To Find You Again (3 page)

"They're a lot like us," she finally said. "The children play, the women cook and clean, and the men hunt and protect the women and children. Parents love their children and want them to grow up to be good and responsible adults, too."

"They're heathens," her father said curtly. "They murder women and children."

Emma smiled, but there was no warmth behind it. "Then I guess the whites and Indians have more in common than most folks think, don't they?"

Her mother gasped. "You sound like you're defending them."

"They stole you away from us, away from your home," her father added, his husky voice revealing both anger and distress.

"They saved my life," Emma corrected.

"And God knows what they made you do while you were with them," he continued as if she hadn't even spoken.

"They didn't make me to do anything I didn't want to."

Her mother squeezed her hands. "Thank God. We prayed that you wouldn't be forced to—" She broke off.

But Emma knew exactly what she meant. She had lived with that fear for weeks after she was carried into their camp, not realizing she wasn't a captive. She was treated decently and her adoptive parents had cared for her and protected her. And when the time came, Emma hadn't been scared. Nervous, yes, but not frightened.

Not of Enapay.

She'd chosen to hide that fact from her parents and Sarah. They wouldn't understand. Nobody would understand unless they had walked her path.

"We're relieved," her father broke the stillness. "That way, when you do find a man to marry, he won't know."

"Know what?" Emma asked.

"Of your circumstances."

Dare she tell them? Did it matter?

"Please let me stay," Emma pleaded, ready to put an end to the conversation.

Again, the mute exchange between her mother and father. Emma was beginning to hate those secret looks.

"In two weeks you will go on an extended visit to your aunt's," her father proclaimed. "That'll give you some time to prepare."

Emma wanted to kick and scream, to throw a tantrum unpleasant enough that her parents would change their minds. But she wasn't five years old, and John and Martha Hartwell truly believed they were doing the right thing for their eldest daughter.

There would be no changing their minds about this.

Emma nodded even as every muscle in her body rebelled against the simple motion. "Two weeks."

"Two weeks," her father repeated.

"It's for the best," her mother reiterated, as if trying to convince herself.

Emma stood and walked out of the room. Her legs moved as if someone other than herself was controlling them. Keeping her mind and expression blank, she climbed the stairs and entered her room, locking the door behind her. Once there, she opened a dresser drawer and dug beneath her underclothing to find what she sought. Her fingers recognized the soft leather and they closed around a small moccasin.

Slowly she brought it out and hugged it to her chest.

Chapter 2

Dusk was falling as Ridge and Colt sat in companionable silence in the cabin. They had turned two chairs toward the stove and were drinking coffee after finishing the pot of venison stew Ridge had made.

"How're Pres and Sarge doing?" Ridge asked.

Colt stretched out his long legs and crossed his ankles. "They're getting tired. They would've come with me, but the colonel's got them going out again, looking for those Indians that hightailed it off the reservation."

Ridge scowled. "From what I heard, most of 'em were women and kids. They ain't going to hurt anyone."

"Maybe, maybe not. But I guess there were a few young bucks with them—the kind that got something to prove."

Ridge stood, plucked a rag from a nail on the wall, and used it to pick up the hot coffeepot on the stove. He raised the pot to Colt, who nodded and held out his cup. Ridge topped it off, then refilled his own. After returning it to the stove, he sat down and tipped his chair back so that the two front legs were off the floor.

This was Ridge's favorite time, when he could sit back and enjoy some peace and quiet after a day's work. When he'd been with Colt and the others in the army, evenings were spent in easy camaraderie, usually playing poker for matchsticks and drinking coffee.

Ridge had left those days behind. His last order had been to find an Arapaho village. After he found it, the peaceful camp had been destroyed by soldiers drunk on glory and vengeance. It wasn't a battle as much as it had been a massacre. Even now, Ridge could see and hear the carnage. It made him sick to remember.

"You should've stayed on," Colt said in a low voice.

A cold fist wrapped around Ridge's spine. "No. I couldn't."

"Maybe if you had, they wouldn't a done the same thing to that Lakota village."

