Circle Star Read online

  Pete had chosen the men based on the towns they were familiar with. Local contacts would be an advantage. For safety, Susanna insisted they travel in pairs.

  “Don’t forget the sheriff’s office,” she repeated each time she handed out a stack of coins. She would also place advertisements in newspapers. Employing Pinkerton detectives would have been the best solution, but it was beyond her means.

  “You look like hell,” Pete told her when they had finished dispatching the men. “Go get some sleep.”

  Susanna pulled a face. “You sure know how to flatter a lady.”

  Pete waved a hand in her direction. “You ain’t no lady no more. Not in that getup.”

  “It’s not the clothes, Pete. It’s the blood in my veins.”

  “Blue, eh?”

  “Blue like the denim over my backside.”

  Pete was still chuckling when Susanna grew serious. “Do people think I’m mercenary?” she asked. “Putting all my energies into keeping Circle Star, instead of grieving for my father?”

  The foreman gave her a startled look. “The men admire you for your courage. You’d be letting them down if you didn’t fight for the ranch.”

  “I am grieving,” she told him quietly. “But I hadn’t seen my father in thirteen years. I did my grieving when I left the ranch and went to live in Philadelphia.”

  Peter hesitated. “It was a shame about your parents.”

  Susanna glanced up. “What went wrong? My mother won’t talk about it.”

  Silence settled over the timber paneled library. “I’m not someone who understands the ups and downs of a marriage,” Pete said finally.

  “But you were here with them, when they first married. What were they like?”

  “It was like a storm broke out every time the two of them were in the same room. The air was full of sparks, like that new-fangled electric they use for lamps.”

  “Like lightning sparks from a storm? A good storm? A bad storm?”

  “The right kind of storm.” Pete fiddled with the button on his shirt pocket. “Then your Ma started to get bored and lonesome. She begged your Pa to take a trip once in a while. Go to San Francisco or New Orleans or St. Louis.”

  Susanna exhaled a tired sigh. “But he wouldn’t?”

  Pete shook his head slowly. “He wasn’t an easy man, your father.”

  “Uncompromising. That’s what my mother called him.”

  “That’s what I’d say too, if I knew them five-dollar words.”

  “Was my father very upset about Connor disappearing?”

  “He was more upset because you were gone. He felt he’d lost you completely, so he turned his hopes to Connor. You were making a new life with your mother. Connor had no other life, so there was a chance he might one day come back to Circle Star.”

  Susanna pressed her lips together. Was that really how it had been? Everyone misunderstanding each other, believing the worst. Her jealousy of Connor had come between her and her father, but her father had only clung to the idea of Connor because he felt she had turned against him.

  “What a mess,” Susanna said, rubbing her gritty eyes.

  Pete spoke gruffly. “Are you prepared to marry the boy?”

  “Why do you think I’ve never married anyone else?” A faint smile played around her mouth. “And he’s no longer a boy. He’ll be a man of twenty-eight.”

  “Goddamn it.” Pete scowled at her. “You’re as bad as your parents. At least they gave it a fair try first, before breaking up.”

  “I was only thirteen. He was fifteen. We were barely out of childhood.”

  “He’d have come back if you’d have come back.”

  “And I might have come back if he’d come back,” Susanna replied. She sent Pete a stern look. “And I’ll shoot you right between the eyes if you ever tell anyone what I’ve just told you.”

  “Including the boy?”

  “Especially the boy.” Her lips pursed in speculation. “Do the men know that Connor needs to marry me in order for me to inherit Circle Star?”

  “I haven’t told them. But things like that have a way of getting out.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Susanna rose to her feet behind the desk. “I think I’ll go upstairs and take that nap now.”

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  Chapter Three

  The uncertainty and helplessness of staying at Circle Star, waiting for news, turned Susanna into a jittery ghost who roamed the house and lost her calm at the slightest provocation. Time dragged on, minute by minute, until it made a complete day, which eventually grew into a week. Finally, an entire month had crawled by.

  The men on the road put little store on correspondence. All she received were a few scribbled lines to confirm which town they were leaving and where they were headed next.

