Chapter 9
An hour later Caitlin thrust a spade into the hard, dry soil beside the front porch railing. Derry, eyes wide with anticipation, hopped and wiggled around her.
“Berry help! Berry help!” the child insisted.
For once Caitlin was glad for Derry’s constant chatter. The day had started badly and gotten worse. Justice’s deliberate breaking of grandmother’s plate, Derry’s episode with the bull, Shane’s injuries, and finally the frightening visit from the Thompsons had all been the stuff of nightmares. The child’s familiar enthusiasm was comforting, and it helped to calm Caitlin’s nerves.
“Berry dig!”
“Derry cannot dig,” Caitlin explained, driving the shovel into the earth again. She attempted to stamp on the top of the blade to tamp the spade deeper, but her boot slid off, and the corner of the metal sliced a hole in her stocking.
“Sweet—” She bit back an exclamation and tried to remain patient. “The ground is too hard,” she said to Derry. “You can help water the rose when it’s planted.” If it’s ever planted, she thought fervently.
“Yes, water! I help.” Derry drove both hands to the bottom of the bucket and splashed merrily, wetting the front of her smock and soaking her dimity pantalettes.
Caitlin had just bathed her and changed her out of the outfit she nearly ruined in the bull pen. It was plain that Derry’s things were too fine for farm clothing, but she had nothing else to put on the growing child and no cloth to sew sturdier garments. Everything Derry owned, Caitlin had made out of her mother’s old gowns and shifts.
An uneasy prickling sensation on the back of her neck caused Caitlin to look up and see an obviously disapproving Mary watching them from the open doorway.
How did she manage to creep around without making a sound? Caitlin wondered as she forced a polite smile. It was positively spooky!
“I’m planting the rose,” Caitlin mumbled. Immediately she felt foolish. Of course Mary must know what she was doing.
The Osage woman had been spying on her upstairs in her bedchamber when she’d lifted the dormant plant out of her big wooden trunk and carefully unwrapped it.
Mary had scowled and wrinkled her nose. “Dead,” she’d observed.
“The rose is not dead,” Caitlin had replied with more enthusiasm than she felt.
She hoped it wasn’t dead. The rose had been out of the soil a long time. Her mother’s garden at home had been a wonderland of white and pink and red blooms; maiden’s blush, musk, damask, and white Lady Banks roses had filled the air with sweet scents of beauty.
Now another woman walked in the garden and cut flowers for the house; at least, Caitlin hoped someone did. Some of the roses had been planted by Caitlin’s grandmother, others by her mother. Caitlin had been no older than Derry when she’d stood beside them and watched as they rooted cuttings to give to friends.
Caitlin had never thought of herself as a thief, but the roses belonged to her family. When Father lost the house, she and Maureen had quietly dug several smaller roses and tucked them in among the household belongings to be loaded in carts.
And the night she’d decided to come to America to join Shane, she’d done worse. She’d stolen into her mother’s garden and secretly taken cuttings of the apothecary rose—the red rose of Lancaster, the alba—the white rose of York, and her grandmother’s favorite, old blush.
The rose she was planting this afternoon was the white Lady Banks, a thornless climber. She didn’t know if she’d be at Kilronan long enough to see it bloom in the spring, but a small voice inside her demanded that she set down roots in this rocky soil. In any case, the white flowers would look beautiful against the weathered log house. If she left Missouri, the roses would give Shane something to remember her by.
“Water! Water!” Derry insisted.
Mary shrugged. “Water not make dead grow.”
“It isn’t dead,” Caitlin insisted. “And we can’t water it yet, sweet,” she said to Derry. “First we have to plant the rose.”
The soil resisted the shovel. She could dig only a small amount of earth and stones at a time. Ignoring Mary’s scowl, she whispered to the dormant rose. “Sink your roots deep.”
“McKenna say you plantee flower?”
Teeth gritted, Caitlin glanced up at Mary again. “Mr. McKenna is resting. I don’t need his permission. I’m his wife, and mistress here at Kilronan. Mr. McKenna said that the house was my domain. I can do what I like.” Except get rid of you.
“Diggee hole in yard.”
“The rose will climb against the porch,” Caitlin replied with more patience than she felt. “That makes it part of the household.”
The Indian woman grunted.
Justice came out on the porch and hunkered down on the top step. “Won’t grow,” he said. “Looks dead to me.”
“Not!” Derry declared. Splashing her hands in the bucket again, she sprinkled Justice with water.
Both children giggled.
