Texas Rose

chapter 20

"He bolted like a wild stallion with the paddock gate left open," Evie complained the next day. She wasn't entirely certain her audience was sympathetic, but she needed an understanding ear.

Since Daniel had been there when she had discovered the children's musical talent and used it to keep them occupied instead of worrying about their mother, he didn't need to ask why Evie had greeted Tyler with a chorus of children. Ben looked at her as if she were crazed.

He scratched his black head and shook it with amazement. "You ain't got a clue, do you? That man's dead-set against having any ties at all, and you give him a room full of them all at once. I'll be lucky to find any trace of him at all after that. Sorry, Miss Evie, but you plumb picked the wrong man when you picked Tyler. He didn't used to be that way, but the war kicked it all out of him."

"I didn't pick the blasted man; he picked me." Indignantly, Evie kicked a chair leg. "He could fall off the face of the earth for all I care. I just wanted to know if he was demented or something."

"Or something might cover it," Ben agreed grimly.

"Fine, then. The children and I are going over to clean their house. Unless one of their relatives shows up soon, I'll be over there for a while. Carmen can't look after them all the time." Evie threw open the door and walked out without the usual rustle of silk. She was wearing the same dress she had worn the day before.

Ben raised his eyebrows at Daniel in unspoken question.

Daniel shrugged uncomfortably. "You never can tell with Evie. She lives in a world of her own most of the time. I wish I could get out of this bed. She needs someone with her."

"They ain't much interested in breaking mustangs when the branding is going on. I think I'll hang around awhile. Looks to me like the man at the livery could use a little help." Ben ignored the relief in the boy's eyes, put his hat on, and wandered out.

Following Ben's direction, Kyle Harding appeared at the Rodriguez house behind the livery about midday. His eyes widened as he watched a boy with a fresh snakeskin wrapped about his middle climb up on a stack of crates and sweep the uncovered rafters with a long-handled broom. He continued to stare at a young girl using a shovel to heave the mud's debris out the open back door while carrying a dark-haired toddler on her hip. But mostly his gaze followed the schoolteacher he had last seen in satins and lace and who now wore a sadly bedraggled gray gown hitched up between her legs to expose her mud-covered stockings as she scoured an iron stove on her knees.

A younger boy came barreling through the doorway, practically colliding with the back of Kyle's knees, before sliding across the wet floor with a whoop as he dropped a pitiful, yowling cat at the schoolteacher's feet. The woman Kyle knew as Mrs. Peyton looked at the poor creature and immediately began to towel it off with her makeshift apron.

It was only then that she noticed Kyle. She gave him a surprised glance and continued toweling the complaining cat. "Good afternoon, Mr. Harding. Are you looking for someone?"

"You, as a matter of fact. I had to come in for supplies, and Jace told me to look in on you, said you had a handful after the flood. He thought maybe I ought to offer to bring you out to the ranch for a while, until things are cleaned up better here. The branding is keeping us all pretty busy, but there's more than enough room at the house."

Evie wanted to ask if Tyler were there and what he had to say about that, but she merely smiled and returned the indignant cat to its feet. "That's kind of you, Mr. Harding, and you can thank your brother for me, too, but someone needs to look after the children. I'm not much inclined to sitting around while everyone else is working."

"I can see that." He hesitated there in the doorway, seeing the amount of work yet to be done in just this one room. He ventured to say the back rooms were worse. His glance returned to the schoolteacher's smiling face, the wickedly dark eyes and tempting lips, and he knew Jace didn't need him at the branding as much as this woman needed him here. He began rolling up his sleeves. "Let me haul that table back where it belongs for you. It's too big for a woman to handle."

The overturned table thrown against the back wall by the flood was quickly restored to its proper position in front of the fireplace. Under Carmen's direction, Kyle was soon righting furniture in the other rooms and hauling soaked mattresses out to air. Evie watched him with laughter and continued directing the boys to search out unwanted animal life with brooms. Much of the mud on the floors went out the door with their efforts.

Ben wandered over in curiosity later that day and found himself chopping empty crates and broken boards for firewood. The wood dried quickly over a smoldering tinder fire. Before he could escape, he was coerced into nailing a bed back together while smells of Carmen's cooking began to lace the air.

The sheriff stopped by as they were preparing to put dinner on the table, and Evie deliberately sent the two young boys out of the house with a covered tray for Daniel.

When they were gone, she offered Sheriff Powell a cup of coffee. Maria was too young to understand the sheriff's arrival, but Carmen wasn't. She had the fourteen-year-old sit down in one of the kitchen chairs that still had four legs.

