Linda Castle (2 page)

Territorial Prison, Yuma.

April 1889

M
arydyth fell onto her hard cot. Exhaustion and heat sapped her strength and dragged her toward sleep.

But she never rested

Night was the worst time in this place that men had named Hellhole. Night was when the specters of her past came to visit

She tossed and turned on the hard mattress, willing them to stay away for just one night.

But her guilt would not abate. Andre’s face floated before her. His eyes were hollow, dark sockets but his lips twisted into a hideous grin. Then Andre’s face shifted and changed.

It was J.C.

Oh, J.C., I didn’t do it—you know I didn’t kill you.
But J.C. only stared at her with dark, haunted eyes until his face transformed and became Victoria. She was laughing. Laughing.

Go away!

Did Marydyth scream aloud or was it only in her head?

Next, Andre’s face returned and loomed closer, pale blue and lifeless. His eyes were empty holes.

I didn’t want to kill you. I didn’t want to
kill
anybody.

Rachel was crying. She was lost, somewhere just beyond Marydyth’s reach. She turned in a circle, searching, looking for her baby.

Where is my baby? Who will love my baby?

Marydyth woke to the sounds of her own frightened screams.

Hollenbeck Corners, Arizona Territory

April 1889

“Unca Flynn!” Rachel darted down the stairs, her black leather shoes clacking out a quick tempo while she ran. She launched her body at Flynn’s outstretched arms without a single doubt that he would catch her.

He spun her around and held her above the crown of his cream-colored Stetson hat.

“Whe-e-e-e!” The little girl squealed in delight

He gave her one last turn and then brought her to his chest. She was giggling and squirming in his arms.

“How’s my girl today?”

“I missed you.”

“I didn’t miss you at all.” He pulled a face. “Not even when I went to the mercantile on the way home.”

Her eyes widened. “Did you bring me somethin’?”

“Naw.” He grinned. “There is nothing in my shirt pocket for you.”

Rachel attacked his pocket like a hungry coon. She dug deep and came up holding the hoarhound stick.

“Shh—don’t let Mrs. Young know.” Rachel held one dimpled finger to her lips.

“Is it a secret?” Flynn whispered.

“Uh-huh. Mrs. Young made gingerbread men for our dessert, so you mustn’t let her know.” Rachel’s warm breath fanned out over his face as she whispered.

“Then it will be our secret. You can count on me.” He winked.

Rachel hugged him tight around the neck, and liquid warmth—love—exploded in his chest.

It had been this way for a long while now. Flynn and Rachel.
Unca
Flynn.

He deposited Rachel on her feet and she immediately wrapped her fingers around two of his. “I missed you,” she said for the second time.

“I had to move the cattle, honey,” Flynn explained. “It will take a few more days.”

“Oh.” Flynn felt as if the sunshine had been covered by a cloud when Rachel stopped smiling.

“Tell me about those gingerbread men,” he said as they walked through the parlor. The tall, narrow windows were open and the evening breeze fluttered the heavy, green tasseled draperies.

It was still hot

“I made a special one just for you, Unca Flynn. I saved it.” Rachel’s eyes darted toward the kitchen at the back of the house. She leaned close enough for him to feel the angel’s wing of her breath along his neck. “Mrs. Young didn’t like it, but I saved it anyway,” Rachel whispered into his ear.

“I am mighty beholden to you for the kindness. Gingerbread is one of my particular favorites.” Flynn folded himself into a chair, and Rachel scrambled into his lap. She sucked on her hoarhound when he patted her knee.

“I love you, Unca Flynn.”

That hot feeling expanded in his chest again. He swallowed hard.

If anybody had told him three years ago that he would give up his badge and become nursemaid and surrogate parent to a four-year-old charmer, he probably would have locked them up for drunkenness. But sure as God made little green apples, U.S. Marshal Flynn O’Bannion was now just Unca Flynn.

“I love you too, sugar.” His voice had gone husky with emotion. He cleared his throat “I’m hungry enough to eat the south end of a northbound bear.”

Rachel giggled as he hauled them both up from the chair.

“Are you done with that sweet stick yet?” he asked as she crunched the last bite.

“Now I am.”

“Then let’s go see what old Mrs. Young has for us tonight.” He levered her up onto his shoulder and gave her a ride down the carpet-lined hall.

