Heartbreak Creek (10 page)

Pru’s hand gripped her shoulder—in reassurance or apprehension, Edwina wasn’t sure which.

There was no yard, no trees, not a single shrub to screen the stone foundation. And seeing the house perched so starkly atop the rocky ground, all sturdy practicality, without grace or beauty or softening touches, made Edwina realize in a way she never had before that she had truly left her other life behind forever.

 

 

Declan reined in as Rusty charged the horses and children tore out the kitchen door like calves on stampede. He did a quick count, came up one short, then saw Lucas hanging back in the shadows of the porch.

He let out a deep breath and let go of the anxiety that always gripped him when he returned home after being away for a while. Not that he doubted Thomas Redstone wouldn’t watch over his children as vigilantly as he would have, but with all the Indian troubles lately, and rebel renegades still prowling about, he never felt completely reassured until he saw all four faces grinning up at him. “The house is still standing, I see. Rusty, quiet!”

“Joe Bill tried to burn it down,” Brin shouted over the dog’s barks.

At least he thought that was Brin beneath the dirt, and her brother’s clothes, and R.D.’s old slouch hat that bent the tips of her ears.

R.D. thumped his younger brother’s head. “Luckily Thomas smelled the smoke.”

“It was an accident,” Joe Bill defended.

“Like Sand Creek was an accident,” Thomas Redstone said, coming around the side of the house. “You are late.”

“There was a washout at Damnation Creek.” Declan frowned at the rifle in Thomas’s hand and the tall bay he was leading by a braided bosal halter. “You leaving already?”

Thomas’s gaze flicked to the two women staring wide-eyed from the wagon, paused for a heartbeat on Prudence Lincoln, then swung back to Declan. Even though his face showed nothing, Declan could see the laughter in his stone black eyes. “A man who raises pigeons in his tipi should not invite in a hawk.”

“Or a bull snake,” Declan countered.

Thomas grinned, his white teeth a shocking contrast to his dark ruddy skin. “You have enough wild savages running around,
nesene’
. You do not need another.” Turning to the children gathered beside the wagon, he said, “
Ne’aahtove eho.
And no fires.” After they nodded, he swung up on his horse and, with a nod to Declan, reined the bay around and kicked it into a lope toward the creek.

“Mercy sakes,” his wife said. “Who was that?”

“Thomas Redstone.” Declan wrapped the reins around the brake handle. “Lost his band at Summit Springs, so now we’re his family.”

“He’s Indian?” Pru asked.

“Cheyenne. Mostly.” Declan watched the ex-Dog Soldier melt into the thicket along the creek and wished Thomas had stayed a while longer. He could have used his help to distract the women while he broke the news of their new mother to his children. Moving stiffly, he climbed down from the driver’s box. As soon as he touched ground, children came at him from all sides—Brin tattling on Joe Bill, Joe Bill tattling back on Brin, R.D. trying to tell him about a cougar he’d seen on a ridge behind the creek. Only Lucas remained silent, all of his attention fixed on the women in the wagon.

“Go on, now. Leave a man in peace to stretch his legs.” Declan tried to sound gruff, even though he was gratified by their warm reception.

“Who’s that lady?” Brin stared in fascination at Miss Priss’s bonnet. “And what’s that on her head?”

“Never you mind.” He waved them toward the building on the left. “Get on into the house. I’ll be there directly to talk to you.”

“But we’re hungry,” Brin complained. “Thomas didn’t feed us nothing but some roots and berries out of his parfleche bag.”

“Pemmican.” Joe Bill made a face. “Smelled like R.D.’s boots.”

“Better than your feet.”

Declan gave Brin a gentle nudge. “Go. I’ll bring food when I come.”

“But—”

“Now.”

As his children headed toward their sleeping quarters, Declan grabbed the bags and helped the women from the wagon, anticipating some scathing comments about his unruly children or his home. He knew the place was a bit rough and rustic compared to some grand two-story southern plantation mansion, but it was sturdy and warm and he’d built it with his own hands, and he was proud of it, no matter what they said.

Surprisingly, they said nothing—good or bad—but filed silently after him as he carried their carpetbags not toward the parlor entry but to the working end of the dwelling that housed a kitchen and eating area on the ground floor, and a spacious master bedroom in the loft above.

