The Promise of Jenny Jones

by Maggie Osborne

  "I don't know how we solve this problem," she admitted, frowning. "But I can tell you this." She jerked her head back at the washtub. "I don't want to go through that again. You have to stop cussing."

  Graciela's chin came up, and that one irritating eyebrow arched. "I'll stop if you will."

  A short bark of laughter burst from Jenny's lips. "Me? I've been cussing since I was your age. It's one of the things I'm good at." Looking at the kid's freshly scrubbed face, it was hard to believe she was capable of uttering a cussword. But she was, and the problem would get worse because cusswords were what she was hearing. Jenny's shoulders slumped. She didn't like the direction or the inevitable conclusion of this conversation.

  "Uncle Ty doesn't cuss."

  "He doesn't do it in front of you,that's all."

  And that, of course, was the solution. Seeing a partial reprieve, she immediately brightened. She didn't have to change her whole person to accommodate the kid. All she had to do was make a few changes when the kid was right in front of her. Probably she could do that. The more she considered, the better the compromise seemed. It answered the fairness problem, and that was the largest stickler.

  "All right," she said slowly, "here's the bargain. Neither one of us says fricking anymore." Silently she added, in front of each other.

  A mixture of triumph and disappointment gleamed in Graciela's eyes. "We can't say hell or damn or crud or Christ or son of a bitch either. Uncle Ty wouldn't like it."

  Uncle Ty could jump in a tub of scum for all Jenny cared right this minute. Thin-lipped, she considered,then nodded with great reluctance. "This is going to be a pisser."

  "We can't say piss either."

  "Well my God." Jenny stared. "I'm not going to be able to talk. What did your mother say when she was really piss … irritated?"

  Graciela pursed her lips in a prissy moue. "When Mama was angry, she said she was displeased."

  "Huh!" She would have rolled her eyes and said Je-zus, but Je-zus was undoubtedly prohibited also. "Listen, I'm going to forget occasionally. You have to accept that up front. I've been talking like I talk for along, long time. A person doesn't change overnight. So don't go thinking I'm breaking a promise if a cussword or two slips out."

  Graciela casther a sideways glance and a small smile. "If you forget and cuss … do I get to wash your mouth out with soap?"

  Jenny blinked, then threw back her head and laughed. Every now and then there were moments when she enjoyed the hell out of the kid, and this was one of them.

  "If you try I'll be very … displeased. Besides, I'm bigger than you are." They grinned at each other. "You know," she said softly, "when you're not beinga snot , you aren't too bad."

  Pink flooded the kid's face, and she leaned forward, rubbing at her toes. "I'm hungry."

  "Senora Armijo is fixing us something right now." She touched Graciela's shoulder blades, gazed at the bruises around her throat. "There's something I want to say. I'm sorry you had to learn that your cousins," she paused, searching for acceptable words, "are rotten, greedy people. But it's good that you finally know it. Because Luis and Chulo are still out there, and they're still looking for you. They're dangerous, Graciela. Maybe worse than the cousins we left in the desert."

  Graciela's lip trembled. "Cousin Tito dropped the snakes right in front of me! He wanted them to bite me!"

  "You were very brave, and I'm proud of you. It's hard to be alone and scared and have snakes poured on you."

  The pink deepened in Graciela's cheeks and her eyes shone. It astonished Jenny how much the kid seemed to value her approval. And it worried her, too. As far as she knew, nothing she'd ever said had affected anyone. Now it seemed that Graciela absorbed her words like a sponge. It was a sobering thought, a little frightening to wield that much influence on another person.

  "I'll bet you were never scared of anything."

  A smile curved her lips. "Well, you'd lose that bet. I've been scared plenty of times."

  One of the things that scared her opened the door and swaggered inside.

  "Senora Armijo is right behind me with supper," Ty announced, tossing his hat toward a wall peg. "What happened here?" Frowning, he inspected the muddy floor.

  "Nothing," Jenny said, noticing the anxiety fade from Graciela's eyes when the kid realized she wasn't going to reveal the soap incident. "Put the food on the table," she instructed Senora Armijo.

