A GENTLE MAGIC
Alice Duncan (writing as Emma Craig)
Book #2 in the “Land of Enchantment” Series
A Gentle Magic
Copyright © 1999 by Alice Duncan
All rights reserved.
Published 1999 by Dorchester Publishing Co.
A Love Spell Book
Smashwords edition December 4, 2010
http://aliceduncan.net
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Chapter One
Once upon a time, on a crisp November day in 1870, Cody O’Fannin and Arnold Carver set out to ride back to their ranch. They’d been visiting the tiny settlement of Rio Hondo, which squatted between the banks of the Spring and Hondo rivers in the heart of New Mexico Territory’s Pecos Valley.
Bachelor cowboys and cousins, Cody and Arnold had settled in the territory after the Great War, intent upon establishing themselves as ranchers in the rough land that was becoming known as cattle country. Their enterprise had prospered, and Arnold planned to return to Georgetown, Texas, soon and bring back his intended bride. He’d already written to her, and expected an answer to his letter any week now.
Cody figured he could stand having a female in the house. At least females could cook, which is more than he or Arnold could do. Brides aside, he was happy today because during their sojourn in Rio Hondo, he and Arnold had contracted to sell two prime bulls to John Chisum, owner of the largest ranching operation in the area.
His mind was at peace, the fall weather was fine, and Cody, who harbored a poetic streak in his soul and appreciated such things, pointed out a flock of migrating sandhill cranes to Arnold. Their feathered bellies flashing white in the sun, the birds formed a ragged, honking checkmark against a cloud-smeared blue sky. Cody was fond of those birds. He didn’t bother to speak, since he knew Arnold could see them as well as he. Neither man wasted breath on trivialities.
A brisk wind blew, and Cody gazed about with satisfaction. The territory was a hard place; uncompromising. It was as apt to chew a man up and spit out the pieces as not, and Cody loved it more than he’d ever loved anything, except for Arnold and his family back home in Georgetown. The territory, unlike his family, didn’t try to constrain him. There weren’t any rules out here, save those a man made for himself, and as Cody didn’t much care for other people’s rules, he appreciated it.
The plains had already endured the first frosts of the season. Indeed, it had even snowed one day in October, although the weather; never predictable in these parts, had turned warmish again. Today the land glittered like acres of rippling gold under the sun’s hard rays. Cody observed a distant herd of antelope that warily watched him back, prepared to bound away if he looked as though he was taking too keen an interest in them. He grinned in sympathy. He knew just how they felt.
He and Arnold were riding in companionable silence about three miles southeast of Rio Hondo, and Cody was contemplating his ranch and his future with pleasure, when a shrill scream shattered the peace of the morning. Startled, he looked at Arnold, who looked back, every bit as shocked as Cody.
“Cougar,” murmured Cody, his heart pumping wildly.
“Comanch,” countered Arnold.
Ever ripe for adventure, neither cousin shrank from either possibility. Instead, they exchanged a grin, then spurred their horses in the direction from which the scream had come.
Accustomed as they were to the difficult land they’d moved from Texas to conquer, both men were prepared for any number of perils, from wild cats to wild men. Discovering a woman in the back of a rickety wagon and in the final throes of a hard labor was a .possibility that wouldn’t have entered either of their heads if they’d been given a year to think about it.
Arnold’s mouth dropped open.
Cody, the more loquacious of the two, uttered in an awed voice, “Holy God.”
The woman screamed again, an anguished sound that tore through the fall morning air and galvanized Cody into action. Tossing his horse’s reins to Arnold, he bounded from his saddle.
He unhooked a bundle from his pack and sprang onto the wagon bed. “Boil up some water, Arnold,” he commanded, recollecting tales his granddaddy had told him about his trip to Texas with a wagon train during the spring of ‘43.
If Arnold had asked, Cody wouldn’t have been able to tell him what he planned to use the boiling water for, but Arnold didn’t ask, so Cody was spared thinking up an answer. A docile, accommodating fellow, Arnold dismounted, wrapped his horse’s reins around a straggling mesquite bush, unhooked a dented iron pot from his own saddle, and ran toward the river to obey his more forceful cousin.
Cody’s heart quailed when he knelt beside the woman. Since he and Arnold settled here, Cody had earned a reputation as a lark-loving, wild fellow, ripe for adventure, and one who feared nothing the territory had to offer. As it was man’s land, it had not offered him much experience with females. He’d never been within hollering distance of one in this extremity. His few encounters with ladies of easy virtue in Rio Hondo had been carried out in darkened rooms, and had been brief and to the point.
Nevertheless, Cody had never shrunk from danger in his life. He didn’t shrink now, although this situation seemed likely to involve him in more danger than even the Pecos Saloon on a trail drive Saturday night.
“Ma’am?” He had a hard time getting his throat to work.
The woman panted hard. Her eyes had been squinched up tight. They flew open now, and she looked at him but didn’t seem to be able to answer. She’d knotted a handkerchief, upon which her teeth bit down. She was sweating like a pig, and her face was as pallid as a virgin snow bank except for two hectic red splotches on her cheeks that looked almost feverish. Tears trickled from her eyes. Cody didn’t know if they were from fear or pain, but he begrudged her neither. A zinc bucket filled with water stood beside her.
“Ma’am, don’t try to talk. I’ve delivered lots of beeves. I expect I can help you here.”
He thought she nodded but wasn’t sure. Another spasm wracked her, and he winced in empathy. Quickly he tore off his jacket and thrust it aside, rolled up his shirt Sleeves, and untied his bundle. From it he extracted a hunk of hard lye soap, and used some of the water in the bucket to wash his hands and arms up to the elbow.
The next part was tricky. He sucked in a deep breath. “Ma’am, I’m going to have to see what’s going on here. Please don’t take this personal.”
