Captive Heart (19 page)

“What a good feeling that must be to help people like that.” She took a clean, folded towel from the hutch.

“You’re doing something pretty good yourself,” Thayne said. “Everything I had hoped for and more with Joshua. He’s making noises and trying to crawl.”

“He is a bright little boy.” Emma unfolded the towel and tied it around his neck. “I could probably help him even more if I knew what his first two years were like.”

“Are you planning to choke me if I don’t tell you?” Thayne brought his hand up, trying to wedge a finger between the towel and his neck.

“Sorry,” Emma exclaimed, blushing as she worked to untie the knot. “Better?” she asked a moment later.

“Much,” Thayne said. He swallowed just to make sure. “I believe you were about to tell
me
how it is you know so much about teaching children who can’t hear.”

She hesitated, one hand on the comb, the other reaching for the scissors. “All right. If you promise to answer some questions in exchange.”

“Fair enough.”

“If you want to look better than those scraps over there, you’ll have to hold still,” she warned, placing one hand on the back of his neck as she searched for his part.

Thayne closed his eyes.
This is dangerous—on a whole different level than you were thinking of outside.

“How did Joshua come by that scar on his leg?” Emma asked.

“Fell down the stairs and broke his leg. Bone came right out through the skin.”

Emma gasped. “How long ago?
Those
stairs?” She looked toward the flight that led to the second floor.

Thayne nodded. She placed a hand on either side of his head. “Careful. I
want
to do a good job.”

“You’d best be the one answering the questions, then. Where did you learn sign language?”

“From my mother. How did Joshua fall down the stairs? I thought you said he’d never walked or crawled.”

“He hasn’t,” Thayne confirmed. “How come you learned to sign?”

“You didn’t answer the whole question,” Emma reminded him. “But I’ll be the lady and go first.” Bending Thayne’s head down, she began snipping at the hair in back. “My mother was deaf.”

“Your mother—” Thayne turned his head, trying to see her face.

“Ah, ah,” Emma scolded.

He looked down again. “But you hear fine.”

“I do.”
Snip. Snip. Snip
. “Not all hearing loss is inherited. My mother’s was from an illness she had as a child.”

He waited, hoping she was cutting evenly and would offer more information. The scissors clicked away, and from the corner of his eye, he watched hair fall to the floor. Still, Emma remained silent.

“Head up, please,” she said.

Thayne obliged. “When we spoke of her before, you never mentioned it.”

“I told you she wasn’t outspoken.” Emma smiled briefly at the memory, then her face clouded. “I don’t speak of her much. She died when I was ten.”

“You still miss her?” Thayne guessed.

Emma nodded. “Yes. More so recently. Signing reminds me. I’ve been glad to find it’s still second nature, almost as easy as speaking aloud.” Emma took a step back, critiquing her work. “Your turn. Tell me about Joshua’s fall.”

Thayne hesitated. There was no easy way to have this discussion, but Emma was right. After all she had done for Joshua, she deserved to know what had made him the way he was. “Joshua was dropped—by his mother. I didn’t get there in time. I tried, but—”

“Oh, Thayne.” Emma stopped working, scissors held in midair. She sank into the nearest chair, bestowing a look of the deepest pity on him. “Was she very ill?”

“Ill?” Thayne realized Emma had already reached the same conclusion others had in the past—the doctor who’d tended Joshua, for one. No mother would purposely drop her child down a flight of stairs.

Except Christina, and she
wasn’t
ill. Though she hadn’t looked too well after Thayne shot her less than a minute later.

He ran his fingers through his hair, still uncut on top. “Listen, Emma. It’s complicated and long, and I’m not up to telling the whole thing tonight. Let’s just say that Joshua wasn’t normal before the fall, and he was even worse afterward. It was about nine months later that I took him to the Lakota camp, and you know the rest from there.”

Emma looked down at her hands, clasped around the scissors in her lap. Another minute passed, and Thayne reached out, placing his hand over hers.

“Looks like we’ve both faced some difficult things in the past.”

