Cherished

by Jill Gregory

  Rawdon glanced at her, then away. He felt no pity for her. He had stopped up all his emotions a long time ago. He would not harm her, but he would do or say nothing to comfort her. Her grief, her loss, were none of his concern.

  Kincaid was dead, and Ed Weeks with him. The rest of the gang had been captured, and it shouldn’t prove too difficult forcing them to reveal where the stagecoach loot was hidden. All in all, Cole Rawdon thought as he looked at Kincaid’s blood seeping into the dirt floor of the canyon, it had been a good morning’s work.

  But as always, he took no pleasure in the killing, and his face was grim and worn when at last he had buried the dead, and left that desolate place behind. The woman stayed of her own accord, but Cole left her Kincaid’s horse before riding out to gather up his prisoners.

  The Kincaid gang had proved no more difficult than most of the others to track and bring down. As Rawdon rode the narrow track that led up and out of the canyon, he realized that, even with the reward money from bringing in the Kincaid gang, he was still damned short of having enough to buy back Fire Mesa—if he really wanted it back. Did he? Or was it just that he didn’t want the home robbed from him in his childhood to be sold to that greedy bastard Line McCray? It would serve his father right if Fire Mesa was lost forever because of his drunken gambling. But his father was long dead, buried with his shame, as was Grandfather, he who had once ruled Fire Mesa with such pride and iron strength. Perhaps it was better to let the land go, to forget the glorious wild hills and buttes of his childhood, to remain a wanderer, belonging to no one and no place. And yet, when he thought of Line McCray building a railroad through his grandfather’s land, his jaw clenched with fury.

  He’d need a pile of money to outbid McCray. And he’d need it soon.

  Fire Mesa ...

  With sheer effort of will, Cole pushed all thoughts of the beautiful, vast Arizona spread from his mind, and forced himself to think instead about dealing with his prisoners. He was here, today, in this godforsaken New Mexico Territory beneath a hell-blazing sun, with three hombres to transport and the Apache up in arms over treaty violations. Reality was here, now, harsh and full of danger. Fire Mesa was the past, a memory, distant and unreal, part of his life that had brutally ended twenty years ago on a day of death and destruction.

  Fire Mesa was a dream. Or was it, Cole wondered, his eyes dark with memory, a nightmare?

  1

  Colorado,

  April 1873

  The dusty Kansas Pacific railroad car chugged across the Colorado plains with the steadfast determination of an ant crawling across a vast park lawn. Juliana Montgomery, fetchingly attired in plumed hat, a turquoise taffeta traveling dress, silk gloves, and dainty half-boots, sat with clasped hands and rapt, glowing face, watching the scenery glide past her window. Absorbed as she was by the newness and beauty of her surroundings, Juliana had no way of knowing that every mile crossed brought her nearer and nearer to the giant trap that had been carefully laid out for her. She had no inkling of the fate her aunt and uncle had decreed for her, not a single premonition or qualm of unease. Her heart was light and happy, filled with hope, as she took in the endless, rolling plains and crystal skies of Colorado, drinking in the wild splendor of land, sun, and sky unbroken by human habitation.

  Magnificent, she thought on a little breath of wonder as she gazed out at the spring-bright plains. She had never seen such a boundless expanse of land: the prairie seemed to roll on and on forever, the buffalo and grama grass adorned here and there with beautiful wildflowers and shrubs. Beneath a lemon-drop sun, lovely sand lilies and coral-colored wild geraniums burst forth in riotous profusion. Scotch thistle appeared in scattered clumps, festooned with their gay purple tassels, and she was fascinated by the variety of cacti that rolled past: the conductor had pointed out to her the creosote bush and the yucca with its blaze of creamy flowers blossoming forth from bladelike leaves, and the deep red of an occasional prairie cactus shimmered against the pale green of the plains grasses. There were graceful cottonwoods and in the river bottoms, alongside the shallow green waters of the South Platte, she had spotted wild iris and cattails waving in the wind. Lovely. Compared to the tame, carefully cultivated gardens she had known these past nine years in St. Louis, the colorful blaze of wildflowers and cacti set against that rough prairie were a delight for the eye and the soul.

