Claim: A Novel of Colorado (The Homeward Trilogy)

by Bergren, Lisa T.

  “It might help—” he began.

  “No.” She shook her head and moved toward his cabin.

  He caught her hand, gently pulling her to a stop. And she turned back. He gazed at her with compassion. “I could go with you.”

  “No,” she repeated. She withdrew her hand from his, slowly, then turned and walked away.

  “When you’re ready,” he said, catching up with her. “If you need me …”

  “Yes,” she said. “I …I know.”

  o

  He followed behind her a step, so he could watch her. She moved gracefully, even distracted and in his clothes. His eyes followed down her lithe body to slim hips and slender ankles. She was impressively strong for such a small woman. There was a part of him that hoped that the day’s work would convince her to return with him to face the men of the Dolly Mae, corrupt though they may be, to see if they could salvage their deal. Surely she wouldn’t want to continue their dig. Would it not be best for her to sell and begin to rebuild, somewhere else, somewhere new?

  And yet there was a part of him that caught his breath at the thought. What if she left, went on to some other place, far away? Would they ever be able to discover what seemed to be growing between them? He shook his head. He had to focus on what was real, not what might be. That was how he was of best use, to her, to Everett, to himself. Get your head out of the clouds, he heard his father say, as he had so often said in Nic’s youth. You can’t be any earthly good if your head is always in the heavens.

  He paused, broke off his pace behind Sabine, letting her go ahead. Memories of his father came flooding back, along with the promises Nic had made to him—to look after Odessa and Moira. Yet he still hesitated to contact Odessa even though he was but a couple of days’ ride away. He lifted a hand to his head and stared to the valley floor, envisioning each of his sisters. Would they forgive him his absence? Would they welcome him, when he had so utterly separated himself? Was it even worth the effort of trying?

  Perhaps it would be best for them if he stayed away. If he didn’t disrupt their lives.

  No, that didn’t settle right either. Stand up and face the consequences, he heard his father say. How many times had Father said that to him? Nic closed his eyes, picturing his father’s expression of disgust or dismay or dissatisfaction. It pained him, even now, years after he had passed away. Why did it still plague him, what his father thought of him? How he felt judged and found wanting, again and again?

  It would’ve been better if my brothers had lived and I had died.

  Even as he thought it, it rang hollow in his heart.

  I’m weary, Lord, he said silently, lifting his eyes to the skies, of feeling guilty for living. Of feeling unworthy. Of feeling nothing but failure. Show me. Show me the way out.

  The response wasn’t in words but an urge. A desire that began inside, at the core of him, but clear in its pull. Come. Walk with Me. That’s how Nic would put it, if he had to tell someone else … and he sincerely hoped he wouldn’t.

  His head came up and he looked down the path. Sabine was looking back, a question in her pretty brown eyes.

  “Coming,” he said, responding, though she hadn’t called out any question.

  She turned and walked, not waiting.

  Nic looked back out to the valley. Something was shifting inside him. Something forceful. Something foreign and bigger than him, like the power of the seas themselves.

  And he wasn’t sure he liked it.

  o

  The hymns were challenging, to be sure.

  As Moira practiced that afternoon, preparing for the evening’s sing, she stopped and rested her hands on the piano, staring at the words and music before her. The hymn had been her maternal grandmother’s favorite. She still remembered being in the portly woman’s lap, staring at the black-and-white notes that, when she placed fingers to keys, became a rainbow in sound.

  Abide with me; fast falls the eventide.

  The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.

  When other helpers fail and comforts flee,

  Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

  She rested her head against the music stand. Help of the helpless, she thought, I need You. It seemed that every hour of daylight was measured against Daniel’s absence. His departure made the seconds become minutes, the minutes hours. While outwardly she recognized the importance of his desire to resolve whatever tortured him from the past, it left her floundering in her present. How could he so callously walk away from her?