  They didn't speak until Jenny had thanked the senora, and she had withdrawn. Then Ty lifted Graciela out of the hammock and placed her on a stool in front of the table.

  "Looks like beefsteak cooked with tomatoes and onions," he said cheerfully. He brought up a stool for Jenny and one for himself. "Are you ladies as ready as I am for something besides beans and tortillas?"

  Slowly, Jenny seated herself and tucked a gaily colored napkin inside the collar of her shirt. It felt strange to be sitting down to supper with a man and a child. Suddenly she recalled a picture she'd seen in a catalog of a family sitting at a table together. They had been dressedbetter than she and Ty and Graciela, and the furniture was a hell of a lot nicer, but Jenny had studied the picture and she'd known the man and the woman and the child were a family.Not a family like any she had known, but a family like her heart wanted a family to be.

  "You're supposed to put your napkin in your lap," Graciela commented. "Like this."

  "Well la-de-da." Now she noticed that Ty had placed his napkin in his lap, too. A dull throb of color heated her cheeks. "I like my napkin tucked in." Reaching with her fork, she speared a chunk of meat and dropped it on her plate. "What are you doing?" she demanded when she noticed Ty leaning toward the kid.

  "What's it looklike? I'm cutting my niece's steak."

  "She's not crippled. She can cut her own damned meat."

  "You're not supposed to say damn." Graciela gave her one of the superior smiles that Jenny detested.

  "Jenny, she's six years old."

  "Which is plenty old enough to feed herself."

  "I'm not allowed to use knives," Graciela said, turning a charmingly helpless look on Ty.

  Jenny lowered her fork. The little snot liked being waited on. "Let me ask you something. If someone," she squinted at Ty, "didn't cut that meat for you, what would you do? Pick up a hunk and gnaw on it?"

  "No!" The kid looked appalled.

  "Would you sit there and starve?" Graciela glared at her. "If you were hungry enough, I'll bet you'd figure out how to cut your own meat. So," she said, deliberately issuing a challenge, "are you hungry enough?"

  Ty placed his knife and fork on his plate, dropped his napkin on the table. Scowling, he rose to his feet. "I'd like to speak to you outside."

  "We're eating."

  "Right now." Turning on his bootheel, he strode to the door and stepped into the fading light of sunset.

  Jenny pulled her napkin from her collar and threw it on the table. She glared at Graciela. "Figure out how to use that knife. And be careful. I'll be back."

  The ramshackle collection of shacks looked picturesque in the dying light of the day. No boys and a dog ran down the rutted lane toward the smell of frying chilies. Laughter rose from the shack next door, and a woman's voice singing the slow, sweet notes of a lullaby.

  Jenny walked across the dirt yard to a wooden cart with a broken wheel. "What do you want?"

  Ty placed both hands on his hips and gazed at her in silence. The coppery twilight bronzed his skin and emphasized the hard, clean lines of cheek and jaw. Looking at him made Jenny feel weak inside, which she hated. They had hardly started this confrontation, and already she felt at a disadvantage.

  "You expect too much of her."

  "Well, you don't expect enough." Leaning against the cart's side slats, she crossed her arms over her chest.

  "When is she supposed to learn how to cut her own food? When she's twenty? Fifteen? Twelve? She has to learn to do things for herself."

  The sunset reflected in his eyes like points of flame. He'd washed for
supper, but trail dust still lay in the creases of his shirt and waistcoat. He smelled of leather and horse and sweat, the scents she associated with the best of men. He was lean and taut, a whiplash of a man. Ruthless enough to do what he had to without a pang, confident enough to touch a woman with gentle fingers.

  Frowning, Jenny turned her face away from him.

  "She's an heiress. Graciela will inherit more wealth from Don Antonio Barrancas than she'll be able to spend in a lifetime. And she's also my brother's heir. For the rest of her life she'll be surrounded by servants. They'll dress her, dress her hair, prepare her food,see to her every need."

