Circle Star

by Tatiana March

  Susanna felt her lips tremble. Contrary to Pete’s sharp comment, she had no idea how to persuade Connor to stay now that she had enticed him as far as Circle Star. “I’m not Catholic,” she said, feeling utterly lost.

  Pete shrugged. “Neither was your mother, but your parents were wed by the padre. There’s not much of a choice around here.”

  “Catholics don’t recognize divorce.”

  “Neither did your parents,” Pete retorted.

  Susanna barely heard him. Her attention was focused on Connor. He sat like a statue on his black horse, his gaze locked on the house. She could see the nostalgia in his reverent posture—could almost smell and taste the passing of seasons in the memories that seemed to surround him, shimmering in the air around him, like an aura.

  She scrambled out of the wagon and walked over to him. When Connor heard her footsteps, he turned to look down at her. His eyes were unusually bright and his expression dreamy, giving Susanna a tiny glimpse of the sensitive boy she remembered.

  “Will you stay?” she asked in a low voice. “Stay and think about it?”

  He contemplated her from his height on the vicious black stallion. The wide brim of his hat shadowed his features, and yet Susanna could tell that the instant she spoke, the wistful look of longing in his eyes vanished and the hard, closed expression of the new, mature Connor settled in its place.

  “I want a bath,” he told her. “A bed. And a bottle of whiskey.”

  A mix of relief and apprehension washed over Susanna. He would stay, at least for now. Bursting into action, she called out instructions about her saddlebags to Pete and told the driver to wait. Then she raced into the house, first passing by the kitchen doorway to tell Carmen to fix up a bathtub in her father’s bedroom.

  In the library, her trembling fingers struggled to twist open the lock on the strongbox. Despite her nerves, she counted the money twice, to make sure she had ninety dollars. She scrawled a receipt on a piece of paper and rushed back outside.

  Walking up to the driver, she held out the money. “The fine for the sheriff and sixteen dollars for the undertaker to pay for the wagon. The extra four dollars is yours.”

  The man accepted the bundle of banknotes and inspected them one by one. After taking his time to study the receipt, he drew a string of careful letters with his good hand at the bottom while Susanna held the piece of paper steady against the buckboard for him.

  Despite his withdrawn manner, Rawlins possessed a wry sense of humor, and Susanna had grown to like the man. “I know you’re in a hurry to return,” she told him as she thanked him for his service. “If you stop by the kitchen entrance, the cook will give you a meal and replenish your provisions for the journey.”

  “Good luck, Miss Susanna.” The man touched the brim of his hat. “I don’t pretend to understand what I’ve seen, but I hope that you and young McGregor find a way to settle whatever it is that is keeping you apart. God made his creatures come in pairs for a purpose.”

  Susanna managed a wry smile and hurried back inside. God might have created men and women in pairs for a purpose, but the origins of this union were a lot more mundane. It was created by pen and ink, and her father’s signature at the bottom of a will.

  ****

  Claire Vanderfleet sat in the upstairs parlor of her father’s Philadelphia mansion, reading the letter that had just arrived from Susanna Talbot. The excitement of it all! Claire could almost feel the heat of the desert sun. She could almost hear the restless mewling of the cattle and smell the dung and feel the dust clogging her lungs.

  She glanced around her. Watered silk wall coverings. Heavy satin draperies. Dainty, bow legged sofas and chairs. The sweet scent of roses in a crystal vase. Boring. Boring. Just as her life was boring, particularly now that Susanna was gone.

  And what about Connor McGregor! Claire knew about the boy—not a boy, a man now—from the tales Susanna had told of her childhood. Susanna had been infatuated with him. A childhood infatuation, of course, but Susanna had carried it with her, had given his face to every hero in the romantic novels they devoured in secret.

  And now Susanna would have to find him, and marry him!

  Claire went back to the start of the letter and began to read it again, but a knock on the door interrupted her. She glanced up and saw her sister Harriet enter, an anxious frown on her face—a common enough sight.

  Harriet was a worrier. Although Claire at twenty-two was two years older, she often felt like a child compared to the responsible, serious Harriet.

