“You’d guess wrong.” As sure as rain turned grass green he wouldn’t put Carianne’s reputation in jeopardy again. He’d planned to start courting her as soon as he returned, but with nosy townspeople and nosier newspapermen, that would have to be delayed.
Emma stood and reached across the table to bop him on the head with her fan. “How long do you think it’ll take? Did it ever occur to you if you settled down, these gossip mongers would leave you alone?”
This was an old argument, one he couldn’t stomach with all the other worries eating away inside. Without thinking, his fist came down on the table hard enough to rattle the dishes. “How could I forget it when you keep reminding me?” His voice rose to shouting. “What’s it going to take for people to mind their own business?”
The little boys jumped at his outburst and ran to hide behind their mother’s skirt.
With elbows propped on the table, Rhyan buried his head in his hands. Of course children would be spooked by some wild man yelling like an ape.
Emma’s voice softened. “Cindy, would you give us some alone time?”
“Sure, Ma. Come on boys. Let’s check on Marty.”
His hands fisted in front of him, he made a mental note to apologize to Cindy before he left.
Emma laid her blue-veined hand on his. “What’s wrong, Rhyan?”
He met her kindly gaze and told her all, watching her eyes get a little wider and her mouth drop a little more with each revelation of what awaited him back in Westerfield. Although he’d hoped the telling of it would make him feel better. It didn’t.
She held onto his hands several seconds after he’d finished. With a little squeeze, she withdrew her hand. “The lowdown skunks. I can’t blame you for being upset, but you’ll find a way out. You always do. Remember the grasshoppers. You were down to a few hundred head and—”
“This is nothing like the grasshopper invasion. That affected everyone. This threatens my brand. Don’t you see? Without my brand, I have no reputation. At this point, I don’t know if I can save the ranch.”
“You don’t know what’ll happen yet. Don’t borrow trouble. Anyway, Carianne has money.”
He pushed back in his chair, suddenly wanting to put some distance between himself and this crazy woman. “There’s a name for a man who’d marry for money. I wouldn’t take Carianne’s money, even if she could give it, which she can’t. Her grandmother’s money stops when Carianne marries.”
Emma laughed. “Carianne’s grandmother was a shrewd old bird, wasn’t she? I’d have liked to have known her.” Her amusement changed to concern in a flash. “But honey chile, Carianne doesn’t care about money. Even if you have to start over, it’s better to have someone to share the burdens.”
“I wish you’d leave Carianne out of this.”
That got her dander up. “I can’t leave her out of it. That girl is in love with you.”
He searched Emma’s motherly features. Carianne wouldn’t have confided to Emma about their plans. “How do you know she’s in love with me?”
Emma got to her feet, slamming her hands on her hips. “How? Oh, I got some hints back when she moved to Sollano even when folks were telling her you couldn’t be trusted, and when she risked her life to help you when that farmer tried to do you in. But she really gave herself away when she wrote me letter after letter, and ninety-five percent of the ink was devoted to you. I may be slow in my old age, but I can tell love when I see it.”
It felt good to have Emma confirm what he already knew, but something bothered him too. “You know I’ve loved her for a long time, and I know there’s a God in heaven who wants us to love each other, but sometimes I can’t help thinking love isn’t enough.” He’d finally put voice to those old fears. Emma wouldn’t know how hard that was to admit, but he hoped she’d quit probing.
She stooped over until they were at eye level. “Honey, love is everything.”
No use arguing with that. He slumped back in his chair, and when the silence went on too long, asked, “What do you want me to do about it?”
Straightening, she hiked her shoulders and tilted her head. Her bulging stare meant to challenge. “I want to know what your intentions are, cowboy.”
“My intentions are…honorable, but it’s going to take time. I’m not going to let people say we had to get married.” Not enough time had passed for the talk to have died down, and he couldn’t forget his parents had to marry to give him a name. It wouldn’t matter if he and Carianne waited three years to have a child, people would say they had to marry because he’d compromised her.
