Judith E French Read Free

Louis. I’ve friends there who would make you welcome until you decided—”
    “No need.”
    “No need of what?”
    “You’re right, Shane. We are husband and wife. It’s best we try to make this marriage a real one.”
    “You understand about the boy? He’s got strong Osage blood. He’s what folks out here call a half-breed.”
    “The devil take them!”
    “I warn you, Justice is not easy to handle. He’s wild as a woods buffalo and mourning his mother fierce. He barely speaks, even to me.”
    “Poor lad.” The thought of having such a troubled boy as part of her family was daunting, but children had ever been her weakness. Hadn’t she brought her father to ruin by trying to fill the belly of every wee one that came begging to their gate?
    “This isn’t Ireland,” Shane said. “Indians are feared and hated. A lot of doors will be closed to you and yours if you claim him.”
    “ ’Tis not the color of the child’s skin that troubles me,” she replied. It was he, Shane McKenna, she thought fervently. She supposed him to be a stranger when she first laid eyes on him, and it was true. He was no more the man she had married than she was the Countess of Wexford. Did he think her heart had shriveled so small that she could not love Justice because of his swarthy hue?
    “He’s had a hard life, and he’s rough in his ways.”
    “And you?” she demanded. “Are you not rough in your ways?”
    “I am, but I hold six hundred acres of good Missouri land because of it. The weak don’t last out here, Caity. Are you strong enough to survive?”
    A hot reply rose to her tongue as she thought of what she’d witnessed in County Clare: of losing the house and Papa and Mama dying, of the endless wailing of starving children and the hopelessness in women’s eyes. She wanted to tell him what strong was, but she held her peace. There would be time enough for that. “God willing,” she answered softly.
    “Then we’d best get your baggage. Which trunk is yours?” he asked, pointing to the heaped portmanteaus and cases.
    “All of them.”
    “Sweet Joseph!” he bellowed. “How am I supposed to carry all this home to Kilronan?”
    “I carried them all the way from Ireland.” Six hundred acres. So much land. And Shane said it was his, without a mention of his uncle or his cousin George. She wanted to ask him about his farm, but not if he was going to be troublesome about her belongings.
    She noticed that Derry had fallen asleep, and she shifted the little girl’s weight to her shoulder. The darling was growing heavier every day on rich American food, but Caitlin didn’t mind carrying her. The scent of Derry was baby-sweet and precious. She could put up with a lot if it meant that Derry would be safe and cared for. She supposed she could even learn to deal with Shane McKenna and his son.
    “I brought a wagon to carry you,” Shane grumbled. “I’d have brought a mule train if I’d guessed you’d bring half of Ireland with you.”
    In Caitlin’s experience with men it was easiest to let them have their grouching out before trying to reason with them. She waited until he paused for breath and then asked him the first question that popped into her head. “Your Uncle Jamie and Cousin George. Will they mind having Derry about?”
    Shane had crossed the sea to work on his uncle’s farm. His uncle and cousin were originally from Cashel, but they’d emigrated when Shane was a child. She’d never met either of them.
    “They won’t mind the babe,” Shane answered gruffly.
    “You’re certain?”
    He jammed his hat back on his. “They drowned in a flash-flood two years back. Kilronan is mine, Caity. Stay with me and be the wife I need, and in time, I’ll add your name to the deed.”
    “When I’ve proved myself.”
    “Yes, if you put it like that.”
    “ ’Tis hard to find another way to put it, isn’t it?”
    He lifted the weight of one portmanteau and groaned. “What did you bring, you greedy