“I think yours was worse. To lose your wife and see Joshua hurt like that—” Her eyes filled with tears.

He knew he ought to correct her, tell her the truth about Christina.
If only I had lost her.
“Hey, no more floods, remember?” Thayne gently chided. “All that laughing in here earlier was already enough to have me good and worried.”

She forced a smile and stood again. “I promise to keep a straight face and steady hand while I finish.” She began cutting the side where she’d left off.

Thayne closed his eyes, allowing himself the pleasure of feeling her gentle touch. The kitchen was quiet, save for the snip of her scissors, and he let his mind drift over all they’d just shared.

He remembered when he’d first had the idea to find a teacher for Joshua. Marcus told him he’d lost his mind, and even Thayne had to agree that it seemed a poor plan at best. What were the odds that he’d find a woman willing to travel to the middle of nowhere to teach a troubled boy? But, like his worrying spells, it had been a notion he couldn’t let go of. So on little more than his impulse and faith, he’d taken his son to the Indian agency for protection and started off on his search.

Now, sitting here with Emma—a woman not only willing but also well qualified to help his little boy—Thayne felt overwhelmed with gratitude. That there was a higher power in this than his own he had no doubt.

“Turn to the side, please,” Emma said softly.

Thayne complied.

“You were right, of course,” she said.

It took Thayne a moment to realize their thoughts were running along similar lines.

“I knew it that first night I met Joshua and you told me all the things he could not do.” Her hand brushed Thayne’s cheek as she studied his sideburn.

Ignoring instructions, he looked up at her, then reached up to touch her hand.

“You were meant to come here.”

She met his gaze and nodded solemnly. “It appears that I was.”

Chapter 30

Thayne sat on a stool inside the doorway of the barn, head bent, scraper in his hand as he worked, intent on removing caked mud from the shoe of his horse. A shadow crossed his path, and he looked up to see his nearest neighbor, Orville Grady. Orville was scratching his neck vigorously as if some sort of pest had invaded his shirt collar.
Probably has
, Thayne thought, based on the infrequency most men in the Hills exhibited when it came to washing both themselves and their clothing.

“What can I do for you, Orville?” Thayne gently set the horse’s foreleg down and rose from his stool.

The scratching continued. “I—I understand you got a woman living here.”

“That so?” Thayne looked past Orville, noting the indisputable evidence of the claim. Freshly laundered clothes—including a woman’s garments—hung on the line, and Emma herself was in plain sight, working in the garden. “Who’d you hear that from?”

“David Williams, Hank Evans, Charles Fuller. They say she’s been here since September.”

“True enough,” Thayne said, surprised it had taken this long for word to spread. “I needed some help with my boy.”

“David and Hank say you already got a wife.”

David and Hank should mind their own business.
“Emma is my cousin. She came from Boston to work with Joshua for a spell. She’s a teacher.”

Orville nodded and turned, following Thayne’s distracted gaze across the yard to the very object of their discussion. “I was wondering,” he began, “if maybe she might like to get out and meet some other womenfolk—especially if she’s from the East and used to parties and such.”

“What womenfolk would you be speaking of?” Thayne asked. Making sure the horse was still tethered, he left the barn and stepped out into the cool autumn air. “Because the only kind I can think of who are available to socialize certainly wouldn’t make fine company for my cousin.”

“Oh no.” Orville’s face turned a bright shade of red, matching the area on his neck where he’d been scratching. “I’m talking about the Harveys’ barn raising. There’s gonna be a dance after.”

Frowning, Thayne looked up at the sky. “They’d best hurry. Nothing much is going to get raised once the snow comes.” Checking his overall pockets for nails and wire, he started toward the chicken coop.

Orville looked taken aback by Thayne’s brusqueness. “It’s this Saturday.” He walked quickly to catch up. “We’ll start building early, and that’ll leave evening for supper and the dance. Even if it snows between now and then, there’ll only be a couple of feet on the ground at most.”

