Hidden Fires Read online

  When the girl summarily rejected his suggestion, Jared had become more aggressive. The management had ejected him from the place, but not before Jared, fighting like a demon out of hell, had wreaked havoc on furniture, dishes, and a few of the patrons. It had taken six men to subdue him.

  Well, sighed Travers mentally, it was probably just as well that this young woman didn’t know about Jared Lockett’s antics. They would no doubt scare her to death.

  “Is it always this hot in September?” Lauren asked, trying to draw the station manager into conversation. She had had years of practice making small talk in the Prathers’ parlor. Mr. Travers had been kind to her, but she was made uneasy by the wrinkled brow and the puzzled expression that would cross his face whenever he looked at her. Was she that different from the women in Texas?

  “Yeah,” he answered, reassuring her with his easy, open smile. “We usually get our first norther about the end of October. Most years, September is hotter than June or even July. Is it this warm in…?” He let the question trail off suggestively, and she didn’t disappoint him.

  “North Carolina. I lived—live—in Clayton. It’s a small town not too far from Raleigh. And no, it’s not this hot there in September.”

  “Is that where you met Ben?” he asked curiously. At her affirmative nod, he prodded, “And what was Ben doing in Clayton, North Carolina?”

  Lauren explained the friendship between her guardian and the rancher. “For years, they corresponded, but the letters had lagged for the past decade or so. Still, on his way home from a business trip to New York, Ben decided to pay his old friend a visit.”

  “How long have you lived with this guardian?” Was he being too nosy? He didn’t want to offend her, and no man in his right mind would cross Ben Lockett. However, she answered him readily enough and without self-consciousness.

  “My father was a clergyman, too. Abel Prather was his bishop. I was twelve when my father died. The Prathers gave me a home with them.”

  “Your mother?” Travers asked quietly.

  “I was three when she died giving birth. The baby—a boy—was stillborn.” Her voice was suddenly soft and pensive. Travers noted that she touched the brooch watch pinned to her shirtwaist just above the gentle swell of her breast.

  The small brooch was all she had of her mother’s possessions. That and a picture taken of her parents on their wedding day. She vainly tried to remember moments she had shared with the pretty, petite woman in the picture, but no memories would come. Lauren had no inkling of the personality that had lived behind the shy eyes captured in the photograph. In stressful times, or when she longed for the parent she couldn’t remember, she touched the watch with her fingertips as if the action brought her in contact with her mother. But this was a habit Lauren wasn’t conscious of.

  After his young wife’s death, Gerald Holbrook had totally dedicated himself to his work. He delved into religious dogma and contemplated theological doctrines in the hours when he wasn’t actively serving his congregation or preparing his inspired sermons. If the care of his young daughter fell to his current housekeeper, that was the price one had to pay for absolute commitment to Christ. Lauren knew that, in his way, her father loved her and wasn’t bitter over his neglect—though she felt it. She would have welcomed a more demonstrative relationship, but knew her father lived on a higher plane—like God.

  She was a well-behaved child, quiet and unobtrusive as she sat near her father when he studied in his library. She learned to read at an early age, and books and the characters in them became her playmates and confidantes. Her classmates weren’t particularly inclined to include the “preacher’s kid” in their pranks. Out of loneliness, Lauren acquired a talent for creating her own diversions.

  When Gerald Holbrook died, Lauren barely missed him. She moved into the Prathers’ house and assumed their routine without question. They were kind and, because of their childlessness, welcomed the adolescent girl into their home. Their generosity extended to giving Lauren piano lessons. She was musically gifted, and the piano became a passion along with literature.

  No one ever left the Prathers’ gaudy, crowded house without knowing their pride in Lauren. She had never betrayed their trust or disappointed them.

  Except with William. How unfair was their changed attitude toward her! She was blameless!

  “Miss Holbrook?” Ed Travers asked for the third time, and finally succeeded in gaining her attention.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Travers. What did you say?” Lauren flushed under her hat at being caught so deep in her own thoughts.

