Breathe: A Novel of Colorado Page 14

  "Terrible, just terrible for her," Moira said.

  "It is. And she's not of the most sound mind. I fear for her future."

  "We must pray for her," Moira said.

  "Yes, we must," Odessa agreed, surprised at Moiras suggestion. Moira had always been content to attend church to see and be seen. Was she discovering something deeper, something more about her God as Odessa was, here in the West? She considered her sister. "Say, where is the sheriff this night?"

  "We told him we'd meet him at the Glen," Moira said lightly.

  "Insolent man thinks he needs to be with Moira every day," Dominic groused.

  "Now, Nic, don't start," Moira said.

  "Yes, you know how it goes for you when you enter a room angry about something," Odessa said. "Someone always gets hit. You can't do that at the Palmers'."

  Dominic shook his head and swallowed a retort.

  "Just say what you need to say, Brother," Odessa said, meeting his gaze. "And cease looking at me as if I was made of glass, about to shatter at any moment."

  "Speaking of glass," Moira interrupted, "wait until you see the plate glass windows in the Palmers' house. And their crystal! Truly, you have not seen anything so fine since we left Philadelphia." Dominic's demeanor softened as the sisters idly chatted, Moira speaking of every person bound to be in attendance. It was a spring ball, heralding the arrival of greenery on the trees and the waning snows of winter. Moira sounded more free, more herself, than she had in weeks. Yet Reid was like a shadow, drowning out her light, using it for his own glory. Odessa could see it.

  The St. Clair sisters made the same stir they had made every time they entered a hall together in Philadelphia, although it had been some time for Odessa. More than two years, Dominic thought. Two years since she had grown too ill to even consider going to a ball, even to observe. Moira immediately took the spotlight, but Dominic could not miss how many of the men watched Odessa instead. She was classically beautiful, with her pretty face-still bearing faint pink lines from the cuts she'd suffered-dark hair, and wide blue-green eyes. She had chosen a lavender dress that gave her more color than he had seen on her for months, even beyond the ruddy cheeks. Her illness had left her with a haunting countenance that made others look at her twice, trying to decipher just what it was about her that gave her beauty depth. And even though Odessa was gaining weight, filling the curves of the gown a bit as a woman should, Nic thought she might never lose that memorable quality. He had known men, fighters, who had stared death in the eye but still remained among the living. Odessa had that same look.

  Except without the broken nose, he joked to himself. He was proud of her, proud of Moira, too. Proud of himself.

  If only Father could see his children now, making their way here in their new city. Part of her finest citizens. He took a crystal champagne flute from a passing servant and continued to watch over his sisters. Reid emerged from the crowd at Moira's side, and she managed to smile and take his arm. He offered the other to Odessa, and after a half-second hesitation, she took it. He paraded them around proudly, introducing Odessa about the room. Dominic knew his sister's dance card would soon be filled, since her illness would keep her from accepting no more than three or four turns about the floor.

  Odessa moved with the social graces her mother had taught them, sharing small niceties with one and then another. Gently complimenting their host on the fine delicacies served and the wellappointed, perfectly decorated room. But as the meal was completed and the dishes swept away, as the music began and she accepted an offer to dance from her second dance partner, all Odessa wanted was to return to the sanatorium.

  To what? She thought with surprise. Every evening was the same. A large, crackling fire in the hearth. People sitting about, hacking, hacking, hacking as they coughed, trying to get a decent breath, others who were better, talking, laughing. Playing games. Reading books. It was a warm place. A welcoming place. She thought about each of the faces there, but in particular, dear little Charlotte. Halfmad Amille. Bryce.

  The memory of him when he'd come across her in the hall as she left made heat climb her neck. What was it about that moment? Seeing her dressed in finery? The intense draw to each other, then the sense of separation. Like someone from afar-off country, he'd said. Had she become different to him? She was still Odessa St. Clair, the same Odessa he had fished beside, walked beside, eaten beside. Was it this? That she danced about the room in another's arms, and then another's?

