The Fairfax Brides

“The pleasure is all mine,” Annabel replied.

She released the girl’s hand and surveyed the cabin. Everything was painstakingly clean and tidy. A sleeping platform, decorated with a few embroidered cushions, took up half the space. On the other side, a packing crate with a cloth spread over it served as a table, with two smaller packing crates as seats.

“Is it true, what Colin said?” the girl asked. “Are you a lady?”

“Yes.” Annabel felt oddly ill at ease.

“You are welcome to share everything we have, as long as you like, but I have one condition. You must correct my speech and manner. I want to learn how to behave like a lady.”

“Why should that be important?” Annabel said gently. “Is it not more important to be a good person? And it is clear to me that both you and your brother are.”

The girl’s gray eyes met hers with a disquietingly direct gaze. “You’d be surprised. Some people...some men...believe that if you sound like a streetwalker, then you must be one.”

Compassion brought the sting of tears to Annabel’s eyes. Her sisters worried about her sentimental nature, but sometimes emotions simply welled up inside her. And now, the understanding of how she had taken for granted her privileged life, how someone might so fervently aspire to what she had received as a birthright, tore at her tender heart.

“Of course,” she replied. “I’ll teach you all I can.”

Liza smiled. “In return, I’ll teach you how to look like a boy.”

* * *

“Shoeshine! Shoeshine!”

Annabel made her way down the corridor in the second-class car on the train along the Southern Pacific Railroad. Her hair was pinned out of sight beneath a bowler hat. A touch of boot black shadowed her cheeks and her upper lip. She walked with a swagger, shoulders hunched, chin thrust forward. She did not smile.

As she strode along, she studied the clothing and the footwear of the passengers, to identify the most likely customers. When she spotted a man in a neatly pressed broadcloth suit with dust on his boots, she halted at the end of the row.

“Sir,” she said, holding up her wooden box. “Polish your boots for two bits.”

The man, around forty, clean-shaven, contemplated her for a moment, then glanced down at his boots. Looking up again, he nodded at her and shuffled his feet forward. Annabel knelt in front of him. Swiftly, she applied a coat of polish and wielded the brushes. A final buff with a linen cloth added to the shine.

She got to her feet and put out her hand. The man dropped a quarter in her palm. Annabel studied the coin, then leveled her gaze at the client. “If a gentleman is pleased with the result, he usually gives me four bits.”

The man’s eyebrows went up, but he dug in his pocket again and passed her another quarter. Annabel thanked him and hurried off on her way. Bitter experience had taught her not to ask for the extra money until the initial payment was safely in her hand.

“Shoeshine. Shoeshine.”

For two weeks, she had stayed with Colin and Liza in their freight yard shack, becoming skilled in her new trade. It had been a revelation to learn that if she boarded a train and introduced herself to the conductor—Andrew Fairfield, was her name—they allowed her to travel without a ticket, as long as she obeyed their rules and offered to polish their shoes for free.

By the end of the second week, she had earned enough money to buy her own brushes and polishes, and had taken an emotional farewell from Liza and Colin. One day, she hoped to reward them for their kindness, but she did not wish to raise any false hopes by telling them that she came from wealth.

“Shoeshine! Shoeshine!”

The train was slowing for a stop. Annabel used the lack of speed to cross over the coupling to the next car. Sometimes men had their boots polished just to break the tedium of the journey, but she enjoyed the traveling, even the endless monotony of the prairie they had left behind two days ago. As the scenery changed, it pleased Annabel to think that not long ago her sisters had looked upon the same grass-covered plateau, the same rolling hills, the same high-peaked mountains.

“Shoeshine. Shoe—”

The word died on her lips as her gaze fell on a suntanned man in his early thirties. Dressed like a dandy, he had a lean, muscled body. He looked just like Cousin Gareth had once been, before drinking and gambling ruined him, turning him from a laughing boy who did magic tricks into a bitter, brooding man.

As she stared, spellbound, the man gestured with his hand and leaned back in his seat, stretching out his feet. Annabel edged over and sank to her knees. Her heart was beating in a wild cadence, her hands shaking so hard she struggled to unclip the lid on a tin of polish.

