Angel's Embrace Read online

  “Mama!” Billy turned his horse to block the one hitched to her wagon. “You can’t go up there. The house looks awful, and Wesley—”

  “Will hear what his mother has to say about this whole deplorable situation.” She gave him a look Eve couldn’t interpret.

  Billy scowled, still blocking the wagon. “What’s goin’ on here? You can’t tell me you came all this way alone.”

  Virgilia widened her eyes pointedly. “Of course I didn’t travel alone. I had Olivia with me, and some bait to bring your brother to his senses. So if you’ll excuse me”—she continued gazing at him, as though sending a message only the two of them would understand—“I’ll drive up to the house now. Your mother knows what she’s doing, Billy. Just as surely as she knows her own sons.”

  Confused and wary, Eve unbuttoned the front of her dress to relieve Olivia’s misery as well as her own. At the first full glance of her baby’s face, she paused—felt the wonderment of those little lips sipping her milk, and then noticed those blue, blue eyes watching her. Could it be Olivia knew her and had really missed her? Eve was suddenly awash with an inexplicable love for this child. Unspeakably sorry she’d abandoned her.

  But she smelled a rat, too. Virgilia Bristol Harte was fearless to the point of being brazen, but she wouldn’t rush in where angels—incredible, yet the only plausible explanation—had swept them out ahead of Wesley’s onslaught.

  “Please, Virgilia, my baby needs a grandma!” she pleaded. But where had that sentiment come from? Was she losing control of her mind as well as her body now?

  “If I have my way about things, Miss Olivia will have both her grandmothers vying for her attention before the day’s out. My advice to you, young lady, is to go back home with her. Florence will forget her priggishness when she lays eyes on this precious child.”

  With that, Virgilia raised an eyebrow at Billy. “Excuse me, son. We have fences to mend, and I’m just the woman for this job.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  As Billy watched the wagon lumber down the overgrown lane, terror shot through his body. If Wesley fired at her—if he lost his mama to that overgrown bully whose power came from a gun—Billy would never forgive himself.

  Yet when he looked at Eve, he felt pulled in an entirely different direction. What a fetching sight, this pretty young mother suckling her infant—like a Madonna and child in a church painting. He gazed at Olivia’s puckery little face; smiled at the contented sucking noises she made. He blew Eve a kiss.

  “Stay out of the sun, out of sight, while I cover Mama.” He gestured toward an old bench nearly hidden by forsythia bushes, where Christine had watched the wagons passing by when they were kids.

  “But you don’t have a gun.”

  “I can’t let her ride in there alone, Eve. Wesley’s done enough damage.”

  With that, he cantered along the unpaved side road, skirting the row of overgrown lilacs that marked the edge of Bristol property. Farther down, he broke through the bushes to ride in the dense shade of the catalpa trees so he could slip behind the house. He hoped Wes would still be at the front window watching for him—and that he’d hold his fire when he spotted Mama in her special dress, smiling up at him.

  The back of the house looked even more bedraggled than its entry, but Billy couldn’t let this sad decay distract him. He dismounted and wrapped Pete’s reins on a nearby tree. Then he eased through the back service door, where he and Wes had escaped Beulah Mae’s broom as boys.

  In the center of the kitchen, he let out a sad sigh. How he wished that old colored cook would turn to him from the pans on the cookstove, flashing that grin she’d always favored him with.

  But it was a filthy old bucket on the burner now, and the cast iron sides were coated with dust and the debris of misuse. The aromas of frying chicken and baking pies had been replaced by the heavy scent of grime and dead mice. The larder door hung open, but he didn’t have the heart to look inside.

  Billy held his breath. Crossing the plank floor, he went back into his ten-year-old mind to recall which boards creaked, and how the stiff parlor door had always announced their comings and goings. If Wesley was still upstairs in their old bedroom, he could move around down here without being detected.

  The front parlor window had a hole broken out, probably where some outlaw had stuck his rifle. As Billy entered the room, the ivory settee and chairs appeared ghostly in the shadows. Then Mama started talking.

  “Wesley! Wesley Owen Bristol,” she cried. “Come here and talk to your mama now!”

