A Cowboy Unmatched (11 page)

Darius leaned over the side, scanning the water for the girl. How could he have let her fall? He'd promised.

She sputtered to the surface, arms flailing in the panicked motions of one who'd never been taught to swim. Without hesitation, Darius dove in after her.

He kicked quickly to the surface, the water too dark for him to see anything below. Yet there was no sign of her above, either. He swiveled his neck from side to side, desperate. Where was she? She should have been right there.

Then a tiny splash to his left drew his attention. A limp hand was disappearing into the river a couple yards downstream, a hand edged with a pink sleeve.

Darius sucked in a lungful of air and dove underwater, kicking with powerful strokes to the place she should have been. But the currents were strong, and the girl wasn't. Darius slashed his arms through the water, hoping to collide with her torso and be able to drag her to him. He hit what seemed to be the wilted length of her arm and fumbled for a hold, but the currents tugged her out of his reach.

Darius swam after her, but the darkness hid her from him. Deeper and deeper he went. Searching. Praying. His lungs burned, but he refused to stop. He had to find her. He'd promised he wouldn't let her fall.

He swept his arms out again, and his right arm hit something solid. He circled his arm around the girl's chest and kicked for the surface. They broke through.
Thank God!
Darius gasped for breath yet never stopped swimming. Angling the girl so her head remained above water, he made for the shore.

His legs finally found purchase on land, and Darius lifted the girl into his arms. Utterly depleted, he stumbled under her slight weight. Clenching his jaw, he righted himself and managed to get her to dry ground. Her body hung lifelessly from his arms. He dropped to one knee and rolled her over until she was draped across his thigh. Then he pounded her back with all the strength he had left.

“Please, sweetheart,” he begged. “Please breathe.”

Water pumped out of her mouth, but she remained limp. Lifeless.

Darius cradled her body and tenderly laid it out upon the sand. He bent his ear to her mouth, longing to hear the rasp of breath even as he knew it wouldn't be there.

“I'm sorry.” Reality slammed into him, tearing a sob from his throat. The girl was gone. He'd failed her. He'd let her fall.

Darius pounded his fist into the sand and shouted his grief to the heavens.

G
ALVESTON
, T
EXAS
A
PRIL
1851

Nicole Renard gripped her mother's letter in her gloved hand as the carriage rattled down Bath Street, away from the docks.
Come at once,
her mother had written.
Your father is very ill. He might not survive
to the end of your term.

Nicole had packed her belongings the day the letter arrived and left Miss Rochester's Academy for Young Ladies the following morning.

The voyage that had seemed so swift and exhilarating last fall dragged out interminably on the return trip. Her stomach had been so knotted with worry that she rarely left her stateroom for anything other than meals. This behavior from the girl who used to cry inconsolably if her sea-captain father made her go belowdecks, where she couldn't feel the ocean spray against her face and smell the salty tang of the sea air. The briny air and windy spray on this journey, however, only intensified her distress as memories of the strong, vital man she remembered from childhood wilted beneath her mother's description of the decimation brought on by his illness.

“Dear Lord,” she whispered for the hundredth time since leaving Boston. “Don't take him from us. Please. Strengthen him. Heal him. Give me back my papa.”

Her hand trembled, crinkling the letter. She pressed both against her stomach and blinked back the tears that threatened to escape her lashes. Nicole bit down on the edge of her tongue. There'd be no crying today. Her papa hated tears, said they were a weakness,
a woman's affliction. A man wouldn't cry. A man would set about fixing things. So that's what she'd do. Fix things.

She'd spell Mother in nursing him. She'd oversee the accounts and check in at the Renard Shipping offices every day to keep him apprised of his business interests. She'd prove herself as valuable to him as the son he'd always lamented not having.

The carriage turned a corner. Nicole braced her arm against the upholstered seat to aid her balance. Five more blocks and she'd be home. She looked out the window at the familiar landscape, her heart stirring as the marshy environ welcomed her.

Then she saw it—Renard House. Its white columns stood tall and proud, exactly as she remembered. Her gaze flicked to the second-story window on the far side, her bedroom. The light glowing within brought a smile to Nicole's face. All those times that she and Tommy Ackerman had stayed out too late at the bayou, fishing or playing pirate, her mother would light a lamp and set it on the table near her window so Nicole would have a beacon to guide her home when darkness began to fall. Now, years later, as dusk settled over the island again, that same lamp beckoned.

When the driver pulled the team to a halt, Nicole didn't wait for him to assist her. She unlatched the door and bounded out, grabbing a handful of her full skirts to ensure she didn't stumble. Heart pounding with a mixture of dread and longing, she dashed up the front walk. Before she reached the covered porch, her mother had both the door and her arms open wide.

