her circuit of the room. “Don’t be silly,” she said dismissively. “Of course you’ll go. Our father’s dying and he wants us. Good Lord, Libby! Think what that means.”
It meant trouble, Libby decided, or worse. Unable to bear a second more of her sister’s outlandish exuberance, she had left the kitchen and had gone up to the spare room to check on the child, whom she found smack in the middle of the big four-poster bed, fast asleep. As gently as she could, Libby unlaced and removed the dreadful brogans from the little girl’s feet.
How fortunate Andy was, Libby had thought, to be able to escape all her trials and terrors in such deep and innocent sleep. For a moment, as she had stood gazing down at her, Libby had envied the child for that. She was sleeping like an angel. Libby couldn’t even remember the last time she’d had such an angelic rest.
But—dammit—yes, she could. It had been at Paradise with the white curtains billowing in, with South Texas sunshine buttering the walls of her room, with the lullaby of cattle and the sweet, sweet smells of hay and mock orange and jasmine.
So long ago.
Libby sat for a long time, keeping watch over the sleeping child, letting her mind drift back to a time and a place she had tried for fifteen years to erase from her memory.
Paradise! Lord, how she’d loved it. Every inch of the place from Caliente Creek where the mesquite tangled to the southernmost pastures where the air was heavy with salt from the gulf. The images—all the sights and sounds—came back so quickly and with such intensity now, it nearly took Libby’s breath away. As if having been locked away for so many years, they were rushing and spilling over one another to make themselves seen and heard. Fast. Bursting its banks like a creek after a summer storm. A flash flood. Or—Libby smiled softly at the notion—as they said in Texas, a real gully-washer.
So many memories. And superimposed on them all was the image of Amos Kingsland. His glossy black boots. His enormous, work-roughened hands. His deep auburn hair and the scratchy beard that bristled from his chin. That beard was what Libby remembered best.
Her father had been a steamboat captain in the Gulf of Mexico before venturing inland to raise cattle. The salt breezes of the gulf seemed to have permeated his beard and to have given it a permanent thrust so that, even in the house, it was as if the wind were tugging at his chin.
Or so his little girl had imagined. It hadn’t been wind at all, Libby thought now, but pure stubbornness, a will to succeed at any cost, and no qualms whatsoever about bending anyone to that will. As he had bent her mother. Bent and nearly broken the sweet, soft Ellen McCafferty Kingsland Carew.
Just then, as if the mere thought of her mother had somehow conjured up her form, Shula poked her curly head in the door.
Quickly Libby touched a finger to her lips, gesturing toward the sleeping child.
“You look so much like Mama sometimes, Shula, I find myself looking twice,” she whispered.
The ruffled apparition rustled across the room and sought her image in the mirror over the dresser. “I do, don’t I?” She rearranged a few curls, then leaned forward to more closely inspect her eyebrows. “Of course, Mama was a fool, bless her heart.”
Libby opened her mouth to protest, then kept silent. Sadly enough, it was true. Their mother had been, if not a fool, then an exceptionally weak woman. Where she’d gotten the gumption to walk out on Amos Kingsland was a mystery. Even so, that strength had quickly deserted her once she had married that tightfisted mercantilist and bully, Edgar Carew.
Thoughts of her poor mother prompted Libby to whisper, “What would you do, Shula, if a man ever lifted a hand to you?”
Her sister snorted. “I’d slap him back.” Her eyebrow arched in the mirror. “Or worse.”
Libby sighed. “I wonder why Mama didn’t”.
Shula shrugged now. “She was afraid, I guess. Who knows? I can tell you I gave our dear stepfather the back of my hand on quite a few occasions, along with several pieces of my mind.”
Libby’s eyes widened in astonishment. “What did he do?”
“He just laughed. The pig! I hated losing Mama, Libby, but I have to say I didn’t mind one little bit that that awful Edgar perished in that carriage accident, too.”
Shula sighed softly at her reflection, then turned to face her sister, her hands lifting to fasten on her hips. “We need to start packing, Libby. Where’s that old trunk of Mama’s I took to Italy with me?”
“I have no idea.” But what Libby knew was that she wasn’t prepared to argue now, here, and possibly wake Andy, who needed all the peaceful sleep she could get. Once thwarted, Shula wouldn’t be able to whisper, she would probably scream.
“Take a look up in the attic,” she suggested, hoping to occupy Shula temporarily and thus forestall their confrontation.
“I hate it up there,” Shula said. “It’s dark as a week of midnights, and all that dust gets into my pores and just takes up residence for days no matter how hard I scrub. I won’t even mention the spiders.” Shula shivered, sending her gown into a flurry. Then her expression brightened. “Maybe I could just order a new trunk. One with all those cute little drawers and…”
The heat of Libby’s glare withered her sister’s speech, as well as her enthusiasm.
“Well, they are cute,” she finished glumly. “We don’t want to look like two kitchen maids when we go to Texas, do we?”
As much as she felt like one sometimes, Libby thought there was nothing wrong in looking like one. But since she wasn’t going to Texas anyway, it didn’t make any difference. She continued to scorch her sister with her gaze, using her thumb now to indicate the door.
“All right. I’ll go,” complained Shula as she moved across the room. “But if I’m not back downstairs in fifteen minutes, Libby, it’s because I’ll have choked to death on all that dust”
“Maybe you’ll be lucky, sister,” Libby offered encouragingly as she bit back on a grin. “Maybe those big, hairy spiders will get you first.”
With a shudder and a strangled little moan, Shula swept out of the room.
As soon as the door clicked closed, little Andy jerked upright in the center of the bed. She rubbed an eye with one grimy knuckle, then mumbled, “I heard about Texas. I heard it’s real nice there.”
Her comment, cool and disinterested as it sounded, didn’t fool Libby for a moment. The child was terrified of being abandoned, or infinitely worse, of being returned to the clutches of her father. Libby left her chair and perched on the edge of the bed, reaching to smooth a pale hank of hair from the little girl’s forehead.
“Texas is nice,” she said, “but I’m not going there. I like it fine right here.”
“I do, too,” the child responded. “Especially when I’m with you.” Andy scuttled across the mattress now and wrapped her arms around Libby, burying her face in the pleats of her bodice. “Don’t let my papa take me back, Miss Libby. I want to stay here with you. Oh, please, don’t let him take me back.”
Libby hugged her tightly. “I
