Secondhand Bride (14 page)

F
ar as Lizzie was concerned, that baby was the ugliest little critter God ever put on the earth, but she didn’t reckon it would be polite to say so. She glanced up at her grandfather, beaming beside the big bed at the Triple M, then met the Mexican woman’s kindly eyes. She was conscious, all the while, of her papa, leaning one shoulder against the framework of the open door with his arms folded.

“What’s her name?” she asked. For her, everything began with that. When she knew what to call a person, she felt properly acquainted.

“Katherine Angelina McKettrick,” Concepcion replied, smiling, and it seemed like that smile reached into all the dark places inside Lizzie, warming them. “We’ll call her Katie, though.”

“Katie,” Lizzie repeated. “Sounds all right to me.”

Her grandfather chuckled at her response and put out his big, tree root of a hand to her. “Come on, Lizziebeth,” he said, making up his own name for her, just like that. “Let’s go out to the barn and have a look at Old Blue’s puppies. See how they’re doing.”

Lizzie glanced at her papa, trying to read his face. He’d shaved and changed his clothes before they drove down to the Triple M in a buggy, and his wavy hair gleamed in the light. He was solemn for a moment, but then he nodded.

Lizzie took Angus’s hand, still outstretched, and her papa stepped back to let them pass.

Old Blue, to Lizzie’s initial disappointment, wasn’t blue at all. She was gray, with floppy ears and yellow eyes, and lay curled up in a bed of straw in an empty stall. Five puppies nuzzled at her belly, fat and sleek.

She touched one of them, tentatively, filled with an instant yearning, fierce enough to make her breath catch.

Angus crouched beside her. “You know something, Lizzie,” he began awkwardly, in the tone of a question, though he didn’t seem to be asking her anything. “That little Katie girl you just met, she’s mighty precious to me, like a present from God, tied up with a bow, but there’s one thing I want you to understand.” He cleared his throat, and Lizzie didn’t look at him, figuring he didn’t want her to, just then. “You’re just as important.”

Lizzie was happy, but her eyes burned, and she couldn’t swallow. She had to look at Angus then, whether he was ready or not. “Why?” she asked, stricken with a strange, sorrowful joy.

Angus picked up one of the puppies, dwarfing it with his huge hands, and offered it to her. She knelt in the straw, holding the squirmy little dog in her lap. “Your papa was as little as Katie, once—about the size of that pup you’re holding,” he said, in a husky, remembering sort of voice. He smiled, though it seemed to Lizzie that his eyes were wet. “He was mine, and I loved him as much as I’d ever loved anything or anybody.” He stopped, some struggle going on inside him. “His mama died, when he was just a few days old, and I had to leave him.”

Lizzie took the images inside her, one by one, to sort through and set in their proper places. “Why?” she asked, again. Her mama used to say that was her favorite word, and she reckoned it was true enough.

Angus sighed, ran the back of one hand across his face. “Times were hard, and I was hurting real bad. I couldn’t seem to stay put, back then. Bounced around like a drop of cold water on a hot griddle. Anyhow, I gave my son to his aunt and uncle, and I rode out.” He paused, watching as Lizzie stroked the puppy. She could feel its tiny heart beating against her thigh. “I’d change it all, if I could go back. I’d bring your papa right here, to this ranch, and raise him with his brothers.”

Lizzie wondered how that made her as important as Katie McKettrick, who was evidently
very
important, even if she did have a red face and patchy hair and a bad disposition, but she didn’t figure it was the right time to ask, so she just waited.

Angus was silent for a long time, and it was a sad silence, if a peaceable one. When he finally spoke, though, he answered Lizzie’s question as surely as she’d offered it aloud. “When I met you, I knew it all came right, whatever your papa might think to the contrary. If I hadn’t left him to grow up in Texas, you might never have been born. You’re my granddaughter, with my blood in your veins and McKettrick grit in your belly. I’ll love you until the day I die, and beyond that. I’ll be here for you, Lizzie, like I wasn’t for Holt, and when I’m gone, you can be sure your aunts and uncles will stand by you, too.”

