“No,” Daniel answered. “It belongs to…”

The faint sound of a rapping froze his words.

TWO

DANIEL FLIPPED OPEN THE LATCH ON THE OLD trunk. An explosion of fabric rocked him backward. As he sat on the floor watching, a mass of red hair pushed through the dull-colored clothing, looking more like a huge ball of yarn than a woman's head. Daniel forced his mouth closed as the boxed creature stretched and climbed, none too gracefully, from the trunk. Her arms and legs were long and grew stronger with each movement. The clothes she wore were wrinkled and thread-bare.

Bright green eyes glanced at him a moment before the woman yelled, “Clear the decks!” at the top of her lungs. In a mad dash, she ran across the room and out the back door as if her hem were on fire.

Daniel raised to his knees and fought to keep his balance as the twins rushed toward him. He rocked his daughters in strong arms. They all three stared out into the night where she'd vanished. The low howl of the wind and the blackness beyond the door seemed to erase any hint of her passing. She could have been a mythical creature born to full life before them and disappeared just as quickly, if he believed in such things.

“Who was that, Daddy?” the twin on his right knee whispered.

“I'm not sure,” he answered honestly, feeling very much as though he'd just opened Pandora's box. “I think it was a woman.” Of course it was a woman, he corrected mentally. He might have been a widower for years, but he hadn't yet gone blind. “One thing I know, that wasn't your mother's Aunt Rosy.”

“Lock the door before she comes back, Daddy!” The other twin stretched and clutched his neck. “I'm afraid.”

“No, let's wait and see if she returns. You've nothing to fear.” He only hoped he spoke the truth. Women, even normal ones, tended to make him speechless. And he had a strong feeling this one was not within shouting distance of normal.

He lowered his voice to a calming tone. “From the speed she left, she may be halfway to Shreveport by now.” He lifted the twins as he stood. “We might as well eat supper. If she's not back by the time we finish, I'll go outside and try to find her. It wouldn't be right not to look after whoever, or whatever, Aunt Rosy shipped us.”

The twins dove into their pancakes with zest as Daniel poured himself a cup of coffee and watched the door. A hundred questions drifted through his mind. Answers were way outnumbered, which wasn't all that unusual if May's family was involved.

Quirkiness seemed the only common batter in the mix where the Whitworths were concerned. Even Aunt Rosy, who'd offered to come help, was a woman who liked to do most of the talking and all the thinking in a conversation. She not only was free with telling you what she thought, but if given a moment, she'd tell you what you should think also. Her sister, Violet, hadn't ended a sentence in years as far as Daniel could tell. Even when she paused, she began again as soon as possible by starting with an “and” or a “but” or her favorite, “furthermore.”

One thing he knew, whoever this woman was, she'd been sent by the aunts. But had they packed and shipped the fiery redhead to help him, or to sweep her off their doorstep? From the glance he had of her, he guessed her to be mature, mid-twenties, maybe. She didn't seem a bad looking woman. He'd noticed no deformities. Except, of course, her hair. She seemed too thick of body to be stylish, no eighteen-inch waist, he guessed, but not fat. He'd also noticed an ample chest packed into a properly tight bodice.

Judging from the speed with which she ran, she must be healthy enough.

“Reverend McLain?”

The woman was back, standing just inside the doorway, her dress and hair whirling in the night air.

Daniel stood slowly, forcing himself not to look at the way her clothes clung about her in the wind. “Yes, I'm Daniel McLain,” he answered in his most formal voice.

The stranger leaned her head back and shook her hair as though enjoying the wind's combing. “Good,” she said. “I'm in the right place. That's something at least. Sorry about the sudden exit, but sometimes, it's a ‘clear the decks’ you know, no time to stop and chat.”

Daniel had no idea what she was talking about. Her chatter reminded him of years ago when seminary students were required to visit the insane wards. One poor man flashed to mind. Daniel prayed to God with the ill soul for an hour before the man informed Daniel that he was God and had grown tired of listening.

