Breathe: A Novel of Colorado

by Lisa T. Bergren

  "Odessa," said her brother now, just behind her.

  She pulled away then, and Bryce shoved aside a shiver at her sudden departure. She whirled. "Nic? Nic!" She cried out and stepped into her brother's arms next. "Oh, thank you, thank you all," she said, looking from the Thompsons to the sheriff beyond Dominic, then to the deputy and back to Bryce again.

  The deputy knelt and flipped one dead man to his back and then the other. The sheriff pulled the handkerchiefs from their faces. "Any of you know these men? Anyone recognize them?"

  They all shook their heads.

  "Do you know why they were so intent upon catching you, Miss St. Clair? Or was it you they were after, Mrs. Anderson?"

  Odessa put a hand to her mouth and shook her head, sudden tears in her eyes, then she turned away, as if she couldn't bear the sight of the dead men's faces any longer.

  "Highwaymen, up to no good," the sheriff said in summary.

  "Judge, jury, and executioner, all in one man," muttered Dominic. Bryce glanced up at his odd comment. He could see that Odessas brother was angry, disgruntled over something beyond the trauma of the day. He looked about to the others.

  The sheriff was moving to Mr. Thompson, shaking his hand, ruffling the toddler's hair. Alexander Thompson came tearing across the clearing, jumping into his father's arms. The two clung together, and tears ran down the father's face.

  But the deputy stood to one side, his expression vaguely wary.

  Chapter

  23

  Odessa had insisted she need not return to the sanatorium, and remained at the cottage with her siblings. Doctor Morton and Nurse Packard visited her twice a day.

  "Honestly," she griped to Bryce as the doctor left on the third day, "if I can survive a night like I did with Helen and not die of a consumptive attack, what will strike me down here in our sweet cottage?"

  He watched her, admiring her lovely, stubborn curls, falling from the bun atop her head, the new curve of her cheek, symbolic of a few precious pounds regained. Today, her eyes seemed all the more bold-a lovely deep ocean green. She turned to him, aware now that he gazed upon her. The doctor had set off, and the street was empty. They were alone on the porch.

  Unable to stop himself, he took her in his arms and cradled her face with one hand. "Odessa St. Clair, how did I ever bear to leave you?"

  She smiled up at him, a hint of sorrow in her eyes. "I don't know. Some trifling thing such as a massive ranch and three hundred head of horses needing attention."

  He returned her smile. "I can't bear it. Not ever again. Come back with me."

  She frowned in confusion and pulled slightly away.

  He went to one knee. "In the absence of your father, I've spoken to your brother. He thinks your father will approve."

  Odessa lifted one hand to her lips. "Of what?"

  "Odessa St. Clair, will you be my bride? I've left you once. I've pledged to never do so again. But I cannot remain here. I must return to the ranch. You know that, right?"

  "I know, Bryce," she said, pain in her voice.

  He shrugged and cocked his head to one side. "Only one route out of such a mess: Take you with me."

  "You ... you are asking me to marry you?"

  He smiled. "Are you stalling? Looking for a way to let me down easy?"

  "No. I mean yes! Yes, Bryce," she said, placing a hand to his cheek. "I think I've always wanted to be your wife. From that first day on the porch. And ever onward."

  He rose and picked her up in his arms, spinning her around. Gently, he let her slide back to the porch, and he felt the heat of her lithe body. He bent low, then, and kissed her soft lips.

  "Honestly, what will the neighbors think?" interrupted Moira, suddenly at the front door. "Odessa, I'm surprised at you!"

  "Let them talk," Odessa said, staring up into his eyes. And then, with those three words, and a sultry, loving look in her oceanic eyes, Bryce McAllan knew she was really going to be his.

  They set off for Glen Eyrie in high spirits indeed. General Palmer had wanted to honor the heroism of the Thompson family in saving Odessa and Helen and had quickly organized this gathering. Dominic was planning to announce Odessa's engagement to Bryce. The ladies were in exquisite gowns and tiny hats with feathers. Dominic was in his new suit and Bryce had obtained his own from the local mercantile-not with the fine fabric that Dominic's boasted, but a dandy indeed.

