The Bad Luck Wedding Cake (24 page)

“Em, I’m not lying.”

“But you can’t know!” She lifted her little fists and pounded his chest, every blow a bruise to his aching heart. “Papa’s never been dead before! Maybe you’ll always feel him, no matter what. Maybe it’s true and he’s dead and Mama’s dead and we’ll never see them again!”

Helpless, Tye watched Maribeth approaching with Katrina in tow. He saw them hear their sister’s fear. Kat’s thumb went farther into her mouth, her eyes as round as a Comanche moon.

Maribeth stopped in her tracks, and her pigtails started swinging as she shook her head, slowly at first, then faster and faster. “You hush, Emma McBride,” she said, taking a threatening step forward. “They’re not dead. They’re not!” She was a half-pint warrior, fierce and furious as she shouted. “And you don’t say that ever, ever again!”

Emma—the leader, their strength—trembled like a willow in a gale. “But Mari, their ship sank!”

“No!” Maribeth launched herself at her sister, shoving her to the ground.

Tye grabbed Mari around the waist, ignoring her flailing fists and kicking legs, and pulled her back against him. He murmured soothing words into her ear like he would a skittish horse, his gaze darting between Kat and Emma, who lay sobbing into the green grass of spring.

Never in his life had he felt so helpless, so impotent. So overwhelmed. What should he say? What should he do?

Brother, I could use a little help here
.

Help arrived, bearing chocolate and the soft, cradling comfort of feminine arms. Without so much as a word, she shoved the cake into his hands and dropped to her knees on the ground beside Emma, gathered her close, then held out her arms to the others.

This time she wove her spell with compassionate words and maternal gestures, and Tye gave thanks for Claire Donovan’s magic.

She lifted her head and their gazes met and held. Her eyes glimmered with empathetic tears. A surprisingly strong need for her understanding and belief swelled inside Tye, but as he searched for words of explanation, Emma broached the subject for him. Lifting a tear-stained face, she said, “Uncle Tye says it’s not true. He says he’d know in his heart if our papa was…was…gone. What do you think, Miss Donovan?”

Beneath the focus of her troubled gaze, Tye lifted his chin defensively and tried to explain. “He’s my twin. We share this…connection. My heart tells me he’s all right.”

She addressed Emma, but kept her gaze on him. “Well, sweetheart, I do know this. Much of this world God gave us is beyond our understanding, and if your uncle believes he has a special connection with his brother, well, I’m not one to naysay.”

It wasn’t the most resounding show of faith he’d ever received, but it seemed to console Emma. She calmed down and dried her tears. Then all the girls indulged in large slices of Claire’s chocolate cake. Tye never once considered denying them the Magic.

Condolence calls began with a vengeance, and by two o’clock, bereavement foodstuffs filled the McBride family larders even fuller than those first days of the impress-Lord-McBride movement. By three P.M. Tye’s patience had run out. He climbed halfway up the central staircase, fumbled in his pockets, and pulled out Katrina’s hairbrush. For a moment, he frowned down at the object—he couldn’t remember how it got there—but then he banged the handle against the banister, calling for the softly murmuring crowd’s attention.

“I want to thank you all for your consideration in stopping by here this afternoon, but the fact of the matter is, you can cart your casseroles right on back home. Your hearts are in the right place, but my family doesn’t need the condolences. My brother and his bride did not perish in the shipwreck.”

He went on to give them a brief explanation of the tie between twins, and once he was finished, the visitors scattered like buckshot.

The evening edition of the
Daily Democrat
ran the story, quoting Tye’s assertion that Trace and Jenny McBride survived the sinking of their ship. A sidebar to the account gave the results of a survey of the townspeople conducted by the newspaper shortly before press time. According to the report, the people of Fort Worth were evenly divided on the question of Tye McBride’s sanity or lack thereof.

By midnight, almost a dozen healthy-sized bets concerning his mental state had been placed in venues ranging from a Hell’s Half Acre saloon to the Episcopalian Ladies’ Sunday Night Sewing Circle. At one A.M. Monday morning Tye laid down a hundred dollar bet on himself at the Green Parrot Saloon. Two A.M. found him feeling run down, run over, and wrung out.

Two-fifteen found him rapping on the cool glass pane of Claire’s bedroom window.

