The Texan's Dream (4 page)

Ten minutes later, Jonathan asked the hack to wait while he tapped on the door of Mary Ann Adams. The lighting was poor and numbers were scarce in this part of town. The note had added “in the back” to the address, and this shack was the only one he saw that looked like it might be livable.

He’d almost decided the house was unoccupied when a woman opened the door. “I’m sorry, sir,” she whispered. “You must have the wrong address.”

“Are you Mrs. Adams?” Jonathan glanced at the note. “Mrs. Mary Ann Adams?” He saw worry and fear blend in the woman’s eyes. “Do you know Kara O’Riley?” Jonathan quickly added, wondering why the woman seemed to still be playing a role of poverty. “I found your address in her pocket.”

The door opened wider. “Yes. I’m her friend. Is she hurt? Oh, please, tell me there hasn’t been an accident. She told me the saints would watch over her all the way to Texas.”

“No,” Jonathan answered. “She’s fine.” He wasn’t sure how much he wanted to tell this woman. “She just lost a bag, and I said I’d go look for it.”

A child cried in the background. The woman left the door open as she disappeared into the darkness. “Come in by the fire. I’m not awake enough to think clearly.”

Jonathan let his eyes adjust as Mrs. Adams comforted the child. He noticed the stack of food on the table and the coal bin running over.

The woman lifted a child from a bed, wrapping them both in a shawl before turning to face Jonathan. “You must also be her friend,” the woman said. “She was wearing your coat earlier tonight. I must say, it fits you better than it did her.”

“The bag.” Jonathan didn’t want to waste time talking. “It contained boots she’ll need.”

The woman shook her head. “I remember no bag. She carried only these groceries when we left the store. I’m sure if she’d had a pair of boots, she’d have switched them for the shoes she wore.”

“New shoes?”

“Yes. She said they hurt her feet. She may have left the boots at Bayley’s Mercantile. I know she had several things accumulated on the counter when we met.”

Jonathan thanked her and started to leave.

“I hope she didn’t spend too much on us.” The woman halted him with her words. “I tried to stop her.”

Jonathan touched his swollen eye. “So did I. Once.”

He left, stopping next at the mercantile. Even in the poor light, he saw the pile of things on the counter with a Warren bag sitting next to them.

He’d been wrong about Kara being gullible. She’d told him the truth. Much as he hated to admit it, he needed someone he could trust. He could do without foolish games of love and the burden of family and friends. In his world, all he needed was honesty.

Within an hour he’d awakened the boy sleeping in the storage room. The boy knew where the clerk lived, who finally agreed to take Jonathan to Mr. Bayley. Jonathan managed to buy Kara’s selections amid a chorus of grumbling from everyone but Mr. Bayley. With the promise of huge orders to follow, Bayley agreed to let the widow work part-time in the back, filling orders. There, she could let her children play amid the boxes, as long as they stayed out of the way. Jonathan knew he could get merchandise shipped far cheaper closer to home, but he felt it was a fair bargain. Bayley seemed a good man who’d carried Mrs. Adams for longer than most would have.

When he returned to the hotel, Jonathan moved silently into Kara’s room and placed the boxes around. In the morning he’d tell her they had been delivered, nothing more.

Before leaving, he smiled down at her, realizing anyone who’d just given away so much money just might go along with his plan when they reached Fort Elliot. A dark-haired woman who could lie easily, who loved adventure and who had a big heart. Kara O’Riley just might be perfect for his plan.

FIVE

RAIN TAPPED ON THE HOTEL WINDOWS ANNOUNCING a watery dawn. Kara stretched and shoved the covers aside. Memories of yesterday sliced like a floating ribbon through her thoughts. She’d been so tired last night, she couldn’t remember coming back to her room after dinner with Mr. Catlin.

She yawned and looked around. The tub was still there, along with her muddy shoes. Her bag from Warren’s containing her boots rested on a chair by the fire. A stack of boxes filled the other wing-back. Kara tiptoed to the fireplace. Cautiously, she lifted the lid of the first box, then the next and the next. All the things she’d selected at the mercantile were there. And more, far more. Another pair of shoes, a warm robe, a hat with gloves to match.

Kara jumped as someone tapped on her door. “Miss?” a woman’s voice asked. “Miss, you up yet?”

“Come in,” Kara said, putting the lid back on a box containing two blouses.

A maid opened the door. “Good to see you awake. Mr. Catlin sends you coffee and a message that he will be leaving in less than an hour.”

Kara simply stood in the middle of the room staring while the maid built up the fire and began the packing. The woman laid out Kara’s new jacket, blouse and skirt along with new undergarments and finally, the raincoat.

