Rough Wrangler, Tender Kisses Read online

  The very thought of it made her shudder.

  But shuddering and fear wouldn’t help her find Becky. Wade had known exactly what to do. He’d taken action, calm, quick, decisive action.

  First he wired the Pinkerton Detective Agency and initiated a search. He instructed them to begin at the Davenport Academy and to try to trace Becky’s path from the time she left.

  Using the description Caitlin included in the telegraph message, the detective came up with their first real lead when he checked at the railroad station in Philadelphia. A young girl matching Becky Tamarlane’s description was seen buying a ticket on a westbound train on the same day Becky had run away.

  The stationmaster noticed her traveling with a family. She stood out because all of the other children with these parents possessed bright red, curly hair—and they were all a high-spirited, noisy bunch—Becky’s stick-straight light brown hair and quiet demeanor in the midst of all the rowdiness caught his attention.

  “Looks like your sister found herself a nice family to travel with,” Wade told Caitlin. “She must have told them a tall tale about why she was going out west all on her own, but the good news is that if we can find that family, we might find Becky too.”

  After that, Caitlin clung to the hope that Becky was safe and in the company of kindhearted people.

  But then her hopes were dashed when the next morning another wire from the detective agency confirmed that the family—and Becky with them—seemed to have traveled on the Union Pacific Railroad as far as Nebraska, then boarded a stagecoach. But on the third day, in Diamond Springs, Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Kelly raised a commotion when the young girl accompanying them disappeared. The family insisted that the stagecoach driver delay his departure while everyone searched high and low through the town for the young girl in their charge. But there was no sign of her. And no good-bye. And finally, the Kelly family was forced to board the stagecoach and leave without her. The mother and her two daughters were weeping, the detective reported, distraught because they didn’t know what became of the young girl they’d grown so fond of.

  When she learned this, Caitlin’s heart stopped beating. She went white as parchment as she began to imagine all kinds of terrible things which might have befallen her sister, but Wade came up with a different explanation.

  “Sounds to me like something spooked her—and she took off on her own again,” he mused. “I’ve got a hunch that little sister of yours has some of the same steel in her spine that you do. And she’s obviously headed this way. Reckon by now she could be within a hundred miles of Cloud Ranch.”

  So they fanned out—Nick riding off to search some of the towns in a hundred-mile radius, she and Wade the others. Though Wade suggested that Caitlin remain at the ranch and wait for word, she staunchly refused.

  “I won’t slow you down. I can ride as long and as hard as it takes.” She faced him with such determination and yet silent pleading in her eyes that he wasn’t able to refuse her.

  As they covered the last few miles to Beaver Junction, Caitlin fought a growing despair. What if they never heard another word about Becky? What if she was gone too— lost in the vast plains of the West, as their parents had been lost at sea . . .

  But as the low frame buildings of the town came into view she felt hope rise again in her heart. Maybe Becky would be here, safe—or maybe someone would have seen her . . .

  “You take the general store,” Wade instructed as they dismounted in the center of town and tethered their horses. “I’ll find out if there’s a sheriff or a mayor—someone in charge. Then I’ll meet you at the hotel and we’ll check with the folks there together.”

  She nodded, suddenly so grateful to him she couldn’t speak. Wade had pushed just as hard during this search as she—he’d done everything that could possibly be done to locate Becky. And during the moments when doubt and fear nearly conquered her, he took charge with a firm gentleness that she’d never known from anyone before.

  “Are you all right?” He paused beside the horses to scrutinize her, confused by the way she was staring at him. “Do you need some grub first? Should we start at the diner?”

  “No.” She moistened her lips. “It’s only . . . I don’t know how to . . . thank you.”

  He shook his head. “Thank me after we’ve found her.”

  Caitlin scanned the boardwalk as she hurried toward the general store, the hub of every town. When the small bell tinkled above the door as she entered, she saw two children eyeing the penny candy set out in glass jars on the countertop. She smiled at them, turned to the clerk, and speaking in a voice loud enough for all of the customers to hear, began asking about a small, thin eleven-year-old girl with freckles on her nose and stick-straight light brown hair.

