Ace didn’t take kindly to holier-than-thou churchgoers. He worshiped weekly with Caitlin, sometimes even taking her to Denver to attend Mass, but he drew the line at acting as if he were sinless. He felt that many people lost their way as Christians, and David agreed with him. That was undoubtedly why he’d been hesitant earlier to embarrass Miss Marcy. Her being an upstairs girl didn’t make her less of a human being.
“So you think this woman”—David gestured at the mail—“might actually have had my child?”
“It’s possible. That doesn’t mean I’m saying it’s probable.”
“Ever since I read some of the letters, I’ve been trying to convince myself of that,” David said. “That it’s improbable, I mean. It’s the possibility that has my guts tied in knots.” In a rush, he told Ace about sending Daphne money. “My gut tells me I’ve never clapped eyes on this woman, Ace.” He broke off and swallowed a lump of guilt. “But my conscience won’t let it go. What if I did bed her? She could have been a fancy girl in one of the Denver saloons and mistook me for a gold miner. Back then, before you got the railway connection built, I drove my cattle to market, and I was as dirty as any nugget digger you ever saw when I reached town. How do you tell the difference between a miner and a cowpoke? By the boots they wear? It isn’t like I talk a whole lot about myself when I toss a skirt. Fact is, I don’t talk much at all, except to say nice stuff, leaving off before I tell a woman I love her.” David felt like a ten-year-old again. “Even working girls like to hear nice stuff. Right?”
Ace nodded. “I raised you right. What you do with what I taught you is your business. If you choose to burn those letters, I won’t hold it against you. I’m hard put to say I’d do differently. A woman and child, out of the blue? You have your life here in No Name. They aren’t a part of it. I guess what I’m saying is, do what your heart tells you to do, David. If you can live with it, I sure as hell can.”
David’s headache suddenly eased. He pushed at the heap of letters, his fingertips sensitive to the rasp against grained paper. “I can’t live with fathering a child and leaving her to eat scraps from garbage drums. If I was once with that woman—if I got her pregnant—” David broke off and released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Well, if I did that, I have an obligation to the woman and the kid. Drunk or not when he makes a mistake, any man worth his salt takes responsibility for his actions. I can’t burn the letters and just let it go.”
“I’d feel the same. But let’s not jump the gun. It’s possible there’s another man around Denver, or was a few years back, named David Paxton. I suggest you head up there and scour the area, not only Denver, but all the outlying mining communities, for any trace of a man of that name. If he exists, there should be some record, a signature when he checked into a hotel, a transaction in his name at the assayer’s office if he was a miner, a bill at a dry-goods store, something. And if you find evidence that another David Paxton exists, it’s my feeling that you have no obligation to hang your hat on this gal’s hook.”
“And if there is no evidence of another David Paxton?” David didn’t know why he asked the question, because he already knew the answer, but for some reason, he needed to hear Ace say it. “Do I go find the woman? Will I know when I see the child if she’s mine? Look at little Dory, damn it. Except for your black hair, she looks nothing like you. What does a man do in a situation like this?”
Ace shoved at the mail again, his dark face taut. “He does what his heart and conscience tell him to do. If you decide it’s possible this child is your daughter, can you live with ignoring that fact?”
David shook his head. “I wouldn’t have much respect for myself as a man.”
“Then you need to hop the train to Denver. Do some checking. Hit the saloons, talk to people, see if anyone remembers this fellow.”
“That’ll take a spell, especially if I visit outlying towns,” David mused. He glanced toward the cell block. “It’s been pretty quiet around here lately, though. My deputies can handle everything if I’m gone for a few days, I reckon.”
“It may take more than a few days if you find no evidence that another David Paxton ever stepped foot in Denver. In that event, you’ll have to put your foreman in charge of your ranch and let your deputies do the marshaling while you make another trip.”
David nodded grimly. If he could find no trace of another man with his name, he’d be taking quite a long trip to a tiny little town named Glory Ridge.