It’s a coincidence, she told herself. Everyone has a double.

She spread the wax over the man’s hand-tooled Montana boots and started brushing. Anyway, she reminded herself, Cousin Gareth had gone off to chase after Miranda, who’d left Merlin’s Leap almost two months ago. It would make no sense for him only now to be on his way to Gold Crossing.

“There is something exceedingly familiar about you,” the man said. “I get an image in my head, but it is of a girl with your features.”

Annabel lowered the pitch of her voice. “Girl, huh? If I was the gun-carrying kind, I might call you out on that.”

“I meant no offense.”

Head bent low, Annabel moved from the right foot to the left. Her mouth felt dry. The man had spoken with Gareth’s voice. She kept silent, working as fast as she could. The train had come to a stop now, but from her kneeling position Annabel couldn’t see if it was for a town, or just a water tower in the middle of nowhere.

“What is your name, young man?”

Ignoring the question, Annabel flung her brushes back into the wooden box with a clatter and straightened, omitting the final polish with a linen cloth. She put out her hand. “That’ll be two bits.”

The man grabbed the walking stick that had been leaning against the end of the bench. A chill ran through Annabel. It was Cousin Gareth’s walking stick, with a silver handle shaped like the head of a wolf. She nearly swooned. It had to be him. Somehow, Cousin Gareth had transformed into this fit, healthy stranger, but he had not recognized her...yet.

The man banged the walking stick against the floor of the railroad car, making a hollow booming sound. “Your name, young man,” he demanded to know.

Deepening her voice, hiding beneath her bowler hat, Annabel muttered, “Andrew Fairfield.”

“Andrew?” The man frowned and shook his head, as if to clear the veil of mist inside his mind. “Andrew... Andrew... Ann...” His blue eyes widened. “Annabel! I have a memory of a girl called Annabel who looks just like you.”

Panic took hold of Annabel and she bolted. Behind her, she could hear the clatter of the expensive boots as Cousin Gareth surged to his feet and set off in chase.

“Wait,” he shouted. “I have questions for you.”

Clutching her box, for it was her ticket for transport, Annabel hurtled along the corridor. People turned to stare at her, startled out of their books and magazines, but they were no more than a blur in her sights. She careened into a man who had risen from his seat. Barely slowing, she dodged past him. Beneath her feet she could feel the train jerking into motion and knew they were about to set off again.

Cousin Gareth was yelling something, but Annabel couldn’t make out the words. With one hand, she touched the small lump of the leather poke of coins beneath her shirt. She had only twelve dollars—most of what she made shining shoes went on food—but at least her meager funds were secure.

With a final dash, Annabel burst out through the door at the rear of the car, onto the small platform at the end of the train. They were gathering speed now. What should she do? She had no way of telling if Cousin Gareth knew about Gold Crossing, had figured out Charlotte was hiding there. If Miranda had shaken him from her trail, how far into the journey had that been?

Annabel stared at the flat desert dotted with knee-high scrub. She had three days of traveling left, but she couldn’t risk leading Cousin Gareth to her sisters—could not take the chance that he would follow her if she stayed on the train.

With a swing of her arm, Annabel threw her wooden box down to the side of the tracks. The ground was hurtling past now. She said a quick prayer and jumped. On the impact her legs gave and she rolled along the hard desert floor.

There was no crunch of breaking bones, only a dull ache down her side. She scrambled to her feet and dusted her cotton shirt and mended wool trousers. The train was shrinking in the distance. Cousin Gareth emerged onto the platform at the end, but by now the speed of the train was too great for him to jump down after her.

“Who am I?” he yelled. “I have no memory.”

No memory? Annabel’s brows drew into a puzzled frown.

“Do you know me?” Cousin Gareth shouted. The wind tossed his words around the desert, and then the train vanished into the horizon, with only a puff of steam in the air and the slight vibration of the iron rails to mark its passing.

Annabel did a quick survey of her surroundings. She could see for miles around, and the only construction was the water tower fifty yards back. She caught a flash of movement and strained her eyes. In the shade of the water tower stood a mule, with parcels loaded on its back. And beside the mule stood a big buckskin saddle horse. She caught another flash of movement. A man had vaulted into the saddle.

