“But I like you, Tucker,” he said, focusing patient hazel eyes on him. “You’ll handle the problems that’ll likely arise if you find Mrs. Bristol. And I trust you to put her on a train for home if things go wrong. I have one stipulation, however.”
“Oui? Only one?”
Tucker chuckled nervously, considering Malloy’s proposition. This man had no real hold over Christine—had every reason to let her fend for herself if she walked away from the schooling he and Mercy had provided. Yet he watched over her as lovingly as St. Michael, the archangel in charge of heavenly protection and love.
“As you reach each train station, before you set out to take photographs, I’d like to know where you are. How things are going. Ideally, Christine would keep us posted, but we’ve learned not to rely on her letters.”
“I will be sending Union Pacific’s negatives and photographs back on eastbound trains,” Tucker said with a nod. “It will be no trouble sending telegrams to you.”
“To make it easier, I’ll telegraph ahead—to men I used to work with when I drove for Ben Holladay. Fellows who went north when the transcontinental railroad was pushing through Nebraska,” he proposed. “I’ll tell them to watch for you. And I’ll ask them to help you find Mrs. Bristol—and to keep that situation from getting nasty if you do run into her and Wyndham.”
“Ah. So your spies will be watching us?”
Malloy’s grin wasn’t so boyish now. “You really think I’d let that young lady travel halfway across the country unaccounted for? My wife—and Agatha Vanderbilt—would have my hide.”
Mike laughed, but then waxed serious. “If something happens to Christine—because of her own overconfidence, or the meanness of Richard Wyndham—there’ll be no consoling Billy. She’s all he has left.”
Tucker glanced toward the barnyard, where the boy’s coppery hair caught the sunlight as he dumped water in the horse tank. “Why does he not take her himself to find their mother?”
“A good question.” Malloy’s expression softened. “He was only ten when he saw his ma run off. By his own account, he was her favorite—the apple of his mama’s eye. Can you imagine the scar she left on that kid’s soul?” he asked sadly. “I suspect he wants her back as bad as Christine does, but he’s afraid of what he’ll find out about her. So he started a new life here instead.”
“Looking forward instead of back. A smart idea sometimes.”
“Billy’s smart in a lot of ways. He’s watched every move you’ve made, Tucker, and he’s as fine a judge of men as he is of horseflesh.”
Malloy flashed a conspiratorial smile. “If he doesn’t want you taking out of here with Christine, he’ll find a way to stop it. Come time to leave, if you can’t find that fine Percheron, I guarantee you Billy’s behind it.”
Tucker turned toward the corral. Sol stood proudly at the rail, taller and darker and stronger than the Morgans allowing him to share their pen. That ebony horse had cost him a bundle, but Sol had spirit and would see them through this adventure in fine style. He couldn’t leave the Triple M with any other horse, so it was good Billy had given his blessing by saying Queen Christine wanted him as her attendant.
“Much as I’d love to see more of the West, I wouldn’t trade you places for love or money,” Malloy remarked. He was fishing something from his pocket—cash, which he handed up when no one was watching. “Nope. You’re going to earn every cent of this, answering to both your ma and Christine these next several weeks.”
“Merci for your kind gesture,” he murmured. “And oui, the two women will peck at each other like jealous hens, I’m sure.”
Malloy laughed, a melodious sound that carried across the yard. “I’ll tell Mercy and the others to get ready while you set up your camera. But first, may I offer you one piece of advice?”
“Mais oui. When it comes to women, who can hear enough advice?”
Michael laughed again, shaking his hand. “If Christine gets an inkling you’re sending word to us, or that I’ve given you money, she’ll never forgive us,” he said quietly. “She’s proud and independent to a fault. That’s why we both want to make her happy, isn’t it?”
“Ah, oui. Yes, indeed.”
Tucker glanced toward the white, two-story house, pleased by Malloy’s confidence in him . . . yet aware of secrets that could come back to bite him, even if this gentlemen’s agreement worked out. Even if Maman would be more agreeable to a paying proposition.
