Her Lone Protector

by Pam Crooks

  “But Mr. Sherman!” Looking crestfallen, Dooling watched him climb into the saddle and take the reins firmly in his hands.

  “Find someone else,” he ordered grimly. “Plenty of soldiers in this country who could help you as easily as I can.”

  “You’re wrong, sir! There’s no other with your—”

  But Creed wasn’t listening. He tugged on the reins and kicked his horse into a run away from Graham Dooling and Collette’s Fine Ladies Wear.

  He was going home, damn it. Mary Catherine was waiting for him. Ma and Pa, too. His brother, Markie, and the rest of his father’s outfit.

  And not even the president of the United States was going to stop him.

  Chapter Two

  The Sherman ranch sprawled out before Creed as far as he could see. Acres and acres of prime rangeland, dotted with cattle, grazing horses and fields of swaying wheat. But as his lingering glance took it all in, it was the house standing tall and regal that stirred Creed the most.

  He hadn’t been back since the day he headed east all those years ago, a young man of seventeen, steeling himself against his mother’s tears and his father’s disappointment. Gus Sherman didn’t want him to be a soldier, not at West Point or anywhere else. Creed was his oldest son. Together, they had a ranch to run. Over and over again, the Old Man ranted that it was Creed’s duty to follow in his footsteps and spend the rest of his life wrangling cows and wild horses and ornery weather. The ranch was his heritage. His responsibility.

  But Creed hadn’t listened.

  He wanted to be a soldier. Nothing—and no one—would stop him from being one.

  They’d parted ways in anger, but time had a way of healing wounds. The Old Man even made a trip out to West Point to visit Creed his first year as a cadet. Ma had been feeling poorly and wasn’t up to traveling. Mary Catherine had gone in her place.

  Just thinking of her warmed Creed clear through, and he spurred his horse closer to the house, to home, the anticipation of seeing his family again building within him. He’d stop in to see them, clean up some, then head out to Mary Catherine’s place.

  A couple of dogs loped toward him, mutts he didn’t recognize. Ma would’ve taken them in, he knew. She had a soft spot for strays.

  Their barking announced his approach, and one of the cowhands appeared from around the side of the house. Seeing Creed, he paused in midstride, a bag of feed balanced on his shoulder.

  Creed leaned forward on the saddle horn and grinned wide. He’d know that face anywhere.

  “Hey, Markie,” he called. “Look who’s home.”

  His younger brother blinked. The bag of feed dropped to the ground with a dull thud. “Creed?”

  His name came out on a hoarse croak, and Creed’s grin broadened. He swung out of the saddle, met Markie coming at him, and they fell into a long-armed hug.

  “Last I saw you, you were somewhere between hay and grass. Not anymore. You’ve grown up, kid,” he said. Pulling back, he poked Marcus on his bicep. “Put some meat on those scrawny bones, too, didn’t you?”

  “I’m not twelve anymore.” He shook his head, as if he still found it hard to believe Creed had come home. “And you’re not seventeen.”

  “Hell, no.” He didn’t want to live those years again. The Old Man had given him enough grief by then to last a lifetime. “Let me get a good look at you.”

  Creed took in the calluses on his brother’s hands, the skin browned from long hours in the sun. He’d been born frail, sickly like Ma, his stature slighter than Creed’s. But now Markie’s shoulders were firm from muscle. Hard work had given him the strength he once lacked.

  He’d become a man Pa could be proud of.

  Had the Old Man even noticed?

  “Still love this place so much?” Creed asked.

  “More than you, I reckon.”

  Creed shrugged. He didn’t bother to deny it. “You always did. Guess Pa depends on you now.”

  “You didn’t leave him a choice.”

  The barb caught Creed by surprise, but he ignored it. Today was his homecoming. He refused to ruin it with a pointless argument. He glanced at the front door. “Is he in the house?”

  “You never wrote, did you, Creed? Never kept in touch with us while you were off fighting your wars.”

  Creed braced himself against the accusation. And maybe the guilt from it, too. “I’m hoping Ma has some of her rhubarb pie waiting for me.”

