“Sarah, there is no call for holding a rifle on him.”
“I beg to differ, Mary. I find a strange horse with a bloodstained saddle and a travois standing by my corral and think of you alone in the house—”
“Sarah, please. He didn’t want me to leave his child. She was wounded by an Apache arrow.” Mary eased her arm from his grasp.
Rafe, with his acute sense of hearing, listened to the gun hammer sliding back in place. Tension seeped from him.
He looked at the woman beside him. He stood a hair over six feet. The top of her head reached his shoulder.
When he spoke, it was softly, and only to her. “If I hurt you, I’m sorry. Beth means everything to me…Why, I don’t even know your name.”
“Mary. Mary Inlow. The woman with the rifle at your back is my cousin Sarah Westfall. And our friend with the pistol is Catherine Hill.”
“Westfall? Judd Westfall’s widow?”
Mary glanced from the man to her cousin. What did he know about Judd? She saw Sarah’s black eyes grow chillingly cold at the mention of her husband’s name. And Mary wondered if Sarah hadn’t kept a few secrets of her own.
“What do you want with Judd’s widow?” The question came from Catherine. “And just who are you, mister?”
Rafe still had not turned around, nor was he feeling encouraged to do so by the silence of Judd’s widow. Her voice was husky, the other had a lilt to it.
He stared at Mary, once again noting the many shades of her hair. His gaze slid down the soft line of her flushed cheek, and then to her mouth. Soft full lips. It was a mouth a man looked at twice and speculated about ten times over.
“Who are you?” Mary asked.
“Rafe McCade.”
“McCade? I’ve heard that name.” Catherine shared a knowing look with Sarah.
Mary grew puzzled. What did they know about this man that she did not?
Rafe eased his arms up and out from his sides, then slowly turned around.
“From the sound of your voice, whatever you’ve heard wasn’t good.”
“I never said that,” Catherine protested.
Rafe studied the two women framed in the doorway. The husky-voiced one, Judd’s widow, stood tall, lissome, her skin a beautiful olive that owed nothing to the sun. He glimpsed hair as black as her eyes beneath the floppy brim of a man’s felt hat. There was an annoyingly self-possessed air to the way she held the rifle. He supposed the buckskin jacket, work pants and boots added to his impression.
The other woman, Catherine, had a bright, fresh face framed by blond hair pulled back at the sides. Dressed much like Sarah, she stood a few inches shorter than her companion. Despite her dainty appearance, Rafe gazed into blue eyes that silently conveyed a competence with the gun she held.
Merry widows? Hell, he thought. Black widows, more likely. But not the woman called Mary.
He eyed the guns. “Like I said, I’m friendly.”
“That remains to be seen,” Sarah said.
“I need to get the tea I left steeping. The child has a high fever.”
“Wait,” Rafe said as Mary stepped away from him. “I haven’t thanked you for all you’ve done. But I will. I’m good for—”
Mary did not move, but he felt her withdrawal.
“What is it? What did I say that upset you?”
“Mr. McCade,” Mary began, summoning every ounce of dignity she possessed. “This is not the time nor the place to speak of money. Pray, if you can. We have a long way to go before your child is well.”
Mary followed his gaze to the bed where Beth tossed restlessly. She touched her hand to his arm. “Come down to the kitchen with me and let me tend your wounds. My cousin or Catherine will stay with her.”
Rake felt outflanked, outmaneuvered and outnumbered. Mary, he was fast learning, was a soft-looking woman with quiet ways that cloaked a steely determination. He looked back to see Catherine already replacing the cloth on Beth’s forehead.
Sarah stood aside as Mary and Rafe went down the hall. She stepped into the room and whispered to Catherine. “I’ve never seen Mary look at any man like that. She’s never one to take to strangers, not even for the sake of a child.”
“If you’re worried, Sarah, don’t leave him alone with her. I’ve seen wolves hunt before. But would a man like Rafe McCade have any dealings with Judd?”
“What do you mean?”
Catherine stepped away from the bed, then faced her friend. “I love you and Mary as if you truly were my sisters. You’ve said more than once that Judd was a drunken, no-account opportunist.”
“And more,” Sarah added.
“And more,” Catherine agreed. “A man like McCade wouldn’t have anything to do with him, Sarah. Not unless he was hunting him. Until the day he died my husband loved ranching. But my father-in-law was obsessed with any mining going on in the territory. Rafe McCade is a wealthy man, Sarah. He has a stake in the Sierra Grande mining company. Before I left Santa Fe, they had taken almost a million dollars in silver out of one mine in less than a year. From only one claim, one piece of ore weighed over six hundred pounds. The assayer placed a value of seven thousand dollars on it.
