by Carol Arens
A sudden breeze came up, ruffled his hair, then faded as quickly as it had risen. It was the oddest sensation, almost as if his hair had been tenderly stroked.
‘Was that you?’ he asked over the lump swelling in his throat.
It had to have been a trick of imagination, but he did wonder why Sir Bristle suddenly looked up and thumped his tail.
He’d caught the scent of a squirrel foraging his breakfast, more than likely.
‘I wish I remembered you...you and me...together.’
He sat silently, trying to.
It wasn’t as if there had not been a woman he called ‘Ma’ for most of his life.
His father had left Haversmere behind, having been being broken with grief and guilt over his wife’s death. What if the climate had been the cause of it just as her mother claimed? He’d purchased a ranch in Wyoming hoping for a new start.
He’d got one. When Joe was seven years old, Esmeralda Viella came into their lives. She healed what was broken in both of their hearts. When she and Pa added Roselina to the family, life became complete again.
‘I could use some help, if you are able to influence anything here below.’
He listened for a moment, but nothing happened to make him think she was able.
‘I need to find a husband for Roselina. You might know that she is my sister.’ Again, no breeze, no odd turning of a leaf, gave hint of what she did or did not know of this conversation. ‘My stepmother has given me the task of finding her a suitable fellow. She’s set on her daughter making a society marriage.’
Ma had worked towards this goal for the better part of two years. She had even hired an instructor to teach Roselina proper deportment and current fashion.
His sister took to the training well, but Joe wasn’t sure if she went along with the tutelage because she wanted to be a ‘lady’ or if she longed for a bit of adventure.
In her eighteen years on the ranch she had seen little of gentle society. Parties were few and far between. If Joe made a guess, his sister was looking for fun more than marriage.
For all that Ma had told him not to bring her home without a title, he was not sure this was anything he had control over.
He could not help but wonder why Ma would want this. If his sister did marry a British fellow, she probably would not come home.
The thought made him hope he did not succeed in finding her a husband.
He might not, especially once they made the trip north to the Lake District. He wasn’t sure how many eligible nobles would come calling at Haversmere. Wasn’t London the place they looked for brides?
For all that he had never been to Haversmere, he understood the area to be sparsely inhabited, with more sheep than folks.
Sir Bristle had never seen a sheep. Joe couldn’t help but wonder how he would react to seeing a critter as woolly as he was.
All of sudden the dog stood up, cocked his big head, ears twitching.
‘What is it, boy?’ Joe came to his feet, glancing about.
The dog took this stance when there was something he felt Joe needed to attend to. More often than not it was a straying calf. Once it had been a lost kitten, but once it had been Roselina, so Joe always paid attention to the dog’s message.
‘Take me to it.’
With a woof the dog set off at a trot. Joe dashed after him, back to the main path, then down a narrower one that twisted half-a-dozen times. The further down it he went the darker it got. This part of the cemetery appeared to be neglected and densely overgrown with vegetation.
‘Good boy,’ he said to the dog.
It was always amazing to Joe that Sir Bristle was able to hear a sound from so far away and find his way to it.
After five minutes of twists and turns, the dog stopped, sniffed the ground, then disappeared behind a chipped and mossy tomb.
‘Wolf!’ a young, high-pitched voice screeched.
On a dash, Joe rounded the grave. A young boy crouched on the ground, his face buried in his arms while he wept in apparent terror of the beast sniffing his shoulder.
‘Howdy, son,’ he said. ‘Get yourself lost?’
The boy looked up. His tear-streaked face broke into a wide grin.
* * *
‘And so, last autumn was an adventure since our brother did turn out to be the Abductor. But, of course, he was not the fiend people believed him to be.’ Olivia glanced up from her story to make sure Victor was still hunting for bugs under damp stones. ‘Victor? Come out where I can see you. As you can expect, Heath was arrested when his wife accidentally—Victor?’
He ought to have answered by now. What on earth was she to do with him? It was one thing for him to wander off at the town house, but quite another out here where—‘Victor!’
She sprang up from the bench, spun about looking left, then right. Was it her imagination that the fog had grown even thicker while she spoke to Oliver?
It was not! How could she have failed to notice the change? Worse, how could she have failed to hear her son sneak away?
What a thoughtless, inattentive mother she was! She knew her son’s proclivity to hide and she had let down her guard.
He had sneaked off to find a cowboy. She would bet her life on it. But who might he have come across instead?
‘Victor!’
She dashed along the path, trying to stave off the panic constricting her chest. So many smaller paths led off from this central one. Which could he have taken?
Was he still in the cemetery or had someone carried him off? How was she to go on if he had been...?
No! She could not think it.
Her sweet, precious boy—she would give anything to see him run from the tombs, laughing at the grand trick he had played.
Winded, she stopped, braced her hands on her thighs and tried to catch her breath.
