Chapter 1
City of Jefferson, Missouri
June 1847
“Caitlin McKenna!”
With an immense feeling of relief, Caitlin turned to look at the man shouting her name in a slurred, American accent. Her heart sank at the sight of the hard-eyed westerner astride a buckskin horse.
“I’m Caitlin McKenna,” she answered.
She’d been waiting for Shane at this landing since the steamboat had docked in late afternoon. Now all the passengers had departed and velvety dusk cloaked the river and settled over the town.
The cowboy swung down from his worn saddle in one fluid motion. “Caity?”
Confused, she stared at him. Had he called her Caity? Her heart thudded. Was it possible that this stranger with his face half hidden under a dark beard could be her Shane?
No, she must be mistaken. The man striding toward her was too tall, too wide at the shoulders. He swept off a broad-brimmed hat, and even in the fading twilight Caitlin could see that his hair was dark brown, not the color of wheat ripening in a County Clare meadow. Her Shane was freckle-faced, fair, and smiling. She wanted to ask this man if Shane had sent him, but apprehension and deep uncertainty made her mute.
The cowboy stopped abruptly, frowning as he brushed a thick lock of hair away from his face. Even standing still, he gave the impression that his muscles were coiled, ready to spring into action.
Dangerous . . . He was dangerous. Instinctively, she sensed the potential for violence beneath that tautly stretched deerskin vest and those tight trousers tucked into high black boots.
He tugged off worn leather gloves and jammed them into his belt. Blue-gray, hauntingly familiar eyes reflected the last of the light as they gazed into hers. “Don’t you know me, Caity?”
The wind kicked up a swirling cloud of dust. Caitlin stared at him. This rough stranger’s eyes were almost Shane’s, but the voice—the voice was not right. There was no lilt of Ireland in this man’s speech. Something was wrong. He was wrong. All wrong.
The captain of the riverboat had warned her of desperadoes on the Missouri frontier. This ruffian could certainly be one. A scarred rifle butt protruded from a sheath on his saddle, and he wore a huge knife strapped to his beaded Indian belt.
Was it possible that she wouldn’t know her own husband?
His eyes were definitely paler than Shane’s, and his lean features were as weathered as Connemara limestone. His nose showed the mark of being broken and healed, and the bronze skin and craggy cheekbones made him look more savage native than the sweet lad she’d wed so long ago.
This scoundrel towered over her. Her Shane had lacked three inches of this man’s height, and surely, her Shane had never possessed such fierce eyes.
Then the cowboy laughed, and there was no doubt in her mind that this was her husband.
“Mother of God, girl, I know it’s been seven years, but I can’t have changed that much!”
He moved toward her, but she stepped back out of his reach as the earth seemed to sway beneath her feet. “Eight, if you’re counting,” she corrected him. “Eight years now since we’ve laid eyes on each other.” She took a deep breath and tried to regain her composure. “You . . . you look bigger.”
He chuckled, a warm, husky sound. “I’ve put on inches and pounds, it’s true.”
“Your hair . . .”
“It’s darkened. I was but nineteen when we parted.”
“Aye. You were. And I was younger.” She knew she should greet him properly—say how glad she was to see him—but the words lodged in her throat.
“You’re as pretty as ever, Caity, but you took your sweet time in getting here.” There was a hint of resentment in his deep voice.
“I came as soon as you sent for me,” she reminded him.
His mouth tightened into a thin slash. She noticed a faded scar that sliced one cheekbone and vanished into his full beard. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said in that slow, almost lazy drawl that sent shivers racing up her spine. “It’s time we set this marriage straight.”
She nodded. “So I thought. I want—” She broke off at the sound of a childish whimper. Quickly, she moved to her heaped baggage and lifted a black-haired toddler from her makeshift cradle between the trunks.
“Shhh, Derry, ’tis all right,” Caitlin murmured as she smoothed the little girl’s damp curls. “It’s your Uncle Shane come to meet us.” Derry stared wide-eyed at him, then shyly burrowed her face into Caitlin’s neck.
His eyes narrowed. “You didn’t come alone.”
“No, I didn’t.” Caitlin tried to ignore the bite of frost in his tone. “This is Maureen’s babe, Derry. You remember my sister Maureen? Things at home are so bad . . . so very bad.”
His expression hardened. “Your sister’s babe,” he said disbelievingly.
A wave of indignation swept over her. Hadn’t he heard of the thousands wandering the roads of Ireland in search of food? Was he ignorant of the hundreds dying of starvation and the pestilence born of it?
