“I don’t bite,” he said.
Neither moved.
He tried to smile but he was sorely out of practice.
“Are you really our uncle?” The boy, Damian, had momentarily bent over to rub a spot of mud off the toe of his shoe.
“Yes.”
“Should we call you Uncle Colin?” Young Damian was content to chatter while his worried sister merely watched.
Colin hadn’t thought about what they should call him. He hadn’t thought past these walls in weeks.
“I suppose you can.”
“We got some uncles back in Dodge,” the boy said.
“Damian.” There was a clear warning in the girl’s tone.
“You do, eh?” Colin waited. Dodge. So his sister had ended up in Kansas.
“My uncle Pete is a gunfighter like Daddy was. I don’t like him much, though. He was mean to Mama before we all took off.”
Colin’s gut tightened. “Mean how?”
“After Daddy got shot and died, Uncle Pete tried to kiss Mama. She didn’t like it. He said he—”
“Damian, shush,” the girl said.
“Why?” The boy glared at her.
“That’s family business,” she whispered.
Damian pointed at Colin. “He’s our uncle. He’s family, ain’t he?”
Marie glowered.
“Sorry,” Damian mumbled, scuffing the floor with his toe. “I’m not supposed to tell that story.”
“So your daddy is dead?”
“Mama said it was only a matter of time ‘fore he got kilt anyway. Hired guns don’t live that long. I bet now she wished Uncle Pete woulda got kilt too.”
Personally, Colin was glad Amelie’s no-account husband was gone. But now what? How was he supposed to care for her and these children when he couldn’t even take care of himself?
Kate was right but he’d never admit it to her. By now he should have found a way to get on his feet and should have sold the place. But if he had sold Belle Fleuve his sister might never have found him. He grudgingly had to admit that if it hadn’t been for Kate Keene’s stubbornness, Amelie and her children would be homeless right now.
When Kate knocked on the door earlier he’d been struggling to walk but the attempt had taken everything out of him. He’d seen by Kate’s stunned expression she was not only shocked by his appearance, but that she’d noticed his fallen cane. She was smart enough to deduce what he’d been doing but for now he didn’t care what she thought.
What Damian had just said continued to haunt him. How many more secrets did Amelie and the children share? It had been much easier to imagine her happily settled in a new life, but apparently the path she’d chosen had brought her much suffering.
The girl, Marie, kept glancing toward the door. The last thing he wanted was to scare these innocents.
“We should go back,” she whispered.
“Because Mama’s sick,” Damian blurted. “Real sick. She’s got the ‘sumption. That’s why we moved here.”
Colin’s blood ran cold.
“She has consumption?”
Damian nodded, far too solemn for such a young child.
Colin had seen enough cases of consumption during the war to know just how fatal it was. The wounded, crowded together in damp field hospitals in tents and barns, were highly susceptible. They suffered fevers, fits of bloody coughing, death.
Not Amelie. Please, God. Not Amelie.
Shocked, he realized what he’d just done. Only a fool would believe God actually answered prayers.
Colin watched a tear slide down the girl’s cheek.
“Aunt Kate and Myra and ‘Genie are taking care of Mama. Aunt Kate says she’ll be right as rain in no time at all.”
“You sure got a lot of books,” Damian announced.
“We used to have a library full.” Colin pictured “Aunt” Kate nursing Amelie. Did she realize there was no hope?
“In Kansas we only had a Bible. We don’t even got that anymore.”
Colin tried to imagine where they’d been born, what conditions they’d lived in.
A thought struck him. “Can you read?”
“Not yet.” Damian shook his head. “I’m too little.”
“I can,” Marie nodded.
Colin tried smiling without much success. “Choose a book and bring it over here.”
When neither child moved he softened his commanding tone. “Please.”
Marie still hesitated.
“I won’t bite,” he assured them.
Neither looked certain. Damian was the first to move. The low bookcase with three shelves, each a yard wide, held what was left of Belle Fleuve’s library. Favorite adventure stories that he’d read as a boy were there along with books on world geography, history, and botany. Damian stared at the gold-embossed spines.
“Perhaps you should help him?” Colin suggested to Marie, who was watching the boy.
She walked over to the bookcase, tipped her head to read the spines, and then glanced back at Colin.
“Pick one,” he encouraged. “Anything you like.”
She pulled out a book.
“Now bring it here,” he said.
Marie didn’t move. Damian took the book from her and walked over to the bedside and handed it to Colin.
“A Pirate’s Tale of the West Indies. One of my favorites. Too bad my eyes have been bothering me. Perhaps you’d like to read to us?” He indicated the space beside him. Before Damian climbed up to join him, he retrieved Colin’s cane and examined it closely.
“Aunt Kate said you were shot by Injuns. Is that true?”
“That’s true. A Comanche shot an arrow clear through my ankle. Busted it to pieces.”
“Did you keep it?”
Colin looked at his ruined joint. “It probably would have been better to let the doc take it off.”
“I mean the arrow. Did you keep it? We found a bunch of arrowheads at the farm. Did it have feathers on it? Did the Injuns dip the tip in poison ‘fore they shot you?”
