Song of Oestend (37 page)

Aren found himself feeling sympathetic. It was far too similar to his own situation. His father had disowned him years before for his indiscreet sexual activities. He’d relied on Professor Birmingham’s generosity after that. He’d wanted to believe Dean had taken him in out of love, but deep down, he’d known he was nothing more than a kept boy—an amusing pet who could be disposed of when he’d outlived his use. After four years of the arrangement, the price had become too high and Aren had fled. Still, he had managed to escape to freedom, even if he hadn’t quite realised it at the time. As a woman who wasn’t attracted to men, Alissa would be committing herself to a very lonely life at the BarChi.

Unless…

“Is she in love with the girl?”

Tama shook her head. “I don’t think so. Even if she was, the girl must not love her back.

She was rather cruel to Alissa afterwards. Anyway, Alissa said my father had already sent Lacy away.”

Aren thought back to his night at the McAllen ranch, and the way Alissa had glared at the women as they surrounded Deacon. At the time, he’d thought it was because she was prevented from trying for his attention as well, but he realised now she might have been watching Lacy instead.

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“Will you think about it, at least?” Tama asked, interrupting his thoughts.

“I will,” he said, and it wasn’t exactly a lie. Although he had no intention of marrying her for any reason, he was considering possible solutions.

He thought about it all night, and the more he did, the more he felt it made sense. The next morning, after eating breakfast, he found Jeremiah in his office and presented his plan.

“So you’re saying we should hire her to help Olsa?”

“Right,” Aren said. “And to take her place once…” Once Olsa was gone, but Aren

couldn’t bring himself to say that out loud.

Jeremiah shook his head. “Son, you have any idea what kind of trouble it will cause to have a single woman running around this ranch? One woman for all those hands to fight over?”

“I don’t think Alissa will be interested in any of the hands,” Aren said.

“That don’t mean they won’t be interested in her.”

Aren had already considered that as well. “I know it’s a risk, but I think if she’s willing to take it, we should be, too. I think as long as Deacon tells them she’s to be left alone and leaves no doubt as to the severity of the consequences, she’ll be as safe as any of the wives are now.”

Jeremiah leant back in his chair as he considered it. “You heard me tell Deacon this is his ranch now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It ain’t my decision to make. He’s the one you need to convince.”

Despite Jeremiah’s obvious doubt, Aren didn’t think he’d have any trouble convincing

Deacon to hire Alissa. The fact she wasn’t interested in men worked in her favour, and Aren suspected Deacon would put up with just about anything if it meant helping Olsa.

After leaving Jeremiah’s office, he went in search of Tama, thinking to tell her of his idea. He found her in the kitchen. Unfortunately, she wasn’t alone. Dante was with her. They were standing close together, holding hands, and although their voices were too low for Aren to catch their words, there was no missing the intimacy between them.

They heard him enter, and they immediately jumped apart.

“I’m sorry,” Aren stuttered. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

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Tama recovered fastest. “You didn’t,” she said, giving him a warm smile. “We were

only talking.”

Aren glanced at Dante, who was glaring at him with open hostility. Aren felt quite sure there’d been more than talking going on. “I wanted to speak with you,” Aren told Tama, “but I can come back later—”

“No,” she said. “Really, it’s fine.”

“Right,” Dante said, pushing past Aren towards the door. “I have work to do anyway.”

Tama watched him go, her eyes full of wary concern. “Don’t mind him,” she said to

Aren, once Dante was gone. “He’s upset about the inheritance.”

Aren didn’t believe her. He remembered hearing Daisy say to Dante, “You’d do it too, if the one you wanted would have you.” He hadn’t known who Daisy meant at the time, but it was clear now she’d meant Tama.

“What did you need to talk to me about?” Tama asked.

Aren told her of his plan, and his discussion with Jeremiah, and his belief that they’d be able to convince Deacon if they made it clear that Alissa was coming to help Olsa. As he spoke, Tama’s eyes filled with tears, and he could see the relief in them.

