Mary Connealy (69 page)

“I like being called Sarie,” Sarah said with pink-tinged cheeks. “I never had a nickname before, Pa.”

Silas tapped her nose with one finger. “I gotta get on with it or we’ll be having snowflakes for breakfast one of these next days. Now, you all”—he tossed a glance around the room that included all of them—“quit making a man want to stay inside to spend time with his pretty girls and let me get to work!”

He flashed them a grin so handsome that Belle’s heart seemed to be melting right inside her chest.

He hugged the girls again, and as he passed Belle, he grabbed her and dipped her backward over his arm and kissed away every brain cell she had in her head. He’d been gone for several minutes before any of them thought to get on with the day’s work.

Belle heard herself sigh. She had it real bad. Then she smiled at the girls. “Let’s get to work.”

She went out to saddle up a bronco. As the horse crow hopped across the corral to work out its morning kinks, she took a moment to give thanks for Silas Harden. She’d always believed, but now she had actual living proof.

There really was a God.

T
here really was a devil, too!

The pointy-horned, pitchfork-toting sidewinder had put one over on her again!

Silas Harden and his stupid
idea!
Belle was getting real sick of the fact that she hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Silas since she married him. Except at mealtimes and bedtimes, of course. He was always right on time for those.

He’d fixed the house up to a point, tossing together a bedroom and patching a few of the worst cracks to cut the wind. Near as she could figure that had taken him about three days. He’d done nothing since.

Belle and Emma took a few days working the kinks out of their green-broke horses that they’d left behind while on the drive. They’d next thing to gone pure wild again with a month’s neglect. Belle hoped to have them gentled by spring. She’d been a steady supplier of well-trained horses for the area ranchers. And Emma had a special gift for it. They’d make good money on this year’s horse crop.

Still, it was a spine-jarring business getting into the saddle most mornings. Once the cayuse she picked out for this morning worked out its nerves, she turned to Emma. “Where’s Silas?”

“He was gone when I got up.” Emma shrugged. “He took the roan today and a bunch of the tools. I reckon he’s working on something for the house.”

“But
what
for the house? The extra room has been done for a full week.”

“Now, Ma, don’t go to nagging at Pa. He’s been a purely good husband so far.”

Belle had to admit that was the honest truth. When she thought about the way Silas had pulled them over that mountain trail with pure grit and iron will, her loved bubbled up like a spring. She’d never met a man she respected more. So, whatever he was doing, she’d trust it was for the best. “He did a good job with that spare room. I don’t know much about building. Maybe he’s fixing things I don’t even notice. I’ve been gone for long hours. He could come and go ten times and I’d never notice it.”

“We could ask Sarah. She’s keeping Betsy in the house or around the ranch yard while she works. She’d see him during the day.”

“We’ve got to get going this morning. I’m not going to start in nagging on this one. I promise.”

Emma jerked her chin in satisfaction. “What are we workin’ on today?”

Belle kicked her horse who seemed content to stretch his legs with her on his back. “That high rise. I’ve got a herd of longhorns that think they’re mountain goats. I wanted to see how many calves are up there.”

“Didn’t Pa tell you to leave the herds that are hard to get to?”

“He did, but he thinks he’s got a long time to work before winter comes. He’s new to this area. I’m not going to sit around resting and leave everything to him while he’s working so hard on the house. That ain’t nice.”

“No, it surely ain’t. But that’s a tough trail up there.” Emma fell in beside Belle. “It’d like to scare any sensible cow into a dead faint, but not these critters.”

The trail got narrow. Belle and Emma strung out to single file. They quit talking so they could attend to dodging pine trees trying to slap them in the face.

The two of them drove the bulk of those crazy mountain-climbing cattle down closer to the house. All of them took turns trying to go back to the highlands. But once they finally came down and found lush grass, they settled in to eating, and Belle knew they’d stay where the living was easy. Cattle and men: The only real difference was she could sell cattle off and earn real cash money.

This was one of many far-flung groups of cattle Belle needed to check. She’d been burned so badly by miscounting her herd last spring that she was afraid to be slipshod again. She’d check every square inch of her land before the snow fell or know the reason why.

Knowing Silas wouldn’t like the brutally hard day she’d had, Belle kept her work to herself in front of him, and so did Emma, to keep from hurting his feelings.

Wade found a line shack far enough from the Flathead village to not be on their hunting ground. The cabin was ramshackle, ten feet by ten feet or so, with a shanty in the back big enough for his horse and nothing else.

He was drawn to Glowing Sun so powerfully that he could go no farther from her. But she’d left him. Gone off, just as Cassie Dawson had. Just as his mother had. Wade had let Cassie torment him until he’d lost his way completely, before finding his way in the end to God.

Tempted to go to Red and Cassie for advice, Wade felt God telling him it was time to stand on his own. Time to focus on his own strange longing to save a woman in need.

Sometimes he caught the slimmest memories of fairy tales his mother had read to him. And maybe he remembered his pa shouting at his ma. The ogres in those fairy tales and the monster that was his father were twisted together and added to by years of fear. The damsels in distress, the heroic white knights…Wade couldn’t decide what of his memories were true.