“Wait!” Annabel yelled and set off running.

The desert gravel that had appeared so flat was full of holes to trip her up. The sun beat down on her. The horse and mule stood still, but she dared not slow down her pace, in case the stranger wouldn’t wait. By the time she reached him, her lungs were straining and perspiration ran in rivulets down her skin beneath her clothing.

It was cooler in the shade of the water tower, the air humid from spills evaporating in the heat. Annabel looked up at the man on the horse. Against the bright sunlight, he was little more than a silhouette, but she could tell he was young, perhaps in his late twenties.

He wore a fringed leather coat and faded denim pants and tall boots and a black, flat-crowned hat and a gun belt strapped around his hips. He had brown hair that curled over his collar, beard stubble several days old, and narrow eyes that measured her without a hint of warmth in them.

“What is this place?” she asked.

“It’s nowhere.” He had a rough, gravelly voice.

“Where is the nearest town?”

“Dona Ana. Thirty miles thataway.” He pointed to the south.

“Phoenix? Which way is Phoenix?”

“Four hundred miles thataway.” He pointed to the west.

“When will the next train be?”

“Don’t rightly know. Same time tomorrow, I guess.”

“But you must know. You came to meet the train.”

The man shook his head. “I came to collect the freight a conductor had unloaded here. Could have been yesterday. The day before. A week ago. I don’t know.”

“Is there anything closer than Dona Ana? An army post?”

He shook his head again. “Fort Selden closed years ago. And if you want the train, Dona Ana is no good. The train goes through Las Cruces. That’s another seven miles south.” He raked a glance over her. “Ain’t got no water?”

“No,” Annabel replied, her panic escalating. The stranger was the only one who could help her, but he seemed wholly unconcerned with her plight.

The man untied a canteen hanging from his saddle and leaned down to hold it out to her. “Leave it in the mailbox.”

Clutching the canteen with both hands, Annabel turned to look where he was pointing. By one of the timber posts holding up the water tank she could see a long wooden box with a chain and padlock anchoring it to the structure.

“It’s a coffin!” she blurted out.

“It will be one day,” the man replied. “Now it’s a mailbox.” He swept another glance up and down her. “Got no food?”

“No!” Desperation edged her tone.

He bent to dig in a saddlebag, handed down a small parcel. Annabel could smell the pungent odor of jerked meat.

“Got no gun?” the man asked.

She replied through a tightened throat. “No.”

The man shifted his wide shoulders. “Sorry. Got no spare. Watch out for the rattlers.” He wheeled the buckskin around. “Stay out of the sun.”

And then he tugged at the lead rope of the pack mule and kicked his horse into a trot and headed out toward the west, not sparing her another look. A sense of utter loneliness engulfed Annabel, bringing back stark memories of the despair and confusion she’d felt after her parents died.

“Wait!” she yelled and ran after him. “Don’t leave me here!”

But the man rode on without looking back.

Chapter Three

Clay Collier made it a mile before he turned around. Reining to a halt, he stepped down from the saddle to picket the pack mule next to a clump of coarse grass, and then he remounted and pointed the buckskin to retrace his steps.

As he rode back to the railroad, Clay cursed himself for a fool. He had a poor record in looking after scrawny kids, and he had no wish to add to it. He’d been minding his own business—he always did—but a man didn’t live long in the West if he failed to pay attention to his surroundings.

He’d seen the kid tumble down from the train as it pulled away. And then he’d seen the man in fancy duds chasing after the kid, yelling something. The wind had tossed away the words, but most likely the kid had been caught stealing.

Clay slowed his pace as he approached the water tower. The kid was sitting on the ground, hugging his knees, head bent. When the thud of hooves alerted him, the kid bounced up to his feet and waited for the horse and rider to get closer.

Clay shook his head in dismay at the forlorn sight. As scrawny kids went, this one was scrawnier than most. The threadbare shirt hung limp over a pair of narrow shoulders. The trousers, patched at the knee, stayed up only with a leather belt drawn tight. Beneath the battered bowler hat, the kid had a white, innocent face and the biggest amber eyes Clay had ever seen on a scrawny kid.

