She had known Chad for many years. He was the son of her neighbor, Stuart Kinkaid, a rancher who did aspire to be known as a “cattle king.” Stuart owned the biggest ranch in the area and was always looking to expand it. He would have been knocking on her door if he’d known Red was thinking of selling. But she didn’t really want to sell, she’d just figured she had no choice, as bad as things had gotten after her husband died. But Chad turned her situation around, and she still gave thanks for the storm that had brought him to the Twisting Barb three months ago.
It had been the last bad storm of the winter season. And the only reason Chad happened to be nearby when it broke was that he’d had a falling-out with his father and was leaving home—for good. Red had put him up for the night. Being an astute man, he’d noticed that something was wrong, and over breakfast the next morning, he’d dragged it out of her, the troubles she’d been having.
She hadn’t expected his offer to help. But she should have. Stuart Kinkaid might be an ornery cuss, but he’d raised a real fine son in Chad.
If she were twenty years younger, she’d be in love, she was that grateful to him. But she was old enough, or pert near old enough, to be Chad’s mother, and the truth was, though no one else knew it, she was in love with his father. Had been since the day she met him twelve years ago when Stuart rode over to welcome her and her new husband to his neighborhood, and gave them one hundred head of cattle to help them get started on their fledgling ranch.
Stuart had been about the most handsome man she’d ever met, and coupled with his kindness that day, he’d gradually wormed his way into a corner of her heart and stayed there. Her husband never knew. Stuart never knew. No one would ever know if she could help it. And even though Stuart’s wife had died long before she’d met him, and her husband had died just recently, she never once thought about doing anything about her feelings for that tall Texan.
Stuart Kinkaid was just too grandiose for her: rich, still handsome, a bigger-than-life personality, a man who could have any woman he wanted if he set his mind to it. While she was a kindhearted redheaded mouse of a woman, who hadn’t turned any heads in her youth and certainly didn’t now when she was nearing forty.
Chad was like his father in many ways, too handsome for his own good, but she’d never heard of him breaking any hearts along the way, so she didn’t think he took advantage of his looks in that regard. He might have been a bit rowdy in his youth, might butt heads with his father quite frequently, but he was dependable. If he said he’d do something, come hell or high water, it would get done. And, of course, he’d been raised to be the best cattleman around. He’d been raised to take over the huge Kinkaid spread.
It didn’t take long for Chad to turn the bunch of greenhorns Red was stuck with into a well-oiled outfit. The hands looked up to him, heck, they loved him. He knew how to work men, so even when he had to scold, they didn’t feel they were hopeless. They were more than willing to learn from him, and learn they did.
Chad was a cattleman through and through. The logical choice for him would be to start his own ranch somewhere. But doing that would truly cut the ties with his father, and she didn’t really think that was his intention. He was making a point in leaving home. He was giving Stuart time to figure out what that point was and to accept it.
Red was realistic though. Three months was long enough to get one’s point across. Chad would be leaving soon, either for another state or to go home and settle things with his father. But he’d be leaving her in good hands, she hoped. He seemed to be putting a lot of effort into training her oldest hand, Lonny, to take over when he was gone. Another month or two and Lonny would make a fine foreman. She had no doubt of that. She just never knew from one day to the next whether Chad would stick around for those couple more needed months.
He probably would. She’d sprained her foot last week, and even though it was feeling better already, she hadn’t let on that it was. Chad had been worried about her since the accident, and she was reasonably sure that a worried Chad would stick around.
Chapter 3
AFTER DINNER THAT EVENING, Red joined Chad on her front porch to enjoy the setting sun for a while. It was a long, wide porch, but then it was a nice-sized house that stretched behind it. Red’s husband hadn’t stinted when building their home. Having both come from the East, they were used to fine accommodations.
A second story had been added to the house a few years after they’d arrived in Texas, to accommodate the children they were hopeful of having. Red couldn’t say why they’d never been blessed in that regard. It wasn’t for lack of trying. It just wasn’t meant to be, she supposed.
The soft strains of a guitar drifted around the corner from the bunkhouse. Rufus was right handy with the instrument, and it had become almost a ritual that he’d play a few songs in the evening as the boys wound down from a hard day’s work. Red always heard it from a distance. The one place she restricted herself from on the ranch was the bunkhouse.
Chad bunked down with the rest of the men, but being the son of the richest rancher in the area, no one thought it odd that Red insisted he dine with her in the main house. It was also usually just the two of them who occupied the porch each evening. They didn’t always talk. The ranch was running so smoothly that, most evenings, anything that needed to be said got said over dinner, leaving the porch time just for quiet introspection.
Red was going to keep it that way tonight, except Chad’s distant look, and the direction in which he was gazing, made her guess he was thinking of his father. She often thought of Stuart, too, but along different lines.
She was amazed that Stuart hadn’t found out yet that Chad was staying on the Twisting Barb. Her hands had been warned never to mention Chad’s name when they went into town, but with liquor flowing freely on those town visits, there was no guarantee that one of them wouldn’t slip and mention it. And they did know that Stuart had hired some of the best trackers around to find Chad.
