“Minda, you deserve a man who'll stay by your side. Yours and the children's. Why, you don't know Brix at all.”
She shrugged and smiled, recognizing she knew her husband quite well. “Caldwell, you forget. I
came
to Paradise to marry a man I didn't know. Now, you need to accept your own accolades at Skinny Hank's. Get along now.”
“Well, join me for a lemonade first? Racing's a thirsty business.” Then he pointed. “And your kids are just over there at the pie table. You can keep an eye out from here.”
“I don't see why not.” Minda acquiesced, remembering her earlier vow to think only happy thoughts today.
Chapter Fifteen
Brix tossed back one shot of whiskey and downright enjoyed the admiration of his friends, but the noisy saloon with its stink of sweat and spittoon wasn't where he wanted to be. The scent of roses came to mind, but hell and damnation, he'd destroyed his wife's masterful hat. She was bound to be peeved.
Roping it like a maverick calf was the only way he could have won, but he'd better not come upon Minda in any kind of tipsy state just in case.
“Gents.” He got up from the scarred square table scattered with half-smoked cheroots and nodded his thanks. “I best be off.”
“You best be off for one last congratulatory night in the arms of that wife of yours,” someone jeered, “with you leaving for Texas and all...”
“You're some kind of fool to leave her bed,” another said.
Anger clung to his shoulders at Minda being the butt of jokes. Likely he should have taken an easier time with that public kiss. But gathering her close to let her and everyone else know she was his and his alone had been an occasion impossible for him to resist.
Hell, he couldn't stay, but he wasn't leaving her. He'd be a husband, in his way. He just wasn't one for walls.
His skin crawled at the recollection of her cash reward, and all those hat orders. She had money now. She'd said she wasn't leaving the kids this minute, but she'd never promised forever.
He'd never promised forever, either, even after yesterday in the barn.
“You keep the subject of my wife out of this saloon. No whiskey mill's any place for a lady.” He tossed back another shot to calm his thoughts. “Now if you all will excuse me.”
“Where's Caldwell?” someone asked. “He might teach innocent kids, but he ain't no stranger to Hank's.”
“Better go find him, Brix,” another said. “Maybe your wife gave him a different kind of hat.”
Brix's fist clenched. That couldn't be the way of it, could it? Minda couldn't be disappointed that Caldwell lost. Not after yesterday. Likely his childhood rival was disinclined to face masculine insults about his riding and jeers at his loss.
Enough good-hearted insults and jeers met Brix's own back as he left. He had a wife to find.
Around him, Paradise painted a different sort of picture than any of the cow towns he knew so well. Decent-clad women showed off their pies and cakes, and happy kids licked lollipops and played games. Quilts on display might well adorn a museum.
Ned and Katie ran to him, and like it was natural, he knelt, sore leg and all, and drew them to his arms.
“Uncle Brix, you won, you won!” Ned's cheek all but stuck to Brix's own.
“We're so proud of you. Even if you did ruin Mama's hat,” Katie said with a hug.
Squeezing her back, he felt a preview of both Minda's delight and dismay. Well, he'd meet up with his wife soon enough. “Now, how's that Dicey of yours? You tend that dog before you left?”
“We left our pup plenty of water and a big bone,” Ned said, “and Clem got our heifer here just fine.”
“She'll win a ribbon for sure.” Katie's braids bounced across her shoulders. “And blue's the best.”
“Well, we're gonna go eat some of Miss Tessie's quince pie now,” Ned said. “We don't know what that is.”
“And I better go find Minda and Silly,” Brix said, casual.
“Oh, Mrs. Hackett's pushing Silly in a special prama-lator,” Ned said, then ran off behind Katie.
Hackett. Damn. Just the name set him off. Looking around the herds of folks, Brix noticed Gracey on the parsonage steps. Her hat was big as a cartwheel, blooming with blue flowers. Another of Minda's masterful designs. Jake was practically kneeling at her feet.
Weaving through folks, he ran over to them, untying the knots in his sore leg. He might not be leaving in the morning after all.
“How'd this tenderfoot get back to town so fast?” Brix teased, but Jake didn't even look up at him, acting as moon-eyed as a bridegroom.
“I had good reason to hurry,” Jake said, raising Gracey's hand to his mouth.