Fourteen, he guessed, and still wet behind the ears. At fourteen, Clay himself had been a man, capable of doing a man’s job.

He brought the buckskin to a halt in a cloud of dust, adjusted the brim of his hat and looked down at the kid. The hope and relief and gratitude stamped on that innocent face made something twist inside Clay. Damn that soft streak of his. Life would be simpler without it.

“Here’s the choice,” he told the kid. “You can stay here and wait for the train. Likely as not there’ll be one tomorrow, or the day after. You have water and food and shade. You’ll be fine. If coyotes bother you at night, you can hide in the coffin.”

Clay paused, fought one final battle with himself and lost.

“Or you can come with me. In a month or so I’ll pick up another delivery and I’ll bring you back and wait with you until the train comes. If you come with me, you gotta work, mind you. Mr. Hicks, who owns the mine, hates slackers.”

One more time, Clay raked an assessing glance over the slender frame hidden beneath the baggy clothing. “In a mine, the only use for scrawny kids like you is to crawl into narrow passages. If you panic about feeling trapped, don’t come.”

The kid said nothing, merely passed back the canteen and the parcel of jerky and waited for Clay to put them away. Then he held up both arms, as though asking for salvation. The sensitive mouth was quivering. Clay reached down a hand and kicked one foot out of a stirrup. In another second the kid would burst into tears, and he did not want to watch.

“I assume you can ride,” he said.

“Only side—” Panic flared in those big amber eyes. The kid made a visible effort to pull himself together and spoke in a deeper voice. “I mean, I am used to mounting on the other side.”

Clay assessed the situation, nodded his understanding and wheeled the buckskin around. Most men preferred mounting with their left foot in the stirrup. At least there was something normal about the kid.

“Climb aboard.” Clay moved the bridle reins to his right hand so he could use his left to swing the kid behind him. A tiny hand slotted into his. Clay noticed the smooth skin, unused to hard work. He boosted up the kid. He was so light Clay nearly flung him all the way over the horse’s back and down the other side.

“Ready?” he said when the kid had settled down.

“Ready,” the kid replied.

Clay could hear a hint of weeping in the muttered word. It gave him an odd, uneasy feeling when the kid wriggled to get comfortable against him, cramming into the saddle instead of sitting behind the cantle, so that their bodies pressed close together.

He kicked the buckskin into a gallop, taking his frustration out with speed. The kid wrapped his arms around his waist and clung tight. The tension inside Clay ratcheted up another notch.

A bad idea, he told himself. It was always a bad idea to give in to the soft streak inside him. A wiser man would have learned from experience to leave scrawny kids to their fate, instead of picking them up and trying to protect them.

* * *

He’d come back for her!

Annabel clung to the taciturn stranger, tears of relief running down her face. She’d been so afraid. She’d been sitting in the shade of the water tower, blaming herself for everything that had gone wrong.

When the money was stolen, she ought to have telegraphed Charlotte in Gold Crossing, but she’d been ashamed for her carelessness. And she knew nothing about the man to whom Charlotte was pretending to be married. Two hundred dollars might be a fortune to Thomas Greenwood, and she didn’t want to add to his burden by confessing she’d lost it.

And it hadn’t seemed to matter if she earned her passage as a shoeshine boy instead of buying a ticket. If anything, after two weeks of instruction from Colin and Liza, she was better equipped to take care of herself during the journey.

But it had been a mistake to run from Cousin Gareth. She should have brazened it out, pretended not to know what he was talking about. He’d appeared confused, unsure of himself. His wind-whipped cry echoed in her mind.

Who am I? I have no memory! Do you know me?

Now that she thought of it, there’d been a scar on his forehead. Cousin Gareth must have received a blow to his head and be suffering from amnesia. He’d not truly recognized her. He’d merely been fumbling in his mind for fragments of recollection. By fleeing, she had alerted him to the truth.

And now, he might come after her. He could get off in Las Cruces, less than forty miles away, and take a train coming the other way. He might even have a horse in the freight car and persuade the train to stop. He could be back before the day was out, and she’d been like a sitting duck beneath the water tower.