A tear fell on the puppy’s back, and it was Lizzie’s. Her grandfather’s words would take a lot of studying before she understood them, but the impact of them struck her to the heart. She knew they were true, sure as the sky was blue and the mama dog was gray.

Angus leaned over, kissed the top of her head, then stood, with a creaking and popping of bones.

“That was a fine speech, old man,” Holt said, when Angus reeled out of the barn into the afternoon sunlight and found him waiting there. “I was hard put not to applaud.”

Angus stopped, squared himself, stood his ground. “Thanks for coming to see the baby,” he said.

Holt was shaken, had been since he’d gone to the barn to make sure Angus didn’t give Lizzie every puppy on the place and overheard their conversation. And he’d have died before he let it show. “What are you going to do with a girl?” he asked lightly, and did his best to smile.

“Spoil her,” Angus said, with a scratchy laugh. “I reckon she’ll be a sight easier to bring up than her brothers were.”

Holt thought of Jeb, on the back of that incorrigible stallion, grinning like a kid on a rocking horse. “I wouldn’t count on that,” he advised.

Angus hooked his thumbs in his belt and rested his weight on one side. He wasn’t packing the usual .45; maybe being the father of a baby girl had mellowed him. “She’s got four brothers to look after her, once I’m gone.”

Holt didn’t correct the old man’s figures from four to three, though he wasn’t sure why. “You’ll outlive the lot of us,” he said instead, and with an ease he didn’t feel. “That baby, she’s the good Lord’s way of giving you your come-uppance, old man. Just you wait and see.”

“Seems to me the good Lord’s handing out comeuppance right and left these days,” Angus allowed. He cocked a thumb toward the barn. “Have you talked to that child about her mother? Asked her where they’ve been all this time, and what it was like for her?”

Holt ran a hand through his hair and thrust out a breath. “I don’t know where to start,” he admitted.

“Did you love the woman, or just use her?”

A flash of anger went through Holt, but he waited it out. “I loved her, all right,” he said. “Trouble was, I didn’t figure that out until it was too late.”

Angus studied him for a long moment, then nodded. Evidently, the conversation was over.

He watched, a thousand questions tangled in his throat, as the old man walked away. He was about to collect Lizzie from the barn and head for the Circle C when he saw Emmeline and Rafe crossing the creek in a buckboard drawn by two horses, but they hadn’t come from their place. They’d been to town, and they had Becky and Chloe Wakefield with them, riding in the second seat. The new schoolteacher looked pale and tight-lipped, as though she were a captive rather than a willing guest. Becky had a sociable, slightly smug air. Damn but Chloe was a pretty thing. Made Holt ache, deep down, just to look at her.

He waited, out of curiosity, he guessed, rather than good manners, until the wagon pulled up beside the house.

Rafe secured the brake lever, wrapped the reins around it, and got down to help Emmeline to the ground, then Becky, then Chloe. Emmeline tossed an anxious smile in Holt’s direction, Becky waved, and Chloe seemed ready to bolt for the hills. Emmeline took Chloe by one elbow, and Becky got her by the other, and the two of them half dragged her toward the house.

Rafe stayed behind, watching Holt, standing still as Demon Spawn fixing to buck, his features cast into shadow by his hat brim, then broke through whatever was holding him back and walked toward him.

“Come to claim your inheritance?” he asked. There was a flush in his neck, and along his jaw.

Holt frowned, puzzled. He hadn’t expected a warm welcome, but Rafe’s mood intrigued him. “What do you mean by that?” he countered.

Rafe sighed, took his hat off, and wiped the band with his handkerchief before putting it on again. “Never mind,” he said.

“Never mind, hell,” Holt retorted. “You started this conversation, and you’re going to finish it.”

Rafe surprised him with a sheepish grin. “Soon as I figure out what to say,” he said, “I’ll say it.”

Holt shook his head. “Is everybody in this outfit touched in the head?”

Rafe laughed. “Some more than others,” he answered. He pondered a bit. “You have anybody in particular in mind when you asked that question?”

“Jeb, for one,” Holt reflected. “You ever seen him bust a bronc?”

“A time or two,” Rafe said, and laughed again. “Just don’t let that cocky little bugger tell you he’s never been thrown. For every bronc he’s ridden to a standstill, ten others have made him eat dirt.”