Fog was supposed to lift as the morning wore on, but today it only grew worse. She could see no more than fifteen feet in any direction.
Anxiety made her sick to her stomach—lightheaded and half-faint. She would not crumple! She could not. She was a mother, not an inexperienced girl. Her child depended upon her.
The sound of shoes crunching the path brought her upright.
These were not Victor’s light, quick steps. The footfalls coming towards her hit the ground boldly and with long, purposeful strides.
There were other steps as well. They sounded like something having four feet—or possibly paws—large ones, and whatever they belonged to panted heavily.
She ought to run away, hide until the possible danger passed. Of course she could not. There was but one thing to be done. For Victor’s sake she must stand her ground.
A dark-looking figure began to emerge, the fog swirling and receding about it. Second by second the silhouette of a man became more defined, beside him trotted some sort of large beast—a canine of some sort.
She readied her legs to leap, her arms to flay in defence of her child in the event the man had captured him.
The closer the man strode, the clearer his image became. And there was Victor, perched in the crook of his arm.
‘Look, Mother! I found a cowboy and he isn’t even dead.’
Chapter Two
‘Howdy, ma’am. I reckon this young’un belongs to you?’
Had to. The lady looked like she might faint on the spot...or attack him.
Either way, he figured he ought to set the child down.
She lowered her arms to her side, uncurling her fingers one by one.
No doubt she was surprised to discover she was not alone in the cemetery at this early hour. He sure had been surprised to come upon the boy.
Did she realise her mouth sagged slightly open?
Blamed if he would mention it, though. Not only because pointing it out would be rude, but because the expression looked extre
mely fetching on her pretty, heart-shaped face.
The brim of her hat dipped low on her forehead, but did not hide what her round blue eyes had to say. Glancing between him and Sir Bristle, they revealed her fear—and her courage.
She wanted to flee, but held her ground. Not that he could blame her for feeling frightened. A little thing like her coming across a stranger and what would appear to be his wolf, and the stranger in possession of her boy?
Motherhood was a miraculous thing in his mind. Common sense would urge her to run. Mothers, he’d noticed, were fierce in defending their young, be they animal or human.
To put her at ease he offered a friendly smile and set the boy down.
Her brow lowered, her lips pressed together. It was hard not to stare at them because they looked like a satin bow with dimples at each corner.
No doubt to the boy she looked stern, but to Joe she looked as pretty as a morning rose with dew drops on her petals. Clearly this woman was a rose with a thorny stem, but it was the delicacy of her features that appealed to him.
Part of her thorniness might have to do with the fact that her child was clutching tight to the fringe of his coat sleeve when he ought to be rushing to her.
‘I’m Joe Steton, ma’am.’ He dipped his hat in formal greeting. ‘I found young Victor crouched behind a tomb and lost as can be.’
‘I’m very grateful, Mr Steton.’
He was glad to see her expression soften slightly with her thanks. She had the most arresting eyes he had ever seen. A man could get lost in how blue they were, in how round and wide. Even more in how they seemed to slant ever so slightly at the corners, giving them a pretty cat-like appearance.
Joe had always been fascinated by cats.
Too bad for the boy, though, being on the wrong end of that look. He had some sort of punishment coming. One could hardly blame his mother for needing to teach him a lesson about wandering off.
‘Victor Shaw, come to me at once. And step well wide of the wolf.’
‘But, Mother! Uncle Oliver sent me a cowboy. He’s mine to keep.’
It was fair to say the statement left the lady as stunned as he was.
‘I beg your pardon, Mr Steton.’ A wisp of fair hair slipped out from under her bonnet when she shook her head. ‘My son is only five years old and has quite a fascination for cowboys.’
He could only hope that she secretly shared it. The fact was, he could not recall when he’d had such an instant fascination upon meeting a woman. There had been a few who’d intrigued him, but none of them as suddenly or as intensely as this woman did.
‘Victor, no person belongs to another.’ Since the child seemed loath to release Joe’s sleeve, his mother walked forward and snatched his hand. ‘Mr Steton has a life of his own. You cannot simply lay claim to him.’
‘But Uncle Oliver—’
With the woman’s attention settled upon the boy, it was clear there was no other thought in her mind but what to do with him. It had been wishful on his part to hope she might return his interest.
He’d wager she had not even noticed it.
Perhaps if they had met under other circumstances? London was a very large town, so he doubted the odds of them crossing paths again were great.
‘Son, I haven’t met your uncle. I was only here to pay my respects to my mother.’
‘There, you see? It was only coincidence that he was here.’ She flashed him a smile of appreciation which gave his heart a turn. ‘Now, thank Mr Steton for rescuing you and we will be on our way.’
‘But, Mother, didn’t you hear? He called me son—that means Uncle Oliver did bring him here for me.’
‘Come along, Victor, we will discuss this later and not take up any more of Mr Steton’s time.’
‘Please allow me to walk you to your carriage.’ He wasn’t ready to be quit of her company yet.
