The Listening Sky Read online

  “I LOVE YOU,” SHE WHISPERED.

  He held her close, her head buried in his shoulder while he gently stroked her hair. “I wanted to marry you the second day you were here,” he murmured. “You were spunky, willful, and bucked me at every turn. Even Doc said I’d be ten times a fool if. I let you get away from me. You’ll never be alone again, sweet- heart. I’ll find out who hurt you.” He gently stroked the scratches on her cheeks. “No one will hurt you ever again. I swear it.”

  She felt the feathery touch of his lips against hers and sudden tears ached behind her eyes.

  “Jane, love, you’re mine now. We’ll face whatever comes together.”

  Jane put her arms around his neck, moved her hand to the back of his head and gently stroked his hair. The very strange feeling of belonging washed over her.

  And… the incredibly sweet feeling of coming home.

  * * * *

  “When you pick up a Dorothy Garlock book, you expect the very best, and that is what you get. ‘Garlock’ has stood for quality in the romance genre since her first book, and that has not changed.”

  —Heartland Critiques

  “To read any one of Dorothy Garlock’s novels is to fail in love with the strong, heroic men and women she portrays, with the rugged Western frontier she describes, and with her wonderful, deeply held conviction that love can heal all wounds.”

  —Heart to Heart, B. Dalton Newsletter

  ALSO BY DOROTHY GARLQCK

  A GENTLE GIVING

  ANNE LASH

  DREAM RIVER

  LONESOME RIVER

  RESTLESS WIND

  RIVER OF TOMORROW

  WAYWARD WIND

  WILD SWEET WILDERNESS

  WIND OF PROMISE

  MIDNIGHT BLUE

  NIGHTROSE

  HOMEPLACE

  RIBBON IN THE SKY

  GLORIOUS DAWN

  TENDERNESS

  FOREVER, VICTORIA

  SINS OF SUMMER

  YESTERYEAR

  LOVE AND CHERISH

  ALMOST EDEN

  Published by

  WARNER BOOKS

  Copyright

  WARNER BOOKS EDITION

  Copyright © 1996 by Dorothy Garlock

  All rights reserved.

  Warner Vision is a registered trademark of Warner Books, Inc.

  Warner Books, Inc

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  First eBook Edition: September 2009

  ISBN: 978-0-7595-2228-2

  Contents

  “I LOVE YOU,” SHE WHISPERED

  ALSO BY DOROTHY GARLQCK

  Copyright

  LULLABY

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  This book is dedicated with love

  and appreciation to—

  FREDDA ISAACSON

  for her valuable contribution

  to the twenty-two books we have

  worked on together.

  —And for being the editor all writers

  dream of having.

  LULLABY

  No one knows my secret but the listening sky.

  I wont tell the birds nor that floating butterfly.

  The sky’s high above and it’s far away,

  And that is where I’d like for my secret to stay.

  It’s nice to tell a secret if the secret’s good.

  But if the secret’s bad, you never should.

  You may speak your heart to the listening sky,

  But be sure to look about you lest a man walk by.

  Hush little baby, don’t you cry.

  Tears are not me answer, and I’ll tell you why.

  If you just grow strong and are unafraid,

  You can win against die trouble that die secret’s made.

  —F.S.I.

  Wyoming territory, 1882

  Chapter 1

  JANE Love’s groping fingers found the pocket on her skirt and shoved the scrap of paper inside.

  i know who yu we.

  Hiding the crudely written words, however, did not erase them from her mind. Her heart hammered so hard that it was difficult to breathe. Without moving her head, she searched the crowd to see if anyone was watching her.

  Standing in the dusty street of a run-down town with the group of women who had climbed down from the wagons after the thirty-mile trip from the stage station, Jane refused to allow any outward sign of the nervousness that was making her stomach churn.

  Three families stood beside their wagons. Two of the mothers held babes in their arms, while older children clung to their skirts. A half-dozen men, bundles of their belongings at their feet, stood to one side waiting to be told where to go.

  Jane’s eyes were caught by those of a husky, dark-skinned man wearing a leather vest and a battered felt hat. He had been at the stage station when she arrived with the others from the train stop and had immediately singled her out for his attention.

  He smiled and winked.

  She tilted her chin and glared.

  Last night in the dining hall of the station, she had hung her hat on a peg while she ate her supper. Later she had found the first note tucked in the crown.

  yu cant hide.

  She knew what the hateful message referred to—there was no doubt of that. The scribbled note had so unnerved her that she had hardly slept a wink all night.

  The latest note had been pressed under one of the straps of the leather valise that held the sum total of her belongings. Had it been placed there by someone at the stage station, or after the baggage had been loaded and she had climbed into one of the lumbering wagons that had brought her and the other adventurous souls to this former ghost town in the northwest section of Wyoming Territory? Had the note-writer gone on with the train to some other destination? Or was he one of the people who had come here with her?

