Dorothy Garlock - [Wyoming Frontier] (19 page)

She went to the shelf that stretched along the wall above the wash bench where she had placed the small crocks and reached up for a gray one with a blue stripe around the top. Her fingers could only touch the bottom.

“Is this the one you want?” Pack’s chest was against her back, his chin stirred the top of her hair. Thick, muscular forearms with a shadowing of dark hair enclosed her as he reached above her head for the crock.

Mara nodded, then waited until he moved from behind her before she turned. She could not understand what was the matter with her and tried to swallow the excitement that bubbled up each time his body came in contact with hers. The sight of him with his sleeves pushed up to his elbows intrigued her. The buttons near the neck of his shirt were open, showing more dark hair. His powerful masculinity caused her heart to carom crazily, and even more shocking to her was the thought that floated into her mind. She wondered if God had made her from the rib of such a man as Pack Gallagher.

“This will be perfect.” Mara said the words, knowing instinctively that they were the right words to say. She filled the crock with water and placed the flowers in it, pulling at the stems to spread the blooms. She lifted her head to see Pack frowning at the closed door going into his mother’s room.

“Who’s in there?”

“Cousin Aubrey.”

“What the hell is he doing here
now?
He didn’t bother to came yesterday or for days before that.” His lips clamped down hard, his head came up, and he shot a furious sidelong glance at the door. When he started for it, Mara quickly stepped around the table and placed her hand on his arm.

“Pack—don’t. Don’t make a scene. For the twins’ sake. Travor is just now beginning to see his father for what he is. We don’t want to put that boy into the position of having to defend him.”

“But . . . goddamn it, Mara Shannon, he put Ma through hell with his drinking and slipshod ways.” The bitterness of his words drew the corners of his mouth down and caused his eyes to become rock hard.

“I know, but it’s over. The twins will be the ones to suffer now if there’s unpleasantness. Their mother was all that was good, stable, and secure in their lives. They need you more than ever now that she’s gone.”

She stood still. Her large emerald eyes pleaded with his as her fingertips lightly touched his arm. Their gazes met and locked. Pack slowly brushed the hair off her cheek with the back of his hand; his knuckles nudged her chin when he lowered his hand to cover the fingers on his arm. He took such a deep breath that his chest heaved.

“You’re a sweet little thing, and you’ve got a good head on your shoulders.” He dragged his eyes from hers and glanced at the door. “How long has he been in there?”

“Quite awhile. We can go in and put the flowers on the table beside Brita’s bed. She loved flowers.”

Mara moved ahead of Pack and opened the door. Aubrey was sitting on the bunk in the darkened room with his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands. He looked up when the door opened, then got to his feet.

“There’s coffee in the pot on the stove, Cousin Aubrey, if you care to have some.” Mara set the flowers on the table beside the bed. “Pack found these down by the creek. Aren’t they lovely?”

Aubrey nodded and slipped out the door as if he expected Pack to attack him. Pack followed and Mara hurried after them. Aubrey slumped down on the bench, leaning his elbows on the trestle table. While Mara poured the coffee and placed it in front of him, Pack stood on the other side of the table. Aubrey’s hands were shaking so badly that he could scarcely lift the cup. Pack put a foot up on the bench, rested his forearm on his knee, and leaned across the table.

“If you as much as smell the cork on a whiskey bottle between now and the burial, I’m going to break every bone in your miserable body.” His face and his voice were so impersonal that Mara found it hard to believe he had spoken the threatening words.

Aubrey was under no such illusion. Pack’s words sank into his mind like a stone dropped into a deep well. He nodded without looking up.

NINE

Sporty Howard tilted his chair back against the wall and looked out the door toward the house. It was quiet in the rough log building. The men talked in muted tones out of respect for the dead. None of them had ever seen old drunken Aubrey’s crippled wife; but she was a mother, and mothers were to be respected and cherished regardless of who they were. The majority of men in the bunkhouse had known only the love of their mothers and it was sacred to them.

“The useless old bitch finally give up the ghost,” Cullen remarked. Two men rose up out of their seats and stared at him menacingly. After that he too had been quiet.

“Do ya think Sam’s gone for good?” Sporty asked Cullen in low tones, not out of respect for the dead, but because he didn’t want the men at the card table to hear.

“Naw. He’ll be back.”

“He took his bedroll.”