  Did he not know that she did it all the while wondering what it would be like to dance with him?

  Reid led her to the edge of the room and then quickly around a corner.

  "My sweet, I ask that you not sing tonight."

  "What?" Moira asked, confused. It had become a tradition of sorts, her singing at Glen Eyrie. Every time, in the ten visits they had made, she had sung.

  "There are too many people here tonight. It is too ... public. We've been apart too much. I don't wish to share you. Let's depart early, steal some time alone."

  "The general has already asked me to sing after the dancing is done. I agreed."

  He glowered at her. "I care not. Plead a weak voice. Make an excuse. But do not sing tonight."

  She stared up at him. He had seemed agitated all evening, moving to block one man's stare and then another's. It was as if she were a sheep and he felt surrounded by wolves. Was that it? Was he jealous? "You seemed happy enough, proud even, when I've sung before."

  "There weren't this many in attendance. It isn't ... seemly."

  This from a man content to steal kisses-three to date-a man with devilish thoughts on his mind as he touched her, never thinking to ask her how she felt, what she wanted, if she desired him in kind. He simply assumed. "We shall see how it turns out," she said, moving past him.

  He grabbed her arm, squeezing it painfully. "I told you how it will turn out," he ground out. "You shall not sing."

  "You are hurting me," she said between her teeth, frowning in surprise. He loosened his grip and she wrenched her arm away. "I am not your wife, Sheriff."

  "You will be someday."

  She scoffed at him. "That is not decided. You have no claim on me."

  "You are my girl. That is claim enough."

  Moira placed her hands on her hips. "No, Reid. I am your woman. But you are not my man."

  He paused, confusion gathering in his face. Her heart caught a moment, then pounded so hard she fought the urge to reach out to the wall and steady herself. What had she just done?

  "Sissy?" Odessa called down the hall. "Sissy? Ah, there you are." She came around the corner, Dominic right behind her. "They're calling for you. The general wants you to sing now," she said, her wide eyes going from Moira to Reid. "Ready?"

  "Ready," said Moira.

  "What is it?" Reid asked the man in the hallway after the St. Clairs had departed. Reid ran his hand through his hair, wondering about Moira's words, as the shorter man moved out from the shadows and to his side. Had she meant it? Or was it merely her female ways, toying with him? He watched Odessa turn the corner with one final, worried look in his direction, wondering if he should have chosen her instead. A weaker woman, a consumptive even, would have been easier to mold into a proper wife.

  But he didn't want a consumptive as his wife. Who knew if she could even bear him children? He needed a strong, hearty wife, a woman to meet his needs.

  "She's the one," the man said. "Odessa St. Clair. She was the one in the room beside O'Toole the night he ... gave into the consumption. I saw her."

  Reid stared at the empty hallway, hearing the musicians begin the first chords for Moiras song, a song he had just asked her not to sing.

  "She was bad off that night, as I understand it. You think she heard anything? Did she see you?" Reid asked.

  "She got up, fell. That's how her face got cut up. Why else do you think she rose, as poorly as she was?"

  Reid considered his words, remembering the faint pink lines on Odessas perfectly sculpt
ed face. "If my future sister-in-law knows something of O'Toole, I'll know it soon enough. In the meantime, we go in different directions."

  "As you wish, Sheriff."

  As you wish. How he longed to hear Moira say those words. He would hear Moira say those words to him. Over and over again. One way or another.

  Chapter

  75

  May

  Over the weeks, Moira made an excuse to walk past the opera house almost every day, watching with delight as the last of the brickwork was installed and posters were placed outside, announcing the call for vocal talent. Again and again she wondered if she could find her way onto the stage, find the way to rehearse if she even got the part with the traveling troupe. She vacillated over whether or not she should confide in Odessa or Nic, but elected to hold her own confidences. Papa had sent her west to keep her out of the theater. Surely her siblings would feel bound by honor to tell him. No, she couldn't risk it.

