Kid Calhoun (45 page)

“Boyd?”

“Boyd Stuckey. Old friend of Ethan’s from when they was kids. Boyd’s near rich as Trahern these days. Anyway, that Hawk boy finally got out of prison ’bout a month ago. Been there nigh onto seven years. I say he’s paid his debt. Oughta be able to walk the streets like a free man. Only …” He frowned up at the sun and put his hat back on—lady or no—to keep off the noonday heat.

“Only what?” Patch asked, impatient to hear the rest.

“Only Trahern don’t figure it that way.”

“So Trahern hired these men to kill Ethan—because Ethan killed his son? Even though Ethan has paid his debt to society by spending seven years in prison?”

“Jefferson Trahern don’t forgive nor forget.”

“How can I get to Ethan’s ranch from town?” Patch asked.

“Head southeast ’bout five miles, you’ll find it right along the Neuces. But you don’t want to go there, ma’am.”

Patch arched her most intimidating brow. “Why not?”

“Ain’t safe.”

“Why not?”

The sheriff grimaced. “Lady like you has no business bein’ ’round a fella like him. Convicted murderer and all.”

Patch squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I’ll have you know that Ethan Hawk is—” Patch cut herself off. She couldn’t call Ethan her fiancé, not without stretching the truth. Nothing had been settled that day eight years ago when Ethan had said goodbye.

Patch had waited as long as she could for Ethan to return to Fort Benton. Both her father and stepmother had advised her to keep on waiting. “He’ll come back when the time is right,” her pa had said. But Patch hadn’t been satisfied with that. Finally, in the middle of the night, she had simply packed her bags and left.

She had come to this small South Texas town because Ethan had once told her he was born and raised in Oakville, Texas. It was where she had planned to start her search. Darned if she hadn’t found him!

Only her journey wasn’t quite over yet.

“Can you tell me where I might purchase some gentleman’s clothing?”

Sheriff Lachlan pulled the scruffy hairs on his chin. “Suppose you could check at the Oakville Mercantile, ma’am. Only, why you wantin’ men’s duds?”

“Why, for myself, of course,” Patch said. “I could hardly ride five miles cross country dressed like this.” She turned her back on the sheriff, stepped up onto the shaded boardwalk, and marched straight into the Oakville Hotel.

Knowing Ethan was an ex-convict didn’t change Patch’s intentions toward him one whit. She had known he was on the run from the law when she first fell in love with him. Ethan had once told Patch’s stepmother, Molly, that he’d had a good reason for killing the man he had killed. Patch wasn’t about to pass judgment until she heard Ethan’s reasons herself. Assuming Ethan didn’t throw her out before she had a chance to ask for them.

Patch felt the color skating up her throat as she remembered what had happened in the Oakville Hotel. She wasn’t very experienced in such matters, but it seemed to her Ethan found her at least a little bit attractive. She was ready now to approach him as a woman rather than a child. Surely he would give her the chance to convince him they belonged together.

As Patch entered the hotel lobby, the clerk Ethan had called Gilley said, “You’ll have to wait for that bath until I get this glass swept up.”

“That’s all right,” Patch said. “I have some other errands to do first.” The first thing she did was to retrieve her purse from the registration desk. She gave it a little pat and was relieved to discover that Max was still inside. She had rescued the mouse from a hungry cat at the stage depot in Three Rivers. As soon as she found a catless barn she planned to release him.

“I’d like to write a letter. Do you have stationery and a pen I can use?” Patch asked.

“You can sit over there at that table,” Gilley said. “You should find everything you need.”

Patch made her way to the table and chair in the
corner Gilley had indicated. She found pen, paper, and ink and sat down to let her parents know she had arrived safely in Oakville, and most importantly, that she had found Ethan Hawk.

She laid her purse carefully on the polished cherry surface, then placed a piece of paper in front of her and took pen in hand. She smiled as she thought how much she owed to her stepmother, Molly Gallagher Kendrick. If Molly hadn’t come into her life she would still be wearing scruffy shirts and torn jeans and fighting everyone in town to prove her father wasn’t a coward. Instead she was a lady close to realizing a childhood dream.

Patch folded the letter and found an envelope, which she addressed to her father and stepmother. She put everything away and retrieved her purse as she stood and turned to the clerk. “Can you direct me to the post office?”

“It’s at the end of Main Street,” Gilley said. “In the rear of the Oakville Mercantile.”

“I’ll be back soon.”

“I’ll have that bath ready,” Gilley promised.

Patch stepped out into the sunlight once more and headed toward the mercantile. She walked as though she had an egg in each hand and a stack of books on her head—the way they had taught her at the fancy school she had attended in Boston. What she didn’t realize was that her natural physical grace made her body sway in a way that had every cowhand up and down the boardwalk gawking at her.

Patch had learned a lot of rules in Boston, most of which began with
A Lady Never
 … Patch figured she had broken about ten of them in the past twenty minutes. She found it difficult to always act like a lady, but she was determined that for Ethan’s sake she would epitomize that feminine ideal. No matter how hard it was, she would follow the rules—except when it was absolutely necessary to break them.

