Mail Order Bride: Westward Dance (2 page)

Claire came down the front staircase.
She’d heard the conversation from the landing at the top. “I’m
coming, too.”

Geoff turned to his youngest daughter
and said, “No, Claire. I’m afraid not. You need to alert the staff
for us.”

“But, Papa-“

Geoff cut her off as he gave her a
forbidding look. “Claire, this is not open for discussion! Now, do
as I say!”

Claire looked down at the floor. “Yes,
Papa.”

Geoff instantly regretted being sharp
with her. He hugged her and said, “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m just
upset. Forgive me?”

“Of course, Papa. I shall do as you
ask,” Claire said.

Geoff kissed the top of her head and
said, “That’s my good girl.”

Maureen kissed Claire’s cheek and said,
“Try not to fret too much. Maddie will be fine.”

As soon as they saw Madelyn, Maureen
realized how wrong her words to Claire had been. The policeman had
told them to prepare for how bad Maddie looked, but her parents
were still shocked. Their daughter was barely recognizable. Dark
bruises and nasty cuts covered her face and her left eye was
swollen shut.

Maureen had to turn away at first to
regain her composure. Geoff hugged her close as a fierce anger took
hold of him. He vowed that Theo would pay for what he’d done to
their daughter. The doctor came to talk with them an informed them
that although Maddie’s injuries were severe, she would
heal.

“Dr. Spencer, was she, did he...?”
Maureen couldn’t bring herself to say the words.

Dr. Spencer looked at her with sympathy
and said, “No. He didn’t get the chance. There was another couple
in the park who saw what was happening and intervened. I believe
they are still here. They’ve been very concerned.”

“I should like to thank them,” Geoff
said. “I’ll be right back, Maureen.”

Maureen nodded and sat in the chair
beside Maddie. She picked up Maddie’s hand.

“I’m here, Maddie. Mama is here and
you’re safe,” Maureen said. She kissed Maddie’s hand and held it
against her cheek as tears made their way down her face.

Maddie’s right eye opened slightly and
she located her mother. “Mama?”

“Yes, darling. I’m right
here.”

Maddie squeezed her mother’s hand even
though it hurt. Her mother’s comforting presence caused relief to
surge through Maddie. Sobs began to wrack her battered body and
Maureen moved to sit on the bed so she could gather her daughter
close. She rocked Maddie as she had when she was a little girl. She
uttered words of comfort and tried to sooth away her daughter’s
misery.

Geoff entered the waiting room and
spotted the couple who’d saved Maddie right away.

“Are you the ones who brought Madelyn
O’Connor here?” he asked.

They both rose from their
seats.

“Yes, sir. I’m John Heath and this is
Ashley Brooks,” John said.

Geoff shook hands them. “We owe you a
huge debt of gratitude for saving our daughter from an even more
horrible fate. How can we ever repay you?”

John shook his head. “There’s no need,
sir. We’re just sorry that we didn’t happen upon them sooner so
that she might not have been hurt at all.”

“How is she?” Ashley asked.

Geoff was touched by the young couple’s
concern. “She is in a bad way, but Dr. Spencer is confident that
she’ll make a full recovery.”

“That’s good to hear indeed,” John
said.

Geoff thanked them again and gave them
his card. He told them to call upon him if he could ever help them
in any way and then returned to his wife and daughter.

Maureen softly closed the door to her
daughter Madelyn’s room. She walked down the long hallway in their
family home located in the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Point Breeze.
Her deep distress was apparent to the head housekeeper, Mrs.
Duncan, as she passed her mistress. Mrs. Duncan didn’t speak
because she could tell Maureen was deep in thought.

Mrs. Duncan was as upset as Mrs.
O’Connor over the horrible events that had taken place two months
prior. Maddie had healed well physically but her mental condition
was still tenuous.

