Keegan's Lady (11 page)

As she left the barn, Caitlin scolded herself for having allowed her overactive imagination to run away with her, but even so, her sense of dread wasn't so easily set aside. If she saw a shadow from the corner of her eye, she thought it was Keegan. If she heard a noise, she whirled to look behind her. It was silly. Absolutely silly. And yet she couldn't shake it off.

By the time she got back to the house, her nerves were raw. She hadn't been this jumpy since before her father died.

"You okay?" Patrick asked when she reentered the kitchen.

"I'm fine," she assured him.

Lucky chose that moment to squall like a banshee and come running out from under the stove. Caitlin jumped and cried out, and Patrick came clear up out of his chair.

"That damned cat!" Patrick shook his head. "Under the stove again. One of these times, the poor stupid thing is gonna bake himself well done."

Caitlin knew very well that Lucky wouldn't have run under the stove unless something had frightened him. She gave her brother a long, hard look. There was that glitter in his eyes again. It was like being on a seesaw, up one minute, down the next. She knew his body was starting to scream at him for more whiskey. She could only pray that this time, he wouldn't give in to it.

"It just might help if you wouldn't stomp your boots at the cat, Patrick," she chided gently. "You know how skittish he is."

"That's all I ever do. Just stomp. I don't hurt him any."

"You know how it scares him. Just because you have a headache is no reason to take it out on Lucky."

"He jumped up on the table and tried to eat my breakfast."

"So you scared the sand out of him? You know he isn't right in the head. Why can't you just put him down from the table and leave him alone?"

"I'm sorry!" With a sweep of his hand, he sent his plate skidding across the table. The china came to a precarious stop right at the edge and teetered. "I lost my temper. I apologize. How about giving me a little peace and quiet, huh? My head feels like a splattered pumpkin. "

With that, he stomped loudly from the room.

When her heartbeat had finally returned to normal, Caitlin fished the cat out from under the sink to make sure he was none the worse for having hidden under the stove. His yellow fur felt slightly hot, and when she buried her face against him, the singed smell was unmistakable. Poor fool cat. He didn't have much sense, especially when he got scared.

Not that she was pointing a finger. She had more in common with Lucky than she liked to admit. Hiding from the world out here on the ranch, just as the cat did in his cubbyholes. On the rare occasion when she forced herself to go to town and mingle with people from church, she always held back part of herself. She enjoyed her friend Bess Halloway's company, but even with Bess, she was reserved, afraid of revealing too much.

"Oh, Lucky, my boy. How long will it be before you forget, hm?"

Dumb question. As if she had managed that feat herself? At least she was intelligent enough to understand that Conor O'Shannessy was dead.

Sometimes she'd hear a door slam or a boot scrape someplace in the house and think, just for an instant, that it was her father. Or there would be a loud, unexpected noise, and her knees would go weak with terror. It had to be a hundred times worse for Lucky, who couldn't comprehend that Conor was gone and would never come back.

She dragged in a deep breath and looked around the kitchen, her gaze lingering on the new curtains and rugs she'd made last winter, tangible evidence that her father no longer ruled here with an iron fist. The touches of color, which he never would have allowed, usually cheered her, symbols of her newfound freedom. This morning, however, she didn't feel uplifted. Ace Keegan's visit last night had cast a pall over everything, it seemed.

She glanced at the lard tin on the table, where wilted rose blossoms hung listlessly from their stems. Later today, she promised herself, she'd go out and cut fresh flowers. Seeing them, smelling them, would make her feel better. It always did.

As she rubbed her cheek against Lucky's fur, she found herself looking out the window at the barn. She almost wished Keegan would hurry back and get it over with. Better that than to live in fear day in and day out.

CHAPTER FIVE

Over the next couple of weeks, Ace’s guilt over what he had done to Caitlin O'Shannessy increased. One morning, he found a sealed envelope tacked to the gatepost at the entrance to his ranch, the
Paradise
. Enclosed, he discovered eight dollars and nine cents, all in loose change, along with a tally, written in a feminine hand, of the amount Patrick O'Shannessy still owed for the bull—precisely four thousand, nine hundred and ninety-one dollars and ninety-one cents.

It was the nine cents she'd included in the envelope that got to him. It told him more than she could possibly know, namely that she'd probably scraped together every spare penny she had to make the payment. Nine cents. To Ace, it was a paltry amount, scarcely enough to have bothered with. Yet Caitlin had sent it. Because, to her, nine cents was obviously a lot.

