Mary Connealy (15 page)

It took a long time, with Cassie staring at her hands, before she answered. “I’d have parted with the Bible for food, for something we really needed. Well, maybe not. No, not the Bible. I wouldn’t have parted with that ever. That book was something my mother treasured. I’d have gone hungry before I parted with that big old book ….”

Her voice faded and Red was afraid he’d made her cry. He felt like a brute to have reminded her of her precious belongings. He’d hurt her with his words when she was the most precious thing in the world to him.

“But the pearls and the portrait frames, I would have held on to them if I could, but I would have let him have those if it was for something that was important to the ranch. But I’d have never mortgaged them for a dress. I had two other black silk dresses. Griff wanted me to always have new things. He said we needed to keep up the right appearance.”

Red tried to distract her from her keepsakes. “And as far as not thinkin’ a lady should ride a horse, why honey, I’ve never known a lady in Montana who
didn’t
ride a horse. Even in Indiana most ladies rode. Surely Illinois isn’t much different. Griff was just plain wrong about that.”

“When he was dying, Griff kept insisting I not go for help.” Cassie looked up at Red, her eyes brimming with tears. “I didn’t know how to catch the horse, so it was easy for me to mind him. Then I waited too long. When I finally did catch one, I couldn’t make the horse obey me. It went back to the house at least six times before I got it going toward town. But it didn’t matter by then anyway; Griff was dead. I stood by and let my husband die rather than ride for help. I didn’t do a thing to save him because I was a coward. A stupid, cowardly child. That was one thing Griff was right about.” The tears overflowed and Cassie looked as if she hated herself for failing that idiot Lester Griffin. Like she still wished he was alive so she could be married to him.

Red knew all the stories about redheads having fiery tempers. And he knew, in his own life, that there was some truth in that. He didn’t get angry very often, but on occasion he really blew up. Listening to Cassie say Griff called her a stupid, cowardly child set him off like dynamite detonated inside him. He clamped his jaw tightly shut and didn’t let the words escape that were roaring around inside him. He’d already insulted her husband once today. He knew he didn’t dare do it again. He’d remember her tears of grief for Lester Griffin if he lived to be a thousand.

Red prayed for restraint. He’d wrestled with his temper all his life, and the grace of God had helped him gain pretty good control of it. He froze his jaw solid and prayed and tried not to let his fury spread to his body for fear he’d squeeze Cassie so tight she’d squeak. And he asked God to forgive him because he was sorely afraid that if Lester Griffin had been standing in front of him right now, he’d have beaten him to within an inch of his worthless life.

Cassie seemed to be lost in her guilt about letting that no-account husband of hers die, so Red was free to struggle with his temper. He finally felt controlled enough to say through clenched teeth, “You’re not stupid, and you’re not a coward, and no woman who’s gonna have a child any minute counts as a child herself. So Griff was wrong about that, too. Now, hold on ‘cuz Buck is rested and we’re gonna gallop.”

He kicked Buck in the sides before she could respond to him, because he was very much afraid that if she called herself stupid and Griff smart again he was going to say something he’d regret. Buck broke into a ground-eating gallop. Red felt his horse’s enjoyment of the hard run in the way Buck relaxed between Red’s legs. Buck forgot about the fidgety woman who had been annoying him for the last week.

Red wasn’t so lucky.

He had the jolting realization that he’d just fallen completely in love with his wife. His wife, who was still in love with the village idiot.

With murder in his heart, Wade watched Dawson and the china doll ride away.

He’d learned the woodlands around the Dawson place so well he could come within a hundred feet of the house without being seen. He didn’t have his rifle today. Today he had other plans.

He saw the way Dawson held Cassie. Wade pulled the flask out of his hip pocket and tried to soothe the inferno of jealousy with the bitter whiskey. He touched the pearl handle of his six gun. He wasn’t after Dawson today. He walked up to the front door of Dawson’s decrepit shack and went inside.