“I am proud and independent, too,” he stated, handing Malloy’s money back. “You have my word I will keep you informed. But if Christine’s happiness is to be my gift to her, I’ll pay for it myself.”
Christine turned away from the window, fuming. If Michael and Tucker thought they could arrange everything behind her back—well! They still didn’t understand her determination to go west in search of Mama. She couldn’t believe that the saintly Michael was underhanded enough to bribe the photographer not to take her, and Mr. Trudeau was willing to profit from her situation. After she’d declared herself to him so openly! Well, they were both going to pay for that little transaction.
“You had the right idea, Mama,” she whispered defiantly. She tucked the red velvet diary into her carpetbag and continued to pack. “To get what we really want in this life, we have to let men believe we’re going along with them. And then do as we damn well please.”
“Smile, now! Happy faces!”
Tucker ducked beneath his camera’s black cape to squint through the lens. What a mix of calico and silk and denim and homespun the Malloy family was, but how loving. How happy. And how proud to be seated on the front steps of their new home, framed between those two impressive white pillars that showed off Michael’s carving.
“Hold very still now! I’ll click on three—un . . . deux . . . three!”
His gut told him it would be a portrait to prize—for them, and in his own expanding gallery as well. While the railroad’s assignment to photograph the grandeur of the West excited him, it was the faces he captured that pleased him most. Michael sat with Joel in his lap, beside Mercy, who balanced Solace atop one knee. Christine and Billy sat on the step behind them, with Lily standing in the middle. It was a likeness that would make everyone who beheld it smile back at those faces.
Or most of them, anyway. Christine had a catlike lift to her eyebrows as she looked toward the camera, as though she were sending Tucker a silent message through the lens.
But there was no time to ponder her intentions now. He took another glass negative from his box and carefully tilted it between his fingers, coating it with wet collodion.
He then photographed Mike and Mercy, leaning around a column toward each other, cheek to cheek beneath the carved Ms. Then Mercy and her Aunt Agatha stood with Christine between them, and then Billy and Christine held the three younger children.
At his request, Asa stood on the porch and leaned his elbows on the railing, looking down into the camera with an expression of infinite wisdom and love. The lines in that leathery face, those slender clasped hands, and the shine in those bottomless brown eyes told of a life well lived. He could call that one “God,” and even the white folks who saw this old Negro would believe.
But the prize of the afternoon—Billy’s idea—had the young man sitting with baby Solace on his shoulders, Joel and Lily on his knees, and Snowy and Spot—ears up and eyes alight—completing the pyramid’s line. At the last moment, Solace laughed aloud and spread her arms wide, looking for all the world like a miniature circus rider.
“What a fine family,” he cheered. Then, on impulse, he prepared one more negative and slipped it into his camera.
“Miss Christine, if you would be so kind . . . ?”he suggested playfully.
“Why would I want to—”
“Because, mon ange, you are the prettiest picture here,” he replied in a lower voice. “Because it is a memorable occasion that we are brought together again . . . and because I have always wanted a likeness of you.”
&
nbsp; He gently leaned her back against a pillar so the afternoon sun glistened in her hair and caught the texture of the lace at her throat. Her pulse throbbed in her long, slender neck, a spot that begged to be kissed.
Tucker blinked. Christine was gazing at him with that cryptic expression again. What could it mean? Where had the unabashed happiness she’d shown for him in the wagon this morning gone?
“Oui, like so,” he murmured, tilting her chin up slightly—mostly as an excuse to touch her exquisite skin. “Stand very still and think . . . romantic thoughts, ma princesse.”
He returned to the tripod, ducked beneath the cape, and grabbed the bulb that controlled the shutter. She was looking sly, and he could play that game, too—would wait until Christine relaxed slightly and glanced at him with that impetuous expression he loved.
But non! She lowered her eyelids and her lips parted—and Tucker squeezed the bulb out of sheer longing to taste their dewy softness.
Sacre bleu, what was he thinking? That he could escort this beautiful young girl across the West without ravishing her? Or making a fou absolut of himself? He took a deep breath before coming out from under the cape.
