Sweet Autumn Surrender Read online

  Settling herself beneath the oak tree, she thought back on her year as Benjamin’s wife. It was the happiest year she had ever known.

  “You knew that, Benjamin. You knew I loved you.” Her words were whispered, a plea singing on the breeze like the wistful drone of a honeybee.

  He had known it, she assured herself. He must have known it. They had been happy, both of them…happy and content. No one had ever been as good to her as Benjamin Jarrett. No one. Not even Lavender. No one ever would be, except…

  But this was different.

  She glanced toward the town road. Somehow this was different. Very, very different. She had sensed that last night at this very spot when Kale held her in his arms and wept for his brother.

  The difference had swept through her like a wildfire across the prairie. Benjamin had held her, of course. She had felt safe and secure in his arms.

  But she hadn’t felt herself aflame. Never had she felt herself so consumed as when in Kale’s embrace, engulfed by a flame so intense she knew without questioning exactly what it was.

  And what it was was wrong.

  Not because she was physically attracted to Benjamin’s brother. Now that Benjamin was gone, he would want her taken care of.

  Not because her emotions for Kale already ran deeper—stronger—than those she felt for Benjamin. She had loved Benjamin Jarrett with all her heart. No one could deny that.

  Not even because her feelings for Kale were different. She closed her eyes and inhaled the comforting aroma of the sweet earth, the pungent muskiness of approaching autumn. Yes, the feelings evoked by Kale Jarrett were different from anything she had ever imagined a person could feel.

  Different—and wrong.

  Not because he was Benjamin’s brother. Not because a bare two months had elapsed since her husband’s passing. Benjamin would be the first to understand that.

  Wrong because he was Kale Jarrett. Kale Jarrett—wanderer, gunfighter, everything she abhorred, everything she feared.

  But the heat of his arms around her would not subside. The tingle of his voice in her mind would not still. The fire in his eyes still singed her spine as it had this morning when he held her gaze across the table, asking, “What do you think, Ellie?”

  What do you think? Should he settle down, find a good woman? She clasped her head in her hands. What she thought was her own business. What she thought was wrong.

  What she thought would never be known to another person, neither in this life nor in the next.

  It wasn’t until she was elbow deep in pie dough that the implications of Kale’s visit to Summer Valley hit her full force. His words of the night before rang through her senses: the only females I’ve known lately were…far from ladies…dancehall girls…

  What would he think now, after he learned where she grew up?

  And he would learn, she had no doubt about it. He would learn about Lavender—dear Lavender and the Lady Bug Emporium.

  What would he think? What would he believe?

  What did it matter? she retorted. Slamming the pie dough to the floured board, she slapped the rolling pin against it, then repaired the rips with trembling fingers.

  What would he do, once he learned the facts? Would he leave? Leave her to face the Raineys? To face losing this place?

  Would he leave her alone?

  Alone, to face her own loneliness?

  Chapter Four

  Kale Jarrett rode into Summer Valley with the noontime sun warming his shoulders. He surveyed the short, wagon-rutted main street: a livery stable and blacksmith shop made up the first block, the Crazy Horse Saloon and the Bon Ton Cafe & General Store the second. Two buildings stood at the far end of the street—the San Sabá Hotel, and a one-story building of native stone which sported a new sign: Summer Valley Mercantile Bank.

  Nudging his mount toward the livery stable, Kale found his attention drawn to the large pink house high on the hill beyond the bank. Something familiar tugged at his memory. He had seen that house before…somewhere…recently.

  Then he laughed. Of course he had seen it before—the day he arrived, as a matter of fact. This was the front of the house he had seen from the back when skirting Summer Valley on his way to Benjamin’s ranch.

  He left the bay at the livery and walked to the hotel, where the hostler had said he would find the telegraph office. The street was deserted except for a lone buckboard taking on supplies in front of the general store.

  Dinnertime, he recalled, reading the back-in-an-hour-or-so sign hanging in the window of the telegraph office. He scanned the street from north to south, finally settling on the Bon Ton Cafe as the most promising place in town to find folks at this hour.