She didn’t seem to be in any condition to make objections. She certainly offered him none, so Cody gingerly lifted her skirt up over her bent knees. She’d removed her drawers already, for which he could only be thankful. Her swollen abdomen looked like a mountain and quivered with the strain of what was going on inside of it. Taking another deep breath and feeling horribly uncomfortable—Cody had suffered a rather strict upbringing, during which he’d been taught that proper females were to be viewed only fully clothed—he looked between her legs.
“Lord Almighty,” he breathed, “I think I see a head.”
He hadn’t meant to sound quite so astonished. After all, seeing a head was probably a good thing. He gulped hard and looked at the woman’s face again.
She’d opened her eyes, although she still looked awfully frazzled. The weather was cool, but sweat dripped from her face.
“Listen, ma’am, I’m going to try to make up a better pad so’s the baby won’t fall out onto the dirty wagon bed. All right?”
Her head jerked up and down. Cody took it for an affirmative, and jumped down from the wagon again. He snatched the blanket off the back of his saddle, unrolled it, and flapped it hard to get the dust out. Then, with a tiny itch of regret, he reached into his saddlebag and grabbed his one good shirt and two clean bandannas. He expected other men before him had been forced into greater sacrifices. At least these would go for a good cause. Deciding not to think about it, he returned to the wagon bed.
Using the greatest of care, he lifted the woman’s legs and positioned the blanket and shirt, trying to make her as comfortable as possible, while at the same time forcing himself to overcome his own embarrassment. He’d never been so intimate with a female in his life, barring those few times in Rio Hondo. This seemed even more intimate than that, for some reason. He soon had his emotions in hand once more.
“That any better, ma’am?” Immediately, he felt contrite. “Don’t try to answer, ma’am. You’ve got enough to do.”
She accepted his suggestion literally and undertook no reply. Cody took up his vigil once more, and peered between her legs. Feeling uneasy about it but striving to do his duty, he splayed a hand on her abdomen and tried to feel out what was going on in there.
“Can you push again, ma’am? I think we might have something here.”
She gave another jerky nod, shut her eyes tight, and Cody saw her face turn a blotchy red as she pushed with all her might. Turning back to the task at hand, he saw her efforts were bearing fruit, so to speak A slimy head inched farther out from between her legs. Although small, that head looked awfully big for the space through which it had to pass. Cody tried to quell his own terror by telling himself that women did this sort of thing all the time. He was only marginally successful.
“It’s coming, ma’am. It won’t be long now.” Cody peeked at her face again, and his heart stumbled. “You just rest a minute, ma’am. Here.” He yanked the bandanna from around his neck, wet it in the bucket, wrung out most of the water, dripped some in to her mouth, and then mopped her face with it.
His chest burned with fear for her. She looked so young and frail. And she was definitely alone. Where the hell was her man?
Another pain struck her, and Cody commanded his mind to cease its unprofitable wanderings and concentrate on the job in front of him. “Okay, ma’am, push now. We’ll see if we can’t get this over with.”
]titer did he think that probably wasn’t the most delicate way to phrase the matter.
“Everything all right up there?”
Cody had forgotten all about Arnold. Casting a swift glance out of the wagon, he discovered his cousin hunched over a fire, his back to the action. The pose was so typical of Arnold, whose feelings were so tender that he often cried at calvings, that Cody grinned in spite of the perilous circumstances.
“I think so.” Cody watched Arnold’s shoulders heave with his big sigh and felt a squeeze of affection for his big, tender-hearted cousin. “Got .that water ready yet?”
“Almost.”
“Soon as it’s ready, boil up a cup of that sassafras tea we got at McMurdo’s. This lady’ll need some pretty quick. I think the baby’s almost here.”
A deep, shuddering groan from his patient jerked Cody’s attention back to her. She screamed again, and everything inside of him clenched. Sweet Lord have mercy, he’d rather be in the middle of a shootout with a herd of cow-thieving bandits than right here, right now.
“Set the pan of hot water beside me, Arnold,” he said, his voice absolutely calm. As if by magic, the pot appeared at his side. Cody reached for one of the two clean bandannas he’d set aside and dropped it in the water.
Then, in a rush of fluid, the job was done. Trying to pretend this was nothing more nor less than another calving, Cody carefully picked up the slippery infant, cleaned the mucus, out of its mouth, tied off the cord with thread from his bundle, scalded his hand wringing out his bandanna, cooled it, and carefully wiped the baby clean. As soon as he lifted it, it began to squall. A gust of breath he’d been holding left him in a whoosh, and that was the first time he realized how scared he’d been about this child’s fate.
He forced his hands not to tremble as he wrapped the infant in his last clean bandanna. It wasn’t much of a baby blanket, but then, it didn’t seem to be much of a baby. The thing was tiny, and it fit into the bandanna just fine.
“All right, ma’am, it looks like you have yourself a nice, healthy little girl here.”
Holding the baby in his two hands, he looked at the mother for the first time since the birthing Tears flooded eyes as blue as Texas bluebonnets and flowed rivers down her pale cheeks. Yet the woman smiled a smile as big as the sky, and Cody felt something inside his chest give, as though a sealed door had just blown open.
“Thank you,” she whispered through her tears, and her gaze locked with his for a heartbeat.
Cody swallowed and handed the baby to her. Then he sat back on his haunches and watched as the new mother investigated her daughter. Strange emotions swelled in his breast.
An hour or so later, Cody and Arnold found themselves making an unscheduled trek back to Rio Hondo, Arnold driving Mrs. Wilmeth’s wagon—the woman’s name, they’d learned, was Melissa Wilmeth—Cody trying his best to keep her from being too uncomfortable as they rattled along in the wagon’s hard, rocking bed. Their horses walked placidly behind, tied to the wagon.
Cody’s nerves, generally as steady as Cody himself, jumped like frogs’ legs in a hot skillet. He chalked it up to circumstances—he was worried about Mrs. Wilmeth’s state of health—and spoke to her gently in order to calm himself down. “We’ll settle you at McMurdo’s, Mrs. Wilmeth. He’s a kindly fellow, and he’ll be glad to look after you for a while until we find your husband.”
