Texas Moon TH4 (34 page)

She needed this man she had married, and she needed him now.

She wasn't a proud woman. She had learned to bend to necessity. She would crawl on her knees right now if it would bring him home. But it wouldn't.

The day Tyler's letter arrived, desperate anxiety entered into the complex formula of her erratic emotions. It had been mailed just after the beginning of September, and he'd had no word from Peter either. But he had heard from the stranger Janice had warned him about. He'd sent the man back to Cutlerville and warned Daniel to divert him to the ends of the earth, but Tyler wasn't at all certain the man had believed him. He urged Janice to show his letter to the Hardings to see what they thought best.

Janice wavered one whole day trying to decide. Only she knew Peter wasn't in danger from the stranger, but maybe that was for the best. Her greatest fear right now wasn't for Stephen, it was for her husband. Something was wrong. She felt it in her bones. Maybe it was her natural pessimism, but she knew Peter wouldn't leave her waiting without word unless something was wrong.

She threw the letter on the dinner table the next day.

Jason picked it up and read it through, then handed it to Kyle. He gave Janice an expectant look, as if knowing she already had the solution. Kyle cursed as he finished the letter, then looked from his brother to their guest.

"Well, what do we do? I can't believe some greenhorn could have made his way out to New Mexico already, but there's a chance. How could he have heard about the gold?"

Jason shoved a fork full of potato in his mouth, waiting for Janice to reply. He understood her a little too well. She kept her eyes on her plate.

"I think I'd better go out there. I can warn Peter there's someone sniffing after him so he won't be caught by surprise."

Jason snorted, glared at her while he finished chewing, then gave the reply she more or less expected. "And if this character is a thief, you're going to hold him off single-handed while Betsy looks for Peter. Don't be a blamed fool, woman."

Janice set her napkin down and pushed back from the able. "I'm not a fool. Something is wrong, and I want to find out what. You can't stop me."

"We could hog-tie you," Kyle said idly, shoveling up his corn.

Carmen kicked him under the table and answered, "We will send Manuel. He is nothing but trouble these days. He can make himself useful for a change."

Jason rolled his eyes ceilingward. "You should have thought of that yesterday. He got into a speck of trouble with Doc Hankins last night. I had to send him down to Mexico to look at some calves just to get him out of town."

Carmen shrieked. "Trouble? What trouble? Why did you not tell me? It's that daughter of the devil, is it not? Never could Doc make her mind, and now she has her devil eyes on Manuel."

Her tirade threatened to continue in an accent more Spanish with each word until Kyle clapped his hand over her mouth. He shrugged as if to excuse his behavior to Janice. "She protects Manuel like he's still a small boy. Small boys don't get caught doing what he was doing."

Knowing Manuel's roving eye, Janice didn't have to stretch her imagination far to gather Manuel and the rather amorous daughter of the pharmacist had been caught in compromising circumstances.

"It is understandable. I would do the same for my little brother," she replied. "However, I do not need Manuel. I am capable of managing on my own. All I need do is take the train to Gage and take a stage from there. It is not as if Indians attack trains. Travel is very civilized these days." She said that lie boldly, knowing full well only recently Geronimo's band had been rampaging through the territory the train crossed.

"A woman cannot travel by herself," Jason proclaimed as if he were Moses with the Ten Commandments.

"This woman traveled all the way here from Cutlerville by herself," Janice informed him. "I'll manage. Besides, it is better if I leave now, before the weather turns bad."

The protests were many and varied but none of them swayed Janice's determination. She had wavered long enough. Now her mind was made up, and no one could divert her. Betsy's health was the only mitigating factor, but Betsy seemed stronger than ever. When told of the impending journey, she was more than ready to go. Peter had told her about the mountains, and she wanted to see them for herself.

"You're making a mistake, Janice. That's wild country out there. Not all the Apaches are on reservations. If you can't wait for Peter to meet you, I'll have to go with you. I can't let you go alone." Jason stood up and started for his office.

"You can't leave this blamed ranch and you know it, Jason Harding." Janice aimed these words at his back. "You need to move those cattle to the southern pastures and someone's been cutting the fences out there. Someone has to decide how many cows you're shipping out before winter, and there's that bull over in Houston you need to look at. Kyle can't do it all. You'll stay here, where you belong. I'll be fine on my own."

Jason glared at her. "You know too damned much about my business."

"And you know too little about mine. I'm going, and that's final."

Jason glanced around as if trapped. Carmen came to his rescue.

"We will buy your railroad tickets. You can wire us when you reach Gage and let us know what stage you will be leaving on and when you expect to arrive. If we don't hear from you at the expected time, we are all coming after you. I think we must tell Daniel of your plans also. He will be worried about Peter."

"I can buy my own tickets, but I will agree to the rest. Do not say anything alarming to Daniel, though. He's likely to do something foolish like hire a gunslinger to come after us." Janice rose from her chair as if the discussion was over.

Before she could escape, Kyle went red and fished around in his pocket for a piece of paper. "I forgot about this. It's from Daniel. Georgie had her baby. It's a boy—seven pounds seven ounces. They're calling him George Mathias."

The room erupted in questions and excitement and the topic was neatly changed. Later, Janice returned to her room and packed what few items she had unpacked a month before.

