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Caroline turned back to the suspicious-eyed man waiting by her desk and took a deep breath.
“Please, Mr. Collier, won’t you sit down?” she said and took her place behind the shelter of her desk.
Jack Collier stared at the small desks that sat in neat rows behind him. There were larger desks for the older students, but these were at the back of the room, and his long legs still wouldn’t have fit under them. But at last he settled for sitting on top of one of the front desks, though he dwarfed it.
“Where’s my brother?” Jack Collier demanded again. “Why are you wearing black?” His questions came like rapidly fired bullets, but his eyes, those eyes so like Pete’s, gave away his fear of her answer.
Lord, help me to tell him with compassion, she prayed.
“I’m sorry to tell you this, Mr. Collier, but your brother Peter passed away this last winter—” she paused when she heard his sharp intake of breath “—during an influenza epidemic.”
She didn’t dare look at him as he absorbed this news and sensed rather than saw him rock back on the small desktop as if he’d been struck a physical blow.
“Pete’s…dead?” he murmured, his hoarse voice hardly above a whisper. “But…that’s impossible. I got his letter…saying he was going to be married to the woman he met from…‘the Spinsters’ Club,’ he called it, this spring. In March. That was you he was marrying, wasn’t it? When I didn’t hear anything more, the girls and I just came ahead, figuring the invite got lost in the mail or something…I figured we missed the wedding, but we’d find you and Pete all settled in together… . Why didn’t you let me know?”
The last question was flung at her like a fist, but she heard the piercing loss contained in it.
Caroline had left her hands in her lap below the level of the desk, and now they clutched at one another so he wouldn’t see them shake. She let her gaze drop, unable to face the raw grief she’d glimpsed in his face, the mingled astonishment and fury stabbing at her from those too-familiar blue eyes. She felt a tear escape down her cheek, and she swept it away with a trembling hand.
“I—I’m sorry, Mr. Collier. I did try. When it…became apparent that Pete was sinking, I tried to ask him your address… He had it memorized, you see, not written down anywhere. But he was delirious, and…I—I’m afraid I wasn’t able to get it from him before…before he d-died.” She grabbed the black-edged handkerchief she kept always within reach in her pocket and, after dabbing at her eyes, took a deep breath. “I…tried to write you,” she said. “I couldn’t remember the name of your ranch, only that it was in Goliad County, so I addressed it General Delivery to Goliad. I…I guess it didn’t find you. I’m very sorry about that, but…I didn’t know what else to do. Pete said you were his only living relative—relatives,” she amended, to include his daughters. Pete had mentioned that his brother was a widower and had a couple of daughters, but after her only attempt to contact them had borne no fruit, she had been too weighed down with sorrow to spare them another thought.
“What am I going to do now?” Jack Collier wondered aloud as if talking to himself, his voice raspy.
She lifted her eyes to his again. “I…I’m sorry you’ve come all this way, only to hear such awful news…I’m sure Mama and Papa would be glad to put you up until you feel able to return home.” Her mind raced ahead. She could dismiss school early and have him follow her to the little house behind the post office where she, her brother and her parents lived. She would explain to them what had happened. Mr. Collier could sleep on the summer porch with his daughters.
“No,” he muttered.
She thought he was being polite, not wanting to put them to any inconvenience since his visit had been unexpected. “Oh, it’s no trouble,” she assured him kindly, “and it’s the least we can do for Pete’s only family…”
“No, you don’t understand,” Jack Collier told her, his face haggard. “I can’t go back. I—I sold my ranch. I’m on the way to Montana Territory with a herd of cattle, and I thought I could leave the girls here with you and Pete until I got settled up there… .” His voice trailed off, and he looked away, but not before she saw the utter misery in his eyes.
She was distracted by it for only a moment until she was able to process what he had said.
“You thought… You were planning…to leave your daughters with us, with Pete and me? While you went on to Montana with your herd?” She repeated his words, as if merely asking for clarification, while inside, the effrontery of it took her breath away. He’d thought he could leave two children with his newly wed brother without so much as a word of warning, without writing to ask if it would be all right with Pete and, more importantly, with Pete’s bride?
“Yes, I’m going up there to join a couple of partners of mine who bought ranch land. I figured I’d find a nice lady there to marry so the girls could have a new mama, and then I’d send for them…or come back and fetch them.” He looked away, focusing on a portrait of Washington that hung on the wall as if George might have the answers.
“But…from what I understand, at least…the snow will be flying before you get halfway there, won’t it?” She wasn’t a cattleman’s daughter, but anyone knew moving a herd of the stubborn, cantankerous critters was no quick proposition—and a potentially dangerous one, at this time of year.
He shrugged, looking uncomfortable—as well he might, she thought, at announcing such a foolhardy notion.
