Brace took the paper and frowned. “Your writing leaves a lot to be desired,” he said.
“Here, let me have it,” the stationmaster said with a look of chagrin. “I don’t have a bit of trouble readin’ my writing.” He perused the message and cleared his throat. “It just says that upon arrival at their destination, the authorities almost lost Lester Clark from custody. He got away and was shot for his trouble. Seems the man won’t be standing trial after all.”
“He’s dead?” Brace asked, stunned by the news.
“That’s what it says.” He held out the message in Brace’s direction and Brace took it, folding it and sliding it into his pocket.
“I guess that solves a couple of problems,” he said slowly. “We won’t have to worry about him trying to get Stephen again, anyway, will we?”
“Nope, sure won’t. In fact, it sounds to me like the fella got just what he deserved, after his shenanigans, cartin’ Miss Sarah and the boy off the way he did. He was just lucky neither of them got hurt bad, or he’d probably have been killed right here.”
Brace nodded. “You may be right. There were some men out there that day who were out for Lester’s hide. He was fortunate to get away with a bullet in his leg.”
“Well, it’s a sorry ending, no matter how you look at it,” the stationmaster said. “The man was a crook and, from the sounds of it, an embezzler and a killer to boot.”
“That he was,” Brace said. “And now,” he continued, “I think I’d better go home and let my family know what’s happened.”
He left the office and went out the back door where his horse was staked, mounting him quickly. Jamie appeared as he rounded the front of the building and Brace hailed him, sliding from his mount as Jamie approached. “Want to read something interesting?” he asked.
His deputy took the message from his hand and read it slowly, then looked up into Brace’s face. “Sounds like the fella got what was coming to him, don’t it?”
“I’d say so,” Brace agreed. “I’m on my way home to talk to Sarah and her folks. They’ll be interested to hear this.”
“I’ll be here,” Jamie told him. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off? If I need you for anything, I’ll know where to find you.”
“I think I will,” Brace said with a nod. “I can work on the fencing for a while. We’ve got it almost finished.”
“Did you get Sarah’s mare yet?” Jamie asked, and Brace shook his head.
“No, Nicholas is going to look for a mount for Sarah and bring it to the house. He’s looking for a team for the new surrey, too.”
“You’ll need to add some more space to that shed of yours,” Jamie said with a grin. “I think you’d might as well buy yourself a ranch.”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought of it,” Brace said. “But I’m not real big on farming. Being the lawman in Benning is enough of a job for me.”
“Well, I’ll be over to see how things are coming along in a few days,” Jamie told him, and then waved a quick farewell as Brace turned his horse and rode toward home.
Chapter Sixteen
“We’re having company, and it isn’t my parents,” Brace said over the supper table a week or so later. He’d written the letter inviting the elder Caulfields to visit just a couple of days before and mailed it quickly, but they certainly wouldn’t have had time to receive it at this early date. “We haven’t even heard back from them yet,” he said.
“Well who on earth do we know who might be coming to visit?” Sarah asked, obviously perplexed by his news. “Not that it’s a problem, but I just can’t imagine—”
“This isn’t anyone either of us knows,” Brace said quickly. “And I hope it won’t be a problem.” He looked sharply at Stephen, who was obviously unaware of the discussion going on around him, his attention focused instead on the dog who sat patiently beside his chair.
“No feeding the dog at the table,” Sarah said automatically as Stephen picked up a small bit of meat from his plate. “And please use your fork, Stephen,” she said sternly. “We don’t eat with our fingers.”
“Bear don’t mind eating from my fingers,” the boy answered with an aggrieved look at his aunt. “And it was only a little, tiny bite, Aunt Sarah.”
Sarah stifled her smile, and Brace was led to support her in this. His Sarah was a softie, but she had put into place a few rules that Stephen tried to bend to his own needs on occasion. It was tough to be an enforcer, but that was what fathers did, if his memory served him right.
“You heard your aunt, Stephen,” Brace said quietly. “Bear can eat when we’re finished. You can feed him his meal from your fingers if you like. Just not while we’re eating our supper.”
