A Knight In Cowboy Boots (31 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

The three girls still at home shared a room, but the weather was nice enough Ruth relegated the two youngest to the sleeping porch, leaving room for Maddie and Jesse to bunk with Daisy. Hannah naturally wanted to stay, but Ruth put her foot down and that was the end of it.

When Maddie expressed concern about their vulnerability, Ruth said, “The dogs’ll raise a ruckus if a stranger comes slinking around.”

Having seen for herself how the dogs barked their greeting whenever anyone showed up at the ranch, Maddie decided she had enough other things to worry about.

The next day, Ruth started organizing the barn dance. She called Leo Murtagh to ask him and his brothers to play music the family favored a week from Friday. Then Ruth called her sister to warn her she’d be visiting with the youngest children. At fifteen, Levi objected to being classified as a young ‘un. Jeb soothed his ego by making him responsible for the four children junior to him. Daisy flatly refused to be included. She could shoot as well as most of her brothers and her promise to make herself useful getting the barn ready won her a reprieve.

Sol called Rachel and filled her in on the situation and outlined what they wanted her to do. Maddie took the phone to give her a description of Derek. In their short conversation, she could tell Rachel took the news personally that the man who’d killed Vince was in her hotel. Maddie thought Derek might be wise to take his meals elsewhere. She had no trouble imagining Rachel poisoning anything he ate at the hotel.

Daisy made fliers on her computer to post around Lodi and Berea, the two small communities closest to the ranch. Neither were towns of any size, but postings there would alert their neighbors. With a population of just over two thousand, the fliers in Jefferson would draw lots of young people, but that was the crucial territory, since that was where Rachel would send Derek.

As soon as Daisy printed them, Jake and Gideon took the fliers and posted them. It didn’t take long for the neighbors to start calling Zach’s mother with offers to bring casseroles, baked beans, and pies to the festivities. Ruth professed to be stunned by the sudden news, claiming Zach had sprung Maddie on them with no notice but that she was delighted with her prospective daughter-in-law. She sounded so happy and sincere Maddie almost wished it were true.

The family buzzed through the preparations. No one needed her help.

When Jesse was awake, she spent her time with him. Playing with him, feeding him. Trying to impress on her mind and her flesh how he felt in her arms. When he napped, she got so restless Ruth finally put her to work in the half-acre vegetable garden, where she could take her anxiety out on the weeds.

By unspoken agreement, Maddie and Zach avoided each other as much as possible. He seemed to understand that she wasn’t convinced their plan was going to work and that she didn’t want to get close to him again in case it didn’t.

Only at the supper table were they unable to escape each other as Ruth insisted he sit next to her. They were polite without any of the trimmings.

In odd moments, Maddie caught his gaze on her. She’d turn and, before he could avert his eyes, she’d see longing, quickly shuttered, that said more plainly than words could that his indifference was his way of armoring his heart. To Maddie’s distress, the knowledge gladdened her. She wanted to feel relief that he was pulling away from her. She wanted to be happy for him when he was heart-whole again. Instead, she was afraid to examine the reasons for her selfish joy that the sight of her tortured him.

Sunday after church, Ruth and the children drove out, heading for her sister in Louisiana. With Hannah already fussing over Jesse, he probably wouldn’t even miss his aunt. Maddie held herself together until the car pulled out of the ranch then went to bed and cried.

Tuesday afternoon, the new bull arrived. Maddie watched from the side of the corral as they unloaded him. The old bull was in the holding pen between the road and the barn.

“Gotta get rid of Old Smokey. He just don’t tolerate other bulls well.” Zach’s father leaned on the corral beside her, hooking his boot onto the lowest rung. “That’ll make Zach happy.”

“He told me you had a mean bull.” Maddie eyed the big black bull, the hump between its shoulders attested to Brahma bloodlines somewhere in his history.

“Old Smoke’s a nasty one. Given half a chance, he’ll stomp you into the dirt. Breeds good calves though. Hope this one does as well.”

“You ever buck him?” Maddie asked, indicating Old Smokey with a tip of her head.

“He’s too much bull for the rodeos we supply, and Zachariah never wanted to put a man on his back, so we’re selling him. I been puttin’ it off though coz he’s overdue to get his horns cut.”

Remembering Lane Frost, a promising rodeo cowboy who’d died from the internal trauma he’d suffered when he’d caught a blunted horn at Cheyenne Days, Maddie squinted her eyes, trying to bring Old Smokey into better focus. Like fingernails, horns regrew after being shorn, and the bull’s horns looked dangerous. She was glad it was a job for the men.

The livestock truck backed up to the loading chute on the far side of the corral. The new bull shuffled inside the truck, kicking now and again at its confining sides.

Zach and Sol clambered over the sides of the chute and began pulling boards from the back to release the bull. The bull bawled suddenly followed by a series of kicks that vibrated the remaining boards. Both men jumped halfway up the sides of the chute like they’d been scalded. The bull calmed, and they climbed back down and pulled the remaining boards.

When the bull burst forth, Sol sprang back, jumping up and over the sides of the chute. Zach caught the other side, but stayed inside. Maddie’s breath caught in her throat when the bull lurched toward him, more off-balance than intentionally charging. Zach extended his foot, the sole of his boot catching the bull in the shoulder. The shove deflected the bull while lifting Zach just enough to keep him from getting scraped off the boards as the bull passed into the waiting corral.