Chapter One
Glory Ridge, Colorado
April 10, 1891
T
he hum and clack of the Singer sewing machine sang as softly in Brianna’s ears as a lullaby, the sounds so familiar and soothing to her that she could lose herself to the rhythm for hours, barely aware of the ache in her ankles from constantly working the pedal. A window to her right offered the only brightness in her work cubicle, and that was precious little on an overcast day. Even so, Brianna squinted to see rather than fire up the lantern before sundown. Kerosene cost dearly, a fact the shop owner, Abigail Martin, pointed out when anyone but herself needed extra illumination. Providing sufficient light so her employee didn’t struggle to see came under the heading of wasteful. Brianna’s lips compressed. She was in no mood for another scold today.
A lock of Brianna’s curly auburn hair escaped its coronet to tickle her cheek, but she ignored the irritation and kept pushing the two pieces of rose taffeta forward, ever gauging the evenness and tightness of the stitches. Abigail cawed like a disgruntled crow when she found a flaw. At present, the tempting fragrance of toasted bread and hot tea drifted from the old hag’s living quarters, irrefutable testimony that the woman loafed behind the closed door, indulging in afternoon treats instead of working.
Brianna knew it was wrong to have hateful thoughts, but since leaving Charles Ricker’s employ two months ago, she’d come to detest Abigail. The lady was mean-spirited and miserly, never offering to share the bounty from her kitchen, not even with a child. She also had a propensity for hogging the glory. The shrew presented all finished gowns to her customers and took credit for their innovative design. Oh, how Brianna yearned to speak up and claim the creations as her own, but the fangs of hunger, always threatening to slash at her daughter’s belly, kept her silent. She needed this job. The paltry sum she received each week, along with what she made at the restaurant and doing odd jobs, paid their rent and usually, though not always, provided sufficient food for Daphne. For now, that had to be Brianna’s only focus.
Nevertheless, she dreamed as she worked of owning her own dress shop. The display windows would sport the very latest in fashion and the finest quality available. Wealthy women would pay dearly to purchase Brianna Paxton originals. They would, oh, yes, they would, and Brianna’s coffers would overflow with the profits, putting an end to this hand-to-mouth existence.
To Brianna, sewing was similar to a waltz, her partner a machine. She followed its lead, aware of every hitch in its gait. Even when pain stabbed like knives beneath her shoulder blades from sitting hunched over, she was grateful for her talent with a needle, for that alone would one day free her and Daphne from the clutches of poverty.
Brianna often sent up prayers for the nuns at the Boston orphanage where she’d lived as a child. They had been wise to teach her a trade. Without this job to supplement her other income, she and her child would be out on the street, begging for handouts from the citizens of Glory Ridge, who were hard put to take care of themselves. As it was, Brianna occasionally had to snatch hunks of bread and cheese from the restaurant kitchen she cleaned every night and was sometimes left with no choice but to forage in trash barrels for food.
It shamed her, that. Her Irish pride burned hot every time she thought of it. Fortunately, she’d been blessed with a goodly amount of stubbornness, which stood her in good stead when circumstances drove her to do things that went against her grain and humiliated her. She’d heard people say that the end justified the means. In Brianna??
?s case, the end, keeping Daphne nourished, justified the depths to which she sometimes sank. Until their circumstances improved, there was no room in her life for a fierce sense of dignity. That was a facet of her nature she had to bury deep within herself. Daphne had to eat, and the child had no one in the world but Brianna.
Brianna sometimes wondered from which of her parents she had inherited her strong personality. They’d both been Irish, according to the nuns, and apparently impoverished, because they’d left their infant daughters on the orphanage doorstep with only a note to provide the good sisters with their first and last names. Other than that, Brianna knew nothing about her sire or dam. Her identical twin, Moira, had been humble and malleable of nature, giving Brianna reason to believe that one of their parents had been iron willed and the other possibly complaisant.