  He stepped onto the boardwalk and tipped his hat to a lady who sat patiently on the seat of the wagon being loaded in front of the general store. Ellie’s list rustled in his pocket.

  A bell jangled when Kale entered the Bon Ton. He closed the door behind him and removed his hat. The savory aroma of baking and frying food mingled and wafted through the room from the kitchen beyond.

  “Be with you in a minute,” a friendly voice called above the clack and clatter of dishes.

  Kale took a seat near the kitchen, at the end of one of two long tables, leaving a space between himself and the other three men at the table. Their animated conversation hushed when he passed, then resumed when he nodded a silent greeting.

  He sat with his back to the wall, a habit formed through years of living in a land where trouble could often be avoided if a man saw it coming. He had a good view of the room and of anyone who entered the front door, but gingham curtains at the windows blocked his view of the street.

  “What can I do for you?” A robust lady bustled into the room, addressing Kale while she placed steaming dishes of peach cobbler in front of the other men.

  “Whatever you’re serving for dinner, ma’am,” he ordered, then proceeded to eat the heaping plate of steak and potatoes she brought him, pondering how best to approach Armando Costello, thinking also of the peach cobbler. He hoped the lady saved enough for him.

  When the three men left, the proprietress returned to clear the table. Suddenly, in the midst of cutting a bite of steak, he felt her eyes on him.

  He glanced up to catch her studying him, one hand perched on an ample hip. “You’re a Jarrett,” she said at last. “Cousin or brother to Benjamin. Can’t hide that fact.”

  “I’m not trying to, ma’am.” He introduced himself.

  “Zofie Wiginton,” she returned, offering her hand. “Mighty glad to make your acquaintance. Sorry about your brother.”

  While she was speaking, a wiry man on the far side of forty came through the arched opening between the general store and the cafe. Crossing to the table, he scrutinized Kale much the same way Zofie Wiginton had. At her queries as to whether he recognized their customer, the man considered the situation; then his eyes brightened. Introducing himself as Otto Wiginton, Zofie’s husband, he offered his condolences. “Pity about your brother. Benjamin was a fine man.”

  “You must be here to see after his affairs,” Zofie said.

  “Something like that,” Kale admitted.

  “This thing sort of took us by surprise,” Otto told him. “We’re not as lawless out here as city folks figure. Murder is rare. And intolerable.”

  “’Specially the murder of a good man like Benjamin Jarrett. He never did nobody no harm,” Zofie added.

  “I’m not city folk,” Kale said, “and murder is intolerable to me, too. Is there any…ah, speculation? What’re folks saying about it?”

  “That it’s a cryin’ shame,” Zofie said.

  “Way my sister-in-law figures it,” Kale explained, “the killers are after Plum Creek.” He finished off his last bite of steak. “That doesn’t quite add up for me. Do you know any other reason someone would have had to take my brother’s life?”

  Both Wigintons looked thoughtful.

  “Or to harass his widow?” he questioned.
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  “What do you mean, harass?” Otto inquired.

  Zofie pierced Kale with a stern look. “Don’t you go judgin’ that girl by her past. Not many folks can stand up to such criticism. And she don’t deserve it.”

  Kale fidgeted, uncertain of what he was being accused. “I’m in no position to judge anyone, ma’am. All I’m after is my brother’s killers.”

  This seemed to satisfy Zofie, so he continued. “I’m in town to see a man named Costello—Armando Costello. My sister-in-law thinks he might be able to shed some light on the situation.”

  “Harrumph!” Zofie scoffed. “The only thing that man can shed light on is a poker table.”

  Otto agreed. “That gambler is as useless a man as ever I’ve run acrost. Why, I’ll bet he ain’t never done an honest day’s work in his life. Sitting there playing cards day and night.”

  Kale studied Otto Wiginton’s work-worn features and simple dress. If Costello fit the bill of other frontier gamblers he’d met—fancy of dress and simple of mind—he’d be an affront to such honesty.

  “Where did Costello come from?” he asked.

  “New Orleans, he claims,” Otto answered. “Said he was headed for San Francisco, but he’s been here six months and he ain’t got the passage together yet.”