  "Have to sell a few horses for that one, Brother-to-be?" teased Moira, straightening his lapel in her normal, flirty way. But Bryce only had eyes for Odessa. He stared at her as she arrived from the back room and pulled on her new black elbow-length gloves and then straightened the teal silk about her. She met his admiring glance with a grin. So handsome was her fiance! So tall, and stronger than ever after these past weeks on the ranch. He'd lost a little weight even as she'd continued to gain it. Either she would need to cook for the men or find a good woman to do so for all of them. Ranch men obviously needed food, and lots of it.

  "I cannot wait to see your ranch," she said, coming near. She loved how his hair curled at the ends, around his neck. It begged to be cut and yet Odessa knew she couldn't bear to turn scissors upon it. Instead, she longed to run her fingers through it.

  "And I cannot wait to dance with you this eve," he returned, bowing over her hand.

  "I like the sound of that."

  He offered her his arm, and Dominic and Moira followed behind them. Moira had donned a new deep russet gown, a daring choice indeed. But she looked stunning. The men helped them into the carriage, rented for the evening, and then stepped to the front bench. They stopped several blocks away to pick up Helen, and Bryce gallantly moved up the stepping-stones to her door.

  She appeared in the doorway, every inch the lady. Odessa gasped and grinned, offering her hand as the woman stepped up and into the carriage. "My friend, I've never seen you look so ... womanly!"

  Helen grinned. "I shall take that as a compliment," she returned, lifting a wry brow.

  "What happened that day, up in the canyon?" Bryce asked his future brother-in-law quietly, his tone barely discernible over the horses' hooves. He didn't want to cast down the women's festive mood, but he needed the truth, this night, before they faced others involved. "Nic, why were you so disgruntled?"

  Dominic stared at the road ahead of them for a few long moments. "No one wanted those men dead more than I," he said at last, leveling a gaze at Bryce. "But the third man, the one behind the house ... he'd given up, tossed his weapon aside. The sheriff shot him in the back. There was no threat. He just killed him."

  The two men glanced at each other. "Why?" Bryce asked.

  "I've asked myself a hundred times. Is the sheriff a vigilante? Was it a way to manifest power?" He cocked a brow. "He was angry, very angry. The night before, Moira had denied him, ended their courtship. The general told him to give up his quest. Maybe it was fury's fire, needing to burn itself out."

  Bryce absorbed that information, thought it over for a minute or two. He glanced back. Helen and Moira were talking; Odessa stared back up at him. "How'd she do it? Break up with him?"

  Dominic let a subtle smile spread across his face. "She named a suitor, back in Philadelphia. A man the general would kill himself to have come to town and stay."

  "Who?"

  "James Clarion Jr."

  Bryce pursed his lips and nodded. He glanced over at Dominic. "Sure your father will bless my union with Odessa with someone such as that on the horizon for Moira?"

  "I dunno," Dominic said in a teasing tone, grinning. "Maybe saving Odessa from highwaymen will sway him." He paused for a breath. "The big ranch won't harm your argument either."

  They rode on in companionable silence for a while. "So do you think the sheriff was somehow involved with those men? Shooting to silence them?"

  "I only know I don't trust the man," Dominic said. "You shouldn't either. There's something wrong here. Something really wrong. And I either need to find out what it is or make sure my sisters are f
ar, far from it."

  A trio of strings was playing on the broad stone deck outside the castle. Bryce escorted Odessa out of the carriage, his hand covering hers upon his arm, as if he didn't want her to slip away, or was afraid someone might try to pull her away. Odessa didn't mind. His arm felt strong and sinewy beneath her glove-covered fingers. And it was thrilling to be beside him, knowing she would always be beside him.

  A day after his proposal, she could still hardly believe it. She glanced up at him, lean and handsome, a head taller than she. He looked fine in his new suit and she felt safe. Knowing he was steps away, as she had once known he was just downstairs at the sanatorium, comforted her. Their experience in the canyon and at the Thompson ranch had left her jumpy, ill at ease. Only Bryce's presence seemed to calm her nerves. It felt odd that Papa wasn't here, that she hadn't heard from him that he approved of Bryce McAllan and their impending union, but it was the nature of things here in the West. In time, she would receive a letter from him, answering her own. And she was confident he would approve.

