by Amanda Cabot
“Would you like a glass of buttermilk?” Thea asked as she and Jackson walked from the livery to her house. They’d had no picnic today, and though they’d both taken drinks from the canteens they always carried in the buggy, she was still thirsty. That was part of the reason for offering him a drink, but it was far from the most important one. The truth was, she didn’t want Jackson to leave, not when there were still unanswered questions.
As they’d ridden home, they’d talked about his exploits with the Rangers and Thea’s more amusing episodes with her patients, but they’d never returned to Jackson’s plans to settle in Cimarron Creek. Though she was reluctant to ask him directly, perhaps if they relaxed on the porch, he might speak of it.
“That sounds mighty good.”
Thea nodded, pleased that he sounded as eager to stay with her as she was to have him there. “I’ll be right back.”
She pulled the key from her reticule and started to fit it into the door but stopped when she realized the door was no longer locked. Aimee must have returned earlier than she’d expected.
“Aimee?” Thea called as she opened the door. There was no answer. She stepped inside, then screamed.
The parlor had been torn apart.
Thea looked down at the baby in her arms. Stuart was contentedly drinking his milk, unaware of the turmoil that still caused her stomach to clench. Though the house had once again been restored to order, she could not forget the chaos that had greeted her yesterday.
As soon as he’d seen the destruction in the parlor, Jackson had summoned Travis, and the two men had walked through the house, cataloguing the damage. Every room had been searched. The contents of the kitchen cabinets had been flung to the floor; wardrobes had been emptied, bureau drawers overturned.
“At least they didn’t rip the cushions the way they did at Helen Bradford’s house,” Jackson had told her.
Though it was a small mercy, Thea still felt violated, knowing that strangers had been in her home. It was no coincidence, she was certain, that Jackson had believed someone was following them yesterday. In all likelihood, that person—or persons—had realized she would be gone for a while and had returned to Cimarron Creek to search for the missing gold. The gold that they were unable to find, because Thea did not have it.
No one knew what they would do next, but Jackson was taking no chances. He’d told Thea he doubted the Gang would strike again during daylight, but he, Travis, and Edgar had taken turns keeping watch overnight. No one had come, and though they’d questioned several of the townspeople, no one had noticed any strangers.
“Be extra careful,” Jackson had cautioned Thea this morning when he announced that he was going to search the perimeter of the town, looking for traces of the Gang.
She would indeed be careful, particularly because she had this precious child in her care. No one was going to hurt Stuart. Though she would normally have sat on the porch as she fed him, today she’d remained indoors. And while keeping a watchful eye on the street was not something she’d ever done, today she found herself doing exactly that. That was why she saw five people approach Travis and Lydia’s house.
The travelers had returned.
Thea smiled for the first time all day. There was no need to be suspicious of these newcomers. The way Lydia greeted them left no doubt of their identity. The young couple were Catherine and Austin Goddard. Their children, Hannah and Seth, marched a few steps behind them, each holding the hand of an older woman. The children seemed exuberant, perhaps because they were finally out of the stagecoach and could release pent-up energy, but their companion was far from happy.
Thea’s smile faded at the sight of the slumped shoulders and hesitant gait that telegraphed despair. This was Grace Sims, Aimee’s mother, the woman who’d traveled so far to find her daughter and who had yet to learn that her quest would have a happy ending.
Thea studied the older woman, wanting to see whether the resemblance to Aimee was as pronounced as Lydia had claimed, but Grace’s hat shaded her face. Thea would have to wait until they were formally introduced to have her question answered. Right now, it was time to put Lydia’s plan into motion.
Lydia hadn’t known the exact date of the travelers’ arrival, but she’d told Thea that she would insist Grace spend the night with her rather than returning to the ranch with the Goddards. The ostensible reason would be to help Lydia with the twins, when in actuality she wanted Grace to have private time with Aimee.
