Mary Connealy (8 page)

Clay’s eyes traveled to Sophie. She was a pretty little thing. And she was even sweet-smelling now. “Is there a mule around here somewhere?”

Before anyone could answer him, Sally announced, “We’re your family now, Uncle Clay. Our pa used to do all kinds of things with us girls and with Ma. Now you can do all those things.”

All the things Cliff had done with Sophie. Clay looked at her. Their eyes caught and lingered for a second too long. Sophie looked away first. Clay forced himself to forget about the charged moment and turned back to Sally. “You are, for sure, my family now.”

It sounded like he was staking a claim. Or making a vow. And that suited him right down to the ground.

“Let’s see if we can get you up and into the house,” Sophie said, rising to her feet. “We have breakfast ready.”

The girls all grabbed hold, but he was steady on his feet this time. They’d delivered all the shocks while he was still sitting. He walked slowly to the house with Sally on one side, Sophie on the other, Mandy following, and with Laura and Beth running ahead.

Clay marveled again at being surrounded by so much femininity. The gentle touches and worried looks. The soft cooing sounds of concern. He’d grown up with only his pa around. Luther and Buff most times, and a dozen others who had come and gone. He’d rarely seen a woman, and until the war, he’d never seen a child, except for a few Indian children who lived in Fort Benton when he and Pa made the long trek every spring to trade their furs for supplies. Those children had fascinated him, but the Indian women wouldn’t let a curious, half-grown mountain man near their babies.

The Edwards women escorted him to the house and seated him at their table as formally as if he were visiting royalty. He was appalled. “This is where you live?” The minute the words burst out of him, he wished them back.

Sophie bristled, and all the girls frowned at him—even Laura.

“What’s wrong with where we live?” Sophie asked defensively.

Clay decided to forge ahead. “It’s the most pathetic house I’ve ever seen. It’s so small.” Clay rose from the table and stepped to the door to stare out. “Are we in the middle of some kind of…weed patch?”

Sophie appeared at his side, her hands on her hips. “This is our home. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“But you can’t live in this—this shack in the middle of a thicket.”

Sophie crossed her arms and glared at him. “Define
can’t
, Mr. McClellen. Because my girls and I have proven you can.”

“And it’s just one room? How do the five of you fit in here? What are you thinking, to be raising my nieces like this?” Clay looked into the fire in Sophie’s eyes and wondered what was the matter with her. He’d been bending over backward to say it as nicely as he could. Of course, he’d grown up with men. They talked straight, and the closest they came to watching their mouths was when they’d refrain from saying something that might get them shot. Sophie didn’t seem to appreciate his efforts at all.

“Raising
your
nieces? I’ve been making do pretty well raising
my
daughters for two years with no help from you or any man! What do you suggest I should have done? The banker threatened to foreclose on the ranch unless I married him. The town marshal offered to marry me, in between accusing Cliff of horse thieving. I had fifty proposals, not all of them decent, I assure you. Life in a thicket was a better idea than any of them.”

“You should have taken one of them up on his offer!” The thought of Sophie with another man made his gut twist. But common sense should have made her pick the best of the lot and accept his proposal. “A woman can’t live alone in the West, and you’re the proof of it with this leaky house and that rickety shed!” Clay was shouting by the time he finished talking.

“If you need better accommodations, there’s a path leading straight out of the thicket and into Mosqueros, about ten miles down the road. If you think you can make it in your condition, feel free to go.”

He looked at the path that disappeared into the thicket. It looked like she’d settled herself into the middle of a wasteland. Then he turned and stared down into Sophie’s defiant eyes. He told her the simple truth. “No, I don’t want to go.”

Their eyes locked again.

After a long, tense moment, Sally came and tugged on his arm. He tore his gaze away from Sophie’s beautiful blue eyes.

“Well, that’s settled then,” Sally said. “Come and eat.”

Clay looked past the sweet little girl and saw the table set with a single plate, with only biscuits and jelly for breakfast. His heart clenched as he realized this might well be all they had. Clay looked back at Sally’s adoring little face, and then he turned and looked at his brother’s wife. Wasn’t there a Bible verse about marrying your brother’s wife if your brother died? Clay looked into Sophie’s pretty face and thought he had God on his side. It was his God-given duty to take care of them all.

