by Kaki Warner
The church was small, the flock smaller, which in no way diminished the arm-waving, pulpit-pounding enthusiasm of Pastor Rickman or his stridently vocal pianist wife, Biddy.
Ash couldn’t have slept if he’d wanted to.
After a sermon decrying the temptations of the flesh, and a closing hymn sung with alarming gusto by two elderly ladies, the pastor herded his flock to the wee cemetery beside the church—for what, Ash had no idea, since Satterwhite was resting peacefully a day’s ride away. But there they stood, staring mournfully down at a patch of ground that presumably would have been Satterwhite’s final resting place had he made the trip home, while Biddy Rickman did more damage to “Amazing Grace” than a drunken piper with a bad cold. A few words about Satterwhite, a few tears from Maddie, a prayer tossed in for good measure, and they were on their way back to town with an hour to kill before they had to leave for the Brodies’.
Maddie spent it in her wagon, checking her supplies for the trip to Denver, while Ash perused months-old newspapers in the hotel lobby. A war had been fought and lost in Sedan, another Napoleon had been deposed, and a third French Republic had been declared. Wolseley had saved the day in Canada, infanticide had finally been banned in India, and women all over the country were demanding the right to vote.
Ash had been aware of none of it. Sad, that.
At half past one, he went back to the livery. As he had requested, Driscoll had folded down the canvas top on Miss Hathaway’s buggy so they could take in the air. After loading in his carbine, Ash rousted Maddie from her wagon, handed her into the buggy, and took up the reins, imagining the laughter from his fellow cavalry officers had they seen him riding about in a carriage like a London matron.
The day was clear and bright, with a hint of fall in the breeze, but still warm in the sun. Glancing back at the mound of coats, hats, and blankets stuffed behind the seat, Ash asked his wife if she was expecting a blizzard.
“Laugh if you will,” she retorted. “But it will be much colder tonight after the sun goes down. You’ll be begging for a blanket.”
He might be begging tonight. But not for a blanket.
At the edge of town, they crossed over a wooden bridge—the hollow thud of the horses’ hoofbeats on the planks echoing like distant artillery fire—then turned left onto a track that paralleled Heartbreak Creek. Ash kept an eye out for bears gleaning the last of the berries in the brush, but all he saw were two rabbits and a fat marmot.
They spoke little. It was one of those highly charged female-type silences that eroded a man’s confidence and had him scanning through recent events to determine what he might have done wrong. Ash tolerated it as long as he could, then looked over at his wife. “It was the uniform, right?”
In the slanted light, her eyes were as brown and clear as the medicine bottles that had lined the windowsill beside his hospital bed. Filled with promises and hope. Addictive.
“Uniform?”
“That caught your eye.” When she still showed no understanding, he explained. “I can feel you drifting away, lass, and I’m seeking a way to draw you back. The ladies always seemed taken with the uniform. As once did you. Shall I send for it?”
“Drifting away? You can say that after what we—you and I—when we—after last night?” She clasped her gloved hands in her lap and looked away, her cheeks as red as strawberry ice in a paper cone.
“So it went well for you then, love? You dinna say, so I wasna sure. But with all the squealing and carrying on, I should have known.”
Her head whipped toward him. “I did not squeal or carry on.”
“No? Then it must have been me.”
Caught off guard by the absurdity of that, she sputtered into a laugh, which made him laugh, which eased the tension a bit. He loved to hear her laugh. In fact, he loved all her little sounds.
“I must admit,” she went on, pulling him from his pleasant musings of her naked body, “you did look most dashing in your uniform. Filled it out quite nicely, as I recall.”
“Not as nicely as I would now, with all your tartish talk of bed sport.”
“Tartish—? Don’t be crass.” But she checked before she hastily looked away. He was sure of it.
She sat stiffly for a bit, then wilted on a great sigh. “Ash, what are we going to do?”
He had some ideas but doubted their thoughts were pointed in the same direction. “About what, lass?”
“Us. This.” Another deep exhale. “I don’t want to go back to Scotland.”
