Claim: A Novel of Colorado (The Homeward Trilogy) (12 page)

He turned around slowly, until he was facing her. He lifted his hands out, palms up. “I’m hoping that someday you won’t feel like you
owe
me anything, but after yesterday I found myself wanting …” He squinted and looked down at the ground.

She sighed and said, “What? Just tell me.”

He stilled and lifted his eyes to stare into her own. “Since yesterday, Sabine,” he said lowly, “I keep finding myself hoping you’ll want to
give
me a little bit of your heart. Not because you feel like you
owe
me anything. But because you hope for the same from me.” He laughed then, seemingly at himself, lifting his eyes and hands to the sky.

She stared at him and then, realizing her mouth was hanging open, abruptly shut it. “Oh,” she said softly, belatedly.

“Right,” he said. His eyes hardened and he turned away from her and walked up the hill to the cabin, never looking back again.

Sabine wanted to call out to him, make him wait, make him clarify what he meant, but she knew. And she wasn’t ready for more than that. It was all too much—losing her home and now discovering that a man was falling in love with her. Her eyes narrowed and she looked out to the valley again. What if it was all another ruse? Was he looking to make her fall in love with him so he could control her land too, sell it to anyone he wished?

No, that’s not right either.
She could feel God’s gentle nudging, setting her back to His way of thinking. She shook her head and lifted her hand to her temples. Nic knew who she was, knew what she was—nothing more than a
half-breed
that other men dismissed—and yet he was still drawn to her. Was it possible? Possible that she might be finding love, after all this time? She’d given up on it. Never thought she’d find a man like that.

Not that she knew enough of
him
, yet.

But what she did know, she liked, she admitted to herself. Liked very much. She tried to swallow, but found her mouth dry again.

She scanned the sky changing hues before her eyes. Perhaps, in time, her next steps would become clearer too, like the last colored vestiges of sunrise giving way to the blue skies of day.

CHAPTER TWELVE

After lighting the lamp, Nic straightened and watched Sabine approach. “What is it that you think you’re doing?”

She was in his trousers, belted at the waist with a piece of rope, and one of his shirts, which hung in big folds from her torso and arms. The sleeves were rolled up. She’d wound rags around her feet since she’d lost her shoes in the fire and pulled her hair up into a loose knot. “You didn’t expect me to stay in my nightdress all day.”

“No,” he said slowly. Despite her silly appearance, he didn’t know if he’d ever seen her look more fetching. “But what are you doing here?”

She had a determined look on her face. “I want to help in the mine.”

“Sabine, you’re not even in proper clothing. And a mine is no place for a woman.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “We need some cash to purchase new clothing for me. And there are plenty of women who mine in these mountains. It looks as if I’m to be one of them. At least,” she hesitated, “for a while.”

He studied her a long moment and then sighed. Another set of adult hands would be welcome down below, woman or no. And she was right—they would need funds to purchase her new clothing.

“And if we’re to try and find our investors, we need to expose more of the vein. The farther we can dig and show them it continues on, the better offer we’ll get.”

He studied her. She stared back, expectantly. Everett watched them both.

“Do you always get what you want, Sabine?”

“It’s not often I ask for anything.”

Nic paused another second, then bent and picked up an ax. He handed it to her. “Don’t say I didn’t give you the opportunity to get out of this. Lord knows, I’d take the first chance to get out of it.”

She smiled and followed him into the mine.

o

Nine hours later, Sabine straightened and groaned. Her arms and shoulders ached. Her back hurt. There was a fine layer of dust on every inch of her, including the inside of her nostrils. She looked over at Everett, clearly as exhausted as she was. He sat on a boulder in the corner of the mine tunnel, watching them both with dull eyes. Nic was six feet down in the beginnings of their shaft.

All that work for a lousy foot of gain. The three of them had toiled all day long. Was it still even light out? She walked to the corner and peered down the passageway and glimpsed blue sky. They probably had another several hours of daylight, but she didn’t know if she could plunge a shovel or lift a pickax one more time. She returned to the shaft where Nic was still whacking away at the side, trying to square up the shaft.

Nic looked up at her and grinned, his teeth brilliantly white against the backdrop of his dirty face. “Don’t tell me you’re giving up already.” He wiped his forehead of sweat, leaving a smear of dirt across it.

“I’m not giving up,” she said, instantly moving the pickax in her hands.

