Glorious Angel (27 page)

Your mother was a stubborn woman and she did exactly as she said. I tried desperately to find her after she left Massachusetts, but didn’t succeed until a year later. She was married to your father then, and expecting you. I bought Golden Oaks then, for even though we were both married, I couldn’t bear to be far from her.

Then, after you were a year old, I had to go to my ranch in Texas. Bradford was staying there and I wanted him at home. Your mother begged me to take her with me. She was unable to bear marriage to a man she hardly knew, and life on a farm was so different from what she knew.

The biggest mistake of my life was to refuse to take Charissa to Texas with me. But the West was no place for a woman in those years, especially a woman of your mother’s gentle breeding.

Believe me, Angela, when I say that I never dreamed she would follow me. She came West unescorted, on a wagon train that was attacked by Indians. She was wounded in the attack, and she died when she reached my ranch.

Her dying wish was that I look after you, though I would have done that without being asked.

Forgive me, Angela, for not telling you this before. I just couldn’t bring myself to do so. I was afraid you would blame me for your mother’s death, as I have blamed myself.

My fondest dream has always been that you marry my older son. I have seen that you love him, and that he loves you. The two of you will have the life that Charissa and I were denied.

You are so like your mother, Angela. She lives again in you. Be happy, my dear, and don’t grieve for us. If there is a heaven, then I am with your mother now.

With deepest love,
Jacob

Angela read the letter again and then again. She wasn’t Jacob’s daughter after all. She wasn’t Bradford’s half sister!

But what of the letter Crystal had used to taunt
Bradford? Had she invented that letter? Of course! Crystal would have done anything to get Bradford back, or to hurt Angela.

Still, Bradford
had
been engaged to Candise all the while he professed his love for her. What a bastard he really was!

Just then, Jim McLaughlin knocked on the door and stuck his head in. “Are you ready to leave, Angela?”

Angela and Jim left the small office and met Grant at the hotel. The three of them shared an early dinner and then left the following morning. Jim traveled with them to Dallas, then left them there to return to New York.

Angela had refrained from asking about Bradford and Candise. She didn’t want to know whether they were married yet.

She was relieved to learn that Bradford had returned to New York, and had engulfed himself in business affairs. She was fairly sure that he wouldn’t be coming to the Texas ranch, so there would be no hurry for her to leave it.

The JB Ranch was only twelve miles outside of Dallas. Angela and Grant rode in a small buckboard through the barren land, flat prairie relieved only by low-lying hills and a few sparse trees. The ranch house was just as Bradford had described it, though fairly run-down. There was the long one-story house itself, a large barn and corrals to the left of it, and a bunkhouse opposite the barn. There were a few large old trees by the
large house, and on the right was a patch of ground where there had once been a garden.

Grant apologized for the appearance of the place, explaining that he had had only enough time to hire a few men, and that most of them were on the range rounding up the scattered cattle. Two men were repairing the corral and the barn.

The house needed a great deal of work. Windows were broken, paint had peeled, a side railing off the porch was lying in the dirt. Angela saw all of this from the outside, and shuddered to think what the inside looked like. She had her work cut out for her. But then, she had lots of time to do it in. And, she realized, she now had something useful to do, hard work that she would enjoy doing, work to keep her from brooding.

Billy Anderson, hidden behind a nearby hill, turned his horse around. He had seen Angela go inside the ranch house with the large man. Billy knew where to find her now. He rode back to town, sure that he wouldn’t have to wait much longer. His only obstacle now would be finding her alone.

Thirty-nine

Angela finished the breakfast dishes and sat down at the kitchen table for another cup of strong black coffee. She glanced out of the window above the kitchen sink to see the sun just clearing the mountain range in the far distance. She felt strangely contented, remembering how she used to watch the sun rise on the small farm in Alabama. Her life wasn’t all that different now, except that she didn’t have any fields to plow, or worries about whether the crop this year would be a good one. The small garden she had started a month before was the only crop here.

Grant had warned her that it was ridiculous to start a garden this late in the season, what with the cold ready to set in in a few months. But she had tried anyway. She wanted fresh vegetables, or those she would jar herself, not the canned
stuff she had been forced to buy from Mr. Benson’s mercantile store.

The large ranch house looked like a home now. The storeroom was stocked with supplies that would last at least three months, and Angela had started making comforters for the beds. Last week she had ordered the men to scrub down the bunkhouse, which they did only grudgingly. They had flatly refused to let her replace the flour sacks over their windows with curtains.

Most of the hired men were still rounding up cattle out on the range and in the hills. Grant said it would probably be at least another month before the herd was brought in. Then they would be branded and set to graze nearby until it was time to drive them along the Chisholm Trail to Kansas. The drive would take about two months, and the cattle that hadn’t died on the way would be shipped East by rail.

Her only company was Grant, and that was only for dinner and only occasionally. Then he would leave and she would go to bed, alone. Grant had mellowed after Angela became the “boss-lady,” as he teasingly called her. They no longer fought. Nor did he ask her to marry him again. But Angela liked the change, for Grant was a friend now and she enjoyed his company.

Angela got up and walked to the front door when she heard the horse approach. She stepped out on the porch to see a young woman on a black mustang. The woman was dressed in tight
breeches and an open-necked white shirt with a short brown vest. The woman looked familiar, with light auburn hair in a short ponytail, and soft blue eyes. And then Angela’s eyes widened.

“Mary Lou?”

The other woman laughed, happily surprised. “Angela, is that really you, honey? Well, I’ll be!”

They both laughed and hugged each other. Angela was thrilled to see the only schoolmate she had ever been friendly with. And Mary Lou was equally delighted. Once they were inside and coffee was poured, a swarm of questions followed.

