Big Sky Rancher (23 page)

“So do I.” She looked up at him in the moonlight. “You're so good to me, Lucas. I can't tell you how happy you make me.”

“Well, that door swings both ways, ma'am. I predict we're gonna have a time of our own tonight, complete with a nice soft bed and a candle lit by that bed, so I can see what I'm doing. I'm tired of searching for you in a dark bedroom.”

“You manage all right in the dark any other time,” she said. “What do you need a candle for?” And then she sighed. “Never mind. I don't think I want to know, do I?”

He laughed, pulling the buggy up to the back door and jumping down. “Probably not, sweetheart. But I'll be glad to demonstrate to you how much more fun we can have with the room all lit up.” He lifted her down and patted her on the fanny. “Go on in the house. I'll be right there.”

“One candle,” she said with a haughty glare in his direction, and walked up to the porch, missing his answering remark as he led the horse toward the barn.

“At least four, plus the lantern.”

T
HE ACHES
and discomfort of pregnancy seemed to be a small price to pay for the anticipation she lived with daily, Jennifer decided. For the knowledge that a tiny being was even now moving inside her gave her a joy she could not have explained, had she been required to give an accounting for the foolish smile she wore.

Looking at herself in the mirror in the mornings was an experience she had once dreaded, seeing the locks of disheveled hair, the still-sleepy eyes and the slightly petulant look of a woman who had been called from her bed at five o'clock, surely long before anyone should be forced to rise and shine.

Even that phrase, one Lucas used to little effect, made her cringe. She'd never been one to smile so early after daybreak, requiring a cup of coffee before she felt fit to face the day.

Now, however, she found that her face in the mirror was a reflection of the joy in her heart, and she relished each morning, awaiting the first small flutters, and then later on, the not-so-gentle kicks of a baby making itself known within the depths of her body.

And so she smiled, even Lucas commenting that no one had the right to be so all-fired happy in this world. But, even as he spoke, he held her tightly, careful not to squeeze too
hard, lest he bring discomfort to his child. His hoots of laughter when the baby protested his eager hugs and their effect on the child's mother only served to increase his joy. Nudges and wiggles against his back at night were cause for celebration so far as he was concerned.

Barely a night passed without Lucas holding his wife close, his very presence a plea for the love she alone could provide to his hungry heart. Without words, he pled his case, his kisses growing more passionate by the moment, his hands resting on the rounding of her belly, wherein lay his hope for future generations.

Jennifer was generous, he decided, in giving him what he needed. Indeed, some nights he felt guilty when he recognized her weariness, when she slept in his arms almost before the loving was over, and he found himself holding her close, her skin soft and warm against his own, her arms clutching him.

She amazed him with her strength, her stamina and her ability to accomplish so much in the house. Meeting him every evening with open arms and offering him a table heavy laden with food fit for a banquet, she gave him cause to feel the luckiest of men.

And now, she would bear his child, not as a duty, but in a joyous manner, as if she were the most blessed of women.

He watched her as she dished up his supper one evening very late in the autumn. The night air was cool and crisp, the kitchen warm and redolent with the scents of pot roast and apple pie, and his wife was weary. It showed in the shadows beneath her eyes and in the lack of balance as she turned from the stove, two bowls in her hands.

Lucas stood quickly and took them from her grasp. “Come sit down, Jen. I'll get the rest.” He noted her lack of argument,
the white line around her mouth and the flutter of eyelashes as she obeyed. Her chair seemed to welcome her and she settled there, watching as he served up the pot roast and poured his coffee. Her own cup held milk, cool since it had been kept on the porch in a covered jar.

“I'm glad that winter's almost here,” she said, taking a sip of the creamy white yield from her cow. “Makes it easier to keep the food.”

“Also means we'll be shoveling snow before long.”

“And that the baby will be with us in no time.” She sighed. “I'll admit, I can hardly wait. I love knowing she's there, inside of me, but I'll be happier when I can hold her in my arms and see how pretty she is.”

“She?” Lucas asked, a single word holding a wealth of meaning.

“She.” It was spoken with finally, but softened by a smile.

“What if it's a boy?” Lucas looked worried, she thought, as if having a son instead of a daughter might not be to her liking.

“Then I'll love it even more, knowing I've given birth to a boy who'll be the spittin' image of his daddy.”