  “I asked if you would like a drink of water,” he said, reaching under the seat for a canteen, which he had filled before leaving the depot.

  “Oh, yes, thank you.” Lauren reached for the canteen. Never having drunk from one, she felt like a pioneer as she tipped it back and took a tentative, ladylike sip.

  Just then, the wagon hit a deep rut in the road, and some of the water sloshed onto her shirtwaist. She wiped her dripping chin and laughed delightedly. Her merriment was checked when the figure in the back of the wagon groaned and cursed vehemently.

  “Sonofabitch!”

  Chapter 2

  Lauren whirled her head around so quickly that the motion hurt her neck. Jared’s hand came up and clamped the hat more firmly over his face. He adjusted his long body to another position, contracting and relaxing muscles that Lauren didn’t know existed. But then, she had never seen a masculine physique like this before. His languid movements were repelling and thrilling at the same time. It was like watching some pagan god who was beautiful even in his decadence.

  She looked at Ed Travers, who was blushing furiously. “I’m sorry about that, Miss Holbrook. Don’t pay any attention to his language. He—”

  She interrupted with a question. “What’s the matter with him?” She was afraid that Ben’s son was seriously ill.

  “He… uh… must’ve tied one on last night.” When Travers realized her total lack of comprehension, he reluctantly explained. She might as well learn about Jared now. “He drank too much, don’t you see,” he said anxiously, “and got—”

  “Drunk?” she asked incredulously. “He’s got a hangover?” She stared with fixed horror at the prone figure. Never in her twenty years had she witnessed intoxication. A cordial glass of sherry and wine with Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners were the extent of alcohol consumption in the parsonage.

  Jared had apparently slipped back into unconsciousness. Gentle snores were coming from under the black hat.

  “Yes. Please don’t fret about it, Miss Holbrook. It happens all the time. We’re just lucky the sheriff didn’t pick him up and take him to jail to sleep it off. Fortunately he made it to my office early this morning and asked me to meet your train and drive the two of you to Coronado. He passed out about an hour before you arrived.”

  “Ben told me that if he couldn’t come to Austin himself, he’d send someone else. I imagine that Jared wasn’t too happy over being appointed the emissary,” Lauren commented.

  “Whether he liked it or not, he knew he’d better do what his daddy told him to. Despite their differences, Jared respects his father.”

  Lauren sniffed as she cast one last reproachful glance over her shoulder. “I can’t see that Jared Lockett has much respect for anyone or anything.”

  Ed Travers chuckled as he diverted the wagon around another collection of deep ruts. “You’re probably right, Miss Holbrook.”

  He turned his attention to private musings, and conversation between them waned. Lauren gazed at the landscape around her.

  Ben had told her he lived in the hill country, and her eyes could testify to that. Gently rolling hills covered with grass turning brown in the last days of summer surrounded them. They were driving west out of Austin, and on the right a cypress tree–lined river cheerfully wended its way through the rocky ground. Cattle grazed among small cedar trees.

  As the sun slipped lower on the horizon, it became hotter.
Lauren could feel rivulets of perspiration coursing down her scalp. She longed to whisk off her hat, release her heavy hair from its restricting pins, and allow what little breeze there was to blow through it.

  Her hair had been the scourge of every housekeeper who had worked for Gerald Holbrook. Its washing and combing had been a constant source of muttered grumblings. Mrs. Dorothea Harris, an embittered widow who had been housekeeper from the time Lauren was seven until her father died, had declared that the girl had enough hair for six children. Each morning, she roughly pulled it into braids that were so tight they brought tears to Lauren’s eyes. Lauren’s father had said in a rare compliment that her thick black hair was like her mother’s. In this Lauren took secret pride.

  Of course, it was out of the question to take her hair down now. It wouldn’t do at all to arrive at the Locketts’ house without a hat, let alone with unbound hair.

  Dismally she looked at the fine layer of dust on her navy skirt and agonized over the disheveled appearance she would present when she arrived at her destination. What would Ben think? Would he be ashamed of her and regret his invitation? Lauren wanted so badly to impress his family.

