Читать книгу Hill Country Christmas - Laurie Kingery - Страница 9

Reverend Calhoun’s fondness for sweet tea had left Delia with only an inch or two of sugar in the bottom of the rose-sprigged china sugar bowl, she discovered when she sat down to drink her coffee.

Fortunately, the hens had provided eggs she could bring into town to sell at the general store, then buy sugar with some of the money Mr. Dean paid her, and have a few coins to put aside for another day. But what was she going to do when she needed a sizable sum? If the windmill broke and she had to have it repaired, for example? And she had assumed it might take some time for the town to find a new pastor. If the perfect candidate was available, Llano Crossing’s time without a preacher would be brief—leaving Delia without a home. She would have to be able to pay rent somewhere.

Her grandpa had never been a great one for saving, believing that the Lord would meet his needs, even if he gave his meager salary to any down-on-his-luck tramp who showed up at the door. The Lord had always come through, often in the guise of one of the church members who brought them a side of beef or a bushel of peaches. But she couldn’t count on that to continue, now that her grandpa had gone on to his heavenly reward.

The Lord helps those who help themselves, she reminded herself. She’d better look into getting a job while she was in town, so when the time came she could afford to put another roof over her head, even if it was just a room at Mrs. Mannheim’s boardinghouse. Perhaps Mr. Dean could use another clerk at the general store, or Mrs. Jackson might need an assistant cook at the hotel. If worst came to worst, she could offer to clean and cook for Mrs. Mannheim in exchange for her room and board, though she had heard the German widow was an exacting woman who preferred to do everything herself. Or she could write to Reverend Calhoun and have him check into employment opportunities in Mason, as he’d offered during his stay.

She hoped, however, that she wouldn’t have to leave Llano Crossing. She’d been living here ever since she was eleven, when her father had brought her here as his wife was dying.

Taking a minute to gaze at herself in the cracked mirror, which hung in her room, she made sure the bow of the black bonnet had even loops and her thick brown curly hair was still enclosed in a neat knot on the back of her neck. Black washed out her complexion, making her even paler than she was, but the walk to town ought to bring a little color to her cheeks. In the meantime, she pinched them then picked up her egg basket and went out the door.

Intent on her thoughts, eyes on the path before her, she almost opened the rusted gate into the horse standing in the shade of the oak tree at the roadside.

“Oh! I didn’t know anyone was there!” she said, her hand falling from the gate as she took a step back.

It was the stranger she’d seen yesterday, the one who’d asked directions into town.

He touched the brim of his hat once again. “Yes, ma’am, you did seem like your mind was elsewhere. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You…you didn’t,” she lied, though she knew it was plain as punch he had. He had changed since yesterday; if not for the fact that he was riding the same horse, she might not have recognized him. He had the same wintry gray-blue eyes, but he’d obviously used his evening at the hotel to bathe and shave and have his clothes laundered—or perhaps they were new ones, bought from the mercantile.

Delia was afraid she was staring.

“Can I…can I help you?” She was used to unknown people showing up at her grandpa’s door, looking for a handout, or perhaps just spiritual advice, but she didn’t want to tell this wolfish stranger she was alone here. “I’m afraid the reverend isn’t available right now….”

“I know. Are you Miss Delia Keller?”

She nodded, feeling her heart pounding in her ears. How had he known her name? What did he want?

“I heard about your grandpa’s unfortunate passing when I got to town,” the stranger said. “I reckon that was his funeral you were leaving yesterday. Had I known who you were, Miss Keller, I would have stopped to talk to you yesterday, not ridden on past.” His voice was deep, like the bottom of a slowly flowing Texas river.

Delia blinked. “Who…who are you?”

The man dismounted before he spoke and dropped the reins to the ground. The buckskin seemed used to this action and merely dropped his head to crop at the grass that grew lushly in the shade by the fence.

As the man turned back to her, she got a true measure of his height. Somehow he was even taller than he had seemed on horseback. He would have easily overtopped her grandpa, who had become stooped in his old age, and was probably taller than her father, whom she hadn’t seen since the top of her head reached only to his elbow. The stranger would probably have had to duck to enter her house—not that she was even thinking of inviting him in!

He seemed to sense her qualms, for he held his ground and removed his broad-brimmed hat, revealing a headful of raven-dark hair. “Miss Keller, my name’s Tucker—Jude Tucker—and the reason I’m here is that your father wanted me to come by and see you.”