“Thank you.”
Mrs. Wilmeth’s voice was breathy and soft. Cody’s brain registered an impression of shredded cotton, as if it had been ripped somehow during her ordeal. For the merest second, he harbored the scandalous wish that her husband would never show up. He brushed her cheek with his hand and then wondered what had possessed him.
Yanking his hand back, he said, “You going to be all right, ma’am?”
She didn’t look all right. He knew she was weak as a kitten and had lost a lot of blood. He got the impression she hadn’t been very well cared for during her pregnancy, and was suffering for it now. She looked more haggard than. a female should ever look.
She drifted in and out of an unconsciousness that might be sleep or might be fainting spells, and her state of exhaustion made Cody sad. He expected she’d be a pretty little thing if she was spruced up. She sure loved that baby girl of hers. Her love seemed almost odd to him, now that he knew how much effort had gone into the birthing of it.
“Thank you,” she whispered, giving him another shy glance “I think I’ll be all right.” She paused, and Cody saw her swallow. “I can’t begin to thank you, Mr. O’Fannin I just can’t even begin to thank you for your help.”
Ill at ease, Cody bowed his head and tried not to look at her. Hell, a man just did what he had to do. He told her as much, sparing her the profanity.
“No;” she said, her voice surprisingly firm, considering her state of weariness. “You went out of your way to help me, and I thank you for it. You must have been almost as scared as I was.”
He had been. Probably even more scared, if it came to that. He didn’t say so, since he didn’t think his fear did him any credit. “Shucks, ma’am, it was nothing “
She shook her head, but seemed too fatigued to argue the point., Instead, she shut her eyes, held her baby close, and dozed some more.
Cody wanted to stroke her hair and face. He’d never known such tender urges before, and as he was a fellow who prided himself on his stalwart independence, he held himself in check. He did try to steady her by bracing himself against her shoulders, although he tried to keep any physical contact at a minimum It wouldn’t do to be getting familiar with another man’s wife, after all, even if he had just delivered their baby. And where the hell was her husband? he asked himself for at least the hundredth time.
Cody was frowning hard by the time Arnold mumbled, “We’re here.”
His head snapped up, and he saw Alexander McMurdo, his black pipe clenched in his teeth, standing at the wide double gates of his wagon yard, almost as though he’d expected this. Which was, of course, impossible, unless Mr. Wilmeth had showed up seeking help. But then, people would have come out looking for them. Glancing down at Mrs. Wilmeth, Cody saw that her eyes had opened. She was as white as a newly laundered sheet, and looked about as wrung out as one, too. His heart pained him for a moment.
“You just rest here, ma’am. I’ll make arrangements with McMurdo.”
He thought she might have murmured her thanks again, but lie didn’t stick around to make sure. Her continued gratitude made him edgy. He bundled up the shirts and bandannas he’d used earlier and edged to the wagon’s tailgate. As near as Cody could figure, nobody in Rio Hondo knew Alexander McMurdo’s age. The old man merely was, and always had been, and he never seemed to change. He’d arrived in Rio Hondo several years before. He claimed to have come from Scotland originally, but nobody knew when or if he’d traveled out west immediately or languished somewhere else in the eastern part of the United States before he’d made his way to the territory and established his wagon yard. McMurdo’s soft burr always gave Cody a happy feeling in his middle.
The wizened old fellow strolled up to the wagon as Arnold maneuvered the mules through the gate “Whatcha got there, Cody?” he asked, ignoring Arnold, as most wise folks did. Arnold invariably deferred answers to Cody anyway.
“Woman had a baby out there alone on the prairie, Mac.’ Code’s voice ably conveyed his bewilderment over this state of affairs.
McMurdo clucked his tongue. His face .was heavily whiskered, but Cody was sure he saw the old man grin. “A baby, is it?”
He didn’t sound nearly as surprised as the occasion warranted. Every now and then. Cody got a shivery feeling about McMurdo—not unpleasant, but uncanny. It was as if the old fellow knew things before anybody had a chance to tell him about them. Cody got that feeling now and tried to ignore it.
“A little girl.” He bounded down from the wagon and wiped the sweat of nervousness from his forehead. “Say, Mac, do you suppose this lady and her baby can stay here while Arnie and I go out and look for her husband? She says he took off when she went into labor, going to head to town for help. He never came back.” So as to spare Mrs. Wilmeth’s sensibilities, Cody didn’t share with McMurdo his opinion of a fellow who would abandon his wife under similar circumstances.
He got the feeling McMurdo understood without having to be told.
“I expect we can work something out,” the old Scotsman said As limber as a lad, he hopped onto the wagon’s bed and squatted beside the woman. Cody followed him, feeling unaccountably protective toward Melissa Wilmeth.
“How’re ye feeling, Mrs. Wilmeth?” McMurdo asked softly.
Cody frowned and tried to recall when he’d told McMurdo the woman’s name Then McMurdo put one gnarled hand on the woman’s fair head, and Cody blinked and rubbed his eyes. The strain of helping Mrs. Wilmeth must have robbed him of more sense than he’d thought. He would have sworn he saw sparkles shimmer in the air where McMurdo’s hands touched Mrs. Wilmeth’s hair.
It must have been a trick of the light, he decided at once. That was it. The brilliant autumn sunshine was merely picking out dust particles and making them shine in that strange glowing way. It was kind of pretty, actually, once you got over the surprise of it.
Then McMurdo gently bared Mrs. Wilmeth’s baby’s face, pressed a hand to the tiny head, and the same thing happened. Cody shook his own head hard, trying to rid himself of the eerie impression.
Shoot, he must be in bad shape. Maybe he could talk Arnold into having a shot of something stiff before they headed back out to search for the missing Mr. Wilmeth. Neither cousin was a big drinker as a rule, but occasionally life called for something stronger than water.