But the stranger had come back for her. Annabel pressed her face to the buckskin coat that covered the man’s back. She could smell leather and dust and wood smoke on him, could feel the rock-hard muscles on his belly beneath her clinging arms,

A tension sparked inside her. Never before had she felt a man’s body so close to hers. Before their parents died, she’d been too young to attend social engagements, and for the past four years Cousin Gareth had kept her imprisoned at Merlin’s Leap.

Despite his reticent manner, her rescuer was young and handsome, the kind of man a girl might dream about. Annabel let his features form in her mind. Curly brown hair, hollowed cheeks, straight nose, sharply angled jaw, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

His surliness reminded her of the sailors she’d met from Papa’s ships, but on many occasions she’d discovered a streak of kindness beneath their gruff exterior. She hoped the stranger might be the same, however why was it that men felt compelled to hide their compassion, as if it eroded their masculinity instead of emphasizing it?

The thudding of the horse’s hooves beneath them altered rhythm. They were slowing down. Annabel eased her hold around the stranger’s waist and peeked past his shoulder. Ahead, the pack mule was grazing on stunted vegetation.

They came to an abrupt halt. The man twisted around in the saddle, curled one powerful arm about her and swept her down to her feet. “You’ll ride the mule.”

For an instant, Annabel stood still, staring up at the rugged features of her rescuer. Regret filled her at the loss of his warmth and strength and the sense of safety she’d felt huddled up against him.

“We ain’t got all day,” he said. “Get on the mule.”

“The mule?” Jolted out of her thoughts, Annabel took a cautious step toward the animal. The mule lifted its head and bared its teeth. Parcels and bundles filled the pack saddle, leaving no room for a rider. She turned to the stranger. “Can’t we ride double on the horse? I don’t weigh much.”

If anything, his expression grew even starker. “You cling like a flea.”

“I...” Her mouth pursed at the cutting remark, but she fought back. “And you’re no softer than a rock.”

“Good,” he said. “Then we’ll both be more comfortable if you ride the mule.”

He vaulted down from the saddle, went to the mule and rearranged the load to create a space for her. Turning to face her again, he studied her in that disconcerting manner he had. His gaze lingered on her features a moment longer. He started to say something, then shrugged his shoulders as if deciding it didn’t matter.

“I’ll boost you up,” he told her. Annabel stood and waited. At Merlin’s Leap, if there was no mounting block for her to use, the grooms laced their hands together to create a step.

The stranger made no effort to link his hands to form a step. He merely stood in silence, then gave a huff of frustration. Bending at the waist, he placed one hand against her midriff, the other hand beneath her rump and shoved, tossing her up like a sack of grain. The mule bucked. Annabel flung up in the air, but somehow, as if by miracle, she landed astride between the packages.

“Let’s go,” the man said.

In a blur, he was up on the buckskin and on his way. Alarmed at the prospect of being left behind, Annabel kicked her heels into the flanks of the mule and started bouncing along.

They rode at a steady lope through the dusty desert plateau, stopping only to let the animals rest and drink every now and then. When they came to a river crossing, they refilled their canteens. At another rest stop, the stranger retreated a few paces. Turning his back, he unbuckled his belt and set to work with the buttons on his fly.

“I’ve got to go, too,” Annabel mumbled and darted off in the other direction.

The man glanced over his shoulder. “Mind the rattlers.”

Annabel’s heart was pounding while she took care of her needs behind a creosote bush. Pretending to be a boy would turn out to be a lot more complicated if she had to share close living quarters with a man, especially with a young, attractive one.

* * *

The kid had been crying. Probably had no idea the tear tracks on his dusty face gave him away. When Clay had first noticed the evidence of weeping, he’d tried to think of something reassuring to say, but words had failed him, just like they always did. He didn’t like lying, and in most cases reassurances were nothing but lies, or at best overoptimistic guesses.

The kid found a rock to stand on and mounted on the mule. It seemed to be a point of pride for the kid to climb into the saddle unassisted. Clay vaulted on the buckskin, but instead of setting off he idled closer to the mule.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Andrew Fairfield.”

“I’m Clay Collier. The man who owns the claim is Mr. Hicks. He can be a bad-tempered devil, but he is generally fair, and he doesn’t go in for beatings.”

“How many men does he employ?”