CHAPTER
  2

“GIVE THE GIRL some time,” June-bug McCaffrey counseled as she set the station house table for one of her legendary “plain” suppers. Her blue eyes gleamed with what struck Gage as tender amusement. “She’s new in town, and she’s just lost a close relation, into the bargain. ’Sides, those babies are her own kin, and it’s a natural thing for her to want to raise them up herself. Poor little things. Why, I do believe I would think less of her if she’d turned her back on her own brother’s children.”

A bachelor used to being on his own, Gage was a competent cook, but he preferred June-bug’s meals to his own concoctions and enjoyed passing an evening before the McCaffreys’ fire, swapping tall tales with old Jacob. Especially a cold, snowy evening like this one. The big white house around the corner was as lonely as a tomb, and not much warmer, for all its fancy furnishings.

He’d been a fool to go to all that trouble and expense. For one thing, it reminded him too much of the place he’d grown up in, an echoing San Francisco mansion that was either empty or full of shouting and strife, but never peaceful and certainly never warm, the way the Springwater station was. He’d left California after one last shouting match with his tyrannical old grandfather, and he was never going back—not that he’d been asked. He’d ended up in Springwater purely by accident, liked the place, and stayed.

He thrust out a sigh. “I know you’re right,” he said to June-bug, recalling her assertion that it was only right for Jessica Barnes to raise her own nieces, “but Pres and Savannah are going to be disappointed that they can’t adopt those little girls.”

“Pooh,” June-bug scoffed, with a wave of one competent hand. That was about as close as she ever got to swearing, at least in Gage’s hearing. She and Jacob had been running the Springwater stagecoach station for a long while before the town grew up around it, and both of them were clear thinkers who generally spoke their minds. “Savannah and Pres have little Beatrice, and they know they’re blessed. Why, the Lord may yet see fit to send them a whole passel of kids anyways. They’re still young.”

Jacob, a powerfully built man with a head full of dark hair, only lightly threaded with silver, had been holding his peace throughout the conversation, though he had a way of listening that made it seem like he was taking the sense of the words in through his very pores. Seated by the fire, he seemed intent on his whittling, but June-bug’s remark inspired him to look up. The wooden horse he was carving looked minuscule in his big, callused hands. “I reckon Miss Barnes must have chosen not to sell you the newspaper,” he said. “Seems to me, that’s what’s got you so riled, most likely.”

Gage thrust a hand through his hair, which was still damp from walking hatless through the snow. “She took a dislike to me right off,” he confessed, and wondered why it bothered him so much. Miss Jessica Barnes was a skinny little bluestocking with a snippy disposition, and her opinion oughtn’t to matter the way it did. “She doesn’t want to run a newspaper—probably doesn’t have the first idea how to go about such a thing. No sir, I’d bet my best shirt that Miss Barnes had no plans to get into the newspaper business until she found out I wanted it. Then she got downright contrary.”

June-bug gave a sigh of mock impatience. It had been a hard day and, frankly, the delicious scent of the elk stew she’d made for supper was about all that kept Gage from heading for the Brimstone Saloon to make a meal of hard-boiled eggs and beer. There were nights, and this was one of them, when he just couldn’t face going back to that house by himself, that house he had so foolishly built for a bride who chose, in the end, to remain in San Francisco and marry his half-brother, Luke.

“Horsefeathers,” June-bug said, jolting him out of his sorry reverie. “Michael fully expected his sister to help him put out the Gazette. He told me himself that he’d asked her to stay on permanent. He hoped she might even marry up with somebody from around here.”

Jacob’s dark eyes seemed to sparkle, but that might have been a trick of the lantern light. “She’s a fetching little thing, Miss Jessica Barnes,” he allowed. For Jacob, the most taciturn of men, this was unbridled, raving praise.

June-bug put her hands on her hips and tilted her head to one side. For all her sixty-odd years, she looked as coquettish in that moment as any dewy young maiden flirting by the garden gate. “Why, Jacob McCaffrey,” she accused, half laughing, “I do believe you are smitten!”