His smile was tender. “You really feel that way, don't you, Jen?”

“You know I do. This will be the most welcomed baby in Montana if I have anything to say about it. After all, when the mayor of Thunder Canyon has a son, it's cause for celebration. And even if it's only a lowly girl child, the folks will still be ringing bells and carrying food out here to provide for you while I'm abed.”

Lucas looked forlorn for a moment. “It'll be ten days, Ida said, before you'll be up and around.”

“Ida doesn't know everything there is to know,” Jennifer told him. “I'm young and strong, and I can't imagine lying in bed all that time, letting someone else do for me.”

“You'll do whatever the doctor says.”

“I probably won't even see the doctor. I'll bet Ida and Helen will be here and handle things all by themselves.”

“Well, before they're done, you may wish you'd only had one man to cope with, instead of those two women.”

“Maybe.” He thought she looked smug, as if she knew secrets he had no way of determining. “I just want you to go get Ida as soon as things start to happen, you hear?”

He nodded. “My hearing is very good, ma'am. And on top of that, Ida would kill me if she wasn't the first to know that her chick was about to hatch.”

“She'll play the part of grandma well, won't she?” Jennifer seemed pleased with that idea, Lucas thought. With the absence of her own mother, she'd clung even more to Ida Bronson, and he thought that the older woman had given a good amount of much-needed support to the first-time mother.

“She'll be a wonderful grandma to him.” He got his last licks in with his subtle reference to the baby's gender.

The meal was delicious and Jennifer was more than acquiescent as Lucas offered to clean up the kitchen and wash the dishes. He left them to dry on the sink board and she did not quibble, even though he suspected her hands itched to dry them and put them away properly.

 

L
UCAS WAS RIGHT
, for the first snow came just three weeks later. More than a foot of fluffy white stuff covered the ground when they awoke, and shoveling a path to the barn took Lucas almost a half hour. Jennifer came out, milked the cow and
gathered up the eggs on her way back to the house. Lucas followed with the bucket of milk and strained it into the churn for her.

“It'll keep there just fine for the day,” he said. “Tonight I'll skim the cream off and by tomorrow you'll have enough to make butter.” He looked her up and down. “You don't think that's too hard a job for you, do you?”

She shot a scornful glance his way. “When I'm so puny I can't churn butter, it'll be a cold day in you-know-where.”

He laughed. “You wouldn't say a cuss word if it came up and bit you, would you, Jen?”

“Do you remember how long it took me to cure you of the habit?” Her lifted eyebrow was cocky, he thought.

“All you had to do was ban me from our bed, if I recall correctly.”

“I never did,” she protested.

“No, maybe not, but I got the message loud and clear. I knew I'd better clean up my talk or risk getting tossed out on my ear.”

She went to him, her arms sliding around his waist, her cumbersome shape making it difficult for her to stand as close to him as she liked. “Not a chance, Mr. O'Reilly. You're not getting away from me.”

“Well, I don't like to argue with you, but I'm planning on leaving you right now, ma'am. I'm due out at the claim, or Sandy will be wondering what happened to me. You'll be all right, won't you? No sign of the baby coming early or anything, is there?”

“I'm fine.” Her lips curved into the smile he'd come to seek out daily, and he held her as if she were the pot of gold at the end of his rainbow.

“I love you, Jen. I'll be back early if I can make it, though I fear it'll take a bit longer than usual, what with the snow. But I promise you, I'll be home tonight.”

 

T
HE KITCHEN
lamp was lit, the curtains pushed wide open, lest he not see the glow of the flame from far off, and she'd even done the chores on her own. Now Jennifer sat at the table, doing her best not to worry as she drank a cup of tea. The wind had come up and with it a new storm made itself known.

Snow fell in a steady white curtain and she knew the lamp from the kitchen could not be detected from beyond the barn. And still Lucas did not come. Supper was on the back of the stove, a mess of green beans from those canned just months past simmered fragrantly on the fire, and she thought of the day she had put them into jars, with Ida's help. The kitchen had rung with feminine laughter and she'd thought that all was right with her world.

Except for the fact that Susan was gone, she found little to fret over, and the knowledge that a child of her own would soon fill her arms and heart made Susan's leaving a bit more palatable. Still, the sadness lurked and she wished for more than the occasional letter from her parents, telling of the child's growth and intelligence. They were doting grandparents, but her mother noted that Susan seemed to be looking for Jennifer around every corner.