Was the shouting from later years? Pa had done plenty of it. And Wade’s longing for memories of his mother got mixed in. Whether it was memory or not, Wade knew it was time to stop thinking about saving someone else and find a way to save himself.

Not his soul. God had done that. But he needed wisdom to save himself from making the same mistakes over and over again. He knew he was lonely. It might be because he didn’t like his own company. How better to get over that than to force himself to be alone.

This line shack would be a retreat for him. A refuge. He’d winter here, hunt for food, read his Bible, search his soul. He welcomed the coming snow that would trap him inside and keep him from the almost irresistible need to ride to Glowing Sun.

He sank onto the tattered blankets of the single narrow cot. The bed squeaked with protest under his weight, but it held.

Wade buried his face in the Bible clutched in his hands. Why would Glowing Sun choose him? He was a weakling. She’d chosen a warrior.

The strength he needed seemed beyond his grasp, at least for today, and he covered his eyes with one hand and cried.

The snow that would keep him from making a fool of himself over a woman who didn’t want him couldn’t come soon enough.

Belle raced against the coming winter.

She rode out with Emma most days, though sometimes it made more sense to split up.

Leaving the cabin right after breakfast, Belle usually didn’t even see Silas, who was up and out before dawn. She came back to the cabin to feed Betsy, and he was never around. Some days, if the weather looked to hold decent, she’d head for the farther reaches of her land, and she’d take Betsy along and nurse her on horseback and eat jerked beef and hard biscuits and not get back to the cabin all day.

Silas would be there looking for all the world like a horse that had been rode hard and put up wet.

She was exhausted herself and not given to making idle talk with anyone. And when they were alone, talking was the furthest thing from their minds.

They’d been married for two weeks the first time she’d asked him, sitting at the dinner table, what was keeping him so busy.

Silas laid down his fork as if the food suddenly tasted bad. Then he looked at his plate as if he couldn’t meet her eyes. “I’m not ready to talk about it, Belle honey. I’m keeping real busy and my…um…
idea
is going to work out fine. I won’t be long at it”—he looked up, direct, bossy—“so don’t start moving the herd down to the low country without me. I don’t want you and Emma out on those passes and mountain slopes. Please trust me, Belle, and be patient. There’s plenty of time to get everything done.”

There wasn’t, and she’d already moved a lot of her herd down. But she didn’t correct him, because he looked so sad. She somehow felt like her question shamed him. She wished she hadn’t brought it up in front of the girls. He might have been willing to tell her his idea if they’d been alone. He had that sad, sweet look in his eyes. And the way he held her that night made her feel so content she didn’t care what the man did during the day.

The next morning she and Emma cleared downed branches from the spreader dam Belle had built years ago. There was no way to get the branches out except to wade in after them. Belle wore her oldest clothes.

“There’s no reason I can’t come in there, too, Ma. It’d go faster.”

Shaking her head, Belle said, “Then Sarah would have to come out and drag the windfalls away. Someone has to do that.” Belle shuddered to think of Emma in this bitter cold. “I can last for about an hour in here and that’s enough. Th ere’s no reason for both of us to get soaking wet.”

“Did you tell Pa you were doing this today?”

Belle shoved a long, many-limbed branch to the shore.

Emma grabbed hold and dragged it away from the edge so the first good rain wouldn’t wash it back in to clog up the dam.

“I was going to, but you saw how he acted last night. What am I supposed to do? Kick up a fuss? Pester him to help me? You’re the one who told me not to start in nagging.”

“I know I said that. But I never figured him for a lazy man. Not after the cattle drive. And he was a rancher before. He knows what needs doing. Why isn’t he helping us?”

Belle heard Emma’s concern. It had more to do with frustration because Belle wouldn’t let the girl wade into the bitter cold water than with being real upset at Silas.

“I don’t know, honey. Why do you think?” Belle was as mystified as Emma.

“Maybe it’s a husband thing. Maybe instead of marrying him you should have just kept him around as a hired man. I wonder how Lindsay is doing? You suppose she has to take care of all three of those men?” Emma shook her head and worked quietly while Belle waded out for another clump stuck against the earthen dam she’d mounted up across a spring runoff.

Belle was determined not to nag, so she bided her time. A week later, when they were alone in the tidy little room he’d erected, she’d thought the moment was right. “So, tell me about your idea, Silas. I want to know—” She broke off her question. Because what she wanted to say was,
I want to know what you’re doing all day every day when you should be working this ranch.
And there was no way to say that right. So she let the question hang.

Silas smiled at her, came close, and caught her hands. “My idea is coming along great. Today I—” Silas’s words cut off as he lifted her hands into his and looked down at the calluses. The glow faded from his eyes, and he ran a thumb over the roughness, as if he were personally responsible.

“Belle, the West is a hard land, and it’s particularly hard on women and children. But you’re the strongest woman I’ve ever known.” He held her work-roughened hand for a long while, palm up.

He’d been going to talk. She knew that. So whatever he was doing must be all right. She imagined his clearing a pasture of felled trees or building fence, something to surprise her. But her ugly hands distracted him. She wished she could be a pampered and beautiful woman, but it wasn’t in her nature.

Lifting her hand, he pressed the palm to his lips. The way she shivered from his touch made her think of being even closer, and she knew she had about five seconds to head that off.