Page 4 of Whispers of Fortune (Golden State Treasure Book #1)
F OUR
“It was full daylight when we went in there?” Brody looked up.
Ellie saw the starlit sky. “It didn’t seem to take that long. She delivered the baby only minutes after we got here.”
“We went in after supper, and time loses its meaning during a birth. And afterward there’s still much that needs to be done.”
“Let me show you to the doctor’s office and your rooms above it—two bedrooms, a washroom with a bathtub and a shower, and a sitting room with a kitchen. The doctor’s office is well set up.” Ellie gestured toward what was nearly a street these days, with houses and a bunkhouse, Michelle’s invention shed, barns and corrals, and the students’ housing. “There’s very little furniture upstairs. Kitchen table with two chairs. I’m not sure if there are pots and pans, dishes and such. And there’s a bed in one of the bedrooms.”
Ellie looked at the boys, tagging along behind them, whispering to each other. They seemed elated to be staying. Brody looked likewise, lit up from the inside by delivering little William Brody Trainor. Billy. They’d named their son after the man who’d delivered their baby. “Boys, you know where we set up the doctor’s office?”
“Sure, we helped with the last of the building when we first got here.”
“Would it be all right for you to stay in your regular rooms tonight? We can get bedsteads set up for you by tomorrow.”
“Sure, Miss Hart.” Thayne almost bounced with high spirits, and Ellie had to wonder if he could even sleep.
“We’ll go on to bed now.” Lock nearly slammed into Brody. “I’m so glad that you’re here, Brody. I’d like to stay up all night just talking to you.”
“Tomorrow is Saturday.” Ellie hated to separate them. “You can spend the day together and eat in the house with us again until we get a few supplies laid in for you. Your brother should be free, unless he gets patients already.” Ellie gave Brody a wide-eyed comical look. “We started right in working you, so no promises.”
The boys gave Brody another hug, and tears burned in her eyes to see the long time they spent holding each other. Then the boys let go.
“I love you, boys. I’m so glad I found you and that you’re well. I was so worried.”
“I love you, too, Brody.” Lock slapped him on the shoulder.
“Good night. We’ll spend tomorrow catching up on each other’s lives.” Thayne headed for the schoolhouse.
The two were whispering and shoving at each other, laughing just like always, only maybe even more gleeful.
“This way, Brody.” Ellie led him to the second building on the north side of their street of homes and businesses. They had a blacksmith now and a tinsmith. A farrier and a butcher shop. These things were common enough on a ranch, but with the way everything was laid out, it was starting to look like a small town.
A coyote howled in the distance, and an owl hooted in the night. Beyond that the only sound was a gentle breeze.
She reached the doctor’s office. In the moonlight, a sign over the door that said Doctor was just barely visible. Brody reached past her to grab the knob and open the door. It struck Ellie as a very gentlemanly thing to do.
“You said you went to Harvard? In Boston?”
“Yes, and I grew up in New York City.”
“I lived in San Francisco for a couple of years. My sister, Annie, is a widow, and her husband’s brother and his family lived there. They took me in while I attended college. So I’ve lived in the city. But I like it out here better.”
“It’s different. So quiet.”
Ellie went inside and found a lantern on a desk. She lit it. It struck her that being alone here with him wasn’t proper. “The stairs are through that door. I-I guess I should let you explore on your own.” She handed him the lantern.
He said, “I owe you an apology for the way I stormed in here earlier. I just ... I’ve spent the whole trip out here worried sick about the boys. I imagined the worst. I’m sorry I shouted at you when you’ve been taking care of my brothers better than I ever have. Thank you. I can’t stay long, but for now, well, I’ll give them a little time. The boys obviously want that.”
“But you don’t?” That made her heart twist a little. She loved this ranch and didn’t see why anyone wouldn’t. But she understood. Honestly, she knew she’d been biding her time for too long since her broken engagement. She couldn’t just remain here at the Two Harts for the rest of her life. Yes, she helped in the house and in the dormitory, but she needed her own place in the world, not just to forever remain the adult child who lived at home.
With a solemn frown, Brody said, “I can’t, Ellie. I owe a man money, and I gave him my word I’d come back. He’s elderly, a doctor who needs help to care for his patient. He taught me a lot and paid me well as I learned by his side. And he loaned me money to go fetch my brothers, based on my promise I’d return to Boston.”
For a moment, Ellie stood in the soft lantern light, her eyes meeting his, and then her mind went in a very strange direction. Her feeling anything for Brody MacKenzie struck her in a way that was a little too warm.
“I’d better get on. We’ll talk more tomorrow.” And she ran—well, she walked really fast before any more strange feelings cropped up.
Pretty little Beth Ellen Hart. He was close enough that he could have grabbed her.
Loyal Kelton let her go, but he had a smile on his face imagining getting her under his control. He could still feel the bruises. Oh, they had long since healed, but he remembered because of the beating her brother Zane had given him. Loyal wanted some payback for that, and taking Beth Ellen away with him was a good way to pay them back.
He watched her stride across the ranch yard and then disappear into the house. She slept in the school building most of the time. It looked like tonight she’d sleep at home.
Easing back into the shadows where he hid behind the row of shops on the Hart ranch, including a doctor’s office, he reveled in how close he’d gotten this time.
Loyal had left the city behind in the last couple of years. He’d learned the woods, the trails, how to track. He knew how to slip around unseen. He knew how to handle a gun. Of all the trails he’d traveled since his father had kicked him out of the bank, nothing was more pleasant than the nights he crept onto the Two Harts and watched for Beth Ellen and fantasized about grabbing her. And the day was coming. Ellie, he’d heard them call her. Beth Ellen was the name she’d grown up with, and she used to complain to him—when he was courting her, and later engaged to her—that her family had insisted on her staying with the childish name.
Both names were childish in his opinion. When they married, he’d’ve insisted she call herself by the more respectable name Elizabeth. But they hadn’t gotten to the altar. His mistress had come to Ellie’s attention, and his finicky little fiancée had objected and broken it off.
And Loyal’s father had cut his money off.
Now Loyal stood enjoying the cool night breeze and the sounds of the sleeping ranch.
Josh didn’t post a night sentry.
Loyal was tempted to walk straight off the ranch to the overlook where he’d left his horse, whistling, walking right out in the open. The Harts were too stupid to take notice.
Instead, just because he so thoroughly enjoyed it, he slipped along buildings, hid in shadows, like a ghost haunting the ranch. When he got to his horse, he was reaching to untie the reins when a gun cocked and pressed into his spine.
A voice hissed, “My name is Sonny. Sonny Dykes. I seen you sneakin’ around here. I think we both want something from this ranch. I wonder if you’d like to work together?”