  Kale had been cussing his own ill feelings toward Costello, a man he’d never met, yet judged by his occupation; now he found that others who’d met Costello held the same view. This was a country where the work ethic was of necessity strongly embedded. One had to work to survive. And a man who shunned work was invariably looked upon with suspicion.

  He wondered what the Wigintons would think of him were they to discover how he’d spent his life drifting from job to job. It was different, of course. He had done hard physical labor for everything he ever earned. Yet solid citizens like the Wigintons might consider him shiftless, too. Somehow he hoped they never found out, or leastways, not until after he’d had a chance to prove himself.

  “I can’t figure Benjamin and Costello being friends in the first place,” Kale confided.

  Zofie grimaced. “You can blame me for that. I hope he hasn’t been too big a pest about that plat.”

  Kale frowned, recalling the leather plat above Ellie’s mantel. “The one Ellie…ah, my sister-in-law has?”

  “That’s the one. My brother—Johnnie, his name was—won it in a faro game down in San Antone,” Zofie explained. Beginning her tale, she cleared the table, taking Kale’s cleaned plate to the kitchen, calling over her shoulder as she went.

  “It’s supposed to show the location of that mine Jim Bowie found back before Texas’s war with Mexico. When Johnnie went off to fight in the War Between the States, he tore the plat in half. He took half with him and left half with me, figuring if either piece got stolen, the thief couldn’t find the mine without the other piece.”

  Kale watched as Zofie approached the table carrying a heaping bowl of cobbler. “Would anyone want to steal it?” he asked. The idea sounded ludicrous; the cobbler tasted every bit as good as he had imagined it would.

  “Johnnie thought so. The man he won it off of had several plats—seems they had been given to his grandfather by the Mexican government for service of some sort. He told my brother hair-raising tales about that plat. Said evil seemed to come to ever’body who touched it, that he was tired of struggling against the mess of bad luck it brought him.”

  Zofie refilled Kale’s cup from a soot-blackened coffee pot. “But to get back to the story, Johnnie’d had enough of looking for that mine and not finding it, so after the war he brought me his half the plat and headed for California. He’s out there still, fiddlin’ around in them gold fields.”

  “How did Benjamin get hold of it?” Kale asked.

  “Zofie gave it to him, both halves.” Otto favored his wife with a knowing grin. “Might say she’s superstitious.”

  “Superstitious about the stories, ma’am?” Kale asked.

  Zofie shrugged. “It’s not so much superstition, more like doubt. Far as I can see, it’s a waste of time to go out digging for buried treasure.”

  “Is it authentic?” Kale asked. “The plat?”

  “You bet your boots it is,” Otto responded. “Only that don’t mean there’s a goldmine underneath your brother’s house. According to them Spaniards, every mesquite tree with a hole in it was stuffed full of silver or gold.”

  “I never figured Benjamin for the kind to be taken in by such things,” Kale said.

  “Mostly he was interested in its history,” Zofie assured him. “Other folks don’t care about history…it’s the riches they want.”

  Kale considered all he’d heard. He’d come to town for information, and he’d got an earful, but what did it mean? What did any of this have to do with Benjamin’s killing? Very little, he supposed.

  “How does Armando Costello fit in?”

  “That woman up there on the hill, Lavender Sealy, found out I’d given the plat to Benjamin,” Zofie said. “She told Costello—introduced the two, if I’m not mistaken.”

  Kale paid for his meal and picked up his hat from the table beside him. “Thanks for the dinner, ma’am. I’d best be going. Ell…ah, she’s expecting me home before sundown, and I have a passel of things left to do. Where would I find this Costello character? Over at the Crazy Horse?”

  Zofie and Otto exchanged glances.

  “No,” Otto said. “Likely he’ll be up on the hill at the Lady Bug.” He and Zofie followed Kale to the boardwalk.

  “You let us know if there’s anything we can do,” Zofie offered.

  “Benjamin was a fine man,” Otto claimed. “But regardless, we can’t have acts of violence like this going on now that folks are beginning to move in and make Summer Valley their home. We need a safe place where a man can raise a family.”