She could hardly believe her ears, and her eagerness had her rushing forward as fast as she had been backing up. “My father? You know my father? Is he coming? When will he be here? Why didn’t he come with you? Oh, I knew he’d be back someday!”

A cloud seemed to pass over Tucker’s face, and he put out a hand, not to touch her but to stop the flow of her words.

“He…he’s not coming, Miss Keller. I’m sorry, I should have made that clear right off. I-I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you he’s dead.”

Delia felt the earth shift beneath her feet as if she had been whirled around a dozen times and let loose. She would have fallen if the stranger hadn’t put out a hand just then to steady her.

“Easy there,” Jude Tucker murmured, his touch gentle. “You’re white as bleached bones, Miss Keller. Why don’t we step up onto your porch and sit down on those chairs? I’ve given you a shock, ma’am, but I reckon you’ll be wanting to hear the rest once you’ve had a few moments to think.”

She didn’t remember giving permission, but with his hand on her elbow, he guided her up the three steps and settled her into the rocker that had been her grandpa’s favorite place to while away an evening. He watched as she untied her black bonnet and set it on the small table between them.

“Is there a pump around back? Could I fetch you a cup of water?” Tucker asked.

His voice seemed to come from a long way off, and Delia had to force herself to make sense of his words before she could answer him. “A pump? Water? No…That is, yes, there’s a pump, but no, I don’t want any….”

Then, as the result of years of modeling herself after her grandpa, who’d never done the least thing without thinking of other people first, she added, “Oh, but feel free to help yourself, if you’re thirsty. There’s a cup hanging by a string from the pump.”

He looked surprised. “It’s mighty nice of you to be askin’ at such a time, ma’am. Perhaps I’ll do that, after I’ve told you about why your father sent me to see you.”

“What…what happened to my father?” she said, swallowing past a lump in her throat, her eyes burning as she struggled to focus on the stranger.

Jude Tucker looked down at the hat he held between his long, tanned fingers. “He died mining silver out in Nevada, Miss Keller,” he said.

When she said nothing, merely waited, he looked up at her, then went on.

“You probably know they struck silver out there in ’59, long before he got there, but your father discovered a new mother lode nearby. I’d been helping him mine it. He’d been lucky—luckier than anyone’s been since the Comstock Lode. He’d been saying he was going to head back to Texas, but before he could there was a mine collapse. I’d gone to town for supplies with the wagon, and he’d gotten pinned under a couple of big beams for several hours. He…”

Tucker paused, then seemed to think better of what he was going to say. His eyes shifted toward the road, but Delia could tell he wasn’t really seeing anything. He was remembering.

“It was clear he was in a bad way when I got there. I pulled the beams off him. I was all for trying to get him to the doctor, but he wouldn’t go. He told me he knew he was dying. There probably wasn’t anything the sawbones could’ve done anyway, and the ride would have killed him. He told me just to let him lie there so he could use the moments he had left to tell me where to find you, Miss Keller. He was gone just a few minutes after that.”

Delia felt a hot knife of regret stab her. If only her father hadn’t been so restless—if only he hadn’t felt that need to go seek his fortune. He’d be alive today, and she wouldn’t have had to grow up without a father. Mrs. Calhoun had been unknowingly right when she’d quoted that verse from the Bible. The love of money had certainly been the root of evil for Will Keller.

“And now you have,” she said, remembering her manners. “It was good of you to come so far, Mr. Tucker, to tell me about my father’s death. I…I don’t have any way to repay you for your trouble.”

Something shifted in the depths of those steely eyes. “You’re welcome, but I…didn’t come all this way just to inform you of his death. I came to bring you something. You’re his only living heir, after all.”

“Heir?” Once again, it was as if he was speaking a foreign language.

His lips curved upward slightly. “Well, I suppose heiress would be the proper word, ma’am. In my saddlebags I have a certificate from the bank in Carson City that you can have transferred to your bank here in town.”

“Certificate? What do you mean?”

“Your father had already mined quite a lode of silver before anyone—anyone besides me, that is—got wind that he’d struck such a big vein. He converted it to cash and put that in the bank. He died a rich man, Miss Keller. And now all his wealth is yours.”

He’d been afraid that the news might cause her to faint for real this time. Jude watched, ready to catch her, as the heavy dark lashes flew up and surprise siphoned the blood once more from her cheeks, but Delia Keller remained upright.

A soft gasp escaped her lips. “Rich? My father? And he left it all to me?”

Her incredulity at being the sole beneficiary surprised him in turn. “You were his only child, Miss Keller. Who else should he leave it to?”

