Joe's Wife (2 page)

"That's generous of you, Mother Telford, but I can't impose on you."

"Nonsense. It's just Wilsie and I now, since Harley and Gwynn have their own home, and we ramble around in this big old house. Before long Wilsie will marry and leave me, too."

"Not unless some prospective husbands show up," Wilsie said with a petulant pout.

"I am afraid the war has left us short of eligible young men, my dear," Edwina sympathized. "In any case, Meg, the house has plenty of room, and it's high time you gave up your silly notion of staying out there on that patch of dirt in that rustic house and moved in with us."

"Mother's right," Harley said. "It's highly improper for you to be living out there with only a couple of ranch hands who should have been put out to pasture long ago. They can't keep up the work, and neither can you."

Meg drew a steadying breath and lifted her chin a notch. "I have Hunt and Aldo, too."

"They're boys," he scoffed.

"We've done all right so far."

"All right? Talk around town is you've had to sell Joe's guns and your silver to pay the help, make the mortgage payments and buy feed. What will you sell next?"

Meg resented the question because it was time to buy garden seed and another banknote was due, and she'd been pondering the dilemma herself for weeks. She'd learned how to run a business from her father; keeping the books and managing was no problem, but she couldn't handle the physical work alone.

Thirty years ago Gus and Purdy had traveled the
Chisholm Trail
. They knew cattle and they knew horses. They worked hard and were as loyal friends as she'd ever had. But they were old men. The banknotes came due regular as clockwork, and the stock had to eat. Since Joe'd been gone, she hadn't been able to cut and rake hay.

Meg pursed her lips and refused to get angry at Joe for leaving her in this predicament. It wasn't his fault that the war had broken out and he'd gone and lost his life honorably. It wasn't anybody's fault. And that's what made accepting her situation all the harder. She had no one to blame. No one to get angry at.

And no one who understood her desire to keep the ranch and hang on to something she knew and loved.

The ranch had been Joe's dream. It had become hers, too, and she wasn't about to let another dream die. She'd sell the furniture if she had to. She'd sell her bed and sleep on the floor. As a last resort she'd sell some stock. But she wouldn't sell their dream.

"I've started asking around at the bank and the land office, seeing if anyone's in the market to buy," Harley said. "
Niles
can get you a good price for the place."

Niles Kestler, junior owner of Aspen Loan and Trust, had been Joe's best friend since childhood.

"You can do your own dealings on the stock," Harley went on. "You'll get enough money to live on for a good many years."

Meg closed her eyes against the Telfords' manipulations. A good many years. Years of sleeping in the room upstairs, taking her meals with her widowed mother-in-law and passing the days doing needlepoint and volunteer work. The stifling idea horrified her. She'd feel like that Shetland was going to, cooped up in a confining stall.

Meg's widowed mother had remarried and moved to
Denver
several years ago, and her brothers and sisters were married and scattered from
Colorado
to
Illinois
. There wasn't a one of them she'd want to live with or impose upon.

The whole worry was so unfair. This wasn't supposed to be happening. She and Joe should have been stocking the Circle T by now, having children and seeing all their plans come to pass.

"Meg," Harley said. "You can't keep the ranch going with no man."

"Harley," Gwynn cautioned her husband gently.

His words were not a revelation. They were simply a fact Meg had been unwilling to face.

"Well, it's the truth," he said. "And a truth she'd better take to heart before she has nothing left to sell. A woman can't run a cow ranch alone."

Meg strengthened her resolve. Harley was only looking out for her interests. He thought he knew what was best for her. The life he had planned for her would have been best for Gwynn if he hadn't returned. It would have been best for a good many women.

But it wasn't for her, and she knew it. "I appreciate your concern, Harley. Yours too, Mother
Telford
. But I can't sell our ranch."

They exchanged a look she couldn't quite decipher. Out of breath and giggling, Forrest and Lilly scrambled onto the veranda. "Papa, come give us rides again! Watch us, Nana!"