Patch politely nodded her head to the local ladies and kept her eyes straight ahead when she passed the cowboys on her way to the mercantile. She didn’t care to be accosted by any of them. It was a little harder to ignore the trickle of sweat that snaked down her back. But she was a lady now, and that meant enduring certain discomforts.

Oakville’s main street wasn’t very long and consisted of two saloons, two hotels, the livery, several eateries, and the mercantile. Patch welcomed the cool difference in the temperature when she stepped inside the oak-shaded one-story wood-frame building
that Gilley had told her housed the Oakville Post Office. She introduced herself to Mr. Felber, the postmaster, and was assured that her letter would be on its way to Montana on the next stage.

“I’d also like to buy a few things,” she said.

“Help yourself, Miss Kendrick,” Mr. Felber said. “Help yourself.”

As Patch discovered, Mr. Felber never came out from behind the counter. When he said “help yourself” it was because he couldn’t be bothered. While she searched out a pair of Levi’s, a chambray shirt, socks, and boots, she watched Mr. Felber sit on his stool and play solitaire. He stopped only long enough to take payment from a lady who bought pins and another who bought peaches.

Patch’s attention was drawn to the door when the bell rang to announce another customer, mainly because Mr. Felber got up off his stool and walked all the way to the end of the counter. Apparently, whoever was entering the mercantile was a person of some importance.

The tiny young woman who stepped inside had hair as black as coal, dark brown eyes, and the face of an angel. She was dressed every bit as modishly as Patch herself. Patch had never in her life seen such a beautiful woman. She knew she was staring, but she couldn’t help herself.

Patch was chagrined when the woman not only noticed her stare, but smiled and walked right up to her.

“Hello,” the beauty said. “My name is Merielle. What’s yours?”

“Patch—Patricia Kendrick.”

“I haven’t seen you before,” Merielle said.

“I just got into town today.”

“Would you like to come to my house to play?”

“To play?” Patch was confused by the invitation, which made no sense. To play what?

“Merielle!”

The tiny woman jumped at the shout from the door. She turned and her smile widened as she hurried up to the sun-browned cowboy standing in the doorway, his hat in his hand, his black hair awry. “Frank! I’ve found a new friend. Come and meet her.”

Merielle took the cowboy’s hand and drew him into the store. Patch stared again, because the cowboy was as tall and handsome as the woman was tiny and beautiful. He also had black hair, but his eyes were gray. There were lines beside his eyes and around his mouth, but Patch didn’t think he had gotten them smiling.

“Howdy, ma’am,” the cowboy said, nodding his head in a jerky motion. He turned his attention to the young woman. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Merielle. I wish you wouldn’t run off like that.”

Patch frowned as she listened to the way the cowboy was speaking to the woman—as though she were a child. Merielle was tiny, but she had a woman’s body. However, as Patch watched the man and the woman together, it became increasingly apparent that Merielle had a child’s mind.

“Can Miss Kendrick come home and play with me?”

Patch saw the cowboy’s jaw harden, saw his lids drop to cover the melancholy in his eyes.

“Maybe we could get together another time,” Patch said to Merielle, hoping to smooth things over.

The cowboy slanted Patch a grateful look before he focused his eyes on Merielle. His features were troubled. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“But we could have fun. I just know it!” Merielle said.

Patch set her purchases on the counter, then reached out and took both of Merielle’s hands in her
own. “I promise I’ll come visit soon,” she said. “You go with Frank now.”

“You promise?” Merielle asked worriedly.

Patch wondered why Merielle didn’t also have a child’s trust. She smiled at the other woman. “I promise.”

Merielle’s whole face brightened. “All right. I’ll see you soon.” She turned and linked her arm through Frank’s. He nodded to Patch, then slipped his hat on. Patch noticed that he leaned down to listen earnestly to Merielle as he led her from the store.

When Patch turned around to pick up her purchases again she found Mr. Felber shaking his head and
tsking
.

“Such a shame,” he said. “Poor Trahern.”

That name struck a strident chord with Patch. “Trahern?”

“That was Merielle Trahern. Jefferson Trahern’s daughter. I don’t know how Frank can stand to see her like that day after day.”

“What is Frank’s relationship to her?”

“He’s Trahern’s foreman. He and Merielle used to be sweethearts a long time ago. Whole town knew those two kids were in love. Wasn’t ever going to come to anything, though.”

“Why not?”

Mr. Felber played a red nine on a black ten. “Frank Meade was dirt poor. Trahern would never have let his daughter marry a sod farmer’s son.”

Patch told herself she wasn’t going to ask, but the words were out before she could stop them. “Has she always been like that? Childlike, I mean?”

“Nope. And that’s the shame of it.”

Patch felt the gooseflesh on her arms, but forced herself to ask anyway. “What happened? What made her like that?”

“Poor girl lost her mind when Ethan Hawk raped her.”

Joan Johnston is the bestselling, award-winning author of fifteen historical romances and twenty-one contemporary romance novels. She received a master of arts degree in theater from the University of Illinois and was graduated with honors from the University of Texas School of Law at Austin. She is currently a full-time writer who lives in South Florida.