“Kwis-teen! Me, too!” Lily hollered.
The sunlight bounced in the toddler’s curls as she rushed toward the young woman’s arms. Tucker knew another precious moment when he saw it.
“Hold it right there, ladies!” he cried as he quickly put in his last glass negative. He let the bond between them determine their pose—let the love shine in their eyes as two strong arms wrapped beneath a pert little bottom while two pixie hands flew around that alluring neck. Nose to nose they were, laughing, when he snapped them.
He had to blink away mist before he emerged from his cape. What a beautiful mother Christine would make. Like a madonna and child of classical art, that sunlit likeness would outshine all the others. Tucker already knew he’d tuck one away in his personal album.
As the Malloys talked among themselves, Maman stepped onto the porch from the house. In her blend of prints and textures, with her clothes sagging on her spare frame, she seemed a world apart from these prairie homesteaders—and in a world unto herself.
“How is Miss Gates?” he asked her. “Doing well, I hope.”
“Elle va bien,” she replied in a low voice. Allons, mon fils. Ce soir.”
Tonight? Tucker almost challenged his mother’s announcement aloud—except she wanted no gushing, grateful good-byes to prolong their leaving. It was her way of not feeling beholden to those she’d healed. And it was her way of evading a certain someone who wanted to come along. Even without eavesdropping, Maman picked up on such things.
Reluctantly, he gathered his gear, and Billy helped him carry it to the painted wagon. When they returned for another load, he witnessed an unusual sight: his mother—standoffish and wary by nature—was assessing the auras of the children, as though pronouncing her benediction on this family.
As she knelt before Lily, the blond doll froze in place with eyes like blue china plates. Maman gazed slightly above the girl’s head, her hands circling the space a few inches away from those pink gingham shoulders. “. . . claire de lune, et des étoiles filantes,” she murmured. “Elle peut voir les anges—parce qu’elle est plus agée qu’on peut savoir.”
Mercy, fascinated by his mother’s mystical manner, was listening carefully. “Moonlight, and—?”
“Shooting stars,” Tucker translated with a grin. “She will foresee momentous events, and angels—”
Lily giggled and scampered around the side of the house with the dogs.
“—because she’s older than we know.”
Mercy widened her eyes at Michael. “According to the note her father left, Lily would be fifteen months old now, but I’ve often wondered if that note was accurate,” she said. “Lily is extremely precocious for that age.”
“Either way, those are wonderful predictions for her to live up to,” her husband replied.
Joel, however, was finding nothing wonderful about the way Maman scrutinized him. He doggedly turned away when she tried to engage his gaze—and ran off after Lily and the dogs when she released his hand.
“Un esprit troublé. Prenez garde, petit fil,” she whispered after him.
As his mother moved on to gaze at Solace, sleeping in her mother’s arms, Tucker worded his reply to Mrs. Malloy carefully. “A troubled spirit. And her warning to be careful—”
“Not surprising,” Michael sighed, “considering how the poor kid saw his ma shot down in the street.”
Nodding, Tucker nipped his lip. His mother’s fingers lit like butterflies upon Solace’s downy head as she dozed in her mother’s arms. Would Maman be as delighted with Christine’s aura? He glanced around, but the young woman of his dreams had apparently gone after the two children.
“. . . une fée charmante et adorable,”Maman breathed. “Comme une femme, plein de grace et sagesse.”
“I heard charming and adorable,” the child’s proud mother replied, sharing a tender kiss with the man beside her.
“A woman of grace and wisdom,” Tucker finished. How he envied this couple, so in love it made his breath catch when he watched them together.
“Sounds just like her daddy,” Michael pronounced. “No doubt in my mind Judd’s going to watch over this girl as she grows up.”
Mercy grew pensive then, but when Maman’s hand gently cupped her jaw, her brown eyes widened like a doe’s.
“When we see you . . . in summer,” she said in careful English, “zere will be another baby girl.”