Edwina turned her attention to her grandchildren.

The subject was not forgotten. Meg would hear about it each time they were together. Nothing short of a miracle would keep them from chipping away at her until she conceded. And she wasn't willing to do that.

But Harley was right. She thought about it as she drove her wagon and team home before dark. She couldn't keep the ranch going without a man.

Someone to shoulder the workload. Someone strong and capable and willing to put in the long hours and backbreaking work required. Someone she didn't have to pay.

Meg almost smiled at that one. Where would she ever get an able-bodied man willing to work without pay? She could barely keep Gus and Purdy and two young hands fed, and she paid them only a meager salary.

The man she was imagining sounded like a husband. A man to take on responsibilities and have a stake in the ranch's success.

A year hadn't passed since Joe's death. Since the war, many widows had already married again to provide for themselves and their children. Meg didn't have children, which she saw as a mixed blessing. It would have been comforting to have something of Joe left behind. But she wouldn't have wanted the added burden of raising and feeding them alone.

Ranch
was a glamorous word for ten thousand acres of grass, several holding pens and barns and the modest house she glimpsed as she topped a rise, but the sight gave her the same warm sense of accomplishment and belonging it always did.

Joe's mother had been chagrined over the fact that Joe had concentrated on the stock and the outbuildings before building an acceptable home.

But Joe'd convinced her that all they'd needed was a place to cook and sleep while they got the ranch on its feet. A more stately house was something they could build in the future. With affection, Meg studied the corrals, the barn and efficient house where she lived. She and Joe had spent their wedding night in the tiny bedroom. They'd eaten their first meals as man and wife in the long kitchen. They'd planned and dreamed as they walked the land, and lastly they had prayed beside the back door before he'd gone off to fight.

So much of Joe was in this ranch. They would have to drag Meg off this land. If finding another man was what it took to keep it, she'd do it. Nothing would stand in the way of her keeping the Circle T. Nothing.

Chapter Two

«
^
»

T
ye
woke to the weekday sounds of horses' hooves and clattering wagons on the street below his second-story window at Yetta Banks's boardinghouse. The dry scent of dust filtered through the open window of his rented room. In the distance the ring of the blacksmith's hammer punctuated the light tap at his door.

The knock came again, assuring him he'd actually heard it. He sat up in surprise. "Hold on."

He threw his legs over the side of the bed, immediately grimacing at the pain that shot through his thigh. Awkwardly stepping into his pants, he wondered who'd be calling. The only townspeople who spoke to him were the regulars at the Pair-A-Dice, whom he doubted would be up this early, Jed Wheeler himself, the Reverend Baker and Tye's landlady.

Pulling on a rumpled
Calcutta
shirt and leaving the laces loose, he ran a hand through his hair and squinted at his dark-whiskered cheeks in the mirror before opening the door.

A young boy stood in the hall, threadbare knees in his trousers, his cap askew. "Message for you, mister."

Tye stared at the envelope. "For me? You sure it's for Tye Hatcher?"

"Yes, sir." The boy thrust it forward with an important flourish.

Tye accepted the envelope with a frown. "Here, wait up."

He found a nickel on the stand beside his bed and flipped it to the boy, ignoring the fact that he'd regret it later.

"Thanks, mister."

Tye closed the door and tore open the envelope. Unfolding a piece of paper, he read the words scrawled in black ink.

Hatch, I need to see you. I'm at Rosa Casals's house.

Lottie

He had wondered if Lottie still lived in Aspen Grove. No one spoke of her, and since he hadn't seen her in the time he'd been there, he'd assumed—or hoped, for her sake—that she had found a husband and settled down.

Rosa Casals and Lottie Prescott had both been saloon girls at the Pair-A-Dice before the war. He and Lottie had enjoyed a satisfactory relationship, nothing serious, but something that took the edge off the loneliness.

Tye shaved and dressed in his good clean shirt. He needed a haircut, but he was saving every penny.

