If Wilson could seek a new life in the West, so could she. And Texas promised to be more cosmopolitan than Wyoming or Colorado, she decided. With cities like Dallas and Houston developing into social communities that commanded respect, she’d headed in that direction.
How she’d ended up in Collins Creek was another story, one she refused to think about today. Her head high, her steps swift, she passed the bank, then the general store, waved at the minister who stood before the hotel’s double doors, and smiled nicely at the barber, who nodded his greetings.
“Good morning, Miss McBride,” came a salutation from her right.
“Good to see you out and about, Mrs. Pemberton,” she said properly. “I hope you’re feeling better.” And then she went on her way, aware that the white-haired widow would more than welcome a chance to describe the details of her latest illness. Not today, Augusta thought. Not now.
She marched past the schoolhouse, the church and the cemetery, crossed the street and headed toward the row of simple two-story houses that made up the second street of Collins Creek. Five of them, there were. Two turned into boardinghouses for men without families, two owned by families who scrabbled to keep body and soul together, and the fifth, set a little apart due to a fence and a row of trees with low-hanging branches, designated as the shelter.
Without a proper name, and with no desire to advertise it should they come up with one, the ladies who ran the establishment merely considered it their good deed. Not for a day, or year even, but a project into which they’d vowed to devote their time for the foreseeable future.
It stood now, its majesty faded by wind and rain, and as it came into sight Augusta viewed it anew, moving through the gap in the front picket fence, where a gate hung with but a single hinge, leaning against the ground, awaiting repair. As were several other items that caught her eye. A porch step lacked a board and she carefully maneuvered over it, mentally adding it to her list of things she would get to this very afternoon.
Inside, the parlor was almost empty of furniture, a sofa against one wall, and, before the window, a library table upon which a lamp, complete with fringed shade, stood in graceful splendor. Two chairs sat on either side of the fireplace, mismatched but sturdy. Augusta’s footsteps clicked against the bare floor as she walked on down the hallway and into the kitchen at the back of the house.
“Miss McBride.” Pearl offered a greeting as she looked up from the bread she was kneading. Flour decorated her cheek, almost concealing the remnants of a black eye, now faded to a dull yellow hue, and the presence of two stitches next to the bottom lid. “I’m almost done with this, and Bertha said I should make the loaves next.”
“Don’t forget to grease the pans,” Augusta reminded her, aware that learning basic household chores was important to these women. “Who’s cooking supper tonight?”
“I hope it’s gonna be Bertha,” Pearl said glumly. “It’s Janine’s turn, but she’s not real handy with pots and pans, yet.”
“She can sew well, though,” Augusta reminded her. “And she’ll learn to cook. We just have to be patient.”
“Yeah, but in the meantime, we could get awful hungry.”
A second glance at Pearl’s voluptuous form made that prospect doubtful, Augusta thought, and then she walked past the big table toward the back door. “Is Honey working in the garden?” she asked, peering out the screened door to where a patch of vegetables struggled to survive beneath the hot Texas sun.
“Said she was gonna water stuff and pull weeds,” Pearl told her. “She’s probably daydreamin’ about goin’ home to Oklahoma, if I know Honey. She was cryin’ in her tea at noontime.”
“I’ll find her,” Augusta said, stepping out onto the small porch and searching in all directions for the golden-brown hair of the girl she’d brought here only three days since.
“Honey?” she called, stepping from the porch and walking around the corner to where a slender young woman sat, slumped against the side of the house in the shade.
“Ma’am?” Honey looked up, wiping at her eyes, attempting to smile as she got to her feet. The fullness around her waist was proof of her condition, and again Augusta was smitten with pity for the child. For Honey was, indeed, too young to be so far from home, with a baby on its way and no one to care whether she lived or died.
“I pulled the weeds and carried water from the pump, ma’am,” she said quickly. “The lettuce is big enough to eat for supper, I figured, and the first of the peas are pretty near full in the pod.”
