Brave the Wild Wind (20 page)

T
HE ride back to the ranch was a tense, bitter journey, with both Chase and Jessie bristling silently over their stalemate. They reached the valley just before dusk, riding up to the ranch as sullen and uncommunicative as they had been all the way from Cheyenne.

Jessie was and wasn’t looking forward to the confrontation with Rachel. She wanted Rachel gone, but she realized it would be the last time she would ever see her mother.

Seeing Rachel waiting by the kitchen door as she came from the stable didn’t bolster Jessie’s confidence that she could handle this meeting in a calm, unemotional way. She drew on past memories to strengthen her determination, memories of her father sitting at the kitchen table with a whiskey bottle, mumbling about the treachery of whores. Memories of him angrily explaining away the absence of her mother. Memories of him shouting about finding Rachel with Will Phengle.

Rachel blocked the doorway, looking neat and clean in a flower-sprigged dress. Just once Jessie wanted to see that woman with a little dirt on her face, a little dust on her clothes, a few
hairs out of place—anything to make her seem more human.

“Your coming in, does that mean the trouble is over?” Rachel asked as Jessie reached her. “You have the cattle all herded together finally?”

Jessie just kept walking, forcing Rachel to step back so she could enter the kitchen. She stopped at the kitchen table and took off her hat and gloves, dropping them there. She was tense and getting tenser. Thank God she had slept past her nausea that morning. Her stomach couldn’t handle so much disturbance in one day.

Rachel was watching her carefully. “Will
he
be leaving now?”

Jessie met her gaze firmly. “The answer to all your questions is no, Rachel.”

“Oh. Well. You did say you wouldn’t be coming back from the range until everything was settled.”

“We’ll be going back out tomorrow. Actually, Chase and I just came from Cheyenne.”

“Oh?” Rachel’s brow knit in concern.

“What?”

“Well, Jeb took Billy out looking for you. You see, I’m sending Billy back to Chicago. I can’t let him continue to neglect his schooling,” she explained. “But he did so want to say good-bye to you first. I hope they don’t hear you’ve gone to Cheyenne and decide to follow you all the way there!”

“You get anxious over nothing,” Jessie said impatiently. “Jeb has enough sense not to take the boy that far.”

“Take the boy where?” Chase asked, appearing in the doorway.

Rachel wouldn’t look his way, so Jessie had to.

“To town to find me to say good-bye,” Jessie answered as pleasantly as possible. “She’s sending Billy away for his schooling.”

Chase raised a questioning brow at Jessie. “You didn’t tell her yet then?”

“Tell me what?” Rachel demanded.

“I’ll let Jessie have the pleasure, lady,” he said. “I held up coming in here just so she could. What’s the holdup, Jessie? Having trouble finding the words?”

Jessie gave him a withering look.

“We went to Cheyenne yesterday to get married, Rachel. Chase is my husband.”

Rachel looked back and forth between them, slowly appraising but not the tiniest bit surprised.

“I see,” she said at last. She was smiling. “When you left, Chase, I wondered whether you’d come to your senses. Oh, well, as long as it’s all worked out.” She beamed at them, delighted.

Jessie was incredulous. “Just what the hell does that mean?”

“Why, that I knew this would happen, of course,” Rachel said calmly.

Jessie’s eyes flashed. “That’s impossible!”

“Is it? Any two people who affect each other the way you two do are destined for each other. I can’t tell you how delighted I am that you realized it.”

There was a moment of shocked silence.
“How can you say that? You turned against him, remember?”

“Yes.” Rachel smiled. “And when I did, you defended him. You might call it…a bit of strategy.”

“I call it a crock!” Jessie snapped. “Strategy!”

Chase chuckled. “Did you really defend me, sweetheart?”

Jessie glared at him furiously, then glared at Rachel. No words would come that could adequately express her anger, so she swung around and left them.