As Mrs. Duncan continued on her way to
the kitchen to make sure lunch would be served on time, she figured
that Maddie must not have improved, judging from the expression on
Maureen’s face. She gave a worried sigh and shook her head. She
would talk with Cook about making one of Maddie’s favorite dishes
to entice her to eat.

Maureen descended the main staircase
and went through the dining room and out the double French doors
that led to the garden. She walked to a bench in a secluded part of
the garden and sat down. It was so hard to see her beautiful
daughter this way. Prior to the attack, she had been a vivacious
social butterfly. Maddie had rarely been home in the evenings
because she attended so many parties and dinners. Unlike her older
sister, Tessa, Maddie had willingly immersed herself in the party
life. She was also very charming at the dinners that were thrown
for Geoffrey’s business associates and was adept at easing tensions
with her wit.

Now, however, she was reclusive,
depressed, and had very little appetite. Anger and sadness were
Maureen’s regular companions these days and she had a hard time
sleeping some nights. The sight of their daughter bruised,
battered, and terrified as she lay in the hospital bed that night
would be forever burned in Maureen’s mind.

Geoffrey had been consumed with rage
and had barely been prevented from going over to the Wilson’s
residence to call Theo out and kill him. Although Maureen would
have liked nothing better than for Geoff to thrash Theo, her sense
of reason had prevailed and she and the police were able to keep
him from doing so. Maureen kept telling him that their family
needed him at home, not in prison, and she eventually got through
to him.

Charges were pressed, but though it
would have gone to court, Maddie didn’t want the humiliation of
testifying. The Wilson family had protected their son, as any high
society family of that time would have, and there had been rumors
spread around the city that Madelyn was promiscuous and had lead
Theo on. Maddie had flat-out refused to testify and be subjected to
the kind of publicity that would surely come.

Geoffrey had fumed and cajoled and
pleaded, but he couldn’t budge Maddie. He wanted that animal to
suffer and be punished for hurting his little girl and it ate at
him that he couldn’t get justice for her.

Their social life had ground to a halt
with the exception of smaller dinners with their close friends and
a few business associates. They did their best to avoid the Wilson
family because Geoff wouldn’t have been able to control himself.
Before accepting any invitations to parties and the like, they
always made sure the Wilsons were not invited. It would seem as
though many people had stopped invited the Wilsons, a sign that
they believed Theo guilty of the crime. They didn’t want him around
their daughters.

Thinking of all this now, Maureen let
herself cry. She allowed the tears to flow once per day, but
otherwise tried to appear positive for her family. However, Claire
wasn’t fooled and would often give her mother comfort with a
spontaneous hug or kind words. Claire was also able to made Maddie
smile by reading her the more amusing articles in the paper in the
mornings.

Geoffrey had taken to coming home
earlier in the day to be there to support his family. The tragedy
had drawn them all closer and they worked their hardest to heal
their daughter and sister. They all did their best, but it wasn’t
easy and Maureen feared that Maddie would never fully
recover.

Tessa laid the letter from her mother
down on her lap and wiped away tears from her eyes as her husband
Dean entered the parlor. He saw Tessa’s distress and crossed the
room to her.

He knelt next to her chair and asked,
“Bad news?”

Tessa looked into his caring blue eyes
and said, “I’m afraid so. Maddie is not improving much. She doesn’t
want to go out and when she does it’s only for a short period of
time because she’s terrified that she’ll see
him
. Once in a
while she’ll come down to one of Papa’s dinners, but only eats and
then retreats back upstairs to her room.”

Dean rubbed her shoulder in sympathy.
“I’m sorry, honey. I feel so bad about this happening to
her.”

Tessa smiled and laid a hand on his
cheek. “You are such a good man, Dean Samuels.”

“Thanks. And you’re a good woman, Tessa
Samuels. And a great wife and mother.”

“You are too kind, but I thank you. Oh,
Dean, I wish there was some way to help, but it’s so hard from so
far away,” Tessa said.

