LITMIR.BIZ

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having Jake Coulter under her roof longer than necessary wasn’t something either of them wanted, she reminded herself.

      “My turn. My turn,” Matt insisted beside Nate, wriggling with his eagerness to hold the roadrunner.

      “Slowly, now,” Isabel encouraged. “Hold her firmly.”

      As though lifting a priceless treasure, Matt wrapped his small, sun-browned fingers around the bird and squatted to set it on the earth beneath them.

      “Adios, amiga,” he whispered. “Come visit us again one day.”

      As soon as he released the long-legged bird, its head darted up at one end, its tail perked at the other. With a quick twist of its neck to look back at his caretakers, it shot away, dashing across the yard toward the evergreen mountains beyond.

      “I’m going to miss her.” Matt snuggled close to Isabel. “I wish she could have stayed with us.”

      Isabel hugged him to her side. “She’s a wild creature, and she doesn’t need us any longer. But don’t worry, darling, you’ll find another lost or wounded creature who needs a home before you even have this cage cleaned out. Which by the way, you can do after dinner tonight. For now, I need you two to run out to the shed and get a hammer and nails and go up and knock on Mr. Coulter’s door. He may need that dresser space, but the drawer has to be fixed before he can use it.”

      “Yes, ma’am. C’mon, Matt, I’ll get the hammer and you can take the nails.”

      “I want to hammer! You always get to do the fun part,” Matt grumbled, hopping again from light patch to light patch across the yard after his brother.

      Isabel laughed to herself as she turned to head back up the path to the back kitchen door. Those boys…my boys, best friends, worst enemies. At least they have each other, she mused, recalling how all her life she’d longed for a brother or a sister, until Katlyn had come unexpectedly into her life.

      She wished she’d known about her half-sister earlier. But their father, a gambler who never stayed in one place longer than his luck held out, left Isabel’s mother before Isabel was born. Five years later, he found his way to Missouri and charmed a vivacious riverboat singer into his bed, leaving her with three-month-old Katlyn.

      Something, perhaps guilt, had finally motivated Katlyn’s mother to tell her daughter about her half-sister in Whispering Creek. Shortly thereafter, Katlyn appeared on the doorstep at a time Isabel most needed a sister. She recalled with warmth how Katlyn’s spunk and vigor had been tremendously cheering to her and to the boys when the news came that Douglas wouldn’t be coming back.

      As Isabel pushed open the back door, she saw Esme had already begun to set out the simple blue-and-white floral-patterned china on the kitchen worktable for dinner.

      Isabel took a brightly painted pottery vase from a shelf on the kitchen wall and arranged a handful of yellow-and-white daises in it she’d plucked on the way back to the house.

      “I’ll get the white tablecloth with the little yellow tulips around the edges to go with these,” she told Esme. “Katlyn loves that old thing. I don’t even think she sees all of the stains. She’s always the optimist.”

      Esme held a spoon up to the light then wiped a spot from it with the corner of her apron. “Katlyn is too restless to see what is in front of her eyes. She is always looking to the horizon, seeking something she cannot even name.”

      “Oh, Nana, I’m sure you said the same about Mama and about me at one time.” As soon as she said the words, Isabel regretted them. It would only give Nana an opening to talk about husbands and Isabel’s refusal to consider another one.

      “No, my daughter was not restless, not like Katlyn is. Sonalda dreamed of family, a place for her spirit to rest. My daughter always trusted a man would bring her that happiness.” Esme shook her head. “I warned her, but she could hear nothing but that gambler’s pretty words. He left her before he ever saw you. And you were no different when I told you Douglas Bradshaw and that devil Jerico Grey would do the same.”

      Isabel started at the name. She certainly didn’t intend for Esme to bring that up. She stepped over to a simply crafted pine dry sink and pulled open the latch to the shelves beneath to rummage through the linens for the tablecloth. “Yes, well, I can’t say I listened to you about either of them, but Jerico at least was never more than a girlish crush for me. He always frightened me, even then.”

      Esme followed Isabel into the dining area and helped her smooth out the cloth on the scuffed pine table, perked up with a good rubdown and a thick coat of beeswax.

      “And with good reason,” Esme said, clicking her tongue in disgust. “Ay, that one is more wicked at heart than any I have seen.”

      “Well, our new boarder seems determined to find him, one way or the other,” Isabel said lightly. She brought the vase in and centered it on the table, giving her hands something to do as a distraction for her troubled thoughts.

      “I do not approve of renting our rooms to such a man.”

      Isabel shrugged. “The money will help. Besides, he’s a Texas Ranger, not an outlaw.”

      “You would not believe it by the look of him. He may call himself a lawman but believe me when I tell you he is only one step from being an outlaw. It is not safe for the boys to be upstairs with him alone.”

      “Of course it is,” Isabel said firmly, to reassure herself as much as her grandmother. “Mr. Coulter’s in no shape to draw a gun on anyone, least of all two little boys.”

      Esme plopped a fork down next to a plate, muttering something in Spanish, then added, “We will see about that.”

      “Nana,” Isabel began warningly, “I know that look. Don’t get any ideas about practicing your magic on Mr. Coulter.”

      “Ah, but you say you do not believe in my magic, pepita.”

      Esme’s carefully innocent expression didn’t fool Isabel. While she had learned much about herbal healing from her grandmother, she had, from the time she could understand, steadfastly refused to become tutored in the ways of a curandera. Witch magic, many in the territory called it.

      And Isabel put no faith in magic or spirits or an ephemeral power conjured to vanquish evil curses.

      Esme, though, continued to practice her spells and incantations, and had a small, but steady trade among the Mexican and Spanish families in and around Whispering Creek.

      “Leave Mr. Coulter alone,” Isabel told her, trying to look sufficiently stern.

      Esme lifted one shoulder and went back to setting the table, a small smile lifting her mouth. “But of course, my granddaughter. Of course.”

      Jake saw black spots. Big black circles, bobbing over his face. How many? He tried to count, but found he’d forgotten how. The spots faded. Then he realized his eyes were closed. With a concentrated effort he lifted first one, then the other leaded eyelid. The spots were back. And they were making noises.

      “What the…” he groaned.

      Nate backed a little away from the bruised and bearded man making strange faces at him. “We tried to knock, sir—Mr. Coulter.”

      “Yes, sir, but you didn’t answer,” Matt piped in. “And Mama says we have to fix the broken dresser drawer for you.”

      “Mama?”

      “Mrs. Bradshaw,” Nate clarified.

      “Oh,” Jake groaned. “The witch.”

      Both boys slapped their hands to their mouths, trying to smother their laughter.

      “You think it’s funny, do you? She did this to me again with those weeds of hers. I feel like I was dragged here from Texas under the wheels of a wagon train.”

      “Mama said you might be sleepy, but that you needed to be stirred up.”

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