Chase was still amused and grinning when his eyes met Rachel’s. “You sure had me fooled, lady. You had Jessie fooled, too. You know that’s why her temper’s up, don’t you? She had you figured for a different reaction altogether.”

“I know.” Rachel smiled. “I shouldn’t have tried trickery with her. It’s not that I wasn’t upset over what you did to begin with, mind you, Chase Summers.”

“Naturally,” Chase agreed, solemn-faced.

“But I felt so sure you were right for each other,” she went on.

Chase was chagrined. If only she knew the truth about why they were married.

“Don’t worry,” he offered. “She’ll calm down.”

“Will she? Before I leave?”

“When are you leaving?”

“I was going to put Billy on the train tomorrow. There’s no point in my not going with him now, is there?”

“That soon?”

“Yes. So I’d better talk to Jessica now, before
she has a chance to stew too long. I can’t leave here with her angry.”

“Well, if you’re going to talk to her, Rachel, don’t you think it’s time you cleared the air about some other things as well? It may be the last chance you’ll have to make her see your side of the past.”

Rachel’s smile faded. “I suppose I should try—again. Maybe if she knows I’m leaving, she’ll hear me out this time.”

Rachel didn’t wait for Jessie to answer her knock, but opened the door to her room and stepped determinedly inside. One look at Jessie’s cold face and she nearly faltered. She had no idea how to begin.

“Ah…Kate started a roast, and it’s almost done. Will you be joining us for dinner, Jessica?”

“No.”

“I wish you would reconsider,” Rachel said evenly. “It will be the last time we can dine as a family. I will be leaving with Billy in the morning.”

There was a pause. “I never considered us a
family
, Rachel. And I can’t say I’m sorry you’re going. You won’t mind if I’m not around to see you off? I do have work to do, you know.”

Rachel felt the sting of those words like a slap. She wanted to run, but she couldn’t leave like that. She knew she would never forgive herself if she didn’t make a full effort this one last time.

“Why would you never listen to my side of it?” Rachel said abruptly.

Jessie turned away and stared out the window. “Why? So you could malign Thomas and make him out to be a liar? He was a hard man to love, even to like, but he was all I had. If I thought the hell of these last ten years had been for nothing, I would dig up his grave and put a few more bullets into his carcass. But when a man tells the same story, drunk or sober, it usually tends to be the truth.”

“The truth
as he believes it
, yes. But what if the truth as he saw it wasn’t the truth at all?”

Jessie turned around slowly. Her eyes were as hard as turquoise stones. “All right. You’ve been dying to say it ever since you got here, so say it and then get out.”

“I was never unfaithful to your father, Jessica.”

“Of course. And next you’ll be telling me Billy is Thomas Blair’s son.”

“He is.”

The words were barely audible, but Jessie heard them.

“Damn you, if that’s the truth, why didn’t you tell him before you left? You know that all he ever wanted was a son!”

“It was too late to tell him anything, even if I could have.”

“A nice try, Rachel,” Jessie sneered. “I’m not buying it. He saw you with his own eyes in bed with Will Phengle—in your bed. He’d been gone a month, a month you no doubt took advantage of to be with your lover the whole time. If Billy is anyone’s son, he’s Phengle’s.”

“My God!” Rachel turned quite pale. She sat down on Jessie’s bed. “That night…Thomas
mentioned Will, but he never said exactly what set him off into such a blind rage. In my own bed!”

“That’s good, Rachel,” Jessie said dryly. “That’s really excellent. You have truly missed your calling.”

Jessie’s sarcasm sparked Rachel’s usually placid temper. “If your father saw Will Phengle making love to a woman in my bed, then that woman had to be Kate, because it wasn’t me, Jessica. I wasn’t at the ranch that whole day.” She stopped, then went on. “A homesteader had come by to ask for my help that morning because his wife was in labor. The wife and baby both died. I came home that night sick with exhaustion and anxiety. You had been a difficult birth, you see, and I knew I was pregnant again. There was no doctor even remotely near here, not back then.”