Ah. He’d figured that was the reason for the tense silence. Not sure how to respond, he waited as the wheels rattled across another wooden bridge where Elderberry Creek joined Heartbreak Creek, then turned toward her. She looked more sad than defiant, and it troubled him that the idea of living with him in Scotland would bring her such distress. “I’m aware you don’t, love. You’ve made your feelings quite clear.”
She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “And yet…” She raised her gloved hands in a helpless gesture, then let them drop back to her lap. “And yet I don’t want to lose you again, either.”
An encouraging sign. “You’ve made those feelings less clear.” He sent her a hopeful smile. “Perhaps you’d like another go at it tonight?”
“Don’t make jokes, Ash. This is serious.”
“I see that. As was my offer.” His smile faded. “I want my wife back, Maddie. Even if I have to chase her around England while she takes her photographs.” He tried to put sincerity into his voice, but he could tell she wasn’t fooled.
“A viscountess photographer.” She gave an un-viscountess-like snort. “Society would never accept that, as well you know. And I’ll not make a mockery of your position.”
He couldn’t give her words of reassurance. Not with generations of Kirkwells and a lifetime of familial duty rising up to hold his throat in a choking grip.
“So what are we going to do, Ash?”
“I’m thinking on it, lass.”
“Perhaps if I had just a bit more time I could come to terms with it.”
He looked over at her, saw a confusion on her face that mirrored his own. Taking her gloved hand in his, he brought it to his lips for a kiss. “We’ll work something out, love.” He punctuated that with a gentle squeeze, then returned her hand to her lap and faced the road again.
But that nagging question remained. What?
They clopped along through dappled shade cast by the tall cottonwoods and alders and firs that crowded the bank of Elderberry Creek running a few yards from the road. Ash kept the horse at an easy walk, enjoying this quiet time with his wife and in no rush to suffer the censorious looks and probing questions he was sure awaited him.
“I suppose I should tell you about the people we’ll be dining with,” she said, as if her thoughts had strayed in the same direction as his. “Prepare you, as it were.”
That dinna sound good. “I’ve met the sheriff. Seems a good man.”
“He is. I wish he would take the sheriff’s position permanently so we could see more of him and Edwina and the children.” At his questioning look, she explained, “He’s a rancher by trade, but with his wife in a family way, and the regular sheriff, Buck Aldrich, away until spring, he’s been talked into taking over the position temporarily. Again.”
“They have other children?”
“He does. Three boys and a girl from a previous marriage. One that ended badly, not to put too fine a point on it. Edwina was the mail-order bride he married by proxy to come help with the children and ranch chores. What a fiasco that was. Edwina, a southern magnolia of the first water, and Declan.” She laughed and shook her head. “I guess I should warn you. Edwina can play a piano blindfolded, flirt a dead man back to life, and find water with a willow switch, but she’s an abysmal cook. Let’s hope her sister has come to help out today.”
“Sister?” Yet another woman waiting to skewer him?
His wife looked at him in surprise, her face partially sh
aded by the brim of her bonnet. “You didn’t know Edwina and Pru are half sisters?”
“The dark-skinned woman is her sister?”
“Pru’s mother was a slave on their plantation. They share the same father. He dearly loved both his daughters, which is why Pru is as well educated as Edwina, although she was apparently a far better student. The woman is brilliant.”
“That must have complicated things at home.”
“Vastly. From what Edwina says, her own mother was abusive, perhaps even insane. Both she and Pru have scars to attest to that. Pru’s are worse, and she’s quite sensitive about them. Because of that, and whatever happened when she was abducted by Lone Tree, she’s a bit skittish.”
“Lone Tree?” Ash was having difficulty sorting it all out. “Is he the Cheyenne Dog Soldier I’ve heard mentioned?”
“Heavens, no. That’s Thomas Redstone. He’s Declan’s deputy. The two are like brothers.” Leaning over, she added in a confidential tone, “And, although no one mentions it, he is madly in love with Pru. You’ll see.” She straightened with a sigh. “No, Lone Tree was a renegade Arapaho who had some sort of vendetta against Declan. He was quite vicious. Dead now, thankfully. Still, the ordeal he put Pru through still preys on her, and I think that’s why she holds Thomas at arm’s length. Poor man.”