He lifted a hand a little in her direction and shot her a curious look. “Hey, I was only teasing. It’s tough work. I’m about to call it quits. We need to shore up this shaft with some timbers tomorrow. To say nothing of the time it will take for us to clean up.”

She eased her stance, feeling embarrassed by her reaction. Why must she always be so defensive?

Nic stepped on a crossbeam already in the shaft, and Sabine reached down to give him a hand up. He lifted one brow in surprise, then took her hand. In a second, he was up, beside her, and she quickly let go of his hand, self-conscious under Everett’s gaze. All day they’d bumped into each other as they dug and handed up pails full of dirt to the child above. Every time, it sent a surge through Sabine’s body, making her scalp tingle.

He looked down into the shaft, surveying their work, panting a little, and she noticed his full, well-formed lips. What would it be like to have him kiss her? She felt her face flame. What had come over her?

He looked her way as Everett trudged past them, obviously noting her discomfort. “Tired?”

She gave him a small smile. “I think I might sleep tonight.”

“Think we’ve cleared enough away to win over a new investor?” He didn’t even try to cover his wry smile.

“Maybe after another thirty days like today,” she said, glancing down.

“You ready for another twenty-nine days?” he asked.

“I am if you are. But I’d like a couple sets of clothes, so I can have a clean set each day.”

“Me too,” he said, with a nod toward her attire. “So I can wear mine.”

She gave him a rueful smile. “Sorry about that.”

His eyes softened. “It’s all right. Have to admit, you look pretty charming in my clothes. Better than I ever did in them.”

She smiled again and turned, afraid he might kiss her right then. She wanted him to kiss her. And yet she didn’t. She bent to pick up the pails. “I saw that you have some eggs. What if we fry them up with salt pork and skillet biscuits for dinner? Tomorrow we should go and find any chickens left over at my place.”

“Sounds good to me.”

They moved toward the light at the end of the tunnel, and Sabine took her first free breath of air. She hadn’t known what it was like, to be in the dark for so long, so dirty, breathing stale air. She’d never offered to help her husband; he’d never asked. It would get worse as they went down, she knew. She’d heard the stories of old miners around St. Elmo.

Outside, she caught sight of Everett to the right, wearily trudging toward the house, head down. But then her eyes were on the trail that led past the mine, and to her house. Or where it had once stood. She paused, looking at the trees that parted and the brown trail that disappeared around a bend.

He stood there with her, in silence for a while. Then, “Need to go see it?”

Still she remained where she was. Part of her wanted to see it. Part of her didn’t. There was part of her that wanted to believe it had all been a terrible dream. That the cabin was still there, waiting for her. And her things. Her diary, her books, the few treasures she had amassed over time. To be without them—to be forever without them … it was too sudden. Too much of a rip, like a lightning bolt splitting a tree in half, leaving one side to grow, scarred, the other to shrivel.

“It might help—” he began.

“No.” She shook her head and moved toward his cabin.

He caught her hand, gently pulling her to a stop. And she turned back. He gazed at her with compassion. “I could go with you.”

“No,” she repeated. She withdrew her hand from his, slowly, then turned and walked away.

“When you’re ready,” he said, catching up with her. “If you need me …”

“Yes,” she said. “I …I know.”

o

He followed behind her a step, so he could watch her. She moved gracefully, even distracted and in his clothes. His eyes followed down her lithe body to slim hips and slender ankles. She was impressively strong for such a small woman. There was a part of him that hoped that the day’s work would convince her to return with him to face the men of the Dolly Mae, corrupt though they may be, to see if they could salvage their deal. Surely she wouldn’t want to continue their dig. Would it not be best for her to sell and begin to rebuild, somewhere else, somewhere new?

And yet there was a part of him that caught his breath at the thought. What if she left, went on to some other place, far away? Would they ever be able to discover what seemed to be growing between them? He shook his head. He had to focus on what was real, not what might be. That was how he was of best use, to her, to Everett, to himself.
Get your head out of the clouds
, he heard his father say, as he had so often said in Nic’s youth.
You can’t be any earthly good if your head is always in the heavens.

