Sweet Autumn Surrender Read online

  Sweet Autumn Surrender

  Jarrett Family Sagas: Book One

  Vivian Vaughan

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 1991 by Jane Vaughan

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email [email protected]

  First Diversion Books edition June 2015

  ISBN: 978-1-62681-853-8

  Also by Vivian Vaughan

  A Wish to Build a Dream On

  Storms Never Last

  Sweetheart of the Rodeo

  Branded

  No Place for a Lady

  Reluctant Enemies

  The Texas Star Trilogy

  Texas Gamble

  Texas Dawn

  Texas Gold

  Silver Creek Stories

  Heart’s Desire

  Texas Twilight

  Runaway Passion

  Sweet Texas Nights

  Jarrett Family Sagas

  Silver Surrender

  Sunrise Surrender

  Secret Surrender

  Tremaynes of Apache Wells Series

  Chance of a Lifetime

  Catch a Wild Heart

  Prologue

  August 1878

  Summer Valley, Texas

  “Ellie Jarrett! You know better than to use my front door. Get inside this house before someone sees you!”

  Ellie allowed Lavender Sealy to drag her inside the opulent foyer, close the rose-etched front door, and pull her down the thick Persian carpet to the back of the Lady Bug Pleasure Emporium.

  Skidding past the parlor, she managed a fleeting smile for Daisy and Poppy, who lounged on the red velvet settee with tall glasses of pink lemonade.

  To her left, she glimpsed Snake in the gambling room, plinking away at the piano to empty gaming tables and unoccupied barstools.

  Two o’clock on Wednesday afternoon was a slow time at the Lady Bug. Wednesday always had been the slowest day of the week, except when a trail drive was passing through town.

  Ellie followed her benefactor down the long corridor. Memories of her years spent here with Lavender and the girls brought a rush of poignant emotion. Regardless of what others chose to call her—madam, painted lady, or just plain whore—Lavender Sealy was acknowledged by all as a businesswoman of the first order, managing her finances, her house, and her girls with the acumen of an investment banker. Although she specialized in selling flesh by the hour, she was also a mistress—madam, some preferred to say—at buying respect.

  The community of Summer Valley was living proof of that fact. No sooner had she moved to town than the children received a new school building complete with desks and ample sets of McGuffey’s Readers, the church received new pews and a new bell, and the schoolmaster and pastor were given free services for life at the Lady Bug Pleasure Emporium. The last of these, of course, was not as widely publicized as the others.

  Which was the reason Lavender Sealy had chosen a hill on the edge of town on which to erect her three-story pink frame establishment: the path to the back door could not be viewed from town.

  “I’ve told you to use the back entrance.” Lavender ushered Ellie into her own lavish quarters at the rear of the mansion. As usual, upon entering these private rooms one was overwhelmed by lavender—both the scent and the color. Every piece of satin, velvet, lace, and voile was some variation of the color; every tabletop held cut-glass dishes filled with potpourri made from the flower. If one asked for a chance to wash one’s hands, Ellie knew, the offered soap would be a pale shade of lavender; one’s hands would reek with the aroma for days.

  Having been part of Lavender’s household for most of her twenty-four years, Ellie rarely noticed, except, as now, when she had been away for a while.

  “I wasn’t thinking,” she explained, dropping to the needlepoint settee—worked in shades of lavender, of course.

  “Start thinking, Ellie. You’re a married woman. Your reputation—”

  “Lavender, I need your help.”

  Instantly the older woman ceased her tirade. Stooping, she peered into Ellie’s face. “Mercy, you look like you’ve been through a wringer. What is it, baby?”

  “Benjamin—” The thought of finally uttering the dreadful words brought a tremble to Ellie’s voice. “He’s gone.”

  Lavender straightened as if someone had rammed a poker up her spine. “Gone? That bastard left you? I thought I knew men! Can’t you trust any of them? Why, he was old enough to be your father, a kindly gentleman…” She sank to her knees before Ellie, clasping Ellie’s hands in her own. “God, baby, why did I talk you into marrying him?”