He laughed, a sound like two great armies waging war in the distance, all but shaking the ground and rattling the windows. “I am smitten,” he admitted. “Indeed, I am. With my bride of many years.” He crossed the room, took June-bug’s hand, and bent his head to kiss it. “That would be you, Mrs. McCaffrey.”

June-bug flushed like a schoolgirl. “Jacob McCaffrey,” she said, “you stop carryin’ on that-a-way.”

There was a moment of perfect stillness, during which something private passed between husband and wife; some elemental, unspoken language known only to them. Love them both though he did, Gage felt a brief and acidic sting of envy, looking on. Once, fool that he was, he’d thought he had that same affinity with Liza. He’d trusted her utterly, shared the most secret, the most fragile of his dreams and, ultimately, she had betrayed him. Sided with Luke and his grandfather. No doubt, it had all been a joke to Liza, from the first, but Gage had a network of soul-scars to show for the experience, and no other kind of risk scared him the way that one did. Love, to him, was a dangerous undertaking.

But Jacob and June-bug had been married for more than forty years, and in that time they had raised and lost twin sons and faced innumerable other trials and tribulations as well. In the not too distant past, Jacob had suffered a heart condition that had nearly killed him, but they’d overcome that, too, and now the old man was as healthy as the mules that pulled coaches for the Springwater stage line. It seemed to Gage that every sorrow, every joy, had merely served to draw them closer, until their very souls were fused, one inseparable from the other.

Gage wanted what the McCaffreys had and feared with his whole heart that he would never find it. Maybe, God help him, Liza had been the only woman he would ever dare to care about, but down deep he wanted passion and fire. He wanted love.

Indeed, whatever mark he might make in the world, Gage knew he would be a failure if he did not find that one right woman. It would help like hell, he reflected grimly, if he had any idea where to look.

“Sit down and eat, both of you,” June-bug commanded, breaking the spell as she reached back to untie her calico apron. “And where’s Toby run off to, just when I’ve got supper on the table? That boy don’t stay put any better’n a basket of kittens.”

Toby, the McCaffreys’ fifteen-year-old foster son, was much taken with young Emma, daughter of Trey and Rachel Hargreaves, and spent most of his spare time across the road at the Hargreaves house, according to Jacob, “getting underfoot.” Trey and his pretty missus didn’t seem to mind, though—they nearly always had a houseful anyway, what with the two smaller children of their own and the Wainwright kids coming and going whenever they had the yen to pass some time in town.

“Toby’ll be along,” Jacob said. He and June-bug took their places at the table, and Gage joined them as soon as they were both seated.

Sure enough, Toby burst in while Jacob was offering the blessing, about as subtle as a snowstorm in July. The boy washed hastily and sat down next to Gage just as the resounding “amen” was raised.

“And how are Trey and Rachel keeping these days?” Jacob asked with a smile in his voice. His rugged features were as solemn as ever. “And Miss Emma, of course?”

Toby, a good-looking kid with straight blond hair and the kind of impudent manner girls always seemed to take to right off, colored a little as he took a biscuit from the platter Jacob passed his way. “They’re all right,” he said and, after only a moment’s hesitation, helped himself to a second biscuit before handing the rest on to Gage. “I could have stayed for supper, but I told them I wouldn’t miss one of Miss June-bug’s meals for anything.”

Gage suppressed a smile. The kid was a charmer, that was for sure.

“Did Emma wear that pretty new dress her mama and I made for her last Saturday afternoon?” June-bug asked. Her eyes were bright with affection for the boy, but he squirmed a little all the same, well aware that he was being teased, and suitably self-conscious.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and summoned up a winning grin. “She looked mighty good, too.”

“Well,” said June-bug, “of course she did. As for you, Toby McCaffrey, I will expect you to be on time for supper after this just the same. It ain’t good manners to make other folks wait for their victuals.”

Not, Gage thought with a private smile, that they’d been going to wait.

Toby ducked his head. Abandoned by his father as a lad and found living alone in the woods by the town’s first official schoolmarm, Rachel Hargreaves, he had been staying with the McCaffreys ever since. His father, a no-good specimen if Gage had ever heard tell of one, had tried once to reclaim his son, though not because of any paternal devotion. Instead, Mike Houghton had wanted someone to mind the horses while he and his gang robbed banks, stagecoaches, and telegraph offices. That had all been settled five years back, however, when Houghton had been killed prior to going to prison, and Toby had taken his foster parents’ name as his own. Gage, arriving in town about six months later, had done the legal honors himself.