After Lucas was born eight years ago, he’d added the second structure with a connecting breezeway to provide separate sleeping quarters for the children. A year later, Sally had insisted on enclosing the breezeway and adding a front porch so they would have a nice entry and a sit-down parlor in case anyone dropped by, which no one ever did. Now he used the enclosed area between the two buildings mostly for storage.

After waiting inside the kitchen doorway for the women to pass through, he kicked the door closed and looked around, his sense of frustration rising again.

The room was a mess and smelled like burned something—hair?—Joe Bill’s “accident” no doubt, judging by the puddles of water on the floor and the charred rag in the sink. It also appeared that Brin had tried her hand at cooking—a hopeful sign, despite the stack of dirty dishes on the counter and the flour dusting the floor and the broken eggs dripping yolk off the edge of the table. At least she was considering a more feminine role than that of army scout or buffalo hunter.

With a sigh, he turned toward the staircase rising along the west wall and over the door into the parlor. “You’ll take the loft,” he explained as he carried their bags up to the open mezzanine that overlooked the first level. “I’ll move my things out later.”

Prudence Lincoln started up the stairs behind him. “And where will you sleep, Mr. Brodie?”

“In the parlor.”

Miss Priss paused on the bottom step and looked around. “There’s a parlor?”

“Between the two buildings.” Ducking to clear the beam across the landing, he walked past the oversized bed he’d built to accommodate his height and dumped the bags on the floor beside the wardrobe he’d also built. He waited until both women entered the open room, then nodded toward the six-foot partition against the inside wall. “There’s a hip tub and wash bowl and necessary behind that screen. I’ll bring up water later. Anything else?”

Miss Priss unpinned her bonnet and set it on the night table beside the bed, then turned a slow circle as she took in the room.

Declan looked around, too, trying to see it through her eyes. Sun-bleached calico curtains hanging listlessly over the tall window on the peaked wall. Dusty books stacked in one corner, an overflowing basket of soiled clothing in another. A faded floor runner with a tattered edge beside the rumpled bed. It was a mess, just like downstairs.

But that’s why he needed her, damnit. How was he to keep a house going, meals cooked, washing done, a garden tended, and ride herd on four young children while managing a sixty-thousand-acre spread and three thousand head of cattle, with only a twelve-year-old boy, an ex-preacher who was drunk most of the time, and a crippled handyman to help him?

Bracing himself for criticism, Declan planted his hands on his hips and glared at his wife, waiting for the complaints to begin.

Spinning slowly to a stop, she finally met his gaze. She looked perplexed. “Where did you get this furniture?”

“I built it.”

“All of it?”

He nodded and waited for her to say something bad about it.

Instead, she smiled. “It’s nice. I like it.”

Declan was so thrown off balance by that comment he didn’t know what to say.

“I like the sturdy simplicity of it.” She ran her hand over the sixinch-diameter log foot rail, then slowly up the corner post. “With the warm, natural color of the wood showing through.”

Declan watched her fingers move over the pine he had oiled to a satiny sheen, and for one shocking moment he could have sworn he felt the stroke of that hand on his back.

“I’m so tired of dark, fussy, ornate European furniture.” Letting her hand fall to her side, she looked at him in a way she hadn’t before. “I like this much better.”

Battling a sudden overwhelming feeling of confinement, although he wasn’t sure why, Declan crossed to the stairs. “I’ll bring water after I talk to the children. And clean up the mess they left,” he added as an afterthought, then was irritated that he had. Tending the house was her job now. She might as well get used to it.

“Don’t you worry about cleaning up, Mr. Brodie,” Prudence Lincoln called after him. “We’ll take care of the kitchen and rustle up something to eat, too. You go do what you’ve got to do.”

As soon as the door beneath the stairs into the parlor closed, Pru turned to Edwina with a scolding look. “What was that about?”

“What was what about?”

“You were toying with him,” Pru accused. “Rubbing up against his furniture and saying how much you like it.”

“But I do like it. Come over here and feel the finish and—” Pru’s words suddenly sank in, and Edwina gaped at her sister in shock. “Rubbing? I was not rubbing on anything! What a nasty thing to say!”

Prudence regarded her through narrowed eyes. “You weren’t flirting with him?”