  The last words were always the same.

  Nobody knew nothing about a man named Connor McGregor.

  On the ranch, anxiety and overwork made the men short tempered. Fortunately, the spring roundup was over and the summer nearing its end. With half the hands gone, they would have struggled with the task of gathering the herds and branding the new calves.

  Together with Carmen, Susanna cleaned the house and laundered the linens. Her aim grew steady with a gun, and her stamina for hard riding improved. Escorted by two ranch hands, she took a trip into town, where she ordered a headstone for her father’s grave and bought three pairs of denim pants and half a dozen cotton shirts at the mercantile.

  In the house, she went through every scrap of paperwork in her father’s desk and wrote long letters home, describing life on the ranch. She missed her mother, and she missed Claire, but even loneliness couldn’t dampen her joy over being back at Circle Star.

  When a sunny August afternoon found her sitting in the library, reading a week-old newspaper for the tenth time, Susanna could no longer tolerate the waiting. She’d go mad unless she did something.

  Anything.

  She surged to her feet and rushed out to the stables. “Pete,” she shouted into the dim cavern pierced by shafts of sunlight from the narrow slits of windows high up on the walls. “Are you there?”

  “Stop yelling. You’ll make the horses bolt.” The foreman strode up, wiping his hands on a rag. His bowed legs were covered with leather chaps, and his plaid shirt, soaked through with sweat, clung to his wiry frame.

  “We’re going visiting,” Susanna told him. “Saddle the horses while I go and change.”

  Pete eyed her denim pants. “You’re going to dress proper?”

  Susanna grinned at him. “I’m going to dress like a queen. We’re going to ride out and pay our respects to Burt Hartman at Deep Valley.”

  “No.” The foreman squared his shoulders. “That’s a fool’s errand.”

  “Connor is dead,” Susanna said flatly, the niggling fear inside her hardening into anger. “The ranch will be sold. I want to see the man who is taking it from me.”

  “I told you, I’ll bid for you. I’ve already made my will. Even if he guns me down on the auction room floor, Circle Star will be yours.”

  “No it won’t,” Susanna replied. “The sheriff works for Hartman. He’ll declare your bid null and void, and the auction will go on as if you’d never even been there. Hartman will get the ranch, and you’ll be dead.”

  Pete gave a stubborn grunt. “At least with my bidding you’ll get a fair price.”

  “Don’t be a fool. With you no longer alive, they’ll just declare the bidding process defective and start again from one dollar.” Susanna pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling. “Come on. Getting to know the enemy is a good strategy.”

  Pete tossed the rag over a nail in the wall. “Go change into your dress. I’ll wash and get the horses.”

  “You’d better change, too,” Susanna told him. “Do you have a suit?”

  Pete responded with a somber nod. “I bought one for your father’s funeral.”

  Susanna flinched, the loss still raw. “Y
ou should wear it,” she said after a pause. Then she turned and hurried back into the house, the rapid clatter of her boots on the cobblestones like a drum roll that announced the start of a battle.

  ****

  Susanna prepared with care, twisting her hair up and dressing in a pale green satin gown that rustled as she walked. It was too fine attire for a ride through the desert, but she wanted Burt Hartman to know that no effort had been spared. Flattery was unlikely to stun the man into mercy but it could do no harm.

  Unfortunately, riding astride spoiled the effect. The skirts bunched up around her, and when she kicked Santiago into a canter, her bonnet tore off and dangled down her back. The sun baked from a clear blue sky down to the parched earth, turning the air into an oven. By the time they had covered the five miles between Circle Star and Deep Valley, sweat trickled down her skin and dust itched in her throat.

  They slowed the horses to a walk as they approached a group of whitewashed buildings clustered around a single cottonwood tree. “I want to dismount here,” Susanna called out to Pete. “Cool down, fix my hair.”

  Pete nodded his agreement. “I’ll help you down.”

  “I can manage.” She gathered the folds of her gown and jumped to the ground.