‘It is not necessary, truly. But thank you again for finding him. I am for ever grateful.’
With that she walked away. The boy pulled, resisting her lead.
‘Uncle did give him to me! You said he hears us from Heaven and when I was lost I asked him to make a cowboy find me. And there he is!’
Joe stood watching, while she half-dragged the boy along the path.
What the child said gave him the oddest feeling in his belly because what he stated was not exactly wrong.
Here he was.
* * *
He had been there—a cowboy.
Leaning against the doorway between the governess’s bedchamber and the nursery, Olivia watched her son sleep. The softly glowing lamp, placed a safe distance from his bed, cast a golden aura about his face, giving him the appearance of an angel.
Which he was, a five-year-old cherub who was blessed with a vivid imagination.
How was she ever to convince him that Oliver had not given him his very own cowboy?
She had to, of course. The fact was, the man had just happened to be in the cemetery and had just happened to find her lost child. Olivia’s late brother had not a thing to do with it.
There was that echo of his laughter again. She felt it go through her as vividly as she would have heard it with her ears.
‘If it was you, what do you expect me to do now?’
Rain tapping on the window was all the answer she heard. No mysterious voice in her heart took credit for her predicament.
Had it really been Oliver, he would have.
In the morning, she would explain it all to Victor, somehow find the words to do it gently and not break his heart.
It would not be easy since, against all reason, the cowboy had been there. It was not as if she could tell him that it was a common thing to be rescued by a man like Mr Steton. In thirty-two years of life the only cowboys Olivia had seen were in storybooks.
Even they had not been as dashing and—
Her mind conjured the boldness of the cowboy’s smile before she could swat the image away.
Spinning from the doorway, she crossed the room and sat down at the dressing table. She drew her hair over her shoulder and began to plait it.
At least Victor had not asked his uncle for a pirate. The boy had been quite enamoured of them until he discovered the existence of cowboys.
Had she crossed paths with a pirate in the graveyard, well, she might have collapsed on the spot.
As it was, she nearly had collapsed, but in an intense blend of relief and astonishment.
Once she had seen that Victor was not only safe, but deliriously happy, and that the wolf was not going to attack, she had truly noticed the man.
Noticed things about him that she had no business noticing.
Her hands fell from her hair to her lap while she stared at the water drops gently tapping the window behind the mirror.
But even she, a mature and wary woman, could see how uncommonly handsome he was. No gentleman of her acquaintance looked quite so rugged or had fine lines at the corners of his eyes that squinted in suppressed humour. Oh, and his voice—it had been so deep and rich sounding when he’d called her ‘ma’am’.
She would be a liar if she said that her nerves had not tapped a flamenco dance under her skin.
She was nearly certain that he had been biting down a bark of laughter during the encounter in the cemetery.
The words he spoke were supportive of her motherly authority, but under it all she would bet he found the situation amusing. And, honestly, it was.
Once she understood her child was safe, she could hardly fail to see the humour. Not that she could let on that she did. As far as her son knew she was quite angry over his disappearance.
Oh, but the cowboy—Joe—she had been quite mistaken when she told Victor that meeting one would only cause him to be disappointed. That they were not the heroes romantic tales told of.
Mr Steton was every
bit a hero. And a dashingly handsome one to go with it.
Too handsome, in fact. If he were hers, she would never have a peaceful moment. Not a single unworried thought. Dozens of women would be fawning over him, hoping to become his mistress.
Certainly a dashing fellow like Cowboy Joe would have one—perhaps even two—whether he was married or not.
One thing was certain: no matter how bold or handsome he was, Olivia Shaw’s heart was one that would never be broken again.
If her late husband had left her with anything of value, it was the lesson of keeping her heart to herself.
Giving it away would only cause it to be crushed, as ruined as an egg fallen from a bird’s nest.
She stared at the mirror, watching her head nod in forceful agreement.
What she noticed, though, was how very plain her hair was. It was straight and not in the least bit interesting.
She lifted a hank and twirled it about her ear. What if she took to styling a loop here or a whirl there? It would be quite dramatic in comparison to the severe bun she typically wore.
Hmm, it did look rather pretty. It had been a very long time since she felt pretty.
The problem was, feeling pretty led to feeling flirtatious.
What was the point of feeling flirtatious unless one wanted to attract the attentions of a man?
She let the loop slide out of her fingers.
By no means would she stray from her good staid bun.
* * *
Roselina arched a brow at Joe, shrugging one shoulder while they walked along Bond Street.
Had he been carrying one more package he would not have been able to see her shoot him the glance that said, This is your own fault.
‘Were you dressed like a gentleman, no one would be staring at you.’
‘These clothes have always been good enough.’ He tried to glance down to reassure himself it was true, but the boxes got in the way and the lacy pink bow on the hatbox tickled his nose. ‘I don’t see any reason to change.’