Matt (The Cowboys) (25 page)

The judge looked thoughtful before asking, “What about Orin?”

“I took him when his foster parents didn’t want him anymore.”

“They ask about him every day,” Wilbur said.

“Nobody wanted him until his grandfather left him some money.”

“How much?” the judge asked.

“I don’t know,” Matt replied.

“Why not?”

“I never asked.”

“How much?” the judge asked Wilbur.

“Seventy thousand dollars,” Wilbur said.

The judge whistled. “I can see how that would spark considerable interest.”

“Ermajean McCutchen is only interested in the boy’s welfare,” Wilbur said. “She admits she had a little difficulty with him, but she and her husband have two boys practically his age. They’d make perfect companions.”

“Tell me about your children,” the judge said to Ellen.

“They’re not her children,” Wilbur began. “They’re—”

“If you keep interrupting, Mr. Sears, I’ll send you outside. I want to hear from Mr. and Mrs. Haskins.”

“They’ll only tell you lies.”

“Perhaps, but people are always telling me lies. It’s my job to sort through until I get to the truth.”

Wilbur looked furious.

“Noah and Tess are the children of a woman I worked with at the saloon,” Ellen said. “I don’t know their father. The children were born before I met April.”

“Did she leave a will?”

“No.”

“The father hasn’t expressed any interest in them?”

“No.”

“Did you look for relatives?”

“April never talked about her family. There was nothing in her things to tell me where she came from. I didn’t know her last name. She wanted me to have the children. She said nobody else would want them.”

“They ought to be in an orphanage,” Wilbur said.

“What about Orin?” the judge asked.

“We wrote his family after his parents died,” Wilbur said, “but they were happy to have him placed in a loving, caring foster home.”

“If it was so loving and caring, why isn’t he still there?”

“He ran away,” Wilbur said. “Before Ermajean could find him, Matt tempted the child’s soul with visions of untrammeled devilment and whisked him off to this ranch. He has refused to return him despite being asked by the sheriff several times.”

The judge turned to Matt. “Is that true?”

Ellen didn’t know how Matt could smile in such a relaxed, confident manner with Wilbur determined to weave a net around him.

“Ermajean was happy enough to put up with Orin as long as the money from selling his parents’ property lasted. When that ran out he suddenly became unmanageable. Nobody in Bandera objected to my taking him until the provisions of his grandfather’s will became known. Orin ran away because he knew nobody wanted him. He’s not a difficult child. He was just scared.”

“The boy is willful and rebellious,” Wilbur said, unable to remain silent any longer. “He needs to be taught to yield to discipline. He won’t learn anything but wildness and corruption from you. You don’t go to church,” Wilbur announced triumphantly.

“We’ve all been in church every Sunday since I got married,” Matt said.

“But you never went before. You didn’t either,” Wilbur said, turning on Ellen.

“The one time I did go, everybody made it clear they didn’t want me there.”

“You can’t blame them for not wanting a Magdalene in their midst.”

“If she really were a Magdalene,” the judge said, “I can’t think of a better place than church.”

Wilbur didn’t seem fazed by the judge’s remark. “She can’t control those children,” he said. “The sheriff received constant complaints.”

“I couldn’t always oversee them because I had to work,” Ellen said, “but that’s changed now. I’m with them all day, I have Matt to help me with supervision and training, and they’re too far from town to cause any trouble there.”

“That doesn’t matter. You’re not the kind of person who ought to be entrusted with the upbringing of two young, impressionable children.”

“I served drinks in a saloon, Wilbur. I defy you to find even one man who says I did more.”

He looked mulish. “Patrick Lowell.”

“He lied to protect himself from his wife,” Ellen said. “If she divorced him, he’d be penniless.”

“He’s one of our most prominent citizens.”

“He wouldn’t be if he were broke,” Matt said.

“What does your family think about this?” the judge asked Matt.

“Everybody already treats them as part of the family. Isabelle has Tess calling her ‘grandmama.’”

“I’d like to talk to the children now,” the judge said.

“They’ll only say what he’s taught them to say,” Wilbur warned, “maybe even forced them to say out of fear.”

“I’ll watch for that.”

“I know them better than you,” Wilbur persisted. “I can—”

“You can wait outside,” the judge said, losing patience. “We have a long ride back to town during which you’ll have the opportunity to say anything you might have forgotten to say on the ride out.”

“I realize you need to talk to the children in private,” Matt said, “but I’d appreciate it if you’d see them two at a time. They’re all afraid you’re going to take them away.”

“That’s because you’ve been terrifying them,” Wilbur accused.

“As a matter of fact, he told them not to worry,” Ellen said, “that no one would take them away. I don’t know that I would have done the same thing, but it has served to ease their fears a little.”

“I’m unhappy that they should be so fearful,” the judge said. “Why is that so?”

“How could they not be frightened half out of their minds?” Ellen asked, her anger finally bursting her control. “They’ve been told they’re brats, hooligans who belong in an orphanage where people will know how to make them behave.”

“For their own good,” Wilbur said.

“I’ll be the first to tell you that Toby is not an easy boy to like,” Ellen said, ignoring Wilbur, “but people in this town ought to be ashamed of the way they’ve treated him. He’s been called everything from a bastard to a devil. They even set three local boys on him. Only it backfired when Toby turned out to be a better fighter. And Orin knows no one wants him except for his money. Ask him how he was treated before Matt offered to take him in.”

Ellen hadn’t meant to lose control. She had intended to let Matt do all the talking just as he asked, but she couldn’t stand by and let Wilbur’s allegations go unanswered.

“This seems to be a damned mess,” the judge said.

“You can fix that by putting these children into decent, God-fearing homes,” Wilbur said.

