Daisies In The Wind (40 page)

Mrs. Anderson reminded the citizens at the
packed meeting that she was the one who had suggested to the late
Caitlin Bodine that Miss Rawlings, a newcomer to the town, would be
an ideal candidate to fill the open position of schoolteacher. “She
is a superior young woman in every way,” Mrs. Anderson stated. “I
knew that from the first moment I set eyes on her. And it is our
duty to help her and our sheriff begin their married life in a
comfortable and befitting home.”

The motion was passed unanimously.

Ten days later Neely Stoner was hanged by the
neck until dead and buried in a shallow snow-covered grave on Boot
Hill beside the outlaw gambler Chance Navarro, also known as Earl
Larson. Most of the town witnessed the hanging, but only the
undertaker and Wolf Bodine attended the burial.

On Thanksgiving Day Wolf Bodine and Rebeccah
Rawlings were married. The whole town attended. The bride wore a
flowing silk dress of soft mauve, a mauve lace veil, dainty kid
slippers, and around her slender neck, a gold locket whose lustrous
surface was etched with the shape of a daisy.

It was a wedding gift from her husband, and
that night in their honeymoon bed she swore to wear it always and
keep it close to her heart.

When they moved at last into the spacious,
two-story frame house built for them by the town, a house nestled
in a lovely jewel of a valley affording vistas of blue foothills
and towering forests of ponderosa pine, situated smack-dab in the
center of their previously adjoining properties, Rebeccah and Wolf
and Billy celebrated by throwing a grand party for all of their
friends and neighbors. During the party they toasted the betrothal
of Waylon Pritchard and Coral Mae Taggett, drank huckleberry wine,
and danced until their toes throbbed. Rebeccah played the piano,
and everybody sang along. Fortunately Culley Pritchard and the
neighbors who had rushed to help fight the fire at the Double B had
succeeded in putting out the flames before damage was done to
Caitlin’s rosewood piano. It was one of the few salvageable
furnishings rescued from the house, although Culley had heroically
dashed inside in time to also save the Bodine family photographs
displayed upon the mantel.

Nine months after the fire a splendid event
took place in the Bodine household. In the full glory of a
brilliant Montana summer, with the golden asters, bitterroot,
columbines, poppies, and daisies blooming riotously across the
land—Rebeccah Bodine gave birth to a shrieking, red-faced
baby-girl.

The ecstatic parents named her Caitlin Daisy
Bodine.

The next day Billy Bodine sneaked his dog,
Sam, up to the nursery to meet his new baby sister, and Rebeccah
came in just as the overjoyed Sam gave Caitlin’s tiny face a
vigorous all-over welcome.

Rebeccah scooped her precious child from
Billy’s arms and out of the dog’s reach and tenderly dried her
cheeks. She rolled her eyes at Billy’s impishly laughing apologies
and debated giving him a lecture on the importance of carefully
handling infants, but when Caitlin actually gurgled forgivingly up
at her big brother, Rebeccah could only grin at the pair of them.
And Billy chuckled with glee, looking so much like his father that
Rebeccah could scarcely contain her own laughter.

Wolf watched her suckle Caitlin that evening
as the stars bloomed in a purple-velvet sky. Rebeccah sat propped
up with pillows in their huge four-poster bed, the infant cuddled
to her breast. Despite the weariness of recent childbirth, the
slight lilac smudges beneath her eyes, Wolf thought she had never
looked more lovely. Her skin glowed, and her eyes radiated pure
happiness.

Downstairs, Billy banged on the piano—he was
learning “Oh, Susannah.” Sam barked enthusiastically along.

Wolf and Rebeccah grinned at each other.
“Practice makes perfect, Sheriff Bodine,” Rebeccah murmured,
stroking Caitlin’s fuzzy head.

“Well, then, Mrs. Bodine, you and I must have
been practicing a lot—because this here little girl is the most
perfect thing I’ve ever seen—next to her mother,” Wolf said, and
leaned down to touch his lips to hers.