The stranger before him glanced at Daniel as if she thought him slow of mind and whispered, “You know, the privy?”

“Oh.” Daniel cleared his throat. Men and women weren't supposed to address such subjects. May had made him blush when they first married by simply saying she needed to take a walk outside. He suddenly felt very much older than his twenty-four years.

Changing the subject seemed the safest defense. “And who are you, Madam?”

“It's Miss,” she answered as she moved into the room, twisting her hair in one thick braid at her shoulder. “I'm the spinster, Karlee Whitworth, your wife's first cousin. I don't mind being unmarried, but I do get tolerably tired of being called Miss. Everyone in town knows I'm an old maid, but they still seem to say the word ‘Miss’ a little louder when they introduce me.”

“Well, Miss… I mean…”

“Karlee,” she helped. “Call me Karlee. After all, we're almost related.”

She walked past him and sat down across the table from the twins. “And these must be your daughters. They do look alike. What are their names?”

Daniel frowned. “I just call them twin. When I want one, I usually want the other.”

The strange woman jumped from her chair once more, and Daniel wouldn't have been surprised to have heard her yell “clear the decks!”

But this time she headed straight toward him like a warrior on the attack. “You mean you haven't named your daughters? They're almost four by my count, and you still just call them ‘twin’?”

“I've been busy.” Daniel forced himself not to step back with her advance.

She was tall; half a head more, and she'd be his height. And she stared directly at him without any respectable fear or feminine shyness. Even for a Whitworth, he decided, she was a strange one.

“How busy does a man have to be to name his children?” She shook her head and several strands of hair mutinied from her braid.

He studied her carefully, putting the pieces together. He'd been a fool to ask Aunt Rosy for help. She'd probably notified the one person he didn't want to know he was having problems, his wife's sister. If Gerilyn knew he needed help, she'd be on the next boat from New Orleans trying to take the twins away. She'd made it plain more than once that she wasn't interested in helping him raise them, she was interested in having them as her own. She must have sent this strange woman to check on things.

“Have you heard from Gerilyn lately?” he asked casually without answering Karlee's question.

“No,” she answered, leaning her head a little to the side. “Should I have? I only met your wife, May, and her sister once when we were about eight. I stayed with their family for a month. But as you know they already had their hands full of girls and didn't need me moving in.”

Before he could answer, gunshots rang from just outside and the sound of horses' hooves gave rhythm to the night.

Karlee's green eyes sparkled with sudden fear, but she didn't move.

“We're only half a block from the docks. Trouble always rattles after dark. But tonight it sounds like it's headed straight for us. Grab the blankets!” Daniel signaled with his head toward a pile of quilts as he tucked a twin beneath each arm. “And run, Spinster Karlee.”

She didn't question, but followed as he hurried through the small house almost void of furniture. He not only didn't have time to name his children, he obviously didn't bother with shopping. No extra chairs, no rugs, no curtains. Only the basic furniture needed to function.

They entered the wide entry hall built in the center of the house. With one mighty shove of his shoulder, Daniel slid a panel along one side of the foyer. A row of rifles lined the once-hidden section of wall and a hastily cut trap door scarred the floor. For a man of the cloth, he seemed ready for anything.

Daniel lifted the lid. “Climb inside! You and the twins will be safe. I made this hiding place yesterday, just in case it was ever needed.”

Karlee glanced down at the hole that looked little more than four feet deep and coffin width. She was in no hurry to be locked away again.

“What about you?”

“I'll face the men. There's a group of troublemakers looking for a reason to act. I've dealt with them before. If they're not too liquored up, I should be able to send them on their way.”

“I'll face them with you, Reverend.”

“Get in there and be safe, Spinster Whitworth!”

The sternness in his voice sounded like an old man. He couldn't be much older than her, Karlee thought. But he obviously was a man not given to bending.