McMurdo looked over his shoulder at Cody, and Cody read concern on his ancient face. His heart squeezed painfully, which surprised him. After all, Melissa Wilmeth was nothing to him. Cody had always eschewed associations with proper females, because he didn’t want entanglements in his life. He had goals; he didn’t need distractions. He couldn’t stop his heart from hurting in this instance, though, goals or no goals.
“She can stay in my back room until she’s recovered, Cody. I expect a big, strong lad like you can lift her down and carry her inside.” The old man’s smile broadened, showing a set of remarkably white teeth in his beard and easing Cody’s aching heart somewhat. “The bed’s all made up.”
It occurred to Cody to ask why the bed was all made up, but he didn’t. Hell, for all he knew, McMurdo always had a spare bed ready for emergencies. He was sure glad of it today.
“I’ll carry the baby inside,” McMurdo added, following his words with the action.
“Right,” Cody said, his mouth suddenly dry. He realized his hands were sweating at the prospect of lifting Mrs. Wilmeth, and he wiped them on his trousers. Then he bent down next to her and murmured, “I’ll try to be careful, ma’am.”
“I know you will,” she said, and her soft, warm breath brushed his cheek as she put her arms around his neck.
Cody’s heart thundered when he lifted her, which made no sense to him. Shoot, a body’d think he cared about her the way his insides were tumbling and skipping. Not only was he a fellow whose head wasn’t apt to be turned by a female, but this one weighed remarkably little, considering she’d just had a baby and all She sure didn’t weigh as much as the cows he wrestled on a regular basis. There was no reason for him to be straining in this odd manner. Still, his heart fluttered and he grunted as he stood with her in his arms. His breath was coming in little gasps by the time he bore her out of the wagon and onto the dirt yard beside it.
He stopped for a moment to gather himself together and looked down to find her head resting on his shoulder, her fair hair spilling down his shirtfront. His arms tightened around her unconsciously, and he told himself it was to steady her.
His throat was as dry as the desert around them, and he was out of breath by the time he’d carried her into McMurdo’s tidy little mercantile establishment and deposited her on the bed in the back room. She looked up at him and smiled, and Cody felt as though she’d punched him in the guts. While McMurdo handed Mrs. Wilmeth her baby again, Cody silently swore at himself to get a handle on his nerves. This would never do.
“You going to be all right, ma’am?” Cody tried to pitch his voice to sound impersonal and didn’t quite make it.
“Yes. Thank you.”
“She’ll be fine, Cody, m’lad.” McMurdo winked at him, taking Cody slightly aback. He didn’t understand that wink “You and your cousin just go on along now, and I’ll have a pot of stew made up by the time you get back.”
McMurdo’s stew was about as famous as anything could get in Rio Hondo and vicinity. He generally had a pot of it bubbling on the stove, and a man could buy a bowl of stew, a slab of cornbread, and a beer or a cup of coffee for five cents. McMurdo’s stew made camping at McMurdo’s Wagon Yard a more pleasant experience than one might expect if one was used to other wagon yards in other settlements. Or even if one wasn’t.
“Thanks, Mac. We’d appreciate that.” Firmly taking himself to task for allowing his nerves to get the better of him, Cody clapped his hat onto his head and turned to leave. His nerves had the running of him today, however, and made him turn around one last time to see the patient. Her big blue eyes stared at him. She looked as fragile as a china doll and as pretty as a flower on McMurdo’s spare bed, her baby clutched to her bosom.
Unable to find appropriate words, Cody nodded to her. She gave him a wavery smile and mouthed the words, “Thank you.” Her sweet expression branded itself onto his brain and stayed with him all the way out of doors and onto his horse. It still haunted him as he and Arnold downed the twin shots of whiskey McMurdo pressed upon them and then walked their mounts out through McMurdo’s huge wooden gates.
“Don’t be too late, boys,” McMurdo advised in a friendly voice. “I’ll wait supper for you, but I expect Mrs. Wilmeth needs her nourishment.”
Rattled, more than a little irritated, wondering how in hell they were expected to time their search, Cody snapped, “Well, it all depends on when we find her man, don’t it, Mac?”
McMurdo chuckled. “Ye ain’t goin’ to find her a man out there, Cody.”
A man? Hell, they didn’t want a man. They wanted this woman’s husband. Or, at least, Cody expected she did. He wasn’t sure what he wanted, although he had a fair notion that it wasn’t Mr. Howard Wilmeth. He jerked his head around and glared at the old man. “How do you know that?”
McMurdo shrugged and turned away. Cody stared after him for a minute until he decided he had better things to do with his time than gawk at an enigmatic Scotsman’s back. Muttering, “Well, hell,” he dug his heels into his horse’s flank and trotted after Arnold, who hadn’t paused. Which was characteristic of Arnold. A slave to duty, Arnold was. Cody admired him for his single-mindedness.
“Hold on, Arnold,” he muttered, “I’m comin’.”
Arnold gave him a bland smile and didn’t bother to speak.
Chapter Two
McMurdo’s words proved to be right. Cody and Arnold followed the fairly clear trail Mr. Howard Wilmeth’s horse had made away from where they’d found the wagon. From time to time they lost the trail, but they always managed to find it again. Even so, they searched for hours and didn’t see hide nor hair of the man himself. Or any other man.
Along about four in the afternoon, his stomach grumbling from hunger, his head aching, and his mind in a turmoil, Cody looked up from where he’d been squatting on the desert floor, pushed his hat back, and scratched his head.
“Well, hell, Arnold, I don’t know where the hell this man went, but he sure as hell ain’t here.”
Arnold nodded, then shook his head, which was typical of him. “Wonder where he’s got hisself off to.”
Cody wondered, too. “Beats me. Criminy, now why in God’s name do you suppose he headed away from Rio Hondo?”
Arnold shrugged.
“I mean, if my wife was having a baby, I sure as hell would head for the nearest settlement, wouldn’t you?” If he left her at all; Cody didn’t think he’d leave his wife under similar circumstances. If he had a wife. Which he didn’t. Not that he wanted one. He cursed silently and commanded himself to stop thinking about it.
