Page 29

N ineteen

Josh led both his and Tilda’s horses into the barn, Tilda glued to his side. “You stay close to me, all right?”

She gave her head a frantic little nod. “I didn’t need to be reminded, but thank you.” She squeezed his hand. One of his cowpokes came and took both of their horses, while another took Zane’s.

“Thanks, Pete,” Josh said. “I usually tend my own horse, but just this once, well, we’ve got trouble in the house.”

The cowhand nodded and led the horses away.

Zane came then to stand beside Tilda. She was surrounded by strong Hart men.

Just as they reached the back door of the ranch house, it flew open and an older man stepped out, his eyes wide with excitement. Silver hair, tall and thin, dark brown eyes. “Matilda, I saw you ride in. My girl. My darling girl.”

He reached for her, and in that second all she saw was broad shoulders. Josh had stepped between her and whoever this was. She heard a low grunt and felt Josh’s body shake a bit from an impact.

“You say you’re my father?” She peeked around Josh to see her father’s shock turning to anger.

“My daughter doesn’t have to be protected from me,” her father said, his fists clenched.

Zane closed the space beside Josh, so she had two men blocking the stranger from her.

Josh snapped, “You come here, a complete stranger, all excited about a reunion with the daughter you abandoned and then have the nerve to act angry when she’s afraid?”

“I didn’t abandon her.”

Tilda stood on her tiptoes to see between Josh’s and Zane’s shoulders.

“The only thing I really know about you is you sent Ben to find me, and he kidnapped me. In my efforts to escape, I threw myself out the window of a moving train—your train, in fact. Am I to believe you approved of his actions and even demanded he do it?”

“I did not!” He shoved at Josh, who didn’t so much as move back an inch. “And I didn’t abandon you. Your mother was a madwoman who soaked herself in gin. She’s the one who sent you to an orphanage and wouldn’t tell anyone where you were.”

“How many years had Tilda been gone when you were forced into taking Ben in?” Josh crossed his arms and spread his feet apart, a human shield. “Maybe Ben did such a drastic thing as kidnap Tilda because he doesn’t trust you and is afraid you’ll abandon him again.”

The man gasped. “He knows better than that.”

But Tilda didn’t think her father sounded absolutely sure. Suddenly she realized she had never felt so safe in her life.

“Had you ever even met Tilda? How is that not abandonment? Did you bring Ben to live with you only because you were forced to? Do you even know Ben, or is everything he said a lie? You’re going to have a hard time proving to me, and more importantly to Tilda, that you’re her father.”

The door at this stranger’s back swung open, and a new stranger stepped outside. Except how could a person be a stranger ... when she had Tilda’s face?

Tilda staggered back, and Josh caught her and kept her on her feet.

“Y-you...”

“Tilda is having trouble getting any words out,” Josh said.

Finally, she tore her gaze from the mirror image in front of her and looked at Josh. All she said was, “Somehow they’re going to try and take me away.”

Zane, standing at Josh’s side, said quietly, “Tilda, this is your twin sister, Madeline.”

Tilda’s attention was drawn away from her husband to focus on whoever this was—almost certainly her twin sister—charging for her, arms open wide. She ran right into Tilda and clung to her like the ivy Tilda had seen on one of the oak trees.

Madeline burst into tears, Josh holding them both up. Tilda would’ve managed on her own if Madeline hadn’t nearly tackled her.

Zane added dryly over the sobs, “She’s happy to see you.”

“So it would seem.” Tilda stood with her arms raised slightly, not unlike a bird getting ready to take flight.

“I remember that kidnapping fool Ben saying you were too delicate to make the trip here, but here you are.” Tilda closed her arms around Madeline.

“I really do have a twin sister.” She looked past her weeping sister to see Carl Cabril.

“So I have a father, a sister, and a brother?”

Mr. Cabril smiled. “That’s right. Come on now, Maddie. Let’s go inside. Pull yourself together. You’ve longed for your sister all your life. Let’s give her room to breathe while she takes all this in. Let’s get to know each other a little.”

It took some doing, but without being too forceful, Mr. Cabril pried Madeline loose from her twin.

Tilda glimpsed through the doorway and saw Michelle watching the whole show as if it were the most interesting thing she’d ever witnessed.

And to hear tell of it, Michelle had traveled and studied and invented.

She’d gone to mountaintops and had brilliant tutors.

She’d found and mined gold and had beaten up a man with a copy of War and Peace .

She’d witnessed a lot. Which didn’t speak well of the spectacle they were making.

She turned to Josh and said, “I’m not going with them. I don’t care how many trains I have to jump off.” She felt as if she were repeating the same thing over and over. And Josh had promised—

“You’re here to stay, Mrs. Hart.” Josh’s eyes were kind, but then he looked up, and the kindness faded to ice. “Let’s go on inside now.”

“Mrs. Hart?” Carl gasped and spun around to stare at his daughter. “Ben never said anything about your being married.”

* * * *

They all settled around the table. Gretel poured everyone coffee, with Tilda and Michelle helping.

“Ben should not have harmed you,” Cabril began. “I’m afraid the way he grew up, first without me, then having to hunt me down when his ma died, well, he’s become a man who doesn’t allow himself to fail. You must have finally convinced him he couldn’t talk you into coming home with him.”

“She is home, Carl.” Josh took some satisfaction in pointing that out.

Carl Cabril seemed kind, but Josh couldn’t forget the sight of that private luxury train, something he had never imagined existed, and how Ben had used it to take Tilda away.

The man’s white hair was elegantly trimmed. His clothes, well, Josh didn’t know much about fashion outside of denim pants, a Stetson hat, and a good pair of boots. He also had a mighty fancy string tie with a chunk of turquoise to fasten it.

Josh knew it when he saw money dripping off a man.