Giving in with a deep sigh of forbearance, Stephen bent over his plate and consumed his meal with gusto. “Now can I be excused?” he asked politely. “I’ll help clear up when y’all are finished.”
“I’ll call you in,” Sarah said, well aware that the boy had pocketed three or four bites of meat in his trousers.
She watched with a smile as he left the table, the dog hot on his heels, his thoughts already intent on giving the pup the treats he’d pilfered from his plate.
Brace bent to her from his place across the round table. “You spoil him, you know,” he said softly.
“I know,” she said agreeably. “But he’s such a good child, and I love him so much.” She shrugged as if admitting defeat. “Spoiling Stephen is easy to do.”
She picked up her own fork and filled it, then paused for a moment. “How about filling me in on our visitor?” she said. Her fork went into her mouth and she chewed on the food slowly, watching Brace with anticipation.
“I don’t want you to choke when you hear this,” he said. “Swallow your food first.”
She did as he asked and then took a sip of her milk, a drink she had decided would be good for the baby she carried—and one in plentiful supply, given the cow in the shed. “All right, Sheriff. I’m all ears,” she said dutifully, ceremoniously tucking her hair behind her ears and then smiling innocently at him.
“Don’t be flip with me, lady,” he told her, grinning with appreciation of her sassy mouth. “And don’t forget to give me the respect due a man of the law.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, rising and circling the table to where he sat. “I’m all done eating. May I sit on your lap now?”
“We almost got in trouble the last time you did this,” he reminded her. “Your mother came in the door and you were mighty embarrassed, as I recall.”
“That’s not what I remember,” she told him. “You were the one who had to hide behind me while we talked to her.”
“I couldn’t help that,” he said. “You just seem to have that effect on me. I can’t seem to resist you.”
“Well,” she said with resignation, “I’d better not sit on your lap anymore.”
He tugged her down on his thighs and his hand curled around her bottom. “I’m right fond of you sitting here, ma’am,” he told her. “Makes it easy to hug you.”
“Now,” she said, sighing deeply, “tell me your news, Sheriff. You’ve fooled around long enough.”
“Not nearly long enough,” he said, contradicting her with a grin. “But I can wait. And in the meantime, I’ll fill you in on the latest happening. I got a wire this morning from a lawyer. He’s the executor of Lester’s father’s will, the man in charge of his estate. It seems they’ve been checking out the possible heirs to the property the old man left, and he wants to come here and talk to us about Stephen. He’ll need proof that the boy is indeed Lester’s son.”
“Possible heirs?” Her thoughts had apparently clung to that phrase, and she repeated it slowly. “They think that Stephen might inherit his grandfather’s property?”
“That’s what it sounds like to me,” Brace said. “So I wired him back right away. I told him that Sierra’s parents live here and can testify to her marriage to the man, and he can meet Stephen himself and talk to him about
Lester. Not to mention you being Sierra’s twin, which may be able to put the finishing touches on Stephen’s identity.”
“Will that upset Stephen, do you think?” Sarah asked.
“Maybe. But it will be worth it, should he inherit the ranch. And according to what Lester said, his father had quite a large holding, and family was important to the old man. I think it’s in Stephen’s best interests to meet with the lawyer, and in ours to provide him with anything he needs to prove Stephen’s claim.”
“I’ll do whatever you want me to, Brace,” she said. “I know this will bring Sierra’s death back to my parents—not that they’ve forgotten it. But time has healed some of the pain, I think. I just hate to have everything dragged up again.”
“I think it will be, anyway, sweet. The U.S. Marshal in Missouri is hot on the trail of Lester’s connection with his wife’s death, and I won’t be surprised if he’s found guilty and the case brought to a finish. No matter that the man himself is dead. They’ll want to mark the file closed, if I have any knowledge of the thing.”