“Unca Flynn.”

“Yes, sugar?” he asked while he ducked the fancy chandelier. The flickering lamps made long-fingered shadows on the ornate wallpaper as he passed.

“You smell funny.” Rachel wrinkled her nose when he glanced at her.

He laughed. “Yep, I guess I do. It was mighty hot out there today.” Too damned hot to have to wrestle cattle all day, but there was nobody else to see they got moved to the high country for summer grass and water. When he took over caring for Rachel he had mingled his herd in with the Hollenbeck beeves. Come fall he would cut out enough for his walking-around money, and the Hollenbeck profits would go into Rachel’s trust fund.

“After dinner I’ll see about a bath.”

“Good,” Rachel agreed as Flynn reached the kitchen. He swung her down to the floor while the rowels on his spurs jingled. The smell of gingerbread and wood smoke filled his nostrils.

“Miz Young,” he said to the wide back in front of the Monarch cookstove.

Mrs. Young allowed her attention to stray from the pot she was stirring for only a moment. “Evening, Mr. O’Bannion.” She turned back to the bubbling pot. Her gray hair was pinned tight but one or two disobedient strands had worked free in the heat of the kitchen.

Flynn shoved his hands in his pockets. It was damned awkward but she had greeted him in exactly the same way for close to three years.

“Come lookie, Unca Flynn.” Rachel pulled one hand free and yanked on his finger. He moved to the scrubbed pine table, glad for something to do until Mrs. Young was ready to leave. Rachel pointed to a blue-sprigged china plate. In the center lay a slightly gimpy, somewhat misshaped gingerbread man.

It was the prettiest thing Flynn had ever seen.

“Do you like it?” Rachel asked.

“I do, I surely do.” Flynn smiled down at her expectant face. It took no effort to act as if he were pleased. He had grown a mighty soft spot for Rachel since Victoria had drawn up the papers and roped him into becoming the child’s guardian.

Her voice grew serious. “It isn’t very good-not like Mrs. Young’s.” Rachel’s gaze slid to the closed pie safe with the pierced tin panels. Flynn was sure inside must lie a treasure of perfectly formed gingerbread men in precise rows upon the scrubbed wood.

Flynn’s heart contracted at the searching expression in
Rachel’s cornflower-blue eyes. “Dumpling, I think that is the finest gingerbread man in town—probably the whole territory.”

Some of the strain left her small shoulders. “Mrs. Young said it was crooked.”

Flynn’s eyes slid to the housekeeper. She was in the process of folding a dish towel. When she had folded four layers she used the towel to pull a black Dutch oven out of the front of the Monarch stove. Then, as she had done every night for three years, she stripped off her apron and turned to Flynn.

“Dinner is roast beef. There is a pan of biscuits and a bowl of gravy on the warmer.” She laid her apron aside and retrieved her brown bonnet from a hook by the back door. “Yesterday’s loaves are in the pie safe if you take a hankering for some.”

Without another word she tied the bonnet on her head and shuffled out the back door. Heavy, determined steps thudded alongside the house. The iron gate in front creaked once when it opened and once when it swung shut. They would see no more of Mrs. Young until seven o’clock in the morning.

The huge house seemed to sigh in relief.

“I’m glad she is gone,” Rachel whispered.

Flynn frowned and rubbed his rough palm against Rachel’s satiny cheek. “It’s just the two of us again, partner.”

“Uh-huh,” Rachel said with another relieved sigh.

Flynn knew that Rachel was uneasy around Mrs. Young. Most of the time he was home and things were fine, but when he had business to take care of or the herd to move, then he saw Rachel become unhappy.

Maybe it was time to make a change. Mrs. Young was
old and set in her ways. Rachel had all the energy and curiosity of a normal child.

Maybe if he talked to Mrs. Young…

He wasn’t sure how to ride herd over her. Still, the notion that he needed to make changes for Rachel nudged at the corners of his mind.

He yanked out a kitchen chair and helped Rachel into it. She straightened her petticoats over legs as straight and slender as a yearling filly’s.

“Are you eating man-size or little girl-size tonight?” he asked as he lifted the heavy iron cover from the Dutch oven.

“Man-size,” Rachel said.

He looked at her from under lifted brows. “How about we start small and work up?”

“All right, Unca Flynn.”