  She jutted her chin. "Yeah, well suppose it doesn't work out that way. Suppose that pretty world goes to hell and she has to survive on her own." A sound of disgust rattled the back of Jenny's throat. "What chance would she have? A kid who can't even cut her own meat."

  Leaning forward, Ty placed a hand on each of her shoulders and gazed into her eyes. "Listen to me. What happened to you is never going to happen to Graciela. She's never going to be abandoned and alone."

  "If I have to raise her—"

  He placed a finger over her lips, then tilted his head and considered the sky for a moment. "All right. That's not going to happen, but let's say that it did." Impatience sharpened his tone. "You've got Graciela, and you're going to raise her. Where do you start? Where would the two of you go?"

  "Is this a serious question?" Suspicion narrowed her eyes. When she realized she couldn't think straight with his large, warm hands resting on her shoulders, she shrugged away from him.

  "Where would you take her, Jenny?"

  "I don't know." Frowning, she tried to focus on the question. "I suppose I'd go toSan Franciscosince it would be the nearest town of any size. I'd find work there."

  "And what would you do with Graciela while you worked?" Withdrawing a thin cigar from his waistcoat pocket, he lit it and waved out the match, exhaling slowly.

  Jenny had considered this problem a hundred times already but had found no satisfactory answer. The kid was not street-tough enough to leave alone, but Jenny couldn't think of any job where an employer would permit a child on the site unless the child was also working. "I'll figure out something," she snapped.

  "Where would the two of you live?" He glanced at the glowing end of the cigar,then studied the sagging lines of the shack they had rented for the night.

  "If you have something to say, just say it." Anger boiled in her chest. She didn't like the dismal situation he was trying to make her admit.

  He lowered his eyes to her face. "Do you really believe that Marguarita wanted you to take Graciela away from a life of comfort and ease? Do you think she would have chosen deprivation and hardship for her daughter?"

  Silence rang in Jenny's head. Swinging around, she searched the sky for Marguarita's star, needing reassurance.

  "She said if Robert couldn't or wouldn't take the kid, I was to raise her. That's what she made me promise."

  For the first time since this whole thing began with the kid, her voice didn't ring with confidence. "Damn it." He was trying to confuse her.

  "Marguarita was dying, Jenny. She was frightened for her child and for herself. Is it surprising that she wasn't thinking as clearly as she might have? Plus, if you're right, and she didn't receive Robert's letters, then she didn't know that my father was dead. If she'd known Cal Sanders was dead, I doubt she would have experienced a single qualm about trusting Graciela to my mother's care. It was my father she feared and worried about, and with good reason.

  "My mother is prepared to welcome her granddaughter and love her. She would have done the same for Marguarita, because that's the kind of person she is. Ellen Sanders was my champion when I was growing up, and she'll be Graciela's champion, too. She stood up for me more times than I can count. To help her boys, she fought my father, the elements,the world at large. Robert would have told Marguarita about Ma. He would have told her that our father would never welcome her, but she would find support and a fair, clear mind in our mother.

  "Had Marguarita known the true situation as it is now, she would have asked you to take Graciela to Robert and that's all, confident that my mother would raise the child if for some reason Robert could not. I'll never believe that Marguarita wanted her daughter to grow up as a street urchin roaming the back alleys ofSan Francisco." His gaze hardened. "Would you do that to Graciela, Jenny? Would you deprive her of safety and comfort? Of an education? Would you deny Graciela her birthright and condemn her to hardship? Simply to honor a promise that was asked and given based on incomplete information."

  Jenny stared. "This conversation has strayed a far distance from whether or not you should cut the kid's meat for her," she whispered.

  "What you're trying to do would be laudable in different circumstances," he continued, speaking in a quiet voice. "Your independence and resourcefulness helped you survive. But Graciela isn't you. Once we take her home, Jenny, she'll never be alone again or forced to fend for herself. She'll never behungry, will never have to work for bed and board."

  "That's if Robert wants her," Jenny whispered stubbornly. But her words lacked force. Deep inside, Jenny was beginning to accept that Robert would be a father to Graciela.