  "Miss St. Clair! Miss St. Clair!" called a boy. She turned and waited on him, then saw the general across the street, in front of the opera house. He tipped his hat toward her.

  "Miss St. Clair," said the boy, breathless by the time he reached her side. "The general ... he asks if you won't come and greet him."

  Moira straightened her skirt and followed after the boy, waiting for a heavy wagon drawn by four horses to pass. At last she was with the general, who stood beside a man she hadn't seen in some time Jesse McCourt. The actor who had saved her from Reid's manhandling at the Glen!

  "Miss St. Clair," the general said in tender greeting. "I believe you remember my friend Mr. McCourt."

  "I do." She smiled up at the handsome man, so dapper in his fine suit. He smiled back at her.

  "Mr. McCourt has just accepted our offer to his troupe to play in our opera house as it opens, but we are still seeking a female lead. It occurred to me how your lovely voice seems to captivate all who hear it. Tell me, my dear, would you consider an audition?"

  Moiras heart beat triple-time. "How I would love it!" Her mind briefly paused over the image of her father, his firm disapproval over the theater, then on to Reid. He wanted to stifle her, control her, own her. Yet neither man was here.

  She lifted her face and smiled sweetly. "When would you like me to come?"

  Odessas father had been right.

  They had chased down the cure and made it their own.

  "I want you to take me with you tonight," she said to Helen as they worked side by side. Helen was teaching her how to use her camera and rode with their small group a couple of times a week. "Take me to watch my brother fight."

  Helen let out a long, low whistle. "Sure that's a good idea, friend? It's one thing to watch a stranger get pummeled. Another when it's your kin."

  "You said he's good."

  "He is. But there's a reason he shows up with a split lip or a bruised-blue eye."

  "I've seen him fight before," she said, sounding more brave than she felt.

  "Street scuffles, I'd wager. It's a different thing in the ring. I'll ask it of you again-are you certain you're ready to watch?"

  Odessa stared back at her friend. "It's part of who Dominic is. I don't want to. But I need to. Does that make sense?"

  "Perfectly. But you bring your man-friend along."

  "Who? Bryce?"

  "Yes. A fighting ring is no place for a lady. You'll need him with you."

  "But you go."

  Helen laughed. "Honey, I haven't been a lady in a very long time."

  She found him on the porch in the corner, again at his easel. He glanced up at her when she arrived and gave her a gentle smile.

  She paused directly in front of him. "May I see it?"

  "What?"

  "Your painting. Come, Bryce. I've been asking for weeks now. Just a peek?"

  He studied her for a moment, his blue eyes searching hers, as if he wondered if he might trust her with this work. Did he want empty flattery? Honest review? She thought about what it felt like to hand another her words on paper.

  "Why do you want to see my painting?" He dipped his brush into the paint on the palette, twirling it slowly.

  "If you do not paint to show others your view of the world, why paint at all?" she returned.

  "I allow others to see my paintings when they are complete." He set the brush to canvas, cocked his head, added another stroke, and then looked again to her.

  "Well ... I would hope so." Odessa sank into a chaise lounge in front of the window, suddenly weary and weak in the knees. How had she managed to dance just two weeks ago? She hated this disease, how one day she could be feeling better, and the next have to take to her bed again. She turned to her side, and after a moment to the other, facing him again.

  Bryce set his brush down on the easel's ledge and leaned down to rest his forearms on his knees, hands casually clasped together. He looked relaxed, strong, and Odessa suddenly could see him with another twenty pounds of flesh, astride a horse on his ranch. "What is bothering you, Odessa? You're as skittish as a half-drowned cat. Is it Amille? John's death?"

  Odessa eyed the empty doorway and then whispered, "Does it not bother you, Sam, Amille's claim about her girl, and now John?"

  He paused, measuring his words. "I am troubled. I need to get down there, talk to the sheriff, see if I can find out-"

  "Leave! You can't leave!" She felt swift heat upon her neck as the words left her mouth. "I mean, you are not yet well enough. And if there is a danger ..."