  Her thoughts moved to a time when she was sought after, pursued. The stage … all those men clamoring for a glance, a sweep of her hand … But her audience had disappeared within a fortnight, thinking only of the next woman to adorn their local stage. She thought instead of Gavin’s mother’s letter, her friendly tone. Could she possibly mean what she’d written? Then Moira considered Daniel and the longing she felt deep within for his return. But he seemed farther off than ever.

  What to do, whom to rely upon? Only You, Savior. Only You.

  Moira raised her head and focused on the words, found her fingering.

  I need Thy presence every passing hour;

  What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s pow’r?

  Who like Thyself my guide and stay can be?

  Through cloud and sunshine, oh, abide with me.

  She sighed and closed the lid of the piano, covering the keys.

  She needed to get out. “Odessa?” she called up the stairs. “I’m going out for a bit. For a walk.” Her sister bade her well and she moved out of the house, through the front door, and to the hot sunlight of midafternoon. She didn’t wear a bonnet. She wanted to feel the heat, to lie down somewhere she could close her eyes and see the sunlight flit in red-gold patterns against her lids, like she had as a child.

  She walked to the creek. Five hundred yards up, she could hear men working. Some singing. Some shouting. Mostly hammers and saws. There, the men of the Circle M—those who had seen Bryce and Odessa and the rest through Reid Bannock’s attack—had been allotted five acres each. Six of them were building an enclave of sorts, a village of homes that they could bring a young bride home to, perhaps eventually raise children.

  She could see it in their eyes. Their furtive glances. They wondered if she might stay, perhaps be that potential bride for them. And with Daniel’s departure, a few had been more forward the last couple of days. Gently, she dissuaded them. Her mind and heart were set on a certain sheriff, foolish though she may be.…

  Moira looked up to a giant oak, sprawling across the creek. She sat down with her back against the curve of it, watching the sunlight sparkle atop the water, and then she closed her eyes to envision it dancing across her eyelids. It was comforting, to hear the men in the distance, working so hard on homes they hoped to fill; the dancing, tinkling waters of the creek; the rush of a thousand leaves as a gentle breeze washed down off the mountains.

  Abide with me; fast falls the eventide, she hummed. The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.

  “Moira,” a voice said in wonderment.

  Her eyelids flew open; the respite fled. She blinked, recognized a couple of the men who had been working on the Circle M these past weeks. The man shook his head. “I knew I knew your voice. I’d heard it before. You’re not Moira St. Clair. You’re Moira Colorado.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Moira rose, feeling caught between the two men and the giant tree at her back.

  One moved a step back and turned halfway, obviously not wanting her to feel trapped. But the other leaned forward from the waist, studying her face. He shook his head in wonder and then nodded. “You’re her. I’ll never forget that voice. I was in Telluride when you were singing once, last spring.” He gave her a slow, conspiratorial smile and raised one brow. “But you weren’t singing hymns then.”

  “You must have me confused with another,” she said. She pushed past him and walked swiftly toward the house.

  “Donald …” his fri
end tried, sounding as if he hoped to dissuade the man from following, but he stayed right beside her.

  “They said you died. The papers reported you were burned in an opera house fire. Is that what happened to you? Why you wear the scarves? The veil?”

  “Donald!” his friend called from behind.

  The stable came into view as she strode forward. Tabito looked up. She took a relieved breath as he glanced from her to the man beside her and back again, then immediately began walking toward them, concern etched in his face.

  But still Donald persisted. “Why are you hiding, Moira? You have one of the most famed voices in the West. Why, you could set up on a stage in Conquistador and pack the house every—”

  “Please. Leave me be.” She stopped and faced him. “You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me.”

  “Everything all right, miss?” Tabito asked, joining them.

  “This man is bothering me,” she said. “He is … confused.” She kept walking as Tabito reached out and grabbed Donald’s arm. Her heart was hammering in her chest.