  Yet she continued to worry about a future that might include the kid. Lowering her head, she rubbed her temples. Everything Ty said made sense. And yet…

  "Let Graciela be a child, Jenny. Stop flogging her because she isn't a six-year-old adult."

  Her head snapped up, and she leaned into him, flashing eyes catching what remained of the dying light. "What the hell makes you such an expert on kids?"

  "I don't know crap about kids. But I know this," he said, matching her glare for glare. "I grew up too fast, and so did you. Neither one of us had much of a childhood. I was doing a man's work by the time I was eight; you were fending for yourself at an age when most girls are still playing with dolls. That's not how it's going to be for Graciela. So ease up on her. Let her have her childhood."

  Narrowing their eyes, they studied each other in the deepening shadows.

  "I wish you'd never found us," Jenny snarled in a low, harsh voice. "I wish it was just me and the kid. Things were simpler then."

  Needing to get away from him and the confusion he planted in her head, she returned to the shack, stopping abruptly just inside the door.

  The first thing she noticed was the table. The meat she and Ty had left on their plates was now cut into ragged bite-sized pieces. A grim smile thinned her lips. Either the kid had known how to use a knife, or she'd learned in a hell of a hurry.

  Reaching for the table lantern, she carried it past the washtub and looked into the hammock at Graciela's sleeping form. The kid had climbed onto a stool and then into the hammock. The light from the lantern outlined a faint milk mustache tracing her upper lip.

  When Jenny heard Ty enter the shack, she said softly, "Looks like she can manage just fine when she doesn't have someone to do for her." Calling his attention to the cut meat and the fact that Graciela had climbed into the hammock unassisted should have given her a glow of smug pleasure, but it didn't.

  Instead, she gazed down at Graciela and wondered how it would feel to know with absolute certainty that you would never again go to bed hungry. That you would always have a pillow under your head and clean sheets. To know you would never be alone. How would it feel not to fear tomorrow?

  "I could use some light over here," Ty called from the table.

  Lowering a finger, Jenny touched the gold locket pinned to Graciela's shift. Then she carried the lantern back to the table and sat in front of her steak. The first bite was cold and stringy.

  "Senora Armijo brought a jug of pulque. Do you want some?"

  She nodded,then pushed the bite-sized pieces of meat around her plate. Whatever appetite she'd had was gone. Giving it up, she shoved her plate away,then swallowed a generous swig of the pulque. The liquid scalded down her throat and brought a shine of moisture to
her eyes.

  "So what are you going to do when this journey is over?" she asked, watching Tyeat .

  "I'll help Robert operate the ranch … run some cattle on my own place."

  "Ranching is a demanding life," she commented, "but a good one. Don't have to worry where the next beefsteak is coming from."

  When he finished eating, he leaned back in his chair and crossed an ankle over his knee. "Cigar?"

  "Don't mind if I do." To her surprise, he leaned forward and lit it for her. It was pleasant sitting at the table, smoking, listening to the village quiet down for the night. She had feared it might feel awkward to sit without talking, but it didn't. That, she thought, was the measure of true companionship. Not that two people could talk, but that they could be comfortable just sitting together in silence.

  "You look pretty in the lamplight."

  Jenny choked and burst into a fit of coughing. "Damn it, Sanders. I've asked you a dozen times not to say that kind of crap to me."

  "Why not? It's true." Squinting, he watched her through a curl of smoke. "You've got strong good features. You're the kind of woman who's going to get more handsome as the years go by. Long after more conventional beauties have faded, you'll still be turning men's heads."

  She stared at him,then laughed with genuine amusement. "Funny how you're the only man who's noticed how all-fired pretty I am."

  "Oh I doubt that. I might have the distinction of being one of the few who's mentioned it, but I'm sure as hell not the only man who's noticed."

  Her cheeks turned scarlet, and her ribs suddenly ached. This kind of talk embarrassed her, made her deeply suspicious, and she didn't know how to respond. "Shut up," she said finally, focusing intently on the end of her cigar.

  "Have you ever been kissed? I mean, really kissed?"