They had nothing to trace, though, because the storm that had brought him to her had washed away his trail. And no one suspected that he’d gone to roost so close to home, only a few miles away, especially not Stuart. But if Chad was getting homesick, she wouldn’t try to stop him from patching things up with his father. The two had always been close, even if they didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things.
“Miss him?” she asked quietly.
“Hell no,” he said in a grumbling tone that had her smiling to herself.
“So you’re still not ready to go home?”
“What home?” Chad replied with some heavy sarcasm. “It was turned into a circus with Luella and her mama there. Pa arranged that match without even discussing it with me, and just moved them in until the wedding. I still can’t believe he did that.”
“She’s a nice gal though,” Red replied in Stuart’s defense. “I met her a few years back at one of your pa’s barbecues. Pretty, too, as I recall.”
“She could be the best-looking thing this side of the Rio Grande, and I’d still run the other way.”
“Because Stuart handpicked her for you?”
“That mainly,” Chad allowed. “But if that girl has one whit of intelligence in her head, it’s there
because it got lost.”
Red tried to hold back a chuckle, but couldn’t manage it. “Guess I didn’t talk to her long enough to figure that out,” she replied.
“Count yourself fortunate.”
Red said no more. She was grateful he wasn’t hankering to go home, but sorry, too, because this rift with his father had to be tearing them both up. The truth was, she’d miss him. She might not have loved her husband, but at least he’d been good company, and since his passing, she’d been lonely.
The sky was still blood red when the rider came galloping toward the house at a breakneck speed. “Best step inside, Chad. Looks like the mail runner, and he’d recognize you if he got a good look.”
Chad nodded and moved into the house. Red got up to gre
et the rider. “Evening, Will. Bit late for you to be delivering, ain’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am. Dang horse threw a shoe, set me back a few hours today. But figured this might be important, so didn’t want to wait till morning.” He handed her the letter he’d gone out of his way to deliver, then tipped his hat. “Late for dinner. Have a good evening, now.”
Red waved him off, then limped back into the house, stopping next to the nearest hall lamp to read the letter. Chad had retrieved his hat and was about to head to bed.
Her exclamation, “Son’bitch!” stopped him at the front door.
“What?”
“My brother’s gone and died.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had a brother.”
“Wish I never did, so don’t be sorry. We never got along. In fact, it’d be pretty accurate to say we hated each other’s guts. Which is why this letter doesn’t make a lick of sense.”
“That you’d be notified?”
“That he left his girls to me. What the hell did he expect me to do with children at my age?”
“Did he have a choice?”
She frowned. “I suppose not. Guess I am their only living relative now that Mortimer’s gone. We had another sister, my twin actually, but she died long ago.”
“No relatives on their mother’s side?”
“No, she was the last of her line aside from her children.” Red continued reading, then said, “Well, hell ...looks like I need to ask yet another favor of you, Chad.”
He looked horrified for a moment. “Don’t even think it. I’m not even married yet. I ain’t raising no—”
“Hold on, now,” she interrupted, and chuckled over his mistake. “I just need someone to meet the girls in Galveston and escort them here, not adopt them. Apparently, they started on the journey the same time this letter did, different routes, but the mail isn’t always faster. They could have arrived already. I’d go, but I’m afraid this sprained foot of mine will hold me up too much.”
“That’s a long distance to travel, could take up to a week there and back.”
“Yes, but at least a good portion of it can be covered by train, and most of the rest by stage. It’s just the last leg of the way that you’d have to rough it. But I’ll ask someone else. I keep forgetting that you’re lying low.”
“No, I’ll go,” Chad said, slapping his hat against his leg. “Pa’s finding me at this late date won’t matter much. I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”
Chapter 4
AMANDA AND MARIAN WERE supposed to have waited in Galveston. It was the final destination of the nice couple that Albert Bridges had found to charter-one them, and they were more than willing to keep the girls with them until Kathleen Dunn arrived to collect them. But Amanda wouldn’t hear of it.
She had complained every step of the way so far. Even before they’d left home she’d complained about their rushed departure. But a ship had been leaving the day after the funeral, and Albert had strongly suggested they take it since another wouldn’t be available for several weeks. Back on dry land, Amanda should have been somewhat appeased, but no, the crowded port where their ship had docked was her next target for verbal abuse.
Marian had managed to enjoy the sea voyage anyway. It was the first time she’d ever been on a ship, so she found everything about it interesting. The salty air, the damp bedding, the windy and sometimes slippery decks, trying to walk without bumping into things, to get her “sea legs” as one deckhand put it, was all new to her—and the very things that Amanda complained about the most.
It was a wonder that the captain hadn’t tossed Amanda overboard. Marian had heard him mumble once to himself about doing just that. And Amanda did have a harrowing moment four days into the journey when she actually did end up dangling from the railing with the sea lapping up the side of the ship. She’d sworn someone had pushed her, which was ridiculous—although, just about everyone on board had probably thought about it more than once.