  Pete leaned down in the saddle to take Santiago’s reins. “I’ll see to the horses,” he told her. “Will you wait for me?”

  Susanna restored her wayward bonnet and gave Santiago a pat on the neck. She hoped the pungent smell of a sweaty animal had not stuck to her clothes. “I won’t go in without you,” she promised Pete. “I want to find water to rinse off the dust and cool down for a minute or two.”

  She turned and made her way across the cobbled courtyard. Her eyes darted about, assessing. The shrubs were trimmed and the paintwork on the white ranch house and the outbuildings gleamed pristine in the sun. Whatever people might say about Burt Hartman, he kept the place in excellent shape.

  To her left, three men jostled around an open cement tank next to a well with an iron hand pump. One was stripped to the waist. He splashed water over his brawny arms, the spray flying high. A layer of dirty froth floated on top of the water and a soggy cake of soap clung to the cement ledge.

  Susanna walked up to them. “Could one of you gentlemen fetch a bucket so I can have clean water to rinse my face?”

  All three turned to inspect her. Susanna’s gaze fell on the man standing the farthest back. She opened her mouth for a cry of surprise, but an imperceptible shake of a dark head and a warning glance from a pair of alert black eyes made her hide her reaction.

  “You,” she said, and pointed with a shaking finger. “Get me some fresh water.”

  The man without a shirt strutted up. “Why do you pick the halfbreed?” He leaned in with a predatory grin on his beard-stubbled face. “I’ll get you water.”

  Susanna took a step back, offering the man her sweetest smile. “Because he looks the least dangerous of the three of you.”

  Her remark earned a roar of laughter, and the tension eased. Susanna bit back a satisfied smirk. The strength of masculine vanity never ceased to amaze her.

  The slender man with black eyes detached himself from the others and set off toward the house, walking with a slight limp. “I’ll get you clean water from the kitchen.” He spoke with a harsh, guttural accent, not the soft Spanish lilt she remembered.

  “Thank you.” Susanna followed him, lifting the hem of her gown away from the dusty ground. When they had made enough distance not to be overheard, she spoke in a low voice. “Rafael?”

  The man halted and turned to face her, pretending to be drawing her attention to a flowering hibiscus. Susanna bent to touch the silky petals. She breathed in the delicate fragrance, but from the corner of her eye she studied her companion. The dark hair hung in a curtain, kept in place by a ragged red bandanna tied around his head. The clothes were a mix of tattered denim pants and a beaded native jacket in supple buckskin.

  “I use my Apache name now,” he told her, the black eyes expressionless.

  “You never had an Apache name,” Susanna replied to her childhood friend Rafael De Santis, whose parents had owned the ranch before Burt Hartman. Joy at finding a familiar face filled her like a burst of warm sunlight. She smiled at him, pointing at the flower, aware that the other two men were watching them.

  “I do now,” Rafael informed her. “It’s Rain Cloud. The men call me Cloud.”

  “You grandfather was a halfbreed who hung around with Cochise and his band of braves but eventually took up ranching and married a white girl. That makes you a pale one-eighth Apache,” Susanna said in a gently mocking tone.

  She got her reward in the softening of those inscrutable black eyes. “But with my hair long, and with a tan from not wearing a hat in the sun, I can pass for a halfbreed.”

  “Why?” Her gaze lingered on Rafael as she waited for an answer.

  They’d grown up as neighbors, but the seven-year age gap had been too great for close friendship. When she was thirteen, Rafael had been twenty. Now the difference in their ages seemed even greater, for it appeared that Rafael had grown old before his time. Tiny lines crisscrossed his face, and the corners of his mouth tugged down in a surly twist. His features carried only an echo of the almost mystical beauty she remembered.

  “You know about my parents?” he asked.

  Susanna frowned, startled by his grim expression. “All I know is that you were thought dead. That’s what my father said in his letters.”

  “I was presumed dead, but I survived.” Rafael patted his right leg. “This one was left shorter, too weak for long marches. I’m no good for the army anymore.”

  “When did you come back?”

