Keegan's Lady (31 page)

Recalling her former home, with its cheerful gingham curtains, rag rugs, and cross-stitched wall hangings, he decided Caitlin had been trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear for most of her life. Roses in a dented lard tin. Picture books of faraway places, telling about operas and ballets, famous plays and exquisite symphonies. Wishes and dreams. Aside from the pretty little things she'd created herself, wishes and dreams had been all she'd ever had.

Ace's hands froze when he opened the other bag, for it was filled with pieces of Caitlin. He could think of no other way to describe the contents, little mementos she'd saved, each telling its own story.

He found a childishly scrawled note from someone named Bess that read, I'm sorry about your rist, Caitlin. I hope it is beter and that he does not get mad at you like that agin. After carefully refolding the scrap of tablet paper and putting it back, Ace drew out a small rag doll. It had obviously been crafted by a little girl's hands and been very well loved—a pathetic-looking thing with a crooked smile and button eyes that didn't match, the sparse crop of hair made from thick tufts of orange rug yarn faded with age. Its calico dress was a crookedly sewn rectangle with clumsily attached sleeves, one of which was longer than the other.

Ace had no doubt that Caitlin had made the doll for herself when she was very small. His heart broke a little as he turned it over in his hands. He couldn't help but compare this doll with the beautiful ones
Eden
had played with as a child. Dolls that Ace had bought her— I for her birthdays or Christmas. Was this all that Caitlin had had by way of a doll—one she'd made from rags? Surely not.

He opened the bag more widely, carefully replacing the rag doll inside. His gaze was immediately caught by a small porcelain face lying in the jumble of items. Believing he'd found another doll, a store-bought one this time, he picked it up, only to discover that the doll head had been separated from its body. It had also been shattered and carefully glued back together.

He fished through the satchel for the rest of the doll, locating its parts, piece by piece. As he laid them all out on the floor, his skin turned icy.

The doll had been savagely ripped apart.

Ace stared down at the pieces. No child could have done damage like this. The doll's cloth body had been completely dismembered, and with such violent force that chunks of its torso had been ripped away.

A scalding sensation washed over his eyes. He returned the dismembered doll to the satchel. Without Caitlin's confiding in him, he might never know the full story behind the doll's destruction, but he could certainly guess. Her father. Ace curled his hands into tight fists.

Such savagery . ..

It was frightening and chillingly significant. Ace could only wonder what kind of childhood the girl must have had.

As he started to close the satchel, his gaze was caught by a worn, leather-bound book, on the front of which was scrolled in gold, My Daily Diary. Never in all his life had he wanted to pick something up so badly. He curled his fingers over it, then stopped himself. Caitlin would undoubtedly perceive his snooping as an invasion of her privacy, which it undeniably was. If he wanted to know more about her, he should be up front about it and simply ask. Learning a person's deepest secrets by reading her diary was underhanded. If he wanted her to trust him, he had to earn it.

On the other hand, he doubted Caitlin was going to reveal much about herself willingly, and certainly not any time soon. He'd be able to help her far more quickly if he were armed with more knowledge.

He picked up the book, hefted it in his hand. It fell open where a faded red ribbon separated the pages. The entry was dated
March 12, 1879
. She would have been fifteen, maybe sixteen, at the time. It read, I'm not going to write in this diary again. A diary is a record of life so one doesn't forget the day-to-day things that happen. I have decided I don't want to remember. In fact, I pray I will forget.

Nothing more. Ace flipped through the remaining pages. They were all blank. He turned toward the front of the book, glimpsing the awkward handwriting of a young girl in various stages of development. He wanted to lock the door and read every word, which would take hours. What had happened in March of 1879 that had made his wife abandon her lifelong practice of writing in her diary? Would the earlier entries enlighten him?