“I’d heard in town that a woman was living out here on the JB,” Mary Lou began as soon as they were seated on the long couch, covered now in a pattern of red and yellow autumn leaves. “I just couldn’t believe it. There’s never been a woman here before, so I had to come see for myself. And now I find it’s you of all people! What are you doing here? Did you marry Bradford Maitland after all?”

Angela stiffened, humiliated by remembering what a fool she had been for so many years. “No, Bradford’s father died and left half of the ranch to me.”

“You own it? That’s wonderful—I mean, about the ranch, not about Mr. Maitland.”

“You know, I’ve been so busy fixing up the house, I completely forgot that you lived near here.”

“Only ten miles. And my father’s spread is fif
teen miles south of here. But our ranches combined aren’t nearly as big as the JB. And goodness, you certainly have changed this place,” Mary Lou said, looking around her. “I used to come here when I was a girl, and it didn’t look like this. Of course, it was only Mr. Maitland and Bradford then, and you know how men can be. They don’t care for comforts the way we do.”

“Yes, so I’ve learned,” Angela laughed and explained how she had tried to brighten up the bunkhouse. “But tell me how you are. You’ve been married a couple of years now. Are there any children yet?”

“No children,” Mary Lou returned with a slight blush. “But my husband, Charles, died last winter.”

“Oh—I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be, Angela. There was no love between us. Charles was a lot older than I, and my father arranged the marriage. My father wanted the two ranches to be combined.”

“That’s terrible!” Angela exclaimed. “To be married off like that.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Mary Lou smiled. “The two ranches are combined, but my father isn’t in charge, because I’m running Charles’s ranch on my own now.”

“Good for you,” Angela laughed. “You’re just the girl who can do it.”

“I like to think so,” Mary Lou replied with an impish grin. “But are you running the JB? I heard
you have men out on the range rounding up the JB cattle that have been running wild since the war.”

“That’s none of my doing,” Angela said. “Bradford hired Grant Marlowe as foreman, and he’s in charge of everything.”

“Humph! That’s just like them, Bradford in particular. They were always know-it-alls, even when they were boys. I remember they’d never let me go riding with them—they said I was too young. But I’d tag along anyhow, just to show them. I see they’re still know-it-alls who think a woman can’t do anything.”

Angela laughed, for she had caught a definite sparkle in Mary Lou’s eyes when Grant’s name was mentioned.

They continued talking for the rest of the morning, then Mary Lou said she had to go. Angela saw her out to the porch with the promise that Mary Lou would come for dinner on Saturday night and bring her father.

As she watched Mary Lou ride off down the path leading from the house, Angela’s eye was caught by the large hard-wood tree some distance by the road, and the grave beneath it. She had discovered the grave the day after her arrival and visited it often whenever no one else was around.

She turned as she saw Grant by the well and started toward him. Grant finished filling a second bucket of water and set it down on the ground. He smiled as she approached. She had
her hair tied back with a red bandanna, and was wearing a crisp yellow blouse tucked into a russet skirt. As dark as the skirt was, it still showed dirt stains around the knees from where she’d knelt in her garden. But she still looked as beautiful and fresh as ever, Grant thought wistfully.

“You’re gonna end up ruinin’ all your pretty clothes, boss-lady, if you don’t give up on that fool garden,” Grant teased.

Angela looked down at her skirt and smiled. “I guess I’ll just have to start wearing breeches again, like I did on my pa’s farm.”

“I ain’t so sure that’s a good idea,” Grant replied. “I’d like the men to get some work done, not spend their time watchin’ you in that damn garden.”

“How would it be if I wore baggy shirts?”

“You’re gonna do as you damn well please anyway, so why ask me?”

She laughed and pointed to the buckets of water. “Are those for me?”

“Yeah. I thought you’d be wantin’ ’em about now, but if you ask me, it’s a waste of water.”

“You’ll change your tune once you get a taste of fresh vegetables on the table. Come spring, I thought I’d widen the area and plant some corn and peas too.”

“This is a ranch, not a farm, Angela.”

“It never hurts to be self-sufficient.”

“Well, it’s your land,” he shrugged. “Was Mary Lou Markham here?”

Angela nodded. “You knew her before the war, didn’t you? Back when your father was foreman here?”

“Yeah. She’s turned out right pretty from the girl I remember. Though I see she hasn’t changed much. Still a tomboy.”

“She’s running her own ranch now. That can’t be easy.”

“She should have gone back to her father when Charles Markham died, instead of tryin’ to prove she can run a ranch by herself,” he snorted.

“You’re so sure of what everyone should do! You’re infuriating, Grant!”

He laughed. “Yeah, I’ve been called names before.”

Angela shook her head and watched Grant saunter back to the barn. He really was impossible. But she had grown very fond of him.

With Grant out of sight, Angela turned and walked slowly across the dirt yard to her mother’s grave and knelt down beside it. This was a private time for her, one she didn’t indulge in often.

“What are you doin’ out here, Angela?” Grant spoke from behind her, causing her to jump. “This is twice now I’ve spotted you by this grave.”

“You were here when she died, weren’t you, Grant?” she asked in a soft voice, disregarding his question.

Grant stared for a moment at the wooden cross. “Yeah, I was here. I was a kid—five, I think—when old man Maitland buried her there himself. My pa told me about the woman later. He said Jacob took her death real hard.”

“Wasn’t Bradford here when it happened?”

“Fact is, Jacob had only arrived a few days earlier. He had sent Brad to town to close out his accounts. The old man made Brad take care of all his own responsibilities, even when he was young.”