Chapter 5

5

Maeve didn't believe in hitting people.

Not that she'd ever made a rule about it. But it wasn't something she ever did or figured it to be how she was. She was a nice woman. Gentle. Not violent.

And then Dakota Harlan had started talking, and she'd just exploded. Well, one slap. But it sure came as a surprise to her. Dakota, too, no doubt.

Why that sidewinder Dakota brought such a thing out of her, she had no idea. Yet she was sure it was all his fault. At least she'd slapped him on the cheek that wasn't marked from an injury, so she gave herself some credit for restraint. Not much, but some.

She entered her very crowded cabin, glad no one asked why she had a violent expression on her face. She was sure trying not to have one. Heading straight for the coffeepot, she kept her face averted from the others.

The house buzzed with chatter. Ten people were packed inside the place. It was a good-sized house, but ten people nearly overflowed it. Everyone who could fit sat at the kitchen table. Bruce and Oscar, along with Jake, leaned against the wall with their coffee cups and cobbler. They managed by setting the dessert down on whatever was close by, then switching for a sip of coffee. They'd saved a chair at the table for Maeve. She appreciated that.

They'd all been served before Maeve came in. Bridget got up and began refilling cups.

They were discussing plans. Ginny was going to court to have herself declared sane. Maeve thought that ought to be easy since anyone with one working eyeball could look at Ginny for about three seconds and make that declaration.

It must be a little chancy, though, since Ginny had been hiding, putting off taking this bold step, for years.

Maeve sipped her coffee and listened closely to figure out just what was involved in all of this, but nothing prepared her for the question Ginny asked.

"Maeve, I ... that is, we wondered if you'd ride along with us?" Ginny, already pale and a little shaky, looked at her. Something gleamed in her bright blue eyes. Maeve wasn't sure what it was. Not fear exactly. Not anger or excitement. Sure as certain not violence.

Maeve set her fork down on her plate with a sharp click. She was going to be able to get away from here, and she no longer tried to read anything in Ginny's eyes. "I'd love to come." Maeve had heard the whole story, about Ginny hiding in the canyon with plans to never emerge as long as her husband was alive.

A man held great power over his wife, which Maeve didn't quite understand. But Ginny had said it was so.

Maeve's ma and da had run things together, both of them working hard to keep their large family fed and clean and safe. There'd been no notion of Pa wielding a lot of power, and no time for such things. Pa had always worked so hard he didn't have the energy for much besides sitting down for the evening meal.

Ginny looked at Ma. "Would you be able to get along without her?"

That struck Maeve all wrong. She was a twenty-two-year-old woman. Most women her age were married. She shouldn't have to ask her ma for permission to do anything.

Ginny's hands clutched together under her chin. "I'm sure Maeve is a tremendous help to you. But having her along, with the three children and a long trip ahead of us and no idea if I'll be..." Ginny's voice broke. Her lips trembled. Her hands moved up to cover her mouth.

No idea if I'll be ... what? Maeve's eyes sharpened as she saw tears pooling in Ginny's eyes. She knew then that she hadn't been able to tell what she was seeing in Ginny's eyes because there had been so much.

"Mama, you're coming back." Beth stood from her chair, thrust the baby she was cradling at Maeve, and rushed to her mama's side to hug her.

Maeve looked down at little Lydia. If she was going to help with the youngsters, she might as well start now. Though truth be told she loved all the little ones and didn't have a single qualm about caring for them.

"If I lose this legal fight, I could end up locked in an asylum again." Ginny shuddered, and her clutched hands rose higher to cover her eyes. "But I don't want to live locked away in a canyon anymore either. I love that canyon and plan to go back and live there, but I want to be able to leave it when I want, visit neighbors, ride into town. I don't want to live in fear of the world outside that canyon anymore."

Maeve had heard Oscar demanding she stay in hiding.

She'd heard Jake say he'd get Ginny away from her husband if need be, no matter what a judge ruled.

She could hear the worry in Beth's voice.

But here she was. Emerging. Finally ready to fight. Clearly, thoroughly terrified.

Maeve's heart warmed ... no, heated ... no, burned. Her heart burned with rage that someone as sweet and obviously sane as Ginny Rutledge could be locked up on the say-so of a husband who stood to gain financially if he could be cruel enough to his wife. Of course, Maeve only knew Ginny's side, but she didn't need to hear the other side when someone as good and kind and sensible as Ginny sat right in front of her.