She stiffened. “Derry is family. Maureen asked me to bring her to America, and I couldn’t—”
“Your niece or your child?”
Derry began to whimper as she clutched tightly at Caitlin’s neck. “Mama . . . Mama.”
Caitlin felt her cheeks go hot. By all that was holy! Shane was accusing her of adultery! Disbelief flared into white-hot anger. “Derry is Maureen’s firstborn child,” she said in short, clipped syllables. “Conceived in marriage and christened at Saint Anne’s.”
“Damn it, woman!” he swore softly. “Do you take me for a fool? I’ve been no saint myself, but we’ll have not a tinker’s damn of a chance to make this marriage work if you can’t be honest with me.”
“Despite what I just said, you believe that Derry’s mine?”
In all the years since Shane had left County Clare, Caitlin had guarded her absent husband’s honor by never once being alone with a man other than her own father. She’d ignored the pleas of friends and family to obtain an annulment or to attempt to have Shane declared legally dead. His accusation was so unfair and so insulting that it took every ounce of her will to keep from slapping his face.
“She has the look of a Shaughnessy about her,” Shane said.
“And so she should!” Caitlin flung back. “Her father was Thomas Shaughnessy, God rest his soul.”
“Thomas, the middle son.”
“I am her aunt,” Caitlin insisted.
He shrugged. “Out of the mouths of babes . . .”
“Use your head, man. She’s not seen her own mother in five months. I keep reminding her that I am Aunty Cait, but she’s that set in her ways. She knows no better than to call me Mama.”
He scowled. “As I’ve said, it’s not the sinning that I mind, but the lying to cover it. You’re flesh and blood as I am.”
“I’m no liar.” The peril of her situation made her knees weak. She wanted to turn her back on Shane, but she didn’t dare, as she hadn’t a shilling to her name.
She had sold most of her good jewelry to pay for Derry’s passage. The remainder had gone piece by piece for necessities until she had only the earrings she was wearing. If she and Derry were stranded here in the City of Jefferson, she supposed that she could trade her ear bobs for a few meals or a night’s lodging. But what would happen to them then?
She wasn’t afraid of hard work, but what if there were no jobs here for women? And what if no one would hire her because she was a foreigner? It hadn’t taken her long to realize that penniless Irish were unwelcome in America. Alone, without friends or family, she feared that if she didn’t stay with her husband she’d not be able to care for Derry.
“You refuse to be honest with me?”
“I am being honest.” Tears welled up and she dashed them away with the back of her hand. “Since you cannot trust me, then perhaps this marriage is best ended here and now.”
“Stubborn. As mule-stubborn as I remember you.” He nodded. “We’ll leave it like that, then.” Looking back over his shoulder, he shouted, “Justice!”
Gravel sprayed when a spotted pony galloped up, and the rider reined the animal in sharply. Derry screamed and Caitlin leaped back out of the way as the pinto reared, ears flat against his black head and his white-rimmed eyes rolling.
“Justice!” Shane snapped.
The rider, a sullen-faced boy of nine or ten, glared at her as he effortlessly brought the spirited animal under control, then slid down to stand defiantly beside Shane.
“Where are your manners?” Shane admonished, glaring at the boy. He dropped a big hand onto the child’s shoulder and looked back at her. “This is Justice McKenna. My son.”
Caitlin looked at the lad in astonishment. His black hair hung loose around his shoulders, as shaggy and unkempt as the pony’s mane. The boy’s skin was olive, his features broad. She could see nothing of Shane in him. “Your son?” she repeated. Unconsciously, she began counting in her head. Surely Shane hadn’t been in America long enough to have a child this old.
“My adopted son.” Shane gave her a look that dared her to argue with him. “Justice, this is my wife. She’ll be your new mother.”
“My mother’s dead.”
Beneath the angry resentment, Caitlin heard an unspoken loneliness. It was unfair of Shane to doubt her word about Derry and then surprise her with the lad, but it was hardly the child’s fault. “I’m pleased to meet you, Justice.”
He merely stared at her.
“My own mother died last year, and I know how much I miss her,” she said. “No one can take a mother’s place, but perhaps we could be friends. I’m a stranger to Missouri. I’ll need a friend here.”
The boy shrugged. “You ain’t stayin’ long.”
“I’ll tolerate no disrespect, boy,” Shane said. “Best you keep that in mind.”
“You said so to Mary. I heard you say it. You said she was blooded stock, too ladylike to make it out here.”