“Well, why don’t you go ahead and pick the peas and lettuce, then,” Augusta told her. “Do you have a pan out here?”
Honey shook her head. “No, but I’ll get one, right quick.”
She rounded the corner and disappeared from sight, the sound of the screened door opening and closing giving away her location. Augusta sighed. If only she could find a farmer who would be willing to take on the girl, and more than that, be willing to accept her child. That particular item had been on her list for two days now, ever since she’d brought Honey here from the Pink Palace, once Lula Belle had confirmed the fact of her pregnancy and decreed her unfit for her trade.
Mentally she made a note of Honey’s situation again, listing it just beneath the broken step before the front porch, and then sighed again as she considered the growing length of things to be concerned with. Beth Ann must be lying down upstairs. Slender to the point of skinny, she’d wandered down the road three weeks ago, the second day they’d occupied this house, and announced that if she never had anything to do with a man again, it would be too soon. Lula Belle had pronounced her not pretty enough for her crew of ladies, too skinny for a discriminating gentleman to pay for, and without the proper manners necessary for a resident of her establishment.
All true, Augusta agreed. But Beth Ann was willing, and once they had fed her properly and taught her some basic elegance, she’d make a fine wife for some discriminating man, whether Lula Belle agreed with their theory or not.
And then there was Janine, who was content to sit and sew a fine seam, a talent that had come in handy, but certainly wasn’t enough to find her a husband. Although Janine had quietly and firmly denounced that idea anyway.
They weren’t cooperating the way Augusta had foreseen. Certainly, women misused as they had been should be eternally grateful for the chance to remake their lives into productive channels. She bent to pull a stray weed, left behind during Honey’s travels through the garden.
“I’ve got a pan,” Honey announced, standing beyond the pea patch.
“Well, pick the stuff that’s ready,” Augusta told her, “and then I’ll show you how to shell the peas for supper.”
And that should give her just about enough time to fix the front step, she decided, turning toward the woodshed, where their pitiful collection of tools hung on one wall, and where she might find a board fit to be used. In a few minutes, she’d managed to come up with what she needed from the dimly lit interior of the building. A can filled with nails, screws and assorted bits of hardware in one hand, a hammer in the other, and a piece of two-by-ten board under her arm, she advanced toward the front of the house.
She’d barely had time to roll up her sleeves, place her hat on the floor of the porch and lay out her equipment when a tall figure walked through the opening in the fence, bypassing the hanging gate with a scornful look.
“When you going to give up on this foolishness and come on back to Dallas?” Roger Hampton’s voice was harsh, his drawl hardly audible beneath the strident tones.
She offered him barely a glance. “You might as well get on the next train,” she said, wiping her hands on the front of her skirt. “I’m not going back to Dallas, not with you or by myself. This is my home.”
“Huh! This dump is what you want to call your home? A place where you’ve chosen to gather up the scum of the earth under one roof and then waste your time and talent redeeming them?” His taunt was familiar. She’d heard it almost daily for the pa
st week, ever since he’d followed her here from Dallas.
“You forgot to list my inheritance in that rendering of my assets,” she told him bluntly, picking up the hammer and hefting it in her right hand. She looked up at him then, focusing on the pale hair, close-set eyes and sharp, narrow nose that made up his face. His lips were thin and she almost shuddered, recalling her narrow escape from his pursuit as he’d attempted to press his cool mouth against hers.
“Your money doesn’t enter into it, Augusta,” he blustered.
“That’s a crock of—” She stopped, her mouth almost set to say the dreadful, unspeakable word she’d found on the tip of her tongue.
“Well,” Roger said slyly, “where’s the lady I proposed to, less than a month ago in Dallas?”
“She’s right here,” Augusta said quietly. “But she’s a lot smarter and busier than she was then.” She lifted an eyebrow as she scanned his length with a scornful air. “I probably should thank you for making Dallas so unpalatable for me. Collins Creek is a much better choice for my work, I think.”
