Pieces of Sky

by Warner, Kaki

  But in other ways, it made him damned uncomfortable.

  He didn’t like feeling responsible for her, or worrying about her, or wondering who she was running from and why. He didn’t want all the complications she brought.

  But he did like the way she made him laugh.

  He looked down at her, amazed that such a small head could grow so much hair. It was everywhere, an undisciplined tangle of curls so silky-fine they caught on anything in reach—the straw, the blanket, the stubble of his beard. He wondered what it would feel like running through his fingers.

  He’d never known a woman like her. She was a puzzle he couldn’t fit in his mind—too many contradictions, too many unanswered questions. And sometimes, when she was afraid or in pain and trying hard not to show it, when she looked at him with those whiskey brown eyes, it was Sam all over again. And for one shocking and desperate moment Brady had to fight the urge to grab hold of her and promise this time he would find a way to fix it and make everything right again.

  But she wasn’t Sam. And some things could never be fixed.

  The afternoon sun had leached the color from the sky by the time they crossed under the wrought iron arch a quarter mile from the house. Bullshot ran to meet them, making the team hop as he darted between their legs. Two horses stood at the hitching rail in the yard—Doc’s calf-kneed gelding and a big buckskin Brady didn’t know. As they stopped before the house, Hank came onto the porch followed by Consuelo and several ranch hands.

  “Any trouble?” Brady called.

  “Not a sign.” Hank’s gaze swept the passengers then backtracked when he saw the Kinderly girl gawking at him. He looked away, a flush rising above his beard.

  Brady directed two hands to take the Kinderly women to one of the two upstairs bedrooms. “Where’s Doc?” he asked as Hank tromped down the steps.

  “Coming. Sheriff Rikker’s here, too. Wants to talk to you.”

  “Later.” Relieved to see Doc’s round form emerge from the house, Brady rose on his knees and gently nudged Her Ladyship. “We’re here.”

  She didn’t respond.

  Doc lifted the railroader’s bandage. “Sweet Mary.” After sending Consuelo to boil needles and a tube of horsehair ligatures, he directed Abe and Ru to carry the unconscious man to the other upstairs bedroom. Then he peered through the side rails at Her Ladyship. “What do you have there, lad?”

  Hank crowded in, his head and half his chest visible above Doc’s sparse white hair.

  “A knot on her head and hardly any food or water for two days.” As he spoke, Brady motioned for Hank to come to the back of the wagon. “Carry her inside. And be careful.” The warning wasn’t necessary. Although Hank was the biggest in the family—hell, the biggest for a hundred miles—he was also the gentlest, especially with anything helpless. But cross him, or lie to him, or get his temper up, and he became unstoppable. Both Brady and Jack had the scars to prove it.

  Hank carefully lifted her from the back of the wagon. She hung like a rag doll in his arms, her long chestnut hair fanning across Hank’s muscular thighs as he carried her toward the house.

  “Put her in my room,” Brady called after him.

  “Won’t that be cozy,” Jack muttered, jumping down from the driver’s box.

  Brady ignored him and tossed valises out of the back of the wagon to men waiting to carry them inside.

  Doc studied the wrappings on Brady’s feet. “What about you, boyo?”

  “I’ll keep. Tend the woman. And Doc.” Brady stopped tossing and motioned the old man closer so Jack wouldn’t hear. “You probably should know she’s breeding.”

  Doc reared back. “Breeding? Faith, are you saying the lass is pregnant?”

  Brady winced. It was obvious from the way Jack stared at them that he’d heard Doc’s announcement. Hell, anyone within fifty yards heard it.

  “Jasus!” Doc hurried up the steps. “Sure, and leave it to a woman to complicate things.”

  Brady tossed out the last of the luggage, then let his legs dangle off the end of the wagon while he mustered the courage to put his weight on his bandaged feet. The numbing effect of Consuelo’s salve had long worn off.

  Jack leaned against the rear wheel and studied him. “Two days and already breeding. No wonder you want her in your room.”

  “Don’t start.” Teeth clenched, Brady eased to the ground. As soon as his feet touched dirt, pain exploded up his legs.

  “I’m surprised, though,” Jack went on as Brady struggled to catch his breath. “Didn’t think you had it in you, Big Brother. Or in her either.”