***

Claire gave her head a shake, trying to dispel the fog of a fitful sleep. Had she dreamed it? She glanced again toward her window. No, this dark shadowed figure peering through her gingham curtains was no figment of her imagination.
Of her fantasies, perhaps
.

Rising on her knees, she pushed aside the curtains.

“Tye?”

With the nights having grown warmer, it was her habit to sleep with her windows cracked open. He slipped his fingers into the narrow opening and tugged the window fully open. “Hi, sugar.”

“What are you doing here? Where are the girls? You didn’t leave them home alone?”

“I telegraphed Mrs. Wilson. Figured that leg oughta be good and healed after all this time. She agreed that the girls needed her more than her daughter did at the moment, so she came over from Dallas on the evening train. She’ll stay at the house for a while rather than sleeping at her place. I don’t have to hurry home.”

“How are you, Tye?”

“Do you mean, am I crazy for thinking they’re still alive?” He laughed then, but it wasn’t an amused laugh. It was an anguished noise that cut her to the core.

“Oh, Tye. Why have you come? Do you need my help?”

“What I need is a little of your magic. Meet me on the porch swing?”

She knew this probably wasn’t the best of ideas, but she couldn’t tell him no. She didn’t want to tell him no. Lifting her robe from the foot of the bed, she slipped it on and padded barefoot across the polished wood floor. She turned the lock on the front door, quietly pushed it open, and slipped outside.

Moonlight bathed the yard, but the porch where the swing hung was cast in deep, dark shadows. Although she couldn’t see him, she knew he was there. His sadness hung like a ghost across the darkness.

“C’mere, sugar.”

The porch swing gave a squeak. Claire’s eyes slowly adjusted to the lack of light, and she made out the profile of his body settled at the far end of the swing. She intended to take a seat at the opposite end, but as she went to sit, he reached for her and dragged her down next to him, tucking her beneath the shelter of his arm. She didn’t have the heart to resist, so she lay her head against his chest and relaxed.

They sat gently swinging, not speaking, for a good quarter-hour. With the passing of each minute, Claire felt his tension ease, and the knowledge pleased her. She was helping him and that made her feel good. When Tye finally spoke, his choice of topic surprised her.

“So what’s the latest with you and Jamieson? Have you booked the church?”

Claire groaned. There went her good feelings. “Not yet. I’ve been thinking about what you said, Tye, but I don’t know what’s right. I don’t know what to do.” After a moment’s pause, she added, “I love my family, very much. But they are so blind where Reid is concerned.”

She could have said more, but she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to think about her difficulties at all. Of course, that’s probably how Tye felt, too, and as far as troubles were concerned, an unwanted marriage paled in comparison to the death of loved ones.

Claire relaxed against him, offering her comfort without words, accepting his in return. Long moments passed with only the chirp of the crickets and the creak of the swing breaking the silence. She startled when he asked, “Do you think I’m crazy?”

“Crazy?” It took her a second to make the connection. “Do you mean because you believe Trace is alive?”

He drew a deep breath, then exhaled it slowly, saying on a sigh, “Yeah.”

Claire reached up and grabbed his hand, lacing her fingers with his. “What I told Emma was the truth. I believe that a lot of our world is beyond our understanding. I can accept that you and your twin share a connection that is something…more. So, no, I don’t think you’re crazy.” After a moment’s consideration she added truthfully, “What I do think is that you have a difficult road ahead of you where your nieces are concerned; at least, until the day Trace and Jenny return to Fort Worth.”

His hand squeezed hers hard. “And there is no telling when that’ll happen.”

She didn’t know how to answer that, so she remained silent, holding his hand, listening to the soothing, steady creaks of the swing. Tye spoke next in a voice so low Claire had to strain to make out his words.

“I’ve catered to them, spoiled them rotten.”

“You’ve loved them.”

“Yeah, but I’ve let them get by with too much. It was easy being an indulgent uncle. I haven’t worried about discipline and the likes because I’ve known Trace would be home soon to straighten out my mistakes. But now…well…it could drag on. What if I can’t do it right? What if I ruin the girls?”

