When The Heart Beckons (46 page)

“We couldn’t be better.” Her smile, though
weak and tired, filled him with a devastating relief, and he sank
down beside her and kissed her temple as the doctor slipped outside
into the hall.

Cade stared in awe at the tiny, red-faced
creature lying across her chest, already trying to suckle at its
mother’s breast.

“Our baby.” He shook his head in wonder and
disbelief. “All those years I was alone I never dreamed I would
have anything so wonderful. I can’t quite figure out what I did to
deserve both of you.”

Before Annabel could answer, there was a
pounding on the door.

“Cade ... Annabel ... you’ll have plenty of
time to be alone together. Right now I want to see my grandson.
Open the door and give me a peek. One look and I swear I’ll go
straight home to bed.”

“Me, too,” Brett called out. “Uncles have
certain rights, you know. Before long, this kid is going to be
begging me to let him come on a cattle drive and I’ve got to see if
he has what it takes.”

“Go away,” Cade called, and kissed the
baby’s tiny forehead.

But the pounding continued.

“Oh, you may as well let them in,” Annabel
giggled. “They’ll never go away if you don’t—they’re McCallums
after all.”

“It’s about time,” Ross growled as Cade
threw open the door. Annabel lifted the baby to her side, and
pulled the sheet across her breasts as Ross and Brett stomped into
the room. “We don’t mean to intrude, my dear, but we just wanted a
quick look at the little fellow ...”

“Lady,” Annabel corrected with a grin. “At
the little lady.”

“Lady?” Ross and Brett stared at her in
shock.

Cade grinned from ear to ear. Their stunned
expressions drew an explosion of rumbling laughter from deep inside
his chest.

“Meet your granddaughter and your niece,” he
announced elatedly. “In case you haven’t figured it out already,
this little McCallum is a girl.”

Annabel joined him in laughing out loud at
their openmouthed astonishment. In typical McCallum fashion,
neither one of them had apparently even entertained the notion that
the child might be a girl.

“And her name,” she added softly, stroking
her daughter’s tiny wrinkled hand with one slender finger, “is
Savannah Brannigan McCallum.”

Whoops of joy could be heard echoing across
the darkened meadow, up through the towering rocks that enclosed
the valley, even up to the cloud-dotted heavens above, where
another Savannah Brannigan smiled serenely down at the celebration
below.

But in the noisy bedroom, the baby roared
her displeasure at the din.

“Looks like she’s telling us all off
already.” Cade put a hand to the shoulder of his father and his
brother and hustled them toward the door. “You heard the lady. My
daughter needs peace and quiet. And so does my wife.”

“Come back tomorrow,” Annabel called softly
as Cade closed the door on them and turned back to her with a
rueful grin, shaking his head.

“Here we thought we’d have this little
valley all to ourselves and now we’ve got the two of them for
neighbors.”

“I’m glad that Savannah will have family
nearby. And when Brett finds himself a wife and gets married,
she’ll have a new aunt and, someday, cousins to play with.”

“Not to mention future brothers and
sisters,” her husband added, as he sat down beside her once again.
He gazed in fascination at the tiny babe nestled in Annabel’s arms.
Savannah’s eyes were closed now and she appeared to have gone to
sleep. Cade kissed first her, and then her mother, his lips
lingering tenderly on Annabel’s mouth.

“Brothers and sisters,” Annabel murmured,
her eyes glowing into his with love. “Oh, Cade, I do like the sound
of that.”

“Glad to hear it.” Cade leaned forward and
kissed her again. “Because, Mrs. McCallum, after living alone for
so long, I want to fill up this house with children who aren’t
afraid to laugh and sing and play, and make plenty of noise, and
always speak their minds.”

“What a coincidence, Mr. McCallum.” She
stroked his cheek and smiled into his eyes. “So do I.”

And so they did.

* * * * * * * * *

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Read on for excerpts from
Cherished
and
Daisies in the Wind

A
unt Katharine
suddenly glanced over at her niece. “Juliana,” she said in a low
tone. “I want you to renew your promise.”

Juliana forced herself to meet the piercing
gaze that stabbed at her across the aisle.

“Ma’am?”

“Promise me that you won’t attempt to locate
those scoundrel brothers of yours while we’re in Denver.”

Uncle Edward started, and turned his
protuberant blue eyes upon her as well. Shorter than Aunt Kate by a
good four inches, he was a fat, paunchy man with a face as round as
a melon’s and a thatch of wiry graying hair he kept carefully
combed back from his brow. He was not a particularly intelligent
man, but he was a shrewd one, possessing a keen instinct for
business, a fondness for good sherry, and a habit of studying his
thumbs. Punishment from him had always been swift and firm when
Juliana had misbehaved as a child: hours spent alone in her room
without any supper—or a favorite toy or possession taken from her
and never returned. But Aunt Kate’s retribution had been worse than
anything Uncle Edward had ever done, for Aunt Kate did not forgive.
She had a way of staring at you until you felt as big as a pin, and
she would do it for weeks and weeks after the slightest infraction,
treating you with withering contempt and ice-cold disdain until
life in the Tobias house became totally unbearable. Those were the
times when Juliana daydreamed about running off with Wade and
Tommy, far, far from the great formal house in St. Louis, with its
rules and orderliness, its somber-faced servants, its elaborate,
silent meals, and most of all its austere mistress’s frosty
displeasure.

“Promise me, Juliana,” Aunt Kate insisted,
exactly as if her niece were still a recalcitrant ten-year-old. “We
must have your word.”

“But ...” Juliana began, squirming
uncomfortably in her seat.

“No buts.” Uncle Edward pointed a finger at
her. “Give us your word.”

