Lone Star Loving (21 page)

While each had commented on how she had been a spirited and mischievous girl who loved children to a fault, only one or two had mentioned that the other McLoughlin girls had overshadowed her. “The girl has been nothing but trouble to her father and mother for the past few years, and a child should honor her father and mother,” was the general consensus. At the time Hawk had hoped it was their beers talking.

Bringing the horse and buggy to a halt in front of the sheriff's office, Hawk once again went over in his mind what he would say inside.

“I'm scared,” Charity said brokenly.

That made two of them. Hawk had made a lot of promises. Thus, not taking any chances on a particular deity, he prayed to God as well as to
Wah'Kon-Tah
that he could stand and deliver. “Everything will be all right, angel mine.”

A rotund man, wearing suspenders and a ten-gallon hat, ambled out of the building. Sheriff Josef Untermann. “It is about time you two got here,” he said in a thick accent. “I was beginning to think I would have to come after you, Fraülein McLoughlin.”

Hawk expected Charity to quail at the sheriff's harsh words and condescending airs, but she didn't. With enormous courage she stood up tall in the buggy. “I have never given you any call to say such a thing, Josef Untermann. And I am here. Let's get this over with.”

Her head high, and refusing the help Hawk offered, she descended the conveyance. Unruffled, she marched into the sheriffs office. Already Judge Noble Jones was there.

Jones, a portly man in his sixties, reigned from a wing chair out of place in the spartan, dusty office. The chair had probably been brought in special for the occasion, no doubt meant to intimidate. He wore an expensively tailored suit sporting a gold watch chain, a starched shirt, silk cravat, and polished boots. A monocle fitted against his left eye and magnified the censure in his gaze.

What had happened to his
laissez-faire
attitude of the previous day? Hawk wondered.

“Sit down. Both of you.” Judge Jones gestured to a couple of straight chairs while Sheriff Untermann settled behind his desk.

“Young lady, I am aggrieved that it's come to this,” said the judge. “Your family deserves better than the scandal you have brought upon them.”

Uh oh.
Townspeople must have been talking with him. Hawk cast a furtive eye at Charity, telegraphing a message, Let
me
do the talking.

“You don't know my family,” Charity blurted out anyway. “So don't concern yourself with their feelings.”

An agitated flush crept up Jones's throat. “Campbell Blyer warned me that you're a piece of work, young lady. I should have listened to him.”

“While you do,” said Charity, “I'll be considering the source.”

That's right. Antagonize the man before they even got started. Hawk could have wrung her neck, especially when she made a face at His Honor!

Jones looked as if he were red enough to pop a vein in his neck.

The sheriff announced, “You're going to jail, Fraülein.”

“Please. Just listen.” Hawk instructed his client, then turned his attention to the judge who might well sit for her fate. “Sir, we have two requests. First of all, we don't see how it would serve the People of Texas if Miss McLoughlin is incarcerated before the trial.”

“I will not have a criminal walking free in my streets,” the sheriff declared.

“Judge Jones, Sheriff Untermann, Miss McLoughlin is not a criminal. She was an innocent victim in a plot devised by the late Adriano Gonzáles of Nuevo Laredo.” Hawk stood to face the two men. “I beg you both to have mercy on this lady of upstanding character and refined sensibilities. And on all the McLoughlins.” He smiled at Charity, who chewed at her bottom lip. “Leave her free until her case comes to trial. And let that trial be in ... San Antonio.”

“San Antonio?” was the chorus of three.

Jones said, “Why there? What is wrong with Laredo?”

“Miss McLoughlin would not be able to get a fair trial in the hometown of her accusers, the Blyers. As for San Antonio, it is a city harboring no prejudices against the young lady.”

With any luck Hawk could get the Bexar County district attorney to drop the charges due to insufficient evidence, though he wouldn't bet on it.

“What do you think, Judge?” Untermann asked.

“I'll take the matter under advisement.”

It was the best Hawk could ask for. For the time being. He murmured, “Thank you, your honor,” and leaned to shake the man's hand. “When might we expect to hear from you?”

“Soon.”

As Hawk nodded his head in thanks, Charity glared at Judge Jones. She appreciated Hawk's decorum in her defense, but she was not going to sit like a bump on a log while some pompous judge gave wishy-washy answers about her fate.

