Jane Bonander (25 page)
Authors: Winter Heart
Fletcher Ranch, 1885
“Papa!”
Grinning, Tristan squatted and stretched his arms toward his three-year-old daughter. She flung herself at him and he raised her high in the air. “How’s my Daisy-girl this morning?”
She giggled, her dark russet curls flopping in the wind. “Good, Papa. Mama and Sarafina taked Daisy with them to the dress place. Ficker Fedder came, too.”
“Ficker Fedder did, did she?” He planted a wet kiss on her neck. “That’s nice. Is Sarafina’s wedding dress pretty?”
“Oh, it’s bee-oo-tiful,” she exclaimed, clasping her chubby hands together in an ultrafeminine way that charmed him.
Tristan was in awe of his daughter. He loved all of his children and tried not to be partial. The eight older ones would always have a special place in his heart.
Beau was born a year after the day Tristan had discovered Dinah in his tree. He was the bookworm. He was the one who also looked the most like his father. Each time Tristan studied the portrait Emily had painted of him as a man and as a boy, he marveled at how much of himself had turned up in Beau.
The twins, Adam and Gabriel, arrived three years later. They thrived on adventure. Tristan had almost given up having a daughter of his own. He’d decided the only chance he’d have at spoiling a baby girl would be when one of the older children had children of their own. He wasn’t ready to be a grandpa, but if it happened, he knew he’d be as obnoxious as any grandfather on earth.
Dinah approached, and they exchanged smiles. Nearly ten years, and his love for her had not diminished but had grown. His brother had been right about him all those years ago.
She had been exonerated by the police regarding the incident with Daisy. The one thing that marred their happiness was that they hadn’t discovered anything about Charlotte’s baby. If it was alive, it would be older than his own children. Tristan was no longer sure there had ever been a child at all, but he continued the search. He desperately wanted to extinguish the final hint of sadness in his wife’s beautiful eyes.
She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his jaw. Hugging his daughter to his chest with one arm, he drew his wife close with the other and nuzzled her vibrant hair. “I have trouble believing you’re mine, Dinah-mite. You’re the most beautiful creature on earth.”
“I’ve always thought you were, my darling,” she responded.
He bent and kissed her; she had the sweetest mouth in the world. He often thought of the softness of her, those special places he’d come to adore. He loved every inch of her, but was constantly delighted and amazed at the tender insides of her upper arms and the tiny blue veins that threaded across her breasts. He especially revered the slight, silvery lines on her abdomen that were evidences of her deliveries. Of the blessed children she’d given him.
She broke the kiss and tugged on Daisy’s dress. “Don’t you fall asleep up there, sweetheart. The girls have your lunch ready, I’m sure.”
Daisy jammed her thumb into her mouth and played languidly with Tristan’s hair.
Dinah lifted something from her purse. “I stopped at the telegraph office before I came home. Two wires, dear. David is returning to San Francisco to do a seminar on mental health.”
“He couldn’t continue his work without your support, Dinah.”
“You know it’s the least I can do. I wish I could do more.”
She continued to fund David Richards. Tristan knew it gave her pleasure.
“Oh, and this came, too.” She handed Tristan a wire. There was a twinkle in her eyes.
He read it, unable to stop his smile. “Little Hawk’s on his way home.” His grin widened. Henry and Flicker Feather had arrived from school the week before. Tristan hadn’t been sure Little Hawk would be able to get away.
“He doesn’t want us to call him that anymore, darling.”
“I know, I know. Hawk. Just plain Hawk.”
Tristan had offered all of the children the chance to attend the same college he had, in the east. Henry and Flicker Feather had been enthusiastic. Rose and Sarafina took teacher’s training in San Francisco. They both taught at the reservation school. Dawn had stayed on the ranch. She’d been doing many of Alice’s chores for years.
Swift Elk and Jose lived nearby and helped Miguel work the stock. Then there was Little Hawk.
Tristan’s smile turned grim. He’d had to blackmail the boy to go east with the others and attend college. “But I want to work with the horses, Pa. Why do I need college?”
Tristan had left it up to each of them to decide what to call him and Dinah. He’d felt intense pleasure and accomplishment when they finally chose to call them mother and father.
Tristan had told Little Hawk that when he finished his schooling, after he learned how to handle money and property and the law, he could return home and work with the horses. Tristan wanted at least one of his children to be capable of taking over every aspect of the ranch when he no longer wanted to work it himself.
Little Hawk would be a spectacular lawyer. Whether he decided to work as one was his choice. Tristan simply wanted the boy to have the knowledge because he was bright. Exceptionally so.
Henry and Flicker Feather loved it in the east; Little Hawk couldn’t wait to get home to the mountains. Tristan had heard from the Harvard staff on numerous occasions, for Little Hawk had more of a penchant for mischief than for learning. Even so, his marks were remarkably high. But he was always pushing the boundaries. Testing the system.
“I wonder how his foot is,” Dinah speculated.
Tristan chuckled beside her. “Will you ever stop worrying about his health?”
“I’m his mother. It’s my job.” Her chin was set at a stubborn angle.