Maeve looked at Ma. She very carefully didn't look at Bruce. She wanted to go on this trip because she could help—not because she needed to get away. Getting away would be a nice extra benefit. Getting away, well, the very thought had her heart hammering and her ears almost buzzing with hope.

"You know Donal is sparking a young woman, and they've talked of marriage." Ma looked at her son, whose cheeks turned a bit pink, but he nodded.

"We've talked of marriage before the snow flies, within the month possibly." Donal smiled as he spoke of his upcoming marriage.

Maeve knew Suzie well and was happy about the union. A stab of worry made her wonder if Bruce was marrying Ma because he knew he needed to move out of Donal's cabin to give the newlyweds their own home. That reason for marrying made Maeve almost as upset as Dakota suggesting they were simply marrying because there weren't that many women in Idaho.

And here was Ma close to hand.

"We'll have Suzie to help us soon. And Bridget and Conor surely aren't youngsters anymore. There's no concern about caring for them like there is caring for your little ones."

Bridget was at the countertop, dishing up bowls of cherry cobbler. Cherries from their own trees. Bridget flashed a smile over her shoulder. No, she most certainly didn't need much looking after.

Conor was sitting at the table by Donal and drinking coffee. He was near to being an adult man.

Ma nodded. "Yes, Maeve can go if you believe you'll need the help."

The burn in her heart changed to excitement.

"We're riding on right now. We want to get to Alton by nightfall. And we hope to catch a train soon. We hope to be gone a very short time. Of course, we have to wait for the train, and who knows when it'll pass through. We could find ourselves staying in the hotel in Alton for a week or more."

A train? Maeve's heart sped up. She'd never been on a train. And a hotel? She'd slept on the ground all the way west on the wagon train. No hotel had ever brushed near her life.

Maeve looked down at the little girl in her arms. Newborn last fall. Ten months old probably. She was a sturdy, happy little thing who probably slept through the night and came very close to feeding herself, maybe even walking. She'd be a pleasure to care for. And the twins, what they mostly needed was someone quick enough to keep up with them. Helping out with them would be fun.

"We'll see to Maeve's fare," Jake said. "And see to her meals and a room when we reach our destination. She can share a room in the hotel with Ginny, so it will be completely proper. And it's only right that she earn a salary if she travels with us and helps with the babies."

"Oh, that's not necessary," Maeve said.

Jake smiled. "Tell me that again when you've got a fussy toddler on your lap on a ninety-degree day, for hours on end. I know for a fact you'll earn every penny, Maeve."

Maeve asked, "Where are we going?"

Jake's eyes met Beth's as if they'd discussed what they wanted to tell the others. "We know you're as trustworthy as the sunrise." Jake looked back at Maeve, then turned to Ma. His eyes scanned Bruce, Donal, Bridget, and Conor. "But we don't want it to be known as to where we're heading. We've done some studying on it, and we've written a lot of letters because Ginny has been pushing for this for two full years. We hope we've found a judge who'll be honorable with Ginny. That's all we ask. Simple fairness. Still, we aren't going to tell anyone where we're going. We know Ginny's husband is still searching for her."

"He's had men come here several times. He saw Beth here that first summer, so he knows you're probably in the area."

Dakota came to the door. "I've talked to men three times, different ones each time, and I've torn down posters saying Ginny is a wanted outlaw. It's best not to mention where you're headed. Word could get out."

The O'Toole family nodded.

Maeve, the one who'd find out first, almost bounced with her eagerness to know where she was going. Even so, she nodded along with everyone else.

"We've been in contact with Kat and Sebastian Jones, and they've been bothered several times by investigators wanting to know where Ginny is. If you don't know where we are, you can't reveal it. Not knowing is safer for you as well as for us. Is that all right, Fiona? If it's not, I'll understand. But in that case, Maeve had better not go along."

Suddenly Maeve couldn't breathe. It was as if her whole life hinged on this moment.

Ma didn't hesitate. "It's fine for her to go. I know she'll be in good hands with you folks."

Air gasped out of Maeve's lungs, and her excitement returned.