  Maybe as the new bride, as Odessa McAllan, with Bryce standing behind her, she could also come clean with her father and tell him she longed to write, to submit her work for publication. Or perhaps she could simply leave that identity behind, put it to rest alongside Odessa St. Clair and move on to embrace her new identity as Odessa McAllan, writing as Helen had encouraged her to do-from her heart, for her God, for herself, never worrying about who else might read it.

  She looked about at all the fine ladies, watched as Moira flitted about between them all, already the center of attention, dragging Dominic along. She had always thought her younger sister would be the first to marry.

  Odessa's recovery thrilled Moira, made her more joyful than she had seen her sister in some time. As much as she liked being the belle of the ball, she didn't really wish to be the only St. Clair woman. Some might dismiss her as shallow, self-serving, and there was definitely a selfish nature to her sister, but she was mostly, simply, young. There was much she had yet to discover, learn, many ways in which she was yet to grow. And without their mother alive to teach her, Odessa wondered where she would learn it.

  For Odessa was soon to leave this place for a ranch, high and wide, sheltered by the steep Sangre de Cristos Mountains to her west. Damp to her East, wounds to her West ... Sam's poem came to mind and she wondered how long it would be until they explored the valley, tried to find what he'd left behind. Or would such a search merely leave them open to attack again? She glanced up to Bryce again, thinking she never wanted to risk losing this curious painterrancher again; not if she could help it.

  Bryce greeted an acquaintance and led her off to the walled edge of the deck, to look out upon the Glen. It was cool outside, but they would remain outside until dark, when they would proceed into the ballroom upstairs in the castle for dinner and then dancing.

  "You are quiet," he said, looking out beside her, then down at her.

  "I am deep in thought," she returned.

  "May I ask about what?"

  "About your ranch."

  "Our ranch."

  "Our ranch and more. We've spoken at length about my father and his approval of our union," she said in a whisper, "but what of your family? Their approval of me?"

  "It matters not. My choice of a bride is up to me. As long as I continue to breed and raise horses for them here in the West, and send them East for sale, I am fulfilling my end of the bargain."

  "But you long to see the sea again, to live upon her shore. Can you really stay here in Colorado forever?"

  He turned slightly toward her and for a moment Odessa expected him to lean down and kiss her. But he refrained. "Odessa, I glimpse the ocean every time I look into your eyes. And we both know that our health, our very lives, depend on us remaining in a land where we can breathe. We've found renewed health, renewed vigor, and love ... I am a satisfied man."

  She smiled up at him, in wonder at this miracle of love, weaving its way between them. "And I am a satisfied woman."

  "That is good, my love, because soon, it will be public knowledge that you are my bride-to-be."

  "Let's not wait long," she said suddenly.

  "Make that my eager bride," he amended, a wry grin lifting one eyebrow.

  She blushed, could feel the heat of it upon her cheeks. "It's only that ... the consumption ... then those men ..."

  "Death's shadow has made you hunger for life's light?"

  She smiled. "Who is the writer and who is the artist?"

  "We are of like mind, sweetheart. We shall marry as soon as your father arrives and I can get the house ready for you. We've already begun."

  "So ... July. We'll wed in a month." Odessa looked away as the memory of the mountain attack again recaptured her mind, as it had frequently since the event.

  Bryce seemed to sense this. "You don't need to be afraid, Odessa. Married or not, I'm here to keep you safe."

  Her eyes slid out toward the Glen.

  "Odessa?"

  "I don't want you to fret, Bryce."

  "Tell me."

  "Dominic told me the sheriff killed the third man. Shot him in the back." She shuddered.

  "Dominic should not have burdened you with such a story," he said.

  "It isn't merely a story. And somehow, I can't help but think," she paused to glance about them and lower her voice, "that it is somehow tied to Sam. What he's left us."