“It’s been five years, sweetheart. It’s as healed as it’s going to get.”
“I know,” she answered on a sigh, “I don’t want him to limp, that’s all.”
Tristan squeezed his wife’s dainty shoulders as they walked toward the house. “He’ll always have a limp. At least it’s not as pronounced as it was, and he can wear shoes.”
They had been terrified to subject the boy to a surgery that might not work. When Little Hawk turned sixteen, they had sat him down and explained the procedure to
him, allowing him to help make the decision. It had been a bigger success than even the surgeon had expected.
“From the look of things, everyone will make it home to celebrate Alice’s seventieth birthday,” Dinah observed, smiling with pleasure.
“I can’t believe she doesn’t know what’s going on.”
Dinah smoothed Daisy’s curls as the baby cuddled with her father. “She’s far too busy to be concerned about her age, much less her own birthday.”
Dawn and Rose appeared on the porch, announcing Daisy’s lunch.
“Mother?”
“Yes, Dawn?”
“We’re going to bake bread this afternoon. Want to help?”
Tristan laughed. Since the day he’d told everyone at the dinner table about Dinah’s confrontation with bread dough, and his poor rooster’s attachment to it, no one had let her forget.
“I’ll learn to bake bread one of these days, then you’ll be sorry you’ve made such fun of me.” She shook a playful finger at Dawn.
Daisy kissed her father soundly on the cheek, then squirmed from his arms and ran to the door. The girls hustled her inside.
Tristan brought his wife close to his chest and nuzzled her hair. “Are you sorry we didn’t adopt any more children?”
“That decision was up to you, darling.”
He sighed. “I think a dozen is enough, don’t you?”
“Whatever you say.’·
Tristan raised a skeptical eyebrow. His wife was not usually so amenable.
“By the way, where are the boys?”
“The twins are with Miguel. He’s teaching them how to rope. I think Beau is in the library, reading.”
“Naturally,” Tristan responded with a wry smile.
Between Little Hawk and Beau, Tristan knew his ranch and all of his holdings would be in good hands. He would need both of them in the future.
He tilted Dinah’s face to his and kissed her again. She returned his kisses. She was still the sweetest tasting women on earth.
She pulled away. “And Emily?”
“She’s in her studio working on that special project for Alice. Did I hear her tell you she has another show in San Francisco next summer?”
Dinah nodded. “But I think it will be her last. For a while, anyway. She tires so easily these days, and her work is in such demand. Oh, darling,” she added, gazing at him, “did she tell you that President Cleveland had seen one of her paintings in the senator’s home and has commissioned her to do one for him?”
“That’s great. Terrific. I still recall the time you discovered she was painting in the attic,” he answered, the painful memory softening. “She’s come a long way, and all because of you.”
“Without your love and understanding, none of it would have happened, Tristan.”
He smiled privately. Over the years, he and Dinah had had their disagreements, but all in all, they had mutual admiration as well as love.
They strolled to the steps. Lucas exited the barn and waved, the ranch’s two new pups romping at his heels. Amy and Wolf had passed on, and Tristan had taken it hard. He had discovered that the breed was not known for its longevity, and he knew he couldn’t go through it again. Not with the same kind of hound. Their decline had come so swiftly. One day they had been lively, the next they were near death.
The new youngsters were mutts. Tough as nails. Tireless. Excellent horse and cattle dogs. There was a twinge in Tristan’s chest each time he thought about his precious wolfhounds, buried behind the stable.
“Darling?”
Tristan noticed the hesitation in her voice. “What is it?”
“Would you be very disappointed if … if we had a baker’s dozen?”
Elation surged through him and he effortlessly lifted her into the air. She braced herself on his shoulders and studied him, her face serious.
“Are you sure?”
At her cautious nod, he lowered her to eye level and kissed her again. “Hell,” he murmured, rubbing his nose to hers, “maybe we’ll get lucky and have two more.”
He held her in his arms and entered their home, thinking about his own father. A man who had saved him from abandonment. A man who had taught him to love and care for others. Tristan hoped the spirit of Cecil Fletcher was close by and that he was resting peacefully in the knowledge that his troubled son was happy at last.
Dear Readers:
If you read the two excerpts at the front of the book, you might get the impression that I’m writing a story on male bashing. I’m not. The book that prompted me to write
Winter Heart,
and whose quotes I used, is
Women of the Asylum, Voices from Behind the Walls, 1840-1945,
by Jeffrey L. Geller and Maxine Harris, Anchor Books, Doubleday. We are aware that in the previous centuries and early into this one, men dominated the field of medicine, including mental health. What shocked me was how women were treated by families who simply wanted to get rid of them, and by doctors who could be bribed into incarcerating them.
I was touched by the strength of these women who bravely related their tales of horror. Certainly they didn’t come out totally unscathed, but many of them did get out, and a few wrote their stories in journals and letters, perhaps hoping that one day someone might understand the helplessness of their gender at that time in history.
Had I used more of the material,
Winter Heart
would not have been a romance. Had I used less, I would have devalued the despicable conditions that existed well into this century. I hope I’ve struck a balance, and that you enjoy the story.
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