by Pam Crooks
And Callie Mae knew better than to bring up the subject with Grandmother. Shoot, she’d just get all stubborn and hoity-toity like she tended to do at times, then steer the conversation toward something that suited her more.
Which meant Callie Mae had to keep her mouth shut and live her perfect life until she could sort through her troubles later.
“Yoo-hoo! Toodeloo! Callie Mae!”
The shrill voice ended her ruminating in a hurry, and her gaze jumped to the stout woman waving a lacy hankie at her from across the crowded parlor. All conversation paused, which embarrassed Callie Mae to no end. She wasn’t used to having so much attention on her.
But the other ladies just smiled indulgently and went back to their gossiping. Evidently, they all knew this woman who’d arrived late to the party; they didn’t pay Callie Mae much mind as she slid off the settee to meet her.
Callie Mae put on her best face and gathered her newly gained poise. She’d learned all the polite words to say, the right ways to act. She’d become the little lady her grandmother wanted her to be.
For now, that was enough.
Chapter 10
Kansas, Near the Cimarron River
Rogan stared out the grimy window, drew in deep on his cigar and fought a bad case of boredom. He’d found a room at this sorry-looking ranch house that took in travelers off the Western Trail. After he and Durant choked down a mediocre supper of boiled beef and potatoes, the rest of the night stretched out before them.
They’d finally crossed the border, and there was nothing to do in this godforsaken part of the country. No gaming halls, no saloons, no women. Nothing. Just thousands of bellowing cattle, plodding over the Kansas prairie, as far as anyone could see.
He was sick of endless days breathing in their dust and the smell of their manure. The monotony of traveling in a desolate land broken only by the occasional ranch or sorry-excuse-for-a-cow town. The lack of decent food and modern conveniences as basic as clean drinking water, most of all.
How did Carina survive it?
Rogan had no idea. But she was surviving, and it was a hell of a hard life, even for her. Every day, while tracking her herd far enough away she wouldn’t notice, he spied her on the spotted Appaloosa, working with her men to get them all north.
She was driven like the devil to get there, which was the only thing that kept him going, too.
“Are you complaining again?” Durant asked.
His thoughts dissipated. He turned toward his partner, seated at a table near the window and bent over pages of tracing paper with a fine-tipped pen in his hand.
“I never said a word.” He stepped toward the bed, plopped on top, leaned back and crossed his ankles.
“You didn’t have to.”
“We’ll never get to Dodge City.”
Durant grunted, too engrossed in imitating the New York coat of arms from a $100 National Bank Note to bother attempting any commiseration. A perfectionist, the man was patient and precise as he practiced the state’s intricate design on paper before repeating it on a copper plate.
Rogan continued to be impressed by the quality of his work, the imitations he was capable of producing that were so near perfect, so close to the original, that banking-house tellers and their officers were unable to tell the difference without the aid of a magnifying glass.
Rogan puffed on the cigar. Indeed, meeting Neal Durant in Denver last year had been a stroke of good luck. He had a penchant for high-stakes gambling and an unexpected skill for forgery, and with both of them looking for some easy money, they’d formed a fast friendship.
After Rogan collected the blackmail from Carina’s herd, they’d both escape to the underworld back East. New York, to be precise, with its revered Wall Street, the country’s financial capital and a breeding ground of opportunity to deal in counterfeit banknotes, bonds and forged checks.
Rogan couldn’t get there soon enough. When he did, he’d lie low for a while, until the trail that could lead to his arrest turned cold as stone.
Until Penn McClure couldn’t find him anymore.
“Are you thinking about seeing your mother again?” Durant asked.
The question startled Rogan. “That bitch? You’ve got to be joking.”
“Tsk. Tsk.” Durant put down his pen. “Is that any way for a son to speak about the woman who gave him life?”
Rogan grunted and took a final puff off his cigar. “That’s how I talk about mine.”
