Only in My Arms Read online

  "She means it, Harry," Ryder told the guard.

  "Don't I know it," Harry muttered before he shuffled off.

  Florence and Ryder exchanged glances as Harry made a point of closing the door between the cell area and the guardroom.

  "Does the general know you're here?" Ryder asked.

  "What do you think?"

  "That he believes you retired early."

  She gave Ryder a prim smile. "Know-it-all." She arranged the chair so it was close to the bars and sat down. "There's no need for you to stand," she told him. When he didn't respond immediately, she added brusquely, "Go on with you, you'll give me a crick in my neck."

  Ryder slowly sat down on the edge of the cot, stunned by the fact that she was fighting tears. "What are you doing here, Florence?"

  "I had to see you for myself," she said, "though it pains me terribly that you are here. Are you being treated well?"

  "Well enough."

  She studied his face. The single lantern in the corridor shed enough light on him that she could see shades of bruising on his cheek and temple. One of his eyelids was slightly swollen. If these were the marks she could see, Florence wondered about the ones she couldn't. "My son didn't give orders for you to be beaten," she said. "Joshua isn't like that."

  "I know." He shrugged. "It doesn't matter."

  "Of course it matters. I'm going to tell—" She stopped, realizing that she wasn't going to tell her son anything. It would only go worse for Ryder if the men guarding him were reprimanded, and then she would be forbidden from entering the stockade again. "Can I bring you anything next time? Witch hazel? Bandages?"

  "You shouldn't come again."

  She dismissed that with an unladylike snort. "You're in no position to tell me what I should and shouldn't do."

  "Point taken." He paused and absently rubbed the back of his head. "Witch hazel, then."

  "What happened to you there?" Florence asked.

  Ryder's hand dropped away. "It's not important. I've got a gash and a lump, nothing I haven't had before."

  Florence's mouth thinned. She hated the thought of Ryder being mistreated under her very nose.

  "No," he said. "It's not what you think. It didn't happen here. When I came around en route back to the fort I already had it."

  "It happened in the fighting?"

  Ryder didn't say anything for a time, wondering what he could or should say. "You must have heard that I wasn't part of the fighting," he said.

  Florence Gardner's shoulders sagged a bit, and in spite of the fact that she was sitting down, her hand rested more heavily on her cane. "So it's true," she said with a certain unhappy finality. "You were with her when the attack came."

  "I was."

  "Why?"

  The only indication of Ryder's surprise was the fractional narrowing of his pale gray eyes. He didn't answer her question directly. "Haven't you heard the answer to that as well?"

  The subtle accusation in his tone got Florence's attention. She pounded her cane once against the floor where it made only a dull thud in the packed earth. "Don't lump me with the rest of the idiots around here—my son included. I'll draw my own conclusions, thank you. Now tell me why you were with that baggage."

  "Lieutenant Matheson and I agreed she needed to be away from the company." He added carelessly, "I lost the toss."

  "Why did she need to be separated?"

  "Her safety. I suspected there was some danger."

  "You knew the attack was coming?"

  He shook his head. It was no easier to explain now than it had been then. "No," he said. "I knew there was danger but not the form it would take. There were no signs of Chiricahua anywhere in the area."

  "Yet they attacked."

  "So I've heard," he said without inflection.

  "You didn't see any of the attack?"

  "None." Or the scene afterward. Ryder only knew what he had been told. The company had literally been cut in half, men slaughtered where they stood. According to Rivers's account to the general, the enemy seemed to come out of the stones themselves.

  Florence tried to make sense of it. "How can that be?" she asked. "You were only a few miles past the canyon rim. I know you, Ryder. You would have gone back at the first sound of gunfire."

  Ryder only had a fleeting recollection of the sound of a single shot. He remembered wanting to move, trying to move, and not being able to lift his head. "Miss Hamilton was complaining about her canteen water," he told Florence. "I drank a few mouthfuls to show her there was nothing wrong with it." His brief smile was humorless and self-mocking. "That's just about the last thing I remember."

  "The water was bad?"