Now, probably to deflect the topic of conversation from his own penchant for the company of pretty Emma Hargreaves, Toby turned a grin on Gage. It wouldn’t work as well on him or Jacob as it did with June-bug, but he had to give the kid credit for the attempt.

“Well,” Toby demanded cheerfully, “did you sweettalk the newspaper lady, tell her you were sorry about her brother dyin’ and all?”

It was beginning to dawn on Gage that he had indeed been too hasty in approaching Miss Barnes about the newspaper. He and Michael had not been friends, precisely, but he had served as Barnes’s attorney, being the only one in town. As the executor of his will, he understood the state of the family’s finances only too well, and he had hoped to ease the burden by purchasing the struggling business at a fair price. Apparently, though, if Toby had heard about Gage’s plans, the matter must be the subject of considerable talk around Springwater.

“I guess I could have given her a bit more time to get her bearings,” he admitted. Had he offered Miss Barnes his condolences? He didn’t rightly remember, given that she’d had an effect on him similar to being butted in the belly by a ram. He might well have committed such an oversight and, worse still, he’d offered to take her infant nieces off her hands as though they were a pair of secondhand buggy wheels. As though she were incompetent to raise them.

He groaned out loud. No wonder she hadn’t taken a shine to him.

“What did I say?” Toby asked in an aggrieved manner, looking from Gage to June-bug to Jacob.

“My boy,” Jacob replied sagely, “you see before you a man who has just seen the error of his ways.” While he imparted this wisdom, he buttered another biscuit.

*   *   *

Jessica would not have slept at all that second night in Springwater, except that she was utterly spent. When she awoke in the chilly light of a winter morning, feeling rested, it was to a chorus of squalling babies.

After bracing herself, she got out of bed and set her bare feet on the icy floor. Jupiter and Zeus, she thought, if she was this cold, then those poor children must be nearly frozen to death.

She hurried to the large cradle, which was situated at the foot of the bed Michael and Victoria had shared in what was now her room, and peered anxiously down at the pair of squirming, shrieking bundles tucked and swaddled in their blankets.

Both infants were fair, with wide, cornflower-blue eyes. The one at the far end of the cradle was Mary Catherine, Jessica decided, which meant that the other must be Eleanor Lorraine. Or was it the other way around?

The babies began to scream in earnest, and at an ever-rising pitch. The tiny blue veins showed at their temples, and their round faces were bright red. Desperately Jessica grabbed up one furious niece in each arm and bounced them fitfully on her hips. “Hush, now,” she pleaded, as though they were amenable to reason. “Hush.”

Alma appeared at last in the doorway, just cinching the belt of her wrapper. “What a ruckus,” she said with a pleased smile.

“What do they want?” Jessica asked reasonably.

Alma shook her head a couple of times, with an accompanying tsk-tsk sound, then came briskly over and commandeered one of the infants. “Why, they’re hungry, the little rascals, and no doubt you could wring out their knickers like a dishrag.”

Jessica only grew more unnerved. She had changed diapers before—yesterday, as a matter of fact—but she was temporarily stymied by the intricacies of feeding these small and wretchedly unhappy creatures.

“There’s a bit of milk left,” Alma said. “I’ve got it in a crock outside the kitchen window, but you can be sure it won’t be enough to satisfy Mary Catherine and Eleanor. They have hearty appetites, little pioneers that they are.”

Hearty lungs, too, Jessica thought, with a mixture of frustration and pride. Helplessly, she bounced the remaining twin—whoever it was—in a vain effort to lend comfort. “What are we going to do?”

“I,” said Alma, “am going to put dry diapers on these babies and then give them what’s left of the milk. You, meanwhile, had better get yourself dressed and see if you can’t borrow a bucketful from the McCaffreys. They keep a cow, you know, since they have to feed all those people who pass through on the stage.”