Then Derry looked at Mary and defiantly put both hands on her hips. “Bad cow,” she said. “Chasey my duck.”
“Mary’s duck.” Mary tapped her unlit pipe against the open door.
Caitlin tried to avoid a confrontation by changing the subject. “Justice saved Derry’s life this morning. If he hadn’t thrown those stones . . .”
“Save-ed wife,” Derry echoed.
Caitlin corrected her unconsciously. “Life, not wife, sweety. He saved your life.”
The child nodded vigorously. “I wove her.”
Justice folded his arms over his chest. “I guess you could say I’m a hero.” Then he frowned. “He,” the boy corrected. “I’m a man. You don’t say her for a man. You’re s’posed to say him.”
Derry beamed and nodded. “I wove her.”
Justice’s face reddened under the copper tan. “She’s a baby. She don’t know no better.” He grinned at Derry, who promptly threw herself into his arms.
The two wrestled playfully across the porch, and Caitlin tried to hide her surprise. She’d never seen Justice behave like a child before.
But Mary, too, had seen what was happening, and it seemed to Caitlin that she was displeased.
“Justice,” Mary ordered. “Need kindling for cookee supper.” She turned and stalked into the house.
Justice untangled himself from the toddler’s embrace and ran off without grumbling.
“Berry help.”
“No,” Caitlin said. “I need you right here.” She wasn’t taking the chance of letting Derry out of sight again after what had happened this morning.
Derry stuck out her lip and shuffled her feet. The toe of one leather shoe was badly scuffed, and the other shoe was untied.
“I really need you,” Caitlin said. Her throat constricted with emotion as she realized how much she meant what she’d said. In spite of Shane’s reaction to Derry, in spite of all the mischief the child had caused on the journey from Ireland, Caitlin loved her with all her heart and soul. “I do need you,” she whispered.
Slowly the child came back and looked down into the hole. “Water?” she asked. Her left pigtail had lost its ribbon, and Derry’s cheek was smeared with mud, but her eyes sparkled with excitement.
My child, she thought. In a strange way, Shane was right; Derry was her daughter, and she couldn’t love her more if she’d given birth to her.
“Come here, you.” Caitlin hugged her tightly. “Yes, it’s time for water now. Let’s put the rose in first.”
Caitlin spread the roots, and together she and Derry crumbled dirt around the plant and tamped it down. Then Caitlin let Derry pour water carefully around the rose.
Her small brow wrinkled with concentration as she slowly completed the task. When the last drop fell, Derry beamed with self-importance. “Berry do—good. Berry no baby. Berry big!” She threw her muddy arms wide.
“Yes, Derry is a good, big girl. Now close your eyes and whisper a prayer,” Caitlin said. “My mama, your grandmother, always said a prayer when she planted a rose. It’s the secret for making it grow.”
Derry’s eyes widened even further, and she wiggled from head to toe. “Grow, rose!”
“Please, God,” Caitlin murmured under her breath, but she knew her prayer was for more than the white Lady Banks.
“More!” Derry cried. “Plant more.”
“Not today,” Caitlin said. “Tomorrow.” She had the cuttings, but she’d have to decide where would be the safest places to plant them. She’d made a start; she’d put down roots. Only the good Lord could know if they would thrive.
Shane woke to the sounds of Mary beating on the iron triangle she used for a dinner bell. His head was still aching, and the clanging added to his misery. Every bone in his body felt as though it were broken. With effort he managed to pull on his boots, find a relatively clean shirt, and run a comb through his hair.
He started for the door, then stopped and ran a hand over his chin. A quick glance into a cracked hand mirror showed him that he needed to finish Caity’s poor shaving job. Muttering under his breath, he propped up the mirror and looked around for his straight razor.
Mary struck the bar again, but Shane ignored her. Before Caity and the little colleen had come to Kilronan, he wouldn’t have given much thought to his appearance at the table. He’d never been a man who went without bathing regularly, and he tried to keep Justice decent. But it was natural for a bachelor house to be a little wild and woolly. After all the fancy dishes and manners at breakfast, he knew that the time of easy ways was over.
“I must have been temporarily insane to send to Ireland again for her,” he muttered.
Again.
Caitlin’s betrayals galled him like old saddle sores. Caity was headstrong and determined, traits she shared with Cerise. Looks and Cerise’s occupation aside, the two women were probably more alike than not.
Cerise had lied to him and suckered him out of every penny he could scrape together. She’d hooked him with barbs of steel and played him like a fish on a line. And in spite of what she was and how much her death had cost him, he still cared for her. And even stranger, he was certain that Cerise had loved him in her own way.