“Maman!” Nicole raced up the steps and threw her arms around her mother's neck. In that instant, all the questions and concerns plaguing her flew out of her mind. She was home. Her
maman
was holding her. Everything would be all right.

Together they swayed gently from side to side, her mother rubbing her back and humming softly, just as she used to do when Nicole had been small enough to curl up in her lap.

“It is so good to have you home,
ma petite
.” Her mother eased back, taking Nicole by the arms and studying her face as if afraid she had forgotten what her daughter looked like. “But what is all this dashing about?” A sparkle lit her lovely brown eyes as she lifted a well-manicured brow. “Your father and I paid good money for that finishing school, and here you are still running about the place, as much the hoyden as ever. Really, Nicole, John looked quite
exasperated when you threw that carriage door open without waiting for him. The poor fellow was probably looking forward to welcoming you home with a gallant flourish, and you stole all his fun.”

Following her mother's gaze, Nicole turned her head to see the coachman standing a few feet away, her steamer trunk balanced on his shoulder. The man's expression was as bland and bored as always. John had no fun to steal. Not that she hadn't tried over the years. It was a game she had played since childhood, trying to coax a smile out of the old curmudgeon. She'd yet to see one, but she believed they were there. The man was just too accomplished an adversary to let one slip free.

Trying to look contrite, Nicole dipped her chin in his direction. “I apologize for ruining your fun, John. I can only imagine what I missed by rushing out on my own. How grand was this flourish supposed to be?”

The coachman strode forward as if to move past her into the house without reply, then stopped when he reached her side. “I believe there were to be rose petals flung upon the ground, a trumpet anthem, and dancing horses, miss.” His impassive voice recited the fanciful list as if he were ordering groceries at the mercantile.

Nicole choked on a giggle. “Dancing horses?”

The man's bored expression never wavered. “Been training the beasts for weeks. And all for naught.” He gave a sad shake of his head and continued into the house.

Nicole met her mother's disbelieving glance, and the two immediately dissolved into laughter.

Her mother wiped at the moisture leaking from her eyes and smiled. “Oh, it feels good to laugh. There's been too little reason for merriment of late.”

Nicole sobered. “How is Father? Has there been any improvement since your last letter?”

Her mother wrapped an arm around her shoulders and ushered her inside. “The doctors are offering little hope for recovery. They've discovered a . . . growth . . . in his abdomen.”

Nicole gripped her mother's hand when she would have turned away to close the door. “What does that mean?”

“It's hard to know. He isn't in a lot of pain yet—thank the Lord—but he barely eats, has no energy, and is just . . . wasting away.”

She sighed. And for the first time Nicole noticed the lines of fatigue marring her mother's usually flawless skin. “The doctor is loathe to operate. Says it would be too dangerous. But if the tumor continues to grow, there's a chance your father's condition will worsen and eventually end his life.”

Nicole tightened her grip on her mother's hand. “But there's also a chance it won't grow. Right?”

Her mother cupped Nicole's cheek in her hand, a sad smile curving her lips. “Yes, there is a chance,
ma
petite
. We will continue to pray and hope that God will give us the answer we desire. But we must also prepare to say good-bye. For your father's sake as well as our own. Your papa, he's just stubborn enough to refuse to die if he thinks his girls will not be all right without him. And I won't have him suffering pain needlessly.”

A fierce light sparked in her eyes. Her
maman
could be just as stubborn as her father. “We will love him, we will nurse him, and we will give him peace so that he may leave when the Lord calls him home. Are we agreed?”

The challenge resonated in Nicole's breast. The child in her wanted to cling to her papa, to hold him fast and never let him go. Yet her woman's heart recognized the wisdom in her mother's words, the love that drove the sacrifice of letting go.

“Agreed.”

Her mother squeezed her hand, smiled, and turned back to close the door.

“Pauline?” A deep voice rasped from behind them. “Thought I heard the carriage. Is our Nicki home?”

Nicole spun around, eager to greet her father, but as her beloved papa shuffled into the hall, a cry lodged in her throat. The man who had always been larger than life in her eyes emerged from the parlor a man so thin his clothes hung from his frame as if his shoulders were nothing more substantial than a pair of hooks in a wardrobe.

Determined to hide her distress, she pasted on a bright grin and strode forward. “I'm home, Papa. I'm home.” Embracing him with a gentleness that broke her heart for its necessity, she kissed his cheek and then stepped back.

