Texas Rose Forever (Texas Rose Ranch #1) (25 page)

CanDee lowered her gaze. “That’s where Phillip grabbed me . . . but to be fair, I bruise easily.”

Slowly her head turned to him. “I just made an excuse for him, didn’t I? Oh my God. I can’t believe I just did that.”

He’d never wanted to kill anyone as much as he wanted to kill Phillip right then. The bastard had marked her. He’d caused her pain. This was not something he could ignore. Phillip would pay for hurting her. If it was the last thing Cinco did, he’d make Phillip pay.

CHAPTER 25

At ten the next morning, CanDee rolled back on her haunches and rubbed her lower back. She’d finally finished the timeline that was spread out across the parlor floor. Usually, this was the time she liked best, when everything came together, but there were some inconsistencies.

And then there were the diary entries.

She opened the diary in question and reread the passage.

I know what we did was wrong, but the alternative was much worse. In a world run by men for men, legal options for women are few. Even in Texas where married women may own land, we still cannot inherit it without explicit language in the will.

The entry was dated May 27, 1915, which was two days after the fire.

CanDee picked up the photocopied obituary from the Roseville Gazette dated April 2, 1920.

MILDRED ZENETTA SLATTERY DIES AFTER A GREAT FALL

Roseville sustained the sad loss of one of its finest residents from one of the most highly respected families in the death of Mildred Zenetta Slatter, at her home in this city. She left this world for her heavenly reward at the age of thirty, three months, and twenty-four days. Sunday evening, March twenty-first, after a joyful and very uplifting sermon by Pastor W.I. Townsend that lasted long into the night and successfully brought to Jesus Mr. Harold Alvin Jackson, Mrs. R.L. Huntington, and Mr. Elijah Rose Slattery, Miss Slattery fell while climbing the steps to her home at 127 Main Street. While the fall was not immediately fatal, it did inflict a lingering head injury of a grievous nature. Miss Slattery took to her bed and was attended in loving Christian generosity by Mrs. Henry Tinney, Miss Aldora Throckmorton, and Mrs. Josiah Genstry until her last breath around five-thirty in the afternoon of March thirtieth.

For the love of God, old obituaries were wordy and full of inconsequential detail and strangely put together. She guessed that an education in a one-room schoolhouse didn’t make for Rhodes Scholars.

The funeral was held at the family home . . .

CanDee knew that in small towns funerals were held at home, but yuck. It was just hard to imagine that practice today. People tramping in her house to pay their respects to Great-Aunt Whoever propped up in the living room. She guessed that if someone asked where the bathroom was, she could tell them to take a right at the dead body and then it’s two doors down on the left.

She skimmed down.

Miss Slattery was a native of Mississippi, but traveled to Roseville by wagon train at the age of two with her family to open a hotel. Her father,
Mr. Edgar Buckner Slattery, along with his wife, Gertrude, opened
a hotel on the corner of Main and Rosemont, which is still in operation
to this day. Mr. Slattery is most known for his rescue of the infant James
Lucas Karo during the well-remembered cattle stampede of aught eight.
Mr. Slattery sustained many injuries during the stampede including a lin
gering partial paralysis of his tongue and an apoplexy of unknown origin.

CanDee rolled her eyes and skimmed to the bottom
.

Miss Slattery is survived by her sisters Mrs. S.L. Medford of Roseville and Mrs. John Ullery of San Antonio, and her parents Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Slattery of Roseville. She is also survived by her son, Elijah Rose Slattery, who thankfully came to Jesus on the very the night of Miss Slattery’s fall.

So Miss Slattery had a son and wasn’t married? No husband was mentioned, alive or dead. Based on this extremely long and amazingly super-uninformative obituary, CanDee was sure a husband would have been mentioned . . . a lot and in great detail.

CanDee picked up another of Edith’s journals and skimmed down.