Then he thought of a second verse about a brother dying without leaving sons. It was the job of the second brother to give sons to the wife, to carry on his brother’s name. His eyes lost focus when he thought about it. He was barely aware that Sophie grabbed his arm and, with all the girls helping, eased him into a chair. His head cleared, and he was fairly certain that he’d almost passed out because of his injuries—not because he’d thought about how it was really his Christian duty to see that Sophie had another baby. Cliff still needed that son.

Clay didn’t look at Sophie again. He wasn’t sure he’d survive it. But he decided in that moment that, if they wanted to carry on Cliff’s name, it was going to be the name Cliff was born with. McClellen. Everyone in this house was changing her name to McClellen and like it!

He pulled the plate of biscuits toward him and started spreading on jelly as he continued making plans in his head. And while he was making changes, he’d get them out of this thicket and make sure they had meat on the table. And her next child was definitely going to be a son.

With grim satisfaction, Clay decided they’d name the boy Cliff.

S
ophie paced around the outside of the cabin and fumed. She stopped and glared at the closed-up house and thought dark thoughts about the occupant. He didn’t emerge. She started pacing again. After a long time she started to think he might have died in there. That softened her anger somewhat. True, he’d insulted her years of backbreaking effort to keep a roof over her girls’ heads. True, he’d told her she should have married one of the rabble who proposed to her—and she included the banker and sheriff in that lot. True, he’d looked at her with Cliff’s eyes, and she’d seen straight into his soul.

She stopped pacing and admitted that the way he made her feel when he looked at her was the real reason she was so mad at him.

Once Sophie stopped being angry, she started to worry in earnest. She was a mother, after all. Worrying was her job! He’d been in there too long. How long could it take a man to bathe? She’d left some of Cliff’s clothing—rescued from the rag bag—for him to wear. How long could it take a man to dress? He was still unsteady on his feet. What if he’d fallen? He might have hit his head again. What if he’d passed out in the tub and sunk under the water? Sophie gave up her pacing and charged toward the door. She might already be too late to save him.

She was on the step when he opened the door.

“Coming to scrub my back, Sophie?” he drawled.

Sophie felt her cheeks heat up. “I was afraid you’d fallen…or something. You’ve been in there a long time.”

“Trying to soak out some aches and pains.” He tilted his chin slightly and gave a little one-shoulder shrug. It was a gesture so like Cliff’s Sophie almost gasped out loud. He was watching her intently, but he didn’t outwardly react to what must have been blatant fascination on her part.

“First things first. Where’s my horse?” he asked.

Sophie and the girls, who had been waiting impatiently with her, all looked at each other.

Mandy said bluntly, “I reckon he’s dead, Uncle Clay.”

“Dead!” Considering all the shocks the man had endured so far today, Sophie was surprised how upset he seemed about the horse.

“You went over the creek bank,” Beth reminded him. “And your horse went with you.”

“We never saw any sign of a horse, Clay,” Sophie said sympathetically. “It was pitch black. You were half buried in mud. I suppose your horse was down there, too. But there was no time to look. A flash flood came through the creek, and we were lucky to get out alive.”

“I ’spect the fall kilt him, but iffen it didn’t, I reckon the flood got him,” Sally said, patting Clay on the arm.

“You girls went down into that creek, in front of a flash flood, to pull me out?” Clay asked incredulously.

Sophie hadn’t been called a girl in a long time. She hadn’t felt like a girl for even longer. She kind of liked it. She said in exasperation, “Well, we didn’t know there was a flash flood coming when we went down!”

“You could have been killed!” Clay growled.

Sophie replied sarcastically, “I promise, if we’d have known there was the least danger, even of a stubbed toe or a broken fingernail, we’d have left you to die without a second thought.”

Clay glared at her. “You need a keeper.”

Sophie saw Mandy roll her eyes, and the two shared a grin.

Clay returned to the subject of his horse. “Has anyone gone down and looked? What about my saddlebags? And I had…” Clay stopped talking, and Sophie could see he was holding back something about what he had in those saddlebags.

