Mary Connealy (55 page)

“Come on, then. I’m in a hurry.” Daniel stepped out the door. “Got to get the boys to work on windfalls.”

Grace wanted to scold him. She looked at his impatient expression and decided to postpone it. She trailed him to the outhouse.

When she got there, Daniel said with heavy sarcasm, “Can you find your way back?”

Since it was only about twenty feet from the front door, she didn’t bother to answer. She just went in the little house and shut the door with a sharp click.

When she came out, he was gone.

She hadn’t seen where she lived before. When she’d been inside, it had seemed like a cave.

That’s because it
was
a cave.

All she could see from where she was standing was a wooden door set into the side of a snow-covered mountain. A plume of smoke curled out of the hillside where the stove’s chimney emerged.

Even with the snow still falling, she could see where the boys had left tracks sliding down this morning. Her heart quavered at the long, reckless ride they’d taken. Then, at the end, they’d become airborne for another ten feet before landing in a deep drift. She could see the battered-down drift just in front of the door. Daniel had trampled the snow back a bit and broken a path to the outhouse, but everywhere else it was standing in fluffy drifts higher than her head. The cave door swung inward, or they’d never have gotten it open.

This wasn’t like a Chicago snowstorm. There the snow came heavily, and the weather was viciously cold. Wind battered the tall buildings endlessly in that big, dangerous city. The snow was dirty and flattened by the clattering wheels of countless delivery wagons and carriages.

It was bitter cold here, but it didn’t cut through her clothes and into her skin as it had there, at least not today. And this Texas snow was pure white, almost blinding—beautiful.

Reluctantly she went back to the house. The door was closed because she’d been the last one to use it. She went inside and wished she could stay out. The dark cave didn’t appeal to her. There was nothing to do. The boys had taken their steak bones and potato skins with them. A new bucket of snow melted on the stove. And there was a neat little pile of food at the end of the table closest to the stove. Her dinner.

She noticed they’d left her a potato this time and almost smiled. She washed her hands with water she scooped out of the bucket on the stove, ate her lunch with no utensils…and enjoyed the quiet. She actually went so far as to sit on Daniel’s stool. The biscuit was so awful she didn’t finish it, and she wondered how the boys could have.

“Use more sourdough.”
She looked down at the ugly little jar pushed up against the wall beside the flour and a bucket of eggs. Sourdough, huh? That sounded about right.

Enough light sneaked in through the stovepipe hole and the edges of the door that she could see, although the room was murky. She looked around, remembering she’d missed the hanging beef this morning. The stove was in one corner, but small as it was, it took up most of one wall. The ladle she’d used to pour water out to wash her hands hung on the wall behind the stove. There was a stack of clothing and blankets beside the stove.

The door was in the wall opposite the stove. The beef was in one corner beside the door, and the table was in the other, although they couldn’t exactly be called corners because the walls were uneven and the room was more round than square. The table took up a quarter of the room. A lantern sat on the floor beside the table. There was nothing else. No more surprises.

She was tempted to do a practice batch of biscuits, but she didn’t dare waste flour. She threw her scraps outside, lingering in the crystal clean world. She wondered how long this snow would last. With a little smile, she decided at least it would keep Parrish away. She enjoyed the cold and soaked up the purity of the white world. She couldn’t help but be glad she had on boots and pants. Her legs had never been this warm before.

The cold finally drove her back toward the house. She wondered how the boys and Daniel stood it all day. Of course, Daniel was driving them with hard work. She looked over at the nice barn. A building five times the size of the house. She saw a little chicken coop, too, but the chickens must have taken refuge from the cold and stayed inside.

If hard work kept Daniel and the boys warm, it might work for her. She was tempted to go see if there was any work she could do outside, but there was no one to be seen around the place. Her…family—she could hardly make herself think the word. Her husband and…children—her stomach swooped as she forced herself to face facts. They were nowhere to be seen. She went back inside reluctantly and sat down to wait out the afternoon.

S
ally sat on Adam’s shoulders, and a giggling Laura hung from one ankle as though Adam were nothing but a tree to climb. He’d had Laura in his arms most of the way, but that hadn’t suited her and he had the broken eardrums to prove it.

Mandy and Beth tagged him, yammering up a storm and kicking the snow out of the way with their boots. The girls were all red-nosed and buzzing with energy from sledding. He tried not to pick up the pace any more as he headed for the porch steps. He was next thing to trotting now.

Clay had as good as thrown him out of the house because his hovering was driving Sophie crazy. But the woman he’d rescued was Adam’s responsibility. He’d found her and brought her home. No reason all the work should fall on Sophie.

He swung Sally down headfirst over his shoulder, pretending to drop her just to make her scream. Her head would knock on the low porch roof if he left her perched up there. Then he hoisted little Laura into his arms. Sally dashed inside. Mandy snatched the tyke away from him as she charged into the house. He stepped back to let Beth pass then walked in.

The injured woman sat at the kitchen table, quietly slicing a hank of venison into steaks while Sophie kneaded bread and talked. Both women looked up. Sophie smiled. The other one frowned.

“You’re feeling better, then?” Adam flinched at his stupid question. Of course she was feeling better. She was awake and sitting up. Sophie had her wrapped in a warm shawl, and though the woman was a sight taller and a whole lot thinner than a very round-bellied Sophie, she wore one of Sophie’s riding skirts.

Adam could see a flash of her ankles swathed in thick red socks. The ankle where she’d been bound was thicker because of the bandaging Sophie had done. The bit of red showing in the toe holes of her boots reminded Adam of how close she’d come to real danger in last night’s cold. But not so close she hadn’t managed to slug him solidly. His nose was swollen to double its normal size, and one eye opened only a slit.