Gracey's face shone bright like the first sunburst after a blizzard. “I got good news this morning, Brix. We'd been suspecting,” she said, glancing shy at Jake, “after all, this isn't our first. But Doc Viessman said it's for sure. I'm with child.”
“Then this is a grand day all around.” Brix hugged her.
“Children are a great blessing, Brix. You ought to think about it.” Jake took his eyes away from his wife to give Brix a meaningful glare.
Brix scowled back. “Got three already, Jake. I think I'll leave you to this private moment of joy. Seen my wife anywhere about?”
But neither of them paid him any further notice, and he set off for Minda. A funny emptiness quivered in his stomach at Jake's words. What might it be like to get a wife with child, and watch a babe grow inside the protection of her warm body? Ned had asked for a brother. Was it possible Brix wanted a son?
Or a daughter? Already it tickled him when folks said how much Silly looked like him. As stuck as he was on his brother's kids, they weren't the fruit of his own loins despite the blood they shared.
At that precise moment, he reached the boardwalk by the mercantile and saw Geraldine Hackett lift Silly out of a push-basket contraption and hold her close. Damn, where was Minda?
He saw her then, sitting on a hay bale next to the barber shop, in eyeshot of Ned and Katie at the pie table.
Sitting next to Caldwell Hackett. His fingers itched.
“Do you love him?” he heard Caldwell ask her, not all that quiet.
She held a glass of lemonade to the lovely mouth he'd drunk from not long ago. “Caldwell, I believe I do.”
“Well, believing something doesn't make it a fact,” Caldwell said, taking her hand in a way Brix crossly remembered. But he noticed with pleasure that Caldwell Hackett wasn't wearing his spectacles.
Caldwell Hackett lowered his lips, lips that suddenly reminded Brix of a calf's liver, to Minda's beautiful white fingers. Before that mouth defiled his wife, Brix was at her side. He hauled Caldwell Hackett to his feet and cuffed him in the nose with a left hook.
* * * *
“Merciful heavens, Brixton, what on earth?” Minda sputtered, not quite sure of the proper vocabulary. Caldwell Hackett had been all but insolent this time, but perhaps she had encouraged him with the lemonade.
She felt a flash of embarrassment at her own conduct. Besides, he was the children's schoolteacher. They'd be face to face many times during pageants and consultations.
In addition, she was presumably an emerging entrepreneur in this town with her own position as a stepmother to guard as well.
Reputation or not, Caldwell took a lunge at her husband while blood gushed down his chin. His counterpunch was powerful although Brixton sidestepped it nimbly.
As for Minda, she'd had enough of blood.
“Stop at once. I've had enough competition between the two of you today. You may have behaved like this when you were youthful hooligans, but I like to think you're both grown up. Then again, I could be wrong and likely am.”
Brixton stopped once he realized a small crowd had gathered, including Katie and Ned. Perhaps realizing his own status, Caldwell stumbled to a halt as well.
“Mr. Hackett, you are this town's schoolteacher with dignity to uphold.” Minda went on sternly. “And you, Mr. Haynes, are a family man whether you like it or not!”
“No harm done, folks.” Brixton grinned insouciantly to the crowd and bowed. “Merely concluding our competition.”
Minda handed Caldwell her handkerchief. “I don't need it back. Now, Mr. Haynes, let's take a walk.”
Tossing his head with bravado, Caldwell lurched over to the mercantile, no doubt to clean his face and locate some spare spectacles.
She grabbed Brixton's left hand, feeling more ire this time than explosion. He winced briefly, and she recognized Caldwell's nose bone had done some damage to her husband's knuckles. “Maybe a walk along the river will cool you off.”
They headed toward the tree-lined bank.
“Hackett had no right.” Brixton moved his fingers through hers in a way that reminded her of them traveling the hills and valleys of her body. It was suddenly hard to concentrate.
But she pressed on along a path of foot-trodden prairie grass. She had things to say and wanted a private place to say them. “I know he had no right, Brixton. I've made it clear that I am a married woman.”
“I thought I heard you tell him you love me.” Brixton's voice was so soft she barely heard.
Underneath the shade of a cottonwood, she stopped, her heart smacking hard against her ribs. “You shouldn't have eavesdropped. That wasn't for your ears.”
“Didn't spy on you at all. Anybody coming upon you would have heard it. So it is true?” He looked away from her.