“I’ll see the two older boys first,” the judge said. “And you,” he said, pointing to Wilbur, “will discuss with Mrs. Haskins how to educate these children if I should decide to let her adopt them.”

“You couldn’t do such a thing!” Wilbur exclaimed.

“I can, and I might,” the judge replied. “Mr. Haskins, you’d probably better stay with the little ones. I want them to be as calm as possible before I see them.”

“Ellen will do a better job of that,” Matt said.

“Possibly,” the judge replied, “but I doubt you and Mr. Sears would get much discussed before resorting to fists.”

So Toby and Orin stayed in the kitchen with the judge, Matt sat Noah and Tess in the swing on the front porch, and Ellen found herself walking toward the creek with Wilbur Sears. Wilbur flew into a tirade about Matt. Her first inclination was to argue every point, but she knew that would be a waste of time. Wilbur wasn’t going to change his mind about anything.

“Why do you hate Matt so?” she asked when he finally stopped talking long enough for her to get a word in edgewise. They had paused next to the tree-covered stream that flowed through their part of the valley. The sound of the water tumbling over stones helped to soothe her frazzled nerves.

“He’s not a God-fearing man,” Wilbur said. “He always thinks he knows what to do. He refuses advice from anyone.”

“A man is entitled to believe in and act upon his own opinions.”

“He’s wrong. The way he protects Toby should tell you that.”

She didn’t always agree with Matt’s handling of Toby, but Toby respected Matt and tried to do what he wanted. “We’ll never agree on the proper handling of children. You don’t understand them. You expect them—”

“I expect them to bow before authority,” Wilbur said, “to respect their superiors, to do what they’re told when it comes to God.”

“You mean do what
you
want.”

“Of course. I’ve been sent here to save this community, to bring every lost soul back to the bosom of its Maker.”

Ellen gave up. She wondered what the judge was asking Toby and Orin. She didn’t know which one to worry about more. Toby was the more confident and self-possessed of the two, but he was also the more unpredictable. If he wasn’t careful what he said, the judge might end up believing he deserved everything he got.

Ellen didn’t feel any more confident of Orin. Orin liked her and the Maxwells, but Matt was his anchor. She hoped the judge could see that. She would have to tell him if he didn’t.

She was also worried about the children. How could three- and five-year-old kids know what to say, what to leave unsaid? They only understood that they might be taken away. Ellen got angry at Wilbur all over again. Everything would have been fine if he’d just minded his own business.

You wouldn’t have married Matt.

As difficult as she had found it to marry a man she hardly knew, she found it equally difficult to imagine not being married to Matt. She didn’t know how this feeling could have come about in such a short time, but she knew the kids felt the same way. Maybe it was fear of being torn apart. Maybe it was simply that they liked their new situation and that it worked better than anything ever had before. Regardless of the reason, the children were happier than they’d ever been.

And so was she. She didn’t want to lose the kids. Or Matt.

“Let’s talk about the children’s education,” Ellen said to Wilbur.

Without warning, he grabbed her by the arms and turned her around to face him. “You’ve got to divorce Matt and marry me,” he said, his eyes burning brightly with the intensity of his feelings. “It’s the only way you can save your immortal soul.”

Chapter Fifteen

After all the things he’d said about her, Ellen found it hard to believe Wilbur could be serious. He was probably trying to lure her into making a mistake he could use to take the children.

“I know this is a fake marriage,” Wilbur said. “You don’t love Matt, not that love is required in a marriage between decent people. But respect is, and no one can respect Matt Haskins.”

She couldn’t think of what to say.

“You needn’t scruple to tell me the truth,” Wilbur said, a fanatical light in his eyes. “I forced the sheriff to tell me how the two of you decided to get married. He tried to come off all high and mighty with me, saying he was the law, that he didn’t have to tell me anything. I told him that his soul was teetering on the brink of eternal hell. If he continued to thwart God’s will, the devil would come for him that very night and carry his miserable sin-ridden soul deep into the bowels of hell.”

Ellen wished the sheriff hadn’t revealed their agreement, but she knew how difficult it was to withstand Wilbur when he started threatening eternal hellfire.

“It’s true Matt and I married to keep the children,” Ellen said, “but it’s not true I don’t respect him. He’s a wonderful man, and the kids love him.”

“Of course they do,” Wilbur said, his expression growing more intense. “He’s cast a spell over them. He stares into their eyes and they’ll do anything he wants.”

Wilbur was looking into her eyes right now, trying to will her to do what he wanted.

“Children aren’t easily fooled,” she said. “They know when a person doesn’t like them. They know Matt truly loves them and wants to be their father.”

“And you don’t think it’s strange for an unmarried man to have this unnatural attraction for children?”

Ellen wished she was strong enough to knock Wilbur down. “Matt knows what it means to be an unwanted orphan. He intends to make sure these children never feel that way again.”

Wilbur’s brow furrowed and his gaze became more intense. He took Ellen’s hands into his and gripped them so tightly they hurt. “Poor child; he’s cast his spell over you, too. He’s made you as weak-willed as those poor children. Come to me, my dear. I’ll protect you. I’ll help you purify your life.”

“Regardless of the reason for my marriage, I already have a husband. What you ask is impossible.”

“Divorce him.”

“Marriage is a sacrament.”

“Not when it’s false. You’re living in sin, endangering your immortal soul. Your only hope is to marry me. I’ll teach you, comfort you, lead you every step of the way.”

His grip on her hands had gradually moved up her arms until his hands were perilously close to her breasts. The look in his eyes had begun to change into an expression she knew well. The Reverend Wilbur Sears’s most earnest desire might be to save her soul, but he was also lusting after her body.