He made her want things she couldn’t possibly have. He filled her head with fantastical wishes and dreams. What a cruel twist of fate that everything between them was built upon a terrible misunderstanding.
Chapter Seventeen
D
avid left shortly after breakfast the next morning to return the buggy and visit the proprietress of No Name’s only dress shop. Daphne had pleaded to go, and Brianna didn’t have the heart to tell her no. Sam joined them for the ride. Apparently the dog was David’s shadow wherever he went and often accompanied his master on business.
Brianna found herself alone in the house for the first time, with a breakfast mess in the kitchen to clean up and soiled underclothes to wash. The first chore turned out to be fun. She had thoroughly enjoyed preparing the morning meal, a part of her delighting in the fact that she could finally show David that she did indeed have cooking skills. His hired hands, five in all, had been pleased to receive heaping plates of food at the back door, and only the foreman, Rob Atkinson, had failed to return his dishes. She had a feeling that the long plank table in the dining room had been built to accommodate not only David, but his men as well, and if she’d been staying on, she would have started inviting them to share meals at the house.
She found it difficult to remember that her time here would be temporary. With morning sunlight coming through the many windows, she could see that all the panes needed a good shine and that a thin layer of dust covered everything. She yearned to dive in and have the place spotless by noon, but she resisted. If David couldn’t make arrangements to procure the dress shop, Brianna would have to find some other way to earn an income in town. Allowing herself to float along until this situation resolved itself was one thing; to do it on David’s dime was entirely another. She at least needed to know she was paying her own way.
Oh, how she wished things were different. David, with his slow smile, protective nature, and gentle manner, had worked past so many of her defenses. For the first time in her life, she trusted a man and was developing feelings for him that she chose not to bring forth into the light of day. He made her—well, she’d be wise not to think how she felt when his eyes caught hers or when his thumb traced the curve of her cheekbone ever so gently, a sensation different from any other masculine touch she’d ever experienced. Better to keep those insane urges buried, to pretend they weren’t there. Daphne’s future was her biggest concern. The little girl had opened her heart, not only to David, but to everyone connected to him, even that silly dog, Sam.
Even though Brianna knew it was absurd, she allowed herself to pretend it was her kitchen as she washed and dried dishes. She envisioned the cheerful towels and hot pads she would embroider, and pictured herself in a gingham housedress, protected by a starched white apron. The house would smell of beeswax, bread hot from the oven, and meat simmering in a pot. She would be the mistress of Wolverine Flats, and when David came in from work, she would greet him with a plate of warm cookies and coffee made to his taste with a dash of salt. Swept away by the fantasy, she even found a stool so she could wash the window above the sink.
The fun ended when she faced the washing machine. It was a newfangled contraption, and she had no idea how to use it. She was about to rinse her and Daphne’s underthings by hand when a knock came at the kitchen door, which led onto the rear stoop. Brianna opened the portal to find the foreman standing there. In his hand, he held a soiled plate, crisscrossed with a knife and fork.
“Sorry, ma’am. I got sidetracked with the animals and plumb forgot to bring this back so you could wash it up with the morning dishes.”
“Oh, no worries.” Brianna accepted the eating utensils. “I hope you enjoyed your breakfast.”
“It was delicious. The boss, well, he’s a good cook, but he’s so busy with the ranch and his marshaling job that we hired hands usually throw something together over at the bunkhouse. It’s been a long spell since I ate flapjacks that light and tasty, and the eggs were done to an easy turn, just the way us boys like them.”
Pleased to hear that, Brianna said, “Would you care for a cup of coffee?”
“Oh, no, thank you, ma’am. I know you got chores, and so do I.”
“I insist. Actually, Mr. Atkinson, I was wondering if you know how to work the washing machine.”
His sun-weathered face creased in a grin. “You bet I do. I helped the boss rig it up, and us boys use it to wash our duds once a week.”