“He always takes his stuff when he leaves. I’m thinkin’ he don’t want ya prowlin’ through it, Sporty.”

Sporty took no offense at the remark. He didn’t even seem to hear it. His face was turned toward the door, and he was watching Pack draw water from the well.

“Pack’ll be leavin’ now. There ain’t no reason fer him to be hangin’ round. Do ya reckon he’ll take the prissy ass redhead with him?”

“I suspect he’ll try. The ole man thinks he will. He thinks Pack’s got his nose to the ground ’n is smelling out a place for himself here. I think Miss Mara Shannon McCall will stay. She’s as stubborn as her old man was. But there’s ways round that. Pack’s got to leave sometime ’n see bout his business in Laramie.” A hint of a threat was in Cullen’s voice.

“Ya plannin’ on courtin’ her?”

“Sheeit! I’m plannin’ on gettin’ her on her back ’n gettin’ in her drawers. That’s the only way I’ll get this place. If it takes sweet talkin’, I’ll sweet-talk her. Hell! She’s so proper she’d wed me like a shot if I plowed her. She’ll figure she’s been ruint ’n won’t ever get another man.” Cullen chuckled nastily. “I’d sure enough like to get me a blanket colt outta Miss Mara McCall. Whee! I’d be set.”

“That ain’t decent,” Sporty said coolly.

Cullen looked at him with amazement. “What the hell ya taking about? Ain’t decent? Hell! Ya wouldn’t know
decent
if it jumped up ’n hit ya!”

“Don’t ya be makin’ no fun a me, Cullen. My folks was church-goin’ folk. She’s yore kin, yore cousin, ain’t she? Ya wantin’ to get ya a bunch a idiots?”

Cullen’s expression turned to disgust.

“There ain’t nothin’ to that ole tale. ’Sides, her pa was my pa’s cousin. Our blood ain’t close enough to make idiots.”

“What about that fat gal in Cheyenne ya was tellin’ me bout?”

“I’d jist as soon hump a young heifer.” Cullen snorted. “I’d a not messed with her a’tall if her pa didn’t own the livery.”

Sporty watched Aubrey cross the porch and go into the cookshack.

“Yore ole man’s goin’ to be pissin’ coffee fer a week. He ain’t touched his bottle today a’tall.”

“He’s scared shitless of Pack.”

“ ’N you ain’t?”

“Hell, yes! I’d be a fool not to. He’d kill a man in a brawl. He’s bigger ’n me, but I got more brains.”

“If’n I was you, I’d get myself all slicked up ’n pay my respects to Mrs. McCall. It’ll make gettin’ yore foot in the door a lot easier later on.”

“I been thinkin’ on doin’ jist that. Do ya have a clean shirt I could borrow?”

*  *  *

Mara stood beside the black wool scarf she had tied in a bow and fastened to the wall beside the front door, a symbol that there was a death in the house, and watched as Pack helped Emily from the wagon. As soon as Emily’s feet were on the ground, her arms went about his waist and she hugged him.

As Mara watched this open display of affection, she was struck once again by the thought that Pack was in love with the near-blind girl and that her brother approved. For a reason unknown to her, chills chased over her skin. Charlie gripped Pack’s hand warmly with one hand while squeezing his shoulder with the other. With a firm hand beneath Emily’s elbow, Pack guided her up the steps to where Mara stood waiting. She greeted Mara with a hug.

“I thought about coming over yesterday, but Charlie was putting new traces on his harnesses and I hated to bother him. I had Brita on my mind. Oh, I wish I had come.”

“Thank you for coming now. Come in and let me get you a cool drink of water. It turned out to be a warm day.”

“Charlie, be careful with the basket when you bring it in.” Emily spoke to her brother and then turned back to Mara. “I was baking a berry pie when Sam came by to tell us the news. I brought it and a few other things along. I came prepared to spend the night, if you need me.”

“That’s kind of you, Emily. You’re most welcome.”

Brita’s body lay in the parlor beneath the clock that had been stopped at the time of her death. Pack and the twins had removed a door and placed it on two barrels. After Mara covered it with a quilt, Pack carried his mother’s body from the bedroom. In the darkened parlor she appeared to be sleeping peacefully. Her lower limbs were covered with a sheet and the flowers Pack had picked were beside her pillow.