Her chin tilted upward as she smiled cooly. “Go away, Roger. I don’t have time for you.” Turning her back, she pried the hammer beneath the broken step and applied her weight to levering up the board. Wood splintered, and a piece of it slid beneath her skin, piercing her hand just beside her smallest finger.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Roger said, stepping forward swiftly, reaching to take the hammer.
But she would not allow it, instead swinging her arm back and the hammer into the air. “Don’t touch me,” she warned him, painfully aware of the splinter that even now dripped blood onto the board she was trying to pry up.
“I don’t think you’ve retained many of your ladylike qualities here in Collins Creek,” Roger said spitefully. “Threatening a gentleman with a hammer when he’s only trying to help you—”
“Get out of here,” Augusta said, raising her voice as she swung the hammer in a downward arc. It missed his hand by a good margin, but he moved quickly, apparently fearing she might step forward, weapon in hand.
“I’m going,” he said, settling his hat at a jaunty level. “I’ll drop by again, Augusta. I think another week or so will be sufficient to make you see things more clearly.” And then as he left, he muttered words she made no effort to hear, aware only of the sounds of his buggy wheels rolling down the road and the jingling of his horse’s harness.
Her back to the gate, she looked at the broken step, then eyed the splinter in her hand. “I doubt it, Mr. Hampton. I’ve seen you clearly for more than a month already, and you’re running out of time here,” she muttered beneath her breath, and then turned around to sit on the top step, the better to inspect her wound.
“I’ll be glad to give you a hand, ma’am.” The offer came without warning, and she turned her head abruptly. Beside the front gate, a horse and rider stood motionless, apparently having been privy to the discussion between Augusta and Roger.
“Sir?” He was nameless but certainly familiar, he of the lemonade, and the wad of cash money she even now had tucked in her reticule. And on top of that, his dark eyes and smiling lips seemed still more attractive this time around.
“I didn’t introduce myself when we first met,” he said. “My name is Cleary. I thought I might drop by and properly make your acquaintance, seeing as how I have a vested interest in your…” He looked up at a drooping shutter, then back at the broken step. “Your project,” he finished nicely.
“I should have mentioned my name when you came calling earlier,” he told her, dismounting easily and tying his mount to the gatepost. “And when I recognized that I’d been less than gentlemanly, I thought I’d best make amends and see if there was something I could do to set things right.”
Augusta’s mouth refused to stay closed. She inhaled deeply, concerned at the lack of air available for her needy lungs, and then began awkwardly to roll down her sleeves. It would not do to receive a caller so dreadfully unclad.
“Don’t bother,” he told her, reaching one hand to halt her endeavor. “I’ll take a look at your splinter if you like,” he offered. “I have a dandy knife that will probably set things right in less than a minute.”
She could only nod as he settled on the top step beside her and took her hand in his. One long finger tilted his hat back on his head, and as she watched, he turned her hand over in his, her fair skin looking even more pale against the tanned flesh of his palm.
His fingers were gentle, his skin callused, and the scent arising from him was a blend of citrus and leather. Augusta held her breath against its lure, and he glanced up quickly. “Am I hurting you?”
She shook her head. “Oh, no. Not at all.”
“I wondered. You caught your breath, and I thought perhaps—”
But what he thought was not revealed as the front door opened and Bertha’s firm voice interrupted his healing mission.
“I didn’t know we had company,” Bertha said firmly. “Did you want to bring the gentleman inside, ma’am?”
“Uh, no. As a matter of fact, he only stopped by to…” Augusta looked up into his dark eyes. “Why did you stop by?”
He smiled and bent closer. “I already told you, ma’am. I hadn’t properly introduced myself, and when I found you were being verbally assaulted by the man who just left, I thought it prudent to keep an eye on things.”
“Oh. Oh, I see,” Augusta said. And then she looked over her shoulder at Bertha, whose arms were folded firmly across her ample bosom.
