Chapter One
"I'm ready to be home." Katie slid off Salome's back and leaned against her warm shoulder. The donkey lipped her collar, snuffled. "Now don't you bite me, darn you," Katie told her, "or I'll ride your sister."
Salome caught the collar with strong yellow teeth and pulled.
Laughing, Katie swatted at her cheek. "You ornery little dickens! Turn loose!"
Luke reached past her and gave the donkey a harder swat. "You're too easy on her. She thinks it's a game."
When Salome let go of her collar, Katie stepped closer to her husband. Husband! What a nice ring that has to it! "Luke, she saved my life because she likes to bite. I'll be doggoned if I'll try to break her of it." She wrapped her arms around him, enjoying the feel of his hard body, even through the layers of heavy clothing they both wore.
He hugged her back. "How much farther?"
Katie pointed. "Down the trail there, and along the river for about six miles. Our first house was a little east of the fort. The new place is farther out, but in her last letter Ma said it's a lot closer in than it used to be. The town's growing by leaps and bounds."
"Well, let's get moving, then. I'd like to be there before sundown." He mounted Idjit, the big, rawboned hinny that had been the only riding animal they could find in Evanston, and tugged on the leadline to the pack mule. "Move it, Lafayette. We're almost home, the lady says."
The tone of his voice told Katie he was still fretting about his reception at her parents' home. She hadn't been able to convince him that Pa wouldn't have gone home and told everyone how he'd seduced Katie. If she knew her Pa, the only person he'd ever tell about the entire circumstances of their wedding was Ma. And she wouldn't tell a soul.
Ma had a fine sense of what was proper. She would lambaste Katie proper for giving herself to a man before they were wed, but she'd never, never say a word to Luke. Ma would figure that was Pa's place, and she'd simply make him welcome as she would any family member.
"I hope everyone will be here for Christmas," Katie said, once they were at the bottom of the rocky trail. It was deeply rutted from the hundreds of wagons that traveled it each summer, and slippery from melting snow. Angular rocks that had fallen from the rimrock above littered the ruts and made footing chancy for man and beast. "I want you to meet the whole family."
"I thought your brother was in Europe." Luke didn't sound too excited about meeting the Lachlan clan all at once.
"Well, he is, but everybody else could be here. Silas almost always comes home for Christmas, and Ma said she'd try to persuade William and Flower to come down."
"You're sure about us staying at your folks' place? They've got room?"
"Oh, Luke, stop fretting. Ma says there are eight bedrooms in the house, and her sewing room has a daybed in it. And the littles can always double up if need be."
"I ain't fretting. I just want to make sure of our welcome."
"This is my home, you suspicious man. I grew up here. Of course we'll be welcome."
"I thought you said you grew up in a cabin in the mountains."
Katie knew him well enough now to know that he was trying to start an argument. Well, this was one topic she wasn't about to argue on. "You know good and well we moved to town when I was fifteen. I was speaking figuratively."
"Well, say what you mean, then. How am I to know what you mean?"
"He's just tired," Katie told Salome. "Pay him no mind. When we get home, he can have a hot bath and relax. Then he'll see just how welcome we'll be."
The trees along the river had mostly been cut, Katie saw, as they got close to town. Only shrubby willows and cottonwood saplings lined the banks now. The light skiff of snow made the torn new earth stand out in dark contrast. "Ma says the new house is the first one you see from the river, but I don't really know where--"
"There," Luke said, pointing. "Is it that one?"
Katie could only stare. Ma hadn't told her they were building a castle.
Luke hadn't expected a log cabin. The Lachlan's new house was in a town, after all, even if that town was a long ways from anywhere. He'd seen grand stone houses in frontier towns in Kansas, so he knew that Boise City would have its share of impressive homes. But somehow he had expected the Lachlans to have something...well, homey.
Almost everything Katie had told him was about her childhood in a mountain valley with only one other family within a day's ride. Folks who'd chosen to live like that wouldn't worry about putting on the dog. He'd sort of expected their new house to be a big, rambling place, with a wide, welcoming front porch. Like the house his pa had wanted to build in Kansas.
This house came as close to a mansion as anything he'd seen since Chicago. Or it looked that way from here. He couldn't see a lot of it, because the barn was in the way, but what he could see was impressive.
As they rode up the narrow, rutted road from the river, he got a better look. Three stories, with a square turret on one corner, built of red brick and dark wood. Mullioned windows sparked in the pale winter sun. Lines of young trees, bare of leaf and spindly, bordered the property on all sides. He reckoned there was about five acres thus enclosed, half of it a fenced pasture. Off in one corner of the lot was a small cottage, its siding looking fresh from the sawmill.
Prime land. Just like he wanted for himself.
"Oh, my," Katie said.
"What?" He was shorter with her than he'd intended, simply because he was still speechless.
"Ma told me they were building a place big enough for us all to have bedrooms of our own, but I never expected..." Her gesture took in the big yard, the rows of young trees, the three small evergreens on what might be a lawn in the summer.