As the maid kept up a pace of running in and out of the room, coffee warmed Kara enough that she finally dressed. Boxes disappeared. A leather suitcase arrived, seemingly from nowhere. The cold bath was removed. A breakfast of fruit and steaming biscuits waited by the fire.

Just when Kara sat down, someone pounded on her door loud enough to wake anyone still sleeping.

“Miss O’Riley?” Catlin shouted from the other side. Kara took a deep breath, deciding once and for all to stop being afraid of the man. She was going to be working for him for a year. Without knowing it, he might have saved her life by offering this job. The least she could do was stop jumping every time he appeared.

She slowly opened the door and faced him. “Yes?”

The westerner who stood before her was completely different than the gentleman she’d met yesterday. Gone were the polished black shoes, the tailored suit, the white undershirt with its stiff collar attached. Before her stood a man in leather, from his dark brown jacket to the moccasins that laced almost to his knee. His shirt was a deep blue, open at the top, and his pants a heavy cotton twill with copper rivets along the seams.

“Mr. Catlin.” Her gaze fell to the gun belt strapped around his waist. The Colt looked like it had been molded to perfectly conform to his leg.

He pulled on leather gauntlets unlike any she’d ever seen. They had fringe on the cuffs along with a beaded circle design. The gloves would have appeared military except for the design of tiny beads.

“We leave in ten minutes,” he said when her eyes finally raised to meet his.

“All right,” she answered, realizing he was wearing what her father would have called his “ever’day clothes.” Somehow the leather and weapon fit Jonathan Catlin just as her father’s heavy overalls had been made for his barrel-chested, strong-armed body. In a strange way, though Catlin and her father were nothing alike, she felt safer than she had since the night her father shoved her on the train.

Her calmness took Jonathan off guard. He stumbled over a few words before finally saying, “Send your bags down as soon as you can. I’ll be waiting in the lobby.”

“Aye, I will,” she answered. “And as your bookkeeper, I must ask you for the receipt from Bayley’s Mercantile. I’ll be repaying you out of my salary each month for these clothes you somehow purchased in the middle of the night.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

She held out her hand and waited.

Catlin looked like he might bolt and run. For the first time she realized how young he was. She’d just turned twenty, and guessed him not five years her senior. Somehow, when he’d been trying to frighten her, he’d seemed so much older. But now, as she confronted him, he looked like he was unsure how to react.

“I don’t have it with me.” His fists tightened the leather of the gloves as he spoke.

His lie was transparent, but she could hardly search him, so she said simply, “I’ll wait.”

Ten minutes later when she joined him in the lobby, she reminded him that she was still waiting. Jonathan didn’t say a word, only motioned it was time to leave.

As the doorman pulled back the huge oak door, Kara saw that the gentle rain that awakened her had turned into an icy downpour. A river of mud, halfway up to the hotel steps, flowed through the street. The hack that awaited them was repeatedly splattered by passing wagons in the gray predawn light.

Lightning flashed, and the wind shoved the storm into the lobby. Kara pulled her raincoat tightly around her and headed toward the opening.

The wind took the challenge, whipping around her skirts. She fought for footing, a cry for help escaping before Kara could stop it.

An arm, solid and strong, moved around her shoulder.

“Are you all right?” Jonathan Catlin’s mouth was an inch from her ear.

Instinctively, Kara rolled toward him. His arm steadied her and they moved outside. She could feel the warmth of his body. They reached the end of the walk and his grip tightened slightly.

“Allow me,” he whispered and swung her off the ground.

Her cry of surprise was lost in the leather of his coat as he carried her the few feet to the coach and sat her safe and dry inside.

“Thank you,” she managed to say.

Jonathan didn’t reply. He seemed to be concentrating on making sure all their luggage was aboard. When he was finally satisfied, he opened the door once more to join her. The damp wind tugged at his coat, and he hesitated a moment before stepping in.

Kara glanced up and caught the flicker of lamplight off metal several yards behind Catlin. She heard the report of a rifle a second before Jonathan lunged forward. A bullet shattered the wood of the hack’s window, missing Jonathan only by inches.

Kara screamed. Jonathan’s Colt materialized in his hand. They both watched the shooter disappear between two buildings.

“Drive!” Jonathan shouted, rolling into the seat beside her. “We have to make it to the train before someone takes another shot at us.”

The coach rocked and tossed on the muddy road. Catlin checked his guns. Visions of her own death flashed through her mind.

“How did they find me?” she whispered. “How did they find me?” Her entire body began to shake with a chill colder than she’d ever known.