He'd discovered years ago that the custom of eating three times a day was merely a habit that could be modified, too.

Tye added his wide-brimmed hat to his ensemble. A morning exercise usually took the stiffness out of his leg, so he determinedly walked to the house on the edge of town where
Rosa
had grown up with an aging father.

Like most of the houses he'd seen on his travels home, the outside needed a coat of paint, a new fence and several boards replaced on the porch.

Tye rapped on the door and waited, hat in hand.

The door opened, and Rosa Casals smiled a familiar smile, one front tooth overlapping the other and giving her a girlish look, even though silver had appeared at her temples. "Hatch," she greeted him. "Come in."

He glanced at the street behind him. "You sure it's all right?"

She grabbed his wrist and pulled him forward.

"It's a little late to be concerned about my reputation," she said teasingly, taking his hat and hanging it on a rack in the hallway. She waved him into a neat parlor that smelled sharply of lemon wax and candles.

Tye met her round, brown-eyed gaze and smiled.
Rosa
had always been fun-loving and impetuous. Working in the saloons hadn't been conducive to finding a decent husband, however. "Are you still working somewhere?" he asked out of curiosity.

"Nah. Papa, the old coot, died three years back and left me enough to live comfortably. He was such a penny-pinching old miser. I never had a decent dress or a cent to spend on myself the whole time I was growing up. Then I find out the skinflint was hoarding it all those years."

Tye glanced around. "I had a note from Lottie."

Rosa
's face grew serious. "I know. I sent the boy for you."

"She's here?"

"Yes. She's been with me for a little over a year now. She wants to see you, Hatch."

"Okay."

"She's not well."

"What's wrong with her?"

"Consumption. Doc says he's done all he can."

And she wanted to see him? "Oh."

"Ever since we heard that you were back in Aspen Grove, she's been wanting you to visit. She has some good weeks and some bad weeks, and this is one of her better times, so we decided to send for you now."

Tye stood waiting, uncomfortable, but unwilling to turn aside a friend's request.

"Come with me," she said. "I'll take you to her room."

He followed her down a hallway where several candles flickered, though the day was bright, and he soon realized they were meant to dispel the cloying smell of the sickroom.

Rosa
swept into the room ahead of him. A frail, strawberry-haired woman rested against a bolster of pillows on a lofty four-poster bed. Tye had to step close before he recognized Lottie's warm brown eyes. Their luster was gone, as was the shine of her unruly hair. Her pale skin seemed paper-thin and drawn too tightly over her fragile bones and pallid face.

"Hatch. Come sit by me. Let me see you," she said, patting the spread. Only her voice was familiar.

She took his hand, and her skin felt powdery smooth against his palm, her fingers thin and bony. "God, you feel good. You look good. You look older. Not a bad look, mind you, just older."

He perched on the edge of the bed. "Yeah, well, it's been a while, Lottie."

"Yes." She looked deeply into his eyes. "We had some good times back then, didn't we?"

They'd kept each other company for a while, was all. But he wouldn't spoil her enhanced memories when she had so few and no time left to make more. So he nodded. "Yes."

"Where were you?" she asked. "During the war. I mean."

"I was with General Thomas."

She frowned as if she were trying to remember. "
Chattanooga
?"

He nodded. "And Chickamaugua. We held off Braxton Bragg's army."

"I knew you'd be one of the strong ones who came home."

"How did you know that?"

"I don't know. I just did. You're a survivor. Strong inside, where it counts."

Lottie'd always seemed strong, too. Full of life and energy and big plans for the future. The antithesis of the ghostly pale woman in this bed before him. Life sure took some unfair twists. "I thought you'd have found a man by now. Be living in the city in that big house you wanted."

"Yeah, well…" She gave him a sad-sweet smile. "I had hundreds of offers. Just that nobody ever measured up to you."