  She flicked away what she could of the settling dust. It was instantly replaced, and she sighed resignedly.

  Ed Travers said, “It does get a mite dry and dusty. Ben must have done quite a sales job to get you to leave the green hills of North Carolina and come all the way out here.” His curiosity over Lauren Holbrook’s future status in the Lockett household hadn’t yet been satisfied.

  Lauren laughed. “He did sell me on Texas, and I haven’t been disappointed. It’s wonderful.”

  “How long will you be here?” He couldn’t help asking.

  She averted her head quickly and clenched her hands into fists. “I… I’m not sure.” She managed to control her initial agitation and go on. “It will depend on Mrs. Lockett. You see, I’m to be her secretary.”

  Ed Travers almost fell off his seat. Olivia Lockett with a secretary? What was old Ben trying to pull?

  He swallowed hard before he asked squeakily, “What are you going to do for her?”

  “I’ve spent years helping my guardians entertain. Ben thought that I might relieve Mrs. Lockett of some of those responsibilities. I can help her with her correspondence, for instance. The length of my visit will depend on how well we get along and whether she likes me or not,” Lauren answered. As she explained her future to him, she tried to assimilate it in her own mind.

  Poor lass, thought Travers. If it were a case of Olivia Lockett liking a young, pretty girl living under her roof, then the innocent Lauren Holbrook would be on the next train out of Austin heading anywhere. Olivia could freeze the balls off any man with one icy blast from those hard, green Creole eyes of hers. What would she do to this poor child?

  Intuitively Lauren sensed Travers’s bewilderment. She had felt that same incredulity at Ben’s offer. It had come so suddenly, and she was completely unprepared for it.

  * * *

  They had dined on overdone lamb and bland vegetables, the typical fare that came out of the Prathers’ kitchen. Lauren was always painfully aware of the unpalatable meals that Sybil Prather served her guests. She was grateful to Ben Lockett for doing justice to his plate, though he graciously declined a refill.

  After dinner, Lauren played the piano for the guests at the persistent urgings of her guardians. The recital was well received but, as usual, the Prathers’ gushing praise embarrassed their ward.

  Sybil, her plump figure swathed in pink ruffles, sat beside her husband on a garishly upholstered settee. Unfortunately Sybil’s taste in clothes extended to her house as well. Her motto was: “More is better.” The house was dark and heavy with brocades and velvets. Chandeliers and vases of dark-colored glass added to the gloom. Wallpaper in overgrown prints and a maroon carpet splashed with large orange and yellow flowers vied for supremacy.

  The pastor’s wife simpered as Abel boasted of her prizewinning roses. Much to their surprise, Lauren’s relief, and William Keller’s aggravation, Ben asked Lauren to show him this noteworthy garden.

  The evening had been warm and still, and cicadas serenaded them as Lauren led Ben to the small rose garden and sat down on a low bench.

  “Do you grow roses in Texas, Mr. Lockett?”

  “Indeed we do. I have a Mexican gardener who tends to the grounds around the house in Coronado, and he grows them much sweeter and much larger than these prizewinning flowers of Sybil’s. I think his secret is horse manure.”

  There was a momentary pause. Lauren wasn’t sure what her reaction should be. Then they both laughed spontaneously. She chided herself for condoning his indelicacy but, somehow, it didn’t seem to matter.

  “Thank you for inviting me out here with you,” she said. “Abel and Sybil usually contrive for me to be alone with William.”

  “And you don’t want to be alone with William?”

  She shuddered and said, “No. I don’t.”

  William Keller was a serious, thirty-five-year-old preacher who had accepted the pastorate of a small church on the outskirts of Clayton. Lauren sensed that, beneath the guise of piety, he was ambitious and shrewd. He was continually trying to impress the bishop with the strength of his moral fiber and his undying love for humanity.