That Slattery woman was here again today. In her delicate condition, I feel very sorry for her, but I cannot help her. She says that the child she’s carrying belongs to Deuce and while I believe it’s possible, there is nothing I can do. Deuce has denounced her and Mel refuses to see her, but I cannot in all Christian generosity turn her away. Her family has insisted that she give the babe up, but she has refused. If it comes down to it, I will have her move in with us and Mel will have to accept it. I will not stand by and watch anyone be turned out of her house to live on the street.

CanDee flipped to a few months later.

I have been to the Slattery house to pay my respects to the newborn baby boy. Miss Slattery seems to be in good spirits, as is her father. He seems to love and dote on the babe, which is good. Miss Slattery asked me again to speak on her behalf to Deuce and I assured her that I will, but he is a hard man who will not be swayed. She is young and believes herself in love with him, but I hope it will pass. Deuce cares more about whiskey and carnal pleasures and I doubt will marry again even though his Roberta passed away last December. My heart goes out to the fatherless babe. I will do what I can.

CanDee had little choice. She picked up her legal pad with the Rose family genealogy and added a box under Lacy Kendall Rose Jr. She wrote
Elijah Rose Slattery born 1910, married 1940 to Mini Thomas
, and
died
1978
. Under Elijah, she made one box for his child and wrote
Timothy Thomas Slattery born 1942, married 1980 to Lisa Marie Evans
, and that they had a son named Trent Slattery in 1981. She added a box for him.

Did the Rose family know that more than likely, they had a whole illegitimate side? She had a feeling that they didn’t. In the genealogy, she couldn’t leave out the connection . . . or could she? Elijah Rose Slattery was never recognized as a Rose. She needed to find proof that either he was or wasn’t. She wanted her genealogy to be accurate, but she didn’t want to hurt the man she loved. If her suspicions were correct, there was something even worse than the Roses’ possible illegitimate side.

She rolled onto her knees, stood, and stretched her back. She walked through the kitchen to the doorframe of the summer kitchen that held the slightly faded but still legible pencil marks Edith had made at each point in Tres’s life. It seemed that Edith and Mel were the doting aunts that replaced his mother even before she died. According to Edith, Roberta never recovered from the baby blues and often left Tres with her for days at a time. Edith had written many, many pages about her beautiful sweet-tempered nephew. And then things had changed when he’d turned fourteen. He’d become wild, drinking the day away instead of working. Edith had used the word
drunkard
several times and worried about him constantly. She even thought that he might be smoking opium, although she’d never seen him do it.

An incomplete thought tugged at her brain. She was missing something. Something about whiskey. Hadn’t Cinco told her a story about Edith making Tres drink the rest of a bottle on his seventeenth birthday? But she commented several times about his drinking that started at age fourteen. By all appearances, Edith had been meticulous, so the inconsistences regarding Tres didn’t make sense.

CanDee touched the pencil mark that read,
Tres, age 15
. It was a good foot shorter than she was. She glanced at the one three inches above it that read,
Tres, age 14
. So he’d hit a growth spurt and shot up and then he’d gotten shorter? Did that explain why he was three inches shorter after the fire? In a journal entry, Edith had been very specific about the measurements she’d taken for the new suit she was making Tres two weeks before the fire. After, she’d also written down the measurements of the new pants she was making him. CanDee scanned the doorjamb but couldn’t find a measurement after Tres turned fifteen.

Was that on purpose or simply an oversight?

She walked back into the parlor and glanced at the journals. Edith didn’t do oversights. She had to be the most organized woman CanDee had ever met . . . well, not met, but it felt like they’d met.

CanDee walked over to the 1915 pile of things on the timeline and picked up the photocopied article on the fire. There was a drawing of the main house as a burned-out shell and a brief article stating that a fire “of unknown origin” spread through the house, killing Lacy Kendall Rose Jr., Carlton Rose Jr., Thaddeus Bartor Rose, and Loco Hernandez, a ranch hand. It had been Christmas Eve and everyone was home for the holiday.