"What have you found, Mr. Powell?" Exhausted, Evie was in no humor for male equivocations. The truth might be painful, but it was better than knowing nothing and suspecting everything. She knew that from experience.

The sheriff glanced at Carmen, anxiously following his every word. An infant version of her sat in her lap, watching him solemnly, and his gaze returned to the schoolteacher. For an instant, he saw a similarity in their dark-lashed, exotically shaped eyes, but he shook his head and the image went away. Mrs. Peyton had the peach-and-cream complexion of a Southern lady. The children had the olive complexions of Mexicans. There could be no resemblance.

"We found the remains of a horse we think belongs to the livery. Tom thinks it's the one Mrs. Rodriguez took out that night. It doesn't look good. There were Indians camping in that area right before the flood. We're looking for them now, but we think they were reservation Indians and had no place being there. They won't be easy to find."

Carmen shivered and a tear glittered in her eye, but when Maria patted her face with chubby hands, she straightened and began feeding the child small pieces of the tortilla growing cold on the table. Evie's heart nearly broke at the sight.

"Thank you, Sheriff. Carmen has an address for her uncle. We'll send a telegram in the morning. I'm going to take the children back to the hotel tonight, but I think once the house is returned to order, I'll have to move in with them. I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know of anyone who can help me move my trunks. I can't pay much..."

Kyle intruded. "I'll make certain there's someone here to help. What about your brother, ma'am? I understand he's laid up."

Evie glanced around the small house uncertainly. It had three rooms instead of the two they were living in at the hotel, but it wasn't her house. She made a helpless gesture. "We'll have to see. I need to talk to Daniel and the doctor. He's still in a lot of pain, and I don't want to hurt him by moving him too soon."

One by one the men departed, calling promises and reassurances, until Evie was left alone with Carmen and the baby. The boys evidently intended to entertain Daniel through supper. The two women exchanged glances.

"I can go to work, but what will happen to the children?" Carmen whispered as she helped Maria sip from a glass of milk.

If they didn't discuss her mother's death, they could discuss the facts of their current existence without grief. Grief would come later, in the dark of night, when there were only memories to fill their heads. Right now, they had to find some way to survive. Evie understood that, and she wove her fingers together and tried to think.

"The school term will be over in a few months. I want you all to finish it out. I have a little money for food, and if I can move Daniel out of the hotel, there should be enough for everyone. By the time school is out, your uncle may have sent word. We won't worry about looking for jobs until then. We'll just need someone to mind Maria while you attend class."

She would have to sell every evening gown in her collection to have enough money to pay for food for all of them, but it wasn't much of a sacrifice. She didn't need the gowns anymore. These children were more important. Evie knew what it meant to be an orphan.

They were a silent troupe that night when they returned to the hotel. With the children in bed, Evie and Daniel discussed alternatives. Neither of them mentioned Tyler. He hadn't been the one to come to help. He hadn't even been the one to ask if they needed any. Evie went to bed that night in her chair without glancing at the flowers that were already beginning to fade, all except the paper roses.

By the end of the week her hands were raw from scrubbing, her knees were sore from spending so many hours on them, but the Rodriguez house was clean and livable. With additions from Evie's trunks and donations from some of the townspeople, there were beds and linens enough for everyone, and fancy china in the cupboards for eating. A surreptitious trip to the rooms over the saloon had procured a healthy purse for food and Starr's admonitions about men and their company.

Evie was carefully tying the purse of coins to her inside pocket when Starr caught her arm and forced her to look up at her.

"What did you decide to do about that baby?" she demanded without any preface.

Too exhausted even to be embarrassed, Evie faced her without flinching. "There wasn't any. It was a mistake."

Starr looked relieved. "Well, then, you'd better do something so that mistake doesn't happen again. Tyler ain't the kind of man to stay away once he stakes his claim. You'd better let me teach you a few things before you wind up in the family way for certain."

The mention of Tyler's name sent Evie's stomach plummeting to her feet. She stared at the beautiful saloon girl, unable to get past her knowledge of Tyler to listen to what else was being said. "Why do you think Tyler's the one?" she asked in what she hoped wasn't a desperate whisper.

Starr grinned. "When a man as handsome as that comes into town with money in his pocket and doesn't find his way to my bed, I know he's got something good going on the side. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who. The two of you came here together, didn't you?"

Tyler hadn't been with Starr. Evie stared at her with wonder and relief and didn't bother to answer. She hoped no one else had put two and two together as quickly as Starr had, but then, Starr was the only one to know her predicament.

"I'd better be getting back to the children," Evie replied irrelevantly.