“I’ll feel—” she paused, and then the word she searched for came to her and she spoke it quietly “—vindicated once this is settled for all time. I was so certain that Lester had strangled Sierra, but I couldn’t get anyone to listen to me. Even though my folks had suspicions, they found it more convenient to push it under the carpet, so to speak. I have a hard time forgetting that.”
“I believed you, Sarah.” His words were quiet, but held a wealth of confidence in her judgment. “I never doubted for a moment that you were on the right track. Stephen is a lucky young man to have you as his champion. And now it’s time for you to rest.”
She sat quietly for long minutes, and Brace was silent, knowing that she needed to digest the latest news, needed to face the knowledge of her twin’s death once more. And then she turned to him, hiding her face against his shoulder, pushing his shirt aside so that her mouth could touch the side of his throat. She whispered her love there, softly, and yet with a degree of passion that brought Brace to the edge of desire, his body responding to her with a strength she seemed to be willing to accept.
He lifted her from his lap, and she stood beside him, her fingers still clutching at his shoulders. Rising to face her, he lifted her, holding her close to his heart, and she sighed, as if it were exactly the spot she wanted to inhabit.
“Am I too heavy for you?” she asked, even though his arms were powerful and his chest was firmly muscled.
“Not nearly as heavy as you will be in a few months,” he told her. “And I’ll guarantee I’ll still be able to carry you then. In fact, I’ll make a promise. On the day you deliver our child, I’ll carry you up those stairs to our bedroom and stay with you until the baby is born.”
She smiled at him, and once more, tears glistened in her eyes. “I love you so much, Brace,” she whispered. “I know it isn’t done, but I really want you with me when the time comes.”
“Well, it’s going to be done in our house,” he said, his tone not allowing for argument. “I was there when we started the process of having a baby, and I intend to be there at the end. I want to be the first to see our child, the second person to hold him.”
“The second?” she asked.
“You’ll no doubt be the first,” he explained, “unless your mother is there, and then we’ll have to fight for the honor.”
“Well, I don’t need to be carried today,” she said. “I can sit or lie on the sofa in the parlor if you insist on me resting for a while. And then I have to clean up the kitchen.”
“All right, you can rest in here,” he said agreeably, and carried her from the kitchen, down the hallway and into the parlor, where he deposited her on the sofa and then bent to light a lamp that sat on a table near where she sat.
His look at her was stern. “I want you to stay right there and put your feet up.” And then, as if she were not capable of doing it herself, he bent to slide her shoes from her feet and lifted them to the sofa cushion, covering her with the afghan that hung behind her, over the sofa’s back.
“I’m feeling very pampered,” she said, smiling up at him, settling her head on a soft cushion.
“I’m going to clear up in the kitchen,” he said. “Then I’ll call Stephen in and we can do some reading, if you’re up to it. How does that sound?”
“Like heaven,” she told him, making him laugh.
“Not quite,” he said. “I’ll give you a glimpse of that later on tonight.”
They’d finished Robinson Crusoe many evenings ago, and were well into A Tale of Two Cities now. Brace had frowned when Sarah chose it for their use, but she’d explained that Stephen would be getting a history lesson, along with the pleasure of a good book. And so it had been, Stephen eagerly listening as they explored France as a family.
“I sure would like to go there sometime,” he said now as they gathered together for another evening of listening to Sarah’s soft tones reading the pages allotted for tonight.
“Maybe we can,” Brace told him. “There are huge boats making the trip across the ocean, son, and there’s no reason why we can’t save our money and go ourselves in a few years.”
“Do you mean it?” Sarah asked him, apparently as eager as Stephen for the experience.
“Of course, I do,” Brace answered with assurance. “We’ll have to get a map and maybe one of those out-fits where you can put pictures on a sliding thing and look through the eyepieces at them. They look real, you know, as if you’re actually there yourself.”
“Stereopticons, they’re called,” Sarah said, providing the word he sought. “We had one at home when I was a little girl. My father gave it to Sierra and me for Christmas one year, and we traveled all over the world through pictures.”
“Well, we’ll get one and let Stephen have the same privilege,” Brace said.