  Billy hurried over to follow the exchange from behind the tall, tattered curtains. Above him, a solid weight shifted by the window. The silence and a sense of overwhelming emptiness told him his brother was here alone.

  “Wesley!” Mama called out again. “Wesley, I’ve come to see you, honey, and I’ve brought one of Beulah Mae’s pies! It’s rhubarb custard. Your favorite.”

  Billy’s eyes flew open. Sure enough, she was reaching beneath the driver’s seat, picking up something covered in a white kitchen towel. She held it high as evidence of her intentions.

  How on God’s earth had she gotten a pie from their old cook? Was she lying through her teeth, expecting Wesley to fall for her sentimental offering?

  “Go ’way, Mama. You’re too late,” his brother replied gruffly.

  “Nonsense! You’re here, and I’m here, and we’ve got lots to talk about,” she insisted. “But I’m not coming inside that house. Too many memories, and they’re all behind me now.”

  “Why should I believe Beulah Mae is still alive, when—”

  “Think again, Wesley. She seemed old to you where you were boys, but she’s got her own bakery in town now. Doing quite well at it, too.” Mama focused on the upstairs window, raising the pie higher. “Better come on down here and have a piece. While it’s still warm.”

  Danged if Mama didn’t pull a knife from beneath the white towel after she removed it. As she made a show of slicing the pie, Billy’s mouth watered so much, he almost dashed outside to grab it himself—even though his personal favorite had been Beulah Mae’s pumpkin pie.

  He assessed the situation: Wes—if he took Mama’s bait—would come down the front stairs. It pained Billy to see scuff marks and muddy footprints on the carpet runner, for this had been one of Richmond’s most glorious stairways, with glossy oak balustrades he and Wes dusted with the seats of their britches.

  But those memories no longer served him, did they? Billy slipped through the vestibule and into the back hall, where the service stairway went up the rear wall of the house. He stepped over loose boards and places that had always creaked, figuring he’d get in position to grab his brother from behind—or wrestle the gun from him—before he shot Mama.

  “Don’t know what you’re tryin’ to prove, Mama, but I ain’t fallin’ for it.”

  Was it his imagination, or did his twin’s voice waver? Billy reached the top of the narrow, uncarpeted stairway and paused, catching his breath. With so many windows broken, Mama’s voice carried clearly—just as it had when they were boys, pretending they didn’t hear her calling.

  “You and I have nothing to prove, son,” she replied in a steady, steely tone. “I’ve spent the last ten years not knowing if you were dead or alive—”

  “From what I’ve heard, you were too busy carousin’ with that Wyndham fella to care whether I lived or died. Never even came lookin’ for me, did ya?”

  Billy cringed. His brother had made a valid, if brutal point.

  “I’ve committed my share of sins, Wesley,” Mama replied in that same unwavering voice. “I won’t excuse my behavior—just like I won’t accept a trumped-up story about why you’re robbing banks and killing people.

  “But what you don’t know,” she challenged, “is that Wyndham left me for dead in a San Francisco alley. If Christine hadn’t been hardheaded enough to follow me—I’d be long gone.”

  “That’s a heart-warmin’ story, Mama, but I ain’t buyin’—”<
br />
  “I’m not asking you to do a single thing!” she shot back. “Just come down here and have a piece of pie with your mother. You have my word that I’m alone. You’re still my boy, and I still love you, and I want the best for you before somebody leaves you for dead, too. Humor me, Wesley! I don’t have all day, and I’m not getting any younger.”

  Billy smiled in spite of the awful scenarios he could imagine. The old tone had slipped into Mama’s voice—the one that said she’d cut a willow switch, or otherwise take matters into her own, deceptively powerful hands, if her boys didn’t obey her right this minute.

  Lo and behold, he heard footfalls crossing their old bedroom! Hidden in the unlit alcove at the top of the service stairway, Billy pressed himself against the wall.

  Please, Lord, don’t let him do anything to Mama! Wrap Your protection around her, even though we know dang well she’s got something up her pretty purple sleeve.

  Saying his silent prayer like a litany, Billy held himself absolutely still as he watched a big shadow approach and heard his twin’s uneven footfalls.

  It was all he could do to keep quiet when Wesley filled the doorway.

