Lady Sundown (#1 of the Danner Quartet)

by Nancy Bush

  Squaring her shoulders, Lexie walked up the pebbled path, drawing on her courage. A tenacious wisteria tangled up one side of the porch, its purple petals bruised by the rain. Toward the rear of the house were the servant’s quarters, and beyond the main house stood the carriage barn, a smaller replica of the main building. To the west and farther out were the stables, barn, and other farm buildings. Over the distant rise Lexie could just see the roof of the bunkhouse where most of the Garretts’ farmhands lived. The Garretts were city people who had moved to Rock Springs even before the Danners had arrived. But their tastes remained rich and citified and were reflected in the glory of their farm.

  Before Lexie could mount the front porch steps, the door suddenly flung outward and Jace’s younger sister, Kelsey, came tearing through it, as if the devil himself were on her heels.

  “Kelsey!” Lexie called, stopping the young woman dead in her tracks.

  Kelsey swiped the back of her hand across her eyes, her teeth set in an obstinate line. “Lexie,” she said, bewildered, glancing back over her shoulder.

  Kelsey was much younger than Lexie; she was barely 13. But even now her beauty was something to behold, and promised a woman of rare and stunning looks. Burnished auburn hair, tinged magenta in the right light, curled softly down her back. Gray eyes, wide and heavily fringed, were huge in her small face. Men had already asked for her hand in marriage, willing to wait until she was of proper age to possess such an unusual wife, but Jace and Lucinda had discouraged all suitors.

  Now, however, Kelsey’s piquant face was ravaged from tears which formed in the corners of her eyes faster than she could wipe them away.

  “What’s wrong?” Lexie asked anxiously.

  Kelsey inhaled, shuddered, then shook her head. “Nothing,” she said bitterly. “Mother is just — upset with me.”

  Because of Jace, Lexie surmised. She knew intimately the problems the Garretts had faced this last year. Joshua Garrett, Kelsey and Jace’s father, had succumbed to the scourge of diphtheria. He’d left behind a dozen businesses in Rock Springs to manage, and six hundred acres of land to farm. Jace had eagerly stepped into the role of provider and patriarch, but Kelsey hadn’t been ready to grow up. She’d rebelled in a myriad of small ways, the latest being her refusal to treat the servants as lesser beings — the way, Lucinda wished her to. Lexie sympathized. People were equal. The Danners treated Cook and Annie with respect. But Lucinda was a tyrant who expected her daughter to obey unthinkingly. Jace could get around her. Lucinda had a soft spot for her only son, but with Kelsey she was hard and autocratic, adding credence to the rumor that she was as tight with her affections as her money.

  Seeing the girl’s tensely clenched fists, Lexie touched her sleeve. “Is there something I can do?”

  “I just need a little time to myself before Mother or Martha finds me.” She pulled herself together with an effort. “What are you doing here? And what happened to you?”

  “Nothing.” Lexie self-consciously smoothed her skirts. “I was — er — looking for Jace. Is he around?”

  The front door banged open behind them, making them both jump. Lucinda’s voice echoed loudly, “Kelsey Orchid Garrett, come back here this instant!”

  Kelsey started, and without a backward glance bunched her skirts and hurried around the side of the house, taking off on a gallop toward the carriage house.

  Lucinda stormed onto the porch in a rustle of black sateen, her rail-thin body as tough and dry as prairie grass. Her aristocratic jaw was thrown forward pugnaciously. “Kelsey, you come back now or forget about supper! No daughter of mine’s going to talk that way. If your father were alive he’d whip you within an inch of your life!”

  Lexie wished she could melt into the ground.

  Lucinda seemed to realize for the first time that she wasn’t alone. She glanced sharply at Lexie, her blue eyes lit by a fierce light. Collecting herself, she drew up her chest and declared haughtily, “Well, it’s Miss Danner, isn’t it? What brings you here this evening?”

  “I… um…”

  “Come on, come on. Get on with it.”

  Lexie’s throat closed. She couldn’t tell her why she’d come; she just couldn’t do it. Lucinda Garrett was a woman to reckon with. She had a reputation of achieving what she wanted by pure orneriness. And she would give no quarter and suffer no fools.