“No. I didn’t keep it, and no, there was no poison on it.”
“Can I really sit by you?”
Colin sighed. “Why not?”
He closed his eyes, steeling himself for a jolt of pain but the bed barely jiggled beneath the little boy’s weight. Marie still hadn’t budged. Colin imagined Kate Keene badgering him to be kind to these two. He offered the book to the girl.
“Why don’t you pull up a chair and sit close to the bed?” he suggested. “Perhaps you can read to us both.”
Kate meant to return for the children within minutes but Eugenie was frustrated by Amelie’s refusal to swallow any more of Cezelia’s potion. After sitting with Amelie for nearly an hour, tasting the brew herself, and finding she could not even pretend to stomach it, Kate finally hurried through the rain to the garçonnière.
She raised her hand to knock, then out of curiosity, pressed her ear against the door first. It sounded ominously quiet inside until she heard a soft voice.
Kate turned the knob, pushed the door open a bit, and heard Marie reading aloud with confidence in her even, lilting tone.
“‘We made the scourge walk the plank. He begged for his life like the worm he was before he disappeared into the fathomless turquoise depths of the shark-filled waters.’”
Kate peered around the door. The scene inside melted her heart. Colin was propped against the bed pillows and pressed alongside him lay Damian. The boy’s head was cradled in the crook of Colin’s shoulder, his eyelids drowsing lazily as Marie read to them from the chair drawn up close to the bed. Kate could tell Colin wasn’t paying attention to the story as he gazed into the distance. When Colin absently reached down and brushed Damian’s dark curls away from his eyes, Kate’s breath caught. Here was the glimmer of hope she’d been waiting for, a sign that there was something more inside Colin than the hardened, bitter man he seemed to have become. She rapped on the partially opened door.
“May I come in?”
> When Marie’s voice stilled, Kate stepped inside. Damian sat up straight and rubbed his eyes. Colin crossed his arms over his broad chest and frowned, but that didn’t change what she’d seen.
“Is Mama all right?”
The girl’s fright was evident. Kate tried to reassure her that Amelie was doing fine. “Why don’t you go on back and see how she is for yourself? I’ll bring Damian,” Kate suggested.
Marie collected her umbrella and was out the door in seconds. Kate stared at the little boy, whose head had dropped back onto Colin’s shoulder. His eyes were closed again.
“It looks as if you’ve gotten on well enough,” Kate noted.
“Nothing but scamps. Both of them,” Colin said.
She walked up close to the bed, reached for Damian, and hefted him up to her shoulder without waking him. Colin’s look might have passed for admiration in any other man.
“Where did you learn that?” he wanted to know.
“I’ve twenty-seven Keene cousins in Ireland, and I was there for four years.” She rubbed Damian’s back between his shoulders.
When Colin spoke again, his voice was low.
“The boy told me Amelie is ill.”
“She’ll be fine.”
“She has consumption. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t seem to care one way or the other. Besides, I refuse to believe she won’t be up and around soon. All she needs is good care. Now that she’s home, she’ll be fine. You’ll see.”
“Marie said they came here to live.”
“Their father died. Amelie had nowhere else to go. Naturally, she came to you.”
“Did you know he was a gunfighter?”
Kate nodded. “Amelie told me.”
Colin’s expression darkened. “What am I to do?”
“Do what you were born to do. Run Belle Fleuve.”
“You’re relentless, you know.”
“A woman must be relentless in this world.”
Damian stirred against her shoulder. She rubbed his back and quieted him again. Colin was staring at the boy now. Hopefully, he was worried about Amelie and the future. Now perhaps he would take steps to bring Belle Fleuve back to life. She turned to leave and suddenly stopped.
“May I take the photographs? For Amelie?”
He shrugged. “Why not?”
As he reached for the pictures scattered over the bedside table, Kate noticed the empty praline plate.
“You liked the pralines?”
“Who wouldn’t?”
He held out the photographs and, due to his immobility, Kate was forced to go to him. Their fingers brushed as she took them. A frisson of warmth shot through her, and she dropped her gaze while fighting to ignore her physical reaction to an accidental touch.
So it’s like that, Kate thought. It’s still there.
After all these years, after his rudeness and dismissal, the mere touch of his hand still set her heart soaring. Was this love then? Again and again it all came back to her feelings for Colin and this place. Did she actually love him or was she infatuated with the idea of him and the past?
If she did love him, then he had the power to hurt her.
But at least she’d seen this softer side of him. His care and concern for the children gave Kate the courage not to give up. It might still be possible to bring him around, to open his heart to Amelie, and if so, maybe there was some hope that he would someday see the love she had to offer.
She shifted Damian higher on her shoulder.
“What is it, Kate? You look so thoughtful.” He fell silent for a second and then demanded, “Is Amelie worse than you’ve let on?”
There was no way she could admit to him — or more especially to herself — the amount of uncertainty weighing on her. She had no idea how long it would be before Amelie recovered or whether or not he could find the will and the strength to help.
She was living here on borrowed time. They all were.
“Amelie will be well very soon. You’ll see.”