Or perhaps life itself had molded Brianna into the willful person she’d become. Growing up in an orphanage had made her feel unimportant. She’d been one of a flock, like the offspring of a brood hen that had laid all her eggs in a communal nest. The nuns had been affectionate, but their attention was spread thin. Only determination and an abundance of individuality made Brianna stand out. To this day, she could remember how she’d yearned for her favorite nun, Sister Theresa, to notice her. Maybe that craving had pushed Brianna into becoming bolder. A harsh reprimand from the sweet little nun had been better than no special consideration from her at all.
Brianna frowned thoughtfully as she fixed a gathered sleeve to the armhole of the garment. It had been from Sister Theresa that she’d first heard the proverb “Pride goeth before destruction.” Those had been only words to Brianna as a child. It had taken the harsh lessons of experience years later to teach her their meaning.
Well, she had learned, all right, and the events triggered by her reckless behavior at age eighteen would haunt her for the rest of her life. Tears of regret stung Brianna’s eyes whenever she thought of those times, for it had been her sister, Moira, who had paid the price for Brianna’s indiscretions, her sister who ultimately was destroyed.
Spilled milk, and no sense in crying over it. Moira had been dead for more than six years, and the time for weeping had passed. Now all Brianna could do was keep her promise to raise Moira’s daughter as her own. She’d been unable to do it in fine fashion, but at least she’d managed. Not even Daphne knew Brianna wasn’t her real mother, and unless Brianna allowed herself to dwell on the past, she seldom remembered it, either. Daphne was her child in every way that counted.
Running footsteps thumped outside on the boardwalk. Then, as if Brianna’s musings conjured her up, Daphne burst into the shop. Brianna didn’t have to see the child to know it was her. No adult would create such a clatter and bang with door and bell. Biting back a smile, Brianna turned, swept aside the curtain that separated her cubicle from the display room, and settled a censorial gaze on her daughter, who now added to the din, slamming the portal closed without a thought for the additional noise.
“Quiet! You know how angry Miss Martin gets when you make a racket!”
Flushed from running in the chill breeze, the six-year-old bounced across the plank floor, golden curls tumbling over her shoulders. Sometimes Brianna wondered where the girl had gotten her church-angel fairness. From the man who’d raped her mother, she supposed, for neither Brianna nor Moira had ever been blond, even in early childhood. Daphne had blue eyes instead of green. Only her finely arched brows, so like Brianna’s own, marked her as an O’Keefe. Right now she shifted from one foot to the other with excitement as she waved a fat envelope beneath Brianna’s nose.
“It’s from Papa!” she cried. “Look, Mama! He sent heaps and heaps of money! I just asked for one new dress, but this is enough for a hundred!”
Papa?
Bewildered, Brianna plucked the envelope from her daughter’s hand. A cold sense of unreality washed over her as she perused the return address, written in a bold, masculine hand: Marshal David Paxton, No Name, Colorado.
It couldn’t be. David Paxton didn’t exist. Brianna had invented him one long-ago night in Boston, and forever after she had claimed he was her husband and the father of her child. He wasn’t an actual person, only a man she’d dreamed up to lend her an air of respectability in a world that ostracized women who bore children out of wedlock.
“Look, Mama!” Daphne cried. “He sent lots and lots! Maybe even enough for”—the child gulped before voicing her dearest and most oft-repeated wish—“shoes, too?”
Trembling with shock, Brianna shushed the child again and parted the envelope to peer at the currency. Dear God in heaven. In all her twenty-six years, she’d seen this much money only once, after she’d left Charles Ricker’s employ and emptied her five-year savings account to rent the attic room of the boardinghouse, purchase blankets for the cot, and buy Daphne eats. Pulling out the bills, Brianna stared in stunned amazement. A quick glance told her there was at least a hundred dollars, if not more.
Incredulous, she fixed her gaze on Daphne’s glowing countenance. For an instant, she wanted to shout with delight and bounce across the floor with her daughter. Then reason banished the urge, trickling into her mind like ice water and filling her with foreboding. Her husband, David Paxton, did not exist, yet figments of one’s imagination could not address an envelope or fill it with cash. David Paxton, her counterfeit husband, had suddenly taken on substance. This was not manna from heaven but a catastrophe. What if this man showed up in Glory Ridge?
