Mary Connealy (10 page)

Sophie mulled that over. He’d asked if she was a God-fearing woman. She remembered thinking that was a question best left for a time when they could talk more. “Okay, I guess you asked me that,” Sophie conceded.

“And we talked about raising the girls. I know I said something about it being best if we raise the girls in a church-going household.”

“Yes, you said all of that. But I never imagined you were talking about…”

“It doesn’t matter anyway, whether you’ve been asked proper or not. I guess I’ve heard of women who want fancy sweet talk and even rings and such, but I didn’t take you for a woman who’d need that nonsense.”

Sophie felt a little twinge of regret that she seemed like that kind of woman. She liked sweet talk real fine. But she wasn’t the kind of woman who would ever dare ask that of one of these rough-hewn Western men. Cliff had given her those words at first, but they’d dried up almost as fast as the roses Sophie’s ma had picked for a wedding bouquet. She’d missed them.

Sophie’s throat closed just a little, and she tried to go back to being mad. She felt a lot more able to control Clay McClellen when she was mad than when she was near tears. “Why doesn’t it matter?”

Clay shrugged. “’Cuz we’re getting married right now, whether you understood what I wanted or not.”

Sophie opened her mouth to tell Clay to go try and talk a Texas sidewinder into marrying him, but her throat seemed to swell shut, and she thought for a humiliating moment that she might break down and cry. With a sudden rush of weakness, she wondered what difference it made. Why not marry him? At least she wouldn’t have to live in a thicket like a mama jackrabbit anymore.

He seemed to have some misplaced desire to take the worries of the Edwards family on his own shoulders. And he was standing there with a Hectorish look of stubbornness on his face, as if it were a forgone conclusion she’d marry him. And all she was really doing was holding up the parson, who needed to get back to town before dark.

She shrugged. “All right. Let’s get it over and done.”

Clay curled up the corner of his mouth in a way that wasn’t a smile. It almost looked like he was hurt in some way, but she couldn’t imagine how. He was getting what he wanted.

He took her arm and led her back around the house. They met everybody, Parson and Mrs. Roscoe included, rushing out of the house. Sophie knew the layout of the house, and she’d bet next spring’s calf crop that they’d all been standing at the kitchen window, listening to every word Clay and she had uttered. The embarrassed guilt on their faces was evidence enough.

“So what’s the verdict?” the parson asked.

Sophie thought “verdict” was right. This was a life sentence. Clay looked to be a man who wouldn’t die easily, unlike Cliff, so she was probably stuck with him.

Clay led her up onto the porch and said to the group waiting there, “We’re getting married.”

In her mind, Sophie heard a prison door slamming shut.

H
e was free! Free from the burden that had been riding him from his earliest memory. He’d wanted his brother back as badly as he’d have wanted back one of his arms if it had been cut off. He’d spent his whole childhood bumping hard against the longing for Cliff. He’d felt the aching pain of the loss every time he laughed out loud. He’d tasted guilt every time he realized he hadn’t thought about his brother for a while.

Clay held Sophie’s hand, and with a feeling of triumph so strong he could almost hear angels singing, he gave up the years of loneliness. In a heartbeat the heavy weight he’d carried all his life lifted from his shoulders, replaced with a fierce desire to take care of his brother’s family.

He gripped Sophie’s hand. When she turned her head toward him, he smiled at her.

She scowled back.

Clay wanted to laugh out loud. He might be free, but he had his work cut out for him.

He looked around at the pretty little girls he was getting for a family and almost threw his arms around Sophie to hug her and thank her. He was a little
too afraid
of her to actually do it. Women were foreign creatures to him. He wondered why she wasn’t happy. After all, she now had a man to take care of her. Wasn’t that all a woman wanted? She’d actually hurt his feelings just a little bit when she’d agreed so gruffly to his proposal. The little woman should be at least as happy as he was.

The parson said, “Do you…” Clay didn’t listen. He figured he knew what he was getting into without hearing the exact words the parson said. He just waited for a pause and said, “I do.”