“There’s rumors he owns a piece of the Pinos Altos mining company, too. Something to the tune of three million in gold just last year. He’s made money in mining, but with cattle and railroads, too. But a curious thing about McCade. He’s a lone wolf. No one knows for sure where his home is. Just that it is north in the Black Range. There was also a rumor that he had gone east to marry some years ago. If the child is his, I guess that is true.”
Catherine glanced at the child in the bed, and saw that Sarah was watching her, too. Strange, she thought, that the three of them remained childless.
“Sarah, I could tell the moment you heard his name that you knew who he was.”
Sarah gripped the rifle. She looked at her younger friend. Within Catherine’s once innocent blue eyes now resided a cynical gleam. The three of them had come away from their marriages with scars. But she doubted that either Mary or Catherine was as guilt-ridden as she was.
“Sarah, what’s wrong? Is it more than McCade being here?”
“No. And you were right. I know who he is. About four years ago, when Judd went to a big-stakes poker game in Lordsburg, I saw…” She closed her eyes briefly, drew and released a deep shuddering breath. “It was there I saw Rafe McCade kill a man.”
Mary had to dilute the tea, for it was much too strong. She glanced at where Rafe McCade sat with the coffee she had poured for him, at the round oak table.
She had loved the farm-size kitchen from the first, but tonight, even with the coal-oil lamp fixture lit above the table chasing the evening shadows from the corners, she felt as if the room had shrunk around her.
The blame rested squarely on Rafe’s presence. In the year that she had lived here, no man had sat at the table.
“Have you another shirt?” she asked.
“A shirt? What for?”
“Yours is quite ruined.” She poured heated water into a basin and brought it to the table, where she had placed soap and a towel.
“Can you remove your shirt without help?” Even as she asked, Mary did not want him to. Half of her thoughts had remained behind in her bedroom with a child who needed care. The other half was far too aware of the masculine presence of Rafe McCade.
And she was annoyed with herself for thinking about him as a man, for noticing the breadth of his shoulders, the bronze of his skin.
Mary’s innate honesty forced her to admit that she was a little frightened of the special awareness in his eyes that she was an attractive woman. Each time, it had lasted only a few moments, a trembly warmth shimmering inside her, but long enough to warn her to step with care around this man.
She would never have another man ordering her life. Never.
“Finish your coffee, Mr. McCade. I’ll be right back. Sarah may have a spare shirt of her husband’s you could wear.”
“I’ve got one in my saddlebags. I’ll fetch it. All of Beth’s things were lost with the packhorses.”
Rafe looked up at her. “It bothered you when I mentioned money.” And because he was watching for it, he didn’t miss the slight tightening of her mouth, the small movement she made to square her shoulders.
“Yes, it did.”
An honest woman? He hid his surprise. And the reason he pushed her.
“Tell me why?”
“I won’t put a price on helping someone in need.” Mary found it difficult to keep her gaze steady and direct on his. Because I still have pride, Mr. McCade. Listen to yourself. You need money, you all need money. Pride, indeed?
“Go fetch your shirt. I’m sure Sarah left your saddlebags in the barn. I’ll bring the tea upstairs and see how Beth is doing. Then I’ll come back.”
She held the cup with both hands to still a growing anger.
At the doorway, Mary paused. She bit her lip, then impulsively gave way to the anger. “Mr. McCade, don’t get your water hot about money. It can be replaced. That little girl upstairs can’t be.”
Rafe didn’t move. He should be furious over her snapped reminder about Beth. As if he could forget As if he ever would.
But she didn’t know that.
He had added a few pieces to the puzzle of Mary Inlow, but instead of feeling satisfied, he found himself strangely restless. And curious.
Man-to-woman curious.
And Rafe didn’t like that feeling at all.
Climbing the stairs, Mary unknowingly shared his feeling.
The murmur of voices in her bedroom made her pause.
“It was there I saw Rafe McCade kill a man.”
Sarah’s voice. Sarah knew him?
Mary was never more thankful that she had learned to walk softly so as not to draw Harry’s attention. She flattened herself against the wall. She was ashamed of eavesdropping, but couldn’t make herself step into the room until she heard the rest.
“McCade’s known to be handy with a gun, Sarah. The fact that he got himself and his child out of a fight with Apaches proves that.”
“Handy, Catherine? You’ve never seen anyone move like him. There were a few men hanging around the livery when Judd and I pulled in. With the railroad there, Lordsburg drew men from all over. A big brute of a man stood there in that hot sun, beating his horse. When his wife tried to stop him, he turned on her.