  “I was just on my way home,” Lexie prevaricated. “I was taking a ride and I stopped by to say hello.”

  “Well, it’s a special day indeed when a Danner comes calling on the Garretts.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Lexie answered self-consciously. Silence lengthened between them. “I was — wondering if Jace was around.”

  Lucinda’s lips turned downward in distaste and she looked properly appalled. “No, Jason isn’t here. I don’t expect him until later.”

  “Where is Jace?” Lexie asked before she could help herself.

  “In town. We have businesses to take care of, you know. If Jace wants to see you, I’m sure he’ll let you know. Good evening, Miss Danner.”

  She wheeled around, quietly and firmly shutting the door behind her.

  Humiliated, Lexie turned blindly back to Tantrum. She was climbing the fence to mount him when she heard the rattle of the carriage. Jace’s team appeared around the bend near the woods, his face a blur of white against the blacker carriage.

  With a sob of relief Lexie jumped down, running pellmell toward him. Jace had barely pulled the horses to a stop when Lexie was at the side of the carriage, breathing hard. “Jace! I’m so glad to see you. I’m sorry I was late. I’ve had the most awful day. I couldn’t get away before now.”

  “Whoa, there, Lexie. Slow down.”

  She wanted to fling herself in his arms, feel him enfold her close to his chest. But Jace wasn’t fond of impulsive displays of affection, so she waited for him to climb down, trying to control her emotions.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, his brows drawing together, as he cautiously stepped from the bottom step, grimacing as his right shoe sank into a puddle. “What happened to your clothes?”

  “I rode Tantrum bareback. I couldn’t wait to see you, and when you weren’t at the stream, I decided to come here.”

  “You came here?” he repeated, surprised. He pushed back his hat to peer into her anxious face.

  “Oh, Jace, please,” Lexie said, feeling on the verge of tears.

  Seeing her despair, he gently took her arm and started leading her toward the porch. But Lexie, feeling unsettled and friendless, disregarded her own better judgment, and threw herself into his arms. Jace froze. “Lexie…” he said, a trifle breathlessly.

  “Please hold me, Jace,” she begged. “Just for a minute.”

  He complied but she sensed how constrained he was. Not understanding, she clung all the more tightly. Jace, to keep his head, merely waited. But he could feel the pressure of her thrusting breasts and that brought a rush of memories of his last hours with Betsy. Before he could do something he regretted, he gently pushed Lexie away. “I stopped by the stream on my way, but I was late, so don’t worry. I — ah — had business to attend to.”

  “What kind of business?” Her voice was low and despondent, her eyes downcast. He could tell she didn’t really care about the answer. She just wanted comfort.

  “Oh, this and that.” He put his arm around her shoulders and gave her an affectionate squeeze.

  Lexie was too caught up in her own misery to pay attention to the weighty pause between her question and his answer. “You won’t believe what happened today.”

  “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “It’s my mother,” Lexie burst out with pent-up injustice. “She — she insists I attend Miss Everly’s School for Young Ladies!”

  Jace suddenly laughed and pulled back to look into her indignant green eyes, one arm circling her waist as he led her toward the house. “Really?”

  “Yes.” Lexie regarded him with vexation. He wasn’t taking this news in
the manner she expected him to. “I told her I wouldn’t go. I can’t! She knows how much I want to be a horse doctor, but she won’t even consider it.”

  “Well, Lexie, I don’t think it’s such a bad idea. Your mother only wants what’s best for you.”

  She stopped, peering up at him. “Whose side are you on?” she asked despairingly.

  He smiled. “Yours, sweetheart. Ours,” he corrected himself as he held the door. “But I have to admit, your temper could use a little curbing and maybe a finishing school is just the place for you.”

  “Jace!”

  He chuckled, but at her look of horror, didn’t add that he thought Miss Everly’s School was the perfect way to keep her busy until they could marry. It would also give him an excuse not to see her, and therefore he wouldn’t be tempted to take what she so innocently offered each time they were together. “Come on inside. It’s too wet out here to talk. Actually I’m glad your mother brought this up.”