  “Isn’t it breathtaking?” she murmured, her heart lifting at the wild beauty of the scene. Her cousin Victoria, dozing beside her, merely grimaced.

  “You keep saying that,” she complained.

  Juliana’s gaze never left the window. “Look, the mountains in the distance—they must be the Rockies. Oh, surely, Denver cannot be far.”

  In the seat across the aisle from them, Katharine Tobias, Juliana’s aunt, worked her painted silk fan frantically against the stifling heat. She was a handsome, imposing woman with upswept dark hair, piercing mahogany-colored eyes, and wide shoulders. She was tall, with regal bearing and a proud carriage—and absolutely no sense of humor. “Well, at least the scenery here is far more interesting than those dreadful boring plains in Kansas. I do admit fearing I would never again see anything but green grass and dull yellow sunflowers.”

  Uncle Edward set aside his sheaf of papers and removed his spectacles. He rubbed the red spot on the bridge of his nose and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “We’ll be in Denver by suppertime,” he prophesied with relief. A man behind him blew his nose loudly, into a big square handkerchief. Edward ignored the interruption. “You girls had best catch a few winks now if you want to be rested up for tonight. I don’t want you feeling peaked when we attend Mr. Breen’s party.”

  “Yes, Papa.” Obediently, Victoria leaned her head back and closed her eyes once more, all too eager to blot out the blinding sun, the jerking motion of the coach, and the heat and dust of the day. But Juliana was still staring out the window, transfixed, a dreamy smile playing about the edges of her pretty mouth.

  Well, Edward reflected as he set his spectacles back in place, let her soak up the western scene if she has a mind to. If everything goes as planned, this untamed, uncivilized land she’s so enamored of will shortly be her new home.

  With his spectacles on he could see her more clearly, and he was not displeased with her appearance. Far from looking the least bit peaked, his golden-haired niece was the picture of glowing feminine health. Even in her wilted travelling dress of stiff taffeta buttoned up to her throat, and with damp tendrils of hair clinging to her temples, Juliana looked as lovely as any of those wildflowers that charmed her so. The train was unbearably hot and dusty, and everywhere one looked women were fanning themselves, men perspiring and licking dry lips, and the odor of sweat positively clung to the air. Yet Juliana still glowed, her skin as fresh and lovely as a summer peach, her pale hair shimmering in the sunlight. Edward’s smile deepened as he studied her. The girl could dazzle, no doubt about that. With her lush cloud of sun-drenched hair, her winged brows and slender, enchantingly curvaceous figure she looked like a fairy-tale princess. Even the pale dusting of freckles across her small, straight nose, and the full mouth just a shade too wide for fashion only added to her loveliness, for they saved her from cold, classic perfection, and imbued Juliana’s elegant, chiseled features with a warmth and unconscious sensuality that added immensely to her appeal. Her laugh was low, husky, her smile as bright and captivating as a summer’s day. A beauty, everyone said, and they were right, but unfortunately his niece was a headstrong, troublesome beauty, flawed by her own willful spirit as well as her family’s questionable background. Though she was the toast of St. Louis society, ardently courted by scores of smitten beaux, it was common knowledge that no young man of breeding and wealth would marry her.

  But I’ll show them all, Edward thought gleefully as he rubbed his sweating palms on his pants. I’ll marry her off to the richest businessman in the western United States, and ride his coattails to the top. There would be no more small-time profits for Edward To
bias, no sir. From now on, words like comfortably established, prominent, and well-to-do would no longer suffice to describe him. He would be a millionaire, a tycoon, a magnate, just like John Breen himself—all within a year, if the marriage went ahead as planned. And why shouldn’t it? John Breen, after meeting Juliana only that once, had made up his mind to have her, and Edward would see to it that the girl accepted his offer. She had better not get it into her head to be difficult about it either, for Edward would have none of that. John Breen had invested in the Tobias factories a year ago in a small way, his capital helping to spur them on to previously unthought-of success, but once he married Juliana, he had promised to open doors for Edward that would guarantee him wealth beyond most men’s wildest imaginations.