  Much to Lauren’s dismay, the Prathers considered William a superb candidate to relieve her of the state of spinsterhood. They extolled William’s virtues to her at least three times a day, and she was forced to take these doses of him much as one is forced to take bad-tasting medicine at regular intervals.

  Lauren had only a vague conception of what the intimacies of marriage implied, but the idea of even sharing the same room with the preacher convinced her that spinsterhood would be preferable to a lifetime spent with William Keller

  Normally Lauren’s impressions of people were charitable, but she found William physically unattractive, intellectually boring, and socially bigoted. His entire person repulsed her. He had an annoying habit of talking to one’s chest rather than one’s eyes. Tall and stoop-shouldered, he had thin, lank blond hair which was perpetually falling into colorless eyes fringed by equally colorless lashes. His nose was the most prominent and unfortunate feature of his face. Lauren thought he greatly resembled illustrations of Ichabod Crane, Washington Irving’s main character in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

  Ben Lockett had brought her attention back to him with a brusque clearing of his throat. He didn’t pursue the subject of William. Instead, he asked her, “What do you do, Miss Holbrook?” Lauren looked at him, puzzled by the question. He clarified, “What keeps you busy around here? Are you happy?”

  She answered him frankly. “The Prathers are dear people, and it was kind of them to take me into their home when my father died. I had no relatives. Father had a small annuity, which they have refused to accept for my expenses. I had hoped to teach music or perhaps tutor students in literature or grammar and earn my own money, but the Prathers adamantly reject the idea of my working outside the house.”

  “So you entertain their guests. That’s all?” He smiled at her kindly, and she didn’t take offense.

  “It’s not a very ambitious undertaking, is it?” she asked ruefully. “Oh, I do charity work in the church, sit with shut-ins and sick people, help new mothers with the rest of their families while they’re in confinement. I play the organ for the Sunday services and teach a children’s Sunday school class.” Even to her own ears, these accomplishments sounded dreary.

  “Did you ever think of having a family of your own? Marrying?” He fixed her with a blue gaze that was penetrating and compelling.

  “I… well, not really,” she said shyly, and shifted her eyes away from him.

  “When I’m trying to make some decision and sort things out, I ride the line for a few days by myself. I like being alone with no company except my horse and Mother Nature.”

  “‘Ride the line’?” she asked with quickening interest.

>   “Yes. We ride along the fences to make sure none have been knocked down or cut down. Sometimes rustlers try to steal Lockett cows, or maybe a sheep farmer wants to water his flock and not pay for it, so the sheep just make themselves at home on Lockett land.”

  Lauren drew a deep breath and held it a long time before releasing it. “It sounds… oh… beautiful, primeval, exciting. I don’t know the word to use.”

  “It’s all those things.” He studied his knuckles for a moment, then asked, “Why don’t you come to Texas with me?” His tone was no longer bantering, as it had been when he made the same offer, publicly, earlier that afternoon.

  “You’re teasing me about this, Mr. Lockett.” The statement contained only a hint of query.

  “No, I’m not, Miss Holbrook. I’m just an old cowboy who believes in saving time and getting right to the point.”

  “But what in the world would I do in Texas?” She had thought at the time that it was an impossibility for her to have such an adventure but hadn’t wanted to give up the idea just yet.

  “My wife is very active in social and civic affairs in Coronado. That’s the town we live in. It’s about half a day’s ride from Austin. I’m at Keypoint or away on business so often that she can’t always count on me. I think she could use someone with your abilities to help her. You’ve had a lot of experience in arranging social functions. You are an accomplished musician and well read, both of which would be helpful. You could handle her correspondence and such. What do you think?”

  When she didn’t respond, he pressed his point.

  “Of course, we would pay you a salary and give you a room in the house. My son has never married, so we have a lot of space that I was hoping would one day be taken up with grandchildren.” He paused for a long moment and, when Lauren looked at him, he was staring unseeingly at the rose-bushes. Then he seemed to shake himself loose from the thought and continued, “I want you to feel like one of the family. You would in no way be considered a servant.” He grinned engagingly.