Family on the Range. Jessica Nelson
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he plans to find a place in town for when he and Gracie don’t stay at the ranch. I would like you to come live with me.”
An old argument, but she tried again, hoping this to be the day her mother might surrender.
“Interesting,” Rose murmured, stroking the thick rabbit robe on her lap. “Now you will be alone with your employer?”
“Lou?”
“You have great besa soobedda for him.”
“A what?” Though Mary spoke some Paiute, she wasn’t fluent and disliked when her mother used language she hadn’t taught her only daughter.
A crooked smile lifted the corner of Rose’s lips. “Besa soobedda is love, the sweet emotional bond between a man and his wife.”
Mary stiffened as a peculiar heat seeped through her. She’d lived at the ranch for twelve years and never had she entertained such a thought about her employer. Granted, he was charming and funny. He had hired her as his housekeeper when she was eighteen, offering his home as a refuge after she’d been rescued from the notorious slave trader Mendez. Lou’s kindness would never be forgotten. But love?
“We have no such love,” she denied. “I feel a sister’s affection for him.” Even as she spoke, she wondered if that was true. When she’d told him goodbye yesterday, there had been the oddest regret creeping through her. Unnerved, she continued, “I should leave if you do not wish to come with me at this time.”
“Wait!” Her mother struggled to a standing position, and Mary tried not to cringe at how age and worries had stolen her mother’s strength. Perhaps loneliness would not kill her mother but rather another more obvious ailment. She swallowed hard at the thought.
Rose shuffled toward a trunk at the other side of the tepee. Bending, she opened it. “I have something for you.”
“I want you to come home with me. I need nothing else.”
“This is important.”
A small blond head popped up out of the trunk. “Hiya!”
Mary started. “What is that?”
“I’m a little girl.” The child clambered out of the trunk and gave Mary a decidedly mischievous smirk. “Are you going to be my mother?”
Startled, Mary groped for words. Finally, she said, “I’m not a mother to anyone.”
“Oh, but I need one. Just for a bit, you see, until I go home to my real mama.” The girl shot a cheeky, gap-toothed grin up at Rose, who reached down to stroke the girl’s head.
The movement snapped Mary from her shocked paralysis. “You have someone’s child? Do you know the penalty for such a thing?”
Rose met her accusation with a steady look. “She is in danger. You have a home apart from Lou now. You can hide her.”
“No.” She shook her head, feeling her braid swing against her back. “No, I can’t do it.”
“My daughter, I need you.” Her mother shuffled forward. “I cannot keep her much longer.”
Mary glanced at the child, who’d shifted her attention to the baskets and studiously went about picking one apart. “Who is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“My name’s Josie Silver,” the girl put in. “I live in Portland but my mama’s not home right now.”
“Where is she?” Mary asked. “How about your father?”
The girl lifted her shoulders. “I don’t know, and I don’t have a papa. I want to stay here.”
Mary glared at her mother. “Where did you find her?”
“Half-dead near Harney Lake, one week ago.”
She shuddered. “That’s horrible. You should’ve taken her to the authorities.”
Her mother grimaced. “I wasn’t supposed to be out there.”
“Mother.”
“Don’t berate me. You say you follow Jesus. A woman in town says He helps the poor and motherless. This child is that, and I—” Her mother peeked at the girl and lowered her voice. “I’m begging you to hide her until I send word it’s safe.”
“This makes no sense. How do you know she’s not safe?”
“Her guardian has posted a reward for her.”
“You said you didn’t know who she is? Return her.” Mary frowned. Where was the problem if someone had offered a reward? They already knew the child’s mother’s name. Confused and feeling lost in the maze of her mother’s reasoning, she backed toward the door flap.
“I know the guardian,” her mother said quietly. “He is not a man to be trifled with.”
Uncharacteristic impatience rushed through Mary. “Take care of the matter, then.” She had no room, no time, for a child.
I’m afraid.
The thought slammed into her. Tension hovered at the base of her skull, knotting and twining the muscles of her neck.
Her mother moved closer, bringing her once-beautiful features near. “I knew him when you were a child. In my past.”
Mary’s hand flew to her lips, but the movement didn’t stifle her gasp.
“Yes.” Her mother nodded. “Now you understand. He is a bad man, and I do not know why this child lay in the desert like a starved and wounded animal, but I will not return her. He will come looking, and it will be impossible for me to hide her from others.”
“I’ll take her,” Mary said through numb lips.
It was true she could take the child to her new home, but for how long? The girl couldn’t live with her indefinitely. The authorities must be contacted.
What would Lou say about a child near his secluded ranch, a haven he’d created for secret agents of the Bureau of Investigation and not for child rearing?
The little girl stared at her with big eyes, and she winced.
Why should she care what Lou thought? Yes, he employed her to keep his house, but she’d just bought her own home, her first step toward a more independent life. Determination straightened her backbone. If she was going to stop being afraid, to start living again, then she must put Lou and everything he represented behind her.
Could she do that, though?
Thank goodness he wouldn’t be home for several weeks. That gave her time to return Josie to her mother and persuade her own mother to come live with her. Because if Lou were home, he’d protest, and she didn’t know if she had the backbone to stand up for what she thought was right.
Chapter Two
An uncomfortable dryness at the roof of Lou’s mouth woke him. His tongue felt oversize, and his throat worked to swallow. He opened his eyes to find himself in the dark tones of his bedroom. A sense of claustrophobia wrapped galvanizing tentacles around him.
He tried to shove upward, but fierce pain in his chest snatched the breath from his lungs. Forced to lie still, he took shallow breaths while the pulsating daggers near his upper rib cage ebbed. Only thirty-six. It wasn’t fair to feel this way.
“Water,” he croaked.
Movement to his left, and then a firm hand slipped under his neck. Relieved, Lou allowed his head to tip forward so he could drink from the proffered cup.
The hand took the water away too quickly. After resting his head back on the pillow, Mary crossed his line of vision, disappeared, and then reappeared on his right side.
Hair pulled back in a bun, she might’ve passed for any Irish lass but for