“We got a late start, and that’s a fact,” he admitted. “I was going to wait to sell the ranch early next year, but…well, let’s just say I got an offer that was too good to pass up, so we rounded up the herd and left. Then halfway here my ramrod—my second-in-command, that is—got himself all into some uh…legal trouble, and there was no way I was just going to abandon him and move on. We had to wait till his name was cleared…so we figured we’d winter in Nebraska, then travel on in the spring.”
Caroline felt her jaw tightening and the beginnings of a headache throb at her temples. The muddle-headed, half-baked plans men came up with! Now she was angry, and though she was normally a circumspect and thoughtful woman, she was so upset and overwrought over meeting Jack and talking about Pete that her bitter feelings came tumbling out of her mouth.
“You assumed you could dump your children with Pete and me like a couple of sacks of flour, without even writing to ask first? If you had, you would have found out then that Pete had died!”
Chapter Two
His jaw dropped open, and she knew she should have stopped right there, but her emotions were out of control. She’d endured months of well-meaning people saying she had to go on living. “Pete would have wanted you to. After all, you weren’t married, only engaged,” they’d said. It had stoppered the grief inside her, and now grief, combined with anger and aggravation flooded out like a suddenly unbottled explosive mixture. Tears stung her eyes, but she refused to cry in front of this man.
Instead, she stabbed a finger at him in accusation. “And you assume decent women grow on trees up in that wild country, just waiting for handsome cowboys like yourself to come along and pluck them off the branches?” He was handsome, she had to admit, even more so than Pete had been. If she’d never met Pete, she would have found him very attractive indeed. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t furious at him.
And he with her, apparently. She saw the fire kindle in those blue eyes, those eyes so like Pete’s, though she’d never seen Pete’s eyes look quite like that. She and Pete had never exchanged so much as a cross word.
In fact, she couldn’t remember ever yelling at anyone like that in all her life. In her heart, she knew she wasn’t being fair to the man who had only learned of his brother’s death moments ago, but how good it felt to finally say what she was thinking after months of biting her tongue and forcing herself to smile and thank people for their kind words of condolence when all she’d wanted to do was scream that it wasn’t fair. It would never be fair that she’d had to lose the man she loved. She couldn’t yell at Pete for leaving her—he wasn’t there to be yelled at. But his brother was. His brother who wasn’t even listening to her. Instead he stared fixedly at her left hand.
“What—what’s wrong?” she asked, mystified.
“Mama’s pearl ring,” he rasped, pointing at the ring Pete had given her when they’d become engaged, still on her left ring finger.
She followed his gaze, and her anger was doused in shock. “Pete gave it to me when he asked me to marry him.” She raised her eyes to his, wondering what he was thinking. Did he believe she had no right to it anymore because Pete was dead? That must be it.
“Please…it’s all I have left, now that he’s gone…”
He said nothing, just stared at her as if trying to think what to say, and she became even more sure she had guessed right. He just didn’t know a polite way to ask for it back.
She wrenched it off her finger and held it out to him, feeling the tears escape down her cheeks, but powerless to stop them. “Here…take it. It properly belongs to you now, to keep for your girls…”
He stared at the gold band with its beautiful pearl while her last words echoed in his ears—to keep for your girls.
He was not now and hoped he never would be so low as to take such a thing from a bereaved woman. And Caroline Wallace was bereaved, he realized, just as he was. The fact that she was still wearing black and the haunted look in her pretty brown eyes told him this beautiful woman was still grieving for his brother.
He forgot that he was still stinging from her scorn and started to say something, but the realization that they were both sorrowing over Pete tangled the words in his throat. So he shook his head and took a step back.
His tacit refusal, however, seemed to make things worse.
“Take it, I said!” She held out the ring again. “You can keep it for some woman you haven’t even met yet!” And then she hurled it at him.
The ring bounced off Jack’s chest and fell to the floor with a clink. He bent and retrieved it, hesitated for a moment, then pocketed it as he straightened to face her. He’d give it back to her later, when she’d calmed down. Even though the disdainful things she had said to him moments ago still hurt, he should have been quicker to say that she could keep the ring with his blessing. That he understood why she’d want to have this symbol of the love his brother had felt for her.
Shocked by the unexpected news of Pete’s death, he had just blurted out his plans, and she had shown him with a few contemptuous words just how ill-considered they appeared. Caroline Wallace’s derision made him feel like a silly boy still wet behind the ears. She’d looked at him as if he’d tracked cow manure into her schoolroom.
It was a cinch she’d never looked at Pete that way. Pete had always been the polished one, the one who’d excelled at book learning. No doubt a lady like Caroline Wallace had valued those qualities.
“We’ll be going, ma’am, me and the girls,” he said, determined not to say anything else he’d be sorry for later.