  Deflated, Lexie followed Jace inside the domed entry hall, waiting in silence as he lightly shook the rain from his silk hat, pulled off his overcoat, and examined his water soaked shoes. From somewhere toward the rear of the house, Lexie could hear Lucinda berating one of the servants. Jace made a face and gestured toward the parlor. Lexie walked ahead of him, sitting primly on the horsehair couch as he closed the doors behind them and sat down across from her.

  Regarding her with a brotherly benevolence that made Lexie feel impatient, Jace remarked, “Miss Everly’s School has a wonderful reputation. The finest around.”

  Lexie stared down at her clasped hands. She felt as tense and frustrated as she had when she’d faced her mother. “I can’t believe you just said that. I would rather be boiled in oil than step across the threshold of any finishing school.”

  “That’s a bit drastic, even for you. I know you think you want to be a horse doctor, but—”

  “Think I want to be?”

  Jace sighed, as if dealing with a particularly dull-witted child. “What kind of job would that be? Even if you were accepted by the farmers around here, you’d spend most of your time in a buggy or a wagon, heading from farm to farm, working long hours for what? Half the time the animal would die anyway — and you wouldn’t get paid. It’s bad enough these days being a doctor, like Tremaine, but a horse doctor…” Jace lifted a realistic palm. “It’s just not the career for a woman.”

  Lexie flushed. “I suppose you want a wife who will mend your shirts and cook your meals.”

  “Lexie…” The long-suffering tone of his voice drove her to her feet, but before she could say something she might regret, Jace rose and took her hand. “After we’re married we’ll have a whole army of servants to tend to our needs. Someone else can mend my shirts.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  With a sigh, he asked, “Well, then, what did you mean?”

  “I’m not that kind of woman, Jace. I can’t just take care of a home. It’s not — it’s not” — she groped for the right word — “fulfilling enough. I want to be an animal doctor.”

  His mouth quirked. “And you want to put Doc Meechum out of business.”

  “That’s right.” Lexie was emphatic. It wasn’t the noblest of purposes, but then Meechum’s supposed expertise was a travesty.

  Jason, lifted her chin and his dark eyes looked deeply into hers. “You know, being my wife would entail extra responsibilities. We both want children, don’t we?”

  Lexie nodded, her heart beating unevenly. Was he going to kiss her right here? In the parlor of his own home? “Jace,” she said in a whisper, half-scandalized, half-delighted.

  “I’m going to build us a house, Lexie. On the other side of the property.” He waved in the direction of Rock Springs. “One that’ll put the rest of them to shame.”

  This was news to Lexie. “You want to live on part of this farm?” she asked, a bit apprehensively.

  “Toward town. I was planning on moving closer in. Six hundred acres is a lot of land between here and there.”

  “But I thought — I mean, I expected us to build our own place. Somewhere else.”

  “It’ll be our own place. It’ll just be on Garrett land. And Lexie, our house will have hot and cold running water, with a bathtub big enough for two.” Swept away by his dream, he wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her close, creating a wave of longing so strong in Lexie that her knees felt weak.

  “Oh, Jace,” she murmured, her emerald eyes glimmering brightly.

  “Think of it, Lexie. Just you and me and our own house. The biggest one around. Your parents’ home and this one” — he gestured disparagingly with one hand, dismissing Rock Springs’ most elegant home in a single motion — “will look like hovels in comparison.”

  “I don’t need that fancy of a house, Jace. I just need you.”

  “We’ll have it all, Lexie.”

  His mouth was just inches from hers, all he had to do was bend down and kiss her. “But what about Miss Everly’s School?” she breathed, her lips parting.

  Jace’s gaze was locked on her soft mouth. Lexie waited expectantly, longing for his love. His grip tightened and his lips slackened, but then he suddenly let her go and cleared his throat. “How long are you supposed to attend?”

  Disappointed, she murmured, “One year.”

  “Well, that’s perfect! We’ll get married after you graduate.”

  Lexie blinked. “Jace, I’m not going to Miss Everly’s School! If you want to get married, let’s get married now.”

  “Lexie, be reasonable. It’s been less than a year since my father died. I can’t just leave Mother to run things alone.”