She needed to find out about Loco Hernandez. Maybe the ranch had some employment records?

What were the odds that the ranch would have a picture of Loco? Who was she kidding, they wouldn’t have a picture of him.

She needed a way to prove or disprove her theory because the evidence she had was pointing to one horrible conclusion: Loco hadn’t died in the fire, Tres had. The man who’d survived the fire and claimed to be the heir to the Texas Rose was actually a ranch hand named Loco. The inconsistences in the heights and the pictures of Tres all pointed to Loco taking Tres’s place. She picked up the one of him at fourteen and set it beside his wedding photo. True, they were decades apart and one was covered with scars. Their hair color was the same, but the bone structure was different.

And it might have been Edith’s idea.

CanDee scrubbed her face with her hands. She was a writer in between a ranch and a hard place. How much of this did she include? On the one hand, her clients were paying her, so she wasn’t sure they’d want the story out, but on the other hand, they hired her to write their genealogy and this was part of their history. Besides, if she didn’t include it, she was in some part helping to do the same thing to the Slatterys that Phillip had done to her . . . stealing something that belongs to another.

Out of ideas, she googled
Loco Hernandez
. Apparently, there was a fighter by that name and some British actor who’d been born the year that Loco had supposedly died in the fire, but no picture of a ranch hand who’d died in 1915.

If she didn’t take her work so seriously, she’d just skim over Loco Hernandez and go on her way, but this was her livelihood and her reputation. Maybe the family museum would help? She closed her laptop, shoved it in her leather bag, and headed to the family museum.

After closing the front door, she glanced toward the tree where Connie was parked and—son of a bitch—she was gone. Lefty had better have car-napped Connie so he could vacuum out that glitter. She scanned the area for any sign of Connie, but there was nothing.

Sunlight winked off her golf cart and she jumped back. It had tires. She walked down the porch steps to admire the tires. It had all four. Cautiously, she approached in case it was booby trapped, but nothing gross rained down on her head, exploded, or shot out at her, so she figured the coast was clear. She sat down and waited for more glitter to burst out, but nothing did. With a prayer that the engine worked, she turned the key. The engine fired to life. She hit the gas and the golf cart took off.

Did this mean that she’d won?

Smiling to herself, she turned onto the dirt road that led to the main house and the family museum. She bumped along at a good pace, turned the corner, and could see the outline of the buildings when her golf cart coughed, belched, and died.

Stomping on the gas pedal, she expected the engine to jolt her back, but nothing happened. She turned the key to off and then turned it back on again. Nothing.

Damn it, Lefty, he’d given her back the tires and then shorted her gas. She shoved her leather bag onto her shoulder. That was fine. Two could play that game. She stared at the front of the cart but couldn’t find a latch or anything, so she walked around to the back, found the latch, and popped up the little hood. While the workings of an internal combustible engine mystified her, she recognized the battery, which seemed like the best way to disable the cart long enough for her to get some gas. She wasn’t giving up and she wasn’t giving in and she wasn’t going to take this lying down. After unhooking the battery, she picked it up and glanced around for a good hiding place. There was a copse of trees to her left with lots of brush covering the ground. She tucked the battery deep inside the brush, dusted off her hands, straightened the skirt of her dark green T-shirt dress, and held her head high as her sandals slapped the dirt road on her walk to the museum.

By the time she stepped into the museum, found the air conditioner control panel, and switched it on to high, she was dusty and had sweat rings under her arms.

“Where in the holy hell did you put my golf cart battery?” Lefty crossed his arms in the doorway.

“Where in the hell did you put my gas?” She grinned. “And she’s my golf cart. Her name is Rita.”

“Her name ain’t Rita, it’s Penelope, and she don’t like you.” Lefty continued to stare at her. “You okay?”

He was talking about yesterday. “I’m fine. Better than fine.”

“Good to hear.” He turned around to go.

“Do you know anything about a ranch hand named Loco Hernandez?”