  “Welcome to Timbertown. I’m T.C. Kilkenny.” The man who spoke had stepped onto a bench so that he could see the faces of everyone in the crowd.

  When Jane turned and looked up, she saw a big, wide-shouldered man with a lean, strong-boned face. A black flat-crowned hat sat squarely on his dark head in a no-nonsense fashion. Wide galluses held up duck britches, the legs of which were tucked into calf-high boots.

  “Men, those of you who have families, get them settled in the cabins provided and then come to the store building and sign up. Your women and children are tired from the trip, so bring them to the cookhouse tonight for supper. Jeb Hobart is the building foreman.” He gestured toward a stocky man who wore a billed cap and was smoking a pipe. “He will show you the way to the cabins. Each of them is furnished with a bed and a stove for heating and cooking. Our store is fully stocked, and you will be invited to run a tab which will be deducted from your pay by the Rowe Lumber Company, if you so wish.”

  Kilkenny waited while the families
climbed back into wagons that were piled high with their possessions. The men started the tired teams moving down the dirt-packed road toward their new homes. Most of the lumbermen had requested a cabin on an acre or two of cleared ground. Wash hung from the lines behind a few of the town houses, and children playing on the doorsteps waved as the wagons passed.

  After the crowd had moved away, Kilkenny spoke to the men who remained.

  “I have a few things to say to those of you who are going to work on the town building, also the mill workers. Take your plunder to the space beyond the blacksmith and stake out a place to camp for tonight. Temporary quarters for the women are in the building next to the cookhouse. Ladies, I’ll take you there presently.

  “The population of our town is nearly a hundred people and there are that many others who live around it. At least thirty more will be here tomorrow, not counting the children. They will be the last addition to our town until spring, unless some folks happen to wander in and want to stay. So that we can live in a civilized manner, there must be rules. I am the town manager and part-owner of the land it sits on. Therefore, for the time being, I make the rules and enforce them.

  “Drinking during a work shift will result in instant dismissal. No handguns are to be worn on the job nor in the saloon. I expect that you will have the normal number of disagreements among yourselves. If you want to fight, go out into the street and have at it in a civilized manner. A man who deliberately cripples his opponent will be fired on the spot. I will not tolerate biting, eye-gouging nor stomping. Other than that, I’ll not interfere.” These remarks were directed to the group of men.

  Fight in a civilized manner? Jane suppressed the urge to roll her eyes to the heavens.

  “Social functions will be provided so that the single men and women may become acquainted if they wish to,” he added quickly. “Any man who fails to conduct himself in a gentlemanly manner toward the ladies will find himself in a peck of trouble. I intend to have a civilized, law-abiding community here.

  “We have a well-stocked mercantile store. I expect a train of freight wagons soon. Prices will be fair. Each man who signs on to work for Rowe Lumber Company can run a tab. We have a blacksmith, a harness-maker, a wheelwright, and, of course, a livery. We’ll soon have the hotel and rooming house usable. A bakery and an eatery will open to give us some relief from Bill’s cooking.”

  A gray-haired man with a dingy white cloth wrapped around his waist lounged against the building with a screened door. At the remark about his cooking his toothless mouth spread in a broad smile.

  “I expect a preacher soon, and we’ll build a church. I’m hoping to engage one of you as schoolmaster. If our town continues to grow, a year from now we will elect a mayor, a city council, and a peace officer. You will notice that I do not call this place a lumber camp. We have two cutting camps. One to the north, one to the west. The sawmill is a mile upriver.

  “We will rebuild this town. It will have all a well-run town has to offer. In a few years Wyoming Territory will become a state, and our town will have a chance to become a county seat. We are in the midst of one of the richest pine regions in the territory. With careful management of these resources, there will be jobs here for many years and this town will naturally grow and prosper.

  “When the river freezes and work at the mill slows down, some of you will find work here in town as we continue to build. You will have credit to build or to fix up one of the more than a dozen abandoned cabins scattered around. Some are in not too bad a shape considering they’ve been vacant so long.”

  While the man was talking, Jane studied him. He seemed confident and well educated. He had shown compassion for the women holding their babes and the tired, crying children clinging to their skirts. He looked to be capable of backing up his intention to deal with anyone who broke the town laws. He was taller than average, with broad shoulders and a wide chest that tapered down to narrow hips and long, powerful legs. His hair was so black that it glinted blue. His high cheekbones and a wide, thin-lipped mouth told Jane that he was part-Indian even though Kilkenny was an Irish name and his eyes were a steel gray.

  Oh, Lord! Had she made a mistake coming here?

  Jane had been searching for just such a chance as this place offered. Maybe here she would be able to start a new life where her secret could stay hidden forever.