Jessica laid the infant on the bed—as far as she could tell, neither of the twins had taken a breath since they’d commenced to raising the roof—and groped her way somewhat awkwardly into yesterday’s clothes. She had not as yet had a chance to unpack her trunks, let alone launder her well-worn travel garments. “Borrow from the McCaffreys? I was sure I saw a general store—”

Alma sniffed. “You did, but That Woman who runs the place is no better than she should be, if you know what I mean. Essie Farham says That Woman’s set her cap for Essie’s own husband.”

Jessica sighed. She meant to reserve judgment where That Woman was concerned, since she’d almost certainly been accused of such indiscretions herself after she fled the Covington house in disgrace, and wrongfully so.

For the moment, however, it seemed easier to comply with Alma’s wishes and approach the McCaffreys for help. Michael had said, many times, that God never put a kinder pair of souls on this earth than those two.

Matters at hand were far too pressing to allow for further reflection. Hastily Jessica pinned up her hair, splashed her face with water cold enough to sting, donned her blue woolen cloak, and went out, making her way cautiously down the ice-covered stairs to the sidewalk.

The snow had stopped, and the sun was shining brightly, but the wind was bitterly cold and it was hard going, trudging through the drifts that hid the road from view.

Jessica paused, looking one way and then the other. The Springwater station, if she remembered correctly, was beyond the Brimstone Saloon and the doctor’s office, at the far end of the road. She had arrived there by coach—could it have been just the day before?—but so much had happened since then. She’d expected to be greeted by Michael, ail too recently widowed; instead, she’d been met by one Jacob McCaffrey, who had told her quietly that her brother was gone, that they’d buried him just a week before, beside his young wife.

She supposed she’d gone into a state of shock then—she didn’t remember being escorted to the humble quarters over the Gazette, where Alma had been doing her best to care for two orphaned infants who seemed somehow to know that they’d been left behind.

Like Michael and I, she thought, as she marched through the deep snow. She didn’t often think about her childhood, but the memories had a tendency to creep in when her guard was down. She didn’t remember her mother or her father—she’d been so young when they died—but on rainy days, when they were both small, Michael had told her long and complicated stories about them. Even then she’d known they were mostly made up, those tales, but they’d been a great comfort all the same.

Samuel Barnes, their uncle and guardian, had run a small newspaper, and he’d expected Michael to follow in his footsteps and take over the business when the time came. Instead, Michael had decided to head west, and a breach had opened between the two men that was never to be mended. Uncle Samuel had died of a heart ailment only a month after Michael’s departure.

Jessica peered through the snowy dazzle; best she keep her mind on fetching milk for the twins. The station was in sight now, and even though the sun was shining fit to blind a person, there were still lamps glowing in some of the windows.

Jessica was careful not to glance toward the churchyard and Michael’s grave. In the frigid, bluegold light of that mid-January moment, the loss seemed even greater than the day before, when she’d stood beside his marker, the pain even more ferocious.

She lifted her chin, and each breath she drew burned her nostrils, throat, and lungs like an inhalation of dry fire. She would not give up the babies, no matter what—but perhaps she had been too quick to turn down Mr. Calloway’s offer to buy the newspaper. With the proceeds of the sale, she could have set up a modest household, telling people she was a widow, and would have made a proper home for the children.

Jessica sighed. If she’d had only herself to think about, she would have gone to Denver or San Francisco and found herself another position as a companion, for she was well-qualified and had a fine letter of recommendation from the late Mrs. Covington, despite the problems with that woman’s son. Finding work with infant twins in tow, however, was quite another matter.

She’d learned, to her sorrow, that people often favored gossip over truth, and even if she’d been able to find employers who would accept the babies, too, there would inevitably be speculation, whatever her story. Better just to stay in Springwater, where folks knew what had happened, and might be expected to look kindly on a young woman trying to keep what remained of her family together.

Before she’d reached the steps of the station’s narrow porch, the door swung open and a smiling woman appeared in the chasm. The scents of fresh coffee, bacon, and burning firewood waited out to beckon Jessica inside, and her stomach rumbled audibly.

“You must be June-bug,” she said, attempting to respond with a smile that kept slipping off her lips.