  The difference in their temperament and build meant that they didn’t really look alike despite the sharing the family traits of blue eyes and fair hair and delicate features. Where Claire smiled with mischief, Harriet frowned with concern. On the tall, slim Harriet clothes hung straight. On the short, voluptuous Claire, they hugged every compact curve.

  Claire lowered Susanna’s letter to her lap. “You don’t have to knock.”

  Harried edged into the room. “I didn’t want to startle you.” She fidgeted with the collar of her peacock blue walking gown. “Do you think you might consider accepting a marriage proposal at some point soon?”

  Claire almost toppled from the padded chair. Bluntness was Harriet’s usual way of dealing with the world, but this was a new record.

  “No,” Claire replied with equal candor.

  Harriet’s nervous fingers had migrated to the edges of her sleeves. She kept her attention on the fabric as she spoke. “Clayton Armstrong is going to ask for permission to call on me.” She paused to take a deep breath and glanced up from her busy hands. “If he offers for me, mother and father will not let me get engaged before you.”

  Guilt niggled in Claire’s belly. Harriet was right. Poor Harriet. The serious, quiet middle child, she enjoyed neither the love for the firstborn nor the doting reserved for the baby of the family. The latter went to Julius, their wild, irresponsible younger brother.

  “I’ll tell father it won’t matter,” Claire promised.

  “He’ll ignore you,” Harriet replied.

  Claire couldn’t argue against the prediction. It occurred to her then that they each might have a better chance of success if they joined forces. “I want to visit Susanna Talbot on her ranch in Arizona,” she informed her sister. “If you help me persuade father to give me permission to travel, I’ll persuade him to let you marry before me.”

  A frown flickered across Harriet’s pretty features. “I can guess how it will unfold,” she said in a tone of irritation. “Father might let you go, but when you come back, he’ll refuse to let me get engaged.”

  Claire considered the dilemma. The pressure on her to select a husband was becoming intolerable. Everyone expected her to marry into great wealth or forge an important political connection. Perhaps it served no purpose to postpone the inevitable.

  She took a deep breath and committed to ending her freedom. “I promise that if father refuses to let you marry before me, I’ll accept a proposal as soon as I’m back from my trip to visit Susanna in the Arizona Territory.”

  Harriet contemplated her with narrowed eyes. “Promise?”

  “Cross my heart.” Claire lifted a hand in a vow that had sealed all their childhood pacts. Images of her suitors flashed in her mind. The portly banker. The uncouth shipping magnate. The frail son of a British lord. She cared for none of them, but keeping her pledge was a concern for the future. Why worry about she would do upon her return when she hadn’t even departed yet?

  ****

  Susanna turned over a new page on her notepad. Next to her, a medical encyclopedia lay open on the desk. She’d searched through the pages, but had found no information about the impact of alcohol on the body and mind.

  Connor had been drunk for eight days now. He barely emerged from the pigsty her father’s bedroom had become. Food was sent up on trays, but Connor didn’t return the empty dishes outside the door or allow anyone inside. Soon they’d run out of crockery.

  Once in a whil
e, he took a trip to the convenience. Too frightened of his bitter anger, Susanna didn’t dare to sneak into the bedroom during his brief absences, and she refused to allow Carmen to put herself in the firing line. The room hadn’t been cleaned or aired since Connor barricaded himself inside.

  Susanna’s heart ached for him, but she steeled herself against the feelings of guilt and compassion. If Connor was determined to ignore her, she had to make her plans alone. It was imperative that he marry her, and that he do it before the three months were up.

  As she closed the medical encyclopedia, her attention focused on the date she had scribbled on top of her notepad. It was now ten weeks since her father’s death. She was out of time, and she was out of patience. Her movements were calm and deliberate as she got up and walked out of the library.

  Pete was in the kitchen, drinking coffee and talking to Carmen. He looked flustered, and Susanna realized it wasn’t the first time she had found him in the kitchen outside meal times. If she hadn’t been so preoccupied, she might have speculated there was something going on between those two.