"They didn't listen to me before." Ridge sipped his coffee, his stomach churning with guilt and bitterness. "Why would the next time be any different?"

Colt continued as if his friend hadn't spoken. "The Hartwell woman almost got herself killed." His lips turned downward in disgust. "She was dressed just like one of them, acted just like 'em, too, from what I heard."

Reining in his anger at Colt's disapproval, Ridge pictured the woman with the fawn-colored eyes as she thanked him for his coat. It was a damned shame her life was ruined. No white man wanted a "squaw woman."

He became aware of Colt's scrutiny.

"You ain't thinking of ignoring Hartwell's warning, are you?" Colt asked.

Ridge shook his head. "Nope. Miz Hartwell's got enough problems."

"Damned shame she's ruined," Colt said, unknowingly echoing Ridge's thoughts. "She's a pretty filly, but no man in his right mind's going to want to get hitched to her."

Ridge's hand tightened around his cup. He recognized the truth in his friend's words, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

Colt finished his coffee and glanced out into the disappearing daylight. "I'd better get back to the fort. Colonel

Nyes wants us to check on those folks settling along the river tomorrow so we'll have to leave early. Wants to make sure they haven't had any Indian troubles."

"My guess is they haven't. Too far west."

Colt nodded. "Yep, that's what I figure, but what the old man says goes."

"Nyes must be running out of Indians to kill if he's looking for more." Sarcasm sharpened Ridge's words.

"I don't like the colonel, but I can understand his position. The man has his orders, just like the rest of us," Colt said with a hint of defensiveness.

"A man like him can hide a whole lot of hate behind orders."

Colt's jaw muscle clenched. "Maybe it is a good thing you quit."

The two men parried sharp looks until Colt turned away to retrieve his hat and jacket. Ridge sighed and donned his, also. They'd been friends too long to let a difference of opinion get between them.

"I reckon it was," Ridge said quietly.

Colt dipped his head in acknowledgment. They walked out to the stable where Colt's horse was penned next to Paint. While the cavalry captain saddled his gelding, Ridge leaned a shoulder against a post.

"I appreciate you coming out to help me, Colt," Ridge said.

Colt paused long enough to give him a crooked grin. "You'd do the same for me."

Ridge smiled. "I reckon, even though your venison stew tastes like chewed-up leather."

"And how the hell do you know what chewed-up leather tastes like?"

"I've eaten your stew."

The two men chuckled as Colt led his horse outside. Ridge extended his hand, and Colt clasped his forearm as Ridge did the same.

"You take care, soldier," Ridge drawled.

"You, too, pard."

Colt mounted in one fluid motion, lifted a hand in farewell, and urged his horse into a trot.

Ridge folded his arms on the top corral pole and watched his friend swallowed up by the dusky shadows. He took a deep breath and let his gaze wander across his land.

His
land. That sounded good, even if instead of five hundred acres, only one hundred remained. Damn Harry Piner for selling off what was rightfully his.

Ridge didn't remember much about his real pa, but what he could recollect filled him with both warmth and soul-deep loneliness. He recalled his pa lifting him onto the saddle in front of him and the two of them riding around the yard as his ma had watched with a gentle smile; helping clean the tack and the smell of oil and leather and his pa's wool shirt; carrying in two pieces of wood because he was too small to handle anymore and his pa's big hand patting his shoulder to thank him for helping fill the woodbox.

Then his pa had died and his ma married Piner. It hadn't been bad the first year. Harry had seemed like he cared for them, and had tried to make the ranch profitable. However, the harsh winter and falling market prices had seemed to conspire against him. He started drinking, and his temper grew shorter, especially with his stepson and later with Ridge's ma. His violent outbursts often left both mother and son with painful bruises.

In the end, Ridge's ma gave up, and twelve-year-old Ridge was left with his stepfather's mean temper and painful lessons learned with a leather belt or a fist. When Ridge turned fifteen, he ran away and never looked back.

Until now.

His father's ranch was almost lost by Harry Piner. It was up to Ridge to make things right. He planned on rebuilding, which meant finding a way to buy back the land Piner had sold to Hartwell for a pittance. Then Ridge would find a respectable woman to marry and raise more Madocs who'd make his ma and pa proud.