“I am at that,” June-bug replied. “And you would be Miss Jessica Barnes of St. Louis, Missouri. Come on in and set a spell. I could do with a good visit. Rachel’s so busy these days, with all those young’uns, and Savannah helps her husband most days. He’s the doc, you know. Miranda lives way out of town, and so does Evangeline, and I get right lonesome for female company.”

Jessica longed to accept the invitation, and she was eager to hear more about each of the women Mrs. McCaffrey had mentioned, but she had her hungry nieces to think about. Indeed, she’d have little time for visiting, most likely, between them and the newspaper, before the twins grew up and got married.

“I’ve come to buy milk,” she blurted. “The babies are screaming like banshees.”

That announcement was enough to set all the wheels and cogs of Springwater station in motion. Toby and Jacob, June-bug informed her, had ridden out to meet the stagecoach, since it was overdue, and she had her hands full with the baking, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t help a neighbor, no sir.

Before she knew precisely what had happened, Jessica found herself leading a borrowed cow down the middle of Center Street.

Alma stood pop-eyed on the wooden sidewalk while the babies’ wails of discontent spilled down the stairs like stones toppled from a bucket. “Why,” she gasped, as fresh snowflakes began to fall, “it’s a cow.”

Jessica gazed forlornly back at the beast, which was now bawling as piteously as the babies. Between that and those unceasing shrieks from upstairs, Jessica was hard put to keep from dropping the lead rope and pressing both hands to her ears. Instead, she squared her shoulders and asked, “Have you any idea how to milk this creature?”

Alma’s mouth twitched—she was a rancher’s wife, after all—but she laid one hand to her bosom in the profoundest alarm. “My, no!” she cried, and even though Jessica knew it was a lie, there wasn’t much she could do. Alma was, in fact, gazing past Jessica and the cow, toward the telegraph office across the street.

“Well,” replied Jessica, after a distracted glance in that direction, in which she glimpsed a shadow at the window, “we’d best reason it out, hadn’t we?” She walked around the animal’s steaming, twitching bulk. “Do fetch me a bucket,” she said, in a tone that sounded as decisive as it was false. “And then go inside and shut the door before those poor children catch their deaths!” She was sorry for this thoughtless reference the moment she’d uttered it; certainly, death was not a subject to be spoken of lightly.

Alma nodded resolutely, and hurried back inside. Shortly she appeared with the bucket that had contained their drinking water.

Jessica thanked her without conviction, holding the empty pail in both arms while she pondered the bovine dilemma. She heard the door close behind Alma, heard through it the continuing angry complaints of the twins. She did not notice that she had drawn an audience—early revelers from the saloon—until she’d seated herself somewhat awkwardly on the high edge of the sidewalk and set the bucket beneath the cow’s swollen udder.

Tentatively she reached out, gripped a wrinkled teat, and just as quickly withdrew. This raised raucous howls of delight from the seedy spectators.

Jessica stood up, hands resting on her hips, and glowered at the men over the cow’s shuddering back. “If there was a gentleman among you,” she said forcefully, “he would offer to help!”

“We herd cows, ma’am,” one of the wasters called back. “We don’t milk ’em.” Another round of merriment followed, as though the man had said something uproariously funny.

“Idiots,” Jessica murmured.

It was then that the door of the telegraph office opened behind the little crowd of drovers, and Mr. Calloway pushed his way through, albeit good-naturedly. He was dressed in a most dapper fashion, considering that this was early morning in a frontier town, and he grinned at Jessica just as if they’d gotten off to an auspicious beginning. Tugging at the brim of his fancy black hat, he crossed the road to face her over the broad expanse of the McCaffrey milk cow. “Allow me, ma’am,” he said, and came around to take up Jessica’s former seat on the plank walkway.

“Thank you,” Jessica said, though stiffly. She wasn’t sure what to make of Mr. Calloway and his admittedly chivalrous gesture, not after all Michael had written about him, both in his letters and in the Gazette. She did not often revise her opinions once they were set, but in the case of this man it seemed an exception might be called for—however temporary it might be.

The milk began to squirt noisily into the bucket, foaming and warmly fragrant, and Jessica wanted to weep, she was so relieved. She merely sniffled, as it happened, watching the milking process carefully for future reference. The cowboys, evidently bored, mounted their horses and rode off, spoiling the pristine ribbon of snow that was Center Street.