“With the ranch in a mess, it’ll take more time than I expected. I intended to court her properly. Get Tom and Martha to invite me to dinner often. Carianne dines with them nearly every day she’s home.”
He could tell Emma was pleased by her wide grin as she sat back down. “Now that’s an idea, and you can go to church with her.”
Church. He’d not crossed the threshold of the church in town yet, but she’d expect him to attend. His experience with churches wasn’t good, but maybe it would help him sort out those confusing thoughts hounding him.
“And don’t forget the barn dances.” Emma went on. “In all the time Carianne’s been at Sollano, you haven’t taken her to one dance.”
He tried to smile, but it came out a grimace. “I intended to do all that, but now I’ll have to straighten out these contracts promising cattle I can’t deliver, and I’ll have to go to court—in three states, according to Walstein.”
“Oh bosh.” Emma dismissed that with a flick of the hand. “You’ll build up your herds again, and you don’t need contracts. Just take your cows to market like everyone else.”
In spite of her foolishness, the words had enough reason to comfort him. “The cows might not have been affected. I still have the dairy…if anyone will buy my cheese. I suppose I could recover, if I can hold onto the ranch long enough.”
“And you’ll find time to court Carianne enough to win over the folks. No need to win her over.”
He squared his shoulders and allowed a full-throated chuckle to escape. True, the courting would be for show, to play along with society’s silly rules. But he’d enjoy it.
Both of them rose to their feet at the same time, and he walked around the table to give Emma a hug. “I knew you’d have an answer.” She didn’t really. She didn’t know all the questions, but he was sincerely grateful. “I guess I’d better go see about my horse.”
“Stables are in back, cowboy. I’ll go fix your bed.”
Chapter 3
The sun hadn’t cracked the horizon the next morning when he saddled the roan mare and hooked his bag over the horn. He turned the animal around, ready to flick the reins, when he heard a shout from behind.
“Rhyan, just a minute.” Cindy came running down the porch steps with a book held overhead. What could she want? He’d already apologized profusely for his outburst of last night.
When she reached him, she gulped in a deep breath. “I forgot to give you this.”
“A book?” He didn’t have time to read on the train. Too much thinking to do.
“Your mother’s diary. You remember Ma sending me that box of books from Sollano? I found this in it.” When he shoved his hat back instead of reaching for the book, she shook her head. “I didn’t read it after I saw what it was, and I meant to send it back by Ma, but since you’re here—”
He took the book with the same hesitancy he’d have taken a rattlesnake. “Thank you.” He opened the flap of the saddlebag and tucked the diary inside. “I appreciate you putting me up.”
“I was glad you stopped by. When you see my baby brother, you tell him if he doesn’t find a girl soon, I’m going to send him one.”
Rhyan laughed, imagining the groan that news would elicit. Colt was regularly threatened by his sisters to send him a mail-order bride. He saluted Cindy and kneed the horse into a gallop.
After returning the horse to the livery and boarding the train
, he tried to ignore the diary, to put his full attention on Carianne and think of what he’d say to her. The saying would be easy. It was the doing he feared. As his train got underway, all he could think of was taking her in his arms and kissing her soft mouth.
Carianne’s mouth had intrigued him even before he dared kiss it. Full ruddy lips, tipped slightly at the corners and almost always smiling. She would pucker and pout those lips and moisten them with the tip of her pink tongue, then press her finger to them as she turned pages while reading to him. All the while, unaware she was driving him crazy.
That was the amazing thing. How could a woman be so seductive and innocent all at the same time? He closed his eyes and relived every second he’d tasted those luscious lips.
Couldn’t this stupid train move faster? As it chugged over the miles, he tried to focus on other things. He’d be traveling all day and night. The heat of the weather combined with the heat of his musings would burn him up.
The diary called to him. Nothing like a mother’s words to kill one’s ardor.
Especially a mother like Arabella.