“It was a miracle Thomas didn’t kill Billy, he beat me so badly the moment I walked into the house. He never gave me a chance to say
anything
, Jessica,
anything
. After he was finished, I couldn’t speak. My jaw was broken, and I was barely conscious.

“Ask Kate. She was the only other woman here, Jessica, so it had to be her with Will. Ask her.”

Jessie said nothing. Her expression didn’t change, and when she finally spoke her voice was hard. “You’ve had ten years to perfect that story. Who’s here to deny it? Phengle isn’t. Thomas isn’t. Kate will naturally deny it, but she’s just an Indian, and who would believe her over you, right?”

“Ask her, Jessica,” Rachel pleaded quietly.

“I wouldn’t demean her by asking her such a thing. My God, do you realize what you’re implying?” Jessie’s voice rose. “You’re saying Kate held her tongue all these years, that she never stepped forward to right a terrible wrong! Why would she keep silent? What for? This place was hell with Thomas’s hate. There was never any warmth here. Why would she let that go on?”

“I don’t know why, Jessica, but she did.”

“No!”

Jessie turned away again. Rachel sat there unmoving. “And what if I’m speaking the truth, Jessica?” she whispered before she got up to leave. “Does that make me a villain—or a victim? You think about it.”

“M
OTHER, I can’t find the Indian feathers Jeb gave me last night!”

Rachel shook her head. She looked sideways at Chase, then at her overflowing trunk open on the bed. She sighed. The morning had been more hectic than she had dreamed it could be.

“Would you mind closing this up for me and bringing it out to the porch? I imagine that son of mine will discover a few other missing items before we get his trunk closed. If we don’t leave soon, we’ll end up spending the night in Cheyenne. I’d rather not.”

Chase nodded without saying anything. He knew Rachel was putting up a good front. She had told him about her conversation with Jessie. He knew the lady had to be hurting.

And Jessie? Was she really so heartless, or was she certain Rachel was lying? He had gone to question Kate himself when he’d heard the whole story, but the Indian woman could not be found. There had been no breakfast ready that morning, either. Was Kate gone for good? Didn’t that prove anything?

Chase sighed and set about closing Rachel’s large trunk. Would Jessie be around for a last
good-bye? Billy worshiped her. It would break his heart if she didn’t show up.

The trunk wouldn’t close even after the third try, and Chase swore as he threw it open to find the obstruction. A slim book that had fallen out of the lining in the top of the trunk now stood on end to keep it from closing. Was that the problem? Chase tossed it back in and tried once again to get the damn thing closed. Why women had to travel with so many clothes was a mystery to him. It was just as well Jessie was determined not to travel with him, he grumbled to himself. He couldn’t see himself going through this trunk-closing business every time they went someplace. Now, if he were rich and had servants to handle such things—oh, hell.

The trunk still wouldn’t close. That book again. He hadn’t tossed it far enough into the center. A corner was sticking out of the trunk. He tried shoving it in without opening the lid all the way, but the clothes were too tightly packed. He was tempted to take the book out and let Rachel have a fine time wondering what had happened to it when she got to Chicago.

Chase looked back at the door to be sure he wouldn’t be caught in the act, dropped the book on the floor, and was about to kick it under the bed when the word
journal
caught his eye. He stared hard at it for several seconds. He couldn’t. Not a journal. That was something Rachel couldn’t replace. He’d thought it was a novel. Funny, but he wouldn’t have figured Rachel for the kind of woman to keep a diary, not Rachel.

Chase closed the trunk at last and carried it
out to the front porch, where Jeb was waiting with a wagon.

“Any more like this one coming?” Jeb grumbled as he shoved the trunk onto the back of the wagon.

Chase grinned. “I doubt Billy’s will be quite so heavy. You be sure and get someone to help you unload them when you get to town.”

“Humph. Show-off is what you are. As if I could heft that thing by myself! If that woman don’t get a move on, it’ll be night ’fore we get there.”

