by Kaki Warner
“What the hell?” the driver muttered, yanking back on the brake so hard the buggy lurched.
Clutching the arm rail for balance, Sister Maria Elena saw a man standing in the road ahead, a rifle cradled in his arms. Another man, also armed, stood behind him, leaning against the cairn of stones that marked the ranch boundary, while a third man, little more than a boy, sat on a boulder, watching them. The only horses she saw were in a small rope-strung corral set far back from the road.
“Howdy,” the man on foot said as he strode toward the stopped buggy.
Muttering under his breath, the driver reached under the seat for his rifle.
“Está bien,” Sister Maria Elena said, smiling to reassure him. “Conozco a este hombre. I know this man. He is a friend.” Lifting a hand in greeting, she called, “Señor Langley, cómo está usted? How are you?”
The man in the road hesitated then lowered the rifle to his side. “Miss Elena? That you?”
“Sí. It is good to see you after so long.”
“Well, I’ll be.” Grinning, Langley continued toward the buggy. He had been with the rancho for many years and was one of RosaRoja’s most trusted hands. If he was still here, then hopefully the brothers would be as well.
He stopped beside the buggy, looked at the driver, then peered down the road they had just traveled. “Jack with you?”
Hiding her disappointment behind a smile, she shook her head. “No. I hoped he would be at the rancho.”
“Haven’t seen him since the two of you left.” As Langley’s faded blue eyes looked her over, a frown drew his gray brows together. “Are those nun clothes?”
“Novitiate.”
“Well, I’ll be.” He scratched at the whiskers on his jaw. “The folks at the house know about this?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, I’ll be.” Apparently having run out of words, he stood blinking and scratching until the man seated beside her shifted impatiently.
“You mind?” the driver said. “I got to get back to Val Rosa by dark.”
“Right.” Leaning his rifle against the buggy wheel, Langley lifted his hands to Sister Maria Elena. “Let me help you down, miss—ma’am, I mean Sister—heck, I don’t know what to call you.”
“Sister is fine. Or Elena. Do we walk the rest of the way?” she asked once he’d lowered her carefully to the ground. She hoped not. They were still at least fifteen miles from the ranch house.
“No, ma’am—er, Sister. We can ride, or I can send for a wagon.”
Knowing her hip wouldn’t tolerate a jaunt on horseback, she chose to wait for the wagon.
After sending the boy, a blond, gangly young man Sister Maria Elena didn’t recognize, back to the house to fetch it, Langley pulled her small carpetbag from behind the seat.
“I was paid to take her to the house,” the driver argued. “And I ain’t giving no refunds.”
Langley set down the bag, picked up his rifle, and looked at him. “No?”
The other ranch hand moved up behind him, his rifle held loose but ready in his hands.
The driver cleared his throat. “Well, maybe this one time, seeing as she’s a holy person and all.” Digging through his vest pocket, he separated several coins from a sticky wad of tobacco and handed them over. “And I was told to give you this.” Bending, he retrieved a string-tied bundle of mail from under the seat.
Langley took it and passed it on to the other ranch hand. “Any sick horses in Val Rosa?” he asked, turning back to the driver.
“Some.”
“How ’bout this one?” Langley nodded at the roan hitched to the buggy.
“Nothing so far.”
“Stable him with any sick ones?”
“Hell no.”
Langley stepped back. “Move on, then. And tell folks in Val Rosa that RosaRoja is under quarantine. No horses in, no horses out, and any that come through without our brand, we’ll shoot.”
The driver looked surprised. “You posting guards around the whole ranch? Must be a hundred square miles.”
“Hundred and thirty-five, give or take.”
“Jesus. How many men does this outfit have?”
Langley allowed a tight smile. “Enough. Have a nice trip.”
BRADY WILKINS AND HIS THREE-YEAR-OLD ADOPTED SON, Ben, were standing outside the foaling pen watching Brady’s brother, Hank, coax a shy foal into the world when Amos Logan rode in with news that there was a visitor at the boundary line and he needed a wagon to go get her.
“Hellfire,” Ben said, earning a halfhearted warning look from his father. Brady didn’t mind a little cussing now and again. But his wife wasn’t so tolerant.
“Her?” Brady kept his voice low so it wouldn’t disturb the laboring mare.
Amos nodded vigorously. “Didn’t catch her name, but Langley seemed to know her. Came in a hired buggy. From Val Rosa, I think.”
“Did the horse look sound?”
“No runny nose and it wasn’t coughing or nothing.”
Brady tugged at his mustache as he thought it over. “Go get her then. And since it’s a woman, take Jessica’s big carriage.”
After Amos headed into the barn, Ben trailing after him, Brady turned back to see the foal’s front hooves protruding from the birth canal. Hank continued to murmur reassurance to the mare as she shuddered and heaved with birth cramps.
“Your wife should be out here helping,” Brady said.
Hank didn’t respond. But then, he rarely did.
“She’s a nurse, after all,” Brady added.
“A human nurse.”
“I know she’s human.”
The mare lay panting, her distended belly bunching and rolling as her body worked to expel the foal. The air smelled of hay and manure and sweating horse.