He’d been hot for Cerise. He’d wanted her so badly that he could overlook her being a whore, and her taste for strong liquor and loud music. And maybe having Cerise was striking back at Caity for the hurt she’d done him, he mused.
“McKenna!” Mary’s call echoed from the bottom of the steps.
“Comin’!” he shouted back.
He wondered what kind of war he’d walk into downstairs. Would the table be set with fancy china or tin plates? Which woman had cooked the dinner, and which would stick her nose up at the other’s meal?
Damn, but Mary and Caitlin hated the sight of each other. He knew Mary hadn’t given Caity much of a chance. And with Mary being Osage, there was no way that he could expect the two to see eye to eye. Facing down Big Earl and his guns had been easier than sitting in his own kitchen for breakfast.
Giving his cheek a last scrape, he put down the razor and dabbed at the bloody spots with his shirttail. There was still a patch of uneven beard around the scrape on his face, but that would have to wait.
Shane took the steps gingerly, one hand on the wall, and tried to put his boots down lightly, as though he were walking on eggs. His ribs were killing him, and he was damned glad that Big Earl had saved him from tanglin’ with Beau.
He wondered if Earl was telling the truth about losing cattle. If he was, then they’d both have to look elsewhere for whoever was doing the raiding.
Shane smelled Mary’s rabbit stew before he rounded the corner; strong coffee, stew, and Indian fry bread were Mary’s staples. He hoped that she hadn’t scorched the bottom of the kettle again. Her last rabbit stew had been so bad that even Justice wouldn’t eat it.
“Shane.” Caitlin smiled at him. “We’ve been waiting grace for you.”
He slid onto the bench beside Gabriel. The table was set with fancy stuff, Caity’s silver forks and spoons alongside his nicked and bent eating knives with the bone handles.
He noticed two things out of place. Mary’s greasy fry bread spilled out of a blue-and-white bowl onto the white linen tablecloth, and Justice’s seat was empty.
“Where’s the boy?” he asked.
Caity caught her lower lip between her teeth. It was an old habit, something he remembered her doing whenever she was uncertain. “I asked him to wash his face and hands for supper,” she replied. “He said he wasn’t hungry.”
“Grace!” Derry cried. “I do!”
“Just a minute,” Shane said. He went to the kitchen door that led outside and shouted for Justice. On the second try, the boy appeared.
“Wash up for supper,” Shane ordered.
“Ain’t hungry.”
“Didn’t ask if you wanted to eat. Put some water and soap to those hands or I’ll do it for you.”
Caity flashed him a look of real gratitude when he and Justice joined them at the table. Derry lisped her prayer, and they all began to eat, all but the boy, who stared at his empty plate in sullen silence.
“I plant rose,” the child boasted.
“Did you, now?” Shane grinned at her.
“A white Lady Banks,” Caity said. “You remember, the ones that grew on the west garden wall at home.”
Shane reached for the fry bread. “I knew your mother had a lot of roses. But if you recall, I wasn’t too welcome in your mother’s garden.” He grimaced. “Or anywhere on the estate, as I remember.”
“Only because the gamekeeper suspected you of poaching,” Caity replied.
“Potato!” Derry cried, clapping her hands. “ ’Kenna a potato!”
“Not potato, darling,” Caity corrected. “Poacher.”
Shane’s mouth was full of stew, so he didn’t attempt a defense. In fact, he had been poaching hares. Once he’d even killed a deer. That meat had kept his family fed for weeks, but it could have gotten them all hanged or transported if they’d gotten caught.
The stew was too oniony and it needed seasoning, but he added salt and pepper without complaining. Mary Red Jacket had her own ways of dealing with criticisms of her cooking.
Caity took another small bite, chewed slowly, and swallowed. If she thought the rabbit stew was tasteless, she was good at hiding her opinion, Shane decided.
“I’ve brought more cuttings,” she said.
He looked up. “What?”
“Cuttings. Rose cuttings. I’d like to start a small garden behind the house.”
Mary grunted. “Got garden. Onions. Turnips. Squash. Rabbits.”
“I saw your vegetable garden,” Caity answered diplomatically. “It’s very nice, but I’d like a flower garden.” She looked at Shane expectantly.
“Sure,” he said. “Whatever you want.” He noticed that she’d changed her dress for something blue, sort of robin’s-egg blue, with ribbons down the front and a lacy thing around her neck. The color reminded him of the sky over Rocky Ridge on a clear winter day. It suited her, but it looked kind of out of place for a horse spread.
