Smoke River Family

She watched his hands on the reins. His skin was tanned, his fingers long and capable-looking.

Winifred was in awe of this man. And she liked sitting close to him.

She edged toward him a few inches and laid her head against his shoulder. No one would see them; they had not yet reached the road back to town.

Zane made a sound in his throat, pulled the horse to a stop and wound the reins around the brake handle. He turned to her, his gray eyes dark and smoky. He caught her mouth under his, moving his lips over hers slowly, purposefully. She wanted it to go on forever.

He deepened the kiss and she opened her lips. He tasted of lemons and something sweet, and all at once she wanted to weep.

She touched his arms, felt the muscles bunch and tremble. She ached for something more—something … closer.

“Zane,” she murmured against his mouth. “Touch me.”

Author Note

It wasn’t always easy to face the realities of life in the Old West—especially when it came to loss and pain. And when it came to falling in love again, matters could get extremely complicated.

I hope you will enjoy this story of heartache and hope.

Smoke River Family

Lynna Banning

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LYNNA BANNING combines her lifelong love of history and literature in a satisfying career as a writer. Born in Oregon, she graduated from Scripps College and embarked on a career as an editor and technical writer, and later as a high school English teacher. She enjoys hearing from her readers. You may write to her directly at PO Box 324, Felton, CA 95018, USA, email her at [e-mail] or visit Lynna’s website at lynnabanning.net.

For my agent, Pattie Steele-Perkins.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Author Note

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Smoke River, Oregon August 1871

The train chuffed to a stop and Winifred peered out at the town. A seedy-looking building with two large dust-covered windows faced the station; Smoke River Hotel was emblazoned across the front in foot-high dirty white printed lettering. Winifred groaned at the sight. The thought of two whole weeks in this rough Western town made her stomach tighten.

“End of the line, miss,” the conductor bawled.

She blew out a shaky breath and straightened her spine. Most definitely the end of the line. Where else on God’s earth would one see such an array of ramshackle structures leaning into the wind? Could Cissy really have been happy in such a place?

The passenger car door thumped open. “Ya might wanna catch yer breath a minute when you get to the station. Heat can get to ya, ya know.”

No, she did not know. She eyed the purple-hazed mountains in the distance. St. Louis was flat as a sadiron and the downtown area was extremely well kept. She had no idea Oregon would be so...well, scruffy.

She twitched the dirt from her forest green travel skirt and set one foot onto the iron step. The conductor, a short, squat butterball of a man, extended a callused hand.

“Watch yer step, now. Can’t have any passenger fallin’ on her—” He coughed and cleared his throat. Winifred noted his cheeks had turned red. She grasped his outstretched hand and stepped onto the ground.

Her head felt funny, as if her brain were stuffed with wet cotton. Her ears rang. She released the conductor’s hand and took a single step, then grabbed the man’s beefy hand again.

“Dizzy, are ya?” He steadied her arm and peered into her face. “Happens all the time. Folks don’t notice the climb on the train, but the el’vation rises up little by little and then, kapow! With this heat, feels like dynamite’s exploded inside yer body.”

It felt, she thought, like stage fright, only her hands didn’t shake.

“Ya wanna set a spell at the station house while I get somebody to tote yer portmantle?”

Portmanteau, she corrected automatically. “N-no, I am quite all right.” She took three unsteady steps and stopped.

“Hard to breathe, ain’t it? Kinda hot today.”

Hot? The air seemed to smother her every breath, as if she were trapped inside a bell jar. She struggled for oxygen, opening her mouth like a hungry goldfish. It didn’t help that her corset was laced too tight.

“Where d’ya want yer luggage toted, miss?”

“Dr. Dougherty’s residence.” She panted for a moment, fighting the whirly sensation in her brain. “Dr. Nathaniel Dougherty.” She swallowed hard to keep inside the bitter words she’d like to level at the man.

“Right. Top of the hill, past the new hospital, ’bout six blocks. Ya sure you’re all right?”