As they watched him trot around the fence, huffing audibly through his large, round nostrils, taking the measure of his new surroundings, the mail truck pulled into the ranch yard.

“Must be the overnight package from Esther,” Jeb said. “Why don’t you go take delivery, Maddie. You can open it if you want.”

Maddie left him admiring the new bull. She signed for the package and took it into the house, setting it on the kitchen table. Part of her didn’t want to see the doll, but she opened the box anyway.

She peeled away the bubble wrap then folded back the white tissue that encased the doll. It looked so much like a real baby Maddie found herself holding her breath as though she could wake it with a sudden noise. The cheek felt lifelike when she touched it with her finger. She lifted it carefully, surprised at how realistically it was weighted.

As she instinctively cradled it in her arms, a profound yearning for Jesse washed over her. Would she ever see him again? Would she ever hold him in her arms? The fear sapped her strength, and before she knew it, she had slid to the floor, her shoulder supported by the kitchen cabinets, the doll clutched in her arms. Her shoulders shook with sobs as hot tears streaked her face.

When the screen door slapped its frame behind her, she fought to silence her sobs. She turned her face further into the cabinet, not wanting whoever was tromping into the mudroom off the kitchen to see her.

The sound of water splashing in the porcelain sink reached her. When the water shut off, she bit her lip and listened for the squeak of the screen door.

“Maddie?”

Go away
, she wanted to say, but a lump of loneliness blocked her throat.

Zach’s boots scuffed against the linoleum. She seemed to feel the shape of him as though she had heat sensors in her skin, so she wasn’t surprised when he touched her shoulder. “Maddie?”

When she didn’t answer, Zach sat down beside her, his back against the cabinets. He let her turn away but caught her and pulled her back into him. Without knowing how she got there, she was in his lap, encased in his arms. Since she wouldn’t let go of the doll, he had no difficulty defeating her struggles.

“Shh. Hush, Maddie. It’s okay. I’m here,” Zach said. “I gotcha.”

Just like Jesse when he was about to wail, Maddie drew a deep breath, and just like Jesse, the tears overflowed.

Zach rocked her side-to-side as she sobbed, the doll crushed between them.

“It’s okay. Jesse’ll be home before you know it. Just a few days. That’s all.”

When his assurances didn’t help, he continued to rock her. If she hadn’t had to take a breath, she wouldn’t have heard the words he breathed into her hair “ … miss you … ”

She hid her face against his neck when she heard the screen door open again. Zach’s arms tightened around her and whoever came in left again without comment.

The tears gradually spent themselves, leaving Maddie emotionally drained. Zach got her to her feet and guided her upstairs to her bed where he left her to fall into an exhausted sleep, the doll still in her arms.

Late Wednesday afternoon, as Maddie attacked the new weeds in Ruth’s garden, Daisy yelled from the kitchen door for her father to come take a call from Rachel. Maddie hesitated, but when Jeb came loping up to the house, she dropped the hoe and left the weeds behind. Even though it was what they wanted, she was nauseous with fear that Rachel would say Derek was on his way to Jefferson.

The side of the conversation she could hear didn’t sound good. When Jeb hung up, he met her worried eyes.

“He ain’t there. Rachel’s been watching for him, but she never seen him. Says he checked out last night late, and no one he talked to remembers him saying where he was going.”

“Then we did all this for nothing?” Maddie asked. “All the work you’ve done for the dance. Sending Jesse away … Zach and I pretending … it’s all for nothing.”

“Don’t you worry none about putting us out. We were overdue to have a get-together, and Ruth needed an excuse to visit her sister. I’m just sorry we done separated you from your boy. I’ll call Ruth in a bit and let her know she can bring him back with her. As for you and Zach, we can go through with it or not, whatever you want. Won’t make any difference, now or later, if you say y’all decided to call it off. Happens all the time with you young folk.”

“Whatever Maddie wants,” Zach said behind her. He had come into the house without her hearing him.

On top of everything else, Maddie didn’t want to embarrass Zach in front of his neighbors. “It’s up to you,” she said. “You have to live here; I don’t.”

His face gave no clue to what he felt. “I’ll give it some thought.”

Ruth brought Jesse home the next day. Except for Hannah, the children had stayed to get reacquainted with their cousins. When Maddie took Jesse into her arms, it felt as though a rubber band inside her that had been stretched to the breaking point eased up. She held him to her until he fought against the restraint. Reluctantly, she let him crawl around on the kitchen floor while the family gathered around to discuss the barn dance.

Zach decided to let her off the hook. His daddy would announce that they’d called off their engagement at the beginning of the dance. Maddie wouldn’t even have to put in an appearance. Staying in the house with Jesse was what she wanted to do anyway.

After the barn dance, she would go through with her plans to find another identity and another place to hide.

She had learned from her mistakes in Galveston. No one would question her fabricated history next time.

Zach’s gaze returned to her over and over as the conversation continued. Maddie pretended not to notice. Knowing she was hurting him was unbearable. She’d have given anything not to.

Anything but Jesse’s safety.

*

“How come you’re so mean to Zach?” Daisy asked as they lay in their beds that night. The light of a waning moon shone through the window, casting long shadows on the floor between their two beds. “You wasn’t that way at the rodeo.”