Arnold shrugged again.
“It looks to me as though he hightailed it away from her and Rio Hondo and everything.” Cody looked to his cousin for confirmation, but this time Arnold didn’t respond at all, which was also typical.
“He ran into somebody here.” Cody pointed at the earth, which had been churned up some hours earlier. “Might’ve been Indians,” he added, as if Arnold had asked, which he hadn’t.
Arnold, in fact, sat as motionless and stoic as a wooden Indian himself, watching Cody think. Arnold generally let Cody do the thinking, which was all right with Cody, as his thought processes traveled more quickly and along clearer paths than did Arnold’s.
Frowning, Cody remounted. “Well, I reckon we can’t do much more searching today. It’ll be dark soon, and we won’t be able to find anything I can’t see which way they rode off to. He can’t be too far away, but damned if I can figure out where he went.”
Neither, evidently, could Arnold, who shrugged again.
Cody didn’t say what he was thinking: that he feared Indians had found Mr. Wilmeth wandering around, lost, and killed him for his horse and belongings. Most of the horses that had stirred the dirt back there had been shod, but that didn’t mean. anything. Indians were as apt to ride shod horses these days as white men. Hell, most white men didn’t waste shoes on a horse’s back hooves, anyway.
Fool man. Served him right if he did get himself slaughtered by Indians.
Immediately, Cody’s conscience pricked him. Although his conscience was an occasionally unreliable instrument, he knew very well that, while such a fate might have served Mr. Wilmeth right, it wouldn’t help his wife any. Or his widow, if his suspicion proved correct. Yet they hadn’t found a body. Maybe the man was still alive. Cody wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
“Well, we’d better get back to McMurdo’s and tell him what we found.”
“Didn’t find nothin.”
Irked with his cousin for being so literal, Cody said, “I know that. That’s what we have to tell him.”
“And her.”
After a moment, Cody muttered, “Yeah. And her, too.”
They didn’t speak again until after dark, when they steered their weary horses into McMurdo’s Wagon Yard for the third time that day.
Melissa Wilmeth stared at her baby, and wonder consumed her. She’d been sure neither of them would survive their ordeal on the desert. Even after that wonderful man stopped to help them, she’d felt too weak, too sick at heart, to presume she’d survive. It wasn’t, in fact, until that odd little elderly gentleman laid his hand on her head that she’d begun to believe again.
How could Howard have left her? In her weakness and her pain, Melissa couldn’t stop her tears from leaking out, even though she hadn’t cried over Howard for ages. She used to cry over him all the time. She’d known for months that he no longer loved her—if he ever had—but how could he have left her there in her extremity? Having his baby, for heaven’s sake! She didn’t even care about Howard any longer; she certainly never wanted to see him again.
Still . . . He’d just abandoned her there. He’d shouted at her to shut up, said he was going for help, and left her. She’d shrieked after him not to leave her alone in the wagon on a hostile desert having his baby, but he hadn’t even turned around. He’d hunched his shoulders over in that way he had, and he’d left her.
“How are we going to live now, baby?” she asked her daughter. It seemed a bleak question to ask an infant, but Melissa sure needed an answer.
“How’re you doing, ma’am?”
The soft question came to her from the darkened doorway, and it startled her. Looking up quickly, she saw her hero—the man who’d saved her baby and her life—standing there, twisting his hat in his hands, looking uncomfortable. A lamp had been set out in the room behind him, and his body made a dark silhouette against the soft, bright halo of light. He looked mysterious and magical that way, and the impression appealed to Melissa.
There was no sign of Howard with him, and Melissa’s heart gave a leap of joy, which seemed unaccountable to her. After all, she was a woman alone with a baby and no means of support. Not that Howard had been of much support, either financially or morally, but at least he’d been there. Until he wasn’t.
“We’re much better, thank you,” she answered softly, feeling quite shy herself.
“We—uh—we didn’t find your husband yet, ma’am.”
She let her glance fall so he wouldn’t be able to discern her satisfaction at his words. Such satisfaction was shockingly wicked; she knew it, and she couldn’t help herself.
“Oh.”
“I think we found where somebody might have found him, though.”
“Oh?”
He shuffled his feet and moved his shoulders, his edginess obvious. Melissa wished he’d come into the room and sit beside her on the bed. She wished he’d cup her cheek as he’d done earlier in the day, when she’d felt so weak. She understood the futility of idle wishes, though, since she’d been wishing all her life, so she didn’t expect anything of the sort to happen.
“Yeah. We—my cousin Arnold and me—we’ll go out again tomorrow morning and look some more. We can get some men together and search for him. McMurdo says the county sheriff has gone to Carlsbad, but that won’t make no difference. We’ll keep looking till we find him, ma’am.”
Melissa bowed her head, her smile deserting her. If they looked hard enough, they probably would find him, and then he’d come hack. She guessed there was no hope for it. She’d married him; she was stuck with him. She whispered, “Thank you.”
“It’s no trouble, ma’am.”
She heard him take a step into the room and looked up, hoping again in spite of herself. He stopped after that one step, though, and made a small, uncertain gesture with the hand holding his hat.
“I’m glad you’re all right, ma’am. And I’m sorry you had to go through—well, what you went through—without your man. Reckon I’m no great substitute for your husband.”
Oh, he was a wonderful substitute for her husband. A magnificent one, in fact. She didn’t say so.
Melissa watched the face that spoke, those words in fascination. It was a forceful face, and a good-looking one, and it was attached to a body that inspired trust. Cody O’Fannin stood a solid six feet. He had big hands, Cody did, and Melissa knew for a fact they were both capable and gentle. They were attached to strong arms and broad shoulders, and the entire package was carried about on a perfectly male torso and supported by thick, muscular legs encased now in worn denim trousers and heavy, dusty boots. Cody O’Fannin seemed to be a man accustomed to working hard and succeeding at it, two attributes Melissa had never encountered in a man before. They made her heart ache almost as much as his face did.
