Authors: Jae
Instead of the tough woman in men's clothes, she stood in
front of a slender lady with artfully arranged hair.
The grin was the same, though. "Yes. Frankie Callaghan.
And you must be Luke." She looped her arm through Luke's in a ladylike
gesture and led her inside the hotel room. "I had a feeling you were a
little uncomfortable when your foreman saw us together, so I thought I'd dress
up tonight in honor of meeting you." She blinked long lashes at Luke. They
were probably as fake as her piled-up hair.
"Frankie!" Tess's smoky laughter drifted across
the room. "Don't embarrass him."
"Him?" Frankie repeated.
She told Frankie about me?
Luke stared at Tess. The
Tess she had known in Independence hadn't trusted anyone, especially not enough
to pass on other people's secrets.
Tess shrugged. "Jumping back and forth between pronouns
made me dizzy, so I always tended to use male pronouns. Except, of course, when
we were making lo—"
"Tess! Didn't you just tell Frankie not to embarrass
me?" The tips of Luke's ears burned.
Laughter shook Tess. "It's good to see you haven't
changed. I always found your innocence refreshing." She took Luke's other
arm. "Come on. Let's go eat."
* * *
"I'll retreat to our room now," Frankie said right
after supper in the hotel's dining room.
When Frankie stood, Luke jumped up and pulled the chair back
for her. "No need to go on my account."
"I know my cousin," Frankie winked at Tess,
"wants some time alone with you." She held up her hand to stop Luke's
protests and lowered her voice. "It's all right. I got over my jealousy a
long time ago."
Dazed, Luke stared after her. She watched Frankie gather up
her dress and ascend the stairs.
"She's amazing, isn't she?" Tess asked somewhat
dreamily.
Luke turned. She had never seen that look of loving
affection on Tess's face. "She is." Luke had watched the dainty bites
Frankie took and how elegantly she handled her cutlery. Nothing remained of the
pants-wearing woman Luke had met in front of the bath. "Is this all an act
to fit in?"
"No," Tess said. "This is who Frankie
is."
"Then who was the woman with the pants and the
rifle?" At first, it seemed she had met a kindred spirit, but now she
found Frankie confusing.
Tess smiled as if she knew what Luke was thinking. "That's
part of Frankie too. It took me some time to understand that Frankie is not
really like you. Not all the time. She can handle a needle with the same skill
she handles a revolver — and she likes both equally."
Luke's mind was spinning, trying to grasp what Tess was
saying. She never thought both were possible at the same time. Early in her
life, she had decided to live as a man, and she knew switching back and forth
wasn't possible for her. "Now I'm the one starting to feel dizzy."
She emptied her beer.
Tess patted her hand. "Just give it some time. If you
give her a chance, I'm sure you'll like Frankie."
"It's not that I don't like her," Luke said.
Frankie had been pleasant company during supper. "She just... confuses
me."
"Oh, she confused me too." Tess laughed. "In
a very pleasant way."
Luke studied her old friend, enjoying the warm light in the
blue eyes. In the past, Tess hadn't been so carefree. Had Frankie put that
glint of happiness in Tess's eyes? "I never thought you'd end up with a
woman. I thought you were just dallying."
Tess's smile vanished. "You were so much more than a
dalliance to me, Luke." She leaned across the table. "Had you knocked
on my door instead of Nora's, the answer would have been 'yes' too."
The blood rushed from Luke's face and made her feel
light-headed. "You mean... you...?" Had Tess dreamed of starting a
new life at her side — and Luke never gave her that chance?
"Don't worry." Tess chuckled. "I love you,
but I was never in love with you. But you were so darned kind and honorable
that no woman in my establishment would have said 'no' to a marriage proposal
from you."
"They would have said 'yes' to a marriage proposal from
Lucas, not from Luke," Luke said. It was a fine but important distinction.
Women liked her, but only because they thought she was what she pretended to be
— Lucas Hamilton, a man.
"Nora hinted in her letters that she knows exactly who
and what you are — and yet she's still at your side, so she said 'yes' not just
to Lucas, but to Luke too."
Warmth spread through Luke, and she smiled. "Yes. Nora
is special. She accepts the male and the female parts of me equally."