“I will be quite all right in a moment.” She could see the large white house at the end of the main street. It looked to be at least a mile away, and straight up a mountainside.

“Suit yerself, miss.” The conductor stepped past her.

“Charlie,” he yelled to a gray-bearded man lounging on the station house bench. “Carry this lady’s bag up to Doc Dougherty’s, will ya?”

The man nodded, hefted her travel bag onto his rounded shoulder and set off at a fast clip. She took a step in the same direction. Oh, my. Could she really walk that far with her head reeling like this?

She followed the man up the hill, trying not to totter even though she felt disturbingly unsteady. She would not arrive at Dr. Dougherty’s doorstep shaking and out of breath. She would need all her wits about her.

She plodded up past the new-looking two-story building. Samuel Graham Hospital, the sign said. That was where Cissy...

She swallowed hard.

The last fifty yards up the hill she slowed to conserve her energy and met the man—Charlie—tramping back down.

“I put yer portmantle on the doc’s porch,” he said jauntily. “Good luck to ya, miss. He’s home, so I’m bettin’ ye’ll need it.”

An odd juxtaposition, Winifred thought. Why would she need luck because Dr. Dougherty was at home? The doctor must be extremely bad-tempered.

The lawn swing on the wide front porch beckoned, but to reach it she had to climb five—no, six steps. She paused before the first step to catch her breath. Then she managed one-two-three-four—and... She halted at the fifth step, panting, then heaved herself up onto the sixth.

Such thin air was surely not good for a baby. Especially a newborn. She propelled herself up onto the porch and sank down in the swing.

* * *

Zane laid his fingertips on either side of the bridge of his nose and pressed hard. The headache throbbed behind his eyes and deep within both temples, and he shut his eyes against the relentless pain. It came upon him every afternoon ever since Celeste—he could not finish the thought. He gulped the half glass of whiskey at his elbow and bent his head. God in heaven, help me.

He refilled the glass and sat staring at his shaking hand as it replaced the stopper on the cut glass decanter. He could see the veins, the tendons of each finger, but it was as if the hand no longer belonged to him.

Never again would he pat a bereaved husband or wife on the shoulder and reassure them their grief would pass. He knew better now; grief did not pass. It would never pass.

He sipped from his glass and bowed his head again.

* * *

Winifred heaved herself out of the swing and stepped unsteadily to the glass-paneled front door. Hung to one side on a metal arm was an old ship’s bell with a clapper of tarnished copper. She winced at the sound it made, raucous as a hungry crow.

The door swung open and a young Oriental man looked at her inquiringly. She took a breath to steady her voice. “Is this Dr. Nathaniel Dougherty’s residence?”

The houseboy gave a quick nod. “Yes, missy. But too late for appointment.”

“I do not wish to make an appointment. I wish to speak to the doctor.”

“Come in, please, missy.” He gestured her inside and closed the door behind her. “You sick?”

“No, I...” Her breath ran out before she could finish explaining. “I...” Her vision went watery and black spots swam before her eyes. In the next instant the floor rushed up to meet her.

“Boss!” Wing Sam yelled. “Come quick! Lady has fainted.”

Zane thrust open his office door to see Sam on his knees beside a young woman. “Get my smelling salts,” he ordered.

He knelt and bent over the motionless form, slipped free half the buttons down the front of her dress, then searched for her corset lacings. Sam thrust the lavender salts into his grasp and he uncapped the bottle and waved it under her nose.

The woman twisted her head away and batted feebly at his hands as he was unlacing her stays. “Stop that!” Her voice was unsteady, but the intent was clear.

His hands stilled. “I’m sorry, miss, but you fainted in my hallway. I am trying to aid your breathing.”

She opened her eyes and his heart jolted against his ribs. My God, they were the same clear blue-green as Celeste’s. The unexpected rush of pain was like a knife blade.

He pressed two fingers on her wrist. Pulse fast but irregular. Heat exhaustion, probably. Wouldn’t be the first time a woman had succumbed to a too-snug corset. Why did young women persist in such foolishness?

