Mary Connealy (106 page)

She’d just this minute made that choice, and now she was in danger. There were dangerous beasts, four-legged and two-legged, outside this house. He’d lived in fair harmony through the winter out there, with a mountain and the bitter cold seemingly bent on killing him five times a day. He’d liked the barren life. The time with his Bible had been good for his soul.

And now he was back with Pa and Gertie and more confused than ever. Not about his faith. He needed the comfort of God more than he needed his heart to take its next beat. But what was he supposed to do with his life? What did God want for him?

Wade walked to the door and went out onto the back step, now a ramp sloping down to ground level on the left and a section that went straight ahead for several feet so Pa could roll right onto the buckboard. Wade went to the end of that section and sat down, his legs swinging, staring out into the night.

He prayed.

As the silence of the night embraced him, he saw a light in the bunkhouse and another in the foreman’s cabin. Everyone was abed for the night…or would be soon. Except Abby, his Glowing Sun, who was no doubt using that confounded knife of hers to kill and skin a buck so she could build her own house.

He was an idiot to hunt for her. She was tougher than he was by far. Yes, she’d been caught by white men, twice. So she wasn’t invincible. She’d been kidnapped once last year when Wade had found her while on his way to help Belle Tanner—it had still been Tanner back then, before she’d married Silas—with her cattle drive and once this spring.

But the honest truth was she’d been running from the first men, already free, and she’d been slashing away at the second man. She’d saved herself both times before Wade ever got there.

Dew had formed on the ground, and he could see footprints leading around the house as clearly as if they’d been outlined by lantern light. With a sigh, he followed them. He’d just talk to her. Find where she was sleeping.

She’d said,
“All the danger is locked inside with you. Your father built a fortress to keep happiness out.”
He looked at the house he was right now rounding and knew she was right. He could never ask her to live in this house. So he’d make sure she knew he was ready to leave. To live anywhere as long as she was with him.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he followed her trail toward a wooded area to the north of the house, hoping she’d just gone in there to fume and cool down. He stepped into the woods and felt an arm go around his neck and a pointed blade jab into his neck.

Either someone was trying to kill him, or…he’d found his woman.

Or both.

“Go back inside.” Abby needed some peace. She needed time to think.

“I was hoping that was you, Ab.” Wade’s voice worked, just barely, through her hold. He didn’t try to escape. In fact, after they’d stood there a few seconds, the grip she had on him seemed less like an attack and more like she’d grabbed him to give a hug.

A hug with a knife involved, but still—

“I meant it when I said I wouldn’t sleep in there tonight.”

“Okay, I’m not going to try and argue. I just wanted to know where you were going to stay. I want you to be safe.”

“As if I was safe inside.” With a sniff of disgust, Abby let him go, sorry she’d ever touched him. Her arm was warm where it had wound around his throat. Holding her knife felt foolish. She would never harm Wade. Never.

“There are different kinds of safe, Ab. You’re right—so right—about my family being an unhappy one. I don’t think you can blame Gertie any more than she blames herself, but in the end, yes, I grew up in a sad place.”

Abby walked deeper into the woods. The ground was rocky, but that was so everywhere in this part of Montana. She needed to find shelter but didn’t worry about it. The mountains and forest would always shelter her.

She found a shattered pine tree, its stump nearly four feet across. It had snapped about ten feet up, and the massive top of the tree had fallen and was long dead and bare. The ground, piled high with the fallen needles, was soft as a feather bed. Sinking to the ground, Abby leaned back against the tree. She could sleep here as well as anywhere.

But Wade needed to go away first. Instead he slid down the trunk next to her. The tree was big enough that there was plenty of room for both of them, especially with Wade sitting so close their arms touched. “You know I care about you, Abby, don’t you? I want you to stay here.”

“And if I can’t?” The needles gently scented with pine seemed to ease into Abby’s bones. There was peace for her in the wild places.

“Then I’ll leave with you. That home holds nothing for me but responsibility, Christian duty. I needed to come home and see to my father, but I’ve done that now. I thought for a time we could stay and be happy here, but now I doubt that. We’ll go somewhere else. We can leave now, tonight if you want. Go into Divide and have a marriage blessed then head for the mountains, in the direction of your high valley. Build a small cabin, raise a garden, and hunt for food. We don’t need the ranch to survive. We’ve both proved that.”

He just would not stop jabbering about marrying her. She couldn’t say yes, yet she found herself unable to say no. So she changed the subject. “You really lived in the mountains last winter?”

Wade nodded, and Abby had to look close in the dark night. With the trees overhead, even the bright moonlight and blazing stars struggled to penetrate the darkness, but Abby’s eyes adjusted quickly and his sincerity was unmistakable. “I found an old miner’s shack, or maybe a trapper lived there. It was probably smaller than your tepee.”

“And you liked it there?”

“I—I was contented there. I needed some quiet to get over—” It took a moment for Abby to realize he wasn’t going to continue.

“To get over what?”

The sound of Wade slowly inhaling melted into the soft rustle of the wind and the cry of a hunting owl. Insects chirped in the night, and the leaves overhead sang their own quiet song.

Long after she decided he wasn’t going to answer her, Wade finally spoke. “To get over—the—the sight of you—riding away from me with Wild Eagle. It broke my heart.”

Now it was Abby’s turn not to speak. Abby thought of how Wade had saved her from those men last fall when he was headed for work on a cattle drive for Silas Harden’s family. He’d abandoned that job and stayed with her, tried to persuade her to come back with him to his white world. When she’d refused, he’d taken her to her home. And on the way, they’d come to care for each other. Abby thought of these things in the silence.

Wade reached down and took her hand, fumbling for it a bit in the dark. He pressed her knuckles against his lips.