  "I know my horse and I didn't cover much ground before I keeled over in the saddle. Miss Hamilton managed to get me to a shallow cave of rocks and let me fall. The next thing I recall is being yanked awake by Rivers and ordered to lead the way back to the canyon floor. I was in and out of consciousness most of the way back to the fort."

  Florence was interrupted by the guard poking his head into the corridor. "You can only have a few more minutes," Harry said. "I have to take the lantern for lights out." He withdrew before he encountered Florence's verbal expression of wrath or her cane tip.

  "I've a good mind to change the duty roster myself," she said under her breath. "That boy should mind his manners."

  "Don't be too hard on Harry, Flo. He's all right. Just doing his job."

  Florence's mouth pursed to one side sourly. "You're not taking this seriously, Ryder. You're in a lot of trouble. The only reason you haven't been summarily hanged is because you know a few people in high places who think your scalp may be worth something more than it would as a trophy." No one had ever accused Florence Gardner of not speaking her mind. "Now suppose you tell me why Anna Leigh Hamilton wants everyone to know you tried to rape her if it isn't so?"

  "Revenge?"

  "Is that a question or your answer?" she asked with little patience.

  "I don't pretend to know what Miss Hamilton hopes to gain by telling her tale," Ryder said. "But I assure you, it's a tale."

  Florence nodded her head once, an emphatic gesture that indicated her satisfaction. "I knew it," she said. "Why didn't you tell Joshua that she's lying?"

  "I did tell the general."

  "I see," she said slowly, unhappily. "He didn't believe you."

  "It's not difficult to understand why," Ryder said. "Miss Hamilton looked pathetically ill used, and she had Rivers and Private Carr to corroborate her story—at least as far as to how they had found her wandering on the flats." He rubbed the lump on his head again. "She says she hit me with a rock to get away."

  Florence snorted, the expression in her eyes patently disbelieving. "Seems to me the last thing she wanted the night before was to get away from you."

  "That was before I showed her I wasn't interested in what she was offering."

  It began to make sense to Florence. "Ah," she said softly. "So that's what you meant by revenge. She saw an opportunity to turn the tables on you and didn't hesitate to use it."

  He shrugged. "It appears that way."

  "Did she know the company was under attack in the canyon?"

  "I don't know," said Ryder. "Probably."

  "But doesn't she see how it looks?" Florence demanded. "Her tale is wagging the dog." The attempted rape of the senator's daughter was not the sole charge against Ryder. He was being accused of dereliction of duty for leaving the company with Anna Leigh. What he said he had done for reasons of safety now appeared more suspiciously motivated. His advice to First Lieutenant Matheson, overheard by Rivers and a sergeant, to split the company, was viewed as the strategy that led to the company's almost total demise. Then there was the matter of the gold.

  The four wagons the company guarded were not only loaded with foodstuffs for the future patrol. Each wagon bed had a false bottom that concealed gold ore ready for refining. The Army had an agreement with Holland Mines to provide armed escort to the Waterhou
se Station on the Southern Pacific rail line. The plan had been worked out in some detail over the past few months, and Ryder McKay had been essential to its development and its follow-through. There were very few people who knew about the contents of the wagons; even the secondary officers of the escorting company didn't know what they were carrying. The loading had been done in secret, under Ryder's strict supervision, and only a few men—all murdered in the attack—were privy to the knowledge that they were escorting the mother lode.

  Now, with gold ore valued at over $100,000 in the hands of the Chiricahua Apache, Ryder McKay stood charged with treason.

  * * *

  New York City

  "I've made a decision," Jay Mac announced at breakfast. He had purposely delayed going to work so that he could speak to Moira and Mary Francis at once. Although neither of them looked up from their food, Jay Mac knew he had their full attention. "I've had quite enough of this silence." Not only weren't his wife and his daughter speaking to each other, neither was speaking to him. "Nothing good can come of it, so I want it to cease."

  "Very well," Mary said obediently. "Mama, will you please pass the salt?"