From her open window, Christine rolled her eyes at Veronique Trudeau’s fortune-telling act. The Cajun woman may have helped Liberty—now Temple—recover enough to walk around in the house, but Christine couldn’t believe these hocus-pocus predictions about the children. And they couldn’t distract her from what she’d heard earlier:
Allons. Ce soir. Let’s go—tonight.
As she chose her clothing, Christine considered her options. Maman and Tucker slept in that bright red wagon, so they would catch her if she tried to hide it or disable it somehow.
Tucker needed that behemoth of a black horse to take him where he was going, too . . . although it wouldn’t be the first time she’d ridden off on a mount that didn’t belong to her. After seeing how Sol had accommodated Joel and Lily as wiggly, excited riders, Christine felt confident her riding lessons at the academy would get her onto that huge muscled back and off the homestead.
What a surprise, if she were waiting for them at the train station in Abilene! They had to go there to continue west on Tucker’s assignment.
But how early would the Trudeaus pull out? And what if Michael’s bribe was enough that Tucker would refuse to take her—even though he obviously wanted to be with her?
And what if Veronique let loose all those spirits on her? She’d put nothing past that witchy woman and her weird, wily ways—especially when it came to protecting her beloved son from the influence of the Bristol women.
Christine sighed, noting how many of her dresses simply wouldn’t fit into the one trunk and carpetbag she was allowing herself. She should offer some clothing to Tucker’s mother, considering how Veronique still wore the same gypsy-looking prints she’d seen three years ago.
But the little witch would probably pitch them out of the back of the wagon. Better to just—
She giggled, on a sudden impulse that was the answer to all her questions. She pulled back the sheets, and with great fondness—for who knew if she would ever see these pretty gowns again?—Christine arranged them in a bulky curve and covered them with the bedding. She wrote a quick note, proud of her charitable donation to a worthwhile cause, and tucked it under the upper edge of the covers.
Then she closed her trunk, listening for the sounds of supper below her.
Chapter Thirteen
“This will be a hodgepodge of a meal,” Mercy fretted as she stirred batter for corn cakes. “So much of the food is still at the other hou
se, and I haven’t had a chance to—”
“Nobody’s complaining, honey,” Michael said. Sneaking a kiss on her neck, he added, “It’s just a continuation of the wedding celebration, but with a different set of guests. Who knew we’d hire the Gates family, meet Tucker and his mother—and then deliver a baby, bury it, and have our pictures made—all in a couple of days? The Lord knows you’re the best cook in the county, so He sent us new friends to appreciate you.”
“Enough of your flattery, Mr. Malloy. It’s your job to see that everyone has a seat around the table.”
“Yes, ma’am. You’re absolutely right.” He dodged the wooden spoon she swatted him with.
“Don’t think you said that with quite enough feelin’, Mr. Michael,” Asa remarked.
The old cook was slicing generous strips from a rasher of bacon, arranging them in cast-iron skillets on the new cookstove. “But you hit the nail on the head, sayin’ how Miss Mercy’s cookin’ never falls short—and how lucky we been that these folks showed up when they did! God’s a-smilin’ on us, that’s for sure!”
Out in the new dining room, the trestle table and benches were arranged, and Billy had placed whatever spare chairs he could find around it. Aunt Agatha was setting out plates and silverware, while Temple and Sedalia Gates sang songs with the children in the front parlor. Tucker played along on his accordion.
Michael smiled at all this. What a wonderful omen it seemed, that young Miss Gates had found a new life—maybe a new calling here with them. And while Veronique Trudeau looked lost in her own thoughts, she had agreed to eat with them before retiring to the wagon for the night.
Now that her healing had been accomplished, everything about this odd little woman said she’d be on her way come morning. This urgency meant Tucker would have to process and print their photographs on the road and send them back later.
Was he always agreeable to his mother’s whims? Did he devote so much energy to pleasing her that he’d had no time to find a wife? Malloy wondered about these things as he watched the Cajun entertain Lily and Joel—a natural daddy if there ever was one.
Journey to Love (Angels of Mercy) Page 11