  A safe place where a man could raise a family…Kale glanced up and down the simple, rutted street. A family? Before yesterday he’d never even considered the possibility.

  Leaving Ellie’s list with Otto, Kale retrieved his horse from the livery and rode the half mile up the hill to the pink frame house which stood like a watchtower atop the highest promontory for miles around. The closer he got to it, the more familiar the place appeared.

  Drawing rein, he slid to the ground, thoughtful. He looped the reins…

  The house in the photograph, that’s what it looked like. The Lady Bug Pleasure Emporium resembled in every detail the house in Ellie’s photograph.

  His mind struggled to assimilate this new idea into something coherent, but to no avail. Finally, he slapped his chaps with the brim of his hat and stomped up the steps of the garish pleasure palace.

  Lots of houses looked alike, he argued. What did that prove?

  Inside the rose-etched front door, Kale was immediately accosted by a large woman garbed in purple from head to toe—with noticeable exceptions of bare flesh here and there. She reeked of perfume, a minty-sweet fragrance he didn’t recognize.

  “Well, well, cowboy. I thought the trail herds were over till next spring.”

  He had but time to observe, these houses are all alike, and the floozies inside them, before she began unbuckling his gun belt, which she slung over a coatrack in a corner of the foyer.

  “Now, what can we do for you? Or should I ask who?” She drew him through an arched doorway into about the gaudiest parlor he’d ever set eyes on. “My name’s Lavender. I own this place.”

  “Costello,” he managed. “I came to see a gambler by the name of Armando Costello.”

  “Why, sure, honey. First things first.” Leading Kale back across the hallway, she continued, “Only don’t you be losing all your money before you sample my wares. Name your favorite flower, and I’ll plant her beside you for luck.”

  Kale cleared his throat. “Thanks, no, this is a personal matter.” Then in case she put up a fuss, he added, “I won’t take much of his time.”

  The room was filled with gaming tables, green baize-cove
red and fancy. Business must be good, he reflected, with a place of this caliber in the middle of nowhere.

  “Armando, this cowboy wants a word with you. Personal, he says.”

  Kale studied the gambler, who was flanked by two other men at the playing table. The floozies weren’t all that ran true to form in the Lady Bug Pleasure Emporium, he saw. Armando Costello looked every bit as sleazy as his profession demanded: slicked-down black hair, sharp features which added a touch of the sinister to his hooded black eyes. Although women likely would find him handsome, his dingy white shirt and faded brocade vest gave him the appearance of a man who might be entertaining a run of bad luck.

  Kale extended his hand. “Kale Jarrett.”

  Beside him he felt Lavender’s intake of breath.

  “Benjamin’s brother,” she mused. “I should have noticed the resemblance. So you finally saw fit to come to Ellie…ah, to Miz Jarrett’s aid.”

  Kale kept his eyes and his attention trained on the gambler. The opinion of the proprietress of the Lady Bug meant nothing to him—nor to Ellie.

  Costello dismissed his two companions and Lavender with a nod, then rose and extended a hand. His fingernails were the cleanest thing about him, Kale observed.

  “Sit down,” Costello invited. “I’ll tell you what I know about your brother. A drink?”

  It turned out Armando Costello couldn’t add much to what Ellie had already related. “Last time I saw him was the day before his disappearance. He came into town to send some wires.”

  “Who to?”

  Costello shrugged his shoulders, dismissing the question. “My men scoured the countryside for any clue as to what became of him. To no avail, I’m afraid.”

  “Who besides the Raineys would want Benjamin out of the way?”

  “No one,” Costello answered firmly, adding, “Aren’t the Raineys and their hired killers enough?”

  “Perhaps.” Kale thought of the bloody boot Ellie had found by the woodpile. That boot had probably been delivered about the time Holt Rainey was issuing his eviction notice. Rainey’s arrival could have been timed to draw Ellie’s attention away from the woodpile, but somehow Kale had trouble buying that. The two didn’t go together. Both were lowdown and mean, all right, but one was straightforward, while the other was underhanded, sneaky.