  “Lavender, hush. He didn’t leave me. I don’t know where he is, but something terrible has happened to him. I know it. I—” Again her voice faltered and she felt tears rush to her eyes.

  Rising to the occasion, Lavender poured pink lemonade from a silver pitcher into a crystal glass. She handed it to Ellie along with a heavily embroidered linen handkerchief.

  “Blow your nose, baby.” She set the glass on a lacquered coaster on the marble-topped side table, then seated herself opposite Ellie. She watched silently while Ellie obeyed by blowing her nose into the handkerchief.

  “Now, drink a big swallow of my special lemonade.”

  Ellie drank. By special, she knew Lavender meant laced with red wine; how heavily depended upon in what part of the Lady Bug one found oneself, in whose company, and especially upon who one was. Ellie was privileged around here; she always had been. Lavender considered her the child she never had, and the girls did, too—even those who were younger than Ellie herself and those who had not been with Lavender half as long.

  “Now, why do you think something terrible has happened to him?” Before Ellie could answer, Lavender cursed again. “If that sonofabitch has run off and left you, he’ll answer to me.”

  Ellie smiled, comforted somewhat by Lavender’s predictable reaction. The dear woman meant every word of her threat, and she could carry it through. Only a fraction of an inch below six feet tall, with bones to fit her size, Lavender Sealy was a force to be reckoned with, and not many men—or women, for that matter—chose to. For Benjamin’s sake, Ellie wished he would have to face Lavender’s wrath; that would mean he was still alive.

  But deep in her heart, she feared the worst. “He didn’t run off from me,” she protested. “He rode out to the north bedding grounds.” She paused to catch a ragged breath. “And he never came back. It’s been over a week, now.”

  “Over a week? Why didn’t you come to town earlier? We should have had a posse out looking for him days ago.”

  “I have been looking, Lavender. I’ve ridden over every part of the ranch, practically inch by inch. There’s no sign of him.”

  Lavender’s jaws tightened. “The sonofabitch likely—”

  Ellie shook her head, stopping Lavender’s words with her tear-filled eyes. “Yesterday morning I found one of his boots on my back doorstep. It was covered with…with dried blood.”

  Tears rolled down her cheeks. This time when Lavender dropped to her knees, she pulled Ellie’s head to her own ample bosom, smoothing her hair against the crown of her head with gentle strokes. “There, there, baby.”

  Ellie drew back and
wiped her eyes. “Something terrible has happened to him.”

  “Maybe his horse pitched him off, and a varmint dragged his boot—”

  “No. I would have found his body, or the horse would have returned by now.”

  Lavender nodded in hushed agreement.

  “I found no sign of his horse.” Her voice rose in frustration. “His horse would have come home. Horses always return to the place where they’ve been fed. His horse—”

  “There, there,” Lavender shushed. “I agree. It does look bad. You can’t go back to the ranch. You’re staying right here until we settle this thing.”

  “I have to go home,” Ellie objected. “There’s something else. Several times since Benjamin…ah, several times since then, I’ve seen a fire up on the hill. Late yesterday afternoon I slipped up there and caught them red-handed.”

  “Caught who?”

  “Circle R men. Two of them were camped in one of the rock shelters above the house. They denied it, of course. Said they were hunting strays. But I saw the provisions inside the shelter.”

  “Now, it’s certain…you are not returning to that ranch.”

  “I must, Lavender. Don’t you see? Matt Rainey and his coyote of a brother are just waiting for a chance to take our creek bottom. They could even have moved in while I was in town.” She shrugged. “But I had to have supplies.”

  Lavender ran a hand through her lavender hair, a color she achieved, as Ellie had observed on numerous occasions, by adding bluing to the rinse water. The older Lavender got, the more color her hair took on as her blonde hair turned gray and absorbed more of the blue color.