Then he heard Sophie say it, too. The parson pronounced some blessing Clay heard part of. He shook Clay’s hand and congratulated him. He tipped his hat to Sophie, and he and Mrs. Roscoe got back in the wagon to head for town.

“I’ll be in to pick up the wagon and the supplies I ordered from the general store tomorrow,” Clay called out.

Parson and Mrs. Roscoe waved as they made for town to beat the sunset and the dangers inherent in the dark.

Clay turned to look at his wife. She was his. The burden of Cliff was gone. He was free!

He wanted to toss his Stetson into the air and give one of those victory yells he’d learned from all the Blackfeet who’d tried to kill him over the years. Then he had a momentary vision of Sophie fat with his child and he had another thought. He’d never in his life been to a wedding, but he’d heard of “You may kiss the bride.” Was it time for that now?

Sophie looked like she might punch him if he tried. Still, he considered it.

Sally distracted him when she threw her arms around him. He ignored his tender ribs and hoisted her high in the air. He forgot about trying to coax a kiss out of his cranky new wife. Sally squealed with delight and accidentally kicked him in the stomach. Clay set her down. The other girls came up and hugged him. Even Laura in Elizabeth’s arms seemed pleased.

Clay hugged them all. “I’ve got a family.”

The girls giggled and held on tight.

“I always wanted my ma back so bad.” He ruffled Sally’s pretty blond hair. “And I wanted my brother back until it was an itch under my skin that I couldn’t scratch. I reckon I’ve got something just as good as that now. Maybe better!” He mussed Beth’s hair and gave Sally a kiss on top of her head. He slung his arm around Mandy and tickled Laura under her soggy chin.

The only one not having a good time was his wife. She said over the din, “I’ll start getting us settled in,” and headed for the ranch house.

Clay saw her go and wondered what in tarnation was the matter with her. He thought about it as he watched her walk away from him. She was a fetching little thing, with a trim waist and a beguiling smile, what little he’d seen of it. He enjoyed the view for a second, and then he dismissed her from his mind. Whatever bee was in her bonnet, she’d have to get rid of it herself. He had a ranch to run!

He headed for the barn. Sally caught up with him and clung to his hand. Clay grinned down at the little girl who wanted to be his shadow, and she smiled her heartfelt total adoration back up at him. “I’ll show you around, Uncle Clay,” she offered.

His niece. Clay shook his head. No, his daughter.

Never had he thought his search would come to this. He remembered when he’d started searching for Cliff in earnest. He’d fought in the war and heard rumors of another soldier that looked like him back East. Clay’s time was spent along the western edge of the madness. He’d wondered if it could be his brother, and he’d tried to track down the rumors, closely questioning anyone who came to him with the tales.

Clay didn’t like the East. He missed the wilderness and felt hemmed in by the crowds of people and the old hatreds and the artificial loyalties to Yankee or Confederate, just because of where a man was born. Clay had fought for freedom for the slaves. His conscience wouldn’t let him stay out of it, but he couldn’t believe being born south of the Mason-Dixon line made a man think it was all right to own another human being.

So he’d fought until the fighting was done, and after the war, he’d ignored his instinct to return home and headed east to search for his brother. He’d received a telegraph somewhere along on his quest that told him Pa had been killed. Luther had given him all the details he needed in a four-line telegraph, including that the killers, four of them, were dead and Pa had found a good strike and left it to Clay. Having money didn’t make up for losing his pa. If anything, it made it worse, as if he’d profited from his father’s death.

It had hit Clay hard to realize he was alone in the world, and finding Cliff became twice as important. He’d gone all the way to Boston. Once there it took over a month to find his mother, because it didn’t occur to him that she would have gone back to her maiden name. When at last he found that out and visited her grave, he’d started searching for his brother under the name of Edwards and found out he’d gone to Texas over a decade ago.

Clay had taken the time to track down evidence of Cliff’s war service, because once he headed for Texas, he didn’t want to have to backtrack to the East if his brother had abandoned Texas as he’d abandoned the mountains. The men who had served with Cliff at Gettysburg knew little about him. They described him as stiff-necked and moody but smart and dedicated to the war effort. A few of them heard him speak of a west Texas ranch.