"Then I'm glad you knocked on her door and not on
mine," Tess said, her expression sincere.
"What about you and Frankie?" Luke asked.
"Does she know about your... past? Does she know where we met?"
Frankie had indicated that she had been jealous of her, so she knew Luke had
once shared Tess's bed.
Tess's eyes stayed calm like the sky on a warm summer day.
"Frankie knows everything about me. We don't keep secrets from each
other."
"Hm." Luke wasn't sure if she liked that. Her
whole life, she had controlled who knew about her biggest secret, and now Tess
had told Frankie without consulting her first.
"I'm sorry," Tess said, reading her expression as
easily as she had seventeen years ago. "I wanted to ask your permission
first, but I didn't want to do it in a letter, because I never knew if there
would be curious young eyes around to read over your shoulder."
And there would have been. Nattie had learned to read as a
four-year-old, and she had read whatever she could get her little hands on.
"Good thinking."
Tess's gaze probed her. "So you never told Amy and
Nattie? They still think you are their father, the manliest man on this side of
the Missouri?"
"Hush!" Luke rubbed the bump on the bridge of her
nose and looked around to make sure no one was listening in on their
conversation. Luckily, most other guests had already retreated to their rooms.
"I am their father in every way that counts."
"So you never thought about telling them?"
"Nora and I talked about it a lot in the beginning. But
back then, the girls were still so young. And when they finally were old enough
to understand, I had already let them think for too many years that I'm the man
who fathered them." She leaned across the table and whispered, "How
can I now, after all this time, tell them I'm not their father? That I'm not
even a man?"
For long moments, silence lingered between them. Tess didn't
tell her she was right to keep the truth from her daughters, nor did she say it
was a mistake. Her eyes looked deeply into Luke's. "Are you happy with the
life you have?"
The question stunned Luke. No one had ever asked her that.
"Yes," she said. "I'm happier than I ever thought I deserved to
be. I share my life with the woman I love, and I have two wonderful daughters.
What more could I want?" The truth of her words warmed her body.
Tess smiled and reached across the table to squeeze Luke's
hand. "Then I'm glad. I can't wait to see Nora again and to meet your
daughters."
Luke's only regret was that she wouldn't be home for most of
Tess's visit. She would have loved to witness Nora's joy at seeing her old
friend, and she was curious to see what Nora made of Frankie. But at least Tess
could tell Nora and the girls that she had made it safely so far. After she had
sent back Kit with the injured gelding, Nora was probably worried about her
making the rest of the trip with just two men. "When you get to the ranch,
please let Nora know I'm fine."
"Is she worried?"
"She pretends not to be, but I know her better than
that."
Concern clouded Tess's eyes too. "And she is right to
worry, isn't she? Frankie said with the government trying to relocate the local
tribes, the road to Fort Boise could be dangerous."
Luke shook her head. "Mostly it's just a few scattered
bands, not whole tribes going on the warpath. We made it safely so far, and I'm
sure we'll be fine. Once we've delivered the herd, we'll be able to make better
time on the way back. I'm more worried about what's going on at the
ranch."
While she hadn't wanted to admit it to Phin, confessing her
fears to Tess still felt right after all those years.
Golden brows lifted. "Is there trouble at the
ranch?"
"Nora says I'm just being a mother hen, but running a
ranch is a lot of responsibility. A thousand things can go wrong." Luke
knew firsthand. Her first year of running the ranch had been hard.
"A mother hen?" Tess chuckled. "Luke,
remember that Nora was a successful businesswoman long before you met
her."
Any reminder of Nora's past in the brothel stirred anger
deep in Luke's belly. "I'm not talking about Nora. Nora is there to give
advice, but Amy is running the ranch while I'm away."
"Little Amy?" Tess grinned. Her gaze seemed to
reach into the past, remembering the little girl she had known.
Luke laughed. "Oh, you better not say that to her face.
She's not so little anymore." It was hard for her to accept, but she knew
her daughters were almost grown women now.
"So Amy is no longer sneaking out of the house to bring
apples to the horses?" Tess asked with an affectionate grin.