“I…I don’t know,” she stammered in bewilderment. “As long as he’d been gone from here, I thought it possible that he might…well, have married again. Maybe even started a new family somewhere.”

Jude wished his friend were alive again, if only for a moment, so he could upbraid him for deserting his responsibility to his only child and making this beautiful woman doubt her importance to her father. Compared to that, even the thousands of dollars Will Keller had left her were fool’s gold.

“Or he could have left it to you, his partner.” She’d been looking down at her lap, but now he found those green eyes trained right on him.

Jude found himself unable to meet her frank regard. “I…I wasn’t his partner,” he explained. “I just worked for him. He found the silver all by himself. He gave me plenty for traveling expenses, Miss Keller. That was enough.”

“You could have kept the certificate and claimed you couldn’t find me. No one would have been the wiser.”

Those eyes seemed to bore right through him, straight to his soul.

“No, I couldn’t have,” he said, wondering what Delia Keller looked like clothed in some color other than black. Green perhaps, to match her eyes. Now, that would be a picture. “Besides, what would I do with so much money? I go where the wind takes me.”

“You’re a drifter?”

It was phrased as a question, but it wasn’t one. Jude knew she had sized him up when he’d asked for directions yesterday—or if she hadn’t, the sour-faced woman next to her had done it for her.

“You don’t want to settle down somewhere, Mr. Tucker? Put down roots, make a home?”

He had to quell her inquiries before he ended up saying more than he meant to. Jude gave her a direct look, a look that was a little too bold, a look that said she didn’t know him nearly well enough to be asking such a personal thing.

“The question is, what are you going to do with it, Miss Keller? That’s what you need to be thinking of.”

He saw the flush sweep up her neck and into her cheeks and knew she’d gotten the message he intended.

“Oh! I…I suppose you’re right….” A parade of emotions played across her face as he watched, from astonishment to thoughtfulness to amusement.

“Well, this does change things, doesn’t it? I was on the way to town to sell my eggs so I’d have enough to buy sugar, and I thought while I was there I’d see about getting a job. I thought I’d better start saving some money for when the new preacher arrived and I had to find a new place to live.”

He laughed. “You won’t have to do that now, Miss Keller.”

She smiled, a smile of dawning confidence. “No, I won’t, will I? I…I can buy a house if I want to, can’t I?”

He nodded, amused. She really had no idea, just yet, of just how wealthy she was. “Miss Keller, with the wealth represented by that certificate, there, you can have a house built to your exact specifications. It could be the biggest house in Llano Crossing, if you wanted. Or you could move anywhere you like.”

“I—I see,” she breathed. “Well! That does give me something to think about, doesn’t it?”

A gleam flashed across those clear green eyes. Delia Keller looked as if she’d thought of something very satisfying. Jude wondered for a moment what it was.

“What do you suggest I do first, Mr. Tucker?” she asked.

“You said you were going to town. You should still go, and right away. Get that certificate into the bank safe before you tell anyone—and I mean anyone—about it.”

She looked startled at his sudden grimness.

“Mr. Tucker, this is a small town, full of good people, not swindlers and cardsharps. It’s not as if someone would snatch it out of my hand,” she protested.

“You asked my opinion, Miss Keller,” he reminded her. “All I’m saying is, go to the bank first, before you speak to anyone about what I’ve told you. After that, you can sit up on the roof of the town hall and call out the news from there, if you’ve a mind to.”

Jude could see his blunt words had splashed cold water on her bubbling excitement, which was as he’d intended. A little caution would serve her well.

“Very well. I’m sure it’s good advice,” she said. “Would you suggest that I not mention it to anyone afterward, either? Other than the bank president, I mean—he’ll have to know because I’ll have to tell him how I came by this certificate. But people will guess something has happened when I start looking for property….” Her voice trailed off and she looked at him uncertainly.

He managed not to laugh at her naiveté. “I think you’ll find that word will get around as if it had wings, Miss Keller. Be very careful. You’re going to find that the way people have treated you is about to change. Don’t trust everything that people say to you.”

She studied him for a long moment and looked as if she were about to ask him how he knew so much. But apparently, after the way he had responded to her other personal question, she decided against it, for she just nodded.

“I’ll do as you suggest,” she said, rising. “Perhaps you would accompany me, Mr. Tucker? The least I could do would be to buy you dinner at the hotel afterward, after the distance you’ve come to inform me of this…this astonishing change in my situation,” she said. She’d have to ask the bank president for an advance of cash in order to pay for the meal, of course, but that shouldn’t be a problem.