He stepped inside the kitchen, and the instant he did, Brianna felt uneasy. Just because the man worked for David didn’t mean he was trustworthy. She probably shouldn’t have let him inside the house while she was alone.
Oblivious to her nervousness, Atkinson showed her how to fill the bucket at the sink and empty it into the washer drum. “For a full load, you only need three buckets and some soap, which is right yonder behind the machine,” he told her, then moved on to demonstrate how to turn the agitator. “You crank on this until you reckon the clothes are clean. Then you flip this lever to drain the tub. All the water goes out through the pipe underneath. It works slicker than greased owl shit.” He coughed. “Um, sorry, ma’am. For my language, I mean.”
“Amazing!” Brianna was so fascinated by the washing machine that she forgot all about being uneasy. “And to rinse the clothes, you just add fresh water?”
“Yep, and then agitate some more, drain. Keep on until you see no more suds. Then you take the wet clothes out, put them in the bucket, and flip down this here thing, which is the wringer. It squeezes all the water out of the clothes right into the drum so you can empty out the water through the floor pipe.”
“That is absolutely brilliant. What a work saver.”
Atkinson chuckled. “The boss is right smart when it comes to things like this. Of course, he borrowed the idea from old Darby McClintoch, but he put his own twists on it to make it even better.”
Brianna was so anxious to try the machine that she forgot all about the coffee she had promised Mr. Atkinson and ushered him out the door empty-handed. She went to collect soiled garments, so excited about her mission that she even invaded David’s bedchamber to find his pile of laundry. The instant she stepped into the room, the smell of him surrounded her—the enticing scent of his face invigorator, his shaving soap, and the oiled leather of his duster.
The room was much larger than hers, with a reading corner appointed with two chairs that flanked a kerosene floor lamp. His bed, a sturdy four-poster, had been made up, testifying to his tidy nature. The coverlet was a lovely wedding-ring quilt Brianna decided must be the handiwork of his mother or one of his sisters-in-law. Feeling self-conscious, she stepped over to his washstand, lightly tracing the pitcher spout and the edge of the bowl. Then she trailed his shaving brush along her cheek, closing her eyes at the silky caress, which reminded her of his lips grazing hers. Her belly tightened and ached at the memory.
What’s happening to me? This wasn’t like her. She’d never been one with her head in the clouds or allowed herself to yearn for impossible things, the only exception being her deep longing to give Daphne the kind of childhood she and Moira had been denied.
Giving herself a firm mental shake, Brianna went into the adjoining dressing closet, where she found David’s soiled clothing piled in a corner. Flanks of drawers along one wall held his clean clothing. More drawers lined the other wall, but they were empty. Her heart caught as she opened one after another and saw nothing. She guessed he’d built this dressing closet with a wife in mind, some nameless, faceless woman he’d once planned to wed. Only now that couldn’t happen.
Oh, how that plagued her. Determined not to dwell on what she couldn’t seem to change, Brianna gathered his soiled garments and dashed from the room.
* * *
David decided to stop by Ace’s place on the way home just to say howdy. He wanted Daphne to become well acquainted and comfortable with his family, Dory especially, as quickly as possible. As it happened, Dory was out in the field collecting gree
ns for a dinner salad, and before David could stop Daphne, she was off to join her grandma, Sam racing at her heels. Ace sauntered out of the barn.
“Morning, little brother. How’s married life treating you?”
David wasn’t sure how to answer that question. He had Brianna settled in at his house in a separate bedroom. This morning she’d made breakfast, but that was as personal as it had gotten. “I feel like I’ve taken up squatting rights with a stranger.”
Ace led the way over to a paddock fence, where they each hooked a bootheel over a lower rung and rested their arms on a rail. The sun hadn’t quite reached its zenith, so the morning air, warm as it was, still felt a bit nippy when the breeze picked up. Sighing, David was taken back through the years to his boyhood, when he’d stood like this with Ace countless times to talk about his problems. It had become a ritual, he guessed, for he needed to do that now.
“You want a chaw?”