“He’s good,” Holt said, though he hated to part with the admission.

“Best I’ve ever run across,” Rafe confirmed. “Not that I’d ever let him hear me say it.”

Holt was pensive. “I offered him a job on the Circle C today,” he said, with a reluctance he didn’t understand. “And he took it.”

Rafe’s face changed instantly. Gone was the easygoing smile, the affable tone of voice, the friendly stance. Now he was coiled, ready to strike. “
What
?”

“You heard me,” Holt said.

Rafe reddened up, jerked off his hat, slapped one thigh with it. “If that doesn’t beat everything,” he hissed. “Pa’s gonna have a fit and fall in it.” He glared at Holt. “And that was the point, wasn’t it?”

“It’s a side benefit,” Holt allowed. He tried to sound nonchalant, but the truth was, he wished he’d just paid Jeb his fifty dollars and kept his mouth shut about the job.

Rafe bunched up his fist, then let it fall back to his side. “Just last night, Pa was talking about giving you this ranch,” he said, then swore. Plainly, he regretted giving up that much, would have taken it all back if he could have.

“Now why the hell would he do that?” Holt demanded.

Rafe jabbed at Holt’s chest with an index finger, never knowing that he had the distinction of being the first man who’d ever done that without getting a few of his teeth knocked down his throat. “Because you’re his first-born son,” he bit out. “Because you gave him what he wanted more than anything else in this world—a grandchild.”

Holt steadied himself, braced for the punch he knew Rafe wanted to throw, but it didn’t come. And even if it had, it couldn’t have stunned him any more than what Rafe had just said. He was speechless.

“And what do you do?” Rafe rushed on, practically blowing steam. “You as good as spit in his face!”

“Papa?” It was Lizzie’s voice but, for an instant, Holt couldn’t think who she was talking to. She tugged at his sleeve, looking warily up at Rafe. “You’re not going to get into a fight, are you?”

Holt put a hand on top of her head. “No,” he said, still watching his brother’s face. “Get your things, Lizzie. We’d better be heading back to our own place.”

Rafe didn’t miss the emphasis he put on the last few words of that statement, that was clear by the blue snap in his eyes, but some of the tension went out of him, and he shifted his gaze to Lizzie and smiled, albeit with an effort. “You tell your papa,” he said pleasantly, if a little stiffly, “that you’re a member of this family, and there’s something to be celebrated, so you’re staying. Your uncle Rafe will bring you home in the morning, if Mr.
Cavanagh
is so all-fired set on turning tail and running like a rabbit.”

With his oration completed, Rafe turned and stalked toward the house without a backward glance. The kitchen door slammed hard behind him.

“Can’t we stay, Papa?” Lizzie asked, squinting against the sun as she looked up at him. “Please?”

“Lizzie—”

“
Please
?”

He squatted, so he could meet her gaze. “We’ll compromise,” he said. “After supper, though, we’re going home.”

Lizzie looked concerned, and determined. “Grandpa said he left you, when you were little as a puppy,” she said. “He’s sorry he did it, except that I got born. Why can’t you get over being mad at him?”

Holt looked away. Couldn’t answer.

“I’m going inside,” Lizzie announced, into the silence. “I never had any uncles before, and only one aunt. Mama’s folks died when I was a baby. Maybe you don’t want a family, Papa, but I do.” Having said her piece, she followed the fiery path Rafe had laid.

Holt stood, watching her disappear inside the house. At least, he consoled himself, she hadn’t settled on a puppy.

J
ust about the last place on earth Chloe would have chosen to be, on that particular day, was the Triple M. Emmeline and Becky had practically kidnapped her, though, saying she oughtn’t be alone. Which made her wonder if they knew that Jeb had broken her heart all over again, then walked blithely out of the cottage, leaving her in pieces.

She’d cried for a long time, after Jeb was gone, because she’d let him use her. Then she pulled herself together, splashed her face with cold water at the basin, and given herself a thorough sponge bath. She’d dressed, arranged her hair, and set out for the main part of the town, with a specific destination in mind: the office of Victor Terrell, attorney at law.