“Have you seen Jessie by any chance?” Chase asked him.

“Are you blind, young feller? You just passed her in that fancy parlor.”

Chase whirled around, delighted for Rachel and Billy’s sake that Jessie was going to put in an appearance.

Halfway through the door, Chase stopped short. The girl sitting demurely in a chair by the crackling fire was only barely recognizable. It was Jessie all right, but a Jessie he’d never thought he’d see. She wore a dress of rose velvet and lace. Her hair was swept up off her neck and entwined with white ribbons, striking against her rich jet tresses. He was speechless. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Rachel entered the room just then with Billy. Both were stunned.

“Boy, oh, boy!” Billy grinned from ear to ear. “You would put all the girls back East to shame, Jessie.” He rushed over to Jessie, and she stood up. His arms slipped around her waist. Jessie wanted to pull Billy closer and
squeeze him like she’d never squeezed anyone before, but she was looking at Rachel over Billy’s head, and her arms wouldn’t move. She felt choked. She shouldn’t have come. She should have stayed shut up in her room till they were gone.

Billy didn’t even notice that she wasn’t returning his embrace. “I’m going to miss you something awful, Jessie. Can I come to see you again?”

A sound escaped her, but no one heard except Billy. She bent down and whispered, “If you don’t I’ll never forgive you, kid.”

Her lips grazed his cheek as she straightened up. Billy stepped back with a beaming smile and let out a whoop of delight before he ran out of the parlor, nearly knocking Chase over.

Rachel came forward, hopeful. “Jessica, I—”

“Good-bye, Rachel.”

Jessie’s features were set. She had lost control, but now that Billy was out of the room, she had her control back.

Rachel let her eyes travel over this daughter who was lovelier than she ever dreamed she would be, and so entirely removed from her.

“Thank you for that,” Rachel said, indicating Jessie’s dress.

Jessie only nodded before she turned away.

Rachel stared at her unyielding back for several seconds. “Whatever else you may believe, Jessica, I love you.”

The sound of Rachel’s footsteps crossing the room, the closing of the door, reverberated in her head. Breathing was difficult. She groped for the edge of the chair, and when she found it,
eased herself down. Jeb was shouting at the wagon team, and the wagon was rolling out of the yard. She could still hear it, still hear it, still hear it…she heard it no more.

“You’re something else, Jessie.”

How long had he been there? How long had she been sitting there since the wagon left?

“What?”

“You heard me,” Chase said as he came forward to stand next to her. “You can show the kid you care, when you don’t even believe he’s your brother, but not your mother—your own mother!”

“Because I don’t care,” Jessie said softly.

“Liar!”

She shot out of the chair, but he caught her arm, pulling her back to face him. “You can’t stand it that you’re wrong, that you’ve been wrong all these years.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“Don’t I? Kate is gone, you know. Or didn’t you know?”

“Gone?” Jessie repeated.

“It kind of confirms what Rachel said, doesn’t it? Kate probably heard you shouting at your mother last night about her.”

“What if she did?” Jessie retorted. “That doesn’t mean she’s left. She’s around somewhere.”

Chase forced himself not to shout at her. He dragged her to the sofa and shoved her down onto it.

“Stay put,” he commanded sharply. “I’ve got something I want you to see.”

He was back in a moment, and tossed a slim book down beside her on the sofa.

“I have no idea what’s in that,” Chase said. “I took it out of your mother’s trunk after she left the room, and I forgot to give it to her. It may just be nonsense—or it may not. Look through it, Jessie. See for yourself what a woman like Rachel would have to write about.”

Chase walked out of the room, leaving Jessie alone. She picked up the book, then angrily tossed it away. She didn’t care. It would be nothing but lies, anyway. No, Rachel wouldn’t write lies, not to herself, not in a diary. The book was meant for her eyes only.

Jessie stared at the book, then quickly picked it up.

Jessie ran from the room with the journal clasped to her breast.