“Whether I did or not makes no difference. It’s rude to repeat what someone says.” He motioned to the pinto. “Get back in the saddle.”
Justice threw Caitlin a satisfied look as he obeyed Shane’s command. “You said she wouldn’t stay,” the boy repeated. “I don’t know why you wanted her to come over the water. We was doin’ fine on our own.”
“That’s enough,” Shane snapped. “Fetch the wagon.”
Justice vaulted onto the pony’s back and dug his heels into the animal’s sides. In seconds, pinto and boy vanished into the night in a cloud of dust.
“He’s not as tough as he seems. His mother let him run wild.”
“Obviously.” Caitlin wasn’t sure which of these males annoyed her more. The thought that her husband had told someone that he didn’t think she could make it here on the frontier was infuriating. “How old is he?”
“Justice? Ten.”
“May I ask who his parents were?”
“His mother was a good friend of mine. When she died, there was no one else to take him.”
“You expect me to accept him without question, yet you don’t want Derry?”
“I never said that. Her being here isn’t the problem.”
“Nothing I can say about Derry will convince you, will it?”
Shane shook his head. “Nope. Like I said, I’ve been no saint. I’d rather you were honest with me, but if you can’t, I reckon I can understand why. I took the coward’s way myself when I didn’t warn you about Justice. I figured there wasn’t a chance of a newborn calf in a blizzard of you coming if you knew about him.”
“You really think an orphan child would keep me from my husband’s side?” Her anger receded, leaving her with a sense of loss. For years she’d held on to a romantic dream about their marriage. In time, that hope had faded, but Shane’s letter had made her think they might recover what they’d had. “Don’t you know me better than that?”
“Best we put all the cards on the table. Justice is part Indian. No white woman I know would want him in her house. If you take me, you take the mothering of him as well—real mothering—not just cooking and sewing for him.”
She exhaled slowly. “So you sent for me because you needed someone to care for Justice?”
“That’s part of it.”
“The rest?”
A muscle twitched along his hard jawline. “I’m not a religious man, Caity. I haven’t made confession in years, but we took our wedding vows in front of a priest. I reckon we’re married good and final.” His gaze met hers expectantly.
She waited.
“It’s a good life out here. Hard, but satisfying. It’s time I had a wife again. Maybe more kids. I’m willing to try to make this marriage work if you are.”
No words of love. No regrets for leaving her alone so long. Caitlin let the hurt wash through her. There were no tears left. “And . . . and if I don’t accept your terms?”
He crushed the brim of his hat in his big hand. “I’d take you to Saint Louis. I’ve friends there who would make you welcome until you decided—”
“No need.”
“No need of what?”
“You’re right, Shane. We are husband and wife. It’s best we try to make this marriage a real one.”
“You understand about the boy? He’s got strong Osage blood. He’s what folks out here call a half-breed.”
“The devil take them!”
“I warn you, Justice is not easy to handle. He’s wild as a woods buffalo and mourning his mother fierce. He barely speaks, even to me.”
“Poor lad.” The thought of having such a troubled boy as part of her family was daunting, but children had ever been her weakness. Hadn’t she brought her father to ruin by trying to fill the belly of every wee one that came begging to their gate?
“This isn’t Ireland,” Shane said. “Indians are feared and hated. A lot of doors will be closed to you and yours if you claim him.”
“ ’Tis not the color of the child’s skin that troubles me,” she replied. It was he, Shane McKenna, she thought fervently. She supposed him to be a stranger when she first laid eyes on him, and it was true. He was no more the man she had married than she was the Countess of Wexford. Did he think her heart had shriveled so small that she could not love Justice because of his swarthy hue?
“He’s had a hard life, and he’s rough in his ways.”
“And you?” she demanded. “Are you not rough in your ways?”
“I am, but I hold six hundred acres of good Missouri land because of it. The weak don’t last out here, Caity. Are you strong enough to survive?”
A hot reply rose to her tongue as she thought of what she’d witnessed in County Clare: of losing the house and Papa and Mama dying, of the endless wailing of starving children and the hopelessness in women’s eyes. She wanted to tell him what strong was, but she held her peace. There would be time enough for that. “God willing,” she answered softly.
“Then we’d best get your baggage. Which trunk is yours?” he asked, pointing to the heaped portmanteaus and cases.
“All of them.”
“Sweet Joseph!” he bellowed. “How am I supposed to carry all this home to Kilronan?”
“I carried them all the way from Ireland.” Six hundred acres. So much land. And Shane said it was his, without a mention of his uncle or his cousin George. She wanted to ask him about his farm, but not if he was going to be troublesome about her belongings.