She was teasing him. Theirs had never been a passionate relationship. She'd had plans for a rich man and a house in the city. He'd wanted a patch of ground and some livestock to call his own. He gave her a warm smile.

"I'm not here for much longer," she said simply.

Tye didn't know how to reply.

"I need you to do something for me," she said tentatively.

"You know I will." He leaned forward, and she placed her palm on his chest as though touching him gave her strength. "I'll do anything you ask." Did she have last-minute debts to repay in order to go to her resting place in peace? Damn! He couldn't help her if she needed money. "What is it?" he asked.

"I have a child," she said, and tears welled in her eyes.

"You do? Where is he? Do you need me to go get him for you?" Perhaps she needed to say goodbye. "No. She's here. What I need you to do is…"

"What?"

"I need you to take care of her for me."

Tye stared at her. "I don't have much, Lottie. I can help, but—"

"Not money," she interrupted. "I mean take her. After I'm gone," she clarified, and blinked back the-moisture in her eyes. "Raise her."

Was she all right in the head? Had her sickness gone to her mind? Tye glanced behind him but
Rosa
had left them alone. Lottie was asking him to take responsibility for a small person! A kid he didn't even know. "I don't know the first thing about a kid. I'm sure she'd be better off with someone else."

"No!" she said firmly. "She wouldn't. Nobody else would have her, you know that. She'd end up in an orphanage or worse, and I can't die afraid of that happening to my Eve."

"What about
Rosa
?" He glanced over his shoulder again, as though he could conjure up some help.

"No. She's getting married. Emery Parks has a brother-in-law whose wife died, and
Rosa
is marrying him. He already has five children. He wouldn't take another one."

"Well…" Tye glanced about the room helplessly. "Surely there's
someone."

"That's what I've been believing all along. I've been praying that someone will want her before it's too late. Before she goes to an orphan asylum." She pierced him with a steady gaze. "She's a child born out of wedlock, Hatch. Folks consider her trash, just like they do me. She'll grow up just like me, too … unless somebody takes her. Unless you take her and give her a different life. And a name."

She knew exactly what she was saying to him, and exactly how he'd react. Tye's own father had been a rancher right here in
Colorado
. He hadn't married Tye's mother, and he hadn't claimed Tye as his son. More than anyone, Tye knew the stigma of being a bastard. And Lottie was using that against him.

"Nobody'd want my name, Lottie," he argued. "My name's no better than hers would be."

"At least it would be
somebody's
name," she said, her voice stronger than her appearance dictated. "It would show that somebody wanted her. That
you
wanted her. You're a good man. I know you'd take care of her, and you wouldn't let anything happen to her."

Her urgent pleas hung in the air like the unpleasant smell of sickness and the cloying scent of wax.

"You said you'd do anything for me," she said softly. Unfairly. And she knew it. But she was dying, and she had a child to look out for.

A trapped sensation made him want to bolt for the door. But he couldn't. He wouldn't. She had to have been desperate to have called on him.

"Go see her," she urged. "She's in the room next door to mine."

He stood slowly, releasing her hand. Her eyes held so much hope. So much fear. So much love for her child. With uncertainty bombarding his mind and a sense of human duty harping at his conscience, Tye walked out of the room to the next one like a man walking toward an uncertain fate.

He took a deep breath, his head not understanding why his feet were going ahead with this monstrous demand on the rest of his life. He didn't know the first thing about a kid. Sure, he wanted one or two someday, but not until he had a place to live and a wife to give him his own.

What if he didn't even like her? The door stood ajar, and he tapped his knuckles against the wood.

He didn't know what he was expecting. Certainly not the fragile, dark-haired angel who sat beneath the window holding a rag doll and looking for all the world like a porcelain doll herself. She raised wide eyes the shade of deep blue pansies and blinked.

Something in Tye's chest contracted painfully. She looked so small and helpless. "Eve?" he asked softly.

She nodded, and her
midnight
black ringlets bounced against shoulders he could span with one hand. "Are you Mr. Hatcher?"