David cast his brother a wondering look. “I thought Caitlin cured you of using tobacco.”
“She has—except when I’m off alone.” Ace shrugged. “I rinse my mouth before I go in, she never knows the difference, and I enjoy my occasional chew. Not often, mind you, but at times like this, something to work my teeth on seems called for.”
David accepted a bit of snuff from the can and started chewing and spitting. Ace was right. It helped to sort his thoughts. Haltingly at first, he filled Ace in a bit more on all that had transpired since he’d first ridden into Glory Ridge, including, in detail, Brianna’s harebrained story about raising her dead sister’s daughter. “I could believe the bit about the sister dying,” David concluded. “It happens in families, and it’s left to a close relative to raise the child. Hell, it even happened in our family when Pa was murdered. Where I get stuck is in the details—Daphne’s looks, the birthmark on her neck, and Brianna swearing she just accidentally dreamed up a husband in Denver named David Paxton.” David turned his hands to study the lines deeply etched onto his palms. “I’d like it to be a real marriage, Ace, but damned if I know how to take it there. I thought about kissing her again last night, and I think she knew.”
“How’d she react?”
“She went stiff as a fire poker. Fact is, I think she was scared half to death of me.”
“Hmm.” Ace rubbed his jaw and scratched under his black Stetson, one of the few articles of apparel from his gunslinger days that he still wore. He’d sworn off the black clothing, but like most men, he was right fond of his hats and couldn’t bring himself to wear the new one he’d bought, claiming Stetsons were like a pair of boots, uncomfortable until you’d worn them for a while. “When it comes to gentling reluctant women, I’m no expert, David. If you’ll recall, Caitlin flooded my whole house and damned near burned it down before we came to see eye to eye.”
David laughed at the memory. “Esa and Joseph and me—well, we mopped and mopped, fair choking to death on the smoke, mad because you’d chased off after Caitlin and weren’t there to help. I’ll never forget that night. I can’t remember exactly what Caitlin said to us before she ran from the house—something about you always wanting to clear the air and calm the waters. She told us to have fun doing both. She’d beaten on the handle of the cookstove damper until it was stuck closed, and we couldn’t get the damned thing unstuck. Joseph was cursing and ranting. I’m glad it was you who found Caitlin, because Joseph was mad enough to chew nails and spit out screws. I think he might have smacked her.”
“Nah, not Joseph. No matter how mad he ever gets, he’ll never hit a woman.”
Ace smiled at the memory and gazed off across the field at his mother and niece, who were racing about, collecting edibles. On the wind, Dory’s exclamations of praise for Daphne’s knowledge drifted to their ears.
“Caitlin and I, well, we had some rough patches,” Ace admitted, “but we’re happily married now. Anything worth having takes work and time, David.”
“I know.” It was David’s turn to scratch under his hat. “I just can’t, for the life of me, figure her out, Ace. Under all that proper behavior, she’s a spitfire, but it takes a lot to make her lose control and reveal that side. I get this weird feeling sometimes that she keeps the real Brianna stifled and is pretending to be someone else.”
Ace frowned thoughtfully. “There might be a smidgen of truth to that convent story she told you.” At David’s protest, he threw up a hand. “Hold on. I’m not saying her whole story is true. Anyone with eyes can see that child is yours. But I don’t find it hard to believe Brianna was raised by nuns. She moves like one. She talks like one. Nuns have a way about them, and she’s got all the mannerisms. Haven’t you noticed that?”
David’s feet felt suddenly cold. He recalled that first day when he’d watched Brianna stoop to pick something up, how she’d kept her rump tucked under and her spine straight, barely even bending her head. He’d thought at the time that he’d seen someone else move like that, but his mind hadn’t taken him back to his schoolboy years when he’d been instructed by nuns. “Jesus Herbert Christ.”
“Herbert?”
Still feeling dazed, David waved his hand. “I have to tack on Herbert or Brianna pitches a fit about my language.”
“Sticking in an H isn’t good enough?”