Pa has been gone for three whole days. This morning, Patrick sneaked into town and sold his pocket knife to buy sugar and com syrup. To celebrate my birthday, we made a cake and had a taffy pull. It was so much fun. In another section, he glimpsed the words, Patrick worked at the livery to buy me yardage to make a dress. Ace flipped through several more pages. Patrick is having difficulty chewing, so I'm grinding his food. Bless his heart. I think Pa may have cracked his jaw. Will he never learn not to interfere when Pa gets in a temper? It only. makes things worse.

A door slammed someplace in the house. Ace nearly jumped out of his skin. He dropped the diary back into the satchel as though the touch burned him. Then he shot to his feet. He didn't believe in reading another person's mail, for Christ's sake, let alone a diary. Caitlin had recorded her innermost thoughts on those pages, and he had no right to pry.

Turning resolutely away, Ace forced himself back to his original quest to locate his knife. He finally found it tucked under the bed pillow.

As he left the bedroom, he hauled in a deep, cleansing breath, relieved that the slamming of a door had startled him. He and Caitlin had enough barriers between them without his adding a guilty conscience to the list.

***

Ace found Caitlin out at the horse corral. He smiled slightly as he approached her from behind. While he could stand with his arms folded over the top rail, she was barely tall enough to see over the fence. She'd compensated for her lack of height by stepping onto the bottom rung.

When he drew up beside her and draped his arms over the rail beside hers, she gave such a start she nearly lost her footing. That she spooked so easily troubled him. What had happened to her that she would be so terrified of men? Remembering the dismembered and crushed doll, he wondered if Conor O'Shannessy had ever attacked his daughter with the same feral anger. Judging by her timidity, Ace feared the answer was yes. Will Patrick never learn not to interfere when Pa is in a temper?

He was tempted to return to the house and lock' himself in the study with that diary until he'd read it from beginning to end. How could he help this girl if he didn't understand her? Right now, he had little to go on but supposition.

I'm sorry about your rist, the little girl named Bess had written. The remainder of the note left Ace with little doubt that Conor had flown into a rage and injured Caitlin. The question was, how badly? Had her wrist been merely sprained, or had it been broken? Had Conor pushed the girl, causing her to fall? Or, as Patrick had done that morning, had he struck her with such force that he had knocked her off her feet?

The questions burned within Ace, and he felt he needed answers. Should he abandon the convictions of a lifetime and read that diary? She might never forgive him if he did.

There had to be another way to get her to open up and talk about herself. He guessed he would have to play it by ear, just as he had last night. If he saw an opening, he'd take it. Otherwise, he'd simply have to bide his time.

After regaining her balance on the fence rung, she glanced down at the leather scabbard that once again rode at his hip. Come bedtime, Ace promised himself he'd give the knife back to her if she still needed it.

Pretending not to notice her preoccupation with the weapon, he gazed out across the ranch. Rolling green grassland stretched endlessly from the corral toward the foothills. In the foreground, he could see Kurt Bishop and Rob Martin, two of his hired men, opening irrigation gates. On the horizon, the craggy peaks of the
Rocky Mountains
were outlined magnificently against the slate-blue sky.

Occasionally, he heard cattle bawling in the distance, the sound rather forlorn. Luckily, the majority of his stock could fend for themselves at this time of year on the fenced summer grazing land. Come winter, he'd have to supplement their feed, but for now, most of the seasonal work had already been done.

Joseph and his younger brothers had tended to the barnyard animals this morning before coming in for breakfast. Ace had things he should be doing, of course. On a ranch like this, that was usually the case. But there was nothing all that pressing. He could devote the next day or two to Caitlin without feeling guilty about it, and make up for the lost time later. He had hoped to take her for a picnic along the creek this afternoon, but now, thanks to Patrick, there was something else he had to do instead.

On a sudden gust of breeze, the rank smell of the barnyard drifted to him. When he'd first come here, he had found the odor extremely offensive, but now he realized he'd grown to like it. Earthy and soothing, that was how it smelled. He found the stench preferable to that of unwashed bodies crowded into the inadequate confines of a waterfront saloon, at any rate.