  “Well, you aren’t going back out there alone, baby. I’ll send Snake with you.”

  “You need him here.”

  “Not for a few days.” Crossing to the door, Lavender called down the hallway. “Snaaaake.” She turned quickly back to Ellie. “Did you bring the wagon?”

  Ellie nodded, comforted once more by the familiarity of Lavender’s manner: she could have been issuing orders to her girls at receiving time. She was good at issuing orders and at seeing them carried through.

  “Snake will drive you to the Bon Ton for supplies,” Lavender continued. “While he’s filling your order, you run down to the telegraph office and wire the sheriff—”

  “In Llano County? He wouldn’t drop everything and ride a hundred miles to find a missing man.”

  “There’s no other choice, baby.”

  “Unless I do what the Raineys have done. I can hire gunfighters, too.” Her words were couched in grim tones which seemed to rise from her very heart.

  Lavender sighed. “Didn’t you tell me Benjamin has a brother in the Texas Rangers?”

  “Carson Jarrett. But he—”

  “No buts. You telegraph him while Snake picks up your order at the Bon Ton.”

  “What do I tell him? What if he’s busy?”

  “Ellie, you need help. And if Benjamin is missing, his family needs to know.”

  Ellie sighed. “There’s a mess of them, his family. Two sisters and five brothers, not counting Benjamin. I suppose they should all be told.”

  “Yes, they should. If Benjamin Jarrett has met with foul play, his family is entitled to know about it.”

  In the end Ellie relented, allowing Snake to drive her to the general store. She gave him her grocery list to fill while she sent a telegram—to Carson Jarrett, in care of Ranger Headquarters in Austin. Alerting the entire family would have been admitting to a hopelessness she refused to consider.

  Besides, a few members of the Jarrett family would be worse to deal with than the Raineys themselves. One brother, Kale, his name was, was a known gunfighter. And regardless of what she told Lavender, she had no intention of stooping to the level of the Raineys. If Carson couldn’t help, she would discover some other way to find Benjamin.

  Armando Costello greeted her when she emerged from the telegraph office.

  “What’s this all about, Ellie? Lavender tells me Benjamin is missing.”

  She explained in clipped syllables, afraid to tempt tears here on the boardwalk in the presence of her husband’s best friend.

  “You’ve searched the entire ranch?”

  She nodded, ducking her head when she felt her chin quiver. Armando Costello did not miss it, however…his gambler’s instinct, she thought. A gambler would of necessity possess sharp eyes and a quick wit.

  He placed a consoling arm around her shoulders. “Come, come, my dear. You are no longer alone. Together we will find my friend Benjamin. But I must chastise you for not coming to me immediately.”

  She shrugged, tears brimming. “I thought—”

  “No need to explain,” he assured her. “We’ll move forward from here.”

  And indeed they did. Armando Costello sent Snake back to the Lady Bug and drove Ellie to the ranch himself.

  “If Circle R men are still spying on you, you can bet I won’t just send them packing,” he exclaimed. “I’ll be hard pressed not to plant them six feet under.”

  “I won’t tolerate violence, Armando. You know that. Not even if—”

  Her shoulders trembled, and he loosened one hand from the reins to draw her near. “Come now, my girl. There’s a simple explanation for all this, and I intend to find it. We’ll have Benjamin home before that Texas Ranger even gets your message.”

  October 1878

  Doan’s Crossing on the Red River

  Kale Jarrett slapped dust off his breeches with the brim of his hat and pushed through the bat-winged doors of the Bee Hive Saloon. The telegram from his brother Carson crackled in his shirt pocket, reminding him of urgent business down south. But Sheriff Yates had said McKenzie wanted a word with him here in the saloon, and he could sure do with a drink to wet the trail dust.