“Help me sit her up, Sam.” Together they raised her shoulders. Her lids drifted closed and he gave her another whiff of smelling salts.

“Miss? Take a deep breath, now. It’s only the heat, I think,” he said to Sam. “Must be a flatlander.”

“Pretty lady,” Sam observed.

Zane hadn’t noticed. He watched the young woman slowly regain consciousness again. She jerked when she realized her front buttons were undone.

“I undid them,” he reminded her. “To loosen your corset.”

“You must be Dr. Dougherty,” she said slowly.

“That I am.”

“Dr. Nathaniel Dougherty?”

She was fully awake now. He watched those not green, not blue eyes focus on his face.

“Yes. And you are...?”

She drew in a long breath and expelled it, all the while scrabbling to close her front buttons. “Do you always undress your visitors?”

“As I said, I undid them to— Answer my question, please. Who are you? Are you ill?”

“I am not ill. At least I wasn’t when I arrived at the train station. I am Winifred Von Dannen. Celeste’s sister.”

Zane sat back on his heels and stared at her. Of course. Same pale skin and high cheekbones, the same determined chin, the same... He found he couldn’t look into those eyes.

Something ripped inside his chest. “I see.” Dammit, his voice shook. “I would welcome you to my home, Miss Von Dannen, but you are lying flat on my floor.”

“I must get up,” she said in a decisive tone. “This is most undignified.”

Sam took the vial of salts from his hand and Zane helped the woman sit fully upright. Then he clasped both her elbows and lifted her to her feet.

“Thank you,” she breathed. She gazed at him and waited.

“I—forgive me, you were not expected so soon.”

“Did you not receive my telegram from St. Louis?”

“Yes, I—” He had read it three times but he could not remember what it said.

“I left earlier than I had planned. I wanted to...” Her eyes looked shiny. “I wanted to see Celeste’s grave. And the baby. I came to see the baby.”

“Of course.” He had not been able to revisit his wife’s grave site. After watching them lower the coffin into that dark hole that day, he doubted he would ever be able to visit. The pain behind his eyes throbbed.

“This is most awkward,” she said. “If you do not mind, I need to sit down.”

He guided her to one of the straight-backed chairs in the wide hallway that served as his waiting room. “Sam, bring some tea.”

“No, please. I am quite all right now.”

He tipped up her chin and peered into her chalk-white face. “And some sandwiches,” he called. “You look half-famished, Miss Von Dannen.”

“Yes, I am, now that I think about it. I was in such a hurry to get here, you see.”

Zane nodded. He did not see. She had not come for the funeral; the wire he’d received had explained she was away on tour. Still, she must be anxious to see the baby.

Sam appeared with a tray of tea and a plate of tiny sandwiches, the kind he served when Zane skipped too many meals or spent too many long hours at the hospital.

“Come into the dining room, Miss Von Dannen.” Zane guided her to an upholstered chair at one end of the carved walnut table. She fell on the sandwiches at once and he poured the aromatic tea into the blue china cups. Sam had used the good china, he noted. It reminded him of when Celeste— His hand shook, and he clattered his own cup back onto the saucer.

She ate in silence, and he sipped his tea and watched her. Couldn’t help watching her, in fact. She was a bit older than Celeste, more settled somehow. Less excitable. Then he remembered that Winifred Von Dannen was a professor of music in St. Louis, at the same academy where Celeste had studied. Of course, someone of her stature would not be young, at least not as young as his wife had been. In fact, Winifred Von Dannen was well-known in the East. A pianist, like Celeste.

“I was more hungry than I thought,” she said. She replaced her cup on the blue-flowered saucer and looked up, straight into his eyes. The ripping inside his chest tore at him. She looked so much like Celeste.

“Now,” she said. “May I see the baby?”

Chapter Two

The doctor paused outside one doorway in the spacious upstairs hall, laid one hand on the brass knob and hesitated. Winifred waited. Did he have some intimation of why she was really here?

“I think she is asleep,” he said softly. “At least for the moment.”

