Cowboy Heart (Historical Western Romance) (Longren Family series #3, Kitty and Lukes story) (14 page)

             
"Man's got to earn a living," Luke said, which made William laugh again.

             
"Farm's not even for sale yet," David Lord said.  "There's time for these decisions t' be made.  I think everyone needs to get some rest.  We have a bunkhouse and a guest room, sorry to say only one.  Would the ladies like to share the guest room and the gentlemen—"

             
"I think Sarah would like to stay with William," I said, not merely thinking it but feeling it, as if Sarah would have to be broken into pieces to be removed from William's side. 

             
"You're not bunking with the hands," Sarah said, already shocked as if I'd suggested it.

             
If only we'd been alone, I could have said, "No?" in such an innocent voice and seen her eyebrows fly up the way I've always been able to make them. 
Kitty Anne, don't tease your sister
, my father would say, but he was always laughing.  It was too easy to get Sarah's goat.  She was big hearted and much too proper to be my sister.

             
We weren't alone and so I asked if perhaps I could sleep on the davenport, which looked far less comfortable than stretching out on the Lord's front porch would be, but it won tacit approval from everyone and David Lord went off with Robert and Luke to show them to the bunkhouse, where Tiny and Mike had gone earlier to settle with the men, and Mrs. Lord bustled off with Sarah, William hanging back until the women could come back out of the guest room.

             
In the now silent parlor, exhaustion caught up with me.  I was grimy from soot and aching from head to toe and still wearing the comfortable but now filthy trousers that I'd end up sleeping in.

             
I sat down beside William on the davenport and rested my arms on the chair arm, my head on my arms.

             
"Kitty, for everything you did for us today, I want to thank you."  William's voice was gentle.  "You took some risks."

             
"I acted like Kitty," I said.  "Some of my ideas work."  Sentiment embarrasses me more often than not.

             
"You helped out.  You gave Sarah the idea that meant the fire was caught before too much time went by."

             
I put Sarah in danger
, I thought,
but then, it had been Sarah's decision to go running into the woods by herself.

             
Perhaps we were more alike than I'd previously thought.

             
"You also saved those four cows."

             
I was too tired to dissemble or even become tongue-tied and awkward.

             
William kept going.  "I know we talked about your staying on at Big Sky." 

             
His voice was soothing, gentle and slow.  The ranch house was warm and my clothes finally starting to dry.  With my eyes closed and my head resting on my arms, I was almost asleep.  William's voice seemed to come from very far away.

             
"When we talked about it, though, we were just talking about the possibility and whether you wanted to."  He paused and I almost fell asleep.  "Now, I'd like to ask you to consider staying on at Big Sky."

             
Something in his voice made me look up.  I folded my arms, leaned back on the davenport, blinked several times in the low light of the parlor.  "Why?"

             
"Sarah's lonely, Kitty," he said, as if it were the most obvious observation in the world.  "She doesn't think I know, but she misses you and her mother and her friends and plays at that opera house and the desert."

             
He had leaned back against the couch and his face was very white.  William was even more exhausted than I.

             
"She was friends with Cynthia Getties," William said simply and that small puzzle piece clicked into place.  That was why Sarah had so carefully almost defended Cynthia in every instance, why I'd had the idea she wouldn't say she'd seen the woman starting the fires even if she had, at least she would have thrown doubt on the subject.  It explained her wistful response to my saying Cynthia had approached me with the shawl, and to why Sarah had talked about Cynthia going back to her family rather than being arrested or staying and running the farm herself.

             
"They were friends."  I didn't mean it as a question, but William almost treated it that way.

             
"Sarah was friends with her.  The Getties woman, she's…"  He stopped and thought briefly about the word he wanted.  "Unpredictable.  Her husband treats her ill and she, in turn, treats her friends badly.  They have no kin in the area and no children of their own, but she's never left him or gone back to her family."

             
"Sarah said Mrs. Getties' mother is ill?"

             
"Ayah."

             
I said, very quietly, "She tried to burn down your ranch.  You know she was part of it, even if she just knew and didn't warn you."

             
I didn't look at him as I spoke.  From the corner of my eye, I could see he didn't turn toward me when he spoke, either.

             
"Ayah," William said again.  "But it's what Sarah wants."

              I could hear the women in the guest bedroom.  Their voices came back down the short hallway.  They'd soon have the room turned out and ready.

             
"If I stayed, would I be in the way?" I asked.

             
"You going to act like a guest?" William asked.

             
"Have I thus far?"

             
I looked at him when I asked and saw that he thought to tease but changed his mind.  "You've more than done your share."

             
I breathed and didn't say anything.  It would be easier to go back to Virginia City at this point.  There was Robert here, and there was Luke, and I thought now that only part of what I felt when I thought of Luke was that I wanted someone to run with and ride with and someone whose need to carry out bad ideas matched mine, someone who would race me up a tree. 