“She wants to be with you.” Durant sat back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest. “She’ll be happy to see you in Salina.”
“Yes.” Rogan didn’t know what was worse. Stalking Carina on the dirty, smelly Western Trail or rendezvousing with his mother halfway across the state. “I’ll take a stagecoach tomorrow and meet her at her hotel in a few days.”
From there, Mother intended to travel east with him and Callie Mae to Kansas City and then north to Boston, where she’d already booked passage for them on a ship to Europe.
As if they were a happy little family.
Which they weren’t.
And Rogan had no intention of going. She’d find out he had plans of his own soon enough.
Plans that included ditching them and heading to Dodge City, where Durant would be waiting, right along with a fat check from Carina.
What happened to Callie Mae after that, Rogan could care less. Carina would just have to find the girl and fight Mother to get her back. By then, Rogan would be long gone.
“Your daughter will be in Salina, too, won’t she?” Durant said.
His mouth tightened. “Yes.”
A moment passed. Durant regarded him with eyes hard as flint.
“You’re not excited about seeing her,” he said. “Why does that continue to disgust me about you?”
The chill in his voice cooled the air in the room. Rogan had felt veiled disapproval from him before, but this sudden shift toward animosity was something new.
“Why should I be excited?” Rogan demanded. “She means nothing to me.”
“She’s your flesh and blood.”
“I was there at her conception. That’s it.”
“She’s a beautiful child. You should be proud to be her father.”
Rogan stared. Why would Durant care a rat’s ass about Callie Mae? Or Rogan’s relationship with her? Especially now, when they were almost to Dodge City?
“I don’t want to be her father, so shut up about it,” he snarled.
Durant narrowed a cold eye, lifted a hand and stroked the curled ends of his mustache with slender, smooth fingers.
An artist’s fingers.
A gunslinger’s fingers, too.
Quick and dexterous. The tools of his trade.
That slow, methodical stroking made Rogan uneasy about what the man was thinking.
“Look,” he said. “I never wanted a kid. They try me. They always have. Callie Mae should never have happened.”
“So now you’re using her to get back at her mother.”
“You know damn well why I’m using her.”
“She’s an innocent.”
“She wanted to leave—” Rogan clenched his teeth.
He refused to continue the argument. The ashes built on the end of his cigar, and he impatiently flicked them onto the threadbare carpet.
And then, from out of nowhere, realization dawned.
Durant was jealous.
“You’d like a daughter, wouldn’t you?” Rogan asked in a soft voice.
His accomplice straightened, returned to his tracing papers.
“What makes you think so?” he asked, but the sting had disappeared from his voice.
“You’re taking her side. You’ve been thinking of her.” Rogan shook his head, struck by the irony. “You’d like to be a father.”
Durant grunted, fiddled with his pen, which had yet to be set to paper. “There’d be worse things I could do.” He smirked. “And I have, too.”
“So why aren’t you?”
Rogan asked.
“Because with every child, comes a mother, and I have no need of a woman clinging to me and trying to change who I am,” he snapped.
“Ah.” Rogan grinned and felt better. A woman like his own mother.
He and Durant were back on common ground again. He rose from the bed, headed toward the rickety dresser where a brand-new bottle of Old Fitzgerald whiskey sat. Bought fresh off a traveling solicitor, just this afternoon, along with a box of decidedly expensive Caribbean cigars.
All paid for with a beautifully counterfeit C-Note, of course. Compliments of Bill Brockway’s talent, of which the salesman was oblivious.
Unfortunately, it was Rogan’s last bill, and he’d split the change with Durant. Rogan had to use the difference to get himself to Salina. Once he did, he’d have to sweet-talk Mother into giving him a little cash to tide himself over.
Just until he made it back to Dodge City.
Rogan poured himself a glass of Old Fitz and another for his partner. They’d drink the night away, then part ways in the morning.
When they met up again, he’d have all the money he needed.