Rebeccah clung to his lips. “She
is
perfect,” she agreed dreamily, meeting his gaze with loving eyes.
“But that’s no reason we should give up practicing. We now have one
handsome boy and one exquisite girl. Plain arithmetic says there
are at least two more to go.”

“Maybe three,” Wolf grinned, sitting down
beside her as the baby fell asleep at the nipple and gave a tiny,
contented sigh.

Rebeccah’s violet eyes twinkled back at
him.

“Maybe three.”

“What are we going to name them all?”

“Oh”—she gave a graceful little shrug, but
her eyes danced at him—“I’m sure we’ll think of something.”

“We always do, Mrs. Bodine,” Wolf said
softly. His cool smile was a caress in the summer night. “We always
do.”

* * * * * * * * *

For a complete list of my books, visit
www.jillgregory.net

Read on for excerpts from
Cherished
and
When the Heart Beckons
.

Aunt Katharine suddenly glanced over at her
niece. “Juliana,” she said in a low tone. “I want you to renew your
promise.”

Juliana forced herself to meet the piercing
gaze that stabbed at her across the aisle.

“Ma’am?”

“Promise me that you won’t attempt to locate
those scoundrel brothers of yours while we’re in Denver.”

Uncle Edward started, and turned his
protuberant blue eyes upon her as well. Shorter than Aunt Kate by a
good four inches, he was a fat, paunchy man with a face as round as
a melon’s and a thatch of wiry graying hair he kept carefully
combed back from his brow. He was not a particularly intelligent
man, but he was a shrewd one, possessing a keen instinct for
business, a fondness for good sherry, and a habit of studying his
thumbs. Punishment from him had always been swift and firm when
Juliana had misbehaved as a child: hours spent alone in her room
without any supper—or a favorite toy or possession taken from her
and never returned. But Aunt Kate’s retribution had been worse than
anything Uncle Edward had ever done, for Aunt Kate did not forgive.
She had a way of staring at you until you felt as big as a pin, and
she would do it for weeks and weeks after the slightest infraction,
treating you with withering contempt and ice-cold disdain until
life in the Tobias house became totally unbearable. Those were the
times when Juliana daydreamed about running off with Wade and
Tommy, far, far from the great formal house in St. Louis, with its
rules and orderliness, its somber-faced servants, its elaborate,
silent meals, and most of all its austere mistress’s frosty
displeasure.

“Promise me, Juliana,” Aunt Kate insisted,
exactly as if her niece were still a recalcitrant ten-year-old. “We
must have your word.”

“But ...” Juliana began, squirming
uncomfortably in her seat.

“No buts.” Uncle Edward pointed a finger at
her. “Give us your word.”

Outside, the Colorado prairie raced by.
Inside the coach, her aunt and uncle both stared at her, Uncle
Edward frowning, Aunt Kate glaring with that haughty, expectant
look she wore whenever Maura was late bringing in tea.

Juliana took a deep breath. “I promise.”

They exchanged satisfied nods. Then they
smiled at her.

“That’s a good girl,” Aunt Kate approved.
Uncle Edward went back to his sheaf of papers.

What they didn’t know was that beneath the
folds of her taffeta skirt, two fingers had been crossed when she
issued her promise.
It didn’t count
, she told herself,
untying the ribbons of her hat, and smoothing her hair. She was
free to do as she pleased. And she would be pleased to make
inquiries about the notorious Montgomery gang as soon as she
arrived in Denver.

She didn’t dare think what she would do if no
one in Denver had heard of the Montgomery brothers and had no idea
where they might be. Someone had to know something, and she would
simply continue asking until she found the answers she sought.