* * *

Peter swiped the sweat from his dirty brow and glared bitterly at the mountain of rock towering above him. "It's in there, Townsend. It has to be."

His partner lay his pick down and leaned his aching muscles stiffly against the nearest outcropping. "If it's there, we'll have to dynamite it out. That'll cost."

Peter took a firm hold on his pick handle and swung furiously, unleashing his frustration on the crumbling rock. After a few strikes, the dent he'd made in the mountain was negligible. Panting, he leaned against the handle and stared at the opening in the rock through the sweat streaming down his face. "It's got to be there, Townsend. I've got to find it or die trying."

Townsend sent him a concerned look but said nothing. Both men knew what he meant. They were broke, head over heels in debt, and this pile of stone was hiding its treasures. It wasn't the best time to take on the additional burden of a wife and child. Somewhere out there a lovely woman waited for Mulloney, her hopes and future solidly in Peter's hands—hands that were raw and bleeding from this hopeless task. Townsend shook his head and swung his pick again.

Beside him, Peter scarcely heard the renewed echo of steel against stone. With every strike of his pick he saw Janice's eyes wide and soft and waiting. He felt her trust as she gave herself to him. He had promised her a future with him if she would give up her home in Texas, and she had accepted because she trusted him. He had some understanding of how difficult that had been for her. Mulloneys had destroyed her life once already. He couldn't do it again. He had to go back to her a rich man.

Or not go back to her at all. Daniel would take care of his brother's widow.

But he wouldn't give up yet. He was on the verge of having it all: the wealth, the woman he craved, and the knowledge that he could do it all on his own.

Right now, he wanted the woman more than anything. With frustration, he sent the pick ringing into the stone again.

Chapter 28

Mesmerized, Betsy gazed out the train window as it approached her new home. So far, Janice wasn't the least bit impressed by the scenery, but Betsy seemed to find just the brilliance of the air fascinating. Despite the dust and heat, she was holding up to the travel very well, and Janice gave thanks for that.

What she didn't give thanks for was the attention they attracted. It would seem men out here hadn't seen women in a lifetime. At first, she had accepted their little attentions with gratitude. They knew where to find a glass of water or which stations would have food and they helped her on and off with her baggage whenever the train made an unscheduled stop. The haste with which the railroad had been built guaranteed track failures on top of the usual natural disasters.

But as they rolled across the Texas border into New Mexico, the passengers all seemed to be men, and Janice felt exceedingly conspicuous. They vied for the privilege of bringing her water. They argued over the seat behind her. They even fought for Betsy's attention.

She was tired and worried and hot and dusty. She wanted to hit them all over the head and knock some sense into them. And she wasn't pregnant.

In the first days of travel, when she'd had to rummage in her bag for a rag she hadn't expected to need, Janice hadn't known whether to laugh or cry at this unexpected news. She had been nervous about the baby at first, but as the weeks wore on, she'd been comforted by the thought of having a small piece of Peter inside her. She had painted mental pictures, dallied with boys' and girls' names, contemplated sewing infant gowns, dreamed of sharing this new life with her husband as she hadn't been allowed before.

Now there was nothing. If anything had happened to Peter, she would have nothing of him. She tried not to think these thoughts, but the closer they came to the rough territory of his new home, the more she understood how dangerous this land was. A man could die out here and there would be no one around to know or care. She didn't want to think of that happening to Peter.

Janice transferred her worries about the baby she wouldn't have to the husband she barely knew. Or perhaps she knew him much better than she thought. She understood his driving need to make his own way in the world, to be self-supporting and dependent on no one. And more than anything else, she understood the loneliness that created inside him. They had both left friends and family behind to satisfy their ambition. There wasn't time to cultivate friends while working day and night.

But they had each other now. She hoped that was enough for Peter. It was more than she had ever dreamed of having. Despite all the obstacles of their backgrounds, she really wanted to make this marriage work.

The porter walked down the aisle screaming "Gage!" over the noise of the brakes squealing and the whistle wailing. As Janice reached for her carpetbag, three men tried to help her with it at once, and a scuffle ensued. Janice gave a long-suffering sigh while Betsy chewed on her ribbon and watched the proceedings with curiosity.

Janice adjusted the stylish hat that dipped over her forehead and swirled up in back. She and Carmen had created it out of some old castoffs, and she felt quite regal in it. When the porter approached again, she held up a coin, and he immediately threw himself into the scuffle, emerging triumphantly a minute later with her bag.

She was learning how the rich did things. Being around Tyler and Evie must have been a bad influence. But she was quite proud of herself when she descended to the station platform with a porter and her baggage in tow. Her disgruntled rivals descended hurriedly after them, but Janice ignored them as she gazed at her first sight of New Mexico from something besides a train window.

Nearly the entire town could be seen from the railway station. The boards on some of the storefronts were still so new the sap ran on them. The storefronts concealed the crude adobe walls of the actual structures. The town had no boardwalks or macadamized streets. Within her immediate view she could see three saloons and no churches. If this was the big town that the train ran through, she hated to see what Butte would look like.

Holding firmly to Betsy's hand, Janice approached the station master to ask directions to the stagecoach office. She now had four men hanging on her skirts, willing to direct her. It was a rather overwhelming experience for an old-maid schoolteacher.