Tilda’s father was slender with sharp eyes that Josh would never be so foolish as to not take very seriously. This man claimed Tilda was his daughter, and apparently he intended to make up for all the years he’d failed her.

Michelle settled in at the head of the table. Zane leaned against the wall near the back door, looking as if he was prepared to block another kidnapping. Old Carl here was in for a disappointment if he thought Tilda was going home with him.

Madeline, sniffling beside him, her father’s arm wrapped around her shoulders, was wearing a silk dress, and her hair was so fancy, Josh figured they’d brought a lady’s maid along on the trip west.

He thought of Tilda and her two dresses—one of them ruined when she’d jumped from a train, and another Michelle had managed to make fit her.

Tilda had one pair of worn-out half boots, with no bonnet to call her own.

Josh much preferred this version of the identical women.

The one he’d married, the one with the strong spine and a willingness to work for her supper.

Josh locked eyes with the older man. “Before you say anything more, Cabril, you need to get the notion out of your head that Tilda is going home with you. She is not. She is my wife. Her home is right here with me on the Two Harts Ranch.”

Cabril’s eyes flashed with determination. Ignoring Josh, he turned to his daughter. “Give me a chance, Tilda, please. I want to make everything up to you. I want to get to know you.”

Josh kept right on with what he wanted to say.

“Furthermore, we let Ben stay here for the same reason—he told us he wanted to get to know Tilda. Well, Tilda had no interest in heading out on a cross-country ride with a complete stranger. But we trusted him enough to leave her alone with him in this house, and we should have run him off. Now you’re going to pay for his mistake. ”

“I never told him to do anything as foolhardy as take Tilda by force. You can see we got here fast. We headed out as soon as Ben’s telegraph reached us, saying he’d found her and where she was, and that she was resisting coming home.”

Josh didn’t repeat that Tilda was already home.

He figured Cabril for a smart man. He understood what was what.

“You’re welcome to come daily and share an evening meal with us, but you’re not invited to stay here.

You’re not going to spend time with Tilda all day, every day.

And I am never going to leave her alone with you.

We have the law after Ben, and it’s not gonna be enough for him to say, ‘Sorry about that little assault and kidnapping. Sorry my actions caused a woman to throw herself off a moving train .’ I don’t rightly know if the sheriff has a long enough reach to arrest him in New York City, but if he’s seen around these parts again, he’s going straight to jail. ”

Cabril lowered his head into his hands. He looked the very picture of demoralized defeat. Josh wasn’t about to trust any of it.

“So you’re Madeline?” Tilda raised her coffee cup, took a sip, and waited.

Madeline nodded, her eyes filled with longing as she looked at Tilda.

“Yes, although my friends and family call me Maddie. You probably know your full name is Matilda. Mother called us Maddie and Matty, even into the second year of our lives. She thought it was cute to have our names be so similar. Ben was around five when we were born. He referred to us as ‘the girls’ or ‘the sisters,’ since it was too hard for him to keep our names straight. But because our names sounded almost the same, Mother started calling you Tilda, which helped a lot.”

“Did it help Tilda to have her name changed when she was just two years old?” Josh asked.

Cabril’s brow furrowed. Josh couldn’t guess if it was anger at Josh for his question, or anger at himself for being such a wreck of a father.

“I-I don’t know. I mean, we were so young. I only know what Ben told me.”

“I wonder if changing Tilda’s name made it easier when it came time to pick one of her children to throw away.

” Josh knew none of this was Maddie’s fault, so he tried to temper his words.

They were mainly meant for Cabril, though Maddie was getting hit with them too, and he could tell she was fascinated by her twin sister.

Then he had a stray thought. Michelle was sitting here absorbing every word, and Josh liked that Zane and Michelle were also present.

Yet he didn’t want either of these Cabrils to know about the treasure.

They’d never mentioned it to Ben, and they weren’t about to bring it up to Carl and Maddie.

But the men would be riding in any minute with the iron armor and whatnot, and someone had to figure out where to put it all.

Josh had given Zane the rundown on what they’d found, but only a very brief one. He rested one hand on Tilda’s arm before she could ask her next question.

“I need a private moment with Zane, and I don’t want to miss a word of this. I promise, I’ll not step out of this room.”

Tilda nodded.

Josh stood and went to Zane. It only took a few words to tell his brother what he wanted.

“Michelle, can you come here?” Zane watched the Cabrils as Michelle rose and rounded the table. She and Zane stepped closer to the back door, out of earshot of those at the table.

Josh couldn’t hear a word as the two whispered back and forth, but he saw Michelle’s eyes widen with surprise. Louder, she said, “I’ll handle it. You’re better with a gun, so you stay here.”

Josh wondered where Brody and Ellie were.

He wouldn’t mind more witnesses. Then he remembered they’d planned to search for a mining claim or a land purchase.

For a ranch with a lot of people living on it, it seemed they were mighty short on folks to guard Tilda.

Where was Annie? She’d always been a tough woman and a crack shot.

At least Gretel was here, hard at work on getting supper ready. She was a tough western woman, too.

And he’d just sent Michelle away to keep the treasure hunters from showing themselves, busting into the house talking about Spanish artifacts. Michelle was especially quick on her feet when it came to thinking.

The Cabrils could stay for the evening meal, but then they’d have to head to town to rent rooms for the night.

Michelle rushed out of the kitchen. Zane took a seat at the table between Tilda and her father. Josh, returning to his chair next to Tilda, sat across from the fragile, delicate Maddie.

Tilda went back to peppering these two with questions.

Josh heard some interesting details, but nothing that made much difference.

It all amounted to the fact that Tilda was probably this man’s daughter.

When just a toddler, she’d been abandoned by everyone in the world who was supposed to take care of her. And she wasn’t going anywhere.