The Tender Vine (Diamond of the Rockies #3)(45)

Mrs. DeMornay pressed it into her hands. “I want your husband to have this.”

Carina covered it with her palm. “He will treasure it.”

Mrs. DeMornay’s lips trembled. “My daughter is . . . truly dead?”

Slowly Carina nodded. “Quillan was raised by another couple.” She sensed the woman would not bear more of the truth than that. “He only wanted to meet Rose’s people.”

Mrs. DeMornay dropped her gaze. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“I have to go.” The woman’s eyes flicked to the doorway. “I was going to leave the locket at the desk. I can’t defy William. If I were to see your husband . . .”

“Go then. He’s fetching the wagon.”

But she hesitated. “He has her mouth. Wide and generous. Too generous. Rose . . . No, I won’t say it.”

“She loved deeply.”

Tears filled Rose’s mother’s eyes. “Yes . . . impetuously.” She pressed Carina’s hands. “As you do, I surmise.”

Did she guess that from their short encounter? Did she wear her love for Quillan so blatantly?

“Don’t sacrifice that.” Mrs. DeMornay released her.

Carina shook her head. “I won’t.”

“Give Quillan the locket and . . . my love.” Mrs. DeMornay’s voice shook.

Carina nodded, a lump stopping her speech. She looked down at the photograph in the locket as Mrs. DeMornay passed out the door. Quillan did have his mother’s mouth. She closed the locket and folded it into her handkerchief, then put it in her satchel. Straightening her skirts, she went to wait at the door.

When Quillan pulled up in the wagon, she went out. He lifted her up and tucked the satchel behind the seat, exactly as he had the first time they’d met. His expression, too, was reminiscently grim. He had slept poorly, even groaning softly in his sleep. The DeMornays had opened old wounds. She considered the locket tucked secretly in the satchel. Should she give it to him now?

But Mrs. DeMornay’s concern had been palpable. And in his current mood Quillan was too unpredictable. He might confront Mr. DeMornay, and where would that leave his grandmother? So Carina said nothing.

Quillan climbed in beside her. “I’m putting you on the train, Carina.”

He would start that again? They had argued it last night, but she had not changed her mind. “I want to travel with you.”

“The train makes more sense.”

And she would arrive home without him. “Then sell your wagon and come with me.”

He shook his head. “I need it.”

She tossed her hands. “Then drive.”

He took up the lines. “At least let me inquire.”

“What’s to inquire? We can take the train or we can drive. I am not doing either without you.”

He stayed silent until they reached the station. Bene. If he would be stubborn, she would, too. She refused to leave the wagon seat when he dismounted and walked to the ticket counter. He would have to bodily remove her.

But when he came back, he eyed her squarely. “How about a compromise?”

She clutched the seat in case it were a ruse. “What compromise?”

“Train’s got a car for hauling carriages and such. They’ll take the wagon and horses while we ride in the passenger car—together.”

Suddenly exuberant, she clasped her hands at her throat. “Then yes! Of course yes!”

He flicked his hat with the tips of his fingers and leaned his elbows on the wagon side with the closest thing to a smile he could manage. “Glad I don’t have to pry your hands off that seat.”

She tossed her chin. “You only needed to be reasonable.” She held out her hand.

Instead of taking it, he caught her waist and swung her down. “It wouldn’t have taken much.” His grin pulled sideways. “Even with your best grip.”

“I would have made a horrible scene.”

He cocked his head. “A shame I missed it.”

She started to retort, but he sobered and went about readying the wagon. She swallowed her gall. After all, they were taking the train, and that meant she’d be home in days, rather than weeks.

They surrendered the full wagon and horses to a Union Pacific railroad man loading the flatcars and stock cars. She waited while Quillan instructed him pointedly about the horses, then a porter took the bags they would have onboard. Following him, Carina glanced back at the wagon as its wheels were lashed to the car and rendered immobile. She had a brief flash of her own wagon tumbling down the side of the mountain. Quillan’s freighter held gifts and reminders as precious as the things she had carried east.

But now they were heading west. She had traveled first class from San Francisco with Guido and Antonnia Mollica, then second class with the maiden aunts Anna and Francesca Bordolino, who thought it sinful to bask in such extravagance and probably couldn’t afford it. The second-class car, while not the squalid illness incubator of the emigrant cars, tested one’s capacity for discomfort.

She didn’t know which tickets Quillan had purchased. Would he think the best extravagant also? They passed the emigrant cars, bleak and stark. Already a smell emanated from the passengers who had been westward bound from the Atlantic coast. Poor people—how could they bear it? But then she thought of herself at Mae’s in the beginning. One adapted she supposed, as one must.