"I'll want to speak with you privately before you leave, lass." Ma had a determined glint in her eyes. "Let's go pack a few things so you can be on your way."

Eager to be gone, Maeve nodded and said to Ginny, "I'll be quick."

"We've got our coffee to finish." Ginny gestured with her cup. "And your ma's good cobbler to eat. No need to hurry."

Maeve started heading for the room she shared with Bridget.

"Maeve, wait!" Jake's voice stopped her in her tracks. She turned around, wide-eyed, wondering what she'd done or said that would ruin this chance she had to get away.

"Leave the baby." Jake came up to her, smiling. He plucked the little one out of her hands and tucked her against his side. "Now you can have both hands for packing."

Maeve felt her face heating up in one of her horrid blushes. It was something that seemed to go with her red hair and freckles, and she despised the bright red that often plagued her cheeks. She whirled away and hurried to her room, glad of an excuse to leave.

Once she was in the room, Ma came behind her and shut the door with a bit too much firmness.

"You're going, my lass, and I'll not deny you a chance to travel a bit with good companions. But when you come back, I suspect you'll find your brother married."

"Suzie is a good friend, Ma. I'm looking forward to having her join the family."

Maeve found a satchel under her bed and dragged it out. It had been shoved under there years ago and not touched since. Their family went to town once or twice a year, yet not long enough that it was necessary to pack a bag.

"Mind me now, Maeve. I'm wanting your full attention."

It took a force of willpower to turn and look Ma in the eye. Maeve knew good and well why Ma had followed her to her room. It didn't take two women to pack Maeve's one extra dress and a nightgown, her hairbrush and a rack of hairpins.

"You will come back to find me married, too. There's no place in Donal's house for Bruce once Donal is married. But there is a place in this house for him." Ma's eyes turned sad. "I'll not have you thinking I've forgotten my own precious Shay. He was the love of my girlhood, and he gave me the loves of my life in you children. But Bruce is a fine man. I'm ready to add a fine man to my life. We'll build another room onto the house so we're not quite so crowded in here. Suzie may not want to take all her meals here as Donal does. She may want to run her own home and keep her own kitchen. We'll have to see."

They'd built this cabin on the property line of Ma's and Maeve's homestead claims, and they were four years into the proving out. They had one year left to go. Would Ma want her own cabin once she was married? Would Maeve end up living here alone?

"It's hard for me to see another man in Da's place. But, Ma, I know you've found a good man. I'm sorry I've been unkind, and I'm trying to do better. I think this time away will do me some good."

Maeve knew it was past time to find a husband of her own, but her life had been full and happy, and yes, a man or two had come courting. Still, she'd never considered taking that very grown-up step. Now she wondered why.

She thought of some of the young men around, and none of them had appealed to her. Maybe it was time to get on with growing up.

"Can I at least have a hug from my girl before you go off with such sadness in your eyes?" Ma opened her arms, and Maeve walked into them. She hugged Ma back fiercely because her love was strong and true. Then they quickly packed her things and left the room, both of them heading for something new.

Thaddeus looked out the first-floor window at the people who dwelled in the neighborhood. With contempt he heard foreign languages. German, he thought, though he certainly didn't speak it.

He'd rented a house in Omaha that was a hovel compared to his mansion in Chicago. Of course, his mansion was mortgaged to the hilt, as were the rest of his buildings.

The house was close to the river. While there were richer neighborhoods with bigger houses, in his opinion, Omaha was a backwater. Yet the Transcontinental Railroad running through here from east to west had made it a boomtown.

He studied the street outside his window, feeling frustrated and edgy because he had nothing to do but wait. The trees were young in this neighborhood, which told him what an upstart town it was. There were houses going up within his sight, though this house he'd rented looked older. It was three stories and painted a bland white, with a white picket fence out front, for heaven's sake.

Every now and then a carriage rolled by on the mostly quiet street. Some of them were rather grand, as if the Germans around town were trying to show off their success, acting as if they belonged in America.

It disgusted him. And it made the wait all the more irritating.

Thaddeus was a man who moved things, who shook things. He bought and sold. He squeezed money out of land and buildings and people. He wanted to get back to it. The wreckage of his fortune could all be put right if he could just get things settled with his lunatic wife. For now, all he could do was wait for his investigators to bring him word of Eugenia. He'd been waiting for four years, ever since the day she'd escaped from Horecroft Asylum and run away.

