LITMIR.BIZ

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that you’re the one man who poses the greatest threat to my existence, and yet we’re exchanging confidences.”

      She swallowed uneasily, because she’d never confided this tale to another living soul. Certainly, the children in her care knew fragments of the story, but they didn’t know the whole truth.

      “My parents immigrated to Boston,” she began quietly. “I lost them in a flu epidemic and I nearly died myself. I had no other family to take me in and I was forced to live a hand-to-mouth existence in the streets and alleys with several other children who found themselves in the same predicament. We begged for food and picked pockets to survive…until one night when three policemen swarmed in and gathered up the strays. The older, more experienced street urchins managed to vanish in the network of alleys, but I was frail and sickly, like little Flora, at the time. I was taken to an orphanage, given a cot, a ration of food and hand-me-down clothes that were so thin from numerous washings that it was like being naked during the cold winter months.”

      Tara darted a glance at John. He was staring intently at her again. She swore she’d never met another living soul who listened with such concentrated absorption. He didn’t even blink an eye when she admitted to stealing to survive.

      “Occasionally families visited the orphanage to take children into their homes, but I was always overlooked. I guess they considered me too old to be trainable, too frail to put in a hard day’s work.”

      “Which is why, I suspect, little Flora and Calvin are in your care. You see yourself in them, don’t you?” he asked.

      Tara nodded. “Flora was just an infant when her mother, the daughter of a wealthy family, brought her to the orphanage. The woman was unmarried and feared wrath and disinheritance.

      “Calvin was left alone when his parents were killed in the carriage accident that mangled his leg and scarred his chin. Maureen couldn’t speak a word for the first two years she lived in the orphanage. The caretakers thought she was a deaf-mute, because she made no contact with anyone. Thankfully, she’s emerged from her shell. But to this day she refuses to speak of whatever tragedy landed her at the orphanage.

      “As for Samuel and Derek, they know nothing of their heritage, nor do I. They simply arrived in the dark of night as young children. They were already there when I was taken into the orphanage. You wouldn’t know by looking at them now, but they were sickly, weak and shamefully unsure of themselves.”

      Tara took a sip of water, then continued. “When the time came, we were scrubbed and dressed in an exceptionally better set of hand-me-downs than what we usually wore. We were hustled aboard a westbound train without being informed of our destination or purpose. We stopped in nameless towns in Missouri and were herded into local churches. Like livestock on the auction block, we were presented for adoption. Many of the younger children were carted off to foster homes.”

      “But not frail-looking Flora or crippled Calvin,” John surmised.

      “No, the six of us were rejected for one reason or another, so we returned to the train and ventured into Texas. When the train pulled into a dusty cow town there, we were the only ones left. A man who owned a fleabag hotel notorious for housing rowdy drifters took in Flora and Maureen. Although they were young—especially Flora—they were put to work cleaning and sweeping. The boys ended up working for a cantankerous farmer who practiced your father’s technique of controlling and disciplining children.”

      “And you, Irish?” he questioned. “How old were you at the time?”

      Leave it to this man to poke and pry into places she planned to skip over with only the briefest of explanation. “I wasn’t quite eighteen,” she told him reluctantly.

      “Marrying age,” he murmured shrewdly.

      “Something like that,” she replied, unable to meet his perceptive gaze. “I was taken in by a rancher who claimed he needed a foster child capable of caring for his ailing wife.”

      John hadn’t liked the sound of this story from the beginning. It was growing more distasteful by the minute. The fact that Tara’s expression had closed up, that she was suddenly holding herself upright on the bench, keeping a stranglehold on the cup of water and staring sightlessly at the canyon walls, alerted him that the rancher had had unseemly designs on her. An unfamiliar sense of rage swept through John, momentarily overriding the nagging pain in his rib and thigh.

      “There was no ailing wife, was there?” he said through clenched teeth.

      She didn’t answer for a moment, didn’t glance his direction. Finally she said, “There was a gravesite on the far side of the garden.” She shivered slightly, cleared her throat, then continued. “There were also metal cuffs dangling from the headboard and footboard of his bed.”

      John felt as if someone had gut-punched him. Damn it to hell, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what came next. In fact, he refused to hear and he didn’t want to imagine what Tara had endured, so he leaped ahead to spare her the telling.

      “So I assume you regathered the children from their various residences and decided to make a new life together.”

      She breathed a relieved sigh and smiled ruefully. “Yes, the children are now my family, and I promised to make a home for them. We hopped a cattle train and followed the rails west as far as they went. For three months we wandered like nomads, feeding off the land, living for short periods of time at missions and in abandoned shacks along the way—wherever we found shelter. We gathered stray livestock that we encountered along our route through New Mexico Territory and we took temporary employment where we could, but we never stayed in one place long enough to become acquainted with anyone. We traveled into towns in separate groups so as not to arouse suspicion or raise questions we didn’t want to answer.”

      It occurred to John that Tara might’ve done something in the past that made her fearful he’d cause trouble for her. In spite of that, she’d taken him into the fold and nursed him back to health. That said a great deal about her character—and she had considerably more character than most folks.

      “When we happened onto this canyon, with its rundown buildings, I knew this was where we belonged. I knew that with hard work and determination I could make a real home for the children. This is the place of permanence, stability and security none of us ever had.”

      When she turned toward him, John could feel the intensity and determination radiating from her. “This family of cast-off children, who have been rejected more times than I care to count, will have a full understanding of belonging. They’ll feel a strong sense of welcome and acceptance. They’ll be confident that when they set off to find their places in this world, I’ll be here to welcome them back with open arms.”

      When she stood up and strode off to attend her limitless chores, his gaze followed her until she disappeared into the root cellar. Tara didn’t hang around long enough for John to caution her about setting her sights on this canyon as a permanent home. This part of the territory, though it had escaped violence in recent years, was becoming a hotbed of criminal activity because of the silver and copper mines discovered in the area. Gangs of ruthless outlaws preyed on prospectors and anyone else who provided easy pickings. Tara and the children wouldn’t stand a chance against men like the outlaws Raven had fallen in with.

      Although John knew it wouldn’t be easy, he had to convince Tara to move into town where there was more protection. That was one conversation he wasn’t looking forward to, especially now that he knew she’d put down roots and had no intention of leaving. No doubt he and Tara were destined to butt heads about that.

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