Since the stagecoach arrived in the afternoon when Thea was rarely with patients, she and Lydia had arranged that once Catherine and Austin left, Thea would fetch Aimee from the apothecary. No one wanted Grace to wait a minute longer than necessary for the reunion.
“C’mon, Stuart, you’re going for a ride,” Thea said half an hour later when the four Goddards had departed. Though it would take less than ten minutes to go to the pharmacy and return, she had no intention of leaving the child alone. There was no telling what the Gang might do to get the gold.
Jackson could say what he would about the outlaws not returning during daylight, but Thea would take no chances. Once Stuart was bundled into the buggy, she pushed it as quickly as she could without breaking into a run.
“I hate to inconvenience you,” she told Warner as she entered the pharmacy, “but I need Aimee at home now.”
“More trouble?” Like the rest of Cimarron Creek’s residents, Warner had heard about the ransacking of her house.
Thea shook her head. “No. Just something only Aimee can do.”
Though she said nothing, Aimee’s eyes lit with happiness. A second later, the happiness was gone, replaced by what appeared to be fear. Poor Aimee. No matter how much she’d longed for this moment, she could not help but wonder what it would be like to be face-to-face with the woman who’d given her life.
Oblivious to his assistant’s conflicting emotions, Warner nodded. “Certainly. Some of our customers will be disappointed, but we’ll all survive.”
“Thanks, Warner.” Aimee offered him a weak smile as she followed Thea outside. “They’re here?” she asked in little more than a whisper.
“The others have left, but Grace is still with Lydia.”
Apprehension caused Aimee’s face to stiffen. “Oh, Thea, what am I going to do?”
“You’re going to meet your mother.”
29
I don’t recognize them.” Though he’d tried to convince himself that the Gang would not strike during the day, Jackson could not stop himself from keeping watch. He’d stopped in the sheriff’s office to see whether Travis had learned anything about the people who’d searched Thea’s home, but rather than take one of the chairs in front of the desk, he stood by the window so he could watch the street.
The unfamiliar couple did not look suspicious, but that meant little. Jackson doubted that the Gang appeared to be anything other than ordinary citizens until they masked their faces and pulled guns on their victims. As Jackson studied the couple and wondered if he should attempt to talk to them, he realized these were not his quarry. The man had blond hair, not brown, and the dark-haired woman who sat so close to him that Jackson surmised they were man and wife was not tall enough to be the female member of the Gang. When two children sat up in the back of the wagon, the newcomers’ innocence was confirmed.
“That’s Austin Goddard and his family.” Travis had abandoned his chair and come to stand next to Jackson. “Lydia and I’ve been expecting them to arrive any day now. I imagine they’re tired from traveling, but if you’re interested in that ranch of theirs, you might want to go out there in the next day or two.”
Jackson nodded. “I’ll do that.”
Aimee knocked on the door, her heart pounding so fiercely she feared it might break through her chest. This was the moment she’d dreamt about, the one she’d been waiting for. She shouldn’t be so nervous; she shouldn’t have so much trouble breathing; but she did.
Only seconds after she’d knocked, Lydia opened the door a
nd ushered her inside. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Does she know?” They hadn’t rehearsed the details of the meeting. All Lydia had told Aimee was that she would give them time alone.
“Not yet.” As if she sensed that Aimee’s legs were about to give way, Lydia wrapped her arm around Aimee’s waist and led her toward the parlor. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “Everything will be fine.”
If only Aimee could be so confident. She wanted to meet Grace—after all, she was the reason Aimee had traveled so far—but now that the moment had arrived, she had no idea what she should say or do.
“Smile,” Lydia advised as she opened the door.
The room was empty save for a blonde woman perched on the edge of the settee. Aimee’s breath caught as the woman raised her head and looked at her, revealing a face that was an older version of the one Aimee saw in the mirror every morning.
The woman gasped and started to rise, but Lydia shook her head. “You’d best stay seated, Grace, because I don’t want you to faint. This young lady is Aimee Jarre, your daughter.”