Amanda’s behavior had been no more than what Marian expected. When her sister had said she hated to travel, she hadn’t exaggerated. And when Amanda was miserable, she wanted everyone else to be miserable as well. Marian managed to avoid that state of mind, but then she’d learned long ago how to simply “not hear” her sister when she got especially annoying. Their escorts had picked up on that as well, and before the end of the voyage, they’d been nodding and mumbling appropriate phrases, but had simply stopped “listening” to Amanda.
This might have been why they didn’t try to stop the girls from setting out on their own. It was more likely, though, that they were just glad to be rid of Amanda.
And it wasn’t as if the two of them weren’t old enough to travel alone. They also had their maid, Ella Mae, with them. She was several years older than they, and would be considered a proper chaperone in most circles.
Marian did try to talk her sister into waiting for their aunt to arrive. She pointed out that they might pass her en route and not even know it. But Amanda had insisted that Aunt Kathleen probably hadn’t even gotten Albert’s letter yet, so their waiting around in Galveston was just a waste of time. Of course Marian had known it was pointless to try to dissuade her sister. No one’s opinion mattered to Amanda except her own, and she was never wrong. That she was frequently not right was beside the point.
Several days later they found themselves stranded in a small town nowhere near their intended destination. A number of mishaps and unexpected incidents contributed to that sorry state, but in the end, the fault was still wholly Amanda’s. Did she accept the blame? Certainly not. In her mind, everyone else was at fault, never her.
While it was taken for granted in the East that the quickest way to travel was by train, that particular convenience hadn’t spread across Texas yet, which is why they had traveled there by ship instead. There was one railroad line in the south of Texas that ran from the coast northwest toward the middle of the state, and a few short branches off of that, but the line ended far short of their final destination. Although they had intended to ride the train to the end of its line, a group of thieves altered that plan.
Marian viewed the train robbery as something she’d tell her grandkids about, if she ever had any. Exciting after the fact, it had been terrifying while it was happening. The train had come to a screeching stop, and before anyone recovered from that, four men had burst into the passenger car shouting and waving their guns. They’d seemed nervous, but maybe that was normal under the circumstances.
Two of the men had passed down the aisle demanding that valuables be handed over, while the other two guarded the exits. Marian kept most of her traveling money locked away in her trunks, and carried only small amounts in her purse, so she didn’t hesitate to hand it over. Amanda, however, carried all of hers in her purse, so when it was yanked from her side, she screamed angrily and tried to retrieve it.
A shot was fired. Marian couldn’t honestly say if the man had missed his mark deliberately, or missed because of nervousness, but the bullet did fire over Amanda’s head—just barely. Her scalp probably felt the heat from it because her face was left streaked with gunpowder, it had happened at such close range. But since it briefly put Amanda in shock, which caused her to sit down and shut up, he didn’t shoot again and moved on down the aisle to finish his robbing.
The result of that robbery, aside from their depleted funds, was that Amanda flatly refused to travel any farther by train. Not that the train would have taken them much farther, but they disembarked at the next town and took a stage from there instead. The stage, of course, didn’t follow the same route as the train. It headed east, though it would resume a northwesterly direction after the next stop.
But it never reached its next stop. The driver, after being harangued by Amanda every few minutes about the bumpy ride, started drinking from a flask of liquor he kept under his seat, got thoroughly drunk, and got himself and his passengers thoroughly lost. For two days he tried without luck to find the ro
ad back to his scheduled route.
It was incredible that the coach didn’t break down, without a decent road to travel on. It was incredible, too, that the driver didn’t just take off without them, he was so furious with himself and Amanda, for driving him to drink. It was the scent of fried chicken that finally led them to a homestead where they got directions to the nearest town.
And that was where they were currently stranded, because the driver did abandon them at that point, and his coach as well, since he figured he was going to lose his job anyway. He simply unhitched one of the six horses and rode off on it without a single word. Actually, he’d said two words, mumbled them rather while Amanda was shouting at him for an explanation as he prepared to depart. She wouldn’t have heard him say, “good riddance,” but Marian did.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t just a small town he left them in, but a town that was barely populated. Of the fourteen original buildings, only three were still occupied and doing business. It was a case of misguided speculation. The founder of the town had thought the railroad would be passing that way and had hoped to make a small fortune when it did. But the railroad bypassed them, the founder moved on to speculate elsewhere, and the people who had set up businesses there slowly sold them or abandoned them.
The three buildings still open for business were the saloon, which doubled as a general store since the owner happened to be good friends with a supplier so still got a shipment of goods every so often, a bakery that managed to get some grain from a farmer in the area, and a boardinghouse that called itself a hotel and was run by the baker.
It wasn’t really surprising that of the few occupants, not one knew how to drive a stagecoach or was willing to try to figure it out. The stage was left parked where it had been abandoned, in front of the hotel. Someone had been kind enough to unhitch the rest of the horses from it, but since there was no food for them in the abandoned stable, they were set loose to feed in a field of overgrown grass behind the town—and wander off if they were so inclined.