He broke off a hunk of fry bread and started to mop up his stew with it. Then Shane noticed Derry staring at him, tiny mouth wide in surprise. Hastily he dropped the bread onto his plate and finished the remainder of his rabbit gravy with his fork.
Mary got up, went to the hearth, returned with the coffeepot, and set it down heavily on the table. Justice eyed the fry bread. Only Gabe seemed to be at ease eating off the elegant dishes with a sterling fork.
Shane took a sip of the hot brew. “Caity, I asked you to stay inside today when Thompson showed up at our doorstep.”
Justice’s eyes widened with delight. Mary looked down at the piece of bread she was spreading honey on. Gabe continued ladling another helping of stew onto his plate.
Caity’s gaze met his. “You told me to.”
Shane covered Caity’s hand with his own. It was warm and soft, and touching her gave him a good feeling in the pit of his stomach. “I told you to stay inside because I knew there might be trouble.”
She nodded. “You can’t protect me from everything, Shane. If I’m going to live at Kilronan, I have to decide what’s dangerous and what’s not.”
She was right, and he knew she was right. He wanted her to be tough enough and smart enough to survive. He wanted their marriage to work, and he wanted to find what they’d lost somewhere between Kilronan and Ireland.
But Caity was an innocent greenhorn out here. She hadn’t lived through Indian attacks or floods or cholera. And if she wouldn’t listen to him . . . he could lose her like he’d lost Justice’s mother.
“Damn it, woman,” he said softly. “You’ve got nerve, but you’ve got to do what I say when I say it.”
“Because you are my husband?”
Shane felt an uneasy heat creep up his throat. He glanced at Gabe to see if the Indian was amused by this. He hadn’t meant to get into a discussion in front of them all, but now that he’d stepped in trouble, he reckoned he’d have to scrape it off as best he could.
He tried reason. “Because I’m the boss on Kilronan. And I’m the head of this family.”
“Oh.” Caity smiled as though he’d given her a compliment instead of a talking-to.
Clearing his throat, he pushed back from the table and fixed Caitlin with a stern look. “That’s the way it has to be.”
She smiled at him again, a smile that would melt ice. “There’s an old saying in County Clare. Do you remember? The husband is the head of the house, but the wife is the heart.”
He stood up. This wasn’t going the way he’d thought it would. She seemed to be agreeing with him, but she really wasn’t.
Shane switched barrels and tried praise. “What you said to Big Earl was smart. You kept him from startin’ a fight. You were right, and I was wrong.”
“Yes,” she said. “I was, wasn’t I?”
Gabe made a sound that might have been a chuckle.
Shane’s patience ran out. “It could as easily have turned out the other way, Caity. There might have been shootin’, and you would have been in the middle of it.”
“Justice was beside you, Shane. He’s ten years old. Why is it all right for a child to stand in the middle of a fight and not a grown woman?”
“Justice is a man. At least, he will be a man.” Shane could barely contain his temper. He shot the boy a look and was rewarded by a fleeting grin.
“Berry a man, too!” Derry chimed in.
“You are not,” Caitlin corrected. “You are a young lady. And one who’s up past her bedtime.”
Swiftly Caitlin rose and lifted Derry out of her seat. “If you will excuse us, I—”
“I’m not done,” Shane said sharply.
“No, I suppose you’re not, but do feel free to finish your supper.”
Shane followed her from the room. “You know I wasn’t talkin’ about the food.”
“Oh, you weren’t?”
“I’ll carry her upstairs for you,” he said. “We’ll put her to bed together, and then we can finish our talk.”
Caity surrendered the child.
Derry threw her arms around his neck and planted a damp kiss on his cheek. “I wove you,” she proclaimed.
Upstairs, he waited as Caity washed the child’s hands and face and put her into nightclothes.
“Story! Story!” Derry urged.
“We always have a story,” Caity answered. “A story and prayers.”
“Not Mama. ’Kenna. ’Kenna read a story.”
“Your . . . your aunt will read to you,” Shane said.
“It’s all right. I’ve given up,” Caity put in. “She can call me Mama if she wants to.”
“ ’Kenna read!” Derry insisted.
“McKenna can’t read the d—” He caught himself. “I can’t read, child. Never learned how. She’ll give you your story.” Shamed, he retreated into the hall.
