Sarah went into her room. Catherine went downstairs and found the kitchen empty of the disturbing Mr. McCade’s presence. She hung her hat and jacket on the wall pegs near the back door. She assumed McCade had the missing lantern.
She removed her father’s pistol from her waistband.
Lightning hangs fire by comparison. Sarah’s description of McCade’s speed stuck in her mind. She placed her weapon in the inside pocket of her jacket.
She glanced out the window, but with the barn doors closed, she couldn’t tell if McCade was inside.
The tantalizing aroma of Mary’s hunter’s stew came from the cast-iron pot on the stove. When they first decided to divide the chores, each had cooked a week’s worth of meals. Mary had won the place as cook because of her baking, and her knowledge of using herbs, not only for healing, but to add a variety of tastes and flavors to their food.
She reached into the stove’s warming oven and took out a towel-wrapped loaf of fresh bread. One sniff told her that Mary had made one of her favorites. Catherine quickly sliced off the end. It was crusty on the outside and dotted with thyme, onions, coriander, parsley and lots of pepper inside. She munched on it as she set the table.
The tablecloth was patched and darned, but each time Mary made a repair she had added some embroidery. The colorful flowers and leaves covered its shabby state. From the upper shelf of the corner cupboard she took plates, then silverware from the round basket on the shelf below, along with three linen napkins rolled in wooden holders carved to resemble birds.
The back door opened, and Catherine turned at the sound.
“I was wondering where you had gone.”
“Seeing to my horse,” Rafe answered. He hung his hat on the empty peg, but held on to his saddlebags.
Catherine boldly ran an appreciative eye over the tall man.
“Oh, I’d say you did a sight more, McCade. You clean up real nice.”
Her impish grin invited his in return. But Rafe didn’t mistake the message in her eyes. It wasn’t sexual. He easily imagined himself looking at a dozen women the same way. You’re easy on the eyes, and that’s as far as it goes.
Now, if it had been Mary looking at him like that…He forced the thought to die.
Catherine glanced at the raw scrape on his cheek. His dark, curly hair held a few random drops of water. His gray linen shirt, hand tailored to fit the masculine wedge of chest and shoulders, still retained the sheen of newness. The color made his eyes appear a silver-gray. Most of the dust had been beaten from his pants and wiped from his boots. He no longer wore the leather vest, but his gunbelt rode low on his lean hips.
She stared at the weapon, then gestured toward it.
“You won’t need that in here.” She looked at his face. “Don’t you trust us?”
“Funny question from a woman who greeted me with gun in hand.”
“But this is our home. We are three women alone. If we don’t protect each other, who would?”
“A valid point.”
Catherine knew then that he was not about to remove his gunbelt. “Suit yourself,” she said, then shrugged.
“I usually do, Mrs. Hill.”
Catherine added a fresh napkin for the fourth place setting. “Please call me Catherine. I have a feeling we’ll all be in each other’s pockets before you leave.”
“Catherine, then. I’d like to thank whoever saw to Rebel. He deserved that bait of corn.”
“Sarah. She’s best with horses.”
While she sliced the bread, Rafe glanced around the kitchen. Earlier, he had poked through the pantry. Their food supplies were as low as the feed and hay in the barn. He was wary of pricking another widow’s pride as he had Mary’s, but he had never been a man to shy from what needed to be done.
“Which one of you is going to talk sense to me about money? And don’t put me off like Mary by saying you don’t need it. I can see for myself that you all do.”
“Then talk to me, Mr. McCade,” Sarah said from the doorway. “Mary needs more water. Would you fetch it, Catherine?” She closed the distance to hand over the bucket.
“I should go up to my daughter.”
“There’s no need. Mary’s with her. You can’t do more than she can. And you couldn’t ask for a better nurse.”
Catherine agreed and went outside.
“Sit down, Mr. McCade. I’ll get your supper.”
Restless and helpless, Rafe stared at the doorway. He had seen the care Mary gave his daughter. It just didn’t feel right not to be there, too.
He watched as Sarah ladled one scoop of stew on each of the three plates, but heaped two on his. He shot a look at the back door, wondering why Catherine seemed to be taking so long to fill the bucket. The well was ten feet from the door.
“Before we discuss money, Mrs. Westfall, I’m sure you are curious about my knowing that you’re Judd’s widow.”
“Am I?” Sarah didn’t look at him. She checked the level in the coffeepot, then lined up cups on the edge of the stove.
“I know in your place I would be.”
Sarah willed her hand to remain steady as she poured coffee. “Better sit and eat before the stew cools. I’ll take this up to Mary.”
Catherine, having delayed as long as she could, came inside and heard the last. She caught the quick shake of Sarah’s head and suggested she take up the coffee.
Rafe reached her in two strides. “Let me carry the bucket. It’s too heavy for you to lug up the stairs.”
“Mr. McCade—”
“Rafe. First names, remember?”
“Rafe, then. I’ve carried water up those stairs before you came, and I’ll be carrying it up when you’re gone. Sit down and eat,” she said in a firm voice. “I don’t want to be tripping over you or arguing at every turn.”
“As the lady wishes.”
“That’s right. This lady does for herself.”
Rafe caught the quick smile that came and went on Sarah’s mouth. By silent agreement, they waited until they heard Catherine’s steps on the stairs. Rafe pulled out a chair for Sarah. He didn’t understand her hesitation.
