picked up the rifle.
“As much as I’ll ever be.”
He noted her wide eyes and the way her hand trembled. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. I’ll teach you everything you need to know. First lesson is how to work this lever.”
Callie nodded and licked her dry lips. He showed her how to pull it down and back up. “This does two things. It ejects a spent cartridge if you’ve already fired and also gets a new one in place for the next time. You try it.” He handed the weapon to her.
Though she was nervous, she did as instructed. He was so proud of her. It took courage to tackle something very clearly out of her area of expertise.
Next came loading the chamber with cartridges. “Watch out or they’ll pinch your finger,” he said. “Slide each one into the slot.”
After she’d loaded several rounds, he instructed, “Settle the stock firmly against your shoulder so it won’t bruise you. Now raise the sight—this V-notched piece of metal on the barrel. Get your target in the center of it.” Standing behind her, he put his arms around her and helped bring the rifle to her shoulder.
When her soft curves settled into the indentations of his body like clay into a mold, his heart thudded against his ribs.
His mind went haywire every time they breathed the same air, but her present closeness and the fragrance of her hair scrambled his train of thought, and it took off across the country regardless of where the tracks were. If she’d asked his name, he would’ve mutely stared at her.
“I don’t know if I can do this, Rand. Maybe I’m making a mistake.”
“You can do anything you set your mind to. You need to know how to defend yourself and the children in case I’m not around.”
“All right.”
“Steady now,” he murmured in her ear. “Get that can in your sights. Take a deep breath and squeeze the trigger nice and easy. Don’t be afraid of the kick. I’ve got you.”
Flame and smoke shot from the barrel and sent her falling back into his arms. It took him a minute to breathe again and let her go. He wanted to prolong the moment.
At last he released her and glanced at the target. The bullet had missed the can. It took several more tries to hit the blasted thing, and each time she fell against him, the contact jarred his senses. Maybe, just maybe, he could have what he desired more than anything. Over and over they practiced until Callie said she had to cook supper.
“You did really well. I’m very proud of you.”
“Do you truly think so? You’re not just saying that?” She handed him the Winchester.
He took it, stroking her arm. “Would I lie? None of my other stu
dents can light a candle to you.”
Callie laughed. “How many students do you have?”
“Well, just you, but I’m not telling a fib. You’re a natural. And you got over your fear right away. I daresay Fleming had better keep his distance. You’ll fill him so full of holes, his own mama won’t know him.”
“She’s dead. Judge Isaac Parker hanged his mother in Fort Smith, Arkansas, along with two more of Fleming’s kin.”
The calm, matter-of-fact statement struck Rand like a load of buckshot. In that moment, it hit him what they were dealing with. Fleming was no run-of-the-mill outlaw. And he wasn’t going to give up and go away. Men like him weren’t bound by time or distance or anything else.
Fleming would get what he came after.
Unless Rand stopped him.
Ice formed in his veins. He’d do whatever he had to.
Make no mistake about it.
* * *
As Callie cleared the table that night, Rand held Wren, playing with her. The child seemed to know exactly what he was saying and tried her darnedest to talk back.
“I think we’ll soon have to call this child Magpie instead of Wren,” he announced. “She’s going to be a talker.”
Callie turned from the dishpan. “I like that nickname. She’s very intelligent, that’s plain to see. Do you think she knows what happened to her mother and misses her?”
“Not for me to say. I wouldn’t dispute the notion, though. The bond between a mother and child is extremely strong.”
“Yes, it is.” Her voice held a strange quality. Maybe she was referring to herself and her mother.
When Callie dried the last dish and put it away, they moved to the parlor. She tossed a quilt onto the floor and Rand laid little Wren on it. Toby and his dog immediately plopped down beside the babe, one on each side. Rand pitied anyone who ever tried to harm the child.
He sat down on the sofa and let the scene soothe some of the raw places inside. The crackling fire, the creak of the rocker, the soft click of the knitting needles all melded into one word—home.