  She hurried into the house, ignoring Odessa’s call from the kitchen. She ran up the stairs and closed the door of her bedroom, resting her forehead against it. Then she moved to her bed and drew her knees up. It was a miracle, really, that no one had recognized her until now. Bryce and Dess had shielded her from the reporters that came to the ranch to interview them, but the journalists’ focus had been on the hook of their story—the conquistador gold find and a rogue sheriff. They never guessed that there might be another; that Moira Colorado had survived the tragic opera house fire. They never asked how Reid Bannock came to hold Odessa; they never guessed that Dess had traded herself, almost sacrificed herself, for Moira.

  If they found out, they’d surely return for the rest of the story. Moira shook her head. They must not find out.

  She could not bear the scrutiny. The publicity.

  She lifted her pillow and pulled out Francine Knapp’s letter. Maybe it would be best if she left for a while.…

  o

  They slept on opposite sides of the curtain, but he could feel her there. He imagined her asleep, on her side, head on the pillow, her face a mask of peace. It curiously drove him, that desire to see any trace of angst or dissatisfaction melt from the wrinkles of her forehead and mouth. But he resisted the urge to peek.

  Would not selling to the men of the Dolly Mae give her some permanent peace, regardless of how it might grate at first?

  A horse whinnied outside the door, and Nic sat up. He grabbed his rifle and moved over to the window, glancing over. Everett and Sabine were still fast asleep. Outside, a horse bent to nibble at long grasses by the cabin. He peeked a little farther. The sheriff. And another portly man he did not know.

  Nic eased open the door, hoping to allow the others to continue their rest, but both stirred at the creak of the hinge. He winced and then edged outside, lowering his gun and rubbing his head with the opposite hand. “Sheriff,” he said.

  “Dominic,” Sheriff Nelson returned, dismounting.

  Beside him, the other man lumbered to the ground as well. He straightened his shirt and jacket and reached out his hand. “Parson Brookings,” he said.

  Ahh, the local clergyman.

  The sheriff took a couple of steps forward and shook Daniel’s hand. “You folks have some trouble up here in the Gulch?”

  “Trouble?” Nic said, putting on a blank look. “What sort of trouble?” From the beginning, Sabine and he had both known that alerting the local authorities would only bring further difficulties down on them—and possibly Everett. That was the way of things in this part of the country. If you wanted justice, you saw to it yourself. Once in a blue moon, the sheriff picked up the slack. But with a company the size and influence of the Dolly Mae giving their side of the story …

  “Word reached us late yesterday that Sabine LaCrosse’s cabin was afire the night before last. A man from the other side of the valley reported seeing it burn. We’ve been by there this morning. Nothing but ashes. Have you seen her?”

  “Yes,” Nic said. “She’s here. With me.”

  The parson shifted his considerable weight to the other foot and coughed. A red tinge worked up his neck, and his eyes narrowed.

  “Now, hold on,” Nic said, lifting a hand. “I’m only being neighborly. I assure you that nothing untoward is going on. Everett’s here with us.”

  “You may not know, Mr. St. Clair,” the parson said with a sniff, “that I am the school superintendent as well as the local pastor. We simply cannot have our teacher living in … such conditions. It’s not right.”

  The sheriff’s red mustache twitched. “Care to tell us what happened?”

  Nic paused. “No. No, Sheriff, I don’t suppose I do.”

  The sheriff nodded and dug his boot toe in the ground. “I see. Anyone hurt? In the fire?”

  “No, sir. Not that I know of.” Other than the man Sabine shot.

  The sheriff studied him for a long moment. “I’ll need to see Mrs. LaCrosse for myself. You know, to make sure she’s all right.”

  “She’s all right,” Nic said, lowering his gaze. Did the man think he had hurt her?

  “Yes, well—”

  The door creaked open again and Sabine emerged, a disheveled sight in one of his clean white shirts, hanging loose, and pair of pants, hair a tumbled mess.

  Never had Nic seen her look more beautiful.

  He glanced at the sheriff and parson, knowing what they would think. The men paused, seemed to catch their breath. So they noticed how glorious she was too.