  Moira's reply was stiff but perfectly audible. "Of course, dear. Would you care for anything else?"

  Jay Mac was not amused, but he managed to keep his expression just this side of thunderous. He cleared his throat to signal his disapproval. "Suit yourselves, but it will be a long journey across the country if that's the best you can manage."

  "Journey?" Moira asked, her head coming up.

  "Across the country?" Mary asked simultaneously.

  Now that he had their attention, John MacKenzie Worth allowed himself to bask in it. It was very nearly impossible not to gloat. It would not be so difficult to get Moira and Mary to come to some understanding of their differences, he thought. His strategy was simple. He would give them both what they wanted, but together, and they would be forced to sort it out from there. The smile he turned in their direction was more than a little self-congratulatory. "I'm sending both of you to see Rennie," he said.

  "Sending us?" asked Moira. "What exactly does that mean?"

  "He's packing us off," Mary answered flatly. "Like baggage."

  Jay Mac ignored that. "I'm inviting both of you to take my private cars across the country. You can visit Michael in Denver, Maggie at the Double H, and then Rennie in whatever part of Arizona she's in at that point." He didn't add that he'd ship them both to China to see Skye if they hadn't come to terms by then.

  "You're not coming with us?" Moira asked.

  "I'll join you later, probably in Arizona. I'd like to see the land and the mine Rennie's talking about."

  Mary studied her father with more suspicion than affection. "And you'd like to see the mission."

  "Mission?" Moira interrupted before Jay Mac could answer. "This is the first I've heard of a mission." Her hopes were just being raised when Mary dashed them again.

  "It doesn't mean I'm not firm in my decision, Mama. I thought I might like to teach, and there are missions in the Southwest that could use teachers." She watched her mother's eyes widen, then look to Jay Mac for help. "It's no good, Mama," she said with gentle resolve. "Jay Mac already knows and he hasn't been able to talk me out of it."

  Moira's confusion showed clearly in her eyes. She placed her fork down as her appetite deserted her. If her daughter wanted to teach, then she could do it closer to home. If she wanted to do it at a mission, she didn't have to leave the church. "One or the other," Moira said, half pleading, half demanding. "You have to choose one or the other. Dear God, Mary, you can't have it both ways. You can't do it."

  Mary's aching expression was framed by the headdress of her habit. "What can't I do?"

  "You can't abandon us and abandon God."

  Chapter 4

  December 1884, Arizona Territory

  There were still moments when Mary did not recognize her reflection. It happened the first time as she was packing her trunks in preparation to leave New York. Passing the tall, narrow swivel mirror in her room, she had been taken aback by the presence of a stranger. She stopped in mid stride and stared blankly at the person returning her gaze. It was an odd, disconcerting feeling to realize she was looking at herself.

  Mary's red-gold hair was still unfashionably short, but the new maid had proven herself adept at making something out of nothing. The cut had been reshaped and smoothed to flatter Mary's face, and where her headdress had once framed her features in severe black and white, they were now offset by vibrant color.

  Her manner of dress had given her pause as well. Her traveling costume featured a tight-fitting bodice with a narrow-banded collar and a pleated overskirt, which fully draped her hips. The soft apricot color tinted her complexion until the embarrassment of staring at herself flushed her cheeks red. It was at that point that Mary had jammed her straw bonnet on her head hard enough to dislodge the apricot ribbon trimmings.

  In Denver it happened again, only this time Mary was passing a dress shop with her sister beside her and her niece in tow. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of Michael and young Madison reflected in the glass, but she didn't immediately recognize the woman who accompanied them. As Michael paused to point out a gown she had had her eye on, Mary came face to face with her faint image in the store window.

  With complete childish candor Madison had remarked, "What's wrong, Aunt Mary? You look like a ghost."

  Michael had corrected her daughter offhandedly—"She looks as if she's seen a ghost, Madison"—before she realized the little girl's observation was more accurate.

  Mary dismissed her sister's concern and never explained satisfactorily that it had been the unfamiliarity of her image that had caused her momentary distress.