Clay had, by now, become stubborn to the point of obsession. He had gone to Texas, started in the farthest west corner of the panhandle, and worked his way east. He’d been doggedly at his search for two years when he met up with a Texas Ranger who was all heated up about a gang of vigilantes who had been terrorizing people all along the Pecos River, especially in the area north of Fort Davis.

That’s when Clay had mentioned Cliff Edwards, and the ranger had told him his brother was dead. There was nothing about a wife and four children in the story.

From the obsession with finding Cliff, a new obsession grew: finding his killers. Clay, who had spent time scouting for the army in Wyoming and later in New Mexico before going to fight the war, had volunteered to work with the Texas Rangers this one time to track down Cliff’s killers.

And that had led him here. Clay studied the barn and corral, proud of the sturdy construction that spoke so well of his brother. Sally skipped along beside him. The other girls were lingering around the yard, maybe a bit shyer than Sally but just as sweet.

He said to the gaggle of girls around his ankles, “The banker said there’s a passle of cattle run wild in the hill country around the ranch, most of ’em ours but some of ’em maverick, so they go to whoever can catch ’em an’ slap on a brand. I’m gonna ride out and see what the property looks like and find the best place to start. I’ll be back at dark. Have your ma get supper.” He settled his Stetson firmly on his head and went to catch up his horse.

“Can I come with you, Uncle Clay?” Sally asked, her hands clutched together as if she were begging.

Clay hadn’t thought of that. He shrugged his shoulders. “I reckon there’s no harm in it. You’ll have to stay out a long time,” he warned. “And you’ll have to ride double with me. I ’spect you’re a mite young to handle your own horse.”

Sally grinned and promised, “I’ll stay out till you’re ready to come home. No matter how late that is, Uncle Clay.”

Clay said, “Okay, you can come on one condition…”

“Anything,” Sally said, clapping her hands together joyfully.

“If you come, you gotta call me ‘Pa.’” Clay tried to sound stern, but a grin broke out on his face as he said it.

Sally’s eyes got as bright and round as double eagle coins. For a second she looked so awestruck Clay was afraid she was going to swoon or something. Then she said fervently, “I’d be right proud to call you ‘Pa,’ Pa.”

“Can we call you ‘Pa,’ too?” Beth asked.

Clay drawled, “Well, I reckon that’s what I am now, your pa, so I’d say you’d better get to calling me that.”

The girls all giggled and squirmed. Clay lifted Sally up off the ground and plunked her in front of him. He had a fight on his hands to wrestle her skirt and petticoat down around his Appaloosa mare’s sides, and the horse didn’t like it none too well. Clay knew how to handle a horse though, so after a bit of a battle of wills, Sally was settled in, and they headed out.

“You other girls want to come along on Hector? You older girls can probably make him mind.”

“We’d better help Ma with the moving in,” Mandy said practically.

“But I’d like to come some other time,” Beth said.

“Fine.” Clay wrapped his arm around Sally’s stomach when she twisted around to smile at him.

“We’ll have a good supper waiting for you, Pa.” Mandy giggled when she called him “Pa.”

Clay nodded. “Obliged, darlin’.”

He turned his Appaloosa to the north, toward the rugged foothills where the high plateau country climbed into a spur of the Rockies. Plenty of places for a longhorn to hide in this terrain, but Clay had seen worse growing up in the northern Rockies. This just looked like some rolling hills to him. He rode eagerly out to explore the land that was now his home.

Sally started talking before they were out of the yard. Shocked at first, after years of riding with taciturn soldiers and trappers and cowpokes, Clay got to liking the sound of her little voice. He found he didn’t have to say much to keep her talking. Whatever she said, it all boiled down to one thing: Her pa was a giant of a man who could do no wrong and whom she loved with every ounce of her heart. And now she loved her new pa just as much.

Clay was humbled and proud, and when he found evidence of a large herd of cattle coming to water at several springs, he realized he’d bought himself a fine ranch. All in all, a perfect day. Just maybe the best day of his life.