  Fueled by pain, Brady’s anger ignited. Without thinking, he swung out, catching Jack on the side of the head with a backhand that knocked his hat askew and sent him staggering for balance. “Watch your mouth,” he snarled. “This isn’t one of your cantina whores and I won’t let you drag her through the dirt to get at me. Understand?”

  Jack gaped, a hand cupped to his ear. Then fury twisted his face. “You moralistic bastard! I’m not the one treating women like whores, stashing them all over the house!”

  Brady frowned, confused.

  Jack reared back. “You forgot about Elena, didn’t you? Or did you plan to jump from one to the other, you sonofabitch!” His fists came up, and he would have started swinging if Elena hadn’t come out of the house.

  “No!”

  Jack froze, arm cocked. He glared at the woman on the porch.

  “Por favor, Jackson. Do not do this. He is your brother.”

  Brady watched the battle his brother waged. He recognized it, understood it, but couldn’t say the words that would ease Jack’s mind.

  Jack let his arm drop. “Go to hell. Both of you.” His back stiff with anger, he whirled and stalked toward the barn.

  Brady hobbled onto the porch, every step burning as if he walked on hot nails. Elena hovered beside him, wanting to help but mostly getting in the way. By the time he’d settled into the oversized rocker his mother had carted all the way from Missouri, his stomach was cramping from pain. Elena helped him prop his feet up on the railing and almost immediately the throbbing eased.

  “You need to tell him, Elena,” he said after he caught his breath.

  “Soon.” She gave him a sad, wistful smile. “But I am not yet ready to leave, comprendes?”

  “You don’t have to leave. This is as much your home as ours.”

  She spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “But how could I stay if he did not want me?” When he started to argue, she shook her head. “No, querido. We have said it all many times before. I will speak soon. But now, I must help Consuelo.”

  As Brady watched her limp into the house, all the regrets and guilt and love he felt for this beautiful, damaged woman settled like a stone in his chest. One more thing he couldn’t fix. With a weary sigh, he tipped back his head and closed his eyes and tried not to think of how empty the place would be if Jack emigrated and Elena left and Hank struck out on his own. Why was it, the harder he fought to hold his family together, the faster it threatened to split apart?

  He must have dozed. When he opened his eyes again, Sheriff Rikker was leaning against the porch post, thumbs hooked in his gun belt, watching him.

  “You look like hell, son.” Rikker was slightly more talkative than Buck—a quiet seeker, as patient as a faro dealer and as persistent as a bad tooth. Brady knew him to be a fair man not given to rash impulses or hasty decisions, a man whose single-minded dedication to the law had brought him great respect but few close friends. Except for Jacob.

  Rikker eyed Brady’s bandaged feet. “Been dancing with my wife?”

  “You don’t have a wife.”

  “No? Then I guess we’re both lucky.” The older man pulled the makings from his vest pocket and worked at rolling a smoke. It was a task. With his gnarly hands and sideways fingers, he spilled more than he rolled. After sealing the paper with a lick, he lit it, drew deep, then exhaled on a long sigh. “So what happened?” he asked through a cloud
of smoke.

  Brady told him about the coach crashing, and how when he went for help, he found Jamison and his wife dead in their cabin but no sign of their son.

  “What were you doing so far from the ranch?”

  “Heading home from El Paso. I was scouting those white-faced crossbreeds McPherson is so proud of. Twenty percent higher yield, he says. Thinks they’ll be in high demand once the railroads come in, since they’ll travel better than longhorns.” He realized he was rambling and was grateful for the distraction when Bullshot bounded onto the porch and tried to climb into his lap. He wrestled the hound off, and under his stroking hand the dog finally settled against his knee, tongue lolling, mouth open in a sloppy grin.

  Rikker thumbed a head of ash off his smoke. “The Jamison boy stumbled into Val Rosa last night. Scared to hell. Said there were five of them, led by a Mex with a bad knee.”

  “Sancho.”

  “Maybe. Figured I’d ride by after I leave here. Anything you want to tell me before I go?”

  Brady felt like he was slipping back in time into the same conversation they’d had ten years earlier. Every word, every gesture, seemed the same—him in the rocker, Rikker smoking at the rail, and the smell of roses and charred meat hanging all around them in the still air. “I’ve told you all there is to tell.” Which were the same words he’d said that morning when he’d ridden in with Sancho and Paco in tow.