“Oh, Tye.” She shifted, turning toward him. She touched his cheek. His insecurity was understandable under the circumstances, but difficult to watch. Tye McBride wasn’t an insecure kind of man. “You won’t ruin them. Now that you know it must be done, you’ll figure out how to deal with the more…challenging aspects of their behavior, I feel certain of it.”

“I want to do right by them.”

“Then you will.”

She felt him smile. “I wish I could be as confident about it as you seem to be.”

“Give it some time, Tye. That’s all you need.”

“No, you’re wrong.” The pain in his voice sliced to her heart, and she wanted to weep. “I don’t need time. I need my brother. I need you. That’s why I came here tonight, sugar. I need a little taste of your magic.”

His lips brushed hers once, then twice. Longing gripped her, and she whispered his name. He responded with a long, deep, life-affirming kiss that Claire surrendered to completely. Tye McBride literally stole her breath.

He eventually released her mouth and nibbled his way along the curve of her jaw to her neck. Lost in the sensual haze he created, she barely heard him murmur. “I’ve figured out the secret ingredient.”

Her head was still spinning. His comment made no sense. “What?”

“Your aphrodisiac.” He nipped at her ear. “It’s you. You dip your finger in the brew.”

He made her shiver and tingle all the way to her womb. She felt so very alive. “I do not,” she replied in a husky voice. “I’ll have you know I keep a very clean kitchen.”

“The kitchen isn’t the room I had in mind, sugar.” He again brought his mouth to hers, and the passion in his kiss left no doubt as to which room he referred.

Claire knew she shouldn’t be kissing Tye McBride on her front porch. Her brothers had been known to pay calls in the middle of the night in the past. Just two days earlier, in fact, Patrick had mentioned strolling past her house to check on her while on his way to the bakery for the earliest morning shift. If she had any smarts at all she’d tear herself from Tye’s arms and retreat to the safety of her house. Instead, she burrowed in a little deeper.

Then, all of a sudden, he was gone, standing away from her beside the porch railing. The swing rocked crookedly as a result of his abrupt departure. “Tye?”

“Are you going to marry him?”

The question was a bucket of January well water. She slumped back in her seat, her emotions swaying like the swing. She hated him for asking, for bringing up Reid and spoiling a truly magical moment. “The situation was different when I refused him last time. They had the bakeries. They had their reputations. Now they have nothing.”

“They have each other,” he snapped. “They have you. That makes them damned lucky.”

Oh, Tye. Suffering so at his brother’s disappearance
. Claire shrugged. “That’s true. But I love them, Tye, warts and all. With this one act, I could make their lives so much easier. I could make them happy again. How can I not marry Reid?”

“Fool. You don’t love him. I warned you, Claire.”

A band of misery tightened around her chest, allowing the bitter truth to break free. “Maybe I’m safer not loving the man I marry. My mother loves my father, and I’ve seen what it has done to her. She’s John Donovan’s wife instead of Peggy. She’s lost herself in him. I don’t want to lose myself.”

He snorted. “So you’re going to tie yourself to a man for life? Excuse me, but I can’t quite get the pieces to fit.”

“It’s family, Tye. I’d think under the circumstances you should be a bit more understanding about the lengths one will go to for family’s sake.”

“Yeah, well…oh, forget it.” His footsteps shuffled away and when he descended the porch steps without another word, Claire thought their tête-à-tête was done. She was wrong.

Halfway down the front walk, she heard the rattle of gravel as he turned and came back. He climbed the steps, stopped, and asked, “Do you believe in ghosts?”

Now she was totally confused. “What?”

“Emma asked if what I feel could be Trace’s ghost. She thinks since he’s never been dead before, I couldn’t know if the sense of life I feel is him or his ghost.”

Her ire melted as her heart wept for him. But sensing his need, she forced a scathing note into her tone. “Quit doubting yourself, McBride. Especially when it concerns something the children say or do. It’s not attractive and besides, if you do it in front of anyone but me, Trace is liable to hear about it when he gets home. Imagine how that will make you feel. You don’t want him to think you had any doubts about your abilities to care for the Menaces, do you?”

Her strategy worked. “They are the Blessings, and I can care for them just fine,” he insisted. “See that you don’t forget that.”

He left then, and even the crickets grew quiet. Claire rose from the swing, reentered the house, and crawled back into bed. What a day. What a night.