She’d run away from her family with another man when Rhyan was ten. He’d tried to hate her for that, but the bond with his mother had been too strong. Questions kept haunting him over the years, and after growing up, he’d tried to locate her, if only to satisfy himself she was still alive. Without success. It was as if she’d fallen off the face of the earth.
Arabella grew up in an orphanage run by the nuns of a San Francisco abbey. Her father had been an Italian sea captain who went down with his ship. None of her relatives from Italy had come to claim her.
The diary’s first entries were the lonely reflections of a sixteen-year-old girl left to her own devices, a girl too curious and headstrong. Then she’d met his father.
April 16, 1856
My dreary life has changed forever. The most wonderful man has come to work at the abbey. He is like Apollo, and when he smiled at me, the sun burst through, filling my empty soul. I feared he’d leave while I dusted the library, but he didn’t, and though we only exchanged pleasantries, I knew he watched as I worked.
He is assisting the priest and plans to take Father Miller’s place. Such a waste. I must learn his habits and make certain to be at work wherever he is.
May 25, 1856
Cortland feels my love. I can sense it. We talk whenever we can, and I know he’s struggling with his emotions. I struggle too. He already cares for me. We are meant for each other. He says he must talk to me in private, so I’ve planned a picnic by the waterfalls.
Rhyan looked out the sooty window without seeing anything. He’d never considered his parents loved each other. All he could remember were the arguments and the story that they were forced into marriage when Arabella became pregnant. With him. An incident that ruined his father’s plans for the priesthood and destroyed his mother’s happiness.
He shouldn’t read any more, but curiosity drew him back to the pages.
July 30, 1856
I’m the happiest woman alive. We are married, Cortland and I. How many women get to marry the man she loves? At sixteen? And he loves me and our baby. He says he will do everything to prove how much. We have moved into his mother’s house, and we’re running her boarding house. His father wanted us to move to Nebraska Territory where he has a ranch, but I convinced Cortland to remain here and become a lawyer. If it were not for the baby, I don’t think his parents would like me much.
October 2, 1859
I’ve neglected my poor diary so long, but motherhood is time consuming. Cortland has finally hired a nurse now that I’ve given him two sons. I consider Rhyan all mine, though. Jonathan is more like his father, but Rhyan looks like me and so spirited. He’s my curly haired darling. I love Jonathan as much, of course, but he looks like Cortland, and is just as quiet. Now that I have time to socialize more, I wish Cortland weren’t so busy. He never takes me anywhere except to Mass.
April 14, 1860
They say the country is headed to war, but there is a war in my own home. Cortland has changed, or maybe I’ve changed. I truly thought I could please him. I thought he’d be satisfied when I gave him two sons. I thought I could become as devout as he, but I can’t follow all the rules required to be the perfect wife. Cortland likes to show me off to his political friends, but when I dance with another man, he accuses me of flirting. What does he expect? That I should be rude? No, that would break another rule. I don’t think God likes all these rules.
Did Arabella believe in God? Rhyan couldn’t remember her speaking of God to him. In fact, he’d gotten the impression she resented his father’s religious positions. He could understand the resentment. Rhyan thought his father far too strict.
The following entries ran in the same vein. Darker. More desperate. Then he found the next page blank. Was that all she’d written? He flipped the pages and found writing further into the book, as if his mother had just opened it at random to continue her writing.
August 6, 1866
I am leaving. It’s not something I take lightly. G isn’t the first man who’s asked me to run away with him—but he’s the first one who loves me. Just me. I don’t have to compete with God. Oh, how I want to take my boys. I’ve tried to find some way to take Rhyan. I even confided to him that I would, should I ever leave. But Cortland would follow and bring him back. He might even have G and me arrested for kidnapping. I considered telling Cortland Rhyan wasn’t his, but he knows I was a virgin when we first met. It wouldn’t even matter. I don’t know the law, but of course, Cortland does. I can’t fight him. But oh, it’s so unfair. I hope someday Rhyan and Jonathan will forgive me.
