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The next morning dawned bright and sunny, Derek’s favorite weather. He hated overcast or rainy days. While it was good for crops and a bit cooler, he always preferred the bright sunshine.
The ride over to the Carsons’ was peaceful and relaxing. With a day like this to distract him, Derek had nearly forgotten his unfortunate conversation with Emilia from the night before.
When he arrived, there was no one outside, but Derek didn’t mind. He knew where everything was. He unsaddled his horse and put him out to pasture. He would probably be there most of the day, and leaving his horse tied in the sun was hardly fair.
Once his horse was situated, he went into the barn and gathered all the tools he would need. He put all of the smaller things into a wooden box and tied a work pouch around his waist.
Sometimes, Derek wondered what it would be like to marry and have a family. When he saw Eddy and Eli playing or when they helped him with something, he imagined how it would be to have a son of his own.
But then he thought about his past relationship and his family. He didn’t want a family. True love and sacrifice didn’t exist or was very hard to come by if it did, and he didn’t want a family without true love and sacrifice. So, he had resigned himself to a life alone, helping those he could in his community and creating something of himself.
Most days, it felt inadequate, but it was what he could do right now.
He walked up the fence line to the break and left his tools near the hole in the fence. Two of the boards were completely broken and would need new beams.
Mrs. Carson had said she had already gotten the beams from the wood mill. True to her word, they were at the back of the barn, leaning proudly against the wall. Derek carried them out to the spot that needed repairing and laid them down in the grass.
Repairing something like this wasn’t simple. You had to measure how long the beam would need to be, then saw the difference. He would have to remove the beams and the nails holding them to their counterparts before replacing them with new ones.
Derek set to work, humming a little tune as he did so, trying to keep himself focused. Every once in a while, he found himself glancing toward the cabin. He couldn’t help but wonder about Emilia. Her aunt had said she was sickly. He wondered how sick she would have had to be for her mother to send her here. She hadn’t really seemed sick when he’d seen her.
After what felt like around an hour, the sound of laughter and talking made Derek look up. Eddy, Eli, and Lily were all surrounding Emilia as they came from the house. They reminded him of worried hens around a lone chick.
They looked at her with concern and love. Derek smiled and shook his head. If Emilia had to have had a family out west, she was lucky it was the Carsons. They were one of the kindest, most loving families he knew.
Eddy and Eli were tugging her toward the very pasture he was working on.
As they came up to the other side, Eli and Eddy began to wave frantically. “Good morning, Derek!” they called out as they began to scale the fence.
“Good morning, boys, what are you up to?” Derek watched them with amusement. They had become so much more to him than just the neighbor’s children. They were almost like little brothers. “I’m just fixing this rough patch.”
Derek glanced briefly toward Emilia. He could tell she was avoiding looking at him by the way she had positioned her body to talk with Lily. He wondered how much she had told Lily or the rest of the Carsons about their interaction.
The Carsons wouldn’t be able to defend his honor. They didn’t know that he had a twin. No one did, really—that was a part of his past he tried to forget.
“We’re going to teach Emilia how to ride a horse. She’s never ridden one before,” Eli proclaimed with a grin.
“Well, I’m sure that will be something to see,” Derek half mumbled under his breath.
He watched as Eli and Eddy eagerly disappeared into the barn. Yes, they’d had plenty of training with horse riding. Goodness, they had practically grown up on a horse’s back. But that didn’t mean Derek thought it was a good idea for them to teach their cousin.
It was clear that she was used to city things, and city things did not include riding a horse.
A few moments later, the twins re-emerged from the barn with a saddle and bit for the horse.
Derek jumped over the fence with a quick movement. He hurried to the boys’ sides and helped them saddle up the horse. He didn’t have to like Emilia to not want her to break her neck from an improperly installed saddle.
“We don’t need help. We want to do it,” Eli insisted.
“We should have help. You know it doesn’t work always when we put it on.” Eddy glanced over toward Emilia, who was still talking with Lily. “We don’t want her to fall and break something; then she won’t ever want to ride with us.”
Derek smirked and put the saddle on. It wasn’t that the boys couldn’t saddle the animal, it was just that horses tended to be tricksters and would blow their stomachs up with air.
Once you got on them and your saddle turned over with you in it, you discovered the trickery on your way down to the ground. The boys had made a good choice of horse. The one they wanted to saddle was the calmest of all the animals on the ranch.
“There you go.” Derek gave the mare a final pat on the back and stepped back. The horse was ready to be ridden. He hoped that the boys knew what they were doing and weren’t making a huge mistake.
Derek went back to his work but watched the children with Emilia out of the corner of his eye. A soft breeze blew around them and the sound of coughing made him look up.
Emilia was bent over, coughing into her elbow, a look of pain and frustration on her face.
For a moment, a pang of pity swept over Derek. She certainly did look a little weak and sickly. He had known people with poor health in the past. There had been a woman in Philadelphia who had suffered from bad lungs. She had been one of the kindest people he’d ever known. Emilia reminded him of her.
After several moments, Emilia’s coughing stopped and she was smiling, although it looked a little strained, and she seemed ready for adventure.
Derek averted his gaze back to his work. He needed to focus, or this fence was never going to get fixed.
Chapter 11
Emilia approached the horse cautiously. All the boys could talk about the entire day before had been whether she would like to try horseback riding with them. It had taken quite a bit of convincing; she’d never ridden a horse before.
Last year, for Mary’s birthday, they had gone to a ranch near town and the man there had wanted to take them horseback riding. Mary had been so excited, she had hardly waited for them to put the saddle on the horse before mounting.
