Today's Reading
Ellie enjoyed a very sweet moment letting him sweat as he looked between her and her tall, blond Viking of a brother. She had the same Nordic coloring as him but was built with finer lines, thank heaven. But truth was truth. She didn't need to add reasons to think ill of the man. He was awful enough.
"He was pounding on the door when I opened it." She looked at Josh and caught a spark of humor in his eyes. "His fist came right at me with no intent to punch me. I ducked and fell just like he said. He never touched me."
"Give me my brothers now, and I'll be glad to get off your stinking land. We're leaving California and heading home to New York."
They all turned back to the disheveled, antagonistic man.
Ellie had some notion of what he might mean, yet it galled her to cooperate. "What are your brothers' names? And don't think we're going to let some stranger come riding in here and leave with our boys."
"Our boys?" The man's eyes narrowed. "They're my boys. My brothers' names are Thayne and Lochlan Mac—"
"MacKenzie?" Ellie's heart sped up. She rested a hand on her heart. "Those boys are your brothers?"
"They're here then?" His breath whooshed out, and he bent forward as if he might collapse. "I'm Brody MacKenzie. You took my brothers off the streets of San Francisco. I'm here to take them back with me."
Ellie lowered her gun and stared at Mr. Brody MacKenzie. "I'm Beth Ellen Hart. I go by Ellie. This is my brother, Josh, and the woman who aimed that rifle at you is Gretel Steinmeyer."
"We have over two dozen children here at our school," Josh said, setting the rifle back on the pegs over the door. "Every one of them orphans. If those boys are your brothers, then why were they living on the streets?"
"And hungry," Ellie added, hands propped on her hips. "Wearing nothing but rags."
"Cold. Soaked through from the winter rain," Josh went on.
"Uneducated." Ellie glared at the man.
"Unwanted." Josh crossed his arms tight over his chest.
"Unloved, even by their brother," Ellie said. "That is, if you are their brother."
"I am their brother. They ran off—I've been searching for them."
She could see as much. The man wasn't a spitting image, but similar enough, especially similar to Thayne, even down to the Scottish brogue in the way he talked. "If you weren't taking care of them before, how are we to believe you'll begin taking care of them now?"
Brody's shoulders sagged, and he sank into a chair at the kitchen table. He rubbed his hands over his face. "They're alive and well? Were they bad off when you found them?" Then his temper flared. "What are you doing with them, them and all the children you sweep up off the streets as if you think they're trash? Are you forcing them to work on your ranch? If they've signed anything, indentured papers and the like, I'll fight you in court. They're too young to sign—"
"Stop talking before you make a bigger fool of yourself than you already have." Josh stepped to the door and said to Ellie, "Let's take him out to see these boys we're forcing into labor." He jabbed a finger out the door. "But you're not riding off with them until you convince us they'll be safe with you this time. Because they sure as certain weren't safe with you before when they slipped by your notice and managed the journey alone all the way to California from New York. Lead the way, Ellie."
Ellie stepped up to look closer at Brody MacKenzie. She saw it in his eyes, a shine that could've been tears. Relief that he'd found them? He seemed to care about his brothers. At least right now he did. But Josh had the right of it, and she hardened her heart against feeling any sympathy for Brody. He was going to have to convince her before she let those two trouble making scamps out of her sight.
* * *
His brothers. It had to be them. He hoped and prayed and kept the tears from falling through sheer grit.
Brody followed the woman. Ellie Hart. She had on a pretty yellow calico dress that almost matched the yellow of her hair. He'd hardly looked around when he came riding in wild with fear, which he covered with anger.
...