The woman nodded then focused on the venison as if the job were a matter of life and death.

Adam took a second to stare at her. She was skin and bones, but under Sophie’s blouse and riding skirt, he saw strength, too. Her hair was streaked here and there with gray. Last night he’d judged her to be a young woman, considering her strength. He rubbed his aching nose tenderly. Now he thought she was older, maybe close to forty, only a few years younger than his forty-five.

She’d pulled her hair back and pinned it into a knot low on her head. He could see the long and graceful curve of her neck. Her hands worked with steady competence, every move so feminine and dainty he could almost hear music.

After her staunch refusal to talk about how she’d come to that remote place, Adam knew it was a waste of time to question her, but he had to try. “Can you talk about what happened to you?”

The woman’s hands paused. She looked up, shook her head, and went back to slicing.

“Now listen here….” Adam jerked his Stetson off his head and crushed the brim beneath his buckskin gloves.

“Leave her alone, Adam.” Sophie waved a hand towel at him as if she were shooing away a pesky fly. “She’ll talk when and if she’s ready, and she doesn’t need you badgering her.”

Adam slapped his thigh with his hat and saw snow sprinkle down onto Sophie’s floor. “I want to know—”

The girls picked that moment to erupt from the bedroom, their warm sledding clothes shed. The girls started chattering and giggling.

Mandy had Laura on her hip and went to sit down by the newcomer. “Want to trade jobs, Tillie?” Mandy offered Laura to her.

“Tillie?” This was the first time Adam had heard her name. Maybe she’d confided in Sophie about everything.

“Let me take your coat.” Beth came up beside him, always the caretaker.

Sally gave him a huge hug around his waist.

The woman’s eyes widened as she looked between the baby and the girls tending Adam. She looked stunned and almost broken. He thought he saw tears brimming in her eyes.

“What is it?” His question was between the two of them. The girls were too busy chattering to notice, though he suspected they and their ma didn’t miss much.

“They…touch you.” She shook her head as if she was dazed then dashed the back of her wrist over her eyes. Tillie stood from the table. “I’ll be glad to hold the baby. Let me wash up.”

Mandy giggled. “You’ll be sorry you said that soon enough. I’d rather chop on a dead animal any day than have to look after Laura. She weighs a ton!”

Tillie’s full lips curved into a smile. She went to the dry sink, and Sophie handed her a bar of lye soap and poured warm water over her hands. Tillie gave Sophie a startled glance. “You don’t have to wait on me, Miss Sophie.”

Adam figured it all out then. He’d never lived as a slave, but he’d known men who had. Of course, Tillie had spent time as property to someone else. His life as a freeman from birth was the exception rather than the rule among black folks. She was stunned that white children would touch a black man. She couldn’t believe Sophie was helping her wash up.

And that shackle told the rest of the story. Oh, it was possible she was an escaped prisoner, wanted for some crime, but that didn’t seem likely. Adam suspected her own war for emancipation had just been waged, and she didn’t trust anybody to back her should the man who owned her come hunting.

Tillie washed her hands and took Laura as if she’d been handed a pot of gold.

Adam smiled. He could see her uncertainty with the condition of freedom. She needed guidance and help.

And he was just the man to provide it.

Parrish looked at the gap. He’d ridden through it just a day ago, following Grace cowering in the man’s wagon. Parrish was sure the man had no idea he’d been carrying a stowaway. Parrish had camped out in the nasty weather so no one in town would see him so soon after Grace’s disappearance. He’d had to talk to the blacksmith to rent a horse, but he’d kept away from folks otherwise.

Now he was back to finish his business with that snip of a girl so he could get out of this wretched country. Solid snow packed the gap straight up a hundred feet. Absolutely impassable. He was so furious that his rage threatened to choke him.

He took his temper out on the worthless nag he was riding. The blacksmith hadn’t given him the same horse he’d rented Friday night. This one was balky, even more uncooperative than the last. The blacksmith had given Parrish a harmless look and said the other horse he’d rented was spoken for, although that same horse stood right there in the stall, plain as day.

That young punk Mike O’Casey stood coated in filth and sweat from working over his stinking forge, with no respect for his betters. Parrish wanted to beat the arrogance out of him. But the Irish trash, with his freckles and red hair, had arms like corded steel. He weighed a hundred pounds more than Parrish, and he looked as though he’d welcome a fight. And even if Parrish won, which he figured to do if only by using the revolver he carried, he’d still not have a horse.

Parrish had gritted his teeth and taken the nag.

And now here he was. Grace as far from him behind this snow-filled pass as if she perched on the moon.

He knew he should just ride away. Texas didn’t suit him. He missed the anonymity of Chicago and the street urchins who made such easy prey.

But his temper goaded him. He hungered to make her sorry for what she’d done. The image of her cowering under his fists kept him awake at night and rode him like a spur all day. He’d been out of prison for a year, and he’d yet to sleep a full night through. And when he did fall into a fitful sleep, he had brutally satisfying dreams of making her bleed and crawl.

“There has to be a way into that canyon.” He rode to the left and the right, but not trained in the ways of the wilderness, he couldn’t think of how to get past that solid wall of rock and snow.

He looked back at Mosqueros. If he showed up there acting as though he was passing through, he could scout around and find a way in, but it would take time. He shivered from the wind-whipped snow and ached from the rough ride on the slow-moving nag.

How could he stay in Mosqueros? He was down to his last few dollars. If he
was
passing through, he’d steal something and hightail it as he had in a string of towns as he followed Grace’s trail. But he’d found her now, and he had to stay put until he got his hands on her.