The major obstacle in getting started was money. He needed more than he had to buy the blooded bull he had his eye on down in Cheyenne. The rancher who owned the bull said he'd give Ridge until June to come up with the cash. After that time, he'd put it up at auction.

He knew Colonel Nyes would hire him back in a heartbeat—experienced scouts were hard to come by. But Ridge didn't want anything to do with the army and Nyes's solution to the "Indian problem." With spring coming, the big ranches were going to need more help. He'd find a job at one of those and save his money.

The wife and children would have to wait.

Emma dropped her needlework to her lap, pressed her head back against the settee, and closed her eyes. She'd slept little the previous night after a vivid dream about wolves and mountain lions, and through it all, the sound of a crying wolf cub. The nightmare had left her shaken and anxious, and Emma had learned not to ignore such omens. Although she wasn't certain what the vision meant, she knew she couldn't go to St. Paul. Her journey lay in a different direction, one she had ignored for too long—at first by blaming the winter, then by trying to forget. But not a day passed that she didn't draw out the child's moccasin and imagine how much he'd grown.

Although that path held numerous perils, she had no choice. The plan to leave was dangerous to contemplate, even alone in the front room when her mother and sister were in town shopping, and her father in his study with the door closed.

A tap-tap on the front door startled her and she waited a moment, expecting her father to answer it. When he didn't come out of his office, she realized he probably hadn't heard the quiet knock. She debated whether to get the door herself or to inform her father of the visitor.

A month ago, there wouldn't have been any hesitation—she would've disappeared into her room while her father saw to their caller. But Emma'd had enough of cowering in corners. All it had gained her was a one-way trip to her aunt's. It was time she started making her own decisions and facing her fears. No longer would she shame her husband's memory, or hide from her son's fate.

She laid her needlework aside and went to the front door. Taking a deep breath, she swung it open and her eyes widened at the sight of the man on the porch.

"Mr. Madoc," Emma greeted, trying to hide her startled pleasure at seeing him again.

Ridge Madoc appeared equally surprised and he quickly removed his wide-brimmed hat. Obviously, he hadn't expected her to answer the door. "Ma'am. I, uh, came to see Mr. Hartwell about a job." He shifted his weight from one moccasined foot to the other, like a schoolboy called up in front of the class.

Emma caught her frown before it could form. "Did he ask you here?"

Ridge shook his head, then brushed his longish brown hair back from his brow. "No, ma'am. I wanted to see if he was doing any hiring."

Emma glanced over her shoulder, grateful to see that the study door remained closed. "He doesn't handle the hiring. Our foreman, Bob Tucker, does that."

"Do you know where I might find him?"

"He told my father he'd be staying around the yard this morning, keeping an eye on the mares that are due to foal." Emma looked past Madoc, shading her eyes against the bright sun. She couldn't spot the foreman, but had an idea he'd be in the far barn. Emma made a quick decision. "I'll take you to him."

"You don't have to."

She smiled at his flustered expression. "It's all right. I need to get out of the house before I go crazy anyway. Just give me a minute to get my coat."

Giving him a nod of apology, she closed the door. Although she'd lived outside the strictures of civilization for years, Emma didn't dare invite him into the house without a chaperone nearby. Of course, she could've gotten her father, but he would have a fit if he knew Madoc was here. The only chance Ridge had of getting a job was to talk to Mr. Tucker directly.

She donned her coat, remembering to wind a wool muffler around her head and neck. After finding her gloves, she tugged them on and slipped outside, bumping into Madoc's solid body.

He caught her shoulders and steadied her.

A shiver passed through her at his strong, yet gentle grip. "You catching me is becoming a habit," she said, keeping her voice light.

He released her and stepped back, his expression anxious. "Sorry, ma'am. I didn't mean any disrespect."

Emma risked placing a gloved hand on his sleeve. "That wasn't what I meant. I'm grateful for your assistance." She smiled behind her scarf, and hoped he could see the sincerity in her eyes.