Jonathan’s warm arm encircled her, pulling her close against him. “Are you all right, Miss O’Riley?”

Kara looked up at her employer’s frowning face. He’d asked about her, but he wasn’t even looking at her. He watched the window as if expecting more trouble.

She should tell him she couldn’t go with him. She had no right to put his life in danger. But if she didn’t go, she’d surely die. Whoever had followed her would find her again. And this time, there would be no Jonathan Catlin between her and the rifle.

“The man …” She tried to slow her breathing. “The gunman was trying to kill
me.”

Jonathan looked at her with smoky blue eyes. Eyes with a depth a hundred years older than the man. “No,” he said calmly. A slight smile brushed his lips as if he thought her suggestion childish. “The bullet was meant for me. Though I would have thought my enemies would have tried a few other ways before murder became their choice.”

If he thought his words would reassure her, he was mistaken. Kara found little comfort in the fact that she was racing across Kansas City with a man who might have at least as many gunmen after him as she did.

“If you want to reconsider the job, I understand. I didn’t think even my neighbor, Wells, would go to such extreme measures.” When she didn’t answer, Jonathan continued, “Once we’re on my land, you’ll be safe enough. I’ll stand between you and harm’s way until then.”

Kara looked at the madman sitting beside her. Not only did he think the bullet had been meant for him, he thought he could somehow protect her. He had no way of knowing that if McWimberly sent one man, he’d send another and another until all the O’Rileys were dead. She’d been a fool to think she’d traveled far enough to be safe.

“I want to go on with you,” she whispered, suddenly far more afraid than she’d been since the day her father ordered her to disappear. Until now, she thought her father had overreacted, wanting her gone because he thought she’d be more in the way than in danger. She told herself no one would follow her. But now she knew. No matter what Catlin believed about some man named Wells, Kara knew the bullet was meant for her.

SIX

KARA WATCHED THE SUNRISE THROUGH THE WINDOW of the motionless train. True to his word, Jonathan Catlin had protected her. He’d been watchful, efficient, silent ever since they’d climbed into compartment B-3 on the southbound train out of Kansas City.

Closing her eyes, she wished she were home. Was this how it would be for the next year? Always afraid, worried, looking over her shoulder, working for a man who never said more than was necessary.

She glanced at the caged animal who masqueraded as her employer. He’d paced the small compartment for over an hour. The porter told him three times that the train would be delayed until the rain slowed and a low place in the track line could be checked. But Jonathan Catlin was not a man who took bad news gracefully.

“I’ll be fine,” she said for the fourth time. “If you’d like to walk down to the smoking car, there may be more news.” She knew he wanted to leave her, but he’d promised.

“No, I’ll stay.” He sat across from her as if he’d ordered himself to do so.

Kara waited several minutes. Finally, she could endure the silence no longer. “Mr. Catlin, perhaps you’d tell me why you believe your neighbor, Mr. Wells, was shooting at us?”

Jonathan turned from the window and looked at her as if he’d forgotten she was there. “Until this morning, I didn’t think his hatred had gone far enough to kill me in cold blood. The Wellses and the Catlins haven’t gotten along for thirty years. Around that time, Wells’s son used to sneak over to Catlin land to visit a young daughter of a man who worked for my grandmother.”

He leaned back on the seat as he continued, “The boy wasn’t more than seventeen, the girl sixteen. Both parents told them to stay apart, but they were in love and must have decided to run away together. There had been trouble with rustlers that fall, and one night a Catlin guard shot at a shadow running. Young Wells died, the girl prematurely delivered a baby she carried, then also died before sunup. At least that is the way I’ve heard the story told.”

“But why should that be trouble for you if it happened thirty years ago?” Kara needed to talk. She knew the man who shot at them hadn’t been from the Wells Ranch, but if Catlin thought so, her secret would be safe for a while longer. Maybe long enough to get away from the McWimberly who had followed her.

Jonathan shook his head. “Wells blamed the Catlins for his son’s death. He swore he’d see them all dead and the ranch abandoned. Every year he gets older and more determined. We’ve been missing cattle and men over the years, but since my grandmother died, I understand it’s gotten worse.”

Kara knew she should tell him the truth about the man in the rain who shot at them. But if she did, he might not take her with him. “Maybe the man wasn’t shooting at us. Maybe he was shooting at someone else and we just got in the way. The man who hired me, Mr. Clark, must’ve not thought the threat all that bad. After all, he didn’t tell me about it.”