  “Nic saved me,” Sabine said, looking up at the lawman from ten paces away. “My place caught fire. I would’ve died there had Nic not come running and pulled me out.”

  The sheriff and parson looked from her to Nic to her again. The sheriff said, “I know what that place meant to you. You plan on rebuilding?”

  “Perhaps,” she said, shifting her eyes to Nic.

  “Surely you realize you’ve put me in an impossible situation, Mrs. LaCrosse,” the parson put in. His mouth worked as he searched for the right words, thought better of them, and then formed another sentence. “I’ve fought to keep you as our teacher, these last two years especially. But this … St. Elmo is doing her best to be a civilized town. A town of morals. If word reaches—”

  “I resign, Parson Brookings,” she interrupted. “You still have a few weeks to find a suitable replacement. I’m certain that all will be relieved when you find a more educated woman to fill my position.”

  “Sabine, now see here, it’s not about that at all,” he grumbled, frowning. “You’ve done a decent job, these last few years. I—”

  “No, Stuart, stop,” she said. “You and I both know that if a white woman had her house burned down, and her kindly neighbor rescued her and took her in for a few days, the superintendent would not be so quick to judge.” She paused, took a breath, and seemed to soften. “I recognize that you’ve protected me from those who wanted me removed long ago. I’m grateful for that. But this seems as good a time as any to move on.” She glanced at Nic. “We’re looking to sell our properties together.”

  “But you turned down the Dolly Mae offer,” the sheriff said.

  “She … we didn’t like how that offer came about,” Nic said. “We want to deal with men we can trust.”

  “Ahh,” the sheriff said, lifting his chin. “I may know of some others who would be interested. Want me to bring them by in a few days?”

  Other investors? Nic’s heart started beating faster. He had a good sense about the sheriff. He’d likely bring them people Nic’d like too, hopefully not like this blustering parson. He glanced over at Sabine, and she met his gaze. She was open to a meeting.

  “We’d appreciate that, Sheriff,” Nic said. “Bring ’em by in three days; we’ll be ready for them.”

  “Will do,” he said. He paused and looked at Sabine again. “I don’t suppose you know anything about a man with a bu
llet wound, do you?”

  “Depends on the man,” she returned evenly.

  He gave her a small smile. “This man said he was minding his own business, when someone shot at him. Winged him in the shoulder. Funny thing is, the man reeked of smoke. Could barely be in the same room with him.”

  Nic’s eyes narrowed. “You know him, Sheriff?”

  “Nah. He’s new to town. In fact, Doc fixed him up and then he took off. Couldn’t find him again last night.”

  “Hmm,” she said. “Story like that, I imagine there’s more to it.”

  He studied her for a long moment. “Yes. I believe you’re right.” He put on his hat again and looked back to her. “You hear more about that story that you think relates—will you come see me?”

  “I will.”

  He followed Parson Brookings to their horses, mounted, and looked back at them. “I’m just down the hill if you need me,” he said. “I’ll see you folks in three days.”

  “Sheriff,” Nic said, nodding in parting. “Parson Brookings.”

  Sabine gazed after them, stoic, as they turned and rode away. Nic studied her. He could watch her all day. Her guileless expression hardened as she turned to him.

  “You all right?” He reached out and pushed back an errant piece of hair over her shoulder, and she looked back at him.

  “Do you think I’m all right?” A tinge of tears made her eyes shine, surprising him.

  “I think you’ve suffered a blow losing that job. But maybe … it frees you up to go elsewhere, if we sell the land. Find a new position, if you want it. With people who not only accept you, but really want you as their school’s teacher.”

  She studied him a moment longer, then turned toward the open doorway.

  Everett peeked out. “Who was here?”

  “Sheriff came by to make sure Sabine was all right,” Nic said, winking at her. He turned to the boy. “You hungry for breakfast?”

  “Yeah,” Everett said, rubbing his eyes. “I want pancakes.”

  “That,” Nic said, “I think we can manage.”