Greenhorn. I’ll make sure we talk after you’ve survived your first Dakota winter.
Thayne guessed what Orville was hinting at and didn’t like it, but he also knew there was no way he could take Emma to a dance. He’d barely survived the close contact with her when she’d cut his hair a few weeks back. Since then, the smell of her, the feel of her hands on his skin, the understanding that something larger than both of them had brought them together was near all he could think about. Holding her in his arms while dancing would do him in for sure.

“I’m sorry, Orville. I’m sure the Harveys need help with their barn, but I was gone from July to the middle of September fetching Emma, and I’m still behind. If we’re going to be ready for winter ourselves, I just can’t spare the time.”

Orville scratched his arm. “Well then—maybe—seeing how she’s your cousin—
I
could take her to the Harveys for a spell?” He rushed on. “Not all day, mind you, but I could be her escort for supper and dancing.”

Thayne stopped midstride, fighting the impulse to hit Orville and then pick him up and literally throw him off his property. Thayne narrowed his eyes, looking at the man in a different light. He was young and inexperienced, but he’d had good luck with his claim. Aside from his scratching, he seemed a normal sort of man—normal enough to chase a skirt all the way out here on the basis of hearsay. Thayne’s fists clenched at his side.

Orville noticed and took a step back. “
Is
she your cousin?”

“Yeah. And I got a right to protect her from a bunch of lonesome prospectors. You think I’m going to send her into a den of lions like that?”

“Ain’t no saloon we’re talking about,” Orville said defensively. “It’s proper folk, homesteaders like yourself. Families. It was Mrs. Harvey’s idea in the first place. Her married sister will be there too, and they’d be pleased as punch to have a few more females in attendance. That’s how come I offered to come here.”

Thayne brought a hand to his forehead.
Marcus was right. I’m going to cause problems for Emma if I’m not careful. But I’ll cause problems for us both if I get close to her again.

“Well, maybe I could spare her for the evening.”
Might be for the best. The way she looks at me lately doesn’t help matters any. Maybe it will be a good thing to remind her there’s nothing permanent between us.

The itch had spread to Orville’s other arm. Thayne decided he had better introduce Emma quick before Orville scratched half his skin off.

“Come on,” Thayne said. “You can meet Emma yourself and ask her how she feels about dancing.”

* * *

Emma sliced another squash from the thick vine and set it in the basket beside her. She glanced over at Joshua, playing contentedly in the dirt a few feet away.

“Someone is going to need a bath tonight.” Lifting her hands, she looked ruefully at her fingernails. “And I wasn’t just talking about you, Josh.” Rising, she brushed the soil from her skirt and walked to the front porch. She reached across the steps and retrieved her cup of water, along with the toy horse and rider Thayne had carved for Joshua.

Emma tilted her head back and took a drink, careful to leave plenty for Joshua. She rejoined him in the garden, squatting down to help him hold the cup.

When he’d finished, she turned it upside down. “All gone.”

He ignored her, instead digging his fingers gleefully in the dirt again. Emma gently tilted his chin up, getting his attention.

“All gone,” she repeated slowly, showing him the inside of the empty cup once more. “Gone.”

“Gm,” he mimicked.

Emma smiled. “That’s right. Gone.” She scooped the cup through the dirt, then showed Joshua how to dump it out, making a little mountain for the horse and rider to climb. “Giddyap,” she said, moving the figure over the mound. She clicked her tongue, making the sound of hoofbeats.

Just as she opened her mouth wider, intending to teach Joshua how to move his tongue and make the sound, she heard footsteps behind her. She looked up, feeling a blush heat her face as she saw a man she did not recognize standing beside Thayne.

Dropping the toy, she stood and wiped her palms across the front of her apron. “Hello.”

Thayne stared at her, unsmiling. Her gaze drifted from him to the stranger, a feeling of uneasiness beginning to flutter in her stomach.

“Emma, this is Mr. Grady. His place is about six miles from here. We passed it on the way in.” Thayne turned to him. “Orville, my cousin, Emmalyne Madsen.”