  Bryce returned her stare. "So ... you believe the sheriff is behind the attack? Really? Why would he do such a thing?"

  "Greed? Power? I don't know, Bryce. I only know I don't trust him."

  "That could be the sister in you speaking, Odessa. Because the sheriff overstepped his bounds with Moira, jailed your brother ..."

  "Yes. I admit, you might be right." Odessa stepped forward and scanned the crowd now milling about the Palmers' castle deck.

  Her eyes finally landed upon Reid, who stood at the wall, arms akimbo, supporting himself as he stared down upon them. He gave her a small nod, a smile, but Odessa turned without returning a look in kind. "Or you might be wrong." She looked to Bryce, who seeing her expression, searched the deck and found the sheriff. "There is something wrong with that man, Bryce. Something deeply wrong."

  Reid Bannock stared down at Odessa and Bryce, in animated conversation among the trees. Never had he seen Odessa look lovelier, but she did not look upon him with favor. She stared at him with indignation, judgment. "She knows," he said lowly to his compatriot who emerged then, from among the trees.

  "Knows what?"

  "She's putting it together somehow. There's just something in her eyes that tells me she knows." He turned and leaned against the wall, searching the crowd for Odessas sister, the beauty in russet red. There she was. A picture. A lady worthy of portraiture. It burned still, her spurning, her abrupt departure. But part of him was all the more enticed. A hard-won woman was worthy...

  "If you're right, we need Odessa St. Clair gone."

  Reid considered her again. "What if O'Toole's map is gone, lost in the river?"

  "Then you will have to force her to tell you what she knows, prior to some unfortunate accident."

  "Pity to find the cure and then meet another death head-on."

  "Pity," the man agreed in a mutter, then moved away, blending into the crowd beyond them.

  Reid looked again to Odessa, and then Bryce. It would be more difficult to get to her with a fiance nearby. And Moira would be so deeply grieved over her death. If they were to ever reconcile, he'd hate to see her in mourning black for a year.... Perhaps the map had somehow survived. Was it on the woman even now? Did she carry it in her bodice? Surely she hadn't left it behind in the cottage.

  Another man moved to stand beside him. "Go to the St. Clair cottage and search every inch for the map, anything from O'Toole."

  "Done. May I have a glass of Palmer's champagne before I go?"

  "Please," Reid said, eyeing the general across the porch, still feeling the slow burn
of his betrayal. "Have two. But don't miss our map if it's there."

  "And if it's not?"

  "Then," he said, sliding a grin toward the man, "we'll just have to search Odessa St. Clair herself."

  Chapter

  24

  Moira walked up to Odessa, who was standing in the middle of the cottage floor, looking ill at ease. "Are you well, Sissy?"

  "Yes, I-"

  "Can you unbutton me?"

  "What?"

  "The buttons-will you help me?"

  "Oh, yes."

  Moira could feel her sister's fingers upon her back, but she stopped there. "Honestly, Dess. What is it? Are you in such a dreamy state over your engagement that you cannot even move?"

  Odessa said nothing and moved over to a picture-the one Bryce had painted for her of the ship upon a vast sea-hanging crookedly on the wall. Frowning, she straightened it. Then she turned to a small table beside the settee and straightened the tablecloth.

  "It's a bit late for housework, isn't it?" Moira asked.

  "Someone's been here."

  "What?"

  "Someone's been here."

  "The door was locked, Dess. It's highly unlikely ..."

  Odessa leveled her eyes at Moira and then strode over to her. "Come," she whispered, and ushered her out the door, where Bryce and Dominic stood on the porch, talking. Both men looked their way.

  "Someone's been in the cottage," Odessa said.

  Bryce was immediately on the move, with Dominic right behind him. Together, they moved from the parlor and into one bedroom, then the next, and finally the kitchen. They returned to the porch and Dominic shook his head. "No one here now."

  Odessa let out a long breath, and Moira realized she had been holding her breath too. "I'm so relieved."

  They returned to the parlor and the four stood in a circle.

  "Why do you think someone has been here, Odessa?" Bryce asked.