Janice frowned, trying to determine what Ellen wasn't saying. It was obvious that people still thought Peter guilty, but there was more to it than that. "Questions? What kind of questions did the stranger ask?"
Ellen shrugged, then forced her gaze back to Janice. "You might as well know. He was asking after you and Mr. Mulloney. He talked to Bobby a whole bunch. He said he came from back East, that he knew you when you was a girl." She looked a little more nervous. "He said he knew about Mr. Mulloney too, said he wasn't to be trusted. He was kinda upset that you and him married. He was going to set out after you. I guess he didn't find you."
Janice felt fear grip her stomach and turn it inside out. "Did he say what his name was?"
"Stephen. Stephen Connor."
The blackness hit before Janice knew it was coming.
Chapter 27
"I'm all right. I'm quite all right." Janice was still protesting that evening. Ever since she had fainted and Ellen had screamed for help, there had been someone hovering and fussing. They didn't leave her time to think.
"I hear tell the ladies back East faint real regular, but you don't strike me as the type." Carmen's husband, Kyle, stood back upon command, but he was posed as if expecting her to fall off the couch at any moment.
"It was just the heat, and probably Ellen's terrible coffee," Janice insisted. "Now go away and let me get some work done."
Carmen tugged her husband's arm and pointed to the door. "We will call if we need you. Your fussing always made me dizzier."
Husband and wife exchanged significant glances, then nodding at Janice, Kyle left the room.
Carmen watched her husband go with a loving smile, then turned back to Janice. "Well, this changes everything. You cannot keep working so hard. And if that husband of yours does not come after you soon, you will have to stay here for the winter. There will be no traveling for you before long."
"I am not pregnant," Janice insisted, rising from the couch. "It was hot and Ellen gave me some shocking news. The sheriff still thinks Peter is guilty. I don't like the sound of that at all." She couldn't name the real source of her shock. There would be too many explanations demanded and too many lies she would have to repeat if she named the stranger in town as the source of her consternation. She hedged her story a little.
Carmen gave her a knowing look. "It is too soon, I know. But time will tell. In the meantime, you will rest. I will take a whip to that Jason if he drives you too hard. Now go and lie down until supper. Betsy is just fine where she is."
The children were in the orchard looking for the last of the summer peaches. Janice nodded agreement and went off to her room, but not to rest. She couldn't rest. Why had Stephen Connor stepped back into her life at this late date?
She hadn't heard a single word from him in all these years. She had thought him dead. There had been occasional rumors during those months of her pregnancy, but once she had left her hometown for Cutlerville, none knew of the association, and the rumors had stopped. In that first year she had corresponded erratically with a few friends from her former home, but they had never mentioned him. Work and marriage and children had gradually eroded even that fragile connection with the past. She hadn't heard from anyone in her prior hometown since Betsy was a toddler. No one in Cutlerville knew Stephen or Janice's history.
So she had thought him gone from her life. Had she been wrong? Had he actually been searching for her all these years, only to find her when she finally married? Fate couldn't be that cruel.
The Stephen she had known had been only twenty years old, whip thin, with eyes that alternately laughed and brooded. Even at twenty he had been tough and hard and ambitious. He had tried to form a union when the railroad had laid off all its old employees, but the new employees were too interested in keeping their jobs to listen. He had gone off in search of greener pastures with scarcely more than a farewell kiss a few weeks after he had taken Janice to his bed. She had been devastated at the time, but even more so a few months later.
She didn't want to know a man who could do that to a young girl. She despised his memory. With sudden conviction, Janice changed her course and went to Jason's office for pen and ink. She would write Evie and Tyler and tell them not to reveal her whereabouts.
That was easier said than done. She would have to explain about Stephen before she could warn them about him. She could try to tie him in with the fires and make it seem as if he was after Peter. That would worry the Monteignes, which would worry Daniel and Georgina.
Janice sat at her desk and stared at the blank paper. It might already be too late. Stephen had plenty of time to travel to Natchez and talk to Tyler. She just couldn't believe he would do it. She couldn't believe he was actually looking for her. Ellen knowing his name convinced her that Stephen had actually been here, but she would be willing to wager a month's wages that Stephen had just accidentally stumbled across the town and heard someone mention her name. The rest was all talk, and probably half Bobby's. He wasn't looking for her.
Just as a precaution, she wrote a long chatty letter to Evie and mentioned the fact that someone had been in town asking after Peter. She added that she didn't like the kind of people he asked, and women's intuition told her that it would be better if he didn't know their whereabouts. Peter preferred to be secretive about his gold.
Janice read this last over with satisfaction. That would make them think twice about talking to strangers without worrying them excessively. Tyler and Evie were past experts at telling tall tales. If by any strange chance Stephen should show up in Natchez, they would lead him all around the bush and send him packing to the North Pole.
After the letter went out the next day, she wondered if keeping Betsy from her real father was the wrong thing to do. Did Stephen even know he had a child? Surely he must if he'd gone back to look for her. Everyone she knew in their hometown had known about Betsy and had guessed the father. He might be looking for her to make amends to his child.