  Wade had just discovered that Beaver Junction had no sheriff, and the mayor lived in a frame house at the end of town. He was headed that way when he saw an office door across the street open and a young girl step out onto a narrow porch. She was blinking in the sunshine, her hand shading her eyes.

  The shingle hanging above her head read: HENRY FRANKLIN, MEDICAL DOCTOR. The girl stepping down off the porch looked pale and wobbly.

  Wade froze. The girl appeared to be about ten or eleven years old—with freckles marching across a small, upturned nose and stick-straight, light brown hair.

  “Becky?”

  Her eyes widened when he said her name.

  In a heartbeat she whirled around and started to dash back into the office.

  “Wait!” He didn’t want to frighten her, so he stayed where he was, but his voice reached her, low and soothing. “Becky, I’m here with Caitlin. We’ve been looking for you. Don’t you want to see your sister?”

  She spun back. Caught between fear and hope, for a moment she just stared at him. In her small, delicate features he could now see something of the woman who had accompanied him to this town.

  “Are you . . . telling me the truth? Because if you’re not—”

  “You’re just like her, Becky.” Through the relief rushing through him, Wade gave a dry chuckle. “She doesn’t trust anyone either.”

  The little girl continued to study him, all the while chewing on her lower lip. “What does she look like? My sister?”

  A test. He had to hand it to the girl—she was cautious and smart. Just like Caitlin. “She looks like an angel,” he said slowly. “A beautiful, golden-haired angel.”

  And then he heard a gasp behind him, and Caitlin’s voice, breathless, shaking with joy. “Oh, my God. Becky! It’s you!”

  Wade watched, his chest tight, as Caitlin raced past him in a blur and then she was gathering the girl in her arms, and both of them sank down on the porch step, sobbing.

  The fair head bent to the brown-haired one and as the passersby in Beaver Junction stared, and the sun drifted overhead through a high brilliant blue sky, the sisters rocked and wept in each other’s arms.

  “Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat besides soup?” Caitlin asked as Becky set her spoon down inside her empty bowl of chicken broth with vegetables.

  “I’m sure. It was good though, Caity.”

  The girl smiled happily first at her sister, then shyly at Wade. “Doc Franklin said I might not feel much like eating for another day or so,” she reminded them.

  “Yes, so he did.” Caitlin sighed. “That was quite a fever you had, young lady. It was very good of the doctor to take you into his own house behind his office and take care of you until you were better.”

  “But he sure didn’t expect you’d be getting out of bed even today,” Wade drawled gently. Doc Franklin had explained to them later that when he left his office that morning to see another patient, Becky was sound asleep, with the shutters drawn and the sheets drawn up to her chin. “Reckon I could have knocked him over with a feather when he saw you on those porch steps with Caitlin,” he added dryly.

  Becky laughed, a rich, high sound that to Caitlin was more beautiful than the chiming of bells. “Yes, wel
l, I was sleeping when he left, but then I woke up and I felt ever so much better. And I remembered for the first time since I fainted from the fever exactly where I was and who I was—and where I wanted to go. To Cloud Ranch,” she finished as she answered the question forming on Caitlin’s lips. Her brows knit. “I needed to find you quickly so I could warn you.”

  A cloud descended over her thin little face and Caitlin leaned forward across the dining table. “Warn me about what, honey? Is that what made you run away?”

  “Yes, that and the fact that they were hideous to me at school. Absolutely hideous.” Becky clenched her hands into fists.

  “How do you mean?” Wade asked, frowning.

  “Oh, they didn’t beat me or anything like that,” Becky assured him swiftly. Her toffee-brown eyes flashed. “But when Alicia Peabody threw spitballs at me in class, and I threw one right back at her, I was the one who landed in trouble, not her. All because her father is president of the Peabody Steel Works Company and has more money than Midas, and mine is . . . was . . .” She broke off.