The blood drained from Grace’s face, leaving her so pale that Aimee thought she might indeed faint. She stared at Aimee for a moment, clearly not believing what she’d heard, even though her eyes confirmed the truth.
“You’re here? This is where you came?” A smile wreathed Grace’s face, giving her an almost ethereal beauty. “Oh, my child, I can’t believe it! This is the miracle I prayed for.”
Ignoring Lydia’s admonitions, Grace rose and rushed toward Aimee, enfolding her in her arms, leaving Aimee surrounded by the delicate scent of toilet water and the warmth she’d longed for her entire life. This was her mother. Despite the years and the secrets that had kept them apart, they were together now, and if Aimee had her way, they would never again be parted.
Though she left her hands on Aimee’s shoulders, as if she were as unwilling as Aimee to break the contact, Grace took a step backward and stared at her. “You’ve grown up to be a beautiful woman.”
“Je ne suis pas belle.” Aimee shook her head. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I forget the English words when I’m excited. I’m not beautiful.”
Grace raised one hand and traced the outlines of Aimee’s face, her fingers moving slowly down her cheek, then cupping her chin. “Yes, you are. To a mother’s eye, you’ll always be beautiful. Now sit down here.” She gestured toward the settee. “I want to know everything about you.”
And Aimee wanted to learn everything about her.
When Aimee and her mother were seated next to each other, Lydia spoke. “I’ll bring you some tea and a few sandwiches.”
Grace gripped Aimee’s hand and kept her gaze fixed on her. “I’ve dreamt of this moment every day since I left you in Ladreville, but I never truly believed I’d see you again. Oh, Aimee, I love you so much.”
A little laugh punctuated her words. “Your parents chose the perfect name for you. When I first heard it, I thought it sounded pretty, much better than Bertha, which is what I would have named you.”
Aimee’s heart swelled with happiness at the evidence that despite having been sent away from Cimarron Creek, Grace had loved her parents enough to want to give her daughter her mother’s name.
“It was only when Catherine explained that Aimee means ‘loved’ that I realized how well they’d chosen. You are loved. So very much.”
Aimee nodded, momentarily unable to utter a word. She could feel Grace’s love in the hand that gripped hers. She could see it in her eyes and hear it in her voice. This was what had been missing from her life: a mother’s love.
Perhaps it was too soon to ask, but Aimee could not stop herself. “If you loved me, why did you give me up for adoption?”
“I didn’t want to. You need to believe that, Aimee. No matter what my parents said, you were not a problem or a burden. You were my child.” As emotion choked her voice, Grace paused to clear her throat. “I wanted to raise you. I knew I couldn’t do it here, because there would always be cruel whispers about you, so I thought about moving to a town where I could pretend to be a widow.”
As she fixed her gaze on Aimee, Aimee realized that while she might be a younger version of her mother, they did not share the same eye color. Grace’s were emerald green, while Aimee’s were hazel, perhaps a legacy from her father.
“I would have done it,” Grace continued, “but my heart told me you deserved more than that. You deserved two parents, and that was a problem I couldn’t surmount. I wouldn’t have married your father even if he’d been free to offer for me, and I doubted any man would want to marry me after what he’d done to me.”
Though she gave no detail, Grace’s words confirmed what Aimee had feared: her mother had been attacked, and it appeared that the man had been married. No matter how fervently she wished it were otherwise, Aimee was not the result of an encounter between two young people who’d been swept away by their emotions.
Aimee nodded slowly, encouraging her mother to continue.
“As much as I loved you and wanted to keep you with me, I couldn’t let you suffer because of what had happened to me, so when the family I was staying with offered to find a couple to adopt you, I agreed. Perhaps it was cowardly of me, but I knew it would be impossible to hand you to another woman, so I left before they reached Ladreville.”
Everything she’d said confirmed what Aimee had thought. “The Russells told me how worried they were about you.”