“Do you want to go there for a visit?”
Dean said.

Tessa shook her head. “I don’t think it
would help. She needs to get out of the city for a while, I think.
It would be good for her to get away from the situation, but Mama
says Maddie won’t go to our country home because the Wilson’s
country home isn’t far from ours. Papa wants to sell it and buy
another one far away from theirs and I think that’s
best.”

“Yeah, me, too. You know, maybe she
could come here. It would be somewhere completely new and a
different kind of life. There’s no way she’d run into that monster
here. She’d be able to meet her niece and nephews and her
brother-in-laws. It’s quiet here and maybe it’d give her a chance
to get her strength back.”

“You mean
brothers-in-law
,”
Tessa said and planted a passionate kiss on Dean’s sensual
mouth.

When she drew back, Dean grinned at her
and asked, “What was that for?”

“For being the best husband and such a
smart man! That’s a wonderful idea. I’ll write Mama back
immediately,” she said. She gave Dean another kiss and hurried off
to their room to begin her letter.

Dean smiled and rose from his knees. He
loved how impetuous and excitable his wife was. It certainly kept
things interesting and he never had to guess at how Tessa felt
about something.“Oh, by the way, I know what the correct way to say
it is, I just like driving you crazy by sayin’ it wrong,” he called
after her and then left Tessa to her task. He had to check on a
mare that was close to giving birth.

Seth Samuels, Dean’s older brother by
one year, sat on his horse, a big chestnut gelding named Hank, and
watched the herd of fifteen Holstein heifers, ten steer, and one
bull. He and his brothers wanted to start some milk production with
the intent of selling to the people in their area and the settlers
who passed through the county. It was a good way to diversify their
ranching business.

His keen ice-blue eyes watched the
animals’ behavior and ascertained that something was not right.
They were restless and seemed to be constantly testing the breeze.
Hank was acting anxious as well. He snorted and tossed his head,
clear signs that something sinister was about.

He and two other drivers were bringing
the herd home and were only about a hundred miles from reaching
their ranch. The herd may not be large, but it was valuable and
they needed to protect it at all costs. Their livelihood depended
on it.

Their best cattle dog, Jasper, was also
on the alert. He helped keep the herd together, much to the
annoyance of the bull. The dog wasn’t intimidated when the bull
rushed at him, though. He’d dealt with many a testy Texas long horn
and the Holstein didn’t faze him.

Ray, one of the other drivers, circled
around the other side of the herd, tightening them up so there were
no stragglers. The cattle didn’t fight much, knowing that they were
safer together than not. It was another signal that danger lurked
near. The bull snorted and pawed the ground, ready to
fight.

Marty, the third driver rode up beside
Seth. “Something’s spooking them. Duke here doesn’t want to go near
that stand of trees over there. I think we need to head off in the
other direction right quick,” he said.

Seth watched the section of trees Marty
had noticed. Duke was Marty’s horse and seemed to have a sixth
sense about cougars and such, so Seth took Marty’s comments
seriously. He nodded. “Ok. You and Ray get them going. I’ll bring
up the rear and keep an eye out behind us. Might be a cougar or
coyotes. We can’t afford to lose a single head of cattle, but
especially that bull and the heifers. Not at the prices we had to
pay for them.”

“Right, boss. We’ll get on it.” Marty
rode off, shouting instructions to Ray.

He whistled commands to Jasper and the
three of them began moving the herd forward and to the right away
from the trees. Ray wanted to get them going at a good clip, so he
whistled another command to Jasper to push them harder. Jasper
began nipping at the heifers’ heels and barking. He was so fast
that it seemed like there were two dogs instead of one.

Seth watched them for a moment and then
started to follow, taking over for Ray who moved up alongside the
herd to keep them headed to the right. He kept turning Hank around,
so he could watch the trees. Ray shouted something and Seth turned
back to the front in time to see where Ray was pointing.