  "If there is a danger, I'd rather find out down there, far from here." But he said the word here as if he was saying you. He was worried, concerned enough to want to try and keep her safe. Go out and face the enemy before he got too close. "But there is something else on your mind, Odessa. What is troubling you?"

  "No, I ... I am merely feeling confined. Trapped. As if I should go for another ride today, and yet I'm desperately weary. That's it!" she said suddenly. "You are painting your horses."

  "You are changing the subject." He watched her shift in her seat again. "Tell me."

  "You want me to trust you with my intimacies," she said in irritation. You who would consider leaving me behind. "On what basis?"

  He hesitated. "Friendship."

  Friendship. So that was all she was to him? She sighed heavily. "Trains, you are painting trains."

  He sat there, simply staring, waiting her out. If she didn't start talking soon, she was liable to begin speaking and never stop. She might tell him that she thought of him as more than a friend, as a beau, blurt out that when he was absent, she felt lost, incomplete ... that she hated this new, curious distance between them, as if he had stepped away.

  "My brother," she hedged. "I'm worried sick over him."

  "Dominic?" Bryce asked doubtfully. "He seems like a man who can take care of himself."

  "Sometimes too well. He is fighting, apparently for money now. As a boy in Philadelphia, it always began as something else-a score to settle, an injustice to be righted. But here in Colorado, he goes about as book merchant by day, and ring fighter by night."

  Bryce sat back, clearly aware that she was giving him just a part of what was on her heart. "If the man wants to fight, why not let him? He's been thrust into the role of book merchant by your father, yes?"

  Yes.

  "But had his future been his own, what do you think he would be doing?"

  Odessa raised her eyebrows and thought about that. She had never considered it. All their lives, it had been understood that the girls would become wives and mothers and the boys would enter their father's business. With but one remaining male heir to the St. Clair Press fortune, there was never a question as to what Dominic would do when he came of age. Was this from where his anger stemmed? Rage that was the kindling to the constant, flickering coals within?

  "I know something of a father's goals for his son. Come, look upon my painting."

  Odessa stared at him, suddenly fearful of moving. What if ... what if she despised what she saw? What woul
d she say?

  "Come," he said, gesturing toward the canvas and moving his stool to the side.

  She rose on unsteady legs and slowly walked around to stand beside him. Her hand went to her mouth. It was unlike anything she had expected.

  There on the canvas were three ships, racing upon a windcapped sea. The colors, various shades of sea and sky and shadow, were vibrant. "Oh, Bryce."

  "Speak. You must say more than that."

  "It's magnificent." Her eyes shifted back and forth as if she could drink in the salt air, feel the seas mist upon her face. "I am suddenly no longer in Colorado but upon the Atlantic." She waved to the sails. "How you capture the curve of the canvas on the wind-I can almost hear them billowing full and then snapping taut." She glanced down at him in wonder. "How ... what ...?"

  "Twelve crossings to Spain," he said. "My father knew early on that I had a talent with the horses. Yet horses don't favor long stretches of ocean and nothing but a ship's planks to walk. I've stood alongside Spanish stallions and broodmares for weeks, with nothing to do but soothe them and study the ways of a ship. I fell in love with the sea, but my father, and this cursed illness, forced me in a different direction. Painting is as close to the sea as I'll ever be."

  Odessa felt short of breath, so heavy was the sorrow, the loss within his tone.

  "Please sit down. You look faint." He placed his head in one hand and rubbed his temples. "I know there are no answers. I've had this conversation with myself a thousand times." She sat down again upon the chaise and gazed in his direction. He gave her a half smile. "I love the sea. But I also do truly love horses. And the land they need is ever farther from the ocean's edge."

  "My father has always said that life is a series of difficult choices."

  "He is a wise man."

  "A wise man who cannot see his son before him ... only his own dreams living on within him. Much like what your father has done to you." She rose and paced. "Bryce, I need you to do something for me."