“I don’t know how she’ll feel about not being a wife,” Aren finished. “She’d be closer to a servant.”

“Is there a difference?” Tama asked through her tears.

The answer surprised him. There were only the wives and Olsa at the BarChi, no maids

for Aren to hold them up against. It was certainly true that the wives did as much work as anybody. “I don’t know,” he said honestly. “Is there?”

She closed her eyes and shook her head—not saying no, but as if she could negate

having ever made the statement. “I didn’t mean that,” she said. “Not really.” She opened her eyes again to look at him. “Can she stay here, in the house?”

“You understand we still have to clear this with Deacon, but assuming he says yes, then I don’t see why she couldn’t stay here. There are empty rooms, right?”

She nodded. “Brighton and Shay’s, and the one that was their sons’. And if Dante or

Jeremiah choose to stay at the Austin ranch, that will make another one. And there’s

Gordon’s old room downstairs, too.”

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“I can’t imagine where else she’d stay,” Aren said. “Not in the barracks. I guess she could take Deacon’s old stall in the barn.” He meant it as a joke, and he was glad when she smiled.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Don’t thank me yet,” he said. “Let’s convince Deacon first.”

The next morning, Aren went to breakfast when he always did, after the hands had

eaten, even though it usually meant eating alone. This time, though, he found Tama waiting for him.

“I thought you might like some company,” she said, and Aren couldn’t deny it was

true.

They didn’t talk about much. She told him that Jay supported their plan to bring Alissa to the BarChi. She talked of milking the cows and that one of the hens had stopped laying eggs. She told him about a litter of kittens just born to one of the barn cats in the far shed, and how her boys had been searching to find where the mother cat had gone to have her brood.

Tama hadn’t told them for fear they’d accidentally hurt the babies.

He found that he liked her. She was open and honest and simple—not simple meaning

slow or stupid, but simple in that what one saw with her, was everything she was. She didn’t try to hide behind her beauty. She didn’t flatter him with false praise. She was one hundred per cent genuine, and Aren admired her. He could see why Dante loved her.

After breakfast, he walked back to his house. The story of the kittens had intrigued him, and he wanted to take his sketchpad and pencils and find them. He walked into his house and up the stairs to his studio and felt his heart sink.

The ghost had been there. His paintings were in ruin. Every one of them, including the first one he’d painted of Deacon, had been slit. They lay in a pile on the floor, shreds of canvas hanging from the simple wooden frames, and Aren felt as if they were pieces of his soul, torn apart and trampled by the ghost for no reason he could ever understand. Of all the things she had done—shredding his sketchpad, breaking his penknife, tearing his clothes, smashing glasses—this was by far the worst. It felt personal.

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Aren covered his face with his hands, blocking the carnage from his sight. He took a

deep breath.

He loved the house. That was foremost in his mind. He loved the freedom, and the

privacy. More than anything, he loved that it gave him a place to be with Deacon. It did not matter what the ghost did to him. He wasn’t leaving.

It was with a horrible sense of dread that he walked into his bedroom, but when he did, the sorrow in his heart faded just a bit.

The ghost’s wrath had all been vented in his studio. The painting of Deacon in the

BarChi brand still sat on his armoire, completely intact.

Aren sighed with relief. Somehow, having that one painting spared meant the world to

him.

He grabbed his sketchpad and his satchel of pencils and left the house. He left the mess to be dealt with another day.

He found the shed Tama had said held the kittens. It was one of the far outbuildings, one Aren had never had reason to enter before. It held old horse tack, dilapidated furniture, a wash tub with a hole in the bottom, along with a myriad equipment Aren didn’t recognise— a bit of everything, it seemed. It was apparently the dumping ground for items that had lost their use and yet still seemed too worthwhile to throw away. It took some searching, but he finally found the cat, curled into a crate in the back corner, her kittens sleeping next to her.

He had to shift more crates and some wagon wheels, but he finally made a space on the floor where he could sit.