It was too late now. Betsy thought her father had died. For all intents and purposes, he had. Janice's father had been more father to her than Stephen ever had. And now they had Peter. Peter could be the father Betsy had never known. There was a bond between them already. Betsy asked after him constantly, and Peter had displayed immense patience with Betsy's imagination and curiosity. He didn't even seem to mind that Betsy was sickly and couldn't help much around the house. Not many men in this world had patience with invalids.
So it was better if Stephen got lost and never found them.
Janice fretted at the slowness of the days as August dragged on. The heat was too intolerable to go outside. Betsy set up her easel in the doorway to Jason's office and spent hours between the shade of the porch and the house, catching what little breeze came along while painting things only she could see. Janice liked having her near. It kept some of the fears at bay.
Nighttimes were the worst. She lay in her empty bed trying not to remember how it had felt to have Peter next to her. But there were nights when she couldn't make herself stop thinking how it felt to have him inside her. With Betsy in the bed, she couldn't tear off her gown, and her skin seemed to swell and heat beneath the friction of the linen. She remembered the pounding of his heart, the flick of his finger against her nipples, the piercing sweetness of his possession, and her body ached in hollow yearning for his.
When she forced these images away, others replaced them. She dreamed of a child growing within her, Peter's child. She imagined a little boy with curls as dark as his. She tried to imagine how Peter would greet this stranger, but she could only hear an infant's wails of hunger and pain and see herself alone again. That terror stalked her even through the daylight hours.
She heard nothing from Peter. She had not expected to. There were no telegraph offices through much of the territory where he was going. Pen and ink and paper would be hard to come by. The nearest town probably had a mail service of sorts, but he'd said that was fifty miles away. No, he wouldn't try to reach her
until he had his mountain and his gold. He'd said he would send for her by the end of August.
By the end of August she still hadn't heard from him, and she still hadn't had her monthly courses.
She was pregnant, without a home, and her husband was missing.
At least she had a husband, Janice consoled herself. That was an improvement over last time. She had the money still pinned to the inside of her corset, so she wasn't completely penniless.
But those practical consolations weren't what she needed. She needed Peter.
As August became September, Janice realized that more strongly. She needed Peter to reassure her that everything would be all right. She needed him to come home at night and hold her. She needed him to laugh at her fears, to admire Betsy's artwork, to compliment her on her cooking. Most of all, she needed him to look proud about the child she carried, to feel its first kicks, to know that he would be there to hear its first cries. She didn't intend to go through another pregnancy alone.
She needed this man she had married, and she needed him now.
She wasn't a proud woman. She had learned to bend to necessity. She would crawl on her knees right now if it would bring him home. But it wouldn't.
The day Tyler's letter arrived, desperate anxiety entered into the complex formula of her erratic emotions. It had been mailed just after the beginning of September, and he'd had no word from Peter either. But he had heard from the stranger Janice had warned him about. He'd sent the man back to Cutlerville and warned Daniel to divert him to the ends of the earth, but Tyler wasn't at all certain the man had believed him. He urged Janice to show his letter to the Hardings to see what they thought best.
Janice wavered one whole day trying to decide. Only she knew Peter wasn't in danger from the stranger, but maybe that was for the best. Her greatest fear right now wasn't for Stephen, it was for her husband. Something was wrong. She felt it in her bones. Maybe it was her natural pessimism, but she knew Peter wouldn't leave her waiting without word unless something was wrong.
She threw the letter on the dinner table the next day.
Jason picked it up and read it through, then handed it to Kyle. He gave Janice an expectant look, as if knowing she already had the solution. Kyle cursed as he finished the letter, then looked from his brother to their guest.
"Well, what do we do? I can't believe some greenhorn could have made his way out to New Mexico already, but there's a chance. How could he have heard about the gold?"
Jason shoved a fork full of potato in his mouth, waiting for Janice to reply. He understood her a little too well. She kept her eyes on her plate.
"I think I'd better go out there. I can warn Peter there's someone sniffing after him so he won't be caught by surprise."
Jason snorted, glared at her while he finished chewing, then gave the reply she more or less expected. "And if this character is a thief, you're going to hold him off single-handed while Betsy looks for Peter. Don't be a blamed fool, woman."
Janice set her napkin down and pushed back from the able. "I'm not a fool. Something is wrong, and I want to find out what. You can't stop me."
"We could hog-tie you," Kyle said idly, shoveling up his corn.
Carmen kicked him under the table and answered, "We will send Manuel. He is nothing but trouble these days. He can make himself useful for a change."
Jason rolled his eyes ceilingward. "You should have thought of that yesterday. He got into a speck of trouble with Doc Hankins last night. I had to send him down to Mexico to look at some calves just to get him out of town."
Carmen shrieked. "Trouble? What trouble? Why did you not tell me? It's that daughter of the devil, is it not? Never could Doc make her mind, and now she has her devil eyes on Manuel."
Her tirade threatened to continue in an accent more Spanish with each word until Kyle clapped his hand over her mouth. He shrugged as if to excuse his behavior to Janice. "She protects Manuel like he's still a small boy. Small boys don't get caught doing what he was doing."