“Going? Where?” Caroline asked, sounding dazed.
“On to Montana.”
“But…but you can’t take those two little girls to that unsettled country up there! Why, there are Indians in Montana, I’ve heard! And bears, and mountain lions.”
“Last I heard, you had Comanches around here, too,” he retorted. “And cougars. And rattlesnakes.”
“And blizzards, and wolves,” she went on, as if he hadn’t spoken. “You can’t possibly be thinking of taking two helpless children into such a situation.”
“The girls and I will do just fine, but thanks for your concern, Miss Wallace.” He bit out the words. “Sorry to have troubled you.” He turned on his heel, hoping he could postpone any explanation to Abigail and Amelia until they were away from her.
He reached the door before she caught up and tugged on his sleeve.
“Please, Mr. Collier, wait a moment.”
He turned around and beheld her whitened face, the tears still shining on her cheeks.
“I—I’m sorry. I was unforgivably rude, but I hope you’ll reconsider leaving just now. It’s already mid-afternoon, and—”
He took out the pocket watch that had been a gift to him from his mother, who, unlike their father, hadn’t played favorites between the two boys. “It’s only two o’clock. Plenty of time to make tracks up the road and rid you of our troublesome presence.” Then he realized how sarcastic he had been, for he saw pain flash across her face.
“Yes, it’s only two o’clock, but if you’re heading north, the next town is quite a piece up the road on the other side of the Colorado River.”
“Who needs a town? We’ve been camping out with the herd since we left south Texas. I left the cattle south of town, grazing by the creek. My drovers are there, but we should get back to them.” In actuality, his men were not expecting him to return before morning, but Caroline Wallace didn’t need to know that.
He could leave the ring at the post office. He remembered Pete telling him her father was postmaster.
“I—I’ve given you the worst of news. You can’t just leave, after that. Please, allow me to apologize, and again, offer you a place for the night at our house. Mama and Papa would want to meet you and your daughters—they would have been their grandnieces…”
If Pete had lived to marry her. “No, thanks,” he said and strode out the door. He spotted the twins not far away, each holding one end of a jump rope while a third girl jumped it. It looked as if they’d been readily accepted by the other girls and were having a great time.
He beckoned to them. “Abby, Amelia, come with me.” He watched as they bid quick farewells to their new playmates, snatched up their dolls and ran to him. “We’ll leave the horses here for now.” With any luck, Miss Wallace would be gone by the time they returned for them.
“Are we going to Uncle Pete’s house now?” Abby asked.
“Where does he live?” Amelia chimed in, as they fell into step with him.
In Heaven, he thought, but aloud he said, “There’s been a change of plans, girls. Let’s walk along the creek and I’ll tell you about it.” He wanted to get away from the schoolyard, in case Caroline Wallace was watching from the schoolhouse window. The girls walked along with him quietly, taking their cue from his solemn demeanor.
The creek for which the town had been named was lined with cottonwood and live oak trees. It wasn’t wide—a man on horseback could splash or swim across it in a moment, depending on the time of year, but it was pretty, flowing lazily past them. He saw a fish jump after a dragonfly and regretted for a moment that he wouldn’t be here long enough to bring a cane pole and try his luck.
He paused when he found an inviting grassy bank and invited them to sit down with him.
“Miss Wallace told me some bad news, girls,” he began, when they were settled on either side of him.
They looked up at him, their faces serious, wary. “You mean Aunt Caroline?” Amelia asked.
He didn’t correct her, just nodded. They’d realize Miss Caroline Wallace was never going to be their aunt quickly enough. Best to get it over with—there was no way to soften the blow. “Miss Wallace told me that Uncle Pete became very sick this winter, and they couldn’t make him well again. He…he passed away, girls. He went to Heaven.”
Two identical shocked faces stared up at him, open-mouthed.
“He—he died, Papa? Uncle Pete died? Like Mama?” Abby asked, her voice breaking as a tear began to slide down her cheek. Beside her, Amelia had closed her eyes and sagged against her twin, whimpering.
He nodded, pulling them both against him, and for a few minutes he just held them while they sobbed. He let a few of his own tears trickle into their soft hair, knowing they would never notice in the midst of their crying, but he was careful not to lose control for fear of frightening them. They had only seen him weep when their mother died, but that had been almost three years ago and he thought they had probably been too young then to remember it.
A man couldn’t have asked for a better brother than Pete, Jack thought. He’d been Jack’s best friend, his playmate, his confidant—and his defender when Pa had taken out his frustrations on Jack. It hadn’t been Pete’s fault he was smarter, and he’d never rubbed Jack’s nose in it, never flaunted it. He’d thought it only fitting when Jack had inherited the ranch.
“So now where are we going to stay while you go to Montana to find us a new mama?” Amelia asked, knuckling the remains of her tears away. She was always the more direct one of the two.
