Kari rubbed her throbbing forehead as Seth jumped down from the wagon, ordering his men to keep an eye on the stallion while he went inside to let his uncle know they had returned. He came around to her side and reached for her to help her from the seat.
“Easy now,” he murmured, his hands feeling so strong and sure around her waist as he set her down carefully.
If she’d felt dizzy before, the unfamiliar Texas heat clearly affecting her, the shiver she felt at his touch made the world seem to spin around her. She must have swayed slightly for in the next instant, Seth caught her arm to steady her.
“Miss Hagen, are you all right?”
“Call me Kari, please,” she murmured, grateful for his support. “You’ve been so kind—oh!”
She jumped as the front door flew open and slammed against the white-stuccoed wall, Seth’s grip tightening painfully at her elbow.
“Where the devil have you been?” thundered an older man in a tailored pin-striped suit who stormed from the house to the top of the steps, his face beet red with fury. “My prize stallion tied like a mule to the back of the wagon, Seth? I thought you were going to ride him back to test him out—and just who the hell isthis?”
The man’s hazel eyes blazing into Kari’s, she stared back at him, unable to speak, the world spinning even faster around her.
As if from a great distance she heard Seth’s tightly controlled voice saying, “Miss Kari Hagen, Uncle, come all the way from Minnesota with a letter for you from her mother,” and then she heard no more, collapsing beside him.
Chapter 3
“Blast it all, Seth, give me those smelling salts.”
Shoved away from the settee by his uncle, Seth did his best to control his surging anger as Caleb passed the small vial once more under Kari’s nose. She gasped and fluttered open her eyes, but Seth could tell at once that she was disoriented.
He had to restrain himself from pushing his uncle out of the way and gathering Kari into his arms to assure her everything would be all right—but would it? After her first impression of Caleb Walker, Seth wouldn’t be surprised if she insisted he take her right back into town to await the first train out of Walker Creek!
“Good, she’s coming round,” muttered Caleb, straightening to brush past Seth and begin pacing the parlor with impatience. “Did she say where she kept the letter? Her reticule, most likely. Open the bag, Seth, and retrieve it for me.”
“I think it would be best that she give it to you herself,” Seth said as he drew closer to the settee, trying to keep his voice calm and steady. “If you’d give her a few moments to recover herself—”
“A few moments?” Caleb shouted, his expression thunderous again. “I’ve waited twenty years to hear from Lara again and now you’re asking me to wait longer?”
“It’s here.”
Kari’s small voice made Caleb abruptly stop his pacing, while Seth knelt on one knee next to the settee. She lay there with her head propped on a tasseled pillow, her face so pale, her slender fingers shaking as she opened her reticule, that Seth could not stop himself from turning to Caleb to say tightly, “Her mother is dead, Uncle.”
The sharp intake of breath from Caleb wasn’t half as startling to Seth as his uncle’s face, gone stark white.
Everything had happened so fast with Kari, Seth sweeping her into his arms and carrying her into the house while Caleb had shouted for the housekeeper to fetch smelling salts, that little else had been said between them. Regret stabbed Seth as his uncle sank into a nearby chair, but not enough that he would have taken the words back. Why delay the truth any longer? Seth turned back to Kari, who pulled a wrinkled letter from her reticule and handed it to him.
“Please…if you’ll give this to Mr. Walker.”
Seth nodded, but he was no more on his feet than Caleb lunged from the chair with an agonized groan and snatched the envelope from Seth’s hand. Seth thought his uncle might tear the letter in his haste to open it, his hands shaking, and he retreated to the nearest window and pulled aside the velvet drapery to read the missive.
Caleb was a tall man and of stockier build than Seth, but now with his head down and his shoulders hunched, he looked older to Seth than his forty-six years. His thick goldish-brown hair was tinged with more gray than Seth recalled, too, in the midday sunlight streaming into the room. If there was such a thing as aging in a day, Seth felt he was witnessing it right in front of him.
A hoarse sound like a muffled sob burst from his uncle, Caleb’s palpable grief clearly overwhelming him. Given that Seth had rarely seen any emotion other than anger or disdain from his uncle, Seth could but stare now, stunned.
Kari looked on, too, her heart going out to the man who had so startled her just before she fainted. Thankfully she felt better, the room cooler than outside, and she sat up, righting her bonnet that had been knocked askew. At once Seth held out his hand and she took it, allowing him to help her to her feet.
Another stifled sob came from his uncle, Caleb Walker now leaning up the windowsill as if for support. She had no doubt he must have deeply loved her mother, Kari never having seen such heartrending grief in a man.
With a glance at Seth to reassure him that she felt well enough to walk, Kari left his side and moved toward Caleb, but he turned from the window before she made it halfway. His welling, red-rimmed eyes swept her from head to foot as if seeing her for the first time.
“She says that you know nothing of why she wrote to me.”
Kari nodded, her throat tightening at his grief-laden voice. “That’s true. I didn’t know anything about you until her last hours.”
“Oh, God…oh, God.” Shaking his head, Caleb looked at the letter and then back to Kari, a tear spilling down his ashen cheek. “Was she in pain at the end?”