“You will keep me company, won’t you? You three are of the opinion I should be banished from my child’s side. It would be easier to bear with company.”
Rafe saw that, once seated, she made no move to eat. There wasn’t any reason to wait to talk to her.
“I had hoped to find Judd’s widow before this,” he began in a soft voice. “I won’t speak ill of your husband, for a dead man can’t defend himself, but you know that your husband was a gambler.”
It was not a question. Sarah, with her parched throat and too-dry lips, couldn’t have answered if she wanted to.
“I first met Judd in a poker game in Lordsburg a few years back. But the first time I saw him was at the livery, the day before the game was slated to begin.”
He remembered. Dear Lord, what was he going to tell her? Sarah began to crumble her bread.
Rafe covered her slender hand with his own larger one.
“If I bring bad memories with my story, I apologize. But I need to tell this in my own way.”
His pause forced her to look at him. There was sympathy in his cool gray gaze, but there was something akin to admiration, too.
“All right. I’ll hear you out.”
“Thank you. I don’t think you’ll be sorry. I had other business in town, and was about to leave when a friend mentioned a high-stakes poker game and asked me to sit in. I had gone back to the livery to make arrangements to board my horse for a few days more.
“I saw a woman try to grab a buggy whip from the man seated beside her. She wanted to stop the cowardly attack on another woman and a horse. I’ve always admired courage, and learned at an early age that it comes in many forms. A woman who tried to go against her man—”
“I did nothing.” Sarah stared at her plate. She didn’t see the stew. She saw that woman’s face. The bruises…“Judd refused to help her. He wouldn’t let me do anything. It was you who put a stop to that senseless beating. And when you killed him, you ended that woman’s misery.”
“I didn’t want to kill him. But I’m a man who’ll live by laws when there is law. And when there are none, I make my own.”
“I never forgot that day,” she murmured. “Never.”
“It eases my mind to hear you say that I put that woman out of her misery. I gave her money to see her and her children on their way, but it’s the Lord’s truth, she didn’t thank me for killing her man.”
“Then she was a foolish woman.”
“Perhaps. But I never did stay for the poker game. It was a few months later than I ran into Judd again. He stepped in for another player in a game up north in Socorro.
“A good poker player studies the men he plays with more than the hands he is dealt. I was winning, and Judd had been steadily losing. The last raise was mine, and his to call or fold. He threw in a deed to a mining claim to cover my raise.
“Now, mining circles are small, no matter how vast an area they cover. I knew that claim. I had tried to buy it a year before, from Old Pony Temple, who first filed the claim.
“You may not understand how a miner finds what he’s looking for on a claim. I won’t bore you with details, but Old Pony’s eyesight had been failing for a time. I assume that Judd won the claim from him, but he didn’t know what he had, either. He thought it was a worthless deed because there was no sign of color. Gold,” he added when she glanced at him.
“I let the bet stand, because I had seen reddish sand at the digging. When I had the claim filed in my name, I had the sand assayed. I had figured it was worth more than Judd dreamed. That reddish color sand is carbonate of lead, with a silver content so high, no one around there had seen its like.
“I made a great deal of money from that mine before I sold off a few shares.”
“What has this to do with me? Judd lost a poker hand, and you got rich. Nothing new for me. You were smarter and saw other possibilities than what other men viewed.”
“There is a debt between us.”
“No. Not a one, Mr. McCade.”
“I beg to differ. I didn’t know about Judd’s death until a few months ago. Unfortunately, I had to go east. And it seemed no one knew what had happened to his widow.”
“Why were you looking for me? Judd was the one—”
“Judd would have lost anything I gave him. And any woman who managed to buy land and a house and hold them against a gambler like Judd deserves to profit from his mistake.”
Rafe waited for more denials, and when none were forthcoming, he heaved a sigh of relief.
“I don’t have much cash with me, but I’ll wire my lawyer to release the funds to you.”
“I still don’t understand why you want to do this.”
“Haven’t you heard the expression about not looking a gift horse in the mouth?”
“Mr. McCade, you’re not a horse.” Sarah fought a smile and lost. “If I remember the story, the horse brought more trouble than gifts.”
And her words brought back to Rafe the whisper of his name from the Apache’s lips. He had enemies. But which had the money and the knowledge to set up a raid to kill him?
“Let’s hope that I’ll bring no more trouble to your home, Sarah.” He rose. “If you will excuse me, I’ll bring my supper and Mary’s upstairs. And you might think about what you’ll do with five thousand dollars.”
“Five thousand—”
“That was the amount of my raise that Judd covered with the claim. A fair exchange, don’t you agree?”
But Sarah didn’t answer. Nor did she watch him leave. She sat straight in her chair, eyes unseeing. It was not the amount he named that held her still. Judd had won and lost more in a matter of days. But this money would be hers, all hers.
“Sarah? Sarah, what did he say to you?”
Sarah started. “Sit down, Catherine. But first, tell me how the child is?”
“The fever’s high. I helped Mary bathe her body again. But please, what did he say?”
“I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
“He bought you a horse?”
“No, silly. He made me a gift. A most welcome one.”
“What?”
“Freedom, Catherine. Rafe McCade has given me the kind of freedom I’ve dreamed of having. Sit down. I’ll tell you while we eat.”