Page 89 of The Enchanted Land

“Hmmm. This is a puzzle! I guess you don’t remember much about New Mexico. After all, you were about the same age as Adam when you left.”

“I remember riding in a wagon and being very thirsty.”

“That would have been the trip to Kentucky. Your mother was such a stubborn woman. When she made up her mind to leave, she did. She refused to wait for the guide your father hired.

“Of course, the ranch was really nothing in those days, just a little adobe shack. And your mother had to cook and clean for two men and me. She was expecting you then, and she was so clumsy. She hated the dirt and the dryness. Pa and I used to hear her complaining to Uncle Charley—that’s your father—for hours each night about how rough her skin was, how tired she was, how she hated everything.”

Gordon reached across the distance between them and took Morgan’s hand. “Smooth, yet I know you do a fair share of work on this ranch.”

She pulled her hand back. “How do you know what I do around here?”

“I’ve been watching.” Gordon laughed at the astonished expression on Morgan’s face. “I told you it’s too seldom that I get to play at being an Indian. So when the chance arises, I take it. These rather suit me, don’t you think?” He motioned to the buckskins covering his slim, muscular legs.

Adam toddled back to Gordon and his mother. He had trouble holding onto both his treasures, so Gordon put the pouch around Adam’s neck and hung the bracelet on the leather thong along with the pouch. Adam grasped at a flower, and came away with only part of the head. As he dropped it in his mother’s lap, he fell heavily backwards. He quickly got up and ran away, stumbling every few feet.

“You were so much like Adam when you were his age, but of course on a smaller scale. You had that funny streaked blond hair even then, curling around your face. You smiled a lot then and, like Adam, you thought no one was a stranger. I think I adopted you from the moment I saw you, when you were about twenty minutes old. The day I came home and you were gone, I cried until I was sick. It was a week before I could eat again.”

“Gordon… I … this is so new to me. The impression I have of the time I was in New Mexico is so different. My mother hardly mentioned it except to tell of the miseries she suffered.”

“I know a lot about your mother, too. No”—he held Morgan’s arm—“Adam needs to fall hundreds of times before he learns to walk. Let him be… We always assumed those letters were from you. The ones after Uncle Charley’s death were from some man, some agency. I guess they were always from him.”

“What letters?”

“About a year after you left, the letters started coming, one a month, very regularly. I never read one, but Uncle Charley told us in detail what was in them. It’s funny to realize you knew nothing about us and we knew so much about you. I grew up hearing about little Morgan every day. Remember the time you fell off your horse when you were eight and cut your leg? When the doctor sewed it, you screamed so loudly that the groom had trouble quieting the horses in the stables.”

“Yes, I remember,” Morgan said quietly. It was still impossible to believe that this man could know so much about her.

“Pa and Uncle Charley and I always looked forward to those letters, and the sketches. My favorite is of you taking your first jump, when you were about seven. Your little hat was mostly over your face.”

“This is too much! My mother never told me about my father, nothing good, anyway. I grew up with little thought of him. Trahern House and my mother were my whole world. And then the will! I hated my father then!”

“Yes,” Gordon looked away, embarrassed. “I tried to talk him out of that, but Uncle Charley said, ‘That damned woman’s made her hate men. If I don’t do something, she’ll rot in that big old house and dry up just like her mother did.’ I suggested he stipulate that you come out here, but leave out the part about your having to get married. But he said that as soon as word was out about the will, lots of young men would be swarming around you. That’s what he wanted for his pretty little daughter. He knew your mother had made you afraid of people, especially men. He just wanted them to come to you so you could choose any one you wanted. It wasn’t meant to be an ordeal.”

Morgan stared ahead at the little stream, lost in her thoughts. She had thought her father wanted to punish her for some reason. He had only wanted to help her. Shehadbeen afraid of men, afraid of everything, and he had known all about it. He had prevented her from retreating. He had cared about her, cared very much.

Gordon jumped to catch Adam as he nearly tumbled into the icy water. “There now, why don’t you stay up here?” Unperturbed, Adam sauntered after more flowers.

“I was really surprised when you asked Seth Colter to marry you.”

Morgan’s head jerked up. “How do you know that?”

“Possessing a superior intelligence, I deduced it. After Uncle Charley died, the letters kept coming for a while. I was furious when I read what your Uncle Horace had planned. I was very nearly on my way to Kentucky when the last letter came and said that you had married Colter. I wrote a letter to one of Uncle Charley’s old friends in Kentucky and got all the gossip, about how Colter was such a prize catch and he had eloped after meeting you only once. I knew that anyone who had been reared as you had did not captivate ‘prize catches’ in one evening. Besides, the agent had already told me how Horace dressed you. So I put two and two together. And I was right!”

“Yes, you were right. For a while it worked out well … Adam!” Morgan jumped to her feet, but Gordon lithely ran after Adam and again caught him before he fell into the stream. Gordon tossed him into the air and Adam laughed loudly. “I’m Gordon. Can you say Gordon?”

“Or.”

“Good enough. ‘Or’ it is.”

“Eat. Eat.” Adam squealed.

“Good idea.”

“Gordon, this is all too much for me to take in. You’ve upset all the beliefs I’ve had about my father, even my mother.”

Gordon smiled. “Well, then, let’s take Adam’s advice and eat. I’d like to sample some of the cooking you learned from Jean-Paul. He cost Uncle Charley afortune.”

“My father paid for Jean-Paul?”

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