“Was that rascal here again?” she asked, her voice booming a challenge. “I told you. We need to send him off with a load of buckshot in his behind one of these days.”
At that, Augusta felt a torrid blush climb her cheeks and she rose to her feet. “I’m sure Bertha can take care of my hand, Mr. Cleary. But I do appreciate you stopping by and offering your help.”
“Most folks just call me Cleary,” the visitor said politely, and smiled at Bertha. Whether it was the look he flashed in her direction or the easy, elegant way he carried himself, Bertha nodded and lowered her arms to her sides as Cleary stepped down to ground level.
He looked up at Augusta and offered his hand. “It was good to make your acquaintance, ma’am. I hope you won’t have any problem with your wound.” He settled his hat more firmly over his forehead and turned aside. “I’ll stop by again.”
And then he was gone.
Chapter Two
The sound of a hammer against wood woke her, and Augusta sat upright in bed, unaware, for just a moment, of where she was. The walls of the bedroom were covered with faded pink flowers against a nondescript wallpaper, and brighter patches signified the absence of pictures, apparently taken by the house’s former owners. Not a room she would have chosen in days gone by. But, she decided, looking around at the shabby walls, it could only get better.
She slid from the bed, cocking her head to the side to consider the silence surrounding her. Perhaps the banging of a hammer had been part of a dream, she thought. Certainly she’d been plagued with a number of scenarios throughout the night, ranging from a woman with hatchet in hand chasing her down the streets of Dallas, to the sight of a man’s large, tanned hand holding hers captive.
She’d preferred the latter, she admitted to herself, thinking of her visitor the other day. Cleary, he’d said she should call him, but she hadn’t. Instead she had only touched her palm to his offered hand before he left. I’ll stop by again. A promise of sorts, she supposed, and a smile curved her lips as she tied her petticoat and slid a clean dress over her head.
From the front of the house, another flurry of pounding met her ears, and she went to the window, bending to peer from the open frame. Dark hair, topping a pair of broad shoulders, met her gaze and she watched in awe as the hammer rose and fell. Only two blows required to set a nail in place. Another nail was held between long fingers, and the hammering resounded again. He lifted the hammer a third time, and then as he ran a thumb over the n
ail, he looked up to where she watched from the window.
“Good morning,” Cleary said, a cheerful grin lighting his dark features. “Hope I didn’t wake you.” And from the look on his face, she was certain he knew he had.
“Oh, no,” Augusta said quickly, aware that her voice still held early morning huskiness. “I was just getting up.” She bent forward a little, viewing the three boards that lay beside him, noting the two he’d already nailed onto the uprights of her front steps. “Things have been piling up on me,” she told him. “I was going to get back to that today.”
“Well,” he said, drawing out the single syllable, “now you won’t have to. I’m sure there are other chores more suited to your hands.”
“I’ll be right down,” she said quickly. “Has Bertha offered you coffee?”
“She came to the door and frowned at me,” Cleary said. “I suspect she’ll be back to make sure I haven’t walked off with anything that isn’t nailed down.”
“She’s not at her best in the morning,” Augusta said in a loud whisper. She ducked back into the room to find her housekeeper standing in the bedroom doorway.
“I’m always at my best,” Bertha said stoically. “I didn’t think seven in the morning was a good time for the man to come calling. But if you want him to have a cup of coffee, I’ll pour one for him.”
“Well, he isn’t really calling,” Augusta told her, bending to find her shoes beneath the bed. Her slippers were there and she donned them quickly, deciding they’d do as well as the high-buttoned shoes she generally wore. “I think we should be thankful for his help, Bertha. The ladies in town have not been receptive to their husbands coming here to lend a hand.”
“Huh!” Bertha was a woman of few words, but the sounds she made were generally easy to understand. “Breakfast is pret’ near ready,” she said, turning to go back to the first floor. Bertha’s heavy shoes clumped on the uncarpeted stairs and Augusta snatched up her hairbrush, bringing quick order to her long hair.
The Texan Page 2