Clay shook his head as if to accept the fact that he’d been wiped out by the flood. Accepting what couldn’t be helped was very Western of him. It was something Cliff had never learned.

“I’ve got to get to a telegraph. How far is it to the nearest town?”

“Mosqueros is ten miles straight west.” Mandy pointed toward the narrow trail.

Clay nodded. “I’ll have to take the mule, but I’ll only be gone—”

“Oh, you can’t take Hector,” Sally interrupted him.

“I’ll bring him back.” Clay’s eyes slid from one to the other of them. “Don’t you trust me? Do you really think I’d steal your mule?”

He sounded so hurt Sophie almost smiled. “It’s not that. People would recognize Hector. He is so ornery he’s almost a legend around these parts.”

“So what if people recognize him?”

“Well, they’d know he was ours, and then they’d know we were here abouts,” Beth explained.

Clay tilted his head again, and Sophie had that same wrenching reaction to him. She clenched her fist and held it close to her side when she realized she wanted to reach up and touch Clay’s chin as he reminded her so much of her husband.

“Are you saying no one knows you live here?”

Clay spoke quietly, but Sophie heard an intensity in his voice that made her wary when she answered. “No. We were getting…bothered by a few of the townfolk.”

“The men,” Mandy said flatly.

Sophie didn’t like the way Clay’s eyes narrowed. She continued quickly, “So I led them to believe we’d gone to live with family.”

“’Cept we don’t have any family,” Beth said sadly.

“Till we got you.” Sally grinned.

Clay rubbed his mouth with his hand, and Sophie thought he was trying to not say something. She forged ahead. “And if you show up with Hector they’ll think we’re here somewhere.”

“And they might start coming around chasin’ after Ma again.” Sally, bouncing with energy, clung to Clay’s hand.

“No one’s going to bother your ma now that I’m around.” Clay sounded like he was making a threat and a promise in the same breath.

“Then they’ll just pester Mandy,” Beth said philosophically.

“Mandy is only ten!” Clay exclaimed.

“Men!” Mandy snorted as if she’d noticed the same thing.

“There’s a shortage of women ’round here,” Sally said matter-of-factly. “They’re thinkin’ to the future.”

“They won’t be bothering Mandy either.” Clay patted Sally on the shoulder.

“And besides,” Sophie said, “and this is the important part: They might think you’re Cliff, and he was supposed to be a horse thief. So you might not be safe in town.”

“But everyone knows Cliff is dead!” Clay protested.

“Lots of them came and watched him be buried,” Elizabeth remembered.

“Still,
we
wondered about you,” Sophie reminded him. “They might, too. It was quite well known Cliff didn’t have any family, especially after he died. And for a while I had nowhere to go until I remembered a ‘cousin’ who’d take me and the girls in.”

“You better not go into Mosqueros.” A furrow formed in Sally’s brow. “We don’t want to lose you like we lost Pa. They might just round you up and hang you to be on the safe side.”

Sophie wondered if Sally could bear losing Clay. The little girl had never really gotten over Cliff’s death. Sophie turned to Clay, more determined then ever to convince him to stay out of Mosqueros.

Clay snapped, “Let ’em try!”

He headed toward the back of the house without another word. Sophie exchanged anxious looks with her daughters then she hurried after him. They found him dropping a halter over Hector’s head. Sophie waited for Clay to get bucked off into a thornbush. She was still waiting when he rode the disagreeable mule around the house. He headed for the gap in the thicket, and just as he rode out of sight, he stopped and turned Hector around without any effort, steering mostly with pressure from his knees.

He looked straight at Sophie for a long minute. “You know what needs to be done here, Sophie?”

Sophie most certainly did know what needed to be done. She’d been managing her life and seeing to her girls single-handedly for…well, honestly forever. She felt herself puff up with indignation. What did he think? Was he planning to give her instructions on what chores to do while he was gone?

She said waspishly, “Of course I know!”

“And you’re willing?” Clay asked.

“Of course I’m willing. You didn’t even need to ask.”

Clay nodded silently for too long. “Then so be it. I’ll see to it.”

Sophie wondered what he’d “see” to. She opened her mouth to ask when Clay said, “Are you a God-fearing woman?”