  “You should’ve written, Creed. Come home now and again, damn it!”

  Creed’s patience snapped. “Well, I didn’t, did I?” he shot back. “War is hell, Markie. I was too busy saving my own ass and fighting for yours that I didn’t take the time!”

  Markie’s nostrils flared.

  Creed exhaled a loud breath.

  Why was he engaging in a yelling match when he’d only been home all of two minutes? He lifted his Stetson and raked a hand through his hair.

  “I’m going in,” he said and spun toward the porch.

  “Wait.” Unexpectedly, Markie grabbed Creed’s arm, halting him. “Let’s have a drink first. I’ve got a brand-new bottle of Old Taylor whiskey stashed down at the bunkhouse. Seal’s never been broken. We’ll drink and…talk. Get caught up, you know?”

  Creed acknowledged his brother’s attempt at reconciliation with a terse nod. “Later. I promise. There are some things I have to do first.”

  “They can wait.”

  “No, they can’t.” Creed’s gaze dropped to the fingers clamped around his forearm. Instinct told him something wasn’t right in his parents’ house.

  Something Markie didn’t want him to see.

  He jerked his arm free. Wild horses wouldn’t keep him from going in now. He strode to the porch, to the door.

  “Damn it, Creed. Don’t go in there yet!”

  Creed gripped the knob and pushed. The door swung inward. His glance clawed the front room, the furniture he’d never seen before. One of those newfangled talking machines sat on a table, orchestra music playing from its oversize horn.

  It wasn’t like Ma to have such luxuries.

  The scent of fresh-baked bread hovered in the air, and Creed headed toward the kitchen. She’d be fixing the noon meal for the Old Man, and he’d go there first after a morning of hard work. Might be he was already with her, and Creed could—

  He saw his father first, dancing in slow time to the music swaying into the room, his tall, lean body angled just enough to shield the woman he held in his arms. But a glimpse of the pale hair piled on top of her head—and that vivid memory he’d held inside his heart for more than seven years—told Creed it wasn’t his wife Gus Sherman danced with.

  Instead, Mary Catherine.

  Maybe he swore. Maybe the shock of seeing them hurtled across the room like a bullet and barked his presence. Maybe Mary Catherine’s own intuition of the arrival of the first man she’d ever loved warned that he’d finally returned.

  She pushed away from his father with a gasp, her eyes wide as moons. “Creed! Oh, my God, Creed.”

  The Old Man took a step toward him, but a snarl from Creed stopped him cold.

  “You should’ve sent word,” the Old Man said. “Let us know you were coming.”

  Creed emitted a mirthless laugh. “And spoil this pretty surprise you have for me? Not a chance, Pa. I wouldn’t give you the pleasure.”

  “Creed, please,” Mary Catherine said. “Let us explain.”

  “Nothing to explain, darlin’,” he drawled. “What I’m looking at says it all.”

  “There’s more to the story, and you know it,” Pa growled. “I’ve always known you to be fair. Give us a chance to tell you what—”

  “What I’d really like to know is what happened to my mother.” How could Pa betray her like this? How could he destroy what Creed believed had always been a happy marriage? His glance flicked over Mary Catherine, a full-grown woman, and his lip curled in disgust. He leveled his father with a searing gaze. “What’d you do? Divorce her? Wasn
’t she good enough anymore? Did you find a young girl more satisfying in your bed—”

  “Creed! That’s enough!” Pa roared.

  He clenched his teeth. Raw fury coursed through him.

  “I’m so sorry you have to find out like this,” Mary Catherine said, her voice shaking. “She died two and a half years ago.”

  His world rocked. “What?”

  “The tuberculosis got her. She’d been living on one lung for a long time,” Pa added. “She went fast and quiet in her sleep.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Creed demanded hoarsely. The shock of her death rolled through him. “Send me a wire. I would’ve come home, damn it.”

  “And leave whatever battle you happened to be fighting at the time?” Pa fired back.

  The insult struck low. “Yes!”