  “Too late,” Rafael said through gritted teeth. “Too damn late.” His dark gaze flickered over Susanna’s face. “You really don’t know?”

  She shook her head, baffled. “I heard your parents sold the ranch to Burt Hartman around a year ago. That’s all I know.”

  “Sold.” Rafael’s tone was bitter. “They were cheated out of their property.”

  “Tell me. Quickly. We don’t have much time.” Susanna glanced back toward the water tap. The other two men had finished washing and stood observing them with a lazy curiosity that might soon send them strolling over.

  Rafael spoke in a rush. “My father was getting old and ill. I’d been declared dead. Burt Hartman rode up and started pressuring them to sell. They said no, but then things started happening. Water got poisoned. Cattle died. A building went up in flames.” Rafael shifted his shoulders in a gesture of resignation. “My parents weren’t strong enough to fight Hartman. My father sold for a pittance. I came back a few months later and found out what had happened but by then it was too late to stop the sale.”

  Susanna stared at him, unable to share Rafael’s pain as a terror of her own welled up in her mind. “My father?” she asked, her voice barely audible.

  Rafael lifted a hand to touch her arm, withdrew it again in a fluid gesture that disguised the original intention to offer consolation. “Your father’s death was natural,” he reassured her. “Hartman only prays on the vulnerable.”

  Without saying another word, he made a graceful turn on his soft moccasins and disappeared into the kitchen. A moment later, he reappeared carrying a metal bucket and a small linen towel, which he deposited on a bench by the wall. “The water’s cool,” he told her as he prepared to leave.

  Susanna nodded her thanks. “Come and see me at Circle Star if you can,” she said as Rafael began his uneven retreat across the cobbled courtyard. He made no sign to indicate that he’d heard her.

  By the time Susanna finished freshening up, Pete Jackson had rejoined her. He used the water after her. Then they set off, following the contours of the building to the front entrance. Pete raised the heavy iron knocker and let it fall again.

  The door was opened by a neatly groomed man close to fifty, dressed in a formal black suit. Pete shifted on his feet. Thinking he might not h
ave recognized the man as a butler, Susanna hurried to speak first.

  “I’m Susanna Talbot, the mistress of Circle Star, and this is my foreman Pete Jackson. We’ve come to call on Mr. Hartman.”

  “I shall check if Mr. Hartman is free to receive you. Would you please wait inside?” The butler opened the door wider and motioned them into an airy hall. Susanna felt her hands go damp with nerves. If she touched her satin dress, her fingers would leave a mark. Then she spotted her reflection in a tall gilt-framed mirror and almost groaned out loud. There was little point in worrying about moisture marks when the fabric was streaked with dust and her petticoats smelled of a sweaty horse.

  On their left, footsteps echoed along the tiled corridor. A tall man, so pale he appeared almost bloodless, strode up to them, his gaunt features beaming in welcome.

  “Miss Talbot. This is a pleasure indeed.”

  “The pleasure is all mine,” Susanna replied, and wondered if she sounded as insincere as she felt. She offered her hand, and the newcomer raised it to his lips. A shiver of distaste rippled through her at the cool, reptilian touch of his lips.

  Retrieving her hand, she used it to gesture at Pete. “This is Mr. Jackson, the foreman of Circle Star.”

  “Mr. Jackson.” Their host acknowledged the foreman with a nod. Pete returned the greeting with open reluctance. Susanna flashed him a sharp look. To her dismay, Pete ignored her unspoken reproach and continued to bristle with hostility.

  “Please, come into the parlor.” Without waiting for a response, Hartman pivoted on his polished black shoes and led the way.

  Susanna followed, leaving Pete to trail behind. Her curious eyes took stock as they passed open doorways. The opulence of the interiors made her head spin. Why, the furniture in the dining room must be antiques imported from Europe, and the rug in the library must surely be priceless. It was not the same rustic comfort she recalled from the days the ranch had been the De Santis family home.

  As they reached the formal parlor, Hartman turned to face her, hovering a little too close for her liking. “Would you like a glass of wine?” he asked. “I have some fine Madeira from Portugal.”