“Missed you, my girl. The place isn't the same without you.” He patted the wall as he spoke, then left his hand braced there. Nicole didn't miss the way his body sagged as he let the house take on a
portion of his weight. What little there was of it. “Your mother told me you took another first in mathematics last term.”

His eyes sparkled, and Nicole relaxed. He was still there, inside that emaciated body. Her papa was still the same proud, stubborn, loving man she'd always adored.

“My mathematics instructor, Miss Brownstead, even managed to acquire a copy of the examination they administered at Harvard last year and let me take it after hours. She said my score would have placed me in the top quarter of the first-year gentlemen.”

“Ha!” her father boomed, a hint of what she'd always thought of as his captain's voice returning. “That's my girl. Always knew you had it in you. The crewmen down at the docks still talk about how they could throw cargo numbers at you from the manifest and your totals would match the accounting every time.”

Nicole chuckled over the memory of the game she and the men had played when her father took her down to his office with him. “Except for that time when I came up with a different tonnage, and the men insisted Mr. Bailey check his figures.”

Papa nodded, his rich laugh filling the hall. “I remember. Gerald was in such a state. He insisted his numbers were correct and refused to recalculate, so I took the books from him and did it myself. When my answer matched yours, he was livid—until he checked the work himself and found his error. The men badgered him for weeks after that. Wouldn't let him hear the end of it.” He shook his head. “He's double-checked his numbers every shipment since, though, and we've never had another discrepancy.”

“You know I'll always do whatever I can to help Renard Shipping, Papa.” Nicole smiled as she delivered the lighthearted statement, but the truth of it ran deep. Renard Shipping was in her blood. Now that her father was ailing, it was up to her to keep things running, and she aimed to do just that.

“Let's get you back to your chair, Anton,” her mother said, coming forward to take his arm. “Nicole has had a long journey. I'm sure she would like time to rest a bit and change before dinner. Wouldn't you, dear?”

A denial rose to Nicole's lips. She wanted to stay with her father. To visit and reconnect after months away. But when she met her mother's gaze, she bit back the words. Papa was the one who needed the rest. He tried to hide it, yet on closer inspection, Nicole realized
her mother supported much of his weight as he stepped away from the wall.

“Yes.” Nicole let her shoulders slump a little. “I
am
weary. A short rest before dinner would be just the thing. Then I can tell you all about the coastal steamer I rode down from Boston. It had one of those new iron screw propeller systems, Papa.”

His eyes lit with interest, and his posture straightened. “The screw propeller, huh? Did it have a paddle wheel, too, or—”

“At dinner, Anton,” his wife scolded gently. “She'll tell you all about it at dinner.” She pressed him into motion back toward the parlor. “Let the girl catch her breath. They'll be plenty of time to quiz her later.”

And, of course, her mother was right. In fact, once she was closeted alone in her room, Nicole found that she truly
was
weary. The constant worry of the past weeks followed by the sad evidence of her father's deteriorated condition had left her exhausted.

She put on a bright face again for dinner and eagerly regaled her papa with what knowledge she'd managed to glean from Captain Sanders during her time aboard the
Starlight
. When Cook brought out dessert, however, Nicole failed to contain the yawn that stretched her jaw downward into a thoroughly unladylike position.

“Darling, go on up to bed.” Her mother's smile said so much more than her words.
I love you. Take care of yourself
. Don't worry about what you can't control.
All of those sentiments communicated silently through the tender curve of lips and the radiating warmth of a pair of brown eyes.

Nicole returned the smile, hoping her
maman
would recognize her own messages in return.
I love you, too. I
'm here to help. Thank you for taking care of
all of us.
Then she rose from the table, kissed her mother's cheek, and turned to face her father.

“Good night, Papa.” His skin felt paper-thin beneath her lips as she softly bussed his cheek.

“Good night, scamp. It's good to have you home.”

Nicole made her way upstairs and readied for bed, her yawns coming with increased frequency. When she finally stretched out upon her bed, sleep claimed her quickly.

Sometime later, a muffled crash belowstairs woke her. Disoriented at first, it took a moment to recognize her room as the one at home
instead of her accommodations at the academy. Sitting up, she probed the silence for clues.

Another sound echoed from downstairs. A thud.
Papa!
Had he fallen?

Throwing back the blankets, Nicole rolled to her feet and grabbed her dressing gown from the end of her bed. Pushing her arms through the sleeves, she crossed the floor in urgent strides. She opened the door and sped down the hall to the stairway, her bare feet silent upon the floorboards.

Reverberations of angry voices stopped her descent. Male voices. Voices she didn't recognize.

Someone had broken into her house.