He dished up two plates. “Did Mrs. Young snap at you again, punkin?”

“No, not ’xactly.” Rachel squirmed in her chair.

“Truth?”

“No. She isn’t like you, Unca Flynn,” Rachel explained patiently in her young-old voice.

“I should hope not.” He chuckled and tried to make light of what she had said. “I’m a tough old range bull.”

“You’re not old, Unca Flynn.” Rachel laughed but then her expression turned serious. “You’re not old like Grandma Hollenbeck.”

“No, I’m not old like that, Rachel, but your grandma is very sick.” Victoria probably seemed aged beyond counting to Rachel since the woman had been ravaged by her strokes.

Flynn sat down at the table. He picked up a fork and rotated it between his finger and thumb, chewing on the
question that he knew had to be asked. Finally he just spit it out.

“What did Mrs. Young say to upset you today, Rachel?” He stared at his food, while he waited for her to find the words.

“I asked her why I didn’t have a mama like Becky Morgan and Maizie Duncan and all the other little girls in town.” Her voice was a quivering whisper as she stared down at her lap.

A hard knot took up residence in Flynn’s belly. This was a day he had long dreaded.

“What did she say?”

“She said I didn’t have a mama.” Rachel’s voice was dry and whispery. “But how come, Unca Flynn?” She looked up at him and tears swam in her blue eyes. “How come I
don’t
have a mama?”

“Oh, honey, don’t listen to Mrs. Young. She is a grumpy old sage hen who has forgotten how to raise a little girl.” Flynn reached out and rubbed her soft cheek with his thumb. He made up his mind then and there. Mrs. Young would have to go. He would not have a woman in the house who had so little compassion.

Rachel swallowed hard and toyed with her food Flynn tried a piece of meat but it tasted like sawdust while he chewed.

He had known this day would come—that eventually Rachel’s curiosity would bring him to this point, but he was unprepared. What could he tell her?

Rachel had grown up in a town full of secrets. Victoria Hollenbeck’s power and money had silenced the tongues of the residents of Hollenbeck Corners. As far as Flynn knew, Rachel had never even heard her mother’s name spoken. He had said nothing because he just didn’t know
what to say. But as he looked at Rachel’s tight little face, he knew he was going to have to find the words.

And soon.

“You do have a mama, Rachel,” Flynn said softly.

Her head lifted. She stared across the blue-flowered china with a look of hope and bone-deep hunger. Her pale blue eyes burned into him.

“I do?”

“Yes, you do. You look a lot like her, in fact. She has blue eyes, just like yours.”

I
remember, because she turned and looked at me with those amazing eyes before she walked through the gates at Yuma.

“You—know her?” Wonder tinted every word.

“Yep, I know her.”

Rachel’s eyes scanned his face, as her mind gauged his words, searching for truth and meaning.

“Where is my mama, Unca Flynn?”

Straight as an Apache arrow, her question pierced his heart.

Flynn swallowed hard. Now he had opened Pandora’s box and all the misery that came with his answer would come flying out.

How could he tell Rachel that her mother was in prison for killing her daddy?

Her world would shatter.

No. The world he had built around this tiny girl would shatter, if she learned what part he had played in taking her mother away.

“She had to leave when you were just a baby.” The half truth rushed past his lips.

“Why?”

Something cold and mournful, like wind out of the Superstitions, swept over him. “Sh—she just did. There
are times when adults have to do things—even if they don’t want to. I—I can’t really explain it all to you now. Maybe when you are a little older.”

Rachel’s bottom lip trembled. She drew in a ragged breath in an effort not to cry. “Oh.”

He swallowed hard. This little scrap of flesh and bone could wound him with a look. Her tears destroyed him and turned him to a babbling fool.

“She loved you, honey. That is what you need to remember and think about. Don’t listen to Mrs. Young, just remember that your mama loved you.”

Her face took on a sullen hurt look that cut him deep. “If she loved me she wouldn’t have gone away. If she loved me she would come back,” Rachel said softly.

The edges of his heart withered. “No. That isn’t always true, honey. You’ve got to believe me when I tell you that she didn’t have any choice. She had to go.”

Rachel flew out of her chair and crumpled against his body like a fragile flower seeking shelter from a hard frost. He cuddled her while the sound of her sobs tore a hole right through him.