He’d loved walking around inside the Griffin place. He’d loved to run his hands through the china doll’s silks. He’d touched her combs and jewelry and kept strands of her hair until he’d gathered enough to make a little braid of it to keep in his pocket.

Now he needed more of her. It had been too long since he’d had her alone, as he sometimes did at Griffin’s when her foolish husband went to town. Wade knew the fear he sensed in her was fear of her attraction to him. Any decent, married woman would be afraid of such stirrings. If he had just had his chance and the china doll wasn’t bound to someone else, she would have turned to him.

He wandered through the house looking for signs of her. He didn’t find a single dress. There was no silk or satin anywhere. She had no mirror or hair combs that he could find. He gathered several strands of hair from her pillow, but there was nothing else.

“You’ve come down in the world, china doll. First you were married to a man who hurt you. Now you’re married to a man who can’t give you nice things.” Wade took a long pull on his flask and savored how eager she would be to come to him.

“And maybe Red Dawson hurts you, too.” Wade thought of Red putting his hands on the china doll and fury burned in his gut. “I want to rescue you from this.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled a handkerchief out. It was so delicate that his calloused fingers snagged it when he rubbed it between them. He thought of leaving it for her. But he knew better than to let Dawson know he was around. And besides, he didn’t want to give up this latest memento he’d claimed from the Griffin house. Most of the things had been taken out and sold to pay off the bills that no-account Lester Griffin had run up. There wouldn’t be any more pieces of Cassie to collect. Wade rubbed the handkerchief and smelled the beautiful scent on it and pitied her.

Drinking deep of the whiskey fueled his anger, and he wanted to lash out and destroy this ugly home she’d been imprisoned in against her will. He raised his fist to smash the lantern, shouting, “Red Dawson stands in our way!”

Something almost echoed in the decrepit excuse for a house and Wade paused without wrecking the lantern. He listened again. The echo he’d heard wasn’t his own voice. It was something else, something far away and quiet and small, but it seemed to burrow into him deeply. It was all wrong. He knew the way he was acting wasn’t reasonable. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the china doll. It ate at his gut to think of her trapped here, like Wade was trapped with his father. Wade wanted to run off, start a new life without Pa telling him every breath to take. But he couldn’t leave the china doll. He had to save her. Then they’d run together.

Whatever that echo, it calmed him enough that he didn’t smash the house to pieces and burn it to the ground. But he didn’t stay and listen for it again either.

Instead he took a long pull from his whiskey bottle and stormed out before he did something stupid.

He needed to plan.

He needed to set her free.

W
here’s Anthony, Ma?”

Lindsay lightly touched her roan’s neck with the reins and used her knees to steer the horse close with its travois on the back, then swung down to help with the harvesting. Blond and pencil slim, thirteen-year-old Lindsay was as tough and competent as a seasoned cowhand.

Breathing a prayer of thanksgiving that none of her girls took after their pas, except in looks, Belle looked up from where she plucked a pumpkin off the vine. “I haven’t seen him since the noon meal.”

She set the pumpkin on the growing pile. The last of her fall garden was nearly stripped clean. She straightened and rested one hand on her back. Good thing the baby would come by spring. She didn’t want to do branding while she was expecting. Her belly got in her way.

“What do you need him for?”

“These pumpkins are heavy, but it’s not like it’s really
hard
work. I thought maybe he’d pitch in.” Lindsay pulled her pumpkin free with a
snap
of the crisp, dead vine.

Belle chuckled. “Well, you are a dreamer, youngster. I suppose you can hope, but it’s not likely to happen.”

“I saw him.” Sarah came walking up from the derelict cabin they lived in. “He was sitting under the Husband Tree again. Did you ever tell him he was sitting on one of the husbands’ graves?”

Belle straightened and looked up the long slope to the bluff that towered over her house. A lone oak where she’d buried William and Gerald. “Too bad he doesn’t die up there and save me the work of hauling him up.”