“Oh?” Winifred knew absolutely nothing about babies.

“She rarely sleeps through the night,” the doctor explained.

Ah. That would explain the dark circles beneath his tired gray eyes. He looked as if he had not slept in weeks. Months, perhaps. But of course there was his grief, too.

For a moment her throat grew tight. She had been in Europe when she had heard the news of her sister’s death. She had cried and cried for weeks. But a man losing his wife...she could scarcely imagine such anguish. Even for a man she detested.

The doctor quietly opened the door and preceded her into a warm, comfortable room with a large bed and a paper-strewn desk under the window. Oh! This must be his bedroom.

Next to the quilt-covered bed stood a white wicker bassinet on wheels. He gestured toward it. “She sleeps in here so I can hear her when she cries at night,” he said. “She likes to be rocked.”

Holding her breath, Winifred tiptoed forward. A tiny face peeked out from the pink flannel blanket, her eyes wide open. Blue-green, just like her own and Cissy’s. Winifred’s heart did something odd, and a clenching feeling under her breastbone left her short of breath.

“She’s so beautiful,” she murmured. Tears stung her eyes.

“Yes.” He smoothed a long, slim forefinger against the pink-and-white skin of the baby’s cheek. “Her name is Rosemarie.”

“Rosemarie,” she breathed. After their mother.

“Rosemarie... Winifred,” he added after a slight hesitation.

Winifred’s tears spilled over. “Cissy named her after me? Really?”

“Of course,” the doctor said. “I would not lie when it comes to my daughter. It was Celeste’s last wish.”

Oh, God. Oh, Cissy. Cissy. For a moment she could not speak.

“Would you like to hold your niece?” He reached into the bassinet, lifted out the pink bundle and offered the baby to her.

“Oh, no. I mean, yes, I would. But—but I really don’t know how to—I mean, I know very little about handling babies.”

The doctor gave her a long look, then laid Rosemarie into her arms. “You can learn.”

Winifred looked down into the blue-green eyes. “Can she really see me?”

“Probably not, at least not clearly. But if you talk to her, she will hear your voice.”

“Oh.” How did one talk to a baby? All at once she felt awkward and out of place and ignorant of the most basic things of life. All she knew about was music and teaching.

“Go on,” he urged in a quiet voice. “Try it.”

Winifred inhaled and exhaled twice, working up her courage. She felt as fluttery as on the opening night of a concert, excited and terrified and thrilled at the same time.

“H-hello, Rosemarie. My, you are so beautiful. You look like Cissy, did you know that?”

“Cissy?” the doctor murmured.

“Celeste. I call—called her Cissy. She called me Freddie.”

“That I would never have guessed. She always referred to you as Winifred.”

A tiny fist waved toward Winifred’s hand. She extended her forefinger and the baby latched onto it. “Oh, just look,” she whispered.

“She likes fingers,” the doctor said, a hint of a smile in his voice. “Thumbs, especially.”

Winifred could not speak. The small hand, the knuckles wrinkled and rosy, the tiny fingernails so perfect, kept its grip on Winifred’s finger. Her senses swirled again; she must still be dizzy from the altitude.

“Shall I take her?” the doctor asked.

“No, I— Could we wait until she releases my finger?”

He laughed softly and nodded, watching her.

“Rosemarie,” she breathed. “I am your aunt Fred—your aunt Winifred. And you are my only, most precious, most beautiful niece.”

The little mouth opened and a soft cry came out.

“She’s hungry,” the doctor said. He walked to the door and opened it. “Sam?”

In three heartbeats, the houseboy appeared, a glass bottle of milk in one hand and a towel in the other. Expertly he lifted the baby out of Winifred’s arms and cradled her in his own. Then he began walking up and down in front of the curtained window, crooning something in a strange language while Rosemarie gulped milk through the rubber nipple.

“Does he—Sam—have children of his own?” Winifred asked quietly.

“Sam? Sam is not married. Not many Chinese women are admitted into this country. And an American woman would not be acceptable. The Chinese are proud that way, they wish to preserve their heritage.”