             
Easier would mean running.  Leaving Sarah.  Leaving the ranch, the people I'd met, the calves I wanted to see grow up.

             
"Also?  He's in love with you," William said, misreading whatever thoughts he thought I was having.

             
"Robert?" I asked, and was surprised to find less anticipation and more discomfit at the notion.

             
William patted me in a brotherly way as he rose, hearing Sarah and Mrs. Lord starting down the hall toward us.  "No, little sister.  Luke."                           

              The night was warm.  The stars stood out in bright glory in a now cloudless sky.  No wind threatened to blow sparks from a fire or to tinder another blaze.  Here, just miles away from The Big Sky Ranch, the light breeze smelled fresh and the air damp.

             
I sat in a rocking chair on the porch.  The ranch hands were tucked into the bunkhouse, probably a tight fit with the Lord's men in residence, too.  Sarah and William had retired for the night to the guest room, David and Mrs. Lord to their own quarters.  Somewhere on the ranch was Robert McLeod, who Sarah said wasn't constant; who William said was seeing a girl from Redding. 

             
Somewhere was Luke, who'd I'd been thinking of as a friend, a friend whose company I loved, whose well-being I feared for when the fire struck and I didn't know where he was.

             
A friend William said loved me.

             
Out of the frying pan, into the fire.  Quite literally.  I'd left Virginia City and my entanglements there and doubled them here.

             
Somewhere on the ranch, coyotes howled.  Something rustled in the night and was silent again.  There were no falling stars tonight. 

             
I should go inside.  Mrs. Lord had left me a pile of quilts and down pillows on the davenport, looking slightly askance at my sleeping there, but she'd said nothing.  Truly, I wasn't certain I'd sleep, but at least I could close my burning, smoke-tired eyes.

             
I didn't get up, though.  With the quilt around my shoulders, I was comfortable in the night, my spirit soothed by the vast darkness and my heart quiet in its debate.

             
A board squeaked, softly, at the far end of the porch. I wasn't surprised.  I may even have been waiting for him.  When he spoke, I was surprised to find it was Luke.

             
"I wanted to check on you after the day's events," he said.  He was a dark silhouette against the night.

             
"I'm well," I said—a lie.  My heart now beat much faster than it had, my peace fled, my spirit filled with fire.  "And you?" 

             
"Ashamed," he said, not sounding it. 

             
I turned to look directly at the dark figure.  "Of what?"

             
He stepped closer and I stood without thinking.  "Of enjoying the day," he said, his voice husky and deeper than usual.  "At least Big Sky is standing, the herd is safe.  Because this afternoon, it was—"

             
Different,
I thought. 
Thrilling.  Something was happening.

             
And because Luke had been there, every step of the way—give and take, back and forth, each of us listening to the other, making decisions and suggestions and doing something that mattered. 

             
Climbing the cottonwoods had mattered, too.

             
Since I'd come out into the night, I'd thought about going home, back to Virginia City.  My mother was there, my kin, my friends.  It was what I was accustomed to and I'd never thought I wouldn't be returning, not when I'd boarded the train, not right up until tonight.  Even when Sarah had talked about my staying, I'd thought it was comfort, to make me feel I'd made the decision when I went back to Virginia City and Mr. Overton's plans and my life there.

             
I'd left Virginia City because it was too difficult for me there.  I'd started to think about leaving Big Sky because it was too difficult here.

             
I wasn't ready to leave.

             
I was ready to be Kitty again, though; the Kitty my father had admired and my mother sometimes despaired of.

             
"The fire left the buildings untouched," I said, repeating what Luke had said.  "So it should be alright for me to admit: I had fun today."

             
He laughed.  He didn't even hesitate.  "So did I."

             
And I trusted you and you didn't let me down, you stayed with me and you helped and you have the same spark I do, that's what I see in your eyes: Life.  Interest.  Excitement.

             
"You didn't talk to me last week."  I let it stand as an accusation.

             
"You didn't seem lonely." 

             
I almost laughed.  That
was
an accusation.

             
"Someone had to keep me company."

             
"You don’t mind the number of other young women he keeps company?"

             
"I'd have minded if someone had told me."

             
"Seems t'me several people did, Miss Kathryn," he said out of the darkness.

             
"I've asked you not to call me that."

             
"You've told me that's what you're called when people are het up at you."

             
That made me smile.  He couldn't see the smile in the dark, after all.  "Luke," I said.  "Can't you call me Kitty?"

             
"Reckon I can," he said.

             
Neither of us spoke, then.  The hour was late and our meeting unusual.  I couldn't see his expression in the darkness and he couldn't see mine, and my usual awkwardness deserted me.

             
"I'd ask you to go for a walk with me, Kitty, but—"

             
"—But it's dark?" I hazarded.

             
"But walks with you are fraught with danger."

             
I was torn between considering it a compliment and mentioning that, because he was with me for every dangerous walk, from the cottonwood climbing to the cottonwoods burning, that perhaps he was the catalyst.  I thought about laughing.