  Ordering rye at the bar, he faced the crowded room, searching for Mack McKenzie…the usual mixture of buffalo hunters and trail-herd cowboys like himself, he decided, and a couple of soldiers from Fort Griffin.

  He tossed back the rye, then saw Mack in the far corner, waving in his direction.

  “Kale Jarrett, you ol’ leather pounder! Come on over here.”

  A sudden hush fell over the room when Kale picked up the bottle and headed for Mack’s table. He stepped gingerly, as if through a den of rattlers, avoiding stares and outstretched feet as he would have the deadly snakes. He set the bottle down and shook hands with his friend.

  “Long time no see.”

  “Same here, Jarrett,” Mack smiled. They sat down. “Where’ve you been keeping yourself?”

  “Just rode in from a drive up the Western. We took old Shanghai’s herd clear up to Wyoming.” Kale lifted the bottle, took a long pull, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “This here rye sure hits the spot after three months of gyp water and belly-wash.” Laughter and conversation commenced around them and Kale relaxed, hearing the crowd return to its own business.

  Mack leaned across the table toward his friend. “What you got up your sleeve for the winter?”

  “I was headed for a line camp on the Spinnin’ S, but Yates had this telegram waiting for me.” He patted his shirt pocket and took another swig of rye.

  “Yeah?”

  Kale nodded. “From my brother Carson, the ranger. Says our older brother Benjamin has turned up missing down in Summer Valley. Left his wife Ellie alone and in some kind of trouble.”

  “Why don’t you let Carson handle that and you throw in with me?”

  “No can do,” Kale answered. “Carson’s off on business in Mexico, and Ellie needs help fast. The telegram’s been sitting here going on two months already.”

  “The trouble’s likely settled, then,” Mack said. “Sure hate for you to miss out on this deal. My brother-in-law out in Californy has made me a proposition, and I need someone like you to come along.”

  Kale cocked his head sideways. “Someone like me?”

  “Now, don’t go gettin’ riled. I didn’t mean no offense. You know what I’m talking
about, someone with horse sense, but who ain’t afraid of the devil. Hell, Jarrett, nobody steps on your toes or rides your pet horse.”

  Kale Jarrett shook his head, grinning self-consciously. “Beats me how I come up with such a hell-raisin’ reputation. All I want out of life is to ride free and stay out of folks’ way.” His eyes rested on the barmaid, Molly Banks. “And maybe to toss a few saloon girls in the hay now and again. What’s this proposition?”

  “We each throw in what money we can, and—” Mack stopped in mid-sentence, eyeing two young soldiers who approached the table.

  Kale came instantly alert, tensed yet steady, like a cat about to spring. The blond-headed soldier’s voice pierced the air with its shrillness, stilling the other voices in the room once more.

  “So you’re the great Kale Jarrett?” he mocked.

  Kale looked squarely, silently into the young man’s eyes.

  “Answer me!” the soldier demanded.

  “That’s my name, son, but I got no business with you.” He turned toward Mack. “I’ve jawed too long. Time to hit the trail.”

  “You don’t look so fast to me,” the soldier jeered.

  Kale took a swig from the bottle and addressed his friend across the table. “See you—”

  Without warning, the soldier slapped the bottle from Kale’s hand. “Stand up and face me like a man.”

  The other soldier had held back. Now he placed a restraining hand on the blond boy’s shoulder. “Come on, Doric, that’s enough. Let’s get out of here.”

  The one called Doric shook himself free. “Take your hands off me. Can’t you see this here gunfighter needs to be taught some manners?”

  Kale glanced around the room. The crowd had divided and moved back out of the line of fire. It had happened before, yet it always surprised him. Every time someone recognized him or a friend called his name, there was some still-wet-behind-the-ears kid around who wanted to prove his speed at drawing a pistol from a holster.

  “Look at him,” the soldier jeered to the crowd. “Look at the great gunfighter!” He spat on the rough plank floor. “I say the only thing he’s good at is turnin’ tail and runnin’!”