  The brother he hadn’t seen for ten years looked tall and stocky; his belly hung over his belt. He wore wrinkled denim pants and a chambray shirt that had seen better days. In the shadows, Wesley’s beard bristled like a thicket and his hair stunk out in uneven clumps.

  Billy held his breath so he wouldn’t cry out—or gasp from the stench of Wes’s body. His twin looked totally disreputable.

  Even so, his arms ached to grab this brother in a hug. Billy swallowed hard, his eyes fixed on Wesley’s side.

  His twin’s right arm dangled limp. That shuffle came from his left boot dragging slightly behind as Wesley entered the upstairs hallway, inching toward the top of the main stairs.

  Billy’s throat stung from a silent sob. All the bluster about Wesley Bristol and his cutthroat band of bank robbers—all the threats and shots fired around him and Eve—came from a man only twenty years old, the same age as he was. Yet Wes was maimed and gimpy. Downright pathetic.

  Billy watched the ungainly way his brother descended the stairs. Mama would have a fit. Probably drop that pie to crush his brother in a weeping, wailing outburst of love for the son she’d not seen all this time.

  After that, of course, she’d start in on him. How had he been so horribly wounded? Why did he continue in a life of crime, when it had taken such a toll on him? Why hadn’t he tried to contact his mama?

  Billy snickered. She’d put on a little scene then, complete with a disgusted grimace, pinching her offended nose.

  And yet, as Wesley approached the front door, his heavy boots clumping across the vestibule floor, a bigger question puzzled Billy: Why had fine, feisty Eve Massena fallen for his brother?

  Even in her impoverished desperation—even if so many local men hadn’t survived the war—Billy couldn’t imagine Eve giving Wesley a second glance, much less an invitation to know her in the most intimate way.

  He swallowed so hard his throat hurt. Had Eve played with fire and gotten burned? Or had Wes driven Leland Massena to hang himself and then taken his pleasure—and made false promises to Eve—to destroy the entire Massena family?

  Billy started quietly down the stairs. If his twin had sunk so low, he couldn’t be trusted alone with Mama, even though she had pie—and a knife.

  Outside, he heard her anguished cry. Footsteps pattered rapidly across the driveway. “Wesley! Wesley, come here to your—oh my Lord, you’re hurt!”

  Her rising voice was met with a loud grunt. Billy got to the window as Mama threw herself against Wesley’s bulk. Her arms barely went around his waist—

  And then she backed away, wary as a trapped fox. She gazed up at the son who now stood head and shoulders taller than she did.

  “Wesley Owen Bristol,” she gasped, “you come away from here and let me take care of you! We’ll have a doctor look at that arm and—”

  “That’s enough, Mama.”

  Wesley’s low retort was so devoid of affection, it hurt Billy to watch from behind the rotted curtain at the front parlor window. There they stood, his grubby brother and Mama in her purple suit, staring each other down as they’d done years ago. He knew that expression on Mama’s face—that fierce determination to have her say and have her way. Yet Billy detected a quiver in her chin; the tightening around eyes that had seen their share of misery and shame.

  “I’m your mother, Wesley. I will always need to take care of—”

  “Don’t want your fussin’. Don’t need your pity.” Wesley’s arms hung at his sides; his bearded face showed no expression. “You brought me a pie, and that was nice. But I’m not invitin’ you in, ’cause we won’t be eatin’ off the china or sittin’ all polite and proper around the table.”

  “I—I wasn’t expecting to—”

  “Good. Don’t expect nothin’ from me, Mama!” His gaze went to the seat of the wagon, and then he hobbled over to pick up the pie. “This won’t be no purty reunion scene, ’cause you’re leavin’ now, Mama. Don’t come back, understand me?”

  The purple plume on her hat began to dance with her agitation, but Mama held her ground. And her tears.

  “And tell my fine, upstandin’ twin not to show his face here again, neither,” Wes grunted. “I got no use for Eve Massena, nor that brat she was carryin’, so don’t try to reform me, Mama. Things ain’t like they used to be.”

  “Wesley, listen!” Mama planted a white-gloved fist on her purple hip, glaring. “You can’t go on this way! The law’s going to catch up to you—”

  “Only if you or Billy shoot off your mouths!” he retorted. He looked haggard and hard and old. “Give me your word that won’t happen, Mama.