Mr. Terrell was new in town, and happy to have a client, though he made a pretense of sorrow when Chloe told him she wanted to file a petition of divorce against Jeb McKettrick. If she hadn’t had the hastily prepared papers in her possession, no power on earth, including Emmeline and Becky, who were formidable when they’d made up their minds, could have made her set foot on the same acre of ground as her soon-to-be-former husband.

She was going to hand him those papers and let him know in no uncertain terms that she never wanted to cross paths with him again. True, she had to finish out the year at Indian Rock School, since she’d given her word, and avoiding Jeb might prove next to impossible, given the size of the town, but if she was going to have any peace of mind or self-respect, she had to cut the ties, once and for all. She meant to save her money in the meantime and scour the many newspapers Becky subscribed to for a new position. When the year was over, she would have a job waiting, as far from the Arizona Territory as she could get, and if she had to lie to get it, she would.

For all her determination, she wasn’t prepared for what she felt when she stepped into the McKettrick kitchen and practically collided with Jeb. He looked surprised to see her, to say the least, and stood there like a tree in the middle of a stream as Becky and Emmeline flowed past him, staring. He swallowed visibly, then found his voice.

“Well,” he said, plainly flummoxed.

“I want to speak with you,” Chloe informed him tightly. “Alone.”

He recovered quickly. His old insolence came to the fore, and he raised his eyebrows as he gestured grandly toward the inside door of the kitchen. “Pa’s study ought to be empty,” he said.

Chloe looked neither right nor left as she swept in that direction. If she’d made eye contact with any of the McKettricks at that moment, she would have burst into tears.

The study brought back unhappy memories; it had been here, after all, that Jeb had told her John was dead. It had been here that he’d held and comforted her, acting as though he really cared. Which, of course, he hadn’t.

She fumbled in her handbag for the papers while he closed the doors. Held them out wordlessly when he turned to face her.

He watched her warily for a long moment, then waxed cocky again. “For me?” he taunted, putting both hands to his chest. Chloe fought not to remember how those hands had felt on her body, the intimate responses they’d wrung from her in the night just past.

She waggled the document, too angry and too hurt to risk speaking again.

Jeb took the papers, unfolded them, and read them. Except for a slight stiffening in his shoulders, he seemed unmoved.

“This seems like a lot of trouble to go to, when we were never married in the first place,” he said, when he’d finished. His tone was light, even flippant, but his eyes were cold. “Wouldn’t it have made more sense to divorce your
real
husband?”

“I will not dignify that remark with a response,” Chloe said, after taking several deep breaths.

He slapped the papers against one palm. “What’s the point of this exercise, Chloe?”

Chloe was thankful for her temper in those moments, though it had always been her worst character flaw. Without it, she might have given in to tears. “I want to put this whole episode behind me for good,” she said, with all the dignity she could manage. “I will thank you to sign your name in the appropriate place and leave me completely alone from this day forward.”

He had the nerve to look exasperated. “All right, Chloe,” he said, approaching Angus’s desk, scrabbling about for a pen and a bottle of ink, spreading the petition out with a furious gesture of one hand. “This game seems to be important to you, so I’ll play along.” He dipped the pen and signed with a flourish, and Chloe felt as though he’d stabbed her through the heart.

She raised one hand to her chest, lowered it again, quickly, before he looked her way.

“What are you planning to do now?” he asked. He might have been a callous stranger, rather than the man who had made such sweet love to her mere hours before.

Spinning in an emotional whirlpool, Chloe said the first thing that came into her head. “Maybe I’ll get married. For real, this time.”

He looked as furious as if she’d rammed him in the midsection with one end of a fence post, but only for an instant. As before, in the kitchen, he rallied immediately. “Who is he?”

She was in over her head now, and if she didn’t brazen it out, she would surely drown. “Holt,” she said, because everybody else she knew around Indian Rock, except for Doc Boylen, was already married.

Jeb went pale. “
What
?”

Dear God,
Chloe thought,
what have I done?
She barely knew Holt Cavanagh, and if Jeb confronted him, he’d probably go through the roof. Call her a liar. “Jeb—” she began, meaning to admit she’d spoken out of anger, but he cut her off.

“Don’t say another word, Chloe.
Not another word.
”

Her eyes widened. She opened her mouth, closed it again.