  “We notified the War Department,” Mary Catherine said, looking hurt. “How could you think we wouldn’t?”

  “I didn’t get the message.” His brain tore backward through time. Two and a half years ago. He would’ve been in the Sahara Desert then. Out in the middle of nowhere. For weeks.

  The damn wire never found him.

  “There was nothing you could do, anyway,” Mary Catherine said, calmer now. “We made her as comfortable as we could.”

  “We?” he snapped.

  “Mary Catherine nursed her to the end,” Markie said. He entered the kitchen and stood next to Pa. The three of them, together, staring at Creed.

  The outsider. The absent son who’d chosen his country over his family and now paid the price for the years he’d never get back.

  Had it been worth the cost?

  The music ended, and Creed’s head pounded from the oppressive silence blanketing the room.

  “I courted Mary Catherine proper,” Pa said, his voice a low rumble. “I want you to know that.”

  “She’s young enough to be your daughter.”

  “I married her with the same vows I spoke to your mother. In a church and before the eyes of God.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “She’d been saving herself for you. But, damn it to hell, Creed, how long did you expect her to wait?”

  “She told me she would!”

  “You never wrote me,” Mary Catherine said. Her lower lip quivered. “I thought you didn’t love me anymore. I never knew where you were or if you were dead or alive. My feelings for you just—” she shrugged helplessly “—withered and died.”

  His lip curled, the repugnance churning inside him, obliterating her honesty. “So now you’re my mother.”

  “Creed,” his father began, the word a low warning.

  Mary Catherine’s head lifted with a defiant toss. “Yes. I am. You may as well know, too, I’m expecting a child. Gus’s child. In the spring, you’ll have a new brother or sister.”

  His gaze shot to her belly. For the first time, he noticed the roundness there, barely hidden beneath the apron tied to her thickening waist.

  “Well, isn’t that just too rich,” he purred. “Guess it proves the Old Man still has what it takes in bed, doesn’t it?”

  His father lunged at him with a bellow of rage that shook the rafters. Creed reacted, taking his weight with a defensive shove that hurtled his sire backward until he staggered and toppled to the kitchen floor. Mary Catherine cried out in alarm and rushed to his side. But when Creed moved to help him up again, Markie stood in front of him, blocking his path.

  “Why don’t you just go, Creed,” he hissed. “You’ve stirred up enough trouble for today.”

  The accusation finished off what had been one hell of a lousy homecoming.

  “You know, Markie, that’s the best damn thing I’ve heard since I got here.”

  He spun and stormed out of the house. The door slammed shut behind him with a finality that left him cold and bitter.

  Alone.

  He rode hard toward Los Angeles and didn’t look back.

  “Hurry, Mama. The elevator’s run already. We cannot be late.” Gina Briganti hooked her arm through her mother’s and urged her faster along the crowded sidewalk toward the shirtwaist factory where they both worked. Only then did she realize Mama was limping. “What? A pebble again?”

  “Sì. Again.” Sounding tired even though the morning hadn’t yet reached the eight o’clock hour, her mother halted, balanced herself on one foot and leaned over to untie her shoe. Gina kept a firm grip on her elbow and tried not to think of the precious seconds the stupid pebble cost them.

  But then, it was no wonder Mama was always troubled with the pesky things. Her leather soles were worn through to her stockings.

  Louisa Briganti shook the stone out, then tied her shoe back on, and they resumed walking, arm in arm. Gina endured a twinge of guilt for her impatience. It was just like her mother not to complain about her discomfort.

  “Maybe we should begin to take the horse car,” Gina said, thinking of the comfort, the luxury, of riding on a streetcar, pulled by a horse over rails. She thought, too, of the time they’d save by not having to walk to their jobs at the factory every morning. Or home again at night. “Our shoes, they will last longer.”

  “It costs a nickel to ride the horse car, Gina,” her mama said with a reproving cluck of her tongue. “Four nickels for us, both ways every day. That is a dollar and twenty cents a week. Too expensive!”

  Gina sighed. Always, everything was expensive.