She started with Sheriff Untermann. Seemingly nonchalant, she leaned to the side to gaze out a filmy window. “Oh, my. Is that Hildegard Stahlberg I see going into Kreitz's Store? Why, I haven't seen Hildegard in the longest time.” Charity turned her innocent wide eyes on the sheriff. “How has she been doing? And do tell me how your good wife is getting along, while you're at it.”

Josef Untermann squirmed. “We aren't here to discuss Fraülein Stahlberg.”

“Right.” But Charity knew she had him on the run. Batting her lashes at Judge Jones, she smiled again. Laying the fingers of one hand across the back of her opposite one, she studied her nails and said, “Noble Jones. That name does ring a bell with me. Aren't you an elder in the First Presbyterian Church of Laredo?”

Jones puffed out his chest. “Yes, ma'am, I am.”

“I know a woman who used to work in an establishment called Pappagallo's in Nuevo Laredo. Are you familiar with that broth—er, that
establishment,
Judge?”

“I don't know what you're getting at, Miss McLoughlin.”

“Charity, don't,” warned Hawk.

She ignored him, saying to the judge, “As I remember, the woman said there was a silent partner in the operation who hailed from these parts. Aren't you—”

The judge coughed nervously.

She turned to Hawk. “Ask them again. Ask them again about your petitions.”

He looked as if on the verge of strangling her, but he said, “With the court's approval I move that Miss Charity McLoughlin remain free until a jury has been seated in the district court of San Antonio.”

“Granted.”

 

 

Freedom. Oh, it was lovely. Even if temporary in duration. Charity rejoiced at the judge's decision, especially since her freedom hadn't been tied in with anything to do with her papa or his money. A little old-fashioned blackmail had gone a long way.

“Isn't it marvelous?” she asked Hawk as they rode toward the Four Aces.

“No.”

“You can't mean that.”

“You embarrassed me, Charity.” Hawk snapped the reins over the horse's rump. “And you left yourself wide open to charges of extortion.”

“Oh, pooh. I didn't extort anything.”

“Let me tell you something, lady.” He glared at her. “I represent the accused in the case of the People of Texas versus Charity McLoughlin. And from now on the accused will keep her big mouth shut. Understand?”

His aggravation and anger took her aback. Unwilling to surrender, she asked rather snidely, “Does this mean you're not interested in a celebration?”

“Right.”

“I never thought your ego was so fragile.”

“Why don't you shut up? For once.”

“Please don't be upset with me, Hawk. I felt I had to do what I did.”

“Charity McLoughlin, I have never hit a woman in my life, but if you say
one more word,
I am going to slap you.”

They rode back to the Four Aces without so much as a sideways glance passing between them. They didn't speak at supper that night. And he didn't visit her room at bedtime. It was enough to make a girl cry.

If she were capable of crying.

“You hurt his pride,” Maria Sara told her at breakfast the next morning. “He is staying away to lick his wounds.”

Of course her friend was right.

Just before lunch Lisette came out to the stable, where Charity was grooming her Andalusian mare, Thunder Cloud. “Would you like to talk, my child?”

But Charity was in no mood for conversation.

At dinner that night Hawk's place went unoccupied. Once the dessert was finished, Gil McLoughlin made his excuses and went outside for a smoke. Maisie joined him for a cigar of her own. Charity went looking for Hawk.

He wasn't in his room. He wasn't at the stable, and he hadn't taken Firestorm out. One of the stableboys informed her that Hawk had gone on a walk. Since the acreage of the Four Aces was immense, Charity decided not to set off on an odyssey across the ranch. Vast acreage? It really had nothing to do with her hesitation. She couldn't bring herself to take off into the dark of night.

When she trudged back into the house, Maisie pulled her aside and gave her a tongue-lashing for “not letting the lad do the job ye gave him.” This was not what Charity wanted to hear, especially from her meddling great-grandmother.

“I know my own faults, thank you very much.”

The next morning Johnny the stableboy told her that Hawk had collected Firestorm and without so much as a word had ridden out. Charity walked from the stable into the harsh light of day. Right into her Papa. “If you're looking for Hawk, he's gone to San Antonio. He's meeting with people at the courthouse.”

“Oh.”

“In case you're wondering why he didn't tell you, I'll wager he didn't want to chance your demanding to go along.”

Why argue her papa's reasoning? Charity had come to the same conclusion.

“He told you what happened with Sheriff Untermann and the Laredo judge?” she asked.