All around, the town began to come to life—the general store was opened for business, and the bell in the tower of the little brick schoolhouse—a recent addition to the town, according to Michael’s letters—began to chime. A wagon made its way past, driven by a smiling man with his collar pulled up around his neck. The woman at his side smiled, too, and waved as the rig paused. Two gangly, red-haired boys, tall as men, leaped out of the wagon bed and immediately began pelting each other with hastily constructed snowballs.

“Mornin’, Gage,” the man called affably, showing no apparent surprise to see his friend milking a cow in the center of town. He ignored the boys, clearly used to their rough-and-tumble ways.

“Landry,” Gage called back in greeting, as the other man got down and lifted a smaller boy from the seat. Until then, the child had been hidden between the two adults. He was a chubby little bundle, with red cheeks and fair curly hair peeking out from beneath his stocking cap. “Hello, Miranda. That you, Isaiah? Lord, you’ve gotten so big, I hardly recognized you.”

The child beamed in response to Gage’s remark. Isaiah. Such a big name, Jessica thought fondly, for such a little boy.

The woman waved, but her gaze was fixed on Jessica now, betraying an intense but not unfriendly curiosity. Miranda. Hadn’t June-bug mentioned her, just that morning, when she had gone to the station for milk?

Still broken inside over the loss of her brother, but equally determined not to make a public display of her sorrow, Jessica summoned up what she hoped was a polite expression and waggled the fingers of her right hand in reply to the other woman’s greeting.

Miranda’s husband hiked Isaiah up onto his sturdy shoulders with an exaggerated grunt of effort, and started toward the school, whistling happily. Miranda turned on the seat and Jessica saw that she was not only holding a blanketed bundle that must surely have contained a small child, she was hugely pregnant, as well.

Jessica felt a deep and fearfully elemental stirring inside, sudden and sharp-edged, and realized with a start that it was simple envy. Why this should be she could not fathom—she had two infant nieces to raise, albeit without the help of a husband, and no need of more responsibility. And yet, for the first time in a long while, she let herself feel the old longing for a home, a mate, a family of her own.

Watching Mr. Covington in action had caused her to vow never to leave herself open to the sort of pain and humiliation so many women suffered at the hands of their men, but seeing such happiness as Landry and Miranda enjoyed made her want to start over, with all new thoughts and beliefs and attitudes.

“We are really sorry about Michael and Victoria,” Miranda said, holding the bundle close against her and draping the edge of her cloak over it. “They were nice folks.”

Jessica’s gaze strayed involuntarily in the direction of the churchyard, where Michael and his pretty bride were buried, side by side, beneath rocks and dirt and drifts of glittering snow. “Thank you,” she said, though she wasn’t sure she’d spoken loudly enough for Miranda to hear.

Gage went on milking, humming happily to himself, his hat pushed to the back of his head. The milk made sweet steam in the cold, crisp air.

Chattering children began to converge on the schoolhouse from every direction—the big house down the road, just across the way from the stagecoach station, the row of more modest places beyond the church, the surrounding countryside. The man Gage called Landry—whether that was his first name or his last Jessica could not guess—came out of the school without the little boy and crossed the street to slap the McCaffrey cow affectionately on one flank. Up close, Jessica could see that he was very good-looking, with a mischievous curve to his mouth. His hazel eyes sobered, though, as he regarded her.

“That was a shame, your brother and sister-in-law passing on the way they did. We’re real sorry, and if there’s anything you need, you just speak up. Folks around Springwater surely do like to be helpful whenever they can.”

“Thank you,” Jessica murmured, head bowed.

Gage had finished his task at last; he rose and handed the bucket to Jessica. She hoped he could see her gratitude in her eyes, for she was incapable of speaking. Her losses were still so fresh that any reference to them threatened her composure. She did, however, manage a nod.

Mr. Calloway spoke with a gentleness that was quite nearly her undoing. “I’ll see that Tilly here gets back to her stall down at the station. You’d best tend to those hungry babies.”

Jessica nodded again and fled.