The Tender Vine (Diamond of the Rockies #3)(39)

“How can I want two opposite things so much?” She started to cry again.

Quillan shook his head. “Enough, Carina. How many tears can you cry?”

“As many as I need to.” Her pout proved it.

He knew better than to say more, but her crying gave him a helpless feeling he didn’t like. Would she keep it up all the way to Sonoma?

“Besides, tears are natural, necessary.”

“Necessary?”

In answer, she dug through the bag at her feet and took out a small volume. “Here.” She flipped through the pages, sniffed, and cleared her throat.





“Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,

Tears from the depth of some divine despair

Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,

In looking on the happy autumn-fields,

And thinking of the days that are no more.”





She swiped at her eyes. “You see? Tears for the days that are no more.

Our days here are done, and our friends . . .” She folded the book cover over her hand to hold the place while she pressed the handkerchief to her eyes.

Quillan glanced at the spine. Tennyson. There was one man who agreed with her. But tears were not in Quillan’s nature.

She dabbed the handkerchief to her nose. “What is it the French say? Partir, c’est mourir un peu.”

Quillan glanced over his shoulder, startled to hear French from her lips. He shouldn’t be surprised. Nothing should surprise him anymore. “What does that mean?”

“To leave is to die a little. That’s how I feel.”

Dying a little. He understood that. He died a little with Cain. And leaving Alan, too, he supposed. It did feel like death of a sort. He just couldn’t express it in tears.

She patted the book. “Tennyson knows how it is.”

“He’s a poet.”

She turned. “So are you. But you have no idea how I’m feeling.”

Quillan cocked his jaw, staring straight ahead. Words came unbidden. “Like footprints in damp sand on the creek bed of the mind, so the ripples on your soul from the friends you leave behind.” Yes, it hurt to leave Alan.

She slapped the book shut and flung her arms around him. “Oh, Quillan, I’m sorry. I’ve been unfair.”

He raised his elbows to keep hold of the team as her head lodged between his upper arm and side.

She sniffed. “But don’t you feel bad for leaving anyone?”

“I’ll miss Alan.” The tightening in his throat proved it, but he shoved it back and focused on the road.

She settled her arms around his ribs. “Only Alan?”

His elbows were going to get very tired.

She stroked his chest. “You don’t make many friends.”

“Don’t want many.”

“You’d be surprised how many think well of you.” She locked her fingers again, settling in. Good thing she was little.

“That’s the difference between friendship and respect. I think well of lots of people I won’t miss at all.”

She pressed her face to his chest and laughed, then ducked out under his arm and picked up the book, which had slid to the floor. Quillan dropped his arms before she could wiggle back in. It could be worse, though, for a long cold drive than Carina reading Tennyson. A smile tugged his lips. Could be a lot worse.





Carina had not seen Denver since she had passed through on her way to Crystal. She had been too distressed to notice much as she rode the train through to the railhead in Gunnison, where she had purchased her ill-fated wagon and driven up to the city that called itself the Diamond of the Rockies. In truth Crystal was hardly more now than it had been then, a rough camp trying to make a name.

But they had left the snowy mountains behind, staying one night in Fairplay and one in Morrison. The land they’d covered into Denver was tawny brown and nearly treeless. But Denver was a true city; gas lights along real streets lined with buildings that didn’t look as though they’d been thrown together with whatever was at hand, shop windows filled with more than picks and shovels. No work-weary men teeming the streets and wagons dodging stumps in the road. Men in top hats, fashionable ladies on their arms, strolled the timbered walkways.

Perhaps the whole city was not so fair, but to her eye, Denver was a long sight better than Crystal. As Quillan drove the wagon through the streets with a knowing confidence, excitement pushed aside the aching for her friends. She was with Quillan. And he was fine company. “Where are we staying?”

“The hotel’s about six blocks down.”

She looked at the buildings around them. “There are hotels right here.” Imposing buildings with ornate trims and moldings. She looked up the tall brick face of one that especially appealed to her. “What about this one? Why not stay here?”

He maneuvered their huge wagon past the hotel’s entrance. “Because that one’s a bordello.”

Carina jerked her head around to scrutinize it. There was no tinny music, no women dangling from the balcony. It looked perfectly elegant. The windows were draped in sheers and velvet with leaded panes, some of them stained lovely colors. She could not believe it a house of ill repute. “But it’s beautiful.”

He quirked his mouth. “Not all iniquity is ugly, Carina.”