  He hadn’t exactly lied to Rikker back then, but he hadn’t told him the whole of it either—not about what Jacob had said before he fell unconscious in front of the burning cabin, or his own doubts about his father’s part in the deaths of Don Ramon and Maria. After his fit, Jacob had been as good as dead anyway, and Sancho already had so many marks against him, one more hadn’t mattered. So Brady had kept his silence, hoping to save himself the lie. Like Buck said, a man didn’t turn against his own.

  In the end, Rikker had drawn his own conclusions; Sancho had gone to one prison, while Jacob rotted in his own, with none but Brady the wiser. Yet even after ten years, the uncertainty of what really happened that night still stuck like a burr in Brady’s throat. Did Jacob kill Don Ramon and Maria, or did Sancho? Would he ever know?

  Rikker watched a small dust devil spiral across the yard, then sighed and pinched out his smoke. “Should have killed that bastard ten years ago.” He flicked the butt into the roses, then turned to study Brady. “But neither of us could have done that, could we, son?”

  Brady gave Bullshot’s ear a scratch then looked up, careful to keep his eyes steady, his face without expression. He could feel the older man stalking him with his mind, and wondered if the sheriff guessed his doubts.

  Rikker looked away first. He rubbed a knuckle across the gray stubble under his chin then sighed like a man who had searched so long and hard to find answers, he had forgotten what the questions were. “Reckon it’s a hard thing, killing a man in cold blood, no matter how much he deserves it. Sometimes it’s easier to just let the cards ride. Ain’t that so, son?”

  “We playing poker here, Sheriff?”

  Rikker showed tobacco-yellowed teeth in a crooked grin. “Hell no, boy. Your daddy taught me years ago not to bet against a Wilkins.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” Brady pinned the older man with a look that said their little game was over. “Because this time when I find Ramirez, I’ll kill him. Just so you know.”

  Rikker studied him a moment, then gave a rueful smile. “Sometimes, Brady, you’re so like your daddy you scare me. He was hard to read, too. Guess that’s what made him a good poker player.” Something in Brady’s expression caused his smile to fade. A sad look came into his eyes. “That was a compliment, son. Your daddy was a good man. He might have made mistakes, but he always tried to do the right thing.”

  At one time Brady had thought so, too.

  Rikker pushed away from the post. “I’ll let Overland know you’ve got the passengers. They’ll probably want you to keep them here until they’re well enough to travel. They’ll pay for their keep.” He clumped down the steps toward the buckskin hitched to the rail. “I’ll be sending trackers after Sancho. See you don’t get caught in the crossfire.”

  Not long after Rikker left, Doc came onto the porch. He looked worried, his bushy white eyebrows drawn in a scowl above his red-veined pickle of a nose.

  “Well?” Brady asked.

  Doc let his medical satchel drop to the plank floor with a thud, then looked around for a chair. The only one with all its parts was loaded down with seed catalogs. He tipped it forward to clear the seat, then sat. “Well, the lad with the hole in his side lost a lot of blood, but I’m thinking he’ll make it. You did a good job there, boyo. The old lady has a simple sprain, and her daughter has naught but scratches and bruises. The redhead is sunburned, dehydrated, and bruised to hell.” Leaning over, he opened his satchel and rummaged inside. “She’s also running a fever and holding water. Could be uremia.” He sat back with a grin and a flask.

  “What’s that mean? She’s not dying, is she?” Brady pictured her doing battle with that hair wad, then later doing battle with him. The woman had too much spirit to die.

  “I’m not knowing that, lad,” Doc said as he worked the stopper loose. “But if we can get her fever down, get some fluids into her, and keep her quiet and off her feet for a while, I’m thinking she’ll make it.” He held the flask high. “Here’s to Mick Flanagan, may he rest in peace, the manky bastard.” Tipping his head back, he took a long swallow.

  “And her baby?”

  Doc shuddered and dragged his sleeve across his watery eyes. “If she doesn’t start her labors too soon, they should be fine.” He offered the flask.

  Brady ignored it. “They?”