“Hell, no, she’s a stickler on coarse language, just like a—” David broke off and swallowed hard. “Just like a nun, Ace. Why the hell didn’t I ever pick up on that? You’re right. She moves exactly like a nun. You remember how they always tucked their hands under the sleeves of their habits to hide them? Shamrock does that. It rang a bell, but I never zeroed in on the chorus.” He waved a hand. “No habit sleeves, no beads. The similarity is there, but without the trimmings—” He broke off and met his brother’s gaze. “Dear God, what if she was telling me the unvarnished truth, that Daphne is her dead sister’s daughter?”
Ace shook his head. “That child out there in the field has Paxton written all over her, right down to the family birthmark. I’m guessing she told you part of the truth, but in the end, the seed that sprouted that child was yours. I’d go to the bank on that.”
David’s shoulders relaxed. “So it’s up to me to find out what part of her story is truth and what part is fiction?”
“Pretty much. For reasons we don’t know, she doesn’t want to tell you the whole of it. The only way you may ever find it out is to do some digging yourself.”
David wished it didn’t have to be that way. He preferred to hear the real story from Brianna. But for some reason, she wasn’t willing to level with him.
A horrible thought occurred to him. “Damn, Ace, what if it was her sister Moira that I fucked?”
Little Ace came dashing up to his father just then. Ace swung the child up onto his hip. “Watch the language,” he warned.
David swallowed hard and nodded, his mind racing off in a half dozen different directions. That kiss at the hotel. It had been deep, sweet, and memorable. How in the hell could he have made love to Brianna, yet have no recollection of ever kissing her? An icy feeling of dread settled deep in the pit of his stomach. “I figured the orphan part of her story could be true, that maybe she traveled out West to be with distant relatives until she reached her majority. That happens all the time, and it follows that her relatives may not have looked after her properly at social events. If I was drunk, and she caught my eye—” David glanced at Little Ace. “Well, you get my gist. But what if both girls came west to Denver, and it was the sister I trifled with? And what if she actually did die during childbirth? Oh, God, it’s suddenly starting to make sense.”
“I’m not following,” Ace said.
“Brianna would have been left with the baby. A young woman with a baby who had no husband. It would have been a nightmare in a city, Brianna trying to work while caring for an infant. Getting a live-in position was probably her only recourse, and highfalutin city folks may not hire a woman with a squalling kid.”
Ace mulled that over. “I can see where you’re go
ing with it, David, but what would have possessed her to take your name, raise the child as yours, and come back to Colorado, even going so far as to write you letters, asking you to come for her?”
“They were identical,” David said softly. “Twins no one could tell apart. As children, they tricked people all the time. Maybe—” David shrugged and lifted his hands again. “I don’t know. I’m just supposing, you know? Maybe she got the harebrained notion that she could take her sister’s place and I’d never guess the truth.” David turned slightly to better see Ace’s face. “Think about it, big brother. If Brianna is only the child’s aunt, and I’m the father, she has no right at all to the child. I could take Daphne and send Brianna packing. She adores that little girl. Maybe she thought she could carry it off until I showed up in Glory Ridge, and then she chickened out. At that point, naturally she would have lied, trying to convince me I’m not the father.”
“Like you say, this is a lot of supposition,” Ace inserted.
“Yes, but it makes more sense than her continually trying to convince me I’m not the daddy if she’s the child’s real mother.”
“In that event—if you find out you’re the father and Brianna’s only the aunt, will you cut Brianna out of the picture?” Ace asked.
“No.” David swallowed hard. “She’s Daphne’s mama in every way that counts. She’s sacrificed everything, the best years of her life, to be a mother to that child.”
“You’re falling in love with her, aren’t you?” Ace queried softly.
The question made David’s guts clench, for he knew the answer was yes. But the hell of it was, that was all he knew for certain right then, except that Daphne had to be his. Everyone in his family saw that. He saw that. Only now David had to wonder which woman he’d trifled with to create her.