Two Days Later
Carina emerged from her tent with her hat and bandanna in one hand, her mirror, tooth powder and hair-brush in the other. She paused to breathe in the crisp morning air. The bright, cheerful sun scooted steadily higher over the horizon, while seeming to paint a blanket blue and call it a sky. The brilliance glinted on the dew still heavy on the prairie, and the range grass sparkled as if every blade had been sprinkled with fairy dust.
That’s what Callie Mae would have called it, inspired by the whimsy of her girlish imagination. Fairy dust.
Carina’s heart squeezed. She’d never be able to show her daughter the Kansas prairie like this if the Lockett legacy was lost. The prairie and so many other things, besides.
A deep resolve surged through her to hang on tight to Callie Mae’s heritage, no matter what. To fight for her daughter and give herself a chance to return to the motherhood she’d failed so miserably at before.
She did her best to rise above the worry. To keep going. They’d finally made it to Kansas, she told herself firmly. Dodge City wasn’t so far away anymore. They’d be there soon. Next week, if all went well, and she had to hope it would.
Her gaze swept the camp as she strode toward the chuck wagon. Some of the men were just beginning to stir in their bedrolls. Others had already pulled on their boots. The scent of wood smoke and fresh Arbuckles’ coffee hung strong in the air, prodding them awake.
Yesterday, they’d reached the banks of the Cimarron River. They wouldn’t find water again for several days, until Bluff Creek, on the other side of Ashland, the next cow town on the trail. The herd would graze and drink their fill here for the duration of the morning before they had to cross the river this afternoon.
Strange to have the privilege of sleeping late. But it felt good. A luxury they didn’t often have. She propped her small mirror on the coffee grinder Sourdough had nailed to the side of the wagon, the height she needed to see while she brushed her hair and cleaned her teeth. Strange, too, to have enough light to see with; she was accustomed to the blur of early dawn.
After braiding her hair into a long plait down her back, she gave herself a quick once-over in the mirror to make sure she didn’t miss any strands. Her attention snagged on McClure, striding into camp from the direction of the remuda.
Hating herself for it, Carina angled the glass to see him better. He wouldn’t notice her watching him like this, not with her back to him and the rest of the camp. He’d only think she was doing what she looked like she was doing. Grooming herself for the day.
But, really, that part was already done, so she had to pretend. She’d barely spoken to him since the afternoon in Fort Supply when he saw her as naked as the day she was born. It’d been all she could do to walk out of the bathhouse and act as though nothing unusual happened, when they both knew it had.
Her belly did a funny turn, just thinking of it. Again. Penn McClure seeing her, kissing her, the way he did.
Of course, in her quieter moments, that got her to wondering what he looked like without a stitch on, and if that didn’t get her imagination going. He was as much a man as one could be. A fine package of male muscle and power, lean grace and rugged attitude, and damn him for making her think about him all the time.
And feel things she wasn’t used to feeling.
Carina resolutely turned the mirror facedown with a thump. She took the bandanna, folded it in half and knotted the ends behind her neck.
Different. That’s how he made her feel. Nothing like her usual self. But soft inside, like Sourdough’s raisin pudding. Warm and achy and indistinct.
Bemused, she put on her hat, then gathered up her toiletries. If nothing else, she supposed, he was a good diversion from worrying about Callie Mae so much.
She picked up the mirror again and gave herself a final inspection…
A diversion. She couldn’t help it. Her gaze shifted. McClure was still there. Behind her. He’d opened the trail map, spread it on the ground. Squatting beside it, his elbow on his knee, he studied the markings, the area beyond the Cimarron, most likely. Planning the drive for the next couple of days.
Her gaze lingered. The man was a sight to see, for sure. Broad-shouldered, long-limbed, his Levi’s stretched over his thighs and buttocks, his skin bronzed deep from the sun. He hadn’t shaved yet, and the night’s stubble shadowed his cheeks, giving him that untamed look again, and there her belly went. Curling and twisting and tickling her insides.