  And the marriage would do wonders for his daughter, Victoria, Edward reflected, glancing over at the dark-haired girl snoring lightly against the upholstered seat. She hadn’t withstood the journey near as well as Juliana. Only passably pretty at her best, Victoria looked much the worse for wear after their long, weary days of travel. Her olive skin shone with oily perspiration and her hair hung limply against her neck. Still, though her lips were straight and thin, her chin a shade pointed, and her voice a trifle shrill, she had a neat figure and well-bred manners, not to mention her pleasing ability on the pianoforte and with an embroidery needle. All attributes that would someday be valued by the right man, Edward was certain, if only Juliana was not there to dazzle and distract him. No, Victoria would never again be a wallflower once she was free from comparison with her spectacular cousin. And with Juliana married and settled in Denver with John Breen, Edward knew it could not be long before his Victoria would find herself the object of some appropriate suitor’s attention.

  He settled back beside his wife and her fluttering fan, content with himself and his expert arrangements for the future, dreaming of the mines and lumber mills and railroad shares he would soon own, possibly as many as John Breen himself.

  The saloon in Denver, Juliana decided, will be the perfect place to begin my inquiries. The only trouble was, how would she manage to elude Aunt Katharine and Uncle Edward long enough to manage it? If she was caught ... A knot tightened inside her stomach at the thought of what would happen if she was discovered going into the saloon. She had already been forced to promise Uncle Edward she wouldn’t try to find Wade and Tommy, and if she was discovered doing anything as scandalous as entering a saloon to ask about them she would have to endure the most horrible censure. But it was worth the risk, Juliana told herself, as she unbuttoned the top button of her dress trying to alleviate the effects of the heat. She had to find Wade and Tommy—and this visit to Denver might be her only chance.

  “Juliana, fasten that button!” Aunt Katharine’s furious whisper made the girl jump and hastily obey. Her aunt was glaring at her, her face puffed out with disapproval.

  “I’m sorry, Aunt Katharine. But it’s so dreadfully stuffy.”

  “Try to remember that you are a lady and behave like one! You don’t see Victoria undressing herself in public, do you?”

  Victoria is half dead— and too frightened of you to wiggle her toes without permission, Juliana thought, with a pitying glance at her slumbering cousin. “No, ma’am,” she said.

  Life would be easier, she acknowledged, if she were more like Victoria—biddable, cowed by authority, terrified of breaking any of society’s conventions. The only problem was, much as Juliana tried, she couldn’t get the knack of decorous behavior. She laughed out loud when the Reverend Davis sneezed at the high point of his Sunday sermon, rushed to help when the serving maid spilled soup on the dining room floor, and carried on elaborate conversations with Aunt Katharine’s lapdog, Charlotte, conversations so outrageous and nonsensical that the Tobias family could only stare at her as if she had gone mad.

  “It’s that mother of hers,” Aunt Katharine frequently remarked in an undertone to Victoria, unaware that Juliana overheard several times. “She was a wild, disgraceful young thing, and you mark my words, some of that has rubbed off on poor Juliana, despite our best efforts. Why, just look what’s become of her brothers—you can’t tell me there isn’t a bad taint in her blood!”

  When she heard things like that, it was all Juliana could do not to explode with anger. Usually she stopped whatever she was doing and left the room without a word, retreating to her own pretty bedroom on the second floor of the Tobias home. She would sink onto the bed and try to conjure up memories of her home back in Independence before Mama and Papa had died, and especially of her mother, whose past as a dance-hall girl before she married Papa had always been the subject of so much whispered gossip and contempt. It had been nine years since her parents’ deaths, and during that time, since Uncle Edward had come to fetch her east, the life she had led in Independence during the wagon train days, with Mama and Papa and Wade and Tommy all living together above the busy general store, had mostly faded into fuzzy memories. She could still, when she closed her eyes tight and concentrated hard, see Mama’s sad, pretty face with her yellow hair and pale lime-green eyes as she worked so busily packing supplies for the families and traders setting out for the West. And she could see Papa outside helping to load the wagons and horses with the gear, or sitting down to supper with them when the store was finally closed for the day, and the curtains were drawn against the setting sun. He would wink across the table at Juliana and say, “Peanut, eat every crumb now, you’re far too thin. You want to grow up to be a beauty like your mama, don’t you?”