It was a tanned face; not classically handsome, she supposed, because it consisted of too many hard planes and angles to appeal to some women, although it certainly appealed to her. His hair looked blond, but she had reason to know, because she’d seen that head bent closely over her, that it was actually dark brown and only bleached to blond by the harsh territorial sunshine.
His mustache was blond, though, and it drooped rather rakishly around his soft, almost pretty mouth. Melissa had a suspicion he’d grown the mustache to make himself look older. It worked to a degree, although nothing could quite disguise the vigor and youthfulness in his dark brown eyes. Unless it was the kindness she saw reflected there. Unfamiliar with kindness, Melissa didn’t consider herself a judge of such things.
Since she didn’t know what else to say, she said, “Thank you” again.
She went to sleep once more shortly after Cody left her. McMurdo woke her to eat and drink. His stew was delicious, and with every bite she took she felt stronger. Then she slept again, waking only to feed her daughter. Once during the night she thought her hero was in the room with her, but it might have been a dream.
When she awoke in the morning, Cody O’Fannin and his cousin Arnold were gone. Melissa felt horribly disappointed not to have had the opportunity to see him again before they resumed their search. She prayed alternately that they would and that they wouldn’t be able to find Howard.
Cody knew he and Arnold had to get back to their ranch pretty soon. He didn’t feel comfortable abandoning Mrs. Wilmeth without making a strong push to find her husband, however, even though his own feelings on the subject of Howard Wilmeth remained ambivalent. He knew a woman needed a man to support her; that went without saying. And he supposed it was unjust of him to dislike Howard Wilmeth to the degree he did. After all, he hadn’t even met the man.
Out here, though, a body judged a man by his actions. Cody judged Howard Wilmeth’s actions to have been foolish, if not downright cowardly and despicable. Still, he was Melissa Wilmeth’s husband, and she needed him.
Nevertheless, and although he knew it didn’t help Melissa, Cody was more pleased than not when he and Arnold returned to McMurdo’s again that night without having found Mr. Wilmeth. His unsettled feelings about Howard and Melissa Wilmeth’s marriage troubled him, as did his feelings about Melissa herself.
It didn’t help him sort them out when McMurdo gave him a conspiratorial grin and told him to go in and pay a visit to the patient. He bridled a little at the old man’s attitude but knew he couldn’t complain without looking like a fool.
Feeling abused by circumstances in general and by McMurdo in particular, Cody pushed the door to McMurdo’s back room open and peeked in. He didn’t want to disturb Melissa if she was sleeping, but felt an almost ungovernable desire to see her again.
He stopped short in the doorway, startled to find her propped up against some pillows and nursing her daughter. Her shoulders were naked, her breast plainly visible, and her head was bowed over the baby, to whom she was cooing gently. She had braided her hair, and the coils gleamed like gold as they fell over her white bosom and the dark head of the infant suckling at her nipple. Cody’s throat tightened, and some emotion with which he was unfamiliar nestled in his chest. She looked up quickly, and he saw her blush right before she pulled up a sheet and covered her baby’s head and her breast.
Cody suppressed his initial impulse to turn tail and run away, slamming the door behind him. He’d never been a coward in his life. He sure as the devil wasn’t going to run away from a woman and a baby. No matter how naked and beautiful one of them was.
“Sorry, ma’am. I just wanted to see how you and your baby were doing.” His own cheeks felt warm, and he had an awful suspicion that his blush was as fiery as hers.
She offered him a shy smile. One of Melissa Wilmeth’s smiles could last a man a week or more, Cody decided on the spot.
“That’s all right, Mr. O’Fannin. Katie was just taking a little supper.”
Cody took a step into the room, unsure what to do now, but feeling a powerful pull toward Melissa. “Um . . . you named the baby Katie, did you?”
He watched, fascinated, while she gently pulled her daughter up from under the covers, placed her against her shoulder, and patted her on the back. Recalling what his sister had told him after her first child was born, Cody realized she was burping the baby.
“Yes. I had a sister named Katherine, and I’ve always loved the name.”
Cody noticed her use of the past tense and a pang of sorrow pricked him. His heart was too blasted soft; he knew it. And no matter how many high jinks he kicked up in an effort to harden it he hadn’t succeeded yet. He took another step toward the bed.
“You, um, named her after your sister, then?”
“Yes.”
She glanced up Horn her child, her tender expression still in place. Cody felt that look clear down to his toes. He felt, in fact, as though his insides were melting as he stood there.
“Katherine died of the cholera when she was only fourteen,” Melissa continued. “She was three years older than I, and she was more like a mother to me than a sister.”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Melissa looked down again, as if she was embarrassed about having told him this much of her life’s story. Cody found himself wanting to know more In fact, Ile wanted to know everything. Since he was horrified by the weakness in himself—indeed, he wasn’t even sure he had a right to the knowledge—he didn’t ask.
Instead, he said, “That’s nice. I mean, it’s nice you named your baby after her. Cholera’s a tough one.”
She didn’t answer, although she did peek at him again. Cody thought he detected a question in her glance and felt silly and oafish, as if he should have begun this conversation with what little news he had, instead of stumbling around and wasting time with names and so forth.
“Um, we didn’t find your husband, ma’am.”
“No?”
In the dim atmosphere of the small back room, he couldn’t make out the expression on her face but knew it must be one of disappointment. “No. But Arnold and me—well, we’ll keep going out and searching, ma’am, until we find him or find out what happened to him. I know how important it is to you.”
Cody could have kicked himself as soon as he heard what he’d said. Find out what happened to him. Good Lord, how could he have said anything so guaranteed to frighten the woman?
Melissa Wilmeth didn’t flinch or take him to task. “Thank you,” she murmured, her soft voice feathering over Cody like silk.
A burst of light startled both of them and made Cody jump as the door suddenly opened at his back. Turning quickly, he saw McMurdo, a big grin on his face and a steaming bowl of his famous stew in his gnarled hands.