  They lived like paupers, saving what little money they made at the factory working six days a week, sometimes seven during the busy season. And yet, it never seemed to be enough.

  “Then you should take some money we save and buy yourself good walking shoes, Mama. Think of them as an investment.”

  “My shoes are fine. They have much use in them yet.”

  Gina snorted. “We should have tossed them into the gutter long ago.”

  “They are fine.”

  Gina rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t stop a reluctant smile. “You know I am right, Mama. You are too stubborn to admit it.”

  Mama smiled, too, and patted Gina’s hand lovingly. “It is more important you have your dream. That is why I do not buy new shoes.”

  For a moment, Gina didn’t say anything as they hurried past a boy of about twelve in an oversize cap hawking newspapers on the corner. The mouthwatering smells from an Italian delicatessen hovered in the air. The Premier Shirtwaist Company factory was two blocks over. “Sometimes I think the dream, it will never happen.”

  “You must not give up.” Her mother peered past a horse and buggy parked in the street before determining it safe enough to cross. “Next year, maybe. The one after that, for sure, eh?”

  Gina didn’t think she could wait that long. Patience had never been one of her virtues, and her dream of one day opening her own dressmaker shop often seemed impossibly frivolous.

  And other times, she wanted it so much she could scarcely breathe from it.

  Like now, the beginning of another long workday. The prospect of toiling for hours in the tedious monotony of shirtwaist-making with several hundred women was much too depressing. The only good thing she could look forward to was that it was Saturday, because Saturday meant shortened hours and payday.

  Payday, most of all.

  If only Mama wasn’t so determined to send a portion of their meager wages to her family in Italy. If only they could keep every dime they made for themselves, Gina’s savings would build faster and she could open her little shop sooner. If only they…

  Gina couldn’t think of “if onlys.”

  It was the right thing to do, sending Aunt Rosa money every month, Gina told herself firmly to alleviate the guilt from her selfishness. Many people did. Immigrants like herself and her mother who were compelled to help their struggling families back in their native countries.

  Families who depended on the riches that could be made in America.

  Except the sooner Gina could open her shop, the more money she could make, and the more
money Mama could send her sister, and the sooner Aunt Rosa could come over for a visit.

  Mama would love that more than anything. To see her sister again.

  Unfortunately, Mama didn’t agree with Gina’s logic of keeping their money for themselves, no matter how hard Gina tried to convince her.

  Even more worrisome, Mama wasn’t so strong anymore. She’d lost weight since they left their beloved Sicily three years ago after Papa died. Each season, she lost a little more. Some days, Gina worried a brisk wind would lift her right up and carry her away if Gina wasn’t there to hang on to her.

  Her arm tightened protectively against her mother’s. It was just the two of them in this big, powerful country. The Great Land of Opportunity. Mama needed her to take care of her. There was no one else.

  Resolving to get through the day as she always did, Gina joined the throng of women streaming toward the freight elevator that would take them up to the ninth floor of the Premier Shirtwaist Company.

  By late this afternoon, with the money she made, she’d be a little closer to fulfilling her dream.

  Chapter Three

  The shirtwaist was a fashion phenomenon.

  Its very design rebelled against tight-fitting corsets and bulky bustles and softened the demand for an hourglass figure. Women had fallen in love with the concept of wearing a blouse and skirt, no matter the season or their class in society. They found the shirtwaist liberating. Incredibly versatile. Simple and comfortable.

  Gina despised them.

  Perhaps despise was the wrong word, she mused as she carefully hung a pattern piece onto the wire strung across the sewing table. Just weary of sewing thousands of them. Shirtwaists were available plain or chic, tucked or lacy, in gauzy fabric or durable cotton. But a blouse was just a blouse no matter which way it was designed.

  Ah, but to create a beautiful, full-length gown. Now that was exciting! She loved the challenge, the creativity, and poured her ideas into a sheaf full of sketches she kept stashed under her bed. She fantasized about fine silks, brilliant wools and stunning velvets. One day, she would stop making boring shirtwaists and create gowns that would steal a woman’s breath away.