Amy's attempt to visit the horses in Independence's livery
stable was how Luke had first met Amy. It seemed almost unreal to Luke now. She
could barely remember a time without Nora and the girls in her life. "Oh,
I wouldn't say that." A few times, she had found Amy in the stable,
visiting the horses in the middle of the night. She had a feeling Amy confessed
her thoughts and fears to the horses just as Luke had done before she had met Nora.
"There's that expression again." Tess pointed at
Luke's face.
"What expression?"
"I think it's the mother hen expression."
When Luke carefully schooled her features, Tess laughed.
"I don't have a mother hen expression," Luke said.
"If anything, it's a rooster expression."
"Oh, don't bother. I like that expression on you. And I
promise to check on your chicks."
"And on the mama hen, please," Luke said.
Tess smiled. "Her too, of course."
T
HE
SMELL OF HORSES, leather, and freshly sawed wood filled Rika's nose when she
rolled the wheelbarrow down the new barn's center aisle. Straw tickled her
neck, and she tried to get rid of it by lifting her shoulder and turning her
head back and forth against it.
The wheelbarrow started to topple over, but Rika had learned
not to load it up too high and easily rebalanced it. She stopped in front of
the open barn door to catch her breath.
Outside, Nattie was taking care of Zebra, the mare whose leg
had been injured in the fire, but Rika's gaze was drawn to the other side of
the ranch yard.
Amy had the gray mare called Mouse tied to the corral rail
and slid her hands down the mare's leg. Her shoulder leaned against the horse
until Mouse shifted her weight.
What's she doing?
Rika tried to understand what Amy
was saying to the horse, but her voice was too low. She craned her neck and
circled the wheelbarrow to catch a glimpse of Amy's hands.
Is she squeezing
Mouse's foot?
After a few seconds, Mouse lifted her foot off the ground.
Amy took hold of the foot and cradled it for a moment before she set it down.
She straightened and rubbed Mouse's shoulder, then moved to the next foot.
Rika had thought training horses meant riding them, but Amy
spent a lot of time working with Mouse on the ground. Despite her lack of
patience with Rika's earlier mistakes, Amy never got frustrated with the
horses. She handled them in a calm, but confident way that made Rika stop and
watch every time she crossed the ranch yard.
I think she's teaching Mouse to hold still while someone
puts new shoes on her.
At the other end of the ranch yard, Amy circled the mare and
started the same procedure on the other side. When Mouse obediently lifted her
hoof and let Amy hold it, Amy looked up. Her eyes widened when she noticed that
she had an audience.
Caught, Rika lingered in the barn's doorway and gave a wave.
Instead of letting go of Mouse's foot, Amy stood frozen.
Mouse struggled against her grip. Her head whipped around.
Big teeth flashed.
"Hey!" Amy jumped back.
Oh, Lord, no!
Rika squeezed past the wheelbarrow and
hurried across the ranch yard. At the last moment, she remembered to slow down
before she reached Mouse and Amy.
No running around horses. They scare
easily.
"Did she bite you? Are you bleeding?" she asked as soon
as she reached Amy.
"No." Amy's blush hid her freckles for a moment.
She averted her gaze. "I'm fine. It's my fault. I should have paid
attention."
"Or maybe you shouldn't have named her Mouse. Now she
thinks she's a rodent and is allowed to nibble on you." Rika grinned,
hoping to coax a smile from Amy too. Amy's stiff posture made Rika feel bad
about causing the incident.
A reluctant smile leaked through Amy's tense expression.
"Yeah, maybe." She looked away from Rika.
Is she angry with me for interrupting her work and
distracting her?
"So why name a horse Mouse?" she asked, just to
test Amy's mood.
Amy shrugged. "When I was a little girl, I had a liking
for unusual names. I named Papa's best mare Measles because of her spots."
"And your father allowed that?" Rika's father
hadn't asked for her opinion when he named their horse. And had she suggested
that it be named after a contagious disease, he probably would have yelled at
her.
Or worse.
Rika shoved the thought away.
"Mama said at first he flinched whenever he called the
horse," Amy said, now grinning, "but Papa never objected to the names
I gave the horses. And when I got older, I kept up with it, mainly to annoy
Nattie. She thinks the horses should have poetic or 'historically meaningful'
names like Dancer and Lancelot." She rolled her eyes and looked over at
Nattie, who was still in the corral with Zebra. "As if the horses could
read Nattie's fancy books."