He’d become the center of her world. The one she depended on most to get them all to Dodge City. A man she’d grown to trust.
What would happen when they got there? When the terms of their bargain had been met and the ugliness of Rogan’s blackmail was done?
Would she see him again? Ever?
Penn McClure. Drifter, cowboy, and now her trail boss. But who was he really? Where would he go when she didn’t need him anymore?
Carina didn’t know, and she had no right to wonder. He had his own life to live, with family, friends, waiting for him somewhere. If she hadn’t bailed him out of the Mobeetie jail and forced him to work the cattle drive for her, where would he be right now?
Well, she couldn’t keep speculating about it. She’d barely gotten her morning started, and already, she’d spent just about her every thought on him. What would that get her but a full load of wasted time?
Carina pivoted to return her toiletries to the tent, but a fleeting glimpse of something unusual in the mirror stopped her.
She studied the glass again. There. In a stand of cottonwoods beyond the camp. A horse and rider, their shapes tiny but distinct. Strange how the man didn’t move, just stayed there. Hiding. Watching them.
“Wagon comin’, Carina,” Sourdough said.
Distracted, she dragged her glance toward him. “What?”
“Over there, from the east.” He stood over the fire and gestured with a spatula. Two cast-iron skillets sat over the flames. Beside them, the two-gallon enamel coffeepot. “You want one flapjack or two on your plate this mornin’?”
She ignored him, twisted direction, found the rig he spoke of. A supply wagon of some sort, lumbering toward them at a leisurely speed.
But instinct told her the man in the trees was more important. Her gaze returned to the mirror, but she couldn’t find him again. She swung around and stared outright at the cottonwoods.
He was gone.
She frowned.
The supply wagon drove toward them. Curiosity had the cowboys awake and straining their necks to see who was coming. It seemed no one else noticed they were being spied on, and Carina tried to shake off a growing sense of unease.
And failed.
Short of riding over to those trees, she had no way of learning who the rider was or what he found so interesting about Carina’s camp. But she couldn’t deny Rogan’s had been the first name to jum
p into her mind.
Logic told her she was wrong, that he wouldn’t be out here, in the middle of the Western Trail, something his pampered existence wouldn’t have prepared him for. A hard life, even for those accustomed to it.
He’d be with Mavis, wouldn’t he? And Callie Mae?
All this time, she’d assumed they were together… but what happened after they fled the C Bar C?
They might have split up, after all. The telegram she received in Fort Supply never mentioned Rogan’s arrival in New Orleans. Still, Carina found it hard to believe he’d follow her all the way to Dodge City. What did he think she’d do? Take her herd somewhere else?
Assuming he stayed behind in Texas while his mother and Callie Mae returned to Louisiana didn’t make sense, either. Rogan wouldn’t risk being seen with Durant. He’d know the law around these parts was looking for them both, and if he was smart, he’d be lying low somewhere until he met up with her in Kansas.
This man was alone in the cottonwoods.
If it was Rogan, where was Durant?
If it was Durant, where was Rogan?
Carina scanned the cottonwoods again, a slow and thorough sweep, and found no sign of the rider, whoever he was.
In spite of the swarm of questions buzzing in her head, she knew one thing for sure. It wasn’t a coincidence he was out there, watching her herd over all the others trailing along the Western this season.
Troubled, she headed back to her tent, bringing her toiletries with her.
Chapter 11
By the time Carina came out again, the wagon had pulled up on the edge of camp. A jovial solicitor held the reins, and clearly he delighted in the interest her men showed in seeing his wares.
“Mornin’, boys!” he boomed and set the brake. His bowler looked too small for his round, balding head. Carina marveled that he managed to keep it on. “What brand are you with?”
McClure approached him, folding the trail map along the way, and returned the greeting.
“The C Bar C.” He slid the map into his shirt pocket and extended his hand. “Name’s Penn McClure.”