CHAPTER 4

      Rachel Ferguson, the youngest of the Ridgeway siblings, sat at the table, sipping a cup of coffee as the cook cleaned up in the kitchen. This cook, an older Mexican woman named Consuelo Ruiz, had lasted longer than any of her predecessors and by a far margin, now coming up on her sixth year of cooking and cleaning for the five members of the Ferguson family. Consuelo was a mournful woman, and, in the beginning, Rachel had a small measure of sympathy for her situation—all five of Consuelo’s children had died before reaching adulthood—but time and the constant hardships had eroded even that.

      That’s what life on the frontier was like, Rachel thought as she stared at the oily surface of the coffee in her cup. The day-after-day drudgery dashed the smallest of dreams, leaving Rachel feeling hollowed out. This was not the life she’d yearned to have. There were no grand galas or crowded society dinners where she and her husband, Amos, could rub elbows with those in the upper echelons of society. No, the closest thing the Fergusons got to a party were the Sunday potluck dinners her mother occasionally organized for the ranch hands and their families with a rare neighbor or two thrown into the mix. The same faces—the same stories that were told and retold until Rachel could recite most from memory.

      There had been occasional moments of joy over the years, but Rachel’s enjoyment dimmed nearly to extinction with the death of their youngest daughter, Elizabeth, four years ago. Some kind of fever, the doctor had told them. Then the doctor had the gall to tell them they were lucky the disease hadn’t spread to other members of the family. Rachel hadn’t felt particularly lucky when they buried Liza in that deep, dark hole on that cloudy, cold day.

      Rachel’s thoughts were interrupted when Amos stepped back inside the house. He grabbed his gun belt from a peg by the door and strapped it on. “I guess we’re heading out,” he said.

      Rachel’s gaze drifted from the coffee cup to the scrapes and gouges on the table’s surface. “Okay.”

      “Don’t know when we’ll be back,” Amos said as he stood by the door.

      Rachel traced a deep scar on the tabletop with her finger. “Guess I’ll see you when I see you, then.” Out of the corner of her eye, she watched her husband as he shook his head and exited. Over the years, cracks had developed in their relationship, but Elizabeth’s death had irrevocably shattered the last remaining remnants of their marriage. Now they coexisted out of convenience and Rachel often wondered if she’d sold herself short by settling for Amos Ferguson just because he happened to pass through at a time when she was being urged to wed.

      It’s not that her husband wasn’t handsome because he was—tall and broad-shouldered with dark hair and deep-set blue eyes—and he was a good father to their children. But their marriage had never come close to the type of relationship her parents enjoyed. Her mother and father often touched each other—a hand on an arm, an arm around the other—in an unconscious display of their affection for each other. Something that had rarely happened among the Fergusons, either privately or publicly. Maybe my parents are the ones with an abnormal relationship, Rachel thought as she pushed to her feet and returned the cup to the kitchen. Maybe this was what marriage was supposed to be.

      Rachel provided a few instructions to Consuelo then made her way out to the front porch, taking a seat in one of the rockers. The perfect mixture of her mother and father, Rachel had long, dark hair, blue-green eyes, and lush, full lips. Tall at five-nine, she was long-legged and had all the right curves in all the right places. In total, she was a looker and knew it.

      Even though the sun was still low on the horizon, the heat was already building and a trickle of sweat dripped down Rachel’s back. In the distance she could see the men heading north and she wasn’t surprised to see Amos riding at the back of the pack. And riding beside him was Isaac, as usual. They rarely took the initiative in anything they did, often following the lead of others. Yes, her father was the alpha male around the ranch, but just once she’d like to see either Amos or Isaac grow a spine and stand up to Cyrus. But that was probably a lost cause, she thought, because her own two brothers were also spineless when it came to confronting their father. Rachel and Abigail had no such qualms, often telling their father exactly what they thought, much to their mother’s consternation.

      Rachel turned to look at the barn and saw her three children walking back to the house. Seth, the oldest at twelve, was shuffling along, his shoulders slumped in disappointment as he followed Jacob, who was ten, and Julia, now their youngest, at seven. Seth’s body language suggested Rachel was in for a long day. No doubt he felt slighted for not going on the trip and she silently cursed Amos for leaving her to deal with it. Rather than take his son aside to explain the dangers that might lie ahead, Amos most likely uttered his refusal and left it at that.

      “Ma, when’s Pa coming back?” Julia asked, stepping onto the porch.

      “No idea,” Rachel said. “I want you and Jacob to go inside and read three chapters of your books.”

      Julia shrugged. “Okay.” She loved to read and could spend all day wrapped up in her books.

      “I don’ wanna read,” Jacob complained.

      “Too bad,” Rachel said. “You need to keep up with your schoolin’ while your aunt Mary’s sick.”

      “That book’s stupid,” Jacob whined.

      “Choose another one,” Rachel said. A reader herself, she made sure the cabin was filled with books of all types. “Why don’t you try that new book, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea?”

      Jacob thought about it for a moment. “What’s it about?”

      While describing the book to Jacob, Rachel spied Seth out of the corner of her eye as he silently shuffled onto the porch, his cheeks still damp from the tears. He slouched into one of the chairs and rested his chin on his chest.

      “And there’s a giant sea monster,” Rachel said as she arched her arms up and clawed her hands, grabbing at Jacob.

      Jacob giggled and squirmed away from her grasp. “I might take a look,” he said between giggles.

      “Go on, then,” Rachel said, playfully swatting him on the butt as he walked by and stepped inside.

      Rachel settled back in the rocker and she and Seth sat in silence for a few moments, both staring at the distance. Rachel’s gaze drifted surreptitiously to her son, waiting for the inevitable onslaught of unanswerable questions. Seth didn’t disappoint.

      “Why, Ma? Why won’t they let me go with ’em?”

      Seth hadn’t hit his major growth spurt yet and he was a smallish, thin boy with sandy blond hair and large ears that his head hadn’t caught up to yet.

      “Are we going to go through this again?” Rachel asked, turning in her chair to face her son.

      Seth angrily swiped at the fresh track of tears sliding down his cheeks. “I’m old enough.”

      “No, you aren’t. There’s nothin’ but trouble across that river,” she said, pointing toward the water. “It’s not even safe for your pa or the rest of them.”

      Seth stood abruptly. “I’m tired of bein’ treated like a baby,” he shouted before stepping off the porch.

      “Seth, you come back here,” Rachel said, her voice stern.

      Seth stopped, turned, and looked at his mother for the first time. “I’m done talkin’.”

      “Oh, you are, huh? In that case get your butt over to the corral and get to work helping your uncle.”

      Seth and Rachel joined in an angry stare-off and