SEVEN
The morning air was already close and humid in the room Kate shared with Myra. She stood alone at a cluttered table near the gallery window where, for a good quarter of an hour, she’d been attempting to sort her drafts and art supplies into some semblance of order before undertaking what she hoped would be a fast and productive trip to New Orleans.
She dreaded telling Amelie she was leaving and certainly wasn’t going to explain that she was going in search of a physician. Not when Amelie would insist there was nothing to be done. Prayer and potions hadn’t helped. Kate was still determined to find a cure.
She moved a box of watercolor supplies beneath the desk. She hadn’t even found time to open the box once since she’d arrived. It had been naive to think she’d find a few quiet hours of leisure time at Belle Fleuve. She sighed and shook her head at such foolishness.
The hours had flown while she had supervised Simon and his crew, and since Amelie and the children arrived there hadn’t been a moment to spare. She hadn’t even returned to the garçonnière since she had taken the children to meet Colin three days ago.
Not that she cared to see him while she was still confused about her reaction to his accidental touch. Not while that glimpse of what he was and could be again lingered in her mind.
She picked up the photographs of the Delanys, put a smile on her face, and breezed into Amelie’s room.
“You’re looking better today!” she exclaimed.
“Poor Kate.” Amelie’s voice was no more than a hoarse whisper. Ravaged from her nightly battle with fever, she lay limp and wasted against a mound of pillows.
“You do look better.” As Kate opened the window hoping fresh air would dispel the staleness in the room, she heard Amelie’s soft sigh.
Kate walked to the bedside and handed her the photographs. “I brought these in from the garçonnière. Do you feel like looking through them now or should I set them on the table?”
Amelie held out her hand. Kate couldn’t help but notice the tremor that ran through it.
“Where are the children?” Amelie dropped the photographs in her lap.
“They’re out exploring with Myra, walking along the levee and watching the boats on the river.”
“They don’t know how to swim—” Amelie’s worry increased the lines around her eyes.
“Myra won’t let them anywhere near the edge of the path. Remember how vigilant she was with us?”
“I suppose.” Amelie turned her attention to the photographs, pausing now and again to comment.
“Remember this dress?” She turned the photograph so that Kate could see. Amelie’s skirt was draped over a wide hoop, the hems of her ruffled pantalets showing beneath it. “I loved that gown. What a silly creature I was.”
“You look like a confection. A crème layer cake.” Kate fought to keep her tone light, afraid her voice might crack and give her away.
Amelie took her time perusing through the stack twice, then laid the photographs on the bedclothes draped over her thin frame.
“Thank you, Kate. I’ll be seeing Mama and Papa again soon enough.” Her voice was so weak Kate barely heard her.
Kate was hard-pressed not to grab the photographs and toss them out the door and over the balcony.
“Don’t talk like that.” She walked back to the window, clasped her hands together, and tried to still her racing heart. She knew she sounded far too harsh but couldn’t control her anger. How was Amelie to get well if she didn’t believe it herself?
“Your children need you,” Kate said.
“I know they do,” Amelie said with more strength than she’d shown in days. “But they won’t have me much longer and they need a home. I think that you of all people can understand.”
Suddenly it was all back. Her birth mother’s illness and death, she and her sisters huddled together crying. Lovie tried to comfort them. Megan angry. Sarah too young to know what was happening. The feeling of helplessness, of emptine
ss, had been terrifying.
Kate swallowed a sob.
“Kate, turn around and come here, please.”
She took a deep breath and collected herself before she obliged. She went to sit on the edge of the bed and took Amelie’s hand.
“The children still speak of their visit to Colin. Thank you for taking them to meet him.”
“It was nothing.” At the very least she should take the children back to visit him again before she left for the city tomorrow.
“He hasn’t come to see me yet,” Amelie said.
“Perhaps in time …” Kate looked away from the hopelessness in Amelie’s eyes.
“I haven’t much time, and I have no idea if Colin will ever forgive me or if he’ll be willing to care for my children. I need a promise from you, Kate. Please promise you’ll raise my children as your own after I’m gone.”
To promise would be to admit Amelie was dying.
Kate shook her head. “I can’t. I won’t … because you are going to get well.”
“There’s no reason for you to give up your dream. Hire a nanny or have Myra care for the children while you work. It’s enough to know you’ll still be there to guide them, to help them.”
Kate had told Amelie of her studies, of the influence Patrick Delany had had on her.
“It’s not that. Never that.” Kate reminded herself not to squeeze Amelie’s hand and cause her pain. “I simply refuse to let you go.”
Kate stood up again and paced over to the marble-topped washstand. She dipped a washcloth in a basin of water, twisted the water out, and went back to wipe Amelie’s brow.
Amelie closed her eyes. “Please don’t refuse me this.” A smile touched her lips. “I know how hardheaded you are, Kate. My father used to call you a stubborn Irish lass.”
“You’re half Irish yourself,” Kate reminded her. “Use that stubbornness to fight this, Amelie. If not for me, for the children.”
“It’s only sheer will that has kept me here this long.” She coughed again, taking the washcloth from Kate and daubing at her mouth. Rust-colored stains seeped into the fabric. “You were an orphan, Kate. Would you subject little Marie and Damian to that fate?”
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