  “I hate that school.” Her voice shook with a quiet intensity. “Miss Culp ordered me confined to my room until further notice. And there was a tea held in the drawing room for all the girls and their mothers and they wouldn’t let me go because I threw the stupid spitball and because I . . . didn’t have a . . . m-mother and my s-sister was . . . g-gone . . .”

  Sobs broke from her. Instantly Caitlin knelt beside her chair and clutched the girl’s hands in her own. “I’m so sorry, dearest,” she cried. “I wanted to come back for you, truly I did, but . . .” She took a deep breath, then shook her head. “It’s all so complicated. More complicated than I ever expected. But before I explain, you must tell me what exactly made you leave? Surely you didn’t run away just because you were punished?”

  “No. It wasn’t that—it was the man. The man you told me about!”

  For a moment, shock swept away Caitlin’s every rational thought and she couldn’t speak at all. Then she found her composure.

  “Do you mean Alec Ballantree?” she asked tersely.

  “No.” Becky’s brown eyes were fixed desperately on hers. “Not him. Not Alec. The other man. The bad man!”

  Caitlin tried to draw in her breath. She felt as if someone had punched a fist through her stomach. Beside her, she saw Wade’s gaze piercing her as if he would read into her very soul.

  “Dominic Trent?” Icy cold all over, she met Becky’s eyes. “What did he do? Did he come to see you—did he threaten you?” she asked in sudden horror.

  Wade’s eyes went cold and flat.

  “No, he didn’t come to see me,” the girl hastened to explain, “but he came to the school. I saw him arrive in his carriage—a magnificent carriage, drawn by two beautiful white horses. He’s very rich, isn’t he? Just like Papa used to be.”

  “Yes, he’s very rich. Becky . . . please, tell me what happened.”

  “Miss Culp actually curtsied to him when he introduced himself to her and she invited him into her office. I recognized him,” Becky added, “from that time he came to our house the day after Thanksgiving, the time you asked him to leave and he followed you into the garden and you had to call for Perkins to help you.”

  She turned to Wade. “There was this very bad man who bothered my sister and tried to hurt her . . .” She started to explain, but Caitlin interrupted hastily.

  “Just tell me what happened at the school, dearest. There’s no need to bore Wade with all the details.”

  “I’m not bored.” Wade’s gaze seared Caitlin’s. She gave her head a tiny shake. Not now, her eyes pleaded silently.

  He’d been listening intently to every word Becky said—and he’d seen Caitlin’s face turn paler by the moment. Dominic Trent. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard that name. And it wouldn’t be the last. Caitlin liked to avoid explanations of her past and certain people in it but all of his instincts told him that Trent was someone who had played a key role in that past—someone who had hurt her, frightened her.

  And suddenly he was someone Wade wished very much he could get his hands on. Five minutes alone with the man—that’s all he wanted.

  No, it wasn’t all he wanted. He wanted to be able to erase that tense, drawn look from Caitlin’s face. He wanted, he realized with a shock, to hold her and keep her safe from men like Dominic Trent and Alec Ballantree, and whoever else had hurt her in the past. Whatever they’d done, he wanted to undo. Whatever harm they’d caused, he wanted to heal.

  “Why did this man come to your school, Becky?” He spoke in his calm, steady way and Becky’s gaze centered on him. “Was it to ask questions about your sister?”

  “How did you know?” The girl bobbed her head. “That’s exactly why he came. You see, I listened outside the door after he went into Miss Culp’s office. He told her that Caitlin was bad. And that Miss Culp must know where she was because of me. He said that if she didn’t tell him where to find her, he’d send a constable to ask her questions—and how would that look to the parents of the girls attending her school?”

  Caitlin’s hands shook, but she managed to keep her voice calm. “So she told him I’d been writing letters to you and sending money from Cloud Ranch.”

  “Yes, she told him the letters came from a town called Hope in Wyoming, and then he left and I just knew he was going to come after you and maybe bring the constable after you, too, so I . . . I ran away. I wanted to get here first and warn you.”

  At the mention of the constable, Wade’s gaze had sharpened on Caitlin’s face, but she refused to look at him as Becky rushed on.