Ash knew firsthand how that felt. But no more. He’d happily and repeatedly reclaimed his bride last night. And he wasn’t about to let her slip away from him a second time.
“There it is.” Maddie pointed to a small whitewashed house that had been added on to, then added on to again, so that it looked less like a planned structure than a series of rooms tacked on when need arose.
As he lifted Maddie down from the buggy, the door crashed open and children stampeded down the porch steps and into the yard. Unfortunately that was at the exact moment that Tricks also arrived, his tongue lolling, a chewed-off length of rope dangling between his front legs.
The moment the children saw him, they erupted in shrieks.
“Hold!” Ash barked before the wolfhound mistook the frenzy as an attack on him.
Children froze. Tricks flopped onto his belly. At his side, Maddie sucked in a breath.
Ash dinna know much about children, but he knew how to take charge of unruly troops. And he also knew that the hysteria would continue until he’d allayed their fears about Tricks. Clasping his hands behind his back, he marched forward, his voice cracking like a whip. “Form ranks!”
One wee creature, dressed in boy’s clothing and its face hidden beneath a hat so that Ash couldn’t determine gender, leaned toward a thin boy with sharp brown eyes and a mop of light brown hair. “What’s ranks?”
Ash stopped before the floppy-hatted urchin. He/she had the most remarkable gray eyes, the color of buffed pewter or newly cast lead bullets. He bent down until their faces were as close as he could get them without falling onto his knees. “Line up,” he said softly.
“Why?”
Female, he guessed by the quavery-voiced defiance. Only a female would dare. “Because I order you to.”
“Why?”
Never having been asked for a reason before, Ash wasn’t sure how to answer. “Because you’re frightening my dog.”
Her gaze slid toward Tricks, who was stretched at Maddie’s side, watching them with unblinking intensity. “He’s very big.”
Ash straightened. “Aye. He’s an Irish Wolfhound.”
“I what?”
“What’s his name?” a new voice cut in.
Ash turned to the questioner, a blond boy with a hodgepodge of little teeth, big teeth, and missing teeth. “Tricks.”
“Does he do tricks?”
“He does. I’ll show—”
“Perhaps later, children,” his wife cut in, moving to his side. “Right now, I would like to introduce you to my husband.” She directed Ash to a gangly boy who looked like a younger, shorter, skinnier, chinless version of the sheriff. “R. D., here, is the oldest.”
Ash offered his hand. The lad took it in a sure grip and studied him through dark, steady eyes. A fine soldier someday. Ash nodded approval.
“And this”—Maddie rested her gloved hand on the shoulder of the towheaded boy with the odd teeth—“is Joe Bill.”
Joe Bill’s grip was no less sure, but damper. Ash hoped it was sweat.
Moving to the last two in line, Maddie smiled down at the skinny boy with the sharp brown eyes. “This is Lucas—he’s brilliant—and Brin, the beauty in the family. Children, this is Lord Ashby.”
Clasping his hand once more behind his back, Ash gave a curt, military nod.
“Lord?” The girl’s eyes widened. “You’re named after God?”
“I’m not calling him lord.” With that, the blond boy—Joe Bill—marched back up the weed-choked path to the porch where several adults, including the Indian and the sheriff, stood watching.
“Me, neither,” the female, Brin, announced and followed her brother. “He talks funny.”
The smart one, Lucas, gave a shy smile, then showing solidarity, traipsed after his older brother and younger sister. Which left the gangly adolescent, R. D., who studied Ash with the same probing intensity his father had exhibited when he had first met Ash several weeks ago. “I like your dog,” he finally said. Then he, too, went up the steps and into the house.
“Recruits,” Ash muttered, letting out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “They hadn’t even been properly dismissed.”
“Children,” Maddie corrected under her breath. “Not to worry. They’ve defeated stouter men than you.” Taking his arm, she steered him on toward the house, calling “Hallo” and waving as she went.