“I don't need some redskin to tell me what goes on in my own hometown, goddammit.”

She took a long look at her father. The sun seemed to halo behind him. His Stetson shadowed his arrogance. Yet for the first time in her life, he didn't intimidate her. Once, Mutti had said that Gil McLoughlin was more bark than bite, and Charity decided that that was so.

“Why don't you like Hawk?” she asked. “Just because he's an Indian?”

“Hell's bells, missy, he's hardly an Indian! He's three-quarters white! What I don't like is that he's stolen my baby!”

Charity blinked at him in surprise.
Had a stranger thing ever happened?
Tart as she pleased, Charity parked a fist on her hip, and teased, “Why, Papa, I didn't know you had a baby. Is it a boy or a girl? Does it belong to my mother?”

“Get outta here, Charity McLoughlin, before I dust your britches.”

Charity's heart skipped a beat. Her papa was laughing. And it was a sweet, sweet sound.

 

 

Over the next week Charity tried not to think too much about Hawk. Or about his absence. Naturally her resolve was overridden from time to time; each time she conjured up his image she prayed Hawk would return quickly so that she could try to make amends.

He stayed away.

A cool front moved in, lowering the taxing Texas heat and ushering in the first blessed hints of autumn. Workers bailed hay and moved the Four Aces herd to the best pastureland; hogs were butchered and hung in the smokehouse; Manuel the head gardener and his helpers picked the last crop of tomatoes. Still, Hawk didn't return.

Charity conjured up all sorts of scenarios about what he was doing.

On the fourth morning of his absence, Charity brought to mind advice Maisie had given her over and over. “An idle mind is the devil's workshop,” she told herself.

She kept herself busy with needlepoint, with long rides on Thunder Cloud. She honed her trick-riding skills on a favorite cutting horse. And she spent time with little Jaime.

What a precious child. While in Laredo she'd never really gotten to know Maria Sara's son. Furthermore, she hadn't had much opportunity to observe him with his mother. But since both mother and child had been at the Four Acres, Charity came to a conclusion that troubled her. Maria Sara had something against Jaime.

This worried Charity.

It was wrong, she figured, the way Maria Sara chided the boy over the most minor infraction of behavior—he was only a toddler, for goodness' sake! Too often the mother left the boy to the care of others. He simply wasn't accepted for himself. Charity couldn't help but identify with young Jaime.

Yet she warned herself not to make judgments. Perhaps she was making too much of Maria Sara's seeming neglect. Hawk's absence left her cross, to say the least.

But she was never cross with Jaime.

On a bright Saturday morning—a cool and pleasant one—Charity went to the room he shared with his mother. The boy jumped up and down, shrieking with glee when he saw “Shartee.”

He toddled across the floor and threw himself into her arms. She cuddled him to her, drinking in the child's sweet scent.
I want a baby
. Good gravy.

“I'm here to collect your son,” she said to Maria Sara, who was brushing her beautiful blond hair into curls atop her head. “Manuel says the pumpkins are lovely this year, and I'll bet Jaime would love to see them. After that, we'll take a nice walk through the hills and search for arrowheads.”

Arrowheads. Indians. Hawk!
Gads. Don't start thinking about him again.

“Jaime will like that,” said Maria Sara.

“Would you care to tag along?”

Maria Sara shook her head. “I promised to go with Oma. We're calling at the Keller ranch.”

“Maiz has taken quite an interest in my cousin.” Charity lifted a brow. “But I'd think you and Karl should be past the matchmaker stage by now.”

Maria Sara smiled. “We are.” Her friend's tone grew serious. “But there is much to iron out between us.”

Charity tickled Jaime's chin, setting the child to giggling. “You two will be fine. Then you'll have more time for the boy.”

“What do you mean?”

The two friends had never had words, and Charity warned herself against borrowing trouble. “I only meant that I will be happy to see you settled and content.” Setting Jaime to his feet, she took his hand in hers. “Have fun today, my friend.”

“Charity . . . perhaps you and Jaime would care to accompany us?”

Being in her great-grandmother's presence wasn't high on Charity's list—she still hadn't forgiven Maisie for abandoning her in the wilderness, not to mention that other business—but Maria Sara would be with her son, a rare occurrence. What could hurt in saying yes?

Ten minutes later, the four of them climbed aboard Maisie's carriage, setting off for Karl Keller's ranch. Charity decided she would not let the Old One get to her.

Old One.