“Like I said, he was big, and he wore a gun. He silenced a few protests with the challenge that he’d kill any man who interfered between him and his wife. Judd wasn’t about to, and he wouldn’t let me move from the buckboard. One man even remarked that a few slaps kept a woman in line.
“Then McCade showed up. He went sailing at that bully with his fists. And McCade whipped that brute and left him lying in the dust.
“But when McCade turned his back to retrieve his hat and gun, that coward grabbed his rifle. He was going to shoot McCade in the back. I don’t know what or who warned McCade, the man even got off the first shot, but McCade moved, Catherine. And I’ll never forget how fast.
“Lightning hangs fire by comparison. McCade drew his gun and shot him. I swear to this day that I only heard one sound, but when Judd asked about it later, he was told the man died with two bullet holes in the heart. Two holes so close together, they could be covered with a silver dollar.”
“Did he meet Judd then? Or was it later, at the poker game?”
“I don’t know, Catherine. I stayed in the hotel room the whole three days.”
“You had a hard life with Judd. Do you suspect that McCade came here deliberately? I mean, would he have reason to? Did Judd owe him money or something?”
“I don’t know. What’s more, I don’t want to know. If he came here looking for money, McCade’s out of luck. I don’t have any to give him.”
“Sarah, wait. Will you let him stay?”
“It’s not my decision alone to make. It’s ours. Do we have a choice? Look at that child, Catherine. Could you demand that he leave with her? I couldn’t. And there’s Mary. My cousin would likely leave with him. Mary hungers to hold a child, even if that child belongs to someone else, and even if it lasts only a little while.”
In the hallway, Mary leaned her head back against the wall and fought the burning sting of tears. Dear God! Her insides felt as if they had congealed into a huge knot, tightening and then twisting with unbearable pain.
Her secret hunger for a child was not a secret at all. She had thought herself clever to fend off Sarah’s questions about why there were no children with the excuse that she and Harry had made a mutual decision not to have any.
She had said those words, lying to Sarah, lying to herself. As if she would not want a child, had not tried, had never once cried at the monthly flow she had come to hate. And with her hate had come Harry’s.
Dear Lord, give me strength, she pleaded. I need to face them.
The pain was a raw, livid wound inside her. Not a secret sorrow. Not hidden now, not ever hidden again.
You’re worthless, Mary. I can hire a woman to cook and clean for me and entertain my friends. But I bought you to give me a son. A man needs sons, Mary. He is nothing without them. You shame me with every month that passes. Shame me! Do you hear? Do you? Do…
No! The scream was a silent one. But it brought Mary back from the brink of a hellish nightmare.
There was a child in that room who needed her.
And Harry was dead. She had to keep him and his haunting taunts buried.
Mary stepped into the room before Sarah reached the doorway.
“You heard us?”
“Yes. But you were wrong about one thing. This is your home. I’ll abide by your wishes.” Mary had to set the cup of tea on the tray. She didn’t trust herself not to spill it.
“Mary, I hurt you, and I’m sorry.” Sarah came to stand beside her. “Say you’ll forgive me.” She hugged her cousin, her eyes suspiciously moist.
“And it’s not my decision. This is our home. We three stick together.”
Sarah pulled back and looked at Mary. “Whatever McCade brought to us, we’ll find a way to handle it.”
“Agreed.” Mary spread her arm to include Catherine in their embrace.
“All right,” Catherine said after a few moments. “We agree to remain bosom friends. Share and share alike. Heroes all.”
“Heroines,” Mary corrected.
Laughing, Catherine shook her head, then stepped away. “No, heroes. There’s little men can do that we can’t do, too.”
“Someday,” Mary warned, “talk like that will get you in trouble.”
“Perhaps. But if McCade gives us the wrong kind of trouble, we’ll deal with him.”
“Honestly, Catherine, this is not the time—”
“Mary, I’m teasing you. I can’t stand to see you sad.” Catherine looked at Sarah.
“Of course she’s teasing.”
“Try to sound as if you both believe that.”
“I do.” Mary placed her hand on Sarah’s arm. “He’s gone to fetch his saddlebags from the barn. Why don’t you go down and talk to him? Both of you. You need to eat, and the stew is hot. I left what you’ll need to tend his wounds on the table. And take the tray with you. I won’t change the child’s bandage until tomorrow.”
Mary rinsed the cloth and began to sponge Beth’s face.
She then decided to tell them. “He offered me money for helping him, for his daughter. As if any man could pay for what I give with my heart. She is a needy child. I feel it, and in some strange way know it is true.”
Mary looked at her cousin, then Catherine. “If that man demands anything, any kind of payment from you, you tell him whatever debt he thinks to collect is paid.”