It had been a very long while since Ace had contemplated the buying power of nine pennies. He held the coins on his palm, imagining Caitlin O'Shannessy carefully counting them out and slipping them into the envelope. With them, she could have purchased several bags of penny candy, if she could even afford to indulge herself in that fashion. Or a card of buttons for a new dress. Or a loaf of bread or some potatoes. A lot of money, nine cents, if you had few to spare. Ace could remember a time when he had worked twelve hours for a nickel.

Christ Those nine pennies made him feel like the world's worst bastard. It wasn't as if he were going to miss the five thousand dollars. He could have lost four times that amount and scarcely noticed the difference in his bank balance. Yet Caitlin O'Shannessy was going to sacrifice and do without to pay it back.

When he'd told Patrick he expected payments to be made on the five thousand he felt was due him, he'd meant for the hardship to be on him, not his sister. And wasn't that just the hell of it? He'd never set out to hurt Caitlin, yet he had.

Even as Ace exhausted himself with the most taxing of ranch work, he couldn't forget the shame and dread he'd seen on her face as she fumbled with the buttons of her night shift. At the very least, he owed her an apology.

But how? And when? He didn't want to scare the girl to death by appearing at her door, not to mention that he'd be running the risk of having an altercation with her brother if he did so. No. He needed to meet her on neutral ground, preferably in a public place so she wouldn't feel so threatened.

"We could have John keep an eye out for us in town," Joseph suggested one afternoon as he and Ace worked together putting in fence posts. "She must go into town sometimes. Most folks make it a habit to do their shopping on a particular day of the week. If John can detect a pattern, then you could be in town on that day and meet up with her, sort of casual like, on the street."

Ace swung the sledge with a little more force. John Parrish was an executive employee of Trans-Con Railway Incorporated, of which Ace was president and principle stockholder. The young man was presently acting as manager of the new No Name branch of Barbary Coast Mortgage, another of Ace's companies. John's purpose there was to assist Ace in the eventual financial ruin of certain investors. Ace felt sure John would happily make inquiries about Caitlin O'Shannessy's shopping habits. But was that wise? Ace didn't want the young man to do anything that might weaken his position as an informant or undermine his position in the community. If he began asking strange questions about Caitlin O'Shannessy, it was bound to raise suspicion.

Ace took another angry swing with the sledge. As the hammer impacted with the post, Joseph leaped back. Esa and David, who were coming behind them stringing wire, both chuckled.

"Watch out, Joseph. I think he's wishin' that was your head," Esa called.

"And yours might be next if you don't shut your trap," the sandy-haired David warned.

Swiping at his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt, Ace pretended to hear none of this exchange. After the initial discord over his treatment of Caitlin O'Shannessy, his brothers had come to regard Ace's dilemma of how he might apologize to her as highly humorous. Why, Ace didn't have a clue. As far as he could see, there was nothing funny about the situation.

Perhaps it was because none of his brothers had seen Caitlin's face as clearly as he had. It had been a shock to all of them when he'd told them of her relationship to
Eden
, of course. But nothing was quite as shocking as seeing the resemblance for yourself. More than that, it had driven home to Ace how wrong he'd been to hate Caitlin and Patrick O'Shannessy simply because their father's blood ran in their veins. After all, if he was going to hate them for it, he had to hate
Eden
for it as well.

Shaking the sting of the hammer blow from his hands, Joseph said, "I was just making a suggestion, Ace. No sense in getting pissed."

Ace hefted the sledge, letting the smooth hickory handle slide through his hands until he got a comfortable swinging grip. "Just hold the damned post, would you? I haven't got all day to fart around out here."

Knees slightly bent, his muscular upper body a full arm's length away, Joseph grasped the post again, his eyes already squinted in anticipation of the next blow. "You just be damned sure you hit what you're aimin' at, big brother."

"Oh, I will," Ace assured him.

When Ace hit the post again, Joseph's entire body jerked with the effort to hold the wood upright. "I don't know why you're so mad. I was just trying to come up with a few helpful ideas to—"

Ace swung the sledge again, cutting him off. "That was not a helpful idea. If you'll remember, none of us are even supposed to know John Parrish."

"Well, I was thinking we could contact him with a note in his mail slot like we do for other things."

"Every time we contact him, we run the risk of someone noticing. I only want to do so when it's absolutely necessary," Ace reminded him. "I'd rather not put all our plans at risk, if it's all the same to you. Not that apologizing to the girl isn't important. It definitely is. But there has to be another way."

Joseph shrugged. "I guess we could ask around to see what day she goes to town."

"And then what? It isn't like I have time to sit on the boardwalk in No Name, waiting for her to show. And supposing I did? Out on the street like that, how would I get her to stand still long enough to apologize to her?"