Nope. He didn't miss the jarring notes of a barroom piano or the constant chink of-whiskey jugs tipped against tumblers. Sequined dresses. Exposed bosoms. The cloying scent of heavy perfume. All of that had been in another world, one that he'd left behind with no regret.

Now, here he stood, a timid young lady at his side. No more gilded mirrors reflecting hardened faces. No more crass innuendos. No more erotic sexual foreplay with rouged prostitutes who meant nothing to him. Just a girl who put him in mind of an angel, with the breeze seeming to sing a lullaby as it toyed with her hair.

A sense of lightness settled over him. A feeling of peace.

He inclined his head at the black stallion that circled the enclosure, glossy mane flying, head and tail held high. "He's a beaut, isn't he?"

For a long moment, she said nothing. When she finally spoke, it was to ask, "Why did you name him Shakespeare?"

Ace nearly said "Damned if I know," but then thought better of it. He couldn't expect this young woman to reveal her secrets to him if he kept parts of himself back from her. Still, the words didn't come easily. Some things never did.

"Because of his glossy black coat. When my stepfather died, my ma gave me his collection of Shakespeare's work, each volume bound in glossy black leather. When this horse was born, the first thing I thought of when I clapped eyes on him was my pa's books." Ace cleared his throat and ran the back of his hand over his mouth. As he settled into position again, he laughed softly. "Kind of a dumb reason for naming a horse, I guess, but there you have it."

He felt her gaze on his face. The sensation made his nose start to itch. He sniffed and glanced down at her. Her large blue eyes were filled with unvoiced questions. "What?" he said softly.

Her mouth twisted into a sad little smile that seemed oddly lopsided. Ace realized that the bruise along her cheekbone probably made it painful to move the right side of her face. "You loved your stepfather very much, didn't you?" she said.

"Yes, I loved him," Ace admitted. "In some ways, as much or more than I love my mother." Memories rolled over him. "He was an extraordinary man. My own father was killed breaking a horse when I was just a baby. Joseph Paxton took me under his wing and loved me like his own. I was never once made to feel I was less his son than his own boys. Being loved like that is something you never forget, or stop feeling grateful for."

A lengthy silence fell between them. Caitlin seemed preoccupied with watching the horse. At last, she looked up at him.

"I'm very sorry he died the way he did. My father— well, if he did the terrible thing you say, I'm very, very sorry."

Ace couldn't fail to notice the shadows in her eyes. "It all happened a long time ago. At the time, you were probably only knee-high to a grasshopper. You had no control over your father's actions, and you needn't apologize for them."

She turned her wrists to stare down at her palms. "He wasn't a very nice man, my father. He loved his whiskey, and when he drank, it made him crazy just like it does Patrick. After my mother died, he drank most of the time. Keeping himself in whiskey was expensive. There were times—" She broke off and swallowed, her tension at odds with the matter-of-fact tone of her voice. "There were times when he'd do almost anything to get the money he needed to buy a jug. If he swindled your stepfather, I'm sure that was why."

When she lifted her gaze to his again, her expression was carefully blank. He searched her face, trying to glean something from the set of her mouth, the look in her eyes. Sometimes she was very good at hiding her feelings. At others, her face was like an open book.

As if his regard made her nervous, she fluttered a hand and said, "Enough of that. One should never speak ill of the dead. He had his faults, my father. But now he's gone, and I try to remember the good times."

Ace wondered if this girl could even comprehend what good times were really like. To celebrate my birthday, we made a cake and had a taffy pull. It was so much fun. Most young girls would have felt they hadn't had a birthday celebration at all. Yet Caitlin had recorded that afternoon in her diary as if it had been a memorable occasion.
As he gazed down at her pinched expression, he vowed that as her husband, he would dedicate his life to filling her days with laughter. There would undoubtedly be bad times ahead of them. And sorrow. That was the natural way of things. But if he had his druthers, there'd be no more of either than he could help.