  It wasn't only seeing herself that gave her pause; it was seeing herself through the eyes of another. In the course of their travel across the country Mary had yet to feel her mother's glance in her direction without it registering a small start of surprise. Michael, even though she was prepared to see Mary out of her habit, had remarked on the fact a half-dozen times in the first hour. At the Double H where Maggie and her husband Connor lived, Mary became aware that the attention she drew from the ranch hands was not inspired by her habit. They were still respectful, still polite, but they didn't hold themselves at the same distance they might have had she been Sister Mary and not simply Maggie's sister Mary.

  Now, as the train slowed pulling into the station in Tucson, Mary wondered at the reception she could expect from Rennie. Michael and Maggie, while accepting Mary's decision with more grace and encouragement than their mother had shown, demonstrated their confusion in small ways. They would have sworn they had never treated Mary any differently because she was a nun; they would have told anyone who cared to listen that Mary had been their sister first. Yet there was no mistaking the subtle change in their manner toward her now that she was out of the habit.

  Mary had good reason to wonder how much she had been shielded by her black gown and veil and how often she had been deferred to, not because of whom she was, but because of what she was.

  * * *

  At the first sign that the train was ready for boarding, Rennie Sullivan thrust the daughter she was holding into her husband's free arm and began running toward the private Northeast rail cars. Jarret looked down at the twin girls he held, both of them wriggling for all they were worth, shook his head, chuckling, and followed his wife at a less frantic pace. He set both girls on the platform just as Moira stepped onto the balcony of her car.

  She saw Jarret first, his dark hair and easy smile drawing her eyes immediately. He was a handsome rogue, Moira thought, just as she had the first time she had seen him. And every bit the right match for her fiery daughter Rennie. Her smile was brilliant for him, and if anything, it became even brighter as her eyes dropped to her twin grandchildren. Moira's hand went to her heart in a dramatic loving gesture that was meant to signify breathlessness, surprise, and joy. "My
grandbabies!" she cried happily.

  Mary Caitlin and Mary Lillian gamely tried to climb aboard the train to get to their beloved grandmother. Their sturdy three-year-old bodies had enough strength but not enough height. Jarret scooped each of them up and set them down behind him. They stayed there long enough to allow him to help Moira down to the platform.

  "It's good to see you," he said sincerely, kissing her cheek. "Rennie's been looking forward to this since we got your first telegram in October. Once she finally got your arrival date last week, she's been impossible to contain."

  Moira smiled at that. Her gently lined face was creased becomingly by her happiness. "And how would that be any different than it usually is?"

  Jarret laughed. "You're right. It's not any different." He looked over Moira's feathered bonnet as his children tugged on their grandmother's dust cloak. They were anxious for kisses and treats, knowing perfectly well that Moira would have plenty of both. Jarret's eyes scanned the windows of Jay Mac's private car, but the sun's reflection on the glass did not permit him to see inside. "Rennie's in there with Mary Francis?" he asked.

  Moira nodded. "Sure, and she practically knocked me over to get to her sister."

  Jarret refrained from responding. Moira's tone was not especially approving of Rennie's show of sisterly affection. Jarret had been warned through correspondence with Jay Mac that there was still considerable tension between Moira and Mary. Until just this moment, when he experienced the coolness in Moira's lilting brogue, he had had a hard time imagining it. Now he was a believer.

  Jarret lifted each of his little Marys in turn. Cait had a hard hug for her grandmother and a loud, wet kiss. Lilly was more delicate in her affections, laying her bright red head on Moira's shoulder and fluttering her lashes coyly. He marveled at how distinct the personalities of his identical twins were, and how they blended so many aspects of himself and Rennie to become unique unto themselves.

  His musings were interrupted by his wife's appearance on the balcony. She still had the power to take his breath away, he thought as his heart slammed hard once in his chest then resumed its normal beat. Her dark auburn hair, widely spaced green eyes, and full, expressive mouth drew his attention as easily as they had in the first moments of seeing her. His eyes dropped to that mouth now as its seriously set shape was transformed by a puckish, dimpled grin.