Minda swallowed hard, knees week. She'd never liked the dishonesty perpetrated upon her by either him or Norman Dale. “Let's sit down here on my shawl,” she said, stalling for time, and he obeyed without a word.
For a moment, she watched the river roll peaceably by and heard its song. How different from days ago, downriver several miles, when she was fraught with fear for Ned and her husband, and when a little boy had been terrified by outlaws. Now, Brixton not only sat next to her but lounged on the ground, close by. In a wifely way, she tied the leather string that laced his shirt.
“So is it true?” he asked, watching her eyes this time.
This time, she looked away, figuring she blushed, for she remembered how those eyes watched her face when he slid up inside her.
“Brixton, I came to Paradise to love a man,” she said, feeling more heat. “Maybe I would have fallen for your brother had I the chance. I know our wedding was a sham. But I do think I've fallen for you.” She quickly glanced at him. “Don't be frightened. I know how you don't want a wife. I know how you feel.”
Stretching restlessly, he gave a long sigh. “I don't know that you do, Minda. Not all of it anyway. I don't speak about this to anybody, not even Jake.”
He paused for a while, as if deciding whether to go on. “Truth is, I fell in love once. I had no doubt about it. I wasn't fearful for a single second. I spoke the words to her time and time again. English and Spanish.” He threw her a bashful look and she remembered the sweet moment when he'd told her of his pinto's name.
Minda wasn't surprised or jealous. It was almost unimaginable that this fine-looking, robust man hadn't inspired another woman's love sometime in his life. What had happened? Had she died?
“Was she someone from here?”
“Nope. Back in Texas. Her pa runs a ranch and I do a lot of work for him. Did, I guess. I should admit things are different now. I fell for her like a bag of rocks tossed in a lake. Built her a house along Butter Creek. Built yours too, have to say.”
“What?”
“I helped my brother build that
fine white house
of his.” He chuckled.
Minda warmed a little. She had long quashed her disappointment about Norman Dale's lies. The house was cool during the heat of the day and had kept out every drop of rain. Knowing Brixton's own hands had lathed and sawed and nailed filled her with wonder. No doubt he'd continue to surprise her until the end of her days.
She waited for him to discuss the woman he'd loved, because she would never ask.
“Esperanza was all woman, fire from her Mexican ma and spunk from her rowdy pa. She held my heart in the palm of her hand.” His cheekbones reddened and his voice hardened. “Until she stomped on it. I found her in the arms of another man, the day before we were to wed. I come back from round-up early to surprise her. What a hell of a surprise.”
Brixton looked away. “I bloodied his nose, too, left and never looked back. Caldwell drooling on your hands reminded me of that bad time. It wasn't all just him and me being rivals in our youth.
“And I know you aren't like Esperanza. You didn't snatch onto Caldwell just to smash whatever heart I got left. But sometimes, she's all I can see and that hurt's all I can feel.”
Grimacing as he shifted position, he leaned on his elbows, looking at the bubbling stream.
“Didn't know if I could trust again. And you came here, thinking Norman Dale had money and a big house. I figured you grasping and greedy, never letting what a man could provide, what he was inside, be good enough for you.”
His assumption appalled her, particularly when it was Norman Dale who had brought her here under false pretenses. But that seemed like a lifetime ago. She opened her mouth, ready to protest, but he held up his hand. “No, stop. I know that isn't true about you. It took me a while, but I learned the truth watching you with the kids, seeing how you are on the homestead. With me.”
“I think Esperanza was a fool for hurting you,” she said, even as she remembered her own hurts. But his confidences, his confession touched her deeply. Up to now he'd been a man of few words and even fewer emotions. He was trusting her.
She could confide just as well. “Once Gracey told me something that stuck. That sometimes we set off for France but the ship goes off course to Holland. The destination is different, but it's still a lovely place to be.”
“Not following you,” he said.
“What I mean is, I eagerly came to Paradise, but things were different than I expected. And for you, too. You didn't come here to get saddled with a wife and family. But now I can help with Norman Dale's debts. You don't have to leave, at least not until the fall round-up.”
She took a breath. “You don't have to ride from ranch to ranch the rest of the summer to earn spare cash. I'll have commissions from my hats. The children need you so much. And don't you start that balderdash about that money being mine, not ours.” She finished passionately, though she doubted she'd made a dent in that hard head of his.