“Here, Cody boy,” the old man said with a wink. “Make yourself useful and help Mrs. Wilmeth eat her supper.” He thrust the bowl of stew into the hand not occupied with Cody’s hat.
Cody looked stupidly at the bowl of stew, then at McMurdo. “Huh?” he said. Then he said, “Oh, sure. Yeah, I can do that.”
The old man chuckled. “I’ll bring you a bowl, too, and you can keep our Mellie here company. And when you’re both through eatin’, if she isn’t too tired, I think you ought to sit with her for awhile, lad. The poor lass needs company. I haven’t been any to her today, because I’ve had a wagon axle to repair, so she’s been in here alone all day with her daughter.”
He wagged a crooked finger under Cody’s nose, making him blink “But don’t wear her out, y’hear? She needs her rest, too.”
A soft giggle from the bed kissed Cody’s ears as effectively as lips. His heart went all over slushy, even though McMurdo’s commandment brought all of his conversational insufficiencies stampeding into his brain.
“Well, I reckon I’m happy to help, Mac. Don’t know how much company I’ll be.” Hell, he was used to hanging around with Arnold, who didn’t speak for days on end if he could avoid it, and then usually only opened his mouth to agree or disagree with something Cody said. The only females he’d talked to since he and Arnold left Texas three years ago were whores. He knew what to say to a whore. New mothers were a mystery to him.
McMurdo winked. “Yell do fine, lad.”
And with that, the old Scot departed to fetch another bowl of stew. Left alone with Melissa Wilmeth and with a bowl of stew in his hands, Cody guessed he was stuck. The best thing to do was feed her the food. He turned toward the bed and saw that she’d pulled her nightgown up to cover her bare shoulder and lowered the sheet. The baby slept in the crook of her arm, and Melissa was looking at Cody, her big eyes shining He hoped it wasn’t from fever. The thought that it might be made him swallow his anxiety and finish his trek to her bedside.
He sat on the chair next to her and set the bowl on the bedside table. “You comfortable, ma’am? You need anything?”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
Cody looked doubtfully from her to the bowl of stew. “Er, can you eat all right, ma’am, or do you need some help?”
A faint flush stained her cheeks. “I’m a little sore, Mr. O’Fannin. If you wouldn’t mind propping up the pillows at my back, I could sit straighter and it will be easier for me to eat Mr. McMurdo’s lovely stew. This noontime, he propped that board across my lap, and I managed not to spill anything.”
Cody saw the board to, which she referred, and got up to fetch it. He then did as she suggested and plumped the pillows at her back. In order to get her settled, he had to touch her shoulder, and he realized that what he’d taken for a nightgown was actually man’s old worn-out work shirt. Hell, where were her own clothes? They must have been in the wagon. Hadn’t Mac brought ‘em inside yet?
She was too thin, too, he decided with a sharp twinge in the region of his heart. Delicate. That’s what she was. Melissa Wilmeth wasn’t meaty and robust like the whores at the Pecos Saloon. It amazed him that she should have endured the agony of childbirth with as little apparent damage as she’d sustained. She probably could stand some medical attention. Too bad there wasn’t any to be found in these parts.
“I—er—don’t reckon Rio Hondo has any doctors, ma’am, else McMurdo would have sent for one. Mac’s a good man in a pinch, though. We all generally go to him if we have any problems. When my cousin Arnie busted his arm, Mac fixed him right up.
Not, of course, that a broken arm could in any way compare with the ordeal of giving birth, Cody thought, wondering where his brains had gone begging Without half trying, he could say the stupidest damn things. It was because this woman rattled him, is what it was. He didn’t understand the effect she had on him; so he clamped his lips shut and finished positioning the pillows at her back, only stopping to look at her when he was through fussing.
Long lashes fluttered over blue eyes, and Cody felt another strong pain in his chest. He slapped a hand over it, and wondered if he had a touch of heartburn. Probably not, since he hadn’t eaten anything yet.
“Mr. McMurdo has been as good as any doctor I’ve ever met, Mr. O’Fannin.” She peered up at him and gave him a look he’d never even dreamed of receiving from a female. She looked so sincere he had to turn his head away from her.
“And you, too, Mr. O’Fannin. I—I guess I’ve already thanked you, but I want you to know how much I appreciate your stopping to help me, a stranger.” She glanced away, too, obviously embarrassed. “I—well, it must have been awful for you.”
It had been. It had also been wonderful. Cody, who had no experience in speaking the secrets of his soul, unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth and said, “It was nothing, ma’am. I was glad to help.” He hurried to fetch the board she needed, hoping like thunder she wouldn’t thank him anymore.
As soon as he had settled the board and set the stew on it, McMurdo returned with Cody’s own supper.
“I’m going to get you a glass of milk now, Mellie,” McMurdo said with a broad smile and another wink
“Thank you, Mac.” Melissa smiled up at the old man.
McMurdo winked again and departed.
“He told me to call him Mac,” Melissa said to Cody, as if she owed him an explanation for having used the familiar name.
“He tells everybody to call him Mac. Won’t let anybody call him ‘mister.’” Cody took a bite of his stew as he scrambled to recall how to carry on a conversation with a virtuous woman. He used to know, back before he started living with the huge, silent Arnold on the huge, silent plains. “He’s a good cook.”
“Yes. This stew is delicious.”
The baby, Cody thought suddenly. He ought to say something nice about the baby. He stole a quick peek at the infant and realized with horror that it looked like Benjamin Franklin, only uglier. So much for that. He took another bite of stew.
Fortunately, before he felt compelled to speak again, McMurdo returned with the glass of milk for Melissa and a cup of coffee for Cody. “Drink up now, Mellie, m’dear,” he said. “Got to get strong for little Katie there.”
Melissa smiled warmly at the old Scot, and Cody’s heart fluttered. He’d almost recovered by the time McMurdo left the room again.