Jeb handed her the papers, turned his back on her, wrenched open the study doors, and strode out. That was the last she saw of him.

The celebration of little Katie’s birth was agony for Chloe. She couldn’t meet Holt’s gaze, she was too ashamed, and the food Mandy and Emmeline served tasted like sawdust.

Rafe had been glowering throughout the meal, and Angus finally demanded to know what was the matter.

“Why don’t you ask him?” Rafe snapped, jabbing a thumb in Holt’s direction. “Or maybe Jeb?”

“I think I’d like to go home,” Chloe said, into the thundering silence that followed. Becky, who had been watching her closely all evening, took her hand, squeezed it.

Angus pushed back his chair with an ominous scraping sound. “Where
is
Jeb?” he asked, though his gaze was fixed on Holt.

“Probably hiding behind the bunkhouse again,” Kade said. The joke fell flat; nobody laughed.

Mandy, having left the table, put a hand on Chloe’s shoulder. “Kade and I will drive you and Becky back to Indian Rock,” she said, in a tone that dared anyone to object.

“It’s late,” Kade protested. “They ought to stay the night.”

“Hitch up a wagon,” Mandy said.

Tension pulsed in the room. Angus went out, shutting the door hard behind him. Little Katie started to cry in her basket next to Concepcion’s chair, and Becky gave Chloe’s hand another squeeze.

“Never mind,” Holt said, rising from his chair. “I’ll take the ladies to town if Lizzie can spend the night.”

Lizzie, glancing warily from one adult face to another during the exchange, looked pleased.

Which was how Chloe came to be riding two hours in a buggy seat beside a man she’d told a whopping lie about.

Angus found Jeb in the barn, saddling his horse by the light of a kerosene lantern. The boy looked as though he’d been set afire and stomped out, but that didn’t salve Angus’s irritation.

“I didn’t raise my sons to be rude,” he said. “What the devil were you thinking, leaving your wife to get through the evening alone?”

Jeb wrenched at the cinch strap. “She isn’t my wife, and she wasn’t alone. The whole damn family was with her.”

Angus narrowed his eyes. Folded his arms.
Dammit, Georgia,
he told his late wife silently,
you should have let me whup these boys when the situation called for it. I’ve got half a mind to take a strop to this one anyway, right here and now. And don’t think I couldn’t do it.

“If you’re not heading out to make peace with Chloe, where are you going?” he asked, in what he figured was a reasonable tone, given the circumstances.

Jeb took hold of the horse’s bridle and led him toward the barn doors. “To the Circle C,” he said.

Angus took the time to put out the lantern before he followed his son outside. He was in a state, but fire was a serious matter, and he couldn’t risk it.

“Why would you be heading up there at this time of night?” he demanded, even though he reckoned he knew. “If you want a word with your brother, he’s right inside the house.”

Jeb put his foot in the stirrup and swung up onto the gelding’s back. “Holt offered me a job,” he said. “And I took it.” With that, he reined the horse around and rode out.

Angus was still standing in front of the barn, trying to deal with a lot of unfamiliar emotions, when Holt came up beside him.

“I guess he told you,” he said.

Angus turned, met his eldest son’s gaze head-on. A lot of words came to mind, but he didn’t think he ought to say any of them out loud, feeling the way he did.

“I’ll look after him,” Holt said, whistling for the horse he’d unhitched from his buggy when he and Lizzie arrived and left to graze by the creek. The animal trotted toward them.

“See that you do,” Angus warned, and walked away. He wasn’t ready to go back in the house and face Concepcion, so he made his way to the front porch and sat down in the rocking chair, where he’d passed a lot of his time, back when he was ailing. Jeb had run off then, too, and he’d sent Kade to find him. Hadn’t drawn a peaceful breath until the two of them rode in, either, safe and sound.

He saw Holt drive past the house a few minutes later, with Becky and Chloe next to him, and he still didn’t move.

The front door creaked open, and Concepcion was there. He knew by the starched-cotton scent of her, by the quiet warmth of her presence. “Holt told me what happened,” she said. “Jeb will be all right, Angus.”

Angus was a long time answering.

“Will he?” he asked.