A blast of the train’s whistle jarred him. He’d lost track of time, but they were approaching a water stop. He’d stay where he sat, not wanting to jostle with the other passengers who rose to stretch their legs.
Though he stashed the book in the furthest reaches of his leather valise, he couldn’t rid himself of its revelations.
He’d always assumed Arabella—he called his mother by her name in his mind—was forced into a loveless marriage, but that wasn’t true. A girl might make up diary entries, but he knew Arabella revealed her heart. She’d been very much in love with his father at the beginning. Over the years her love had turned to contempt, then to hate, all because his father had tried to force his religious beliefs on her.
Arabella’s love didn’t last. Would Carianne’s?
He recalled a conversation with Carianne when she’d discovered he’d had a prior relationship with the famous Washington socialite, Abby Sinclair. A woman he’d loved at one time, but no longer did. Carianne had posed a strange question as she was wont to do.
“Where did your love go?” He’d known she asked from a theological viewpoint, not his personal situation. She believed all love came from God because God is love. But when love died, where did it go? Back to God? Rejected? Like a slap in the face.
Because he hadn’t even believed in God at the time, he’d humored her silliness. But now he pondered the question. Where had his parents’ love gone? Did rejected love always turn to hate?
The train returned to its top speed, and the boisterous laughter from the back ceased. Rhyan glanced around and found his fellow travelers asleep, some with heads propped against the windows, some with heads lolling.
He should get some sleep too, but the quiet set his mind to racing. Had the seeds of doubt that kept him from finding God been planted in early childhood by his warring parents?
He’d left Carianne, promising he’d find God in his own way. He’d visited at least a dozen churches of all denominations. All gave him the same solution. Believe on Jesus and repent.
That was the whole problem.
He’d repented for his affair with Abby. Regretted it enough never to do the same thing again. But salvation apparently demanded a deeper repentance.
Repentance for what? Being born? The Bible said he was born into sin. How could one repent of th
at? Repentance made no sense to him, and he couldn’t find it within himself to repent of something he didn’t understand.
Was it his fault his father had killed himself? Was it his fault his mother had left? Was it his fault his enemies hounded him.
One of the ministers, an old Anabaptist preacher in a little country church, had told him he must be called to repentance by the Holy Spirit. Was that his problem? His heart was too black for the Spirit to call?
Carianne would never accept that.
Chapter 4
Time dragged like a reluctant calf. Carianne donned her work dress and joined Harriet to give the library a dusting. It was silly to dress up every day just to wander through the house and wait for Rhyan. Anything could have detained him.
He couldn’t come into Westerfield on the train, so he’d have to find some conveyance from the next town. Stagecoach service wasn’t available. He’d be forced to borrow a buggy or horse. She regretted he didn’t make it to Smitty’s memorial service, but that wouldn’t make it any easier for him.
She tied her apron in place. Keeping busy was the best remedy for worry, or so Aunt Jewell used to say.
“Do you think we should put the Holland covers back on the furniture in the upstairs bedrooms?” Harriet asked. Always the perfect English maid, she sought permission for any task not previously assigned.
Carianne hadn’t thought of such things. She stood on a footstool at the mantle and slid the dust rag across the mahogany surface. “Yes, that makes sense. They won’t be used for months perhaps.” Even if she and Rhyan married soon, they wouldn’t be doing any entertaining—or she hoped not.
Harriet sat at the table, wiping book covers. “I suppose Mr. Cason will be dismissing me soon.”
Carianne heard the concern in her voice and backed down the steps so she could face the maid. She didn’t know what reassurance she could give Harriet, since it was obvious the ranch wouldn’t need an extra maid and probably couldn’t afford one. “Surely not right away. Since Ingrid and Liesl went to work in the dairy, Maria will need help for a little while at least.” She moved beside Harriet and gave her arm a squeeze.
Surrendered (Intrique Under Western Skies Book 2) Page 3