He paused, broke off his pace behind Sabine, letting her go ahead. Memories of his father came flooding back, along with the promises Nic had made to him—to look after Odessa and Moira. Yet he still hesitated to contact Odessa even though he was but a couple of days’ ride away. He lifted a hand to his head and stared to the valley floor, envisioning each of his sisters. Would they forgive him his absence? Would they welcome him, when he had so utterly separated himself? Was it even worth the effort of trying?

Perhaps it would be best for them if he stayed away. If he didn’t disrupt their lives.

No, that didn’t settle right either.
Stand up and face the consequences,
he heard his father say. How many times had Father said that to him? Nic closed his eyes, picturing his father’s expression of disgust or dismay or dissatisfaction. It pained him, even now, years after he had passed away. Why did it still plague him, what his father thought of him? How he felt judged and found wanting, again and again?

It would’ve been better if my brothers had lived and I had died.

Even as he thought it, it rang hollow in his heart.

I’m weary, Lord,
he said silently, lifting his eyes to the skies,
of feeling guilty for living. Of feeling unworthy. Of feeling nothing but failure. Show me. Show me the way out.

The response wasn’t in words but an urge. A desire that began inside, at the core of him, but clear in its pull.
Come. Walk with Me.
That’s how Nic would put it, if he had to tell someone else … and he sincerely hoped he wouldn’t.

His head came up and he looked down the path. Sabine was looking back, a question in her pretty brown eyes.

“Coming,” he said, responding, though she hadn’t called out any question.

She turned and walked, not waiting.

Nic looked back out to the valley. Something was shifting inside him. Something forceful. Something foreign and bigger than him, like the power of the seas themselves.

And he wasn’t sure he liked it.

o

The hymns were challenging, to be sure.

As Moira practiced that afternoon, preparing for the evening’s sing, she stopped and rested her hands on the piano, staring at the words and music before her. The hymn had been her maternal grandmother’s favorite. She still remembered being in the portly woman’s lap, staring at the black-and-white notes that, when she placed fingers to keys, became a rainbow in sound.

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide.

The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.

When other helpers fail and comforts flee,

Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

She rested her head against the music stand.
Help of the helpless
, she thought
, I need You.
It seemed that every hour of daylight was measured against Daniel’s absence. His departure made the seconds become minutes, the minutes hours. While outwardly she recognized the importance of his desire to resolve whatever tortured him from the past, it left her floundering in her present. How could he so callously walk away from her?

Her thoughts moved to a time when she was sought after, pursued. The stage … all those men clamoring for a glance, a sweep of her hand … But her audience had disappeared within a fortnight, thinking only of the next woman to adorn their local stage. She thought instead of Gavin’s mother’s letter, her friendly tone. Could she possibly mean what she’d written? Then Moira considered Daniel and the longing she felt deep within for his return. But he seemed farther off than ever.

What to do, whom to rely upon? Only You, Savior. Only You.

Moira raised her head and focused on the words, found her fingering.

I need Thy presence every passing hour;

What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s pow’r?

Who like Thyself my guide and stay can be?

Through cloud and sunshine, oh, abide with me.

She sighed and closed the lid of the piano, covering the keys.

She needed to get out. “Odessa?” she called up the stairs. “I’m going out for a bit. For a walk.” Her sister bade her well and she moved out of the house, through the front door, and to the hot sunlight of midafternoon. She didn’t wear a bonnet. She wanted to feel the heat, to lie down somewhere she could close her eyes and see the sunlight flit in red-gold patterns against her lids, like she had as a child.

She walked to the creek. Five hundred yards up, she could hear men working. Some singing. Some shouting. Mostly hammers and saws. There, the men of the Circle M—those who had seen Bryce and Odessa and the rest through Reid Bannock’s attack—had been allotted five acres each. Six of them were building an enclave of sorts, a village of homes that they could bring a young bride home to, perhaps eventually raise children.

She could see it in their eyes. Their furtive glances. They wondered if she might stay, perhaps be that potential bride for them. And with Daniel’s departure, a few had been more forward the last couple of days. Gently, she dissuaded them. Her mind and heart were set on a certain sheriff, foolish though she may be.…

Moira looked up to a giant oak, sprawling across the creek. She sat down with her back against the curve of it, watching the sunlight sparkle atop the water, and then she closed her eyes to envision it dancing across her eyelids. It was comforting, to hear the men in the distance, working so hard on homes they hoped to fill; the dancing, tinkling waters of the creek; the rush of a thousand leaves as a gentle breeze washed down off the mountains.