“I’m just saying if she can bring my twins into the world, she ought to be able to help this mare. I mean, how hard can it be?”
Hank sent him a smirk. “Why don’t you ask your wife that?”
“Still.”
The mare tried to sit up. Hank stroked her neck until she relaxed again.
Brady admired his brother’s way with animals. Children too. Being as big as he was, Hank cultivated a gentle touch with anything small and helpless, probably knowing he could do real damage if he wasn’t careful. But that soothing touch could turn deadly in a heartbeat, as he’d proven last year when he’d crushed a man’s throat with his bare hands after the fool had threatened his wife and stepchildren.
Definitely not a man to cross—his brothers could attest to that.
In addition, Hank also had an analytical mind, an inventive nature, and an astounding way with women, which Brady never understood, since he considered himself to be the pick of the litter. Nonetheless, he was proud of his little brother.
With a final push from its dam, the foal, a leggy bay colt, slipped into the straw. Hank broke the sac over its nose, then stepped back so the mare could clean him up and imprint her scent on his awakening mind.
It was a wondrous thing to behold.
Moving over to stand across the fence rail from Brady, Hank wiped his hands on a rag and sighed wearily. “Four down, twenty-two to go. A good year so far.”
“We’ll need it.” In fact, the ranch’s very survival might rest on something as fragile as this foal’s life. A harrowing thought.
They stood in silence for a while, watching the colt try out his wobbly legs until he finally got himself upright and stayed there long enough to nurse. Then Brady said, “We got company. A woman.”
“I heard.”
“Wonder who it is.”
Hank shrugged.
With a sigh, Brady pushed away from the rail. “I better go warn Jessica. She’ll probably want to repaint the house or add another wing or something. You know how she is.”
“Yeah. I do.”
BRADY DIDN’T HAVE TO REPAINT OR ADD ON A WING, WHICH was a good thing, since the house was mostly stone and log construction. But he did have to change s
hirts and slick back his unruly mostly black hair, then corral his four kids and Hank’s two stepchildren and carry them upstairs to be tidied up by the Ortega sisters. The Garcia sisters used to have the job, but they’d begged off, saying they’d rather go to Santa Fe and work in their uncle’s house. Kids.
“Brady!” Jessica called from the entry. “They’re coming! Hank! Molly!”
Motioning the Ortega girls to get the twin babies, Sam and TJ, Brady scooped up two-year-old Abigail with one hand and steered Ben down the hall with the other. Hank met him at the top of the staircase with his wife, Molly. Penny, who was seven, and Charlie, who was ten and almost as talkative as Hank, trailed behind their stepparents.
“Hurry along now,” Jessica prodded, the clipped tones of her English accent making them all step lively.
“Who is it?” Molly asked Brady as Jessica herded them out onto the sprawling front porch.
Brady could tell Molly was nervous, as she always was around strangers. Eighteen months ago she and her orphaned niece and nephew had been on the run when their train had derailed, leaving two men dead and another—a stranger who happened to be Hank—mortally injured. Being a resourceful and intelligent woman, she had immediately seen a way to get the money she desperately needed to keep running. All she had to do was present herself as the injured stranger’s intended, marry him, then collect the railroad settlement when he died.
But Hank, being stronger than a mule and hardheaded besides, didn’t die, although he did lose his memory for a time, which complicated matters between the newlyweds somewhat. But he and Molly had gotten past that and had been happily married for almost a year. Odd, how things work out.
“It’s not Jack, is it?” Molly persisted.
“No, it’s a woman.”
“Do you know who?”
“I don’t.”
Molly had never met Jack, the youngest Wilkins brother. He and Elena had left for San Francisco almost three years ago to have Elena’s crippled hip fixed, and they’d been missing ever since. Then last spring a letter had come from Jack. “Be home in a year,” was all it said. More of a talker than a writer, Jack was.
“Here they come.” With brisk efficiency, Jessica assembled them across the porch like a troop of soldiers lined up for inspection.
Brady smiled, watching her. Her face was flushed. Her eyes sparkled. By her proud smile, it was obvious how pleased she was with her family, which greatly pleased him.
Satisfied all was in order, she took her place at his side. “Do I look all right?” she whispered, smoothing back her coppery curls and brushing wrinkles from her skirts.
Brady leaned down to kiss her temple. “You always look all right.”
She flashed a smile. “As do you. Except perhaps for the whiskers.”
“I didn’t have time to shave.”
“Do you ever?”
“I thought you liked it.”
“It makes you look rakish.”
He waggled his eyebrows. “Which you like. Especially when I—”
“Hush.” Biting back a smile, she hiked her forceful little chin and watched her large, four-wheeled closed carriage roll through the arched gate and up the long drive to the house.
“Can you see her?” Jessica shaded her eyes against the afternoon glare. “I can’t see her.”
“That’s because she’s inside.” Brady studied her, wondering why she was so worked up. Was she that lonely out here so far from town that the prospect of a visitor would put her in such a dither? Had he been wrong to take her away from England and the genteel life she’d known there? The thought settled like a stone in his chest. He loved this woman more than he’d ever thought possible. He would kill for her, die for her, do anything. Except live without her. “Regrets, Jessica?”