At just past six o’clock that evening the
Kansas Pacific chugged into the Denver station and discharged its
carloads of weary passengers. Juliana, stepping out into fresh,
mountain-cooled air, took a deep breath, reveling in the pungent
scent of pine. She hurried across the platform for a better, view
of the town. She saw wide, dusty streets lined with wood-fronted
and adobe buildings, many of them saloons. Garishly painted signs
proclaimed names like the LUCKY DOG, GOLD DUST, and STAR DIAMOND
SALOON, the latter boasting of dancing girls and faro. Denver was
larger than she’d expected; rougher, too. Not at all like staid,
pretty, proper St. Louis. The streets were teeming with wagons,
horses, pigs, and people going about their business, and the faint
odor of manure in the air mingled strangely with the clear pine
scent drifting down from the mountains rising beyond the town.
Brown-faced, sunbonneted women in gingham dresses and men wearing
guns and Stetsons filled the streets. Tumbleweed blew down the
alleys, children skirmished in front of Dade’s General Store. She
heard the neigh of horses, the clomp of a hundred pairs of boots on
boardwalk, and the blare of tinny piano music and drunken shouts
emanating from the Gold Dust Saloon, directly across from the
depot.

“What an ugly, squalid,
dreadful
place.” Katharine Tobias shuddered. “Edward, I thought you said
Denver was a civilized town.”

“It is, my dear, compared to most on the
frontier.” Uncle Edward mopped his brow with a handkerchief, and
peered up and down the street. “It seems Breen’s man is late coming
to meet us. Well, let’s gather up the baggage and hope he arrives
by the time we’ve assembled it all.”

Juliana held back as her aunt and cousin
followed him into the baggage room. It would take some time to sort
through the piles of trunks, crates, and boxes being unloaded from
the train, and all she needed was a moment or two.

Quick as a wink, she slipped past a knot of
travelers about to descend the platform steps, hurried down to the
street, and then dashed toward the Gold Dust Saloon. It was the
nearest one and the largest, from what she had seen. Her heart was
pounding, for she couldn’t help feeling the very real possibility
that she might encounter her brothers within those swinging doors.
Of course, that was highly unlikely, but now that she was out West,
it
could
happen.

She was just about to enter the saloon when
suddenly gunshots roared from inside. The sound burst through
Juliana’s ears, stunning her. Someone screamed, windowpanes
rattled, and on the street all about her, people ducked for cover.
Juliana, one hand upon the door, froze with terror.

For a moment, time seemed to stand still. She
was trembling all over, yet she was dimly aware of the rough town
behind her. She was aware of the April wind caressing her cheek,
aware of the unnatural silence that had followed those first
thundering shots. She was torn between an urge to flee, and an
almost overwhelming desire to burst inside and see what had
happened. But her legs wouldn’t move.

Then, before she could do anything, the
saloon doors swung wide and a man charged out, colliding full force
with Juliana. She was knocked sideways into the wall by the most
stunningly handsome man she’d ever seen.

He was young, seemed to be in his late
twenties, and very tall. Ink-black hair touched his shirt collar;
steel-blue eyes stared out from a rough, sun-bronzed face. He
looked as strong as Goliath, Juliana thought in a daze. She caught
a fascinating glimpse of curly black chest hair beneath the collar
of his shirt and something in the pit of her stomach squeezed
tight. The snug black trousers he wore tucked into his boots
emphasized rather than disguised a body that was lean and superbly
fit, splendid with muscles. His physique bespoke power, but his
expression bespoke danger. Dragging her gaze from that dark mat of
chest hair to his face, Juliana nearly gasped. She had never seen
anyone as handsome, and at the same time deadly-looking, in her
life.

Danger emanated from him like heat from a
stove. Beneath the black Stetson he wore the look of a man who had
never once been tethered by the softening influence of love. This
man had never been tethered by anything, Juliana realized. And
those keen, intense blue eyes were like none other she had ever
seen.

He
was like none she had ever seen.
As she steadied herself against the wall, recovering from being
knocked aside, his gaze bored straight into her without a flicker
of emotion.

“Beg your pardon, ma’am.”

He didn’t sound the least bit sorry.

His cold glance swept past, scanning either
side of the road. He spoke again, his voice soft and even as he
appraised the empty street.