Outside, the Colorado prairie raced by.
Inside the coach, her aunt and uncle both stared at her, Uncle
Edward frowning, Aunt Kate glaring with that haughty, expectant
look she wore whenever Maura was late bringing in tea.

Juliana took a deep breath. “I promise.”

They exchanged satisfied nods. Then they
smiled at her.

“That’s a good girl,” Aunt Kate approved.
Uncle Edward went back to his sheaf of papers.

What they didn’t know was that beneath the
folds of her taffeta skirt, two fingers had been crossed when she
issued her promise.
It didn’t count
, she told herself,
untying the ribbons of her hat, and smoothing her hair. She was
free to do as she pleased. And she would be pleased to make
inquiries about the notorious Montgomery gang as soon as she
arrived in Denver.

She didn’t dare think what she would do if
no one in Denver had heard of the Montgomery brothers and had no
idea where they might be. Someone had to know something, and she
would simply continue asking until she found the answers she
sought.

At just past six o’clock that evening the
Kansas Pacific chugged into the Denver station and discharged its
carloads of weary passengers. Juliana, stepping out into fresh,
mountain-cooled air, took a deep breath, reveling in the pungent
scent of pine. She hurried across the platform for a better view of
the town. She saw wide, dusty streets lined with wood-fronted and
adobe buildings, many of them saloons. Garishly painted signs
proclaimed names like the LUCKY DOG, GOLD DUST, and STAR DIAMOND
SALOON, the latter boasting of dancing girls and faro. Denver was
larger than she’d expected; rougher, too. Not at all like staid,
pretty, proper St. Louis. The streets were teeming with wagons,
horses, pigs, and people going about their business, and the faint
odor of manure in the air mingled strangely with the clear pine
scent drifting down from the mountains rising beyond the town.
Brown-faced, sunbonneted women in gingham dresses and men wearing
guns and Stetsons filled the streets. Tumbleweed blew down the
alleys, children skirmished in front of Dade’s General Store. She
heard the neigh of horses, the clomp of a hundred pairs of boots on
boardwalk, and the blare of tinny piano music and drunken shouts
emanating from the Gold Dust Saloon, directly across from the
depot.

“What an ugly, squalid,
dreadful
place.” Katharine Tobias shuddered. “Edward, I thought you said
Denver was a civilized town.”

“It is, my dear, compared to most on the
frontier.” Uncle Edward mopped his brow with a handkerchief, and
peered up and down the street. “It seems Breen’s man is late coming
to meet us. Well, let’s gather up the baggage and hope he arrives
by the time we’ve assembled it all.”

Juliana held back as her aunt and cousin
followed him into the baggage room. It would take some time to sort
through the piles of trunks, crates, and boxes being unloaded from
the train, and all she needed was a moment or two.

Quick as a wink, she slipped past a knot of
travelers about to descend the platform steps, hurried down to the
street, and then dashed toward the Gold Dust Saloon. It was the
nearest one and the largest, from what she had seen. Her heart was
pounding, for she couldn’t help feeling the very real possibility
that she might encounter her brothers within those swinging doors.
Of course, that was highly unlikely, but now that she was out West,
it
could
happen.

She was just about to enter the saloon when
suddenly gunshots roared from inside. The sound burst through
Juliana’s ears, stunning her. Someone screamed, windowpanes
rattled, and on the street all about her, people ducked for cover.
Juliana, one hand upon the door, froze with terror.

For a moment, time seemed to stand still.
She was trembling all over, yet she was dimly aware of the rough
town behind her. She was aware of the April wind caressing her
cheek, aware of the unnatural silence that had followed those first
thundering shots. She was torn between an urge to flee, and an
almost overwhelming desire to burst inside and see what had
happened. But her legs wouldn’t move.

Then, before she could do anything, the
saloon doors swung wide and a man charged out, colliding full force
with Juliana. She was knocked sideways into the wall by the most
stunningly handsome man she’d ever seen.

He was young, seemed to be in his late
twenties, and very tall. Ink-black hair touched his shirt collar;
steel-blue eyes stared out from a rough, sun-bronzed face. He
looked as strong as Goliath, Juliana thought in a daze. She caught
a fascinating glimpse of curly black chest hair beneath the collar
of his shirt and something in the pit of her stomach squeezed
tight. The snug black trousers he wore tucked into his boots
emphasized rather than disguised a body that was lean and superbly
fit, splendid with muscles. His physique bespoke power, but his
expression bespoke danger. Dragging her gaze from that dark mat of
chest hair to his face, Juliana nearly gasped. She had never seen
anyone as handsome, and at the same time deadly-looking, in her
life.

Danger emanated from him like heat from a
stove. Beneath the black Stetson he wore the look of a man who had
never once been tethered by the softening influence of love. This
man had never been tethered by anything, Juliana realized. And
those keen, intense blue eyes were like none other she had ever
seen.

He
was like none she had ever seen.
As she steadied herself against the wall, recovering from being
knocked aside, his gaze bored straight into her without a flicker
of emotion.

“Beg your pardon, ma’am.”

He didn’t sound the least bit sorry.

His cold glance swept past, scanning either
side of the road. He spoke again, his voice soft and even as he
appraised the empty street.

“If I were you, ma’am, I’d step back a pace
or this hombre will bleed all over that pretty dress of yours,” the
stranger drawled without sparing her a second glance.

It was then that Juliana had the wit to tear
her gaze from that magnetic face. Looking down, she saw with a
quiver of horror that he was casually dragging behind him a man’s
blue-and-yellow-shirted, blood-spattered body.

Juliana had never fainted before in her
life, but she’d never seen a dead body before either. She took one
look at the blood and guts spilling from the dead man and felt a
great dry coldness sweep over her. The man was wearing a blue and
yellow shirt—oddly familiar. He had golden blond hair, thick and
silky, falling over his face.