Starr shook her head and wouldn't let her go. "Not until I tell you about vinegar and sponges and what to do after. I don't even want to know how that man talked you into his bed, but if he hasn't got the sense to marry you, then you don't want to be carrying his baby."

Evie didn't think there was much chance of that. Tyler would stay far away from her now that he knew he was safe from fatherhood. But she wasn't averse to a little knowledge. She had always wondered how prostitutes managed to sin without retribution. The information might be useful sometime.

When Starr was done with her, Evie was quite certain that she never wanted to sleep with another man again if that was what she would have to go through. But she thanked Starr politely, offered to send her a pie as soon as they got in supplies, and hurried back to the little house she was making into her home.

When she counted Starr's money later, Evie discovered it was more than they had agreed on, but for the sake of the children, she wasn't arguing. Carmen had showed a distinct aptitude for doing laundry and had nearly washed all the children's clothes that Evie had thought were lost to flood damage. That saved them the expense of buying clothing as well as laundering her own and Daniel's things. For that reason alone she was willing to allow Carmen freedom to buy whatever groceries she thought were needed. She wouldn't begrudge her a dime.

Daniel chose to move in with them, letting the doctor and Ben and several others carry him out on a makeshift stretcher. Evie wasn't certain if he thought he was protecting them with his presence or if he just wanted to be closer to Carmen, but she was grateful for his company and his common sense. Although he grumbled and complained and refused to listen when she told him he was trying to do too much too soon, he also kept the boys entertained in the evening and gave them something to do besides roaming the street looking for trouble.

They divided the two bedrooms up between the girls and the boys, with Daniel and Evie having their own cots in each room and the children sharing a bigger bed. It was almost like having a home again, and Evie practically forgot about their other problems. The lawyer's absence nagged at the back of her mind, but Tyler's absence was much more visible.

When Jose came running and screaming through the door one day at the end of the week, Evie staggered backward and clasped her chest in surprise. With her nest nicely feathered, she had been anticipating no trouble. Ben had just gone back to the ranch, and Kyle Harding hadn't been back since he finished helping her with the moving. She was expecting him today or tomorrow, but it was too early for him now. Daniel was sound asleep in the back room, and he was helpless anyway. Whatever Jose was screaming about would have to be handled without the help of any man. Evie tried to follow Jose's excited yells.

"He's hurting Manuel! Help him, please. Hurry!" Jose darted back out the door again.

Carmen raced in from the front bedroom where she had been putting Maria down for a nap. Evie gestured for her to remain and grabbing up the closest thing she had to a weapon—an iron skillet—she ran after Jose.

She didn't have far to run. In the street just outside the livery a nearly bald-headed man with muscles twice the size of any man Evie had ever seen grappled with a boy dangling from his hands like so much straw. Manuel was putting up a valiant fight, kicking and screaming and swinging his feet, but with his arms caught in vises, he couldn't cause much damage.

"Put that boy down at once, sir!" The skillet forgotten, Evie stood outraged before the giant.

"He stole my money, and I want it back." The man shoved both Manuel's arms into one massive grip and reached for the boy's kicking, squirming leg.

"I did not! I did not. Let me go!" Manuel kicked backward, narrowly missing a vulnerable part of his captor's anatomy. The man swore vigorously and shook him.

"Jose, go get the sheriff, pronto!" Evie demanded. Remembering the skillet, she shook it in the man's face, although her reach was decidedly extended to do so. "Put him down this instant! If he stole money, the sheriff will decide what to do with him. You have no right to touch him."

"I didn't, Miz Peyton. Honest, I didn't." Manuel was nearly weeping, although he was trying valiantly not to.

"Peyton? You Peyton's daughter? Where is that bastard? I've been trying to track him down for years." The giant lowered Manuel slightly, as if he had forgotten the boy while he confronted the furious woman in his path.

Stunned by the direction of the attack, Evie could only stutter. She wanted to know more about a man named Peyton, too, but she certainly didn't want to turn this beast's rage on her. Her creative abilities lagged behind her greater fear for Manuel. "I'm not telling you anything until you put that boy down, sir. I insist you release him at once. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, picking on a child."

As if remembering what he held in his hand, the man abruptly turned the boy up by his heels and began shaking him. Manuel screamed, and Evie rushed in with her skillet, slamming it as hard as she could against the giant's broad side. He roared and swung one fist backward to knock her away as another man would a fly.

The click of a six-gun could scarcely be heard over the commotion, but the man's voice following it was cold and clear and deadly.

"I'd suggest you put that boy down very gently, mister. And if you've hurt the lady, you'd better come around with your gun in your hand."

Caught off balance dodging the blow, Evie righted herself and swung to stare at the man aiming a pistol at the giant's back.

Tyler.