Mara waited beside the door while Pack and his friends stood beside the bier. When Emily reached out, Pack guided her hand to where his mother’s hands lay folded. Emily placed her warm palm on Brita’s cold hands for a moment, her head bowed. When she lifted her head, her eyes were filled with tears.

“She fulfilled her destiny,” Emily whispered tearfully. “She came to this earth and left something behind to mark the time she spent here. She left you, Pack, and the twins.”

The misery was so clearly etched in Pack’s face that Mara was overwhelmed by the tenderness and concern she felt for him. Pack’s arm moved across Emily’s shoulder. Emily leaned against him, Pack’s dark head tilted toward her light one, and he placed his cheek against her hair.

Feeling as if she were intruding, Mara slipped out of the room and went to the kitchen. A surge of emotion unlike any she had experienced touched her to the core. Pack was not alone. His friends were there to give him comfort. But she had never felt more alone in her life.

Mara was distracted from her dark thoughts when Travor and Trellis came to the kitchen on their way to the creek. She supplied them with soap and clean towels and volunteered to iron the shirts they would wear to the funeral service. Mara had developed a genuine fondness for the boys.

“Supper will be ready at sundown,” Mara said. “Ask your father to come up to the house and eat with us.”

“He won’t,” Travor said and opened the screen door.

“But you’ll be here, won’t you?”

Trellis answered. “We’ll be here.”

The boys and Charlie ate heartily of the supper Mara and Emily prepared. Pack ate little while he and Charlie talked in muted voices, as befitted a house of mourning. When Charlie was ready to leave, he and Pack went to hitch up the team.

Sam returned from Laramie shortly after Charlie left for home. When he rode his tired horse up the path toward the corrals, Pack went to the back door and hailed him.

“Hey, Sam!”

Sam turned his horse and rode up to the porch.

“The preacher’ll be here before noon. He’ll be bringin’ his missus ’n a nice box from the furniture store.”

“Much obliged, Sam. Did you have to do any arm-twisting on the reverend?”

Sam grinned. “Not much. He’s mighty proud a that colored glass window, ’n he ain’t wantin’ no rock bustin’ it up.”

“Son of a bitch,” Pack muttered under his breath because Mara had come out to hang up the wet dish towels. Emily stood in the doorway.

Sam’s eyes rested on Emily’s quiet face. He put his fingers to the brim of his hat and nodded his head in greeting, then cursed himself for forgetting that he was probably only a blur to her.

“Howdy, ladies.”

“Come in and let us fix you some supper, Sam. There’s plenty left over.”

“Thank ya, ma’am, fer the invite, but I’ll get on down to the cookshack ’n see what ole Steamboat has hashed up. I got pounds a road dust on my back that’s got to come off before I’m fit fer a lady’s company.”

“Come up this evening for coffee.”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank ya.”

Sam turned his horse toward the corral. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Emily’s face turned toward him. As he watched, she brushed her feathery hair from her forehead with the back of her hand, a gesture that was becoming familiar to him.
She didn’t even let on that she knew he was there.
Now why in the hell was that so damned important to him? He knew why even as he asked himself the question.

The image of her face and the fantasy of holding her in his arms had lurked in the back of his mind during the long ride. He had ridden his tired horse harder than he should in order to get back, knowing that she would be there and that he would have a chance to see her. The truth suddenly struck him like an unavoidable shot from ambush. It was there instantly, big as life and twice as powerful. He was not going to be able to ride away from this woman and forget her when his work was finished.

*  *  *

As darkness approached, candles were lit in the parlor and the family gathered for the death vigil. Mara was surprised to see Cullen, bathed and shaved, quiet and respectful, arrive with Aubrey. They swung around the house, came in the front door, and took the chairs at the end of the bier. When the twins came, she asked them to carry in a bench from the porch to sit on. She and Emily sat on the straight wooden kitchen chairs, and Pack, ignoring Cullen and his father, sat down on a box with his forearms resting on his thighs, his huge hands clasped between his knees.

Minutes turned into an hour. Mara’s mind went over the events that would take place the next day. The preacher and his wife would be out in the morning with the burial box. The scarcity of furnishings in the house would be embarrassing to her, but there was nothing she could do about that now. Working with what she had, she had made the house as presentable as possible.

The stars came out. The moon came up, its light making a shadow of the house across the yard. A breeze moved through the treetops over the homestead, bringing with it the sound of an owl hooting.