The mother cat watched him with wary eyes, but when he settled onto the floor and

opened his sketchpad, she seemed to decide he was no threat. She stretched lazily, her front legs reaching for the far wall, and closed her eyes. Against her side, the kittens looked like nothing more than little balls of fur.

Aren began to draw.

He’d finished the kittens and the crate, but was still working on the curve of the mother cat’s ear when he heard somebody enter the shed. He had no idea how much time had passed.

He was tucked into the corner behind a pile of old saddles, and he couldn’t see the door to determine who had entered. He thought maybe it was Tama coming to check on the SONG OF OESTEND

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kittens, or maybe her boys on the hunt for them, but then he heard Daisy say, “Well, say what you want to say.”

Aren’s heart sank. Whether Daisy was there with Dante or another man, Aren didn’t

want to hear it, and yet standing up and declaring his presence didn’t seem like much of an option either.

“I’m not going.”

“Dante, please! This is our chance to start fresh. To have our own ranch. To have a real marriage! We can leave all this behind. Maybe we can have children. Have our own family!”

“No,” he said. “I’m staying here.”

A stony silence followed, then, “Why?”

“I’m Jeremiah’s oldest,” he said. “This ranch is supposed to be mine.”

“Liar! Tell me the real reason.”

Dante didn’t answer for the longest time. The silence seemed to stretch on. Aren’s nose itched, and his foot was getting pins and needles in it from the awkward way he was sitting on it, but he didn’t dare move lest they discover his presence.

“You know why,” Dante said at last.

Daisy laughed—a harsh, bitter, angry laugh. “You’re pathetic. You’re going to stay here just so you can be close to a person who’s never going to love you back. Not the way you want, at any rate.”

“Say whatever you want. Leave if you want. I could care less.”

Daisy’s breath hitched, and when she spoke again, her voice was thick with tears. “Why can’t you love me?” she asked. “Why can’t we go to the Austin ranch together? Why

shouldn’t we try to make this work?”

“It doesn’t matter what you say,” he said. “I’ve made up my mind. I’m not going.”

“Well, I’m not staying! I won’t sit here and watch you pine after—”

“I don’t know why it should matter to you,” Dante said, interrupting her. “You can

spread your legs for ranch hands here as well as you could there.”

There was a crash as something hit the wall of the shed. “I hate you!” Daisy cried. Her voice broke on the words, and she lapsed into sobs which faded away as she turned and ran out of the door.

Dante sighed heavily. “If only that were true.”

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Deacon’s return started much as it had the time before. Three men had gone out, but

only two appeared at the top of the ridge.

One was small, and Aren knew him immediately to be Frances. It didn’t take much

longer for him to confirm that Deacon was the other, and he sighed with relief. Still, he steeled himself for what was to come. Deacon would have to talk to Jeremiah, maybe to the men. If it was anything like last time, he would need every ounce of his resolve to get through the rest of the day. Aren would not add to that burden. He vowed to himself he would do everything he could to bolster Deacon’s strength rather than deplete it.

He knew, though, as the two men rode into the courtyard, that it was nothing like last time. Both were smiling. Red and Ronin, the only two hands not out in the field, greeted them at the gate, offering to take care of the horses for them, and as Deacon and Frances dismounted, Aren heard Frances say, “He’s fine. He’s stayed behind to start fixing things up.”

Nobody was hurt. Nobody had died. And when Deacon turned to him with a smile, he

knew there was no reason to hold himself back. He threw his arms around Deacon’s neck and felt Deacon’s strong arms wrap around him.

“I told you I’d be back,” Deacon said into his ear, and Aren laughed. A week of

heartache and worry were gone in the blink of an eye, and he couldn’t believe how good it felt. Deacon kissed the side of his head, then pulled back to look at him. “I have to talk to Jeremiah. See you at supper?”

“Yes,” Aren said, still smiling. He didn’t resent at all that he had to wait his turn. He was just happy Deacon was home, and safe, and without the horrible trauma he’d suffered the last time he’d gone north.

“Good.” Deacon started to turn away, but stopped halfway. He looked down at the

ground, pushing his hat down low as he often did when he was uncomfortable with