She noticed that Derry had fallen asleep, and she shifted the little girl’s weight to her shoulder. The darling was growing heavier every day on rich American food, but Caitlin didn’t mind carrying her. The scent of Derry was baby-sweet and precious. She could put up with a lot if it meant that Derry would be safe and cared for. She supposed she could even learn to deal with Shane McKenna and his son.
“I brought a wagon to carry you,” Shane grumbled. “I’d have brought a mule train if I’d guessed you’d bring half of Ireland with you.”
In Caitlin’s experience with men it was easiest to let them have their grouching out before trying to reason with them. She waited until he paused for breath and then asked him the first question that popped into her head. “Your Uncle Jamie and Cousin George. Will they mind having Derry about?”
Shane had crossed the sea to work on his uncle’s farm. His uncle and cousin were originally from Cashel, but they’d emigrated when Shane was a child. She’d never met either of them.
“They won’t mind the babe,” Shane answered gruffly.
“You’re certain?”
He jammed his hat back on his. “They drowned in a flash-flood two years back. Kilronan is mine, Caity. Stay with me and be the wife I need, and in time, I’ll add your name to the deed.”
“When I’ve proved myself.”
“Yes, if you put it like that.”
“ ’Tis hard to find another way to put it, isn’t it?”
He lifted the weight of one portmanteau and groaned. “What did you bring, you greedy wench? All the stones of County Clare?”
“And if I did?”
“I can’t offer you what your father provided. My house is—”
“I’m not a spoiled child. I don’t expect a manor house. I can do my share.”
“Can you? Can you skin and gut a deer? Spin flax? Milk a cow? Put up dried fish for the winter?”
“No, but I’m willing to learn.”
“Are you? Then why didn’t you come before?” he demanded.
“Before? How before? I’ve not known where you were since the day after our wedding.”
Shane bent and swung a trunk up onto his shoulder, a trunk Caitlin noted that it had taken two sweating deckhands to carry off the steamboat. “I wrote for you to join me, Caity. Eighteen months to the day after I arrived in America, I sent you every penny I’d earned for the passage.”
He turned his head to look at her. It was too dark to see his eyes any longer, but she could feel the resentment flowing out of them. “You betrayed me, Caitlin. You took my money and never answered a single letter.”
“You’re wrong.” She shook her head. “I never heard a word from you before last fall.”
“Strange that you never got my money or my letters.” His voice was thick with sarcasm as he steadied the weight of the blue wooden trunk. “But the first time I write to Father Joseph, both letter and tickets to Missouri arrive safely.”
“I didn’t get any correspondence from you,” she protested. Was he lying to cover his own shortcomings? He sounded so bitter. “Perhaps the mail was lost?”
“One letter might be lost, even two. I sent five. From you I got silence. I thought you might be dead until I met Hugh O’Connor. Remember Hugh? His father used to keep the pub in Ennis. I ran into Hugh in Fort Independence, where I sell my livestock to the settlers heading west to Oregon Country. Hugh told me he’d seen you on the street in Lisdoonvarna, very much alive.”
She stepped close and laid her hand on his arm. His muscles were hard and sinewy. “I would have come if I’d gotten your letters. You have to believe me.”
“You ask a lot of believing of a man who has little left,” he said harshly. “We’ll try, woman, because I think it’s the right thing to do. But I doubt you have the stuff in you to stick.”
“If you believe that, why did you bother to send for me?”
“Because you’re my wife, and I thought it was the right thing to do.”
“And you always do what’s right?”
“I try.” He motioned to her to stay where she was. “Justice will be back with the wagon in a minute. We’ll take what we can in this trip and store the rest at Fat Rose’s.”
“I haven’t eaten since noon. Neither has Derry. Perhaps the hotel serves—”
Shane uttered a sound of derision. “Hotel? We’ll waste no money on a hotel. We’ll eat when we make camp on the trail. I’ve Indian fry bread, cold meat, and some cheese in the saddlebags.”
“How far is your farm?”
“Kilronan is a good day’s travel from here. And it’s not a farm. I raise stock, not crops.”
She ignored the disapproval in his voice. She was bone weary and wanted nothing more than to sink between the sheets of a clean feather bed. “Surely,” she suggested, “it would be better to stay in town tonight and—”
“Yes or no, Caitlin. I’m giving you a second chance. Come with me now or stay here. What will it be?”
“We’ll come,” she answered softly. “But you may be sure that we’ll have negotiations on your terms.”