“You know what?” Sarah said thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t be surprised if my mother packed it in the things they brought from Big Rapids. Wouldn’t that be fine?”
“We can ask her the next time she stops in or you go there,” Brace said easily. “It would save waiting for one to be delivered from the catalog.”
“I’m so glad you thought of that,” she said, obviously recalling her own childhood delight with the device her father had purchased. “My folks should have a couple of boxes of pictures. I’ll go over one day and help my mother look for them.”
“Why don’t you take Stephen along and let him do the climbing into the attic?” Brace suggested. “I’ll bet he’d get a big kick out of helping his grandma, and I know Colleen would enjoy it.”
“You’re so smart,” she said, and then tossed a glance in Stephen’s direction. He was busily teaching his dog to stay down from the furniture, and Sarah wasn’t sure he’d listened to the conversation going on around him, so involved was he with Bear.
“When can I go and help Grandma?” Stephen asked, setting Sarah straight in a hurry.
Sarah laughed softly. “Soon,” she said. “Maybe tomorrow.”
“How come you’ve been taking a nap every day, Aunt Sarah?” Stephen asked now. “You lie down most every afternoon. You’re not sick, are you?” His boyish features were drawn into a frown of puzzlement as he looked at her over Bear’s furry head. “Is that why Pa doesn’t want you to climb the stairs to Grandma’s attic? ’Cause you’re not feeling good?”
Sarah shook her head, but Brace decided quickly to seize the opportunity to talk to the boy.
“There’s something going on that you don’t know about, Stephen,” he said. “And I think you’re old enough to understand what’s happening to your aunt Sarah.”
Stephen’s eyes rounded, his mouth opened a bit and he deposited the pup on the floor abruptly. Moving quickly, he went to where Sarah sat on the sofa and knelt at her feet, looking up at her with his heart in his eyes. “You’re not gonna die like my mama, are you?” he asked, his tears not far from the surface.
Sarah bent to him and held
his head against her own. Her fingers were lost in his wealth of dark hair—hair much like Sierra’s. She bent to press kisses on the waving locks, even as she cast a look of aggravation over his head at Brace. “No, of course not,” she told Stephen. “I’m not dying, and I’m not going anywhere, either, so don’t worry about such things happening.”
“Well, I didn’t know my mama was gonna die, either—not till it happened.”
He looked up, and Sarah lifted her head from his, meeting his gaze, honesty gleaming in her blue eyes. “Well, I’m as healthy as any woman can be,” she said, stating the fact firmly, her words giving a promise the boy seemed to accept.
“Sarah has another reason altogether for being sleepy sometimes,” Brace said, walking across the floor to where the two of them sat. He positioned himself behind Stephen on the floor and lifted the boy into his lap.
“Ain’t I too old to sit on your lap, Pa?” Stephen asked, even as he cuddled close to the man who had become his father.
“Sarah sits on my lap,” Brace pointed out with a grin, “and she’s a lot older than you are.”
Stephen looked perplexed for a moment. “I’m not sure that’s the same thing,” he said dubiously, “but if you say it’s all right, then I don’t mind.”
“Stephen, your aunt and I are going to have a baby.”
It was all he was able to say, for Stephen stood suddenly and wrapped his arms around Sarah tightly. He trembled against her, and Brace was concerned that the boy was unhappy with the unexpected news.
His fears were allayed as Stephen chortled with delight. “A baby? A real live baby, Aunt Sarah?” he asked, and then looked at Brace with questioning eyes. “When that happens, you’ll have a baby of your own, won’t you? And maybe you’ll love him more than me.” He stilled suddenly, as if he tried to make himself smaller.
“I couldn’t love any other child in the world more than I do you, Stephen,” Brace said carefully. “You are the first boy I’ve ever had to call me Pa, and I can’t tell you how proud I am of you. You’ll always be the first child in this house, and we’ll love you when the baby arrives, the same as we do now. There’s always enough love to go around, son. And you’ll be so busy helping with things you’ll soon find yourself loving the baby, too. It’s going to be your little sister or brother, you know.”
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