“He might live, Ma. Just because you’ve chosen men who proved to be rickety in the past doesn’t mean Anthony won’t last.”

Belle knew that to be the absolute truth, but she could hope. The only good thing about being married to Anthony was it kept other men from coming around the place.

She settled her eyes on the oak tree, its branches swaying in the brisk fall breeze. Winter came early up this high. The first snow could come any time.

“And he doesn’t get drunk near as often as my pa did.” Sarah was too young to remember her pa, but Belle made sure Sarah heard all about him.

“And Anthony’s never come after you with his fists.” Lindsay picked up another pumpkin and set it in the heavily laden travois.

The horse snorted and shook its head, jangling the traces. But the animal stood still, trained well by Belle and Lindsay and Emma.

“I think he’s just too plumb lazy to get after anyone.” Belle grabbed the heavy orange pumpkin, remembering how heavy Gerald’s fists could be. But he hadn’t landed many blows. A well-placed frying pan had proven to calm him considerably. And once he knew she’d use it, he’d quit with the fists anyway, unless he was powerful drunk. And then he was easy to best.

“I like him up there better than on the roof.” Lindsay stared at the man barely visible, leaning back against the tree trunk. “It gives me the creeps the way he sits up there like a turkey buzzard.”

“Where’s Emma?” Belle looked around, not alarmed, just curious. Her girls were completely competent around the ranch. She didn’t spend too much time fussing after them.

“She’s dragging windfall limbs out of the spreader dam. She wants to clear the water paths before they freeze.”

“I’ve a mind to ride over to see the Dawson place one of these days.”

“You’re still worried about that woman they forced into marriage.” Sarah straightened with a pumpkin nearly her own weight in her arms.

Belle smiled. Her girls knew how to
work!
“I just…well, honestly it’s bothering me day and night. That little girl looked so trapped and scared.” Belle shook her head, wishing she could dislodge the image. But even her dreams were haunted by Cassie. What if Red Dawson used his fists? Belle could protect herself, but Cassie wouldn’t know how.

“You can get away once the fall garden is cleared.”

“No, I’ve got three herds left to bring down from the high pasture. And the snow will close us in before you know it. What if I rode out and the snow came before I got back? I could be shut out until spring.” The thought terrified Belle. Her girls stuck in here alone all winter. Oh, they’d survive. They were tough as all get-out. But it would be a hard, cold winter for them.

“How far is it? You could watch the weather. And the cattle, well, just because a snow closes the pass doesn’t mean you can’t still bring in cattle. It stays nicer in the valley than it does up on the gap.”

“I think I’ll do it.” Belle rested her hand on her stomach and thought of the long, hard ride up to her high pasture. She wished she’d dared to skip it this year. She’d have to be out overnight, and the ground seemed to be harder than when she was younger. Smiling at herself, she decided maybe she would wait until spring to ride up. If the cattle up there got hungry, they’d come down closer to the ranch. They knew where the hay was stacked.

“Maybe I’ll ride over there in the next few days. There’s one pasture that closes up early, and if I don’t bring those cattle down, they’ll have to spend months up there and the grass might not hold out. But most likely the cows will be all right. I don’t think many cattle went up that high. And it’ll bother me all winter if I don’t go check on Cassie.” Belle straightened and rested both hands on her back. Carrying pumpkins when she was round as a pumpkin herself was hard work. “And girls, I’ll warn you right now. If I don’t like what I see, I might just grab that girl and bring her back with me.”

Lindsay brightened. “That’d be great, Ma. I’d like another sister.”

Belle smiled. She’d seen the possessive look on Red’s face. He wouldn’t give up his property without a fight. But maybe she could check on the girl, and if she didn’t like what she saw, she could pretend to leave, then watch the ranch, and when Red left, snatch Cassie and bring her home. The mountain gap would snow shut, and by spring maybe Belle could teach the girl how to handle herself. Give her a frying pan of her own. Belle had a spare.