“You’ll be safe when we’re on Catlin land.” Jonathan reached for her hand resting only inches away from his own. Just before he touched her, he pulled away. “We’ve got our own set of guardian angels.”

“I hope so,” she whispered, wishing he could truly promise such a thing.

Before he could explain, the door to the compartment rattled open. Jonathan’s Colt cleared leather at his side, but he kept the barrel even with his leg.

A huge, bearded man pushed his way into the tiny space. As if his size wouldn’t frighten the average person to death, he wore more weapons than Kara had ever seen on one man. Long Colts strapped to each leg and a rifle carried so easily in his left hand it looked like an extension. A long knife hung from his gun belt and another’s handle poked out of his boot.

To Kara’s amazement, Jonathan holstered his only weapon.

“What are you doing here?” Jonathan almost spit the words at the giant.

Kara panicked. Jonathan must surely have lost his mind. Of course the man was there to kill them. She could imagine him killing them both, twisting their limbs apart, tossing them out the window as the train rushed through this open country. No one would ever find her body, or at least not all of it. Her new clothes she’d just bought, her father’s packet he’d given her when she’d left home, even her new hat would forever ride the train. And maybe, once in a while, someone might wonder whatever happened to the people in compartment B-3.

The giant growled like a bear, then lifted both his shoulders in a shrug. “Hell if I know why I bother, Kid. The McLains thought you might be needing some help getting out of Fort Elliot. Lucky your train is delayed or I would have missed you.”

The hairy giant glanced at Kara as if just noticing she was in the room. “Begging your pardon, ma’am. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m a friend of Johnny Boy here. Name’s Wolf Hayward.”

There was no humor in Jonathan’s sudden laugh. “Warden is more like it than friend. He’s part of the McLain clan my sister married into by accident. I feel sure if she’d known what a pestering brood they are, she’d have reconsidered.” Jonathan stood to face the man called Wolf. “And stop calling me kid or Johnny Boy before I whittle you down a few feet and see if there is any blood beneath all that hair and muscle.”

Wolf laughed without backing down an inch. “You’ve been threatening to kill me in more than one language for better than ten years. Many’s the time I thought of letting you try, but my sister and your sister are both married to McLains and I don’t want that whole family mad at me. They’d think I was allowing you to commit suicide if I let you fight me.”

“How about we give it a try, old man?”

Wolf bristled. “Old man! Why, you young pup.”

To Kara’s amazement the two men lunged at one another. She couldn’t tell if they were fighting or hugging, but both were laughing.

Finally, Wolf Hayward yelled he’d had enough, and Jonathan backed away.

The giant took a deep breath. “You sure didn’t forget how to fight while you were away. I was afraid all that traveling around made you soft.”

“One of these days I’ll take you to the ground and then you won’t feel the need to protect me.”

Jonathan glanced at Kara and to her amazement, he winked, silently telling her that all the talk between the two men was just that … talk.

“Wolf, this is our new bookkeeper for the ranch.”

Wolf looked confused. “Bookkeeper? I thought she’d been hired to—”

“I think she’ll go along with a plan I’ve thought of for Fort Elliot,” Jonathan interrupted. “But I didn’t want to tell her the details until we were closer.”

“What details?” asked Kara. She suddenly had a feeling that there was even more to this job than the bookkeeping or Wells.

Wolf growled at Jonathan as if he couldn’t believe Kara hadn’t been told about the stop at Fort Elliot. Jonathan only looked angry. “I’ll tell her later.”

“You’ll tell her now,” Wolf insisted, “before the train leaves.” He tipped his hat to Kara. “I’ve got to load my horse and gear, then I’ll be back. Make sure he tells you every detail, miss. The decision is yours to make, not something you feel talked into no matter how much easier having you along might make the job.”

The huge man disappeared the way he’d come. Jonathan turned toward the window, his hands pressing along the frame as though he could somehow push the opening wider and escape.

Kara waited. “What is it?” she finally asked.

“Wolf’s right.” Jonathan faced her. “You have a right to know what you’re getting into before we go any further.” His clear blue eyes met hers. “I do need a bookkeeper, and Clark did think I should hire one here in Kansas City because of the trouble with Wells. But there is another reason I needed a woman with me on the way back to Texas. Wolf saw it the minute he looked at you. It took me longer to figure it out.”

Kara waited, wondering if his reason could possibly be horrible enough to make her get off the train and face the killer hired by the McWimberlys.