Winifred’s eyes rested on the Chinese man’s slim form. “How sad that must be.”

The doctor did not answer. Instead, he gestured her into the hallway and quietly closed the door. “The guest bedroom is next door. Sam has already brought up your travel case.”

He opened another door into an airy room with pretty yellow curtains and a crocheted yellow coverlet on the bed.

“Would you like to rest awhile? Sam will call you when supper is ready.”

“Yes, I suppose I should. I feel quite shaky after my travels.” After meeting Rosemarie, she amended. That had been the biggest shock of her life. Well, perhaps the second biggest. The biggest surprise had been when Cissy had eloped with Dr. Nathaniel Dougherty and ruined everything.

* * *

That evening, Winifred entered the dining room determined to discuss her plan with Dr. Dougherty. Instead, she found herself alone at the huge walnut table. Sam had tapped on her bedroom door twenty minutes earlier to announce supper, and she had roused herself from an exhausted sleep, rebraided her hair and donned her travel skirt and a fresh shirtwaist. As she descended the staircase she rehearsed what she had come to say.

She acknowledged a distinct nervous flutter in the pit of her stomach. She also admitted she felt torn between dislike and an unexpected attraction to the tall, square-jawed physician. She resented the man. And feared him. Would he stand in her way when she confessed her purpose?

Sam stepped into the dining room. “Missy like glass of wine?”

“Not now, thank you. I will wait for the doctor.”

“Doctor not come,” Sam replied.

“Oh? Why not?”

“Go to hospital. Wife of sheriff having twins.” He grinned at her, revealing straight white teeth and an unexpected dimple in one cheek.

Disappointment swept over her. She had worked up her courage to speak with him; now the matter would have to wait.

“You like fish, missy? Catch fresh from river and cook quick.” Sam waited, his hands folded together at the waist of his blue knee-length tunic. “Or I cook chicken, very nice fat hen.”

Winifred nodded. “Chicken, please.” She wasn’t the least bit hungry. In fact, her head still ached, but she knew she must eat to keep up her resolve. She could not argue her case on an empty stomach.

“I go cook chicken.” The houseboy bobbed his head and turned away.

“Sam, wait. When do you expect the doctor?”

“Not know. Sometimes baby take long time.”

“What about Rosemarie?”

“Sam take good care of baby. Feed, rock, change and more feed.” He grinned again. “I good mother.”

Winifred bit her lip. No one but a real mother was a good mother, she thought. She and Cissy had known that from the time her sister was barely out of diapers. That was why—never mind. Her head hurt too much to think about it now.

After her meal of succulent chicken breast and wonderfully flavored green peas and rice, she retired to her room, listening for the doctor’s step in the hallway. Sam brought up hot tea for her headache, and the last thing she remembered before falling asleep was his queer crooning from the next room as he walked up and down with the baby.

The next morning when she came down for breakfast, the doctor was already seated at the table.

“Good morning,” she offered. She slid onto her chair, then glanced at the man sitting opposite her. His face was chalk-white with fatigue. Dark stubble masked the lower part of his chin and dark circles shadowed the skin beneath his eyes. His once-white shirt was rumpled and open at the neck, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

He gazed at her with unfocused gray eyes as Sam bustled in with a pot of coffee. The doctor stirred three spoons of sugar into his cup while the houseboy poured Winifred’s cup full. She lifted the brew to her lips. Now. I must speak to him now.

But he looked so completely spent she hesitated. He was in no state to hear her out.

Sam tapped the doctor’s shoulder. “Boss want eggs now?”

He dropped his head into a loose-necked nod.

“Missy?”

Winifred stared at the man across the table from her. It was obvious he was only half-awake.

“Missy, you like eggs?”

“What? Oh, yes, thank you.” She turned toward the Chinese man for an instant, then swung her gaze back to the doctor. His head was tipped back against the high ladder-back chair, his eyes closed, his breathing slow and even. Good Lord, the man was sound asleep!