me Evie. We're family, and we're going to be friends. You'll need one if you mean to live with Daniel."
Thinking of the man with the six-gun, the one who had apparently climbed over a train roof to reach her, Georgina had some inkling of what Evie was saying. She bit her lip and asked anxiously, "He isn't always that way, is he? I mean, he seems so nice, and he laughs all the time, and he's so easy to talk to."
Evie nodded, and the flowers on her hat bounced. "Yes, he is. Don't get me wrong. Daniel is special. You'll not find another man like him in all the world. My children love him. He always plays with them. He has the patience of a saint sometimes."
She turned and gave Georgina a sharp look. "He hasn't told you about his childhood, has he?"
"He hasn't told me anything," Georgina whispered sadly. "I didn't even know he was a Mulloney until the day we married."
Evie sent the two men laughing across the aisle a furious glance. "That figures. And I thought Tyler would make a good example for him to follow. I should have known better." She turned back to Georgina. "Daniel has his reasons, and you'll have to blame his less honest moments on me and Tyler. We weren't a very good influence."
She tucked the pin more safely into her hat and sought words to explain. "Daniel is a Mulloney in name only, you know," she said thoughtfully. "His family sent him away right after he was born. He never knew them until recently."
"Right after he was born?" Shocked, Georgina stared at her. "How could they send a baby away?"
Evie shrugged. "I've never met them. I've always thought they must have horns and tails, myself. But the excuse probably had something to do with the fact that Daniel wasn't expected to live. Something went wrong when he was born. Now that I know a little something about childbirth, I imagine it must have been a breech. He may have been born blue and they thought even if he lived, he would never be right. And then there was his leg."
She lowered her voice to a whisper as she glanced in Daniel's direction. "Whoever delivered him broke his leg when he was born, and they didn't set it. He came screaming into this world and didn't stop even when he arrived in St. Louis and was delivered to the nurse who raised us."
Georgina stared at her in shock. "St. Louis? They sent a sick infant all the way to St. Louis? They had to be mad."
"Nanny was very good. I'm certain they thought they were doing what was best. And St. Louis was on the river, more easily accessible than most places. It made sense. Even if Daniel lived, he was going to be a cripple, or worse. If they sent him far enough away, they probably figured he would never work his way back again."
"A cripple?" Georgina threw a hasty glance to her husband, who was now playing a game of cards with Tyler, the crumpled bag empty of baked goods between them. "He limps sometimes, but I certainly wouldn't call him a cripple."
"But he was." Evie rummaged in her satchel and found a pot of lip cream which she applied carefully. "Daniel grew up unable to walk without the help of a cane, and his balance was precarious. He could never play with other children, so Nanny kept him home with her. He grew up learning about life from books. I thought you ought to know that. Daniel still has this funny idea that life ought to be like books, that right should always prevail, and heroes always win."
"And fair maidens should always be rescued," Georgina finished what Evie had left unspoken.
"Exactly." Satisfied with the result in her mirror, Evie set it down. "That gentle, sweet-natured man still thinks he ought to be more like the Pecos Martin of his childhood dreams, and that devil of a husband of mine and his friends taught him just how to go about it. You didn't marry one man, Georgina, you married two. And one of them hasn't the foggiest notion of what to do with heroines after he's rescued them."
Georgina leaned her head back against the seat and stared out the window at the fields rattling by. She rather thought Evie might be just a little bit wrong about that last part. Pecos Martin knew what to do with women, all right.