Feeling like he'd rather turn tail and run than face her family, Luke waved her ahead of him toward the barn. "Let's take care of the stock first."
The back half of the barn's interior was lined with horse stalls. No folks were about, but the big buckskin Emmet Lachlan had been riding in Evanston poked his head over a stall door and whuffled a welcome. As Luke dismounted, a door opened at the back. "About time you got here," a raspy voice called. "The missus has been waiting for them...oh, can I help you folks?"
Before Luke could answer, his wife did. "I'm Katie Lachlan...ah, Katie Savage," She slid off of Salome's back, stumbled, and caught herself with a handful of mane. "This is the Lachlan place, isn't it?"
"You must be the sister. They've been expecting you for a couple of days. I'm Abel Greene, hostler, gardener, and all 'round man of work." He held out his left hand, and Luke saw that his right arm ended just below the elbow. The man's accent was familiar to Luke. It placed him from somewhere in the Confederacy.
"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Greene." Katie took his left hand as if she'd been shaking hands that way all her life. Luke was proud of her. He'd seen too many battle-scarred veterans treated like dirt because they didn't have a full complement of hands and feet.
"Luke Savage." He held out his own left hand. "Late of the Seventh Kansas Cavalry."
"I was with the 14th Mississippi, but I don't reckon that matters much any more. Not out here."
Having dismounted, Luke pulled the saddle from Idjit and swung it across a saddle horse. He led the big hinny into a stall. I'll be back, old lady," he said, giving her a gentle swat on the rump. Let me get everyone settled."
Abel and Katie were just emerging from two other stalls, where, Luke surmised, they'd put the asses. Luke went to Lafayette, who was standing patiently.
The big mule looked gaunt, as well he should. He'd walked halfway across the West in the last couple of months, and had carried a good load most of the time. Scratching under Lafe's chin, Luke said, "Time to rest, fella. We ain't going much of anywhere for awhile."
Lafe nodded vigorously, as if in understanding. He let his head droop while Luke rubbed him down, and then followed Luke into the stall Abel pointed out. Luke made sure there was an ample supply of grain, before he gave Lafe one last pat. "You got us here, fella. Now rest."
"You treat that mule like he was your best friend," Katie teased. She was grooming Salome, dodging the ass's teeth with the ease of two months' practice.
"At least I don't spoil him with sugar," he said. "And he never tries to take a piece out of me, either."
Abel helped Katie groom the asses while Luke took care of Idjit. When they were done, they sorted through their belongings and took only the fiddle case and Luke's bedroll to the house.
"Abel says they all took off early today," Katie said, as if in answer to Luke's curiosity about why no one had come to meet them. "Ma's in a tizzy, with all the folks coming for Christmas, and she's off to the grocer and the butcher and whatever. Pa and the littles are out looking for a Christmas tree. They'll not be back until tomorrow, so you won't have to get everyone straight at one time."
"Did he say how many folks are coming for Christmas?" Luke felt his belly clench. Meeting all of Katie's family at one time was bad enough. Facing a house full of strangers was about as welcome to him as riding head-on into a herd of stampeding longhorns.
Katie held the back door open for him. "My godparents and their three, Uncle Silas and Aunt Soomey." She paused, staring around the enormous kitchen. "Good grief! This is as big as the whole cabin at Cherry Vale." She turned to look at Luke. "Our kitchen there was also the parlor, the playroom, and Pa's study."
Luke had a feeling he'd have felt a lot more at home in the cabin than he ever would here. He'd known the Lachlans were well-off, but this house cried rich.
"...not going to be here," Katie was saying when he paid attention. He asked her to repeat herself.
"I said, it's too bad Buff's not coming for Christmas. Neither's Ellen. But I suppose Charles won't hear of her traveling all the way across country with a new baby. It just won't seem like Christmas without them."
As she spoke, she was opening doors on either side of the long hall that led to a wide front door with stained glass sidelights. "Breakfast room. Study, a real one, with bookshelves. Sewing room... Good heavens, Ma's got herself a sewing machine!" She went on to the next door. "Here's the dining room. My, isn't it elegant?"
Luke looked through the archway. Yes, the room was indeed elegant, with a heavy-legged mahogany table standing in the center, surrounded by ten fancy chairs. He grimaced. A far cry from his own ma's cobbled-together table with one short leg. The glass-fronted cabinet along one wall, filled with sparkling crystal and stacks of china plates and dishes, spoke of a life style he'd only glimpsed on his two visits to Washington DC.
Kate went on down the hall. "Here's the parlor," she said, sliding a pair of pocket doors open. "Oh, my. Will you look at that chandelier!"
Luke would just as soon not. He was spared the need to reply when the front door flew open and a small woman entered. "Katie? Is that you?"
"Ma!" Katie ran into her open arms. "Oh, Ma! I've missed you so."
Luke stood patiently while the women embraced. He was afraid to move, for fear he'd start running and never stop until he was a long ways from town.
