Chapter 2 – Doubts, Fears, and a Pony

I didn't bring up the letter from Sam until all the kids were in bed. Then I explained it to Doralice and gave her the missive itself to read. She took her time and looked up into my eyes when she was done. "She sounds happy," my love told me. "Do you want to go?"

"I'd like to, yeah."

"Why don't you and Bret go?"

I shook my head. "No. I'm not goin' without you."

"But Bart, Lily's so young. I'd hate to drag her all over in a stagecoach."

"Better she go with us than leave her here with who? Maude? Lily Mae? I'd feel better if the littlest one was with us."

"When is the wedding again?"

"September twenty-second."

Doralice finally gave me a big smile. "Alright, I'll go. And we'll take Lily."

"Good. Then I'll take the letter over to Bret. Let's see if we can get them to go, too." It wasn't three or four minutes before there was a knock on the door. This time of night it had to be my brother or Pappy. We'd decided when we all moved into our houses at the ranch that we wouldn't take anything for granted – and we'd knock on each other's door. It just seemed more civilized that way.

I figured it was probably Bret. The hour was a little too late for Pappy these days. I opened the door to discover that I was right . . . it was big brother. "Did you hear us talking about you?" I asked him as he came in.

"No, why? What did I miss?" I handed him the letter and a warning.

"Better sit down before you read that. You won't believe who it's from."

He turned the envelope over and gasped. "My God, she's still at the ranch."

"Yep, wait until you read the letter." I shut up then, allowing him to do just that. Bret did the same thing I did – read it over twice. When he was finished, he looked at me like he'd seen a ghost.

"What do you think?" he asked, to my surprise.

"I think we should go."

"I wonder what Ginny'll think. What about you, Doralice? You wanna go?"

"I do, Bret. Samantha was a big part of your lives at one time. And she practically begs you both in the letter to come. I've never been to New Mexico. It might be nice."

Bret was nodding. "The ranch is beautiful, that's for sure. Would you take Lily with you?"

"I think we should. And you should take Bodeen." Doralice now thought both of the little ones should go with them.

Bret agreed with Doralice. "I'm sure Ginny wouldn't go without him."

"Are you gonna ask her, then?" I questioned Bret.

"Yeah, if you'll let me borrow the letter so she can read it. I'll return it once she's done with it."

"So what did you come over for?" Obviously, Bret had a reason for appearing at our front door.

He gave me one of those Bret Maverick smiles. "I dunno. I can't remember."

"Pappy's got a better memory than you, Brother Bret."

"Doesn't he though, Brother Bart?"

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Two days later we were all in agreement – we were goin' to New Mexico for the wedding. Tim Demerest and Lily Mae Connors were going to be in charge of all the kids that didn't go with us, with Maude and Pappy as backups. Tim was our adopted 'son' who ran the breeding program and Lily Mae was . . . well, she was many things to the Mavericks, but right now she was living in my household as a housekeeper, cook, and surrogate grandmother.

Doralice decided she had to have at least three new dresses to take with her, and by the time the ladies were done shopping, it looked like they'd bought every yard of material that Freeley's Emporium had to offer. That, of course, necessitated Ginny, Doralice and Lily Mae spending an entire week sewing a new wardrobe.

That was fine by me. Doralice hadn't bought anything for herself since she'd quit workin' at Maude's . . . every time she intended to, she found somethin' for one or the other of the kids and bought that instead. I loved that she was always thinkin' of the little ones, but I wanted her to have fine things. So the 'shopping spree' didn't bother me one bit.

As the time for us to leave drew closer we sat the whole family down and explained what was going to happen. Maudie and Belle were fine . . . they were a delightful mixture of little girls and young women. Even Beauregard handled the plans better than we'd expected. Breton was another matter entirely. Being all of not quite three years old, Breton was fascinated by Lily and had taken it upon himself to become her protector, a role that would last well into adulthood. He couldn't or wouldn't understand why Lily was going with us and he wasn't, and no amount of explaining or reasoning was going to make him happy. I loved the little man's devotion to his tiny sister, but we were not going to take Breton with us just to avoid his being upset.

I finally solved the problem by convincing Tim to teach Breton to ride. We now had several ponies on the ranch, and there was one in particular that Breton was fascinated by. Tim and me talked to him one afternoon and explained what was going to happen while we were gone, and he seemed willing to accept the trade-off. He actually sat on the pony before we left for New Mexico; I wasn't about to miss the first time our littlest cowboy sat a horse.

The closer it got to time to catch the stage for Dry Springs, the more nervous I got about going. I don't know why . . . something about the trip had me worried. Of course, I didn't like being away from the ranch or the kids for that length of time; there were so many things that could happen with us gone. Yes, I trusted Lily Mae and Tim to take care of everything, and there was always Maude and Pappy if anything went wrong. Still, something had me worried and I was having no luck in figuring out what it was.

The day before we were to leave, Doralice and me were both in the bedroom packing when she finally said something about my case of the nerves. "What is bothering you?" she asked me. "You were all gung-ho in wantin' to make this trip, and now you're actin' like it's the last thing on your mind. Has something happened? Is there somethin' I don't know about?"

I shook my head and sat down on her side of the bed. "No, blue-eyes. Nothin's happened, no last minute changes. I don't know what it is. Somethin's tellin' me this could be a bad idea." She sat down next to me and put her arms around me.

"We don't have to go, Bart. If you feel that strongly about it . . ."

Instead of giving her an answer, I leaned over and gave her a kiss. That one was so good that I gave her another, and before I knew it we were lying on the bed in each other arms, kissing like we hadn't for a long time. Somebody came to the door of the bedroom lookin' for us; I don't know who it was because they never made a sound and eventually walked away.

"I see no reason to change our plans now. It'll be good to see Sam again after all these years. And I'm curious to see how the ranch has fared. Besides, it'll be good to get away for a while. Nope, we're goin'."

We must have laid there for another fifteen or twenty minutes, intertwined with each other, and it felt right just to lie still and hold the woman I loved with all my heart. I was just worrying for nothing, I told myself, and everything would turn out fine.