“Mama?” Daphne studied Brianna with worried blue eyes. “What is it? Aren’t you pleased that he sent us money?”
Brianna fished in the envelope, hoping to find an accompanying note, something—anything—to explain this strange turn of events. Over the last six years, during which she’d written to David Paxton in Denver repeatedly under duress by her employer and never received a reply, she’d grown confident that no man of that name dwelled in the city or surrounding area. No worries. Her invented marriage was safe from exposure. No one would ever respond to her missives, in which she’d been forced by her boss to plead countless times for assistance. She and Daphne were secure, their social status protected by a fragile guise of legitimacy. On her left hand, Brianna wore a simple gold band, which she’d purchased from a Boston pawnbroker, enabling her to pose as a married woman who could apply for employment out West. There had been no jobs in Boston—well, next to nothing, anyway, the alternatives now best forgotten—and her infant niece had required constant care. Brianna had desperately needed a position where she could keep the baby with her while she worked.
Charles Ricker’s advertisement in the Boston Herald had saved the day. Reeling from the death of his wife, the rancher had needed a cook, housekeeper, and tutor for his sons, preferably a widow, with or without a child of her own. Brianna had learned the hard way that a woman without male protection was often victimized by men, so she decided it would be safer to portray herself as a lady with an errant husband who might resurface. So it was that David Paxton had been born. Brianna had written to Ricker, fabricating the story that she still told now. Ricker had found her trumped-up qualifications satisfactory and wired traveling funds for Brianna and her daughter.
Brianna tried never to recall those disastrous first months when her lack of knowledge about cooking and ranch animals had been a torment that had almost cost her the job. Fortunately, her tutoring skills were genuine and well above average. Ricker had eventually come to accept that his housekeeper would never warm his bed, and he’d been marginally satisfied with Brianna’s work. The years had passed pleasantly enough until Ricker met a lady he wanted to marry. With his boys almost grown, Brianna’s services had become superfluous.
Now here she sat, staring stupidly at an envelope that threatened to destroy the life she’d built in Glory Ridge for herself and Daphne. David Paxton was real. Panic welled within her. “My, my, it is a fair sum of money, dear heart. You’ll have several new dresses and new shoes as well. Apparently your papa found a huge gold n
ugget!”
Daphne beamed with pleasure. “And he remembered me, Mama! You always say how much he loves us. But sometimes I wondered. I did, and that’s a fact. But this proves I was wrong.”
Brianna’s heart caught. It concerned her to know that Daphne felt unloved by her sire, for if any child on earth deserved to feel cherished, Daphne did. That was the problem with pretend papas. They could show no affection because they didn’t exist.
The thought drew Brianna’s attention back to the thick stack of silver certificates on her palm. With a brush of her thumb, she uncovered three tens, several fives, a number of ones, and four twenties. If the money had been from Daphne’s real papa, Brianna would have felt it was little enough and long overdue, but the child’s biological father, Stanley Romanik, was in Boston, the spoiled son of a prosperous farmer. Seven years ago, he had raped her sister, Moira, in the convent conservatory, accepted no responsibility for the pregnancy, and gotten away scot-free.
“Mama, is there enough money for you to have a new dress, too? The ones you wear don’t fit right, and one of them keeps splitting on the side.”
Brianna gathered the child into her arms for a fierce hug. How many six-year-old girls, deprived as Daphne had been, would think to share money that had been sent in an envelope addressed solely to them? Brianna had no intention of wasting a cent of this blessing on herself. Daphne would have new dresses and a pair of good shoes, but the remainder would be saved to ensure that the child had a roof over her head and food in her stomach for a few more months. As for David Paxton—well, that was a worry for later. She mustn’t betray by expression or action that she was shocked or disbelieving.
“Do you think he may come for us soon?” Daphne asked.
“I doubt it, dearest. One gold nugget doesn’t make a man rich. It was kind of him to share some of his find with you, though.”