  “Can you send one of the men for Father Dominic?” she asked Pete.

  The foreman snapped to attention. “Has the boy agreed?”

  Susanna shook her head. “He’s refusing to even talk to me.”

  “Why the padre?” Pete’s weathered complexion drained of color. “He isn’t …?”

  Susanna’s mouth tightened. “He’s living and breathing, but we’re running out of time. I have to try before it’s too late.”

  “Lock him up,” Pete grunted. “Stop giving him whiskey.”

  Susanna wrung her hands together. “I can’t. I’ve already interfered enough in his life. He is getting the whiskey from my father’s stock. I can’t stop him from taking it. I’ve got to let him do as he wishes. In another month he’ll run out.”

  “He’ll drink himself to death before then.”

  Susanna blinked back a tear. “We all die in the end.”

  Pete got up to his feet. He opened his mouth to argue but closed it again without speaking. He appeared to shrink as his shoulders stooped. “I’ll send someone out to the Mission,” he said at length. “If Father Dominic is free, he can be here tonight.”

  Susanna nodded. “I’ll wait in the library.”

  She spent the afternoon aimlessly snatching books from the shelves and reading random passages. Many of the books had belonged to her mother. Never before had Susanna understood how much of herself her mother had left behind when she returned to Philadelphia.

  In a flash of intuition, it occurred to her that if she hadn’t gone back East, her mother might have changed her mind and come back. Her mother had taken her away to protect her, not accepting that they were different in nature. Her mother had hated the West, had seen it as a place that ruins a woman’s life, but the harshness of the land around them filled Susanna with a thrill that nothing in the East had been able to match.

  She replaced the book on the shelf and huddled in the big leather chair, thinking of Connor. Was she wrong to let him carry on drinking? Should she force him to stop? She wanted to, but after she had accepted that it had been a mistake to coerce him into returning to Circle Star, she no longer dared to direct the course of his life.

  All she needed from him now was a brief ceremony to make them man and wife. After that, he could leave, and she could get on with her life—concentrate on running the ranch and settling into the local community. The only interaction between them would an annual bank draft when she sent Connor his share of the profits.

  The light outside was just beginning to fade when a knock sounded on the library door. Susanna called out a reply. Pete Jackson entered, followed by the padre. It surprised Susanna how young the priest was. The cassock didn’t hide the muscular strength of his body, but the look in his dark eyes was the serene gaze of a man of God.

  “What preparation do you need for a wedding?” Susanna asked him, baffled by how calm she felt. She appeared to have no nerves at all, just a sensation of unreality, as though she were living in a dream.

  “Only the bride and the groom,” the priest told her.

  “A ring?”

  Father Dominic smiled. “Optional.”

  Despite the rift between her parents her mother had never stopped wearing hers. Susanna rose to her feet behind the desk. “Upstairs,” she said, and made a hesitant gesture to point the way.

  “Ain’t you going to change to a dress?” Pete muttered.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Susanna replied. She managed a wan smile. “Could you get Carmen? I’d like the two of you to be witnesses.”

  She had a notion that Pete flushed with pleasure, but she couldn’t be sure. She was only vaguely aware that the three of them—the padre, Pete, and Carmen—lined up behind her as she led the procession up the stairs and knocked on the door of her father’s bedroom.

  There was no reply.

  “I have a spare key,” she told them, and dangled it in her fingers to prove her words. Kneeling down, she lined her eye with the keyhole. It took her a moment to push the key in the lock on the other side out of the way, so she could insert hers. She turned the key and eased the door open. Darkness shrouded the room. A stale, musty smell saturated the air.

  “Get some candles,” Susanna instructed Carmen.

  They waited in silence. When Carmen returned with a handful of tall tapers, Pete struck a match against the sole of his boot and lit the first candle. He used the flame to light more, and handed a burning taper to each of them.

  “Watch your step,” Susanna warned the padre. “There’s crockery on the floor.” She went in first, picking her way through the trays of half-eaten food that released an array of pungent odors.