“I think we should still stay with Aunt Caroline,” Abby said. She was the twin who made decisions quickly. Amelia was more wary and liked to consider all sides of a question.
Did her reply mean she’d liked Miss Wallace instantly or only that Abby had gotten used to the idea of staying with her uncle and his bride during the journey from south Texas? When he’d first told them of his plan to move to Montana, and they’d been ignorant of the rigors of a trail drive, they’d been upset that they wouldn’t be coming along, but joining him in Montana later. He’d talked up how happy they’d be with their uncle and aunt until the girls had started to sound excited about Simpson Creek and the family they’d find there.
He’d have to tread carefully now so as not to let on that he and Miss Caroline had had sharp words.
“What would you say, Abby, if I told you I’ve decided to take you two with me after all?” He’d keep them safe, he told himself. Other settlers had taken families with them to Montana Territory. It was a tough, dangerous journey, and even more so with a thousand head of unpredictable longhorns, but what choice did he have now that he couldn’t leave them with Pete and his bride? He’d be there to protect them. Surely they’d be all right if they rode in the chuck wagon, even though Cookie was a cranky, irascible old coot given to colorful language.
Identical faces turned identically stormy.
“Do we have to go with those nasty ol’ cows?” Abby asked, her voice dangerously close to a whine.
“Well, yes, we—I—have to stay with the herd,” he said, dismayed at their reaction, but knowing his daughters couldn’t appreciate the profit he’d make by driving cattle to hungry miners yearning for beef.
Abby and Amelia hadn’t complained much before this, once they’d gotten used to the ever-present dust and the brutally long days of slow progress northward. But apparently they’d been holding it in since they’d only had to put up with it till they reached Uncle Pete’s house.
“I don’t like sleeping on the hard ground, Papa,” Amelia said, lower lip jutting out.
What kind of father subjected little girls to sleeping outside in all kinds of weather? He could practically hear Caroline—or his father—asking the scornful question.
“But we’ll be together—you won’t have to wait till I send for you,” he said, hoping that would mollify them. After the shock of hearing Pete was dead, Jack didn’t have the heart to say he was their papa and they’d do as they were told. Then he remembered he wasn’t expected back to the herd till morning. “How about a special treat tonight, girls? We’ll stay at the hotel here, then rejoin the herd tomorrow.”
Amelia and Abby’s faces brightened somewhat. “With real beds and real food, Papa?” Amelia asked.
“Well, don’t let Cookie hear you saying that he hasn’t been serving you real food, Punkin. But yes, real food—maybe even fried chicken.” A diet of beans and corn bread and beef got old fast, especially to a child.
Something like a real grin spread across Abby’s face. “I love fried chicken, Papa.”
“All right then, let’s go.” He rose and gestured for them to follow.
“But…but what about Aunt Caroline, Papa? She’s sad, isn’t she? And she’ll be sadder if we leave,” Amelia said as she got to her feet.
She’s sad, isn’t she? An image of Caroline Wallace’s tearful face rose unbidden in his mind. She had wept because she’d thought she had been rude—and her tears had moved him a lot more than he was comfortable with. He had been surprised by his urge to comfort her, in spite of the harsh words they’d just exchanged. He’d wanted to comfort his brother’s—what?—almost-widow?
Amelia’s question was an awkward one. It would be heartless to tell them she wasn’t really their aunt, so they had no reason to ever see her again.
“Yes, she’s been sad for a while now, since Uncle Pete died last winter, but she understands why we have to go on to Montana.”
A few paces later, Abby said, “The fellows’ll be surprised to see us when we go back in the morning.”
Jack tried to suppress a flinch. His drovers wouldn’t be surprised in a good way. They’d endured the presence of his girls with good grace, knowing it was temporary, but it had meant they’d had to be ultracareful about their language and their actions. Children had no place on a cattle drive. The men would think their boss had gone loco when he returned with them, but it was his herd, and they were his employees. Knowing he had no choice, they’d have to respect his decision, even though they wouldn’t like it—or leave his employ.
“Come on, girls,” he said, rising and heading down Main Street toward the hotel.
But the hotel had no rooms available, having rented them out to folks in town for a funeral. The clerk referred him to the boardinghouse behind it.
When they arrived at Mrs. Meyer’s establishment, though, the tall, bony proprietress informed him she only had one cot to spare, and it would mean sharing a room with her aged father. Obviously that wouldn’t work for the three of them.
It was starting to look as if returning to the herd tonight was their only option. But the day had been overcast, and now the clouds were looking distinctly threatening. Rain was coming. The girls hadn’t noticed yet, but they would soon, and Abby was frightened by storms.
“I still think we should stay at Miss Caroline’s house,” Abby announced.