  Being entirely on her own for the first time in her life and in Timbertown was the result of her having read a handbill tacked to the wall of a store back in Denver. The advertisement, dated July 30, 1882, had been printed a week earlier.

  Wanted: People to populate the town of

  Timbertown, a settlement in the northwest

  section of Wyoming Territory.

  Jobs available for hardworking timbermen.

  Housing provided for families, rooms for

  single men and women.

  Single women wanted for cooking, sewing,

  laundry and nursing.

  Male or female schoolteacher needed with knowledge

  of bookkeeping.

  Backing available for qualified merchants.

  Apply Carlson Hotel on Friday.

  Buoyed by hope, Jane had applied. The solicitor, a stuffy man with a stiff high collar and small wire-rimmed spectacles, first asked if she were single, then asked about her health—because, he had said, Timbertown was in an isolated area. He looked closely at her after she spoke about her qualifications as a teacher and a bookkeeper. She told him that she could sew and knit and had had considerable experience nursing the sick.

  Jane did not feel it necessary to explain that she had lived all her life in a Methodist Church home and that while there she had done everything from scrubbing the floors to keeping the books and writing to various organizations asking for donations. She did not mention that she had been expected to stay there and work for her board for the rest of her life, or that when she left the headmistress had slammed the door behind her after having called her an ungrateful chit and having predicted that she’d come crawling back within six months.

  That had been six weeks ago.

  The ride in the lumber wagon from the train stop, which was no more than a shack and a water tank, to the stage station, where they had spent the night sitting or lying on pallets, had already exhausted the women. And today the driver of the wagon had seemed to care not a whit for the comfort of his passengers during the thirty-mile drive from the station to Timbertown. His aim was to deliver this group and head back to the station to drink and play cards.

  When the call came to load up, the driver had lifted her up into the last of a string of five wagons. She had taken a seat on the end of one of the planks that served as a bench. The slamming of the tailgate seemed to signify the end of one life and the beginning of another. For thirty miles she’d had to endure the stare of the man in the felt hat who rode alongside the wagon.

  The excitement of finally being here in Timbertown was diminished not only by her fatigue but by the knowledge that some unknown person, who undoubtedly wished to make her life miserable, had been nearby, at least until she had climbed aboard the wagon. The hateful message left on her valise worried her. It meant that someone knew who she was and hated her for it.

  She had not escaped from her shame; it had traveled with her.

  Jane straightened her straw hat and with the palms of her hands tried to smooth some of the wrinkles out of her skirt. Her shoes were covered with dust, so her face must be too. She licked her lips and felt the grit. She cherished cleanliness and longed for a wet cloth to wipe her face and hands.

  When a hand pressed her arm, Jane turned to see the drawn face of the young girl standing beside her. No more than sixteen, weary and frightened, she was very close to tears.

  “What’s the matter, Polly?”

  “I’m so tired. And my back—”

  “Sit down here on my valise. Honey, are you sick?” Jane asked when tears began to fill the girl’s eyes.

  “No. Just…
tired.”

  Polly Wright had been with the group when Jane arrived in Laramie after having come up from Denver on the stage. They had shared a room at the hotel before they boarded the train for the middle leg of the journey. Polly had been very careful to slip the big loose nightdress over her head before she removed her petticoats. Her listlessness and upset stomach made Jane suspect the girl might be pregnant.

  Jane knelt down and tucked her handkerchief into Polly’s hand.

  “Wipe your eyes,” she whispered. “We don’t want him to think you’re sickly.”

  Polly sniffed back the tears and dabbed at her eyes. “I can’t help… it. Will he send me back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I wish… I was… dead.”

  “No you don’t. Nothing is that bad.”

  Jane patted the girl’s shoulder and was about to stand when two big dusty boots planted themselves in the ground beside her skirt. Her eyes traveled up the long legs to the checked shirt and to the lean, sun-browned face with its piercing gray eyes. The memory of such eyes caused Jane to shiver again.

  “What’s the matter with her?”

  “She’s tired.”

  “Why is she tired? She hasn’t done anything but ride for three days.”

  Jane stood. The top of her bead came to the man’s chin. Nevertheless, she looked up unflinchingly into, the eyes narrowed beneath heavy black brows.

  “It was not a ride on a featherbed, mister.”

  “It was the best I could provide.”

  “I’m not disputing that. She’ll be all right with a bath and a decent night’s sleep.”

  “That I can provide.”

  “Thank God!” Jane murmured under her breath.

  “What was that?” he asked, his lips twitching at the corners.

  Jane felt her cheeks redden, but she refused to cower beneath his intense stare. Not for the world would she bow her head with this overbearing man and the entire group staring at her.

  “I said, thank God.”

  “I thought that was what you said.” He turned and walked away.