Jonathan sat across from her and leaned forward, his hands almost touching her knees when he steepled them in front of him. “For most of my life,” he began slowly as if not wanting to tell her or anyone else the story, “I lived with a tribe of Apache. They’d traded for me with a band of Comanche who’d raided my parents’ homestead. The life we lived was hard, but they were fair to me. Among them I had one true friend, Quil. When I was almost fifteen, a group of trappers raided our village. They beat me half to death before they noticed my blue eyes. Then they took me to a fort south of Dallas and left me with the Texas Rangers stationed there. That’s where Wolf found me and took me to my sister.”

Kara didn’t have to ask; she knew Jonathan had told this story very few times in his life.

“Quil was the only one in his family who survived the raid. He was taken to a reservation in Oklahoma. I thought he’d disappeared or died until a few months ago. I was heading back to Texas, hoping to get home before my grandmother died. When I passed through Fort Elliot, I saw him among a group of renegades being shipped back to the reservation.”

Jonathan lowered his head to his hands for a moment. “I almost didn’t recognize him. But he knew me, and I could see the hatred in his eyes. He blamed me for the raid that killed his family. I tried talking to him, telling him how hard I’d fought those first few years to get back to him and what was left of his tribe. But he didn’t believe me.”

Jonathan leaned back and closed his eyes. Sadness hung thick in the tiny room.

Kara’s imagination molded his words into images in her mind. “What happened?” she whispered.

“I told him where to find me if he ever needed me. Even ripped the label off my saddlebag with my name burned into the leather along with the Catlin brand. But I knew I’d never hear from him. He told me he’d kill me if our paths crossed again. I have a sister I barely remember and a grandmother who died before I got to know her well. Quil was my only family. I tried to help him, but he wanted nothing from me. We’d been boys together, but now we were men in different worlds.”

Jonathan looked out the window while his mind searched back in time. “I can’t undo what the Comanche did to my people or what the trappers did to Quil’s family. But, a few weeks ago when I was at Catlin Ranch, a message came from Fort Elliot.”

“What did it say?” Kara was almost afraid to ask.

“It didn’t say anything. It was only the label that I’d torn off, but I knew what it meant. Quil needed me.”

“You’re headed there now?”

Jonathan nodded. “I went through there on my way to Kansas City and now I’m headed back.”

Kara frowned. “But why do you need me to go help? What can I do?”

“You have black hair.” Jonathan’s answer was so short and simple it was almost a slip.

“But…”

“I saw Quil on my way up here. His wife had died in the corral the army calls a holding cell.”

Tears bubbled in Kara’s eyes. “Oh. I’m so sorry. Is that why he called for you, to share in his grief?”

“No,” Jonathan said slowly so that every word registered. “His wife died in childbirth.” His eyes stared into her very soul. “We’ll be making a stop on our way home. I was hoping you’d be going with me to see Quil. And you’ll be walking out of that corral with a baby in your arms. A baby with hair as black as yours.”

Kara began shaking her head, but she couldn’t make her mind form the words. She knew nothing of the West, of Apache or forts or babies. But there was no doubt in her mind that what Catlin was asking of her was illegal. It made no sense to save the McWimberlys a bullet and let the army kill her.

Jonathan moved beside her on the seat. “You have to,” he pleaded. “Quil told me once they begin the journey back to the reservation the men and women will be separated. He could never take a newborn with him. Even if he could get a woman to take care of the baby, he’d never be able to find them again. The odds are strong the child would die.”

Jonathan stared at her with unreadable emotions smoldering in his eyes. “I know what I’m asking is illegal, but Wolf and I will be right beside you all the way. Once we’re back at the ranch, there will be others to take care of the baby. All you have to do is get from the fort to the train with the child in your arms.”

“Can’t you find someone else?”

“There’s no time, and if I ask anyone in Texas, there’s always the chance of someone finding out who the baby belongs to. No one knows you. They wouldn’t question you having a baby. Your fair skin and green eyes may be different but, if we’re careful, no one will see more than the baby’s black hair. Hair the same color as yours.”

His face was so close she could feel his breath along her cheek. His fingers brushed a damp curl from her forehead. “If you want to back away, I understand. I’ll give you a month’s salary and you can keep the clothes. You can step off this train and say good-bye. There aren’t many who would do what I’m asking for an Apache child.”

Kara remembered when she’d been tiny and her mother told of carrying her from doctor to doctor along the fringes of the slum where they’d lived. They were stopped three times at the office doors and told that the doctor inside didn’t have time to treat Irish children. “They never can pay,” one woman said, “and if one dies, there’ll just be another born come spring.”

“I’ll do it,” Kara whispered.

“Name your price.” Jonathan pulled his hand away.

“No price.” She stared directly into his intense eyes. “No price can be put on a child.”