When the routine was complete and Derry was tucked into bed, Shane led Caitlin downstairs and out onto the front porch. He was very much aware of the scent of heather in her hair and the graceful way she moved, but he wasn’t about to let her win this contest. She needed to know how things had to be on Kilronan.
Not that he wanted to argue with her. He’d have much rather pulled her into his arms and held her against him, just to feel a woman’s softness again. But if he didn’t have his say, he knew he’d regret it.
“You were wrong to disobey me and go out to meet the Thompsons,” he said. “But I was wrong to bring it up at supper in front of Gabe and Mary.”
Caity leaned against the railing and looked up at the night sky. “There must be a million stars up there. They seem so close . . . so bright. Is it possible that they’re the same stars we watched at home?”
“This is home for me,” he reminded her. “But I didn’t bring you out here to talk about the stars.”
She turned to face him, sending a wave of heather fragrance wafting over him. Desire flared in his loins.
“Maybe you should have.”
She was close . . . so close. He knew that if he reached for her, she wouldn’t pull away. But he also knew his own weaknesses, and he was determined not to let her rule him because of it.
“What you did today was dangerous,” he said.
“But it turned out all right.” Her voice softened. “How’s your head? Your ribs?”
“I’ll live.”
“I hope so.”
Her voice was a breath of Ireland. Listening to it made him want to smile. Lord in heaven! How many nights had he gone to sleep with a hollow feeling in his chest from missing her?
Now she was finally here. She was in reach, and he didn’t know if he could keep her beside him . . . or if he even wanted to.
For the space of a heartbeat, he wished he could turn the clock back. When he’d taken her for his wife, he’d felt like the richest man in the world. And for a few short hours, they’d been together as man and woman.
But that was in Ireland, where he was nothing—worse than nothing. Not fit to take Caity’s hand to help her into a carriage, let alone think of marrying her.
If he shoved time back, he’d be that clumsy boy with the thin-soled shoes and the thick accent again. He’d be at the beck and call of any man with a coin in his pocket, and he’d be a husband without a hope of owning an acre of land or of making a decent living for his wife and family.
Here, in Missouri, he’d proved himself. He had Kilronan, and he knew he was the equal of a man like Earl Thompson or any other.
“I don’t give you orders because I want to control you, Caity,” he said. “It’s my duty to keep you safe.”
“You would have fought Thompson today, wouldn’t you?”
“If I had to,” he admitted. “You don’t go up against a man like Big Earl halfway. But I couldn’t let him take what was mine.”
“Wouldn’t it have been better to pay him the fee for his stallion?”
“And admit I was a cheat when I wasn’t?”
“What will you do with the filly now? You can’t keep her star dyed with lampblack forever.”
That had been worrying him, too. “I’ll think of something.”
“Maybe it would be better to try to find a way to make peace with your neighbor than to keep up an old feud.”
“His feud, not mine.”
She sighed. “Earl Thompson seems a hard man, but I don’t think he’s the type to commit murder.”
“He’s not sneaky. He’d shoot me if he thought he had to, but not in the back.”
“Then maybe if the two of you worked together, you could find the—”
“Damn it, Caity. Stop tryin’ to change things you know nothin’ about. Can’t you just accept me and Kilronan the way we are? Accept Justice and Mary?”
“Why should she?” Justice demanded.
Shane turned to see the boy standing in the shadows. He’s good, Shane thought, as good as Gabe. He’d never heard a sound.
“You’ve no business here listening to private conversations,” he said to Justice. “And I told you before, you’re to show respect to your new mother.”
“She’s not my mother!”
“No,” Caitlin agreed. “Not your mother, but someone who wants to be your friend.”
“Why should you?”
“Justice,” Shane admonished. “I think you’ve said enough.”
“Be my friend?” the boy taunted. “Be nice to the dirty little Indian half-breed? The whore’s son?”
“Damn it, Justice!” Shane said. “Shut your—”
“Don’t say such things about your mother, child,” Caitlin cried. “You don’t mean—”
The boy swore a foul oath. “Don’t mean it? Course I mean it. Ask anybody. They’ll tell you. My mother was nothin’ but a cheap, whiskey-drinkin’ whore.”
“Is it true, Shane?” Caitlin whispered huskily. “Was she . . .”
“McKenna’s whore?” Justice mocked her. “Sure she was. The most expensive gal at Fat Rose’s. And if she weren’t dead, he’d still be with her. Not you! Not ever you.”
“Caity,” Shane said, reaching for her.
But she dodged past him and ran back into the house, and the sound of her weeping cut him deeper than the dull ache of his broken ribs.