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S ix

There’d been no such thing as a true wedding night yet.

Brody regretted that, but he had to admit he could barely walk. He could barely sit up. He’d only just managed to dress himself. And he was dreading this train ride. In truth, he was just trying not to further injure himself.

Or so he fervently hoped.

Brody lowered himself slowly onto the train seat. His pretty wife sat beside him, and Cord Westbrook followed, carrying all the bags. Enduring was the best Brody could hope to do right now.

He wondered when the longed-for wedding night would happen.

Not until his ribs quit kicking like a feisty, unbroken horse.

“You’ve picked a poor excuse for a husband, Ellie.”

She wound her hand through his arm and hugged his elbow. She’d probably learned it was one of the few places on his body that didn’t hurt.

Cord sat down in front of them and twisted to look at them over his left shoulder. Brody envied Cord’s agility.

“You look about all in, Brody. We could have waited a few more days.” Cord studied his face.

Brody had to wonder what the man was seeing because Brody was doing his best to hide how bad he hurt. The train whistle blasted, and they began rolling with a clacking of the wheels and the chuffing of the steam engine.

“We have to get on. I still hurt, but a train ride shouldn’t make it any worse.

” Unless his broken rib shifted and stabbed through one of his lungs or his heart, that is.

He was still seeing double at times, and his head ached like a miner was trying to fight his way out with a pickax.

He probably should have stayed in his bed for another week.

“Nor better.” Ellie squeezed his arm.

To change the subject, Brody asked, “What does your grandfather remember about mine? You said he talks about my grandpa owing him money.”

Cord was a tall man. Dark hair. Serious brown eyes that got a deep, intense look when he played the piano. Brody had never heard such music.

So far, Brody hadn’t talked much with Cord. After the trial, he’d gone to his room in the hotel and collapsed. While the worst of the swelling had gone down on his chest, he now had a bruise the size of a dinner plate. Grimly, he admitted it was a miserable excuse for an improvement.

He’d finally come downstairs to eat yesterday and listened to Cord’s piano music for a while.

They’d hoped to make the train yesterday, but Brody admitted he wasn’t up to the trip.

He’d returned to his room for another day of lazing around.

Today, over Ellie’s protests and Cord’s misgivings, they’d finally headed for the train.

“Grandpa Westbrook will be thrilled with this. He’s not a man to let a debt go uncollected, and that’s how he saw your grandpa.

I’ve tried to get him to just forget it, and he has before, for a time.

But I think the word treasure eats away at him, and before I know it, he’s fretting over it.

He knew your pa when he came west, searching for your grandpa and the story of treasure. I think there was trouble.”

Brody winced. “Pa was close to out of his mind over that treasure. I suspect if your grandpa tried to lay claim to any part of it, he’d’ve bulled up and wanted a fight.

Pa ran off and abandoned me and my sister and Ma, looking to find that treasure and bring it home.

Maybe he would have sent for us. Or maybe he just abandoned us and used treasure hunting as an excuse. ”

Ellie caressed his arm.

Brody remembered bitterly how his sister, Theresa, died while Brody, then very young, struggled, along with his ma, to keep a roof over their heads. There was never enough food or coal to stay warm. She’d been little more than a toddler, and when she got sick, she was too frail to fight it off.

“When Pa came back, he seemed defeated. Ma forgave him, and he settled back in with us. He stayed a few years and worked, and we were all right then. I got to go to school. Thayne and Lock were born. Things weren’t exactly happy, but they were all right.

Then he got a fever for that treasure again.

He started poring over the journal my grandpa had sent us, the one that had sent Pa off on his treasure hunt before.

Reading it as if he could see more than the words printed on the page.

Before long, while my brothers were still mighty young, he took off again. ”

Brody remembered his ma crying in her room at night when she thought everyone was asleep.

“Ma forced me to stay in school ... well, begged me really.” The guilt of that still ate at him. “She talked about how much money I could make and how that could really take care of the family if I had an education. It was the only argument that could have persuaded me to study.

“I worked nights and weekends all through my growing-up years. When it came time for college, Ma said I could work in Boston the same as in New York City. I could send money home. I hadn’t seen my family for years because when there might’ve been a chance to buy a train ticket, I sent the money to Ma instead.

I wrote to her, but her letters to me weren’t regular.

Then her letters quit, right when I was almost done.

I finished and rushed home to find Ma had died and Thayne and Lock were gone.

Pa was back, a broken man, dying. I stayed to care for him and, in the end, bury him.

All the while I was half mad with worry about the boys, searching for them everywhere.

I found their names listed on an orphan train and set out to find them, but I knew the journal was gone, and they were as treasure mad as Pa.

I suspected they’d have come here hunting. And here I am.”

He looked at Ellie. “A married man.” He reached out and took her hand.

“I wish I could have made my ma’s last years comfortable.

That’s a regret I’m going to have to live with.

But I’ve found my brothers, and they’re alive and well, and I’ve found the love of my life.

We’ll make a good home for ourselves in Boston. ”

Ellie leaned close to him, her shoulder brushing against his. He was aware of how gentle she was being with him.

“I suspect Grandpa Westbrook told your pa he owned half of whatever treasure your grandpa had found.”

“That would have set him off, no doubt about it. Among the letters and papers we found with Grandpa’s remains was a note saying exactly that.”

Cord shook his head. “Near as I can tell, my grandpa loaned your grandpa about a hundred dollars. I don’t know what this treasure will amount to, but even with interest, you’d repay my grandpa with a few hundred dollars.

And Grandpa is a wealthy man. To harass your father, who wasn’t wealthy, to try and take half is just pure greedy. ”

“If Pa wanted money so much, he should have come home and gotten a job. I’ll bet your wealthy grandpa worked hard every day of his life. And I’ll bet he stayed with his wife and raised up your pa and never shirked.”

Brody thought of the gold doubloons he had in his pocket. It wasn’t half of the treasure they’d found, but it would be a start. Maybe they could just hand it over to Westbrook and see if that satisfied him.

“It’s good that you said that. It reminds me that my grandpa is a good man.

A hard, cantankerous man in a lot of ways, but in his heart, I know he loves me, and I love him.

” Cord’s eyes flashed with excitement. “Hey, maybe we can get Grandpa to come to the Two Harts. Maybe he could get involved with looking for the treasure. He needs to get away from that bank. He’s in his seventies now and doesn’t go in to work much anymore, but he runs a lot of the business from home.

It’s long past time for him to loosen his grip on the reins. ”

“There would be a place for him on the Two Harts.” Ellie had to wonder if he could teach a class.

“I’ll be moving out of the ranch house, so we’ve got space.

We could make him very comfortable. I don’t know if he’d be up for a long ride in the wilderness, but he could be involved with our hunt in any way he wanted. ”

“I think all of this is going to make my grandpa very happy.”

Brody considered it all. Would finding the treasure have made his pa happy? Nothing much did. He hoped Mayhew Westbrook was a kinder man than Brody’s pa.