He hadn't laid eyes on her since.

Then she'd gone and fouled things up for him with the Pinkertons so they wouldn't work for him anymore. He'd heard the Pinkerton agent, John McCall—who'd been with him that first year when he'd gotten close to getting ahold of Elizabeth—had blackened his name with Allen Pinkerton.

Thaddeus assumed Pinkerton wouldn't put the word of his far-distant agent ahead of the word of a good customer, but the man had balked. He was especially upset about the wanted poster Thaddeus had posted along the rail lines. Pinkerton claimed it was a crime, but Thaddeus considered his wife a thief.

Pinkerton attested that those wanted posters were about criminals who'd escaped custody, who'd been charged with a crime. Thaddeus told him it was just a matter of time before Eugenia was charged.

Of course, Thaddeus would never have her arrested. He'd just get his money and be done with her.

Nevertheless, Pinkerton wasn't interested in working for Thaddeus anymore.

Then that Wadsworth woman, Katherine Jones, had contacted Pinkerton. She'd been in the asylum and escaped with Eugenia. It sounded to Thaddeus like she'd been exactly where she belonged.

Either way, he'd had to give up on the Pinkertons and hire his own investigators who didn't work for the agency. It had worked out in one way because they didn't charge as much. But in another very important way it hadn't worked out because his men hadn't managed to find his wife.

Now he lived in this wreck of a house, in a neighborhood teeming with foreigners. He hadn't gone outside since he'd arrived. It was humiliating to live amongst such rabble.

To make matters worse, he had to share the house with Sykes, a common thug. But the man seemed content to have the third-floor rooms for his own, while Thaddeus, with his bum leg, lived on the first floor. The second floor had five bedrooms, but Sykes didn't try to impose himself there.

Thaddeus had found a bank with safe-deposit boxes and put his money in there. It made him feel safer because he feared that Sykes might turn on him and steal the money. Thaddeus had never let him see it, yet Sykes wasn't a fool. Thaddeus had kept back a fair amount of the money because he was paying out to his investigators at regular intervals. He had to pinch pennies and hoard what was left. But only for now. Soon he'd get his hands on the madwoman he was married to. What a foolish decision it had been to marry her.

Of course, she was the wealthiest, most beautiful debutante in Chicago the year he realized it would be a smart business decision to marry. He remembered seeing her, wanting her, what with those dark curls and bright blue eyes. He had no way of knowing her mind was unsound. And her being so naive and kindhearted had made it very easy to fool her.

Though he didn't think of himself as charming, he'd worked hard at convincing Eugenia he truly loved her. All he had to do was picture the bags of money she'd bring into the marriage and the charm followed, natural-like. He'd already been successful when he met her. In fact, he got along quite well without a wife. But other men of his stature were married, so he figured he should be married, too. Besides, he'd wanted more . He wasn't near the level of his in-laws' wealth. Eugenia's dowry had been a temptation he couldn't resist.

The fact that it was her dowry that had boosted him into the upper echelons of Chicago's wealthiest families mattered not at all, nor her inheritance he was after that would restore his fortune. When a man got married, his wife's property and cash became his—all she brought with her, and all she inherited, his. That was the way things were. He knew it. Eugenia knew it. Eugenia's parents knew it. So they had done him wrong when they'd cut him out of that inheritance.

He suddenly felt a powerful need to ride to the bank and make sure his money was still there. "Sykes! Get down here." Thaddeus looked at his suit. It was getting old, and he'd gained some weight recently so that it no longer fit right. Well, he wasn't going to spend money on new clothes.

Sykes came into the sitting room. "What can I do for you, sir?"

"Go hail a cab. I need to go to the bank."

Just the quickest flash of interest lit Sykes's eyes. No doubt he was hoping Thaddeus would bring all his money home so it was within his henchman's grasp.

Without delay, Sykes turned and was gone. He was the last one left who obeyed.

He thought of his daughter's money. That should have been his, too. She'd still been unmarried when she inherited it. As a married woman, the money belonged to her husband now. He saw no way to retrieve that wealth, and Elizabeth had gotten the lion's share from her grandparents.

Eugenia, however, had gotten plenty. And that money was Thaddeus's, pure and simple. Which meant his wife was a thief.