  “You can still run things. You’ll just be married to me. We could even live here for a while, until our house was built.” Lexie drew a deep breath. The last thing she wanted to do was reside under the same roof as Lucinda Garrett, but what choice did she have? She would never go to Miss Everly’s School. Never. Jace just had to face that fact.

  “Your parents want you to wait until you’re eighteen.”

  “But I don’t want to wait!”

  Jace was silent so long she grew afraid. She’d been too forward again; she could tell by the way he was looking at her, his eyes filled with a wariness she didn’t fully understand.

  Then he suddenly drew her into his arms and all her fears dissolved. “The truth is, Lexie, I really would like you to go to Miss Everly’s School,” he said against her hair. “It would be good training for you, even if you never use it.”

  “How can that be good training, then?”

  “Look at your clothes. They’re hardly fitting for a lady. Mud-spattered split skirt and cotton waist, boots, no bonnet… I’d like to see you in silk and satin, with a sash and a bustle and a parasol. I don’t want a horsewoman. I want a lady. And I want that lady to be you.”

  Lexie regarded him through eyes huge with hurt. She was speechless. The fervor with which he’d spoken revealed how serious he was. But he didn’t want her!

  Footsteps sounded on the plankwood entry floor and the doors to the parlor were thrown open. Jace dropped Lexie as if he’d been caught in the act of committing a crime. Lucinda’s face deepened into a scowl when she saw Lexie, then her gaze lit upon her son and her face softened.

  “I thought I heard you come in. You’re late. I was worried.”

  “I had some problems in town,” Jace answered in an off-hand manner. “Walter Pennington was late paying rent on the mercantile. Pennington’s wife’s been sick and he hasn’t been paying.”

  “What about Templeton?”

  Jace loosened his string tie. “I’m letting Conrad go a while,” he said. “We’ll see what happens in the future.”

  Their business talk was of no interest to Lexie, who rarely visited Rock Springs proper, except with her parents. She knew Walter Pennington, and she also knew Conrad Templeton was the manager and half-owner of the Half Moon Saloon — another of Jace’s business ventures, one Lexie’s parents didn’t
approve of for reasons still unknown to her.

  Lexie’s heart was in farming. When Jace brought the discussion around to Garrett Livery, her ears perked up.

  “Tom Benton is as lazy as they come, but he knows horses,” Jace was saying to Lucinda. “I’ll have to keep him running the place until I can find someone else as qualified.”

  Lucinda slid a meaningful look in Lexie’s direction and said, “Well, we’ll talk about this later. Come on in and eat now. Martha’s got supper waiting.” Her lips tightening, she added, “Kelsey won’t be eating with us. She’s run off outside again. I sent MacDougal after her.” Inclining her head, Lucinda said to Lexie, “Good evening, Miss Danner.”

  Lexie suffered a thousand humiliations at being so summarily dismissed. Her face flooded with color. “Good evening,” she murmured, striding quickly from the room and through the front door. It was very dark by now, but the clouds had moved rapidly toward the east and clearer skies stood out in the inky blackness. Faintly she could see a first star.

  “Lexie.” Jace caught her arm just as she reached the light rail fence. “Don’t leave.”

  “I’m not welcome here,” she said, unlooping Tantrum’s reins. “Your mother wants me to go and I’m late anyway.”

  “My mother’s not head of his household,” Jace reminded her gently. “Since Father died, I’m the man in charge.”

  Lexie shook her head but made no further move to mount Tantrum, and Jace touched her damp blond hair.

  “Don’t worry about my mother. She’ll come around. She’s just got to get used to the idea of me wanting a Danner. It’s not that she doesn’t respect your family, but there’ve been a lot of bad feelings.”

  “Because your father accused mine of stealing!” Lexie’s chest swelled chokingly.

  “Let’s not talk about that. It’s over and done with now.” Jace’s jaw tightened ominously, but Lexie wasn’t looking at him. All she could see was Joshua Garrett’s roaring anger over two acres lost to the Danners when Crystal Creek carved a new bed. The stranded Garrett cattle had wandered into the Danner herd and Joshua had bellowed and wielded his rifle like a savage.