She liked it so much it terrified her, so she wrenched away. “I can’t do it, Wade. I can’t bind myself to you. I’ve seen too much of the white men, all bad.”

“No, not all bad. Not me.” He moved suddenly, rising onto his knees. He caught her shoulders and turned her, pulling until she knelt to face him. “You trust me, Abby. I know you do. And my father and the trouble that goes with him doesn’t have to be part of choosing me. I will go with you wherever we have to go to find a peaceful home, full of happiness. Say you want that. Please, at least tell me there’s a chance. I need to hear that.”

She hesitated to speak the words that he seemed to believe would bring him happiness. But there was no way for them to be happy with her dislike of all his people.

His lips settled onto hers. In the darkness, she hadn’t seen him lowering his head. For this reason only, she didn’t duck away. And then she couldn’t. She couldn’t end the kiss that she knew was all wrong for both of them.

He drew her closer, all his loneliness pulling at her own.

At last he raised his head. “You know we could find a way to be happy together, Abby. Your kiss tells me the truth even if your words deny it.”

“Oh, Wade …” Abby rested one palm on his face. He had whiskers, bristly from neglect. She remembered her father would come in cold from checking cattle and scratch her cheek with them and she’d giggle. She’d loved her father, a white man.

“Just a chance, Ab. I’ll give you all the time you need to decide if you can live here with me, or we can leave here right now if you can’t bear life in this house. I’ll walk away with you, not even go inside to say good-bye. We’ll find a preacher and say our vows to God. I’d pledge myself to you forever.”

“You offer to give up your family for me?”

“You’d be my family. We’d begin our own.” Wade kissed her deeply. “Have children.” The kiss came again, longer this time.

He turned then and sank back down to lean against the tree. He pulled her down, tucking her to his side. “You don’t have to answer me now. I know you’re still confused and grieving and angry. But say you’ll give me a chance, please. Here or in the mountains or anywhere else you’d like to go.”

Knowing it was a mistake, Abby rested her head against Wade’s broad shoulder. Through the trees, she could see the lights in the big house. She hated that house. It represented all that was wrong with the whites. Its foolish size and the unhappy people who inhabited it. Now she was forcing Wade to do something he might regret all his life. It wasn’t yet time to leave. “I will give you this time you want so badly, Wade.”

His arm tightened around her, and his sigh ruffled her awful yellow hair. The light in Mort’s room extinguished. Moments later, a light farther to the back of the house came on, in the room where Gertie slept. There was still a lantern burning in the kitchen; the light spilled out and illuminated the bit of backyard that Abby could see. Gertie had left the light on to guide Wade home.

“I will stay here and try to adjust to this world while I decide if I can risk a life with you.”

A soft kiss on the top of her head made her smile and admit the truth. “I, too, felt my heart break when I rode off with Wild Eagle. I did not want to leave you.”

His other arm came around her, and he hugged her until she thought she might have to pinch him so she could breathe. Then he laughed and pulled back enough that they could see each other. “Do you really want to sleep out here tonight? I could go in and get you a blanket.”

“No, I’ll come back in. But there may be times when I need to get outside, to clear my head and breathe clean air and think without the noise of your father ringing in my ears.”

“I was dead serious about leaving if he speaks rudely to you again. If he is unkind, just tell me and we’ll go. I give you my word.”

Abby nodded, thinking he’d just put yet another burden on her. Now if his father was cruel, which he was bound to be, she would have to keep it secret unless she wanted to send Wade from the house.

They stood and Wade took her hand, his fingers sliding between hers. “Are you ready to go back in?”

She would never be ready, so why wait? “Yes.”

“Do you mind if we pray before we go? I need to ask God to be with both of us.”

“I need that, too.” Abby took Wade’s other hand, and he quietly said many things that were in her heart, but not all.

He couldn’t begin to imagine all. And she couldn’t begin to tell him.

I
’d like to go see Belle, Red.” Cassie had Michael on one hip, and Susannah was clinging to Red’s right leg singing as the two adults washed the supper dishes side by side in their new, bigger kitchen.

Cassie had tried to stop him from making it too big. Heating a large house was too much work. But Red had a stubborn streak and a bit of a temper to match his red hair. He’d pushed for more space when he’d found out Michael was on the way, and Cassie admitted she liked the children having their own room.

“Now, Cass, honey, we’ve been doing so much running lately I’m not seeing to the cattle like I oughta.”

Cassie grinned at him. She could get the man to do anything and that was a fact. It was a power she tried not to abuse. Michael slapped her on the face and she probably deserved it. But she was determined to get her way. “We’ve only been to Belle’s once.”

“Yes, but she came here once, too.”

“Not really. She and Emma went off with you. I want to talk with her about why I can’t get the hang of knife throwing.” It was a plain fact that no amount of practice seemed to improve her skill.

“It sticks in the wood almost every time now. You’re doing great.”

“But it’s always too low.”

Red opened his mouth.

“And no”—she wasn’t listening to any more of his nonsense—“I’m not going to just aim higher.”

“Why not?”

She could be stubborn, too. “Because—” It pinched to admit the truth. “Because—” So she rushed it out in one long, frustrated shout. “Because I’ve already tried!” She slammed a metal pot onto the counter with a loud
bang.
“I still can’t hit what I aim at.”

“Oh.” Red subdued himself after that and picked up the pot to dry it.

“It doesn’t work.” She pouted. Pouting was one of the best things she’d learned since she’d gotten married. She loved the way Red teased her out of her bad mood. She could hardly sustain the down-turned lips when she thought of how sweet he was while he cheered her up. But that really wasn’t why she’d started this. “Please, Red.”