Only 03 - Only You

and remembering a timeyears ago when she had hungered for her own home, her own family, her own child.
    After a few moments Eve realized the kitchen was very quiet. She opened her eyes to find Willow smiling gently at her. Reno was watching her as though he had never seen a woman handle a baby.
    “You do that very well,” Willow said.
    Eve set Ethan back on the counter and began diapering him with matter-of-fact skill.
    “There were always babies at the orphanage,” Eve said. “I used to pretend they were mine…a family.”
    Willow made a low sound of sympathy.
    Reno’s eyes narrowed. If he could have thought of a way to prevent Eve from telling her heart-tugging lies, he would have. But it was too late. She was talking again, and Willow was listening with wide hazel eyes.
    “But there were too many older children in the orphanage. Each time the orphan train left, the oldest were shipped off to the West. Finally it was my turn.”
    “I’m sorry,” Willow said softly. “I didn’t mean to bring up unhappy memories.”
    Eve smiled quickly at the other woman. “That’s all right. The people who bought me were kinder than most.”
    “Bought…?”
    Willow’s voice faded into an appalled silence.
    “Isn’t it time to put Ethan to bed?” Reno asked curtly.
    Willow accepted the change of subject with relief.
    “Yes,” she said. “He fretted all through his nap today.”
    “May I put him to bed?” Eve asked.
    “Of course.”
    Reno’s eyes followed Eve every step of the way out of the kitchen, promising retribution for wringing his sister’s soft heart.

7
    E THAN’S cry came clearly into the kitchen, where Eve and Willow were just finishing the evening dishes.
    “I’ll take care of it,” Reno said from the other room. “Unless he’s hungry. Then he’s all yours, Willy.”
    Willow laughed as she wrung out the dishrag. “You’re safe. When I finished nursing him an hour ago, he was as full as a tick.”
    Caleb’s voice came from the long table just off the kitchen where he and Reno had been working over the Leon journal and that of Caleb’s father, who had been a surveyor for the army in the 1850s.
    “Eve,” Caleb called, “aren’t you finished polishing plates yet? Reno and I are having a devil of a time with your Spanish journal.”
    “I’m on my way,” Eve said.
    A moment later she walked up to the table. Caleb stood and pulled out the chair next to his own.
    “Thank you,” Eve said, smiling up at him.
    Caleb’s answering smile changed his face from austere to handsome.
    “My pleasure,” he said.
    Reno scowled at them from the bedroom door, but neither one noticed. Their heads were already bent over the two journals.
    Reluctantly Reno went on into the room where Ethan howled over the injustice of being put to bed while the rest of the family was up and about.
    “Can you make out this?” Caleb asked Eve, pointing to a tattered page.
    She pulled the lantern a bit closer, angled the journal, and frowned at the elaborate, faded script.
    “Don thought that abbreviation meant the saddleback peak to the northwest,” Eve said slowly.
    Caleb heard the hesitation in her voice.
    “What do you think?” he asked.
    “I think it referred back to this.”
    Eve turned back two pages and pointed with her finger to the odd symbols marching down the margin.
    One of the symbols was indeed labeled with an abbreviation that could have been the same as the one on the other page. The letters were so faded it was hard to tell.
    “If that’s so,” Caleb said, “Reno is right. It could be referring to the Abajos rather than the Platas.”
    Caleb opened his father’s journal and turned pages quickly.
    “Here,” he pointed. “Coming up from this direction, the terrain reminded Dad of a Spanish saddle, but…”
    “But?”
    Caleb flipped pages until he came to the map he had made combining his father’s explorations with his own.
    “These are the mountains the Spanish called Las Platas,” he said.
    “The Silver Mountains,” Eve translated.
    “Yes. And where there’s silver, there’s usually gold.”
    The excitement stealing through Eve showed in her smile.
    “If you come in this way,” Caleb continued, “at a distance these peaks look a bit like a Spanish saddle, too. But you could say that about a lot of peaks.”
    “Did they actually find silver in the Platas?”
    Caleb shrugged. “They found silver somewhere on this side of the Great Divide.”
    “Nearby?”
    “No one