She gave Mr. Grady a hesitant smile and took his extended hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Grady.”
Who are you? And why is Thayne upset?
They’d passed several homesteads on their way from the Lakota agency to Thayne’s property, but she couldn’t remember one man from another who’d waved and called hello—not even the one who’d been clad in nothing more than long underwear.
Could it have been him?

“Please, call me Orville.”

She nodded but did not repeat his name.

“Orville has some news,” Thayne said.

Emma’s heart lurched, and she sought Thayne’s eyes. “A letter? Has something happened to my father?”

“No. Nothing like that,” Thayne quickly reassured her, his expression softening.

“There’s going to be a barn raising at the Harvey place this Saturday—and a dance,” Orville blurted. He began scratching the back of his neck.

“Oh,” Emma brought a hand to her heart, feeling its beat slow to normal as relief washed over her.
News in the Hills is not the same as news at home,
she reminded herself. “A dance.” She almost laughed. “How delightful.”

Thayne’s scowl deepened. “I got work to get back to.” He tipped his hat. “Good day, Grady.” He turned on his heel, heading back toward the barn.

Confused, Emma watched him go. She looked to Mr. Grady for some explanation. He had his hat off and was twirling it nervously in his hands.

“Miss Madsen, I was wondering if you’d do me the pleasure of accompanying me to the Harveys’ dance.”

She opened her mouth, but no words came out.

“I got a wagon I could take you in,” Mr. Grady continued. “And all the womenfolk for miles around are gonna be there. You’d have a chance to meet up with ’em and make some friends. It ain’t right how we’re all so far apart out here—so
alone.
”

Understanding dawned.
So that’s why Thayne seemed angry. I wonder why he didn’t just tell Mr. Grady to leave.
She glanced toward the barn again and caught Thayne looking her way just before he disappeared around the side. Perhaps he wasn’t as unaware of her as she thought. She forced her attention back to the man in front of her, intending to let him down as gently as possible. After all, six miles was no small distance to travel to ask someone to a dance.

“It sounds lovely, Mr. Grady. Truly, it does, but I cannot accept your kind offer. I am here to care for Thayne’s son, and I couldn’t possibly leave him for that long.”

“Thayne said it’d be all right. Said you could go.” The hat was still in Mr. Grady’s hands, his fingers clenched tightly over the brim.

Emma wished she had something to grab on to as well. The hope she’d felt only a moment ago had fled, her emotions plummeting back to earth. “He said I could go—that you . . . you could take me?”
There must be some misunderstanding. Surely Thayne wouldn’t send me off with some other man.

But Mr. Grady was nodding vigorously
,
a hopeful expression on his face.

Emma prayed she was masking her feelings better than he—difficult though that was, considering it felt like she’d just been punched. If only it were Thayne who’d come to her and suggested they go to the dance.
Instead, he thinks it
good
I go with another man?
What else could she do now
but
go? To refuse would be to put her heart on her sleeve even more than she already had. This was likely Thayne’s way of telling her she needed to stop hoping he’d ever see her as more than Joshua’s teacher.

Clasping her hands in front of her, she pasted a smile on her face. “In that case, Mr. Grady—Orville—” She brightened her smile. “I would be most pleased to accompany you.”

“You would?” He reached out, taking her hand again, pumping it up and down. “That’s swell. Just fine. I’ll come for you around four. It’s a little more than an hour’s drive, and there’s to be a dinner before the dance.”

“I shall bake a pie for it.” She tugged her hand away, wishing the sorry state of her nails might have been a deterrent to Mr. Grady’s enthusiasm like his scratching was to hers.

But he plunked his hat on his head and nodded twice more to her, his grin stretching nearly from ear to ear. “Good day, Miss Madsen. Till Saturday.”

“Until Saturday.” She lifted her hand, wiggling three fingers at him. At last he turned away, walking in the direction Thayne had gone.

Emma looked down at Joshua, his attention no longer on the cup and figure but on the basket of squash. Dropping to the ground, she blinked back angry tears and scolded herself for feeling hurt. Then she picked up the tin cup and filled it with dirt.

Raising it high, she dumped the whole thing over the miniature cowboy’s head.