  “Son, if you’ll only—”

  “Promise you’ll keep your mouths shut, Mama! Or I’ll have to keep usin’ Billy and Eve for target practice. Understand me?”

  How dare Wesley talk to Mama that way? Make her promise not to betray him, and then threaten her family? He was deranged—more dangerous than they’d anticipated—if he expected them all to keep quiet!

  Billy gripped the limp, dusty curtain. Should he remain here undetected, or rush up with something—the fireplace poker, maybe—to silence his cruel, callous brother? Instinct made him turn toward the hearth—and then his jaw dropped.

  Carlton Harte stood there, his finger across his lips. His other hand rested on a pistol protruding from his holster.

  “Go on now, Mama!” Wesley taunted outside. “Don’t make me hurt nobody else. You can’t smooth it all over no more. Can’t make the past disappear!”

  Harte gestured toward the kitchen. Walking quickly and quietly, they slipped out the back door so Wes wouldn’t catch them. Silently they grabbed the reins of their waiting horses, hurried through the thicket of lilac bushes, and then mounted up on the other side of the leafy barricade.

  “I’ll explain it all later,” Carleton muttered as they rode toward the front road. “It was your mother’s idea. She doesn’t know I followed her here.”

  Billy’s gut clenched. He grabbed Carlton’s sleeve. “What do you mean, this was Mama’s idea?” he rasped. “And you let her come here? You can’t tell me you didn’t know—”

  The detective’s ominous wave silenced him. He waited until the clatter of Mama’s wagon wheels had passed their hiding spot before he replied. “You saw her when Eve showed up at your wedding, saying the baby was Wesley’s! You knew she’d come to see him for herself—and that no one could stop her!”

  “But why’d she bring Olivia? They could’ve both been shot!”

  Harte let out an exasperated sigh. “Virgilia believes the baby belongs with her mother. And she saw Olivia as a bargaining point.”

  As Carlton peered through the overgrown foliage, Billy reminded himself to simmer down—to trust this Pinkerton operative’s instincts. After all, Harte had rescued his mother from Richard Wyndham’s chicanery in S
an Francisco. And in his quiet way, he doted on Mama like no other man had.

  “Maybe you’d better tell me what you know, Carlton. No sense in our workin’ at cross purposes, or Mama will feel caught in the middle,” Billy reasoned. “She might do somethin’ even more reckless than takin’ that dang pie to Wesley’s door!”

  “My point exactly. And it looks like she’s talked Eve into going home. They’ll be safely out of Wesley’s way now.”

  Billy bit back the rest of his questions. He watched Eve hand the baby up to Mama and then clamber onto the buckboard seat. Miss Massena didn’t look entirely happy, but at least she’d reclaimed her child. Mama must’ve worked some maternal magic—or simply informed Eve she was going to cooperate!

  Harte’s shoulders relaxed. “Well, for several months now, I’ve followed the activities of Frank and Jesse James and the Younger brothers, through an exchange of coded telegrams from operatives around Richmond and Lexington.” Carlton urged his horse forward at a walk, and Billy did the same.

  “My trips from Topeka to Missouri have been covert assignments to keep track of their whereabouts and follow up on their robberies—which isn’t too difficult, considering Jesse’s yen for writing up his adventures and sending them to the Kansas City Times.”

  “Writin’ his own alibis and lies, the way I hear it,” Billy murmured.

  “Precisely. And your brother has played on the same local antigovernment sympathies to hide in neighbors’ root cellars and outbuildings while he was doing Leland Massena’s dirty work.”

  Carlton slowed their pace so Mama wouldn’t spot them when they entered a clear intersection.

  “Unfortunately, your twin isn’t as sharp as Jesse,” he continued quietly. “When he got your ranch back as payment for assisting Massena, two of his cohorts—Jared Mayhew and Slick Searcy—”

  “The preacher’s son?” Billy’s eyes widened.

  “—got perturbed because they received no equivalent pay. Mayhew got drunk and mad a couple months ago—shot Wes in the foot, and then Wes’s horse threw him,” the detective explained. “He landed on his arm. Refused medical help because any doc with a conscience would turn him in.”