Surprise brought a flush of color to Grace’s face. “You’ve met Ruth and Sterling? You went to Ladreville? How did that happen and how did you know to come here?”
Lydia knocked on the door, deposited a tray laden with food and beverages on the table in front of them, then departed without a word. As she watched her mother sip tea and savor a sandwich, Aimee told her about her childhood in France, how she’d always felt different from the other children at school but hadn’t known why, how the letters she found after her parents’ deaths had revealed that she had been born in Texas and adopted by the Jarres.
“I wanted to find you or at least learn more about you,” she told Grace, “so I came to Texas. When I arrived in Ladreville, Pastor and Mrs. Russell took me in, but they couldn’t tell me anything other than that you’d once lived in Cimarron Creek. Coming here was my last hope.”
Tears filled Grace’s eyes, but whether they were tears of sorrow or joy, Aimee didn’t know. “When did you arrive?” her mother asked. When Aimee told her, she brushed an errant tear from her cheek. “Two weeks. If only I’d waited two weeks longer to leave.” There was no doubt that the tears that now streamed down Grace’s face were tears of regret.
“You’re here now, and we’re together. That’s all that matters.” Though she meant the words to comfort her mother, Aimee wasn’t certain she’d succeeded.
“Do you understand why I did what I did?” Grace asked. “I thought I was doing what was best for you when I let them adopt you. I thought they’d love you and that you’d be raised in America. Even though I didn’t know their names or that they were from France, the Russells said that the couple had longed for a child and were planning to settle in California. I believed that would be good for you.”
“I know that.” Aimee patted Grace’s shoulder, the gesture almost identical to the way she soothed Stuart. “I’m not sure what I would have done in your situation, but I know it’s important that a child have two parents. Thea’s been struggling with that.”
“Thea?”
As Aimee explained what had happened to Thea and how Stuart had come to be part of their lives, Grace’s tears dried. “That poor woman! It must have been horrible, losing both her husband and her baby. At least I had the joy of holding you in my arms for a few minutes. I knew you were alive.”
She stared at the floor for a moment, then returned her gaze to Aimee. “Every time I’d see a girl about your age, I would wonder where you were and what you were doing. I wondered if you were in a big city or a small town or living on
a ranch, but during all those years I never dreamed that you were in France.” She shook her head, as if chastising herself. “My daughter is a Frenchwoman.”
Aimee didn’t want to talk about herself, not when there were so many things she had yet to learn about her mother. “What did you do when you left Ladreville?”
Grace explained how she’d fled to San Antonio, where she’d met an older couple and become a companion to the woman. “When Marjorie died, Douglas insisted that we marry,” she told Aimee. “I was as happy as I could be under the circumstances.” She pursed her lips for a second, as if trying to control her emotions, before she said, “I’ll always regret that I didn’t see my parents again, but I thank God that I found you.”
As they consumed the plate of sandwiches and drank the tea, Aimee and her mother shared stories of their past. “Is there anything else you want to know?” Grace asked when she’d drained her cup of tea.
Aimee nodded. “Who was my father?”
30
He was anxious to see Thea again. Jackson could tell himself that he was worried about her now that the Gang had found her. That was true, but it was only part of the reason his boots were pounding the boardwalk as he rushed from the sheriff’s office toward Thea’s house.
“How are you?” he asked as she opened the door. She looked as beautiful as ever, although the circles under her eyes told him she hadn’t slept well—if at all—last night.
He wasn’t surprised. Even if he hadn’t been keeping watch, Jackson knew he would have had trouble sleeping. He’d spent the night thinking about the destruction he’d seen in both Thea’s and Helen Bradford’s homes and feeling as if something important had eluded him. Even daylight, which normally cleared his thoughts, had not helped. He was as perplexed as he’d been last night.
Thea placed a finger on her lips and whispered, “I just got Stuart to sleep. He’s been cranky all day, which isn’t like him, but come on in.”