  And then there were Wade and Tommy, several years older than she, both boys handsome and energetic and filled with mischief. They had helped Papa vigorously in the store, but they had never liked the monotony of town work. “We want to be scouts,” they used to say, listening in rapture to the tales of buffalo herds and river crossings, Indian raids and fierce desperadoes, related by travelers returning from the West, who stopped in Independence and were all too happy to share their adventuresome tales with any who would listen. “We want to cross the Cimarron River and sleep beneath a Texas sky.” The bustle and commotion of thriving Independence held no allure for Wade and Tommy. Horses and cattle, wide-open spaces, gunfights, and buffalo hunts had captured their young fancies.

  But nine years had passed since Juliana had seen her brothers. Mama and Papa had been killed, shot by drunken outlaws trying to rob the store, and Uncle Edward had come to Independence to take charge of the orphans. He’d wanted to fetch all three of the Montgomery children back to St. Louis with him, but Wade, aged fifteen, and Tommy, two years younger, had refused to go. They’d quarreled horribly with Uncle Edward about it. When Juliana begged to be allowed to stay in Independence with them, Uncle Edward had steadfastly refused, and even Wade and Tommy had insisted that their ten-year-old sister go to St. Louis and be raised “like a lady.” She would live with Aunt Katharine, they told her, Papa’s own sister, in a fine house, with pretty clothes, and a governess to teach her, and her cousin Victoria for a playmate. It wouldn’t be right for them to raise her. They were going to leave Independence and head for Texas. They wanted to catch wild horses, start a ranch. Someday, they told her, they’d have the grandest horse ranch in Texas and build her a fine house. Then she’d come and live with them.

  Only ten, and heartbroken by the death of her parents, Juliana had agreed to be separated from her big brothers, thinking with childish optimism that they would soon come east to visit her, and could perhaps be convinced to stay. But it hadn’t worked out that way. Wade and Tommy had not kept in touch. At first there had been letters posted from various towns south of the Arkansas, but then the letters had become few and far between. The last one had come from someplace called Payville, Texas, when Juliana was twelve. Then all correspondence had abruptly stopped.

  Several years passed during which time she hadn’t known where Wade and Tommy were or what they were doing. But slowly, slowly, the life she had led in Independence with all of them together had grown distant and blurred. One day
, when she was fourteen, Uncle Edward informed her in disgust that she was never to mention those “no-good” brothers of hers again. They had become desperadoes, he said, savage, roaming criminals who robbed stagecoaches for a living. She hadn’t believed him, not one word, until he had shown her the newspaper account detailing one of the robberies. “The Montgomery gang” was known throughout the Southwest, Aunt Katharine had lamented in horror. If anyone were to find out about them, well, coupled with Juliana’s mother’s past, the results, she told her sobbing young niece, would be disastrous.

  Juliana was forbidden ever to speak her brothers’ names again.

  They think I’ve forgotten all about Wade and Tommy, Juliana reflected as the train sped across the plains toward the looming peaks of the Rockies. But how could she? She could still picture Wade, so smart and tough, the one who had taught her how to defend herself against the blacksmith’s bullying son, the one who had given her piggyback rides to and from school each day. And Tommy, with his golden hair the exact same shade as Juliana’s, and mischievous eyes of bold, sparkling blue like Papa’s. He had had a favorite shirt of blue and yellow plaid, she remembered, which he’d worn nearly every day, except when Mama managed to get it away long enough to wash it. Tommy had taught her how to ride anything on four legs, shoot a row of tin cans off a fence, and cheat at cards without anyone guessing. Full of tricks had been Tommy, as quick-witted and lighthearted as Wade had been ingenious and determined. They had been happy-go-lucky boys back then, full of high spirits and with minds of their own, but Papa had always been able to keep them firmly in hand. To think that they were outlaws now ... Juliana swallowed past a lump in her throat. When she found them, things would be different. And she would find them. Even if she had to sneak circles around Aunt Katharine and Uncle Edward to do it.