Now Jennifer felt alone, almost bereft, and she wondered at the depth of emotion that overcame her. Surely Lucas hadn't—no, he was all right, just slowed by the snow. As a man determined to seek out his home and wife, he'd surely appear any minute now.

A horse outside made himself known with a shrill whinny,
soon answered by another and Jennifer went to the door, checking to see that her shotgun stood beside it, lest she have visitors who might be unfriendly. Since Kyle's visit, she remained in the general vicinity of her shotgun at all times while she was alone in the house.

Opening the door a bit, she made out two horses, the first caught in the light of her lamp through the doorway.

“Ma'am? Mrs. O'Reilly? It's Sandy.”

She recognized Lucas's partner and swung the door wide. “Come in, Sandy. What are you doing out in this weather?” And then she saw the second horse, noted the rider, slumped in the saddle, and her heart caught in her throat.

“Lucas? Lucas.” She stepped onto the porch and would have sought the steps had not Sandy spoken sharply.

“I'll bring him in, ma'am. Go on inside and I'll be right there. You might want to get some warm blankets. He's pretty cold.”

She did as he bade her, hurrying to the bedroom where three quilts were piled on the chest. Carrying them back to the kitchen, she watched as Sandy half carried, half dragged Lucas inside. Both men were pale and obviously shaken, Lucas almost unconscious, his eyelids lifting but a fraction as he saw her in front of him.

“Jen.” It was all he said, but it was enough. He was alive and her heart beat more strongly. No matter what the problem, she could handle it, so long as Lucas lived and breathed.

“What happened?” she asked Sandy, and received only an abrupt nod in reply.

“Let's get him warm first,” the man told her, placing Lucas on the floor in front of the stove. He bent to his partner, stripping Lucas's coat from him and tugging off his boots. They wrapped a quilt around the prone man and
Sandy murmured a soft word of comfort in Jennifer's direction. “He'll be all right, ma'am. Right now he's just chilled to the bone, what with falling in the river when his horse went down. There's a gash in his scalp where he landed on a rock.”

“Lucas fell off his horse? What are you talking about? What happened to the horse?”

“A stupid yahoo shot his horse out from under him, and my guess is that he was aiming at Lucas and missed,” Sandy said. “But the rascal didn't last long. He made the mistake of getting closer to check out his work and one of the men got him with one shot.”

“Who would hurt Lucas? He's a good man,” Jennifer said, tears flowing as she bent over her husband's beloved form.

“A fella you might know,” Sandy said, his discomfort showing. “One of the men said it was the man who was givin' you a bad time in town, way back. Kyle somebody or another.”

“Kyle.” She spoke the name, shivering as she did, and lifted blurry eyes to Sandy's face. “Did you say someone shot him? I don't have to worry about him showing up here, do I?”

“He's deader'n a doornail, ma'am. Somebody took him into town already. I reckon you'll have a houseful of folks out here pretty soon, once they hear that Lucas got hurt.”

“Help me get him into bed,” she said. “I'll need to look at his head.”

“We already washed it out and put a bandage on it,” Sandy told her. “He'll be fine, just plagued with a dandy headache is my guess. I'm thinking he's just as well off out here by the stove where it's warmer.”

“I'll fix a pallet for him then,” she said, rising with the help of a chair.

“I'll do whatever needs doin',” Sandy told her, taking her arm and helping her to sit on the chair. “Just tell me where everything is and I'll take care of it. You can wash him up a little if you want to. He's kinda grungy, what with workin' all day, tryin' to get things done so he could come home.”

“All right.” She needed to do something to help Lucas, even if it was only to clean him up, wash his face and maybe his hair. At least get the dirt out of it. He must have landed on the river bed, for bits of gravel and stone were there in the thick, dark hair on the back of his head. It was a wonder he hadn't drowned. And at that thought she shivered, her body gripped by a chill.

A basin of water and a towel were easy to search out and she placed them beside him on the floor, then lifted his head to her lap. At least what there was left of a lap below the bulge of her baby.

“Lucas.” She spoke softly, not really expecting an answer, only wanting to speak his name, needing to let him know she was near. But much to her surprise, his eyelids fluttered and he looked at her, his eyes unfocused, but holding a look of recognition.