Ash wasn’t easily impressed. He’d fought alongside Britain’s finest and Scotland’s fiercest. He’d battled Russians, Prussians, Sultans, and Sheiks. But when he saw the Cheyenne Dog Soldier planted at the top of the steps, arms crossed over his wide chest, he recognized a true warrior.
“Ash, I believe you’ve met Declan Brodie, our sheriff,” Maddie said, pausing before the bottom step. Then she went on to introduce Edwina Brodie, Prudence Lincoln, and the Indian, Thomas Redstone.
“Welcome,” Edwina said, her lively blue eyes alight with mischief. “We’ve never had lords and ladies to dinner before, and I declare I hardly know whether to bow or curtsy or faint dead away.”
“You never faint,” Prudence Lincoln said as Maddie started up the steps. “And in your condition, it wouldn’t be prudent, anyway. Good afternoon, Lord Ashby,” she added with a smile that almost made Ash miss the bottom step.
“Just Ash,” he managed, aware of the sheriff’s smirk and the Cheyenne’s glower. “Delighted to meet you, ladies.”
The dark-skinned woman spoke with the same drawling Southern accent as did the sheriff’s wife, although it carried a softer, mellower tone. Neither woman made use of their rs. Perhaps they’d given them all to the Scots, Ash mused, as he stopped before their hosts. “Thank you for inviting us into your home.”
“Oh, law’s amercy,” Edwina Brodie said in a breathless voice—probably a condition brought on by her substantial girth. “Did you hear that Declan? That’s exactly the kind of manners I’ve been trying to teach the children. And do call me Edwina.”
Brodie extended a hand to Ash. “Welcome back to Heartbreak Creek.”
The Indian didn’t extend a hand but studied Ash as thoroughly as Ash studied him.
The man was in full Indian garb—thigh-length leather war shirt decorated with beads and shells and bits of antler, leather legging, soft-soled fringed leather knee boots, and a red breechcloth hanging below the edge of his long tunic. The only thing missing was war paint. And the deputy badge.
Ash nodded. “Redstone.”
The Cheyenne nodded silently back.
Ash sensed he’d met a man he wouldn’t want for an enemy.
Turning back to Brodie, he said, “Could you spare something to tie up my dog? A
chain would be best, I think.”
Twelve
Dinner was a continuation of the chaos that had erupted earlier when the children had come charging out of the house. Edwina Brodie made gallant attempts to maintain order, but it was apparent that although the children loved her, they clearly dinna fear her. A true leader needed both if he—or she—was to maintain order, Ash had found.
Which the sheriff had in abundance, although he wielded his power with soft words and hard looks—and only after his wife had lost her gracious smile and turned to him with narrowed eyes.
“Children,” he would say in his quiet voice. “Slops.” And that ended it. For a while, anyway.
Watching the looks passing between the sheriff and his wife, and seeing the pride in their smiles when they looked at their children—who really weren’t bad children as much as high-spirited and somewhat undisciplined—made Ash realize how different his own life might have been had he grown up in such an unstructured, boisterous, but affectionate household. If he ever had a family of his own to manage, would he be a benign ruler like Declan Brodie? Or a ham-fisted tyrant like his father?
“Quite different from Northbridge, is it not?” his wife murmured at his side as if she had read his thoughts. Unsettling how often that was happening of late. He dinna like to think he was so transparent.
“Aye.” He smiled down at her. “And even though it gives me a headache, I like it.”
Her smile faded. “Your head hurts?”
“No more than any sane person’s would.”
“You were a soldier?” the oldest boy—R. D.—asked, pulling Ash away from pleasant memories of his wife’s soft breasts.
“Aye.”
Brin leaned toward her brother, Lucas. “Why does he keep saying ‘I’?” she whispered loud enough for the whole table to hear. For such a small mite, the wee bairn had a verra big voice.
“Not ‘I.’ Aye,” the boy whispered back. “It means yes.” Lucas’s brown gaze swung to Ash. “Doesn’t it?”