  Connor lay diagonally on the bed, face down, dusty boots sticking over the side. The hem of his shirt hung outside the waist of his pants. He hadn’t shaved in eight days. Susanna lowered her candle until she could see the edge of his face.

  “Connor?” she said softly.

  He gave a grunted response. So, he was conscious.

  She touched her fingers to his shoulder. “It’s me, Susanna.”

  The muffled string of syllables he slurred might have been her name.

  Susanna moved back a step. Tipping the candle, she dribbled wax on the empty saucer on the nightstand and stood the candle in the pool of hot wax, holding the stem steady until the wax set.

  She glanced at Pete. “Help me turn him on his back.”

  Pete moved beside her. Together they rolled Connor over, struggling with the inert weight of his sprawling body. When they were done, Susanna sat on the edge of the bed. The flame of the candle flickered in the draft, casting shadows on Connor’s unshaven face, making his features appear stark and untamed.

  “I’ve got the padre here to marry us,” she told him quietly.

  Connor didn’t react, and Susanna assumed he was incapable of rational thought. The idea bothered her, but she accepted it might improve the chances that she would achieve her aim.

  “Do you want to marry me?” she asked.

  Connor grunted. The gruff sound could have meant yes or no.

  She reached out and stroked his cheek with her fingertips, tracing the scar, now almost hidden by the stubbly beard. “Do you remember the day when you kissed me by the river?” she asked. “In the spring, when you were fifteen?”

  “Pretty little Susanna.” Now that Connor lay face up, his slurred words were somewhat clearer, making it possible to decipher their meaning.

  “I’m here.” She took his hand and laced her fingers into his. “That day, you said you’d marry me. You’d marry me, and never let me go. Do you remember?”

  “Susanna. I’ll never let you go.”

  “I have a priest here to marry us. Will you do it?”

  The fingers around hers tightened. “I’ve never let you go.”

  “In my heart, I’ve never let you go either,” Susanna said. She turned to look at the priest over her sho
ulder and gave him a nod.

  “Is he in here voluntarily?” the padre asked. “I cannot wed a man who is held against his will.”

  “The room was locked from inside,” Susanna pointed out. “No one is forcing him to stay. He can come and go as he pleases.”

  “The boy’s trying to drink himself to death,” Pete said in a gruff tone. “That’s why he’s locked himself up.”

  The padre regarded each of them in turn. Then he opened his book and began to read the wedding ceremony. Ignoring his chanting voice, Susanna studied Connor’s face for any signs that he was breaking out of his stupor.

  Pete prodded her shoulder. “Your turn.”

  She glanced up. “What?

  Pete sent her a strained smile. “To say I do.”

  “Oh.” Surrounded by the odd cloud of unreality, Susanna spoke the words solemnly and turned back to Connor. “I love you,” she whispered, not caring if anyone heard. “I want to marry you. If you want to marry me, all you have to say is those two words. I do.”

  She waited as a tense silence settled over the small gathering in the room. A tear trickled down her cheek and she let it run free, not wanting to release Connor’s hand to wipe it away. “I guess we tried,” she said after several minutes had passed. She made a move to rise from the edge of the bed.

  The fingers around hers turned to steel, and she was jerked back down. “I do,” she heard Connor say. This time, his words were clear. Susanna’s heart thudded in heavy beats as the priest finished the simple ceremony. She tried to speak to Connor, but there was no further response from him. His eyes remained closed, and he appeared to have fallen asleep. They left the room as quietly as they had entered.

  “Thank you,” Susanna said to the padre. Then she set off toward her bedroom, leaving Carmen and Pete to take care of the priest.

  Pete took hold of her arm to halt her. “Do you want me to tell the men?”

  Susanna thought a moment. She would have liked to do it herself, announce that Circle Star wouldn’t be auctioned after all, but she wasn’t up to the task at the moment, and the men had a right to know at once. “Yes,” she said. “Tell them. And tomorrow you and I must ride out to Cedar City to see the justice of the peace. I want my marriage recorded at once, before Connor has a chance to sober up and deny it ever took place.”