Cody watched her carefully to make sure she didn’t need him to adjust her table or anything. He got the impression Melissa Wilmeth wasn’t one to pester folks to help her, and he didn’t want her to be any more uncomfortable than she had to be.
She seemed to be faring well, so he went back to worrying about what to say now that he’d ruled out telling lies about the baby. He wanted to know all about her but didn’t feel right in asking. At last he decided she deserved some information about the search he and Arnold were undertaking on her behalf, even though he hated even thinking about Howard Wilmeth, much less talking about him.
“Er, Arnie and I scoured the area southeast of Rio Hondo yesterday, looking for your husband, and we went sort of northeasterly today, ma’am. I expect tomorrow we’ll head a little westerly, although I don’t know how he could have got that far. Unless somebody took him that way. But then, he’d have told ‘em to bring him here, I reckon.”
Oh, hell. Cody wished Arnold were here to hit him for being such a bumbling idiot. Maybe Arnold wasn’t so dumb after all. At least keeping mum all the time, he didn’t stumble around with his words like Cody was doing now.
Melissa lifted her head. Cody got the impression she wanted to say something, then changed her mind. After a moment, she said, “Thank you.”
He was really sick of her thanking him all the time. Especially for looking for her husband. Hell, what did she expect, anyway? That Cody would abandon her to her fate like Howard Wilmeth had done? Because he was so nettled by Mr. Wilmeth’s behavior and understood it so poorly, he said, “You and your husband—did—er—do you plan to settle in this area, ma’am?”
“I guess so.”
She guessed so? What the hell did that mean? He glanced up from his stew to find her toying with her own meal. Because he didn’t trust himself not to blurt out his feelings about people who traveled into perilous country without a specific plan as to what they aimed to do there, he pointed at her with his spoon. “Better eat up, ma’am. Mac isn’t a doctor or anything, but he generally knows what folks need. If he says you should eat, you should eat.”
“Thank you.” She took a hasty bite. Cody got the impression she did so to avoid a scolding. He felt his eves narrow as his puzzlement grew.
“You from around here, ma’am?”
“Oh, no. We’re from Boston.”
Boston? Hmmm That might account for some of the foolishness Cody had perceived in Howard Wilmeth’s actions. After all, he didn’t expect a man from Boston, Massachusetts, would be conversant with the perils out in the territory—although he sure as blazes should have read up about them before he set out to cross it with a female in his care. “You travel all the way from Boston by yourselves?”
“No.”
She didn’t seem to want to look at him any longer. She took another bite of stew and then made a show of checking on her baby, even though Cody could tell from where he sat that the kid was sleeping soundly. He recalled his own dislike of people who pestered him when he didn’t want to be pestered, even as curiosity drove him to persevere in this instance.
“You mean you started out part of a wagon train or something?”
“Yes.”
“What happened? You get separated from the rest of them?” And how, he wanted to ask, was such a thing possible? Unless the whole train took sick and died of camp fever. He’d heard of such things happening, although it still wouldn’t explain why the Wilmeths had persisted alone.
“Um, yes.”
Melissa took another bite of her stew. Cody got the feeling she did so to stall for time, as if she needed to think of a good story to tell him. Not that there was any story good enough to excuse her husband’s infamous conduct.
Irritation bloomed in Cody’s chest, and lie wanted to shout at her to just spit it out. He knew his reaction to be irrational, so he took another bite of stew, too, and chewed on that to keep from chewing out Mrs. Wilmeth.
“We, uh, that is, Mr. Wilmeth and the leader of the train had a disagreement. The rest of the train pushed on toward Amarillo, and we headed south.”
A disagreement, huh? Must have been a pretty hard one, to have sent the Wilmeths venturing out on their own. Cody pondered this development for a moment, then volunteered cautiously, “It’s mighty rough country to travel through alone, ma’am.”
“I know.”
“Comanches and Apaches both live out here, you know. They generally leave folks alone, but they’re kind of provoked about white folks settling on their land. They’ve been known to attack ‘em once or twice.”
She swallowed hard and stared at her stew. “Yes. I know.”
Now Cody felt bad. She was clearly embarrassed about admitting how stupid her husband had been. He hardly blamed her. Howard Wilmeth’s behavior wasn’t her fault, though. Still, Cody knew full well that women had a hard row to hoe in this life. They were at the mercy of their men, and if their men turned out to be stupid or worse, the women suffered for it. He spared her his opinions on the subject.
“Well, I’m sure glad Arnie and me found you.”
“So am I.” She gave him one of those smiles that went through him and lit him up inside. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
He wished to God she’d quit trying. Her thanks embarrassed the hell out of him. “Just eat your food and get strong, ma’am. That’s the best thanks Arnie and me can have.” He added, “And your baby, too,” because he knew how, important babies were to their mothers.
Obediently, she spooned more food into her mouth.
“We’ll find your husband, too, ma’am,” he said in order to make her feel better.
She glanced up quickly, and looked down again just as fast. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Cody got the faintest impression she didn’t mean it that time.
Chapter Three
Melissa knew she was a wicked woman. She was wicked to have forsaken her mother and run away from home with Howard. She was wicked to have hated the poverty into which she’d been born. After all, she knew it was one’s duty to accept one’s fate or to improve oneself by oneself. She hadn’t done either one of those things. Instead, she’d put her life into the keeping of Howard, as leaky a vessel as God ever put on earth. Now look what had happened to her.
She was wicked to have been embarrassed by her mother who, in spite of her ragged appearance and ill humor, did her best to support the family she’d been saddled with. Melissa was, in fact, so wicked that her own father hadn’t wanted her. He’d abandoned Melissa, Katherine, their brothers, and their mother before Melissa’s first birthday.
She was certainly wicked to harbor fond feelings for a man who had been a complete stranger to her until he’d stopped to help her. She was doubly damned for hoping he’d fail to find Howard, the father of her own child—or that he’d find Howard dead.
Her heart hurt as she gazed at her daughter and realized she hoped her own baby’s father had perished out there on that desolate desert. What kind of mother was she, anyway?