  “Unless she’s got a heart murmur, boyo, I’m thinking the lass is carrying twins.” Doc recorked then dropped the flask back into his satchel. “But don’t say anything for now. I’ll have to read up on it to be sure. I must have a book about it somewhere.”

  Twins? Brady knew double births were good for cattle and bad for horses, but he wasn’t sure about humans. “Is that a good thing? Twins?”

  Doc shrugged. “Never delivered twins myself. But since she won’t be going anywhere for the next three months, I’ll have plenty of time to study on it.”

  Brady reared back. “Three months?”

  “She sure as hell can’t travel, boyo.” Doc must have read Brady’s shock and dismay. “Would it be so bad having a pretty face to rest your eyes on?”

  “It’s not that, it’s . . . well, she’s . . .” In his agitation, Brady couldn’t find words to express all the conflicting thoughts in his mind. “Have you talked to her?” Five minutes in the woman’s company was enough to give any right-thinking man hives. How was he to manage three months?

  “She’s unconscious,” Doc reminded him.

  Three months. “She’s not going to like it.”

  “She won’t have a choice.”

  “She’ll like that even less.” Brady pictured her propped in his bed like the Queen of England, wearing some frilly night thing, expecting everyone to wait on her, while he . . .

  Hmm . . .

  Her Ladyship. In his bed. In his house, living under his rules and his watchful eye. Just thinking about all the possibilities made him smile. He would have to hide her umbrella.

  It wasn’t until Doc went inside to find something to eat that Brady realized he hadn’t asked Rikker if he’d seen any posters about a lost Englishwoman with red hair.

  He wondered if he should.

  Then decided he wouldn’t.

  Like the sheriff said, sometimes it’s easier to just let the cards ride.

  Six

  THIRST AWOKE HER.

  Like a voice shrieking inside her head, it overrode everything, pulled her away from the safe cocoon of numbness into the chaos of light and sound and pain.

  Her head hurt. Her throat burned. Every nerve and cell in her body screamed for water.

  With a groan,
she opened her eyes.

  Shadows and soft golden light. She blinked, but still everything seemed fuzzy and indistinct. Was she drugged? After a moment her vision cleared enough that she saw it was night and the room was lit by a kerosene lamp on a table beside the bed. Whose room? Whose bed?

  It should have mattered, but it didn’t.

  And that should have distressed her, but it didn’t.

  All she could think of was the baby.

  Lifting a trembling hand, she pressed it to her abdomen. Round and hard. Movement beneath her palm. Still there. Still alive. Relief stole her strength. She sank into the pillows as jumbled images flashed in her mind, so distorted and disturbing she couldn’t distinguish what was real from what was not.

  She heard a soft, muffled sound. A snore.

  With painful slowness she lifted her head to see feet at the end of her bed—not hers but a man’s—crossed at the ankles and resting atop the counterpane. Huge feet, unshod and wrapped in dusty bandages so only the tips of red swollen toes showed. Her gaze moved slowly up long legs clad in worn denim to equally huge hands clasped loosely across a lean waist. His shoulders outspanned the width of the chair in which he slouched. He slept, his head tipped back, his jaw slack beneath the thick black mustache.

  He needed tending. His dark hair was overlong and it looked as if he hadn’t shaved in days. A disreputable, formidable-looking man. One who should have frightened her, but didn’t.

  She frowned, realizing she knew that face, those work-worn hands. But how? And why was he in her room? She studied him, this stranger who was not a stranger, while half-formed memories drifted through her sluggish mind. When no answers came, she scanned the room, trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together.

  It was a man’s room, unadorned and filled with masculine clutter—a fleece-lined jacket hooked over one bedpost, a dusty black hat on the other. Leather leggings hung from a peg behind the door. Propped in one corner stood a well-oiled rifle, and on the floor beside it sat a pair of stained boots that had been cut open along the inside seam. On the dark, heavily carved bureau stood a half-empty bottle of amber liquid—whisky, no doubt—and a china bowl bearing an inch-wide chip on the rim. A straight razor and shaving mug rested beside it, and on the wall above it hung a tarnished mirror in an ornate, equally tarnished silver frame. The walls were bare adobe with intricate tile work at the floor and crown. The deep-set window boasted neither drape nor shutter.