She glanced up, a tiny frown between her whiskey brown eyes. “About what?”
“This. Us. Being stuck out here on the ranch.”
His beautiful, proper, highly decorous wife punched him in the arm. “Dolt.”
Reassured, Brady allowed himself to relax, enjoying the way her eyes followed the movement of his lips as he grinned. It was gratifying that even at thirty-seven he could still prime her pump with a smile. “She’s here.”
“What? Oh!”
The carriage rolled to a stop beside the wide steps leading down from the porch. No face showed in the curtained window. No hand threw open the door.
Langley hopped down, lifted the mounting step from the driver’s box, and walked briskly to the side of the carriage. After setting the step on the ground, he opened the door.
A woman’s booted foot showed, then a black-clad figure stepped out of the doorway. Black from head to toe, except for the white wimple around her face. “Hello, Brady, Jessica, Hank,” the woman said in a Spanish-accented voice.
“Holy ...” Brady began before his wife elbowed him to silence.
“Elena?” Jessica spoke hesitantly, her eyes round in her freckled face as she stared at the figure smiling up at them from the foot of the steps.
“Is that a nun outfit?” Brady muttered.
Jessica didn’t answer because she was already halfway down the steps. “Elena!” she cried, arms wide, laughing and crying as she rushed toward the woman.
Brady turned to Hank. “Is that a nun outfit?”
Hank shrugged.
“It appears so,” Molly ventured.
“What’s a nun outfit, Aunt Molly?” Penny asked.
“Later, dear. I’ll explain it all to you later.”
“Then you can explain it to me,” Brady said.
“A nun,” Hank mused, still rooted to his spot on the porch. “When did she get to be a nun?”
“She can’t be a nun,” Brady decided, watching the two women hugging and laughing and crying by the carriage. “Married women can’t be nuns.” He frowned at Hank. “Can they?”
Hank frowned back.
They both frowned at the coach. “Where’s Jack?”
The women finally separated. Elena moved to the bottom step then stopped, hands clasped at her waist. She looked up at Brady. “Hola, querido,” she said with a tremulous smile.
“You’re a nun.”
“A novitiate. Next month I will be a true nun.”
“How? I don’t understand. And where’s Jack?”
Her smile slipped a bit. She spread her hands in welcome, revealing the heavy silver cross hanging on her belt. “Have you no welcome for me, querido?”
Brady went slowly down the steps toward her. “Am I allowed to hug a nun?”
“You are always allowed to hug me, mi hermano.”
Brady felt an odd stinging behind his eyes as they embraced. He shared so much past with this delicate, damaged woman. So much pain. And now this new twist in the history that bound them together. Wondering if there was more sadness ahead, he stared over her head at the distant ice-capped peaks of the mountains. Despite the clear skies, he sensed a storm brewing.
When he released her and stepped back, he could see fresh tears in Elena’s dark almond-shaped eyes.
“Is he alive?” he asked, dreading the answer.
“I pray so. But I have not seen or spoken to him in almost three years.” Blinking hard, she put on a brave smile. “Come.” Taking Jessica’s arm on her right and Brady’s on her left, she gently steered them up the stairs. “First you will introduce me to these beautiful children and that lovely woman standing with Hank. Then you will tell me all about the rancho and how you came to build such a fine sturdy home. And later, when the house is quiet and the children are in bed, we will speak of your brother and what happened in San Francisco.”
San Francisco
AFTER LEAVING THE THEATER, DAISY WALKED AIMLESSLY until afternoon, trying to calm her turbulent thoughts. She had no family to leave Kate with, even if she could bring herself to do such a thing. Her closest acquaintance was a harlot who lived in a brothel. She had no money to hire anyone, nor would the small salary she would earn while training b
e enough to cover the extra expenses of bringing Kate along, much less a nanny.
Either stay behind with her or come with us.
Pain pressed against her heart. To be so close. To have the dream almost within her grasp only to have it snatched away. It was too much.
Fighting back tears of bitter disappointment, she walked woodenly toward the boardinghouse. She would have to find another position. Maybe go back to the Silver Spur and beg for her old job back. The thought made her stomach cramp. She would also have to find another place to live, another person to watch over Kate while she worked.
Come with us and be a star.
The unfairness tore at her, left her trembling with resentment and despair.
If only she hadn’t fallen in love.
If only she hadn’t allowed him to talk her into his bed.
If only she had known she was pregnant before she had let him sail away.
If only ... if only ... if only.
But then there would be no Kate. It was late by the time she turned onto her street. As she neared the bordello, Lucy came down the steps of the brothel, dressed for errands, rather than work. When she saw Daisy, she stopped and waited for Daisy to reach her. “How was the audition?”
“It’s not going to work out.” As they fell into step together, Daisy told her about Madame Scarlatti and the offer to join her traveling theater company. “But they won’t pay for Kate and I won’t earn enough to meet her costs and those of a nanny. And since I have no family to take her in and I won’t leave her with strangers, I won’t be able to go with them to Rome.” Daisy blinked back tears. “And now I don’t even have a job at the Spur, either. Lord, what a mess.”