  “I met a nice family, the Kellys, and I told them that my sister was a famous actress traveling across the West performing plays and giving poetry recitations and that I was finally going to be allowed to join your theatrical troupe—that you were going to be meeting me when I got off the stagecoach in Hope.”

  “You did what?” For a moment Caitlin was so astonished at the thought of her meek little sister weaving such an elaborate tale that she forgot about Dominic Trent. “How did you ever think up something so . . . so clever?”

  Becky’s smile brightened her pale little face. “It just popped out,” she admitted proudly. “I didn’t want to tell the truth in case the school sent someone looking for Becky Tamarlane, so I made up a name and everything else. I said I was Lauralee Jones, and you were Lily Jones, and we came from a family of great actors, and that our mama was a beautiful singer . . .” Her voice trailed off. “But when we got to Diamond Springs, Nebraska, you’ll never guess what happened.”

  “Tell me, dearest.” Caitlin threw Wade a quick look. Though he sat silently, leaning back in his chair with his long legs stretched out, she could sense the tension in him. She wished he would leave, that he wouldn’t hear any more about Dominic Trent than he already had. Trent was her problem. She had dealt with him before, and she would again if necessary. She wasn’t about to start relying on anyone else to help her solve her problems, and she wasn’t about to start leaning on Wade, depending on him.

  She could take care of herself, she thought silently. And she’d take care of Becky too. She pondered the shotgun and her shooting lesson, resolving to work harder. Next time, if Trent came after her, he might get more than a candlestick beaned across his skull.

  “I saw him—Dominic Trent,” Becky continued excitedly. “In Diamond Springs. Just as the Kellys and me were heading to the stagecoach, I saw him standing right there in the street. If he’d seen me . . . well, I didn’t want him to see me,” she said in a low tone. “I was scared and I didn’t know what to do, so I told Mrs. Kelly that I’d left my candy behind and I ran back toward the general store, but I didn’t go all the way there—I hid in a wagon all the way down the street in front of the feed store. I was too afraid to come out until I felt the wagon start to move, and then I jumped out. Dominic Trent was gone. But so were the Kellys.” A single tear slipped down Becky’s cheek. Her narrow little shoulders slumped. “F
rom then on, I traveled all by myself. And I did pretty good, I think, Caitlin, didn’t I? Until I got sick.”

  Caitlin wrapped her arms around her sister and hugged her. She had to swallow back her own tears. And the ripple of fear inside her.

  “You did just fine, Becky. I’m very proud of you. You were so brave and so smart.”

  “I’ll say.” Wade leaned forward and the smile he directed at the little girl filled Caitlin with a rush of warmth. “You’ve got the makings of a real western cowgirl, Becky. What you did shows grit. We respect that out here.”

  “You do? You really think I could be a cowgirl?” For some reason Caitlin couldn’t fathom, Becky found this notion delightful. She smiled eagerly back at Wade. “Do I get to see Cloud Ranch? Today?”

  “No, not today,” Caitlin said quickly, rising and holding out her hand to her sister. “It’s nighttime and Cloud Ranch is far from here. We’ll go there tomorrow.”

  “Well, I suppose I can wait one more day,” Becky conceded. But she chattered with more animation than Caitlin had ever seen as they climbed the stairs of the hotel to the room she and Becky would share.

  “I’ll be right across the hall.” Wade spoke casually, but Caitlin caught his deliberate glance, and knew he was letting her know that if any unwelcome visitors showed up, she had only to call for help.

  “Thank you, Wade. We’ll be fine.”

  “Damn right you will be.” The words were softly spoken, but there was no mistaking their meaning. Whether she liked it or not, he would be there to protect her and Becky. Or so he wanted her to believe. That might be true for tonight, but she couldn’t count on him for tomorrow. Or the day after that.

  “Good night, Mr. Barclay,” Becky’s sweet voice piped up, interrupting Caitlin’s thoughts as she stared up at the tall, lean man whose eyes held so much kindness. “Thanks for finding me. And for the soup.”