Knowing Manuel's roving eye, Janice didn't have to stretch her imagination far to gather Manuel and the rather amorous daughter of the pharmacist had been caught in compromising circumstances.
"It is understandable. I would do the same for my little brother," she replied. "However, I do not need Manuel. I am capable of managing on my own. All I need do is take the train to Gage and take a stage from there. It is not as if Indians attack trains. Travel is very civilized these days." She said that lie boldly, knowing full well only recently Geronimo's band had been rampaging through the territory the train crossed.
"A woman cannot travel by herself," Jason proclaimed as if he were Moses with the Ten Commandments.
"This woman traveled all the way here from Cutlerville by herself," Janice informed him. "I'll manage. Besides, it is better if I leave now, before the weather turns bad."
The protests were many and varied but none of them swayed Janice's determination. She had wavered long enough. Now her mind was made up, and no one could divert her. Betsy's health was the only mitigating factor, but Betsy seemed stronger than ever. When told of the impending journey, she was more than ready to go. Peter had told her about the mountains, and she wanted to see them for herself.
"You're making a mistake, Janice. That's wild country out there. Not all the Apaches are on reservations. If you can't wait for Peter to meet you, I'll have to go with you. I can't let you go alone." Jason stood up and started for his office.
"You can't leave this blamed ranch and you know it, Jason Harding." Janice aimed these words at his back. "You need to move those cattle to the southern pastures and someone's been cutting the fences out there. Someone has to decide how many cows you're shipping out before winter, and there's that bull over in Houston you need to look at. Kyle can't do it all. You'll stay here, where you belong. I'll be fine on my own."
Jason glared at her. "You know too damned much about my business."
"And you know too little about mine. I'm going, and that's final."
Jason glanced around as if trapped. Carmen came to his rescue.
"We will buy your railroad tickets. You can wire us when you reach Gage and let us know what stage you will be leaving on and when you expect to arrive. If we don't hear from you at the expected time, we are all coming after you. I think we must tell Daniel of your plans also. He will be worried about Peter."
"I can buy my own tickets, but I will agree to the rest. Do not say anything alarming to Daniel, though. He's likely to do something foolish like hire a gunslinger to come after us." Janice rose from her chair as if the discussion was over.
Before she could escape, Kyle went red and fished around in his pocket for a piece of paper. "I forgot about this. It's from Daniel. Georgie had her baby. It's a boy—seven pounds seven ounces. They're calling him George Mathias."
The room erupted in questions and excitement and the topic was neatly changed. Later, Janice returned to her room and packed what few items she had unpacked a month before.
* * *
Peter swiped the sweat from his dirty brow and glared bitterly at the mountain of rock towering above him. "It's in there, Townsend. It has to be."
His partner lay his pick down and leaned his aching muscles stiffly against the nearest outcropping. "If it's there, we'll have to dynamite it out. That'll cost."
Peter took a firm hold on his pick handle and swung furiously, unleashing his frustration on the crumbling rock. After a few strikes, the dent he'd made in the mountain was negligible. Panting, he leaned against the handle and stared at the opening in the rock through the sweat streaming down his face. "It's got to be there, Townsend. I've got to find it or die trying."
Townsend sent him a concerned look but said nothing. Both men knew what he meant. They were broke, head over heels in debt, and this pile of stone was hiding its treasures. It wasn't the best time to take on the additional burden of a wife and child. Somewhere out there a lovely woman waited for Mulloney, her hopes and future soli
dly in Peter's hands—hands that were raw and bleeding from this hopeless task. Townsend shook his head and swung his pick again.
Beside him, Peter scarcely heard the renewed echo of steel against stone. With every strike of his pick he saw Janice's eyes wide and soft and waiting. He felt her trust as she gave herself to him. He had promised her a future with him if she would give up her home in Texas, and she had accepted because she trusted him. He had some understanding of how difficult that had been for her. Mulloneys had destroyed her life once already. He couldn't do it again. He had to go back to her a rich man.
Or not go back to her at all. Daniel would take care of his brother's widow.
But he wouldn't give up yet. He was on the verge of having it all: the wealth, the woman he craved, and the knowledge that he could do it all on his own.
Right now, he wanted the woman more than anything. With frustration, he sent the pick ringing into the stone again.
Chapter 28
Mesmerized, Betsy gazed out the train window as it approached her new home. So far, Janice wasn't the least bit impressed by the scenery, but Betsy seemed to find just the brilliance of the air fascinating. Despite the dust and heat, she was holding up to the travel very well, and Janice gave thanks for that.
What she didn't give thanks for was the attention they attracted. It would seem men out here hadn't seen women in a lifetime. At first, she had accepted their little attentions with gratitude. They knew where to find a glass of water or which stations would have food and they helped her on and off with her baggage whenever the train made an unscheduled stop. The haste with which the railroad had been built guaranteed track failures on top of the usual natural disasters.
But as they rolled across the Texas border into New Mexico, the passengers all seemed to be men, and Janice felt exceedingly conspicuous. They vied for the privilege of bringing her water. They argued over the seat behind her. They even fought for Betsy's attention.
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