“Heavens no! I’m struggling to find ways to hold the man at arm’s length, not lure him closer. Why would you think such a thing?”

Pru relaxed her truculent stance. She gave Edwina a wry smile and shook her head. “For all that you’re a widow and were the biggest flirt in the parish, you really don’t know that much about men, do you?”

“And you do?” Peeved to be accused of something she hadn’t done, and by a person who
supposedly
had even less actual experience in such matters than she had, Edwina added testily, “I wasn’t flirting! And I do prefer this furniture to that dark, heavily carved style Mother so favored. Anyone would, considering.”

Pru raised her hands in a gesture of surrender. “All right. Sorry I misspoke. I’m just concerned.” She started down the stairs.

Edwina stomped after her. “Concerned about Declan Brodie? Ha!”

“He’s a good man, Edwina,” Pru said over her shoulder. “I think you should give him a chance.”

Edwina was about to issue another retort when she glanced over the banister and down into the kitchen. The fight went out of her. “Lord, what a mess. Looks like marauding monkeys came through.”

“Nothing a little scrubbing won’t fix.” Crossing to the cook stove, Pru lifted two faded aprons from a peg, tossed one to Edwina and tied the other around her waist. She looked around, spotted a frayed broom and battered dustpan in the corner, and handed them to Edwina. “You sweep and I’ll come behind you with a mop. We’ll be finished in no time.”

While Edwina swept the eggshells, flour, and unidentifiable chunks from the plank floor, Pru set about mopping up the puddles by the sink.

“What do you think of the children?” Edwina asked, bending to sweep a pile of debris into the dustpan.

“I think he’s right. They need a mother.”

“They were so filthy I couldn’t even tell which one was the girl.”

“The tattler with the gray eyes, I think. Unless she was the one hiding in the doorway.” Having dealt with the wet floor, Pru stoked the fire in the cook stove, then dug out the makings for corn biscuits. “The tall one must be the oldest, R.D., and the blond with the singed bangs had to be Joe Bill.”

Edwina found a waste barrel by a door leading out the back of the house to a fenced garden area and beyond that, a big, rambling barn. She emptied the dustpan, propped it with the broom in the corner, and went to help Pru, who was working the pump lever at the sink. “I’ll wash the dishes, if you find us something to eat. I’m famished.”

Soon the smell of onions and frying fatback filled the kitchen. Edwina scrubbed listlessly as she stared out the window above the sink at the wagon track stretching down the valley. That sense of isolation and alienation tugged at her again. Was this what her life was to be from now on? Endless chores, a lonely marriage to an unapproachable man, raising another woman’s children, and staring out of this small window, hoping to see a visitor come down that road?

“Pru,” she said in sudden panic. “Promise me you won’t leave.”

“I’ll have to someday.”

“Don’t be silly.” When her sister didn’t respond, Edwina turned and watched her spoon cornmeal batter into a muffin tin, then slip it into the oven. “You know you can stay here as long as you want, Pru.”

“And if I don’t want?” Without meeting Edwina’s eyes, Pru pulled several cans from an open shelf, then rummaged in a drawer for away to open them. “What if I want to do something on my own?”

Dread uncoiled in Edwina’s chest, rising to constrict the muscles in her throat. “Like what?”

Working at the cans with a knife, Pru managed to get them open enough to pour the contents—beans—into the skillet of onions and fatback. “Maybe I’ll teach. Start a school for freedmen and women.”

Edwina stared at her, dread building to heart-thudding panic. What would she do if Pru left her? How would she survive without the sister she had depended on for all of her life?

And how would Pru survive without her? To be a woman alone was risky enough. But to be a beautiful mulatto woman, who was neither white nor Negro, left Pru prey to both races. “But, Pru,” she argued weakly, her mind still unable to grasp what her sister had said. “Where would you go? How could you be on your own and be safe?”

“I’m not helpless. I can take care of myself.” She sent Edwina a chiding smile. “I’ve been watching over you all this time, haven’t I?”

Edwina started to point out that she watched over Pru, too, which was one of the reasons they were out here in the back of beyond in the first place. But Pru would only laugh. Her sister didn’t see the danger posed by the drunken gangs in Crappo Town or the white night riders. Pru thought if she didn’t cause a ruckus and kept her head down, trouble would pass her by.