Emilia had not been brave enough to try it. She had insisted on watching from the sidelines. Now, she wished that she would have been brave enough so she would have had some experience now that four people were watching her to see how she did.
She could tell Derek was keeping an eye on them. He did it discreetly, every so often glancing their way, but she saw that he was watching.
She wondered what he was thinking. Was he going to tell people in town about her past? There had been many times when Emilia thought that if people in Desmond hadn’t watched her father be dragged off to the mental asylum, or if they hadn’t known that he had died there, waiting to get out, they would have treated her differently.
The last thing she wanted was for the stories to carry over to this town. The idea of people constantly whispering about her, wondering when she would go crazy, made her shiver in disgust.
“Come on, she’s super nice. It will be so much fun,” Eddy was tugging her closer to the mare.
“I still can’t believe you’ve never ridden a horse. It’s wonderful, really. Once you handle riding with a saddle, we’ll have to teach you how to ride bareback. Then we can go for a gallop in the field and maybe even race.”
“Do you think so? I don’t
know… it is so high up.”
Eli was rolling a stump of wood over. “Here, you can step on this.” He pushed the stump in front of her with a grunt.
“You’ll get used to it. You just get up there and hold onto the reins. Molly is the best horse on the ranch. We all learned to ride with her. She’s as gentle as a kitten.” Lily pushed her slightly toward the stump and she reached up and took hold of the saddle.
She had seen people get up on horses before. Now she just had to imitate that so she could get up on the horse’s back without complications.
The first part went smoothly. She pulled hard on the saddle horn and swung her leg at the same time. The next moment, she was sitting atop the horse. Everything below seemed a bit smaller and she felt uncertain, having the animal shifting underneath her.
Before she was given any more time to contemplate her situation, Molly decided to go. Apparently, whoever had been holding the reins had gotten distracted by her successful attempt to mount and they had just let go or maybe they had thought she knew what to do.
Emilia let out a little shriek as the horse began to trot around the pasture, and then to go faster. She clung so hard to the saddle horn that her knuckles turned white and clutched the sides of the horse with her knees as hard as she could, which seemed to be a signal for the mare to go even faster. As she broke into a trot, Emilia felt like the saddle was pounding her to pieces.
“Lily! What do I do?” Emilia could hear the fear in her own voice.
She tried to take in air, but her lungs were constricting, sending her into a panic attack.
She looked down to see the ground rushing by. Thank goodness they were still in the pasture. If they were outside, she had no idea how far the horse would go or how anyone would manage to help her.
“Whoa! Whoa!” The voice was Derek’s, strong and sure, and Emilia was surprised to feel relief at seeing him trying to slow the horse.
Molly was having none of it, though. She seemed to be enjoying tormenting Emilia and took a sudden sharp turn.
Emilia had let herself get distracted by Derek’s attempts to stop the animal, and her grip slipped. The next thing she knew, she was falling through the air toward the ground.
When her body connected with the grassy floor, a sharp pain shot through her ankle. She felt dizzy, and black spots danced across her vision.
“Oh, goodness! Emilia, I’m so sorry.” Lily rushed towards her.
“Are you all right?” A soft, kind voice asked. Emilia looked up to find Derek’s face close to hers. He was kneeling down, reaching for her ankle.
Emilia didn’t pull back but watched him cautiously. “I-I think so.”
His hands were gentle as he touched her boot and twisted it softly from side to side. Emilia winced.
“I’m sorry. It looks like you might have sprained it a bit. Hopefully, it won’t take too long to heal.”
Emilia nodded but didn’t say anything. She didn’t know what to say. She expected Derek to say something cruel, or to laugh at her. But he didn’t. His face was serious, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration.
He reached out his hand to help her up, and Lily appeared at her side, grabbing her other hand.
The two of them pulled her up. “I can help her get to the house. I’m sorry, Emilia, I let go of the reins. I guess I thought you would know how to stop her.”
Emilia smiled bravely. “It’s all right. It just caught me off-guard.”
“Careful, you shouldn’t put any weight on it until you rest it a bit. Otherwise, it will take longer to heal.” Derek let go of her and took a step back.
His expression almost looked angry.
“Thank you,” Emilia said softly. He gave her a curt nod and turned back to where he’d left his work.
Emilia watched him go while Lily and the twins fawned over her as they took her back to the house.
Derek was a confusing man, but she still felt no different about him despite his actions.
Surely this was an act. He couldn’t have changed that much, even in eight years. Her mother’s quiet voice spoke in her mind.
‘People change every moment of every day. Don’t freeze people in a moment from their past.’
Emilia shook her head, banishing the thought. Even if Derek had been kind to her, it would be hard for her to ever forget the way he had treated her so long ago.
“What happened?” Carolyn asked, running out of the cabin to meet them.
“I’m sorry. I let go of the reins and Molly ran away with her. We didn’t mean to let her get hurt.” Eddy sounded as if he were on the verge of tears.
Emilia reached down and squeezed his hand. “It’s all right, Eddy. It wasn’t your fault, and it doesn’t hurt that bad. I’m sure it will be fine by tomorrow.”
Emilia set her bad foot down. The truth was, it didn’t hurt too terribly. Hopefully, Derek was right and if she rested it, it wouldn’t take more than a day or two to heal.
“Come on, let’s get you inside to rest. You look as white a sheet.” Carolyn wrapped her arm around Emilia’s waist and turned to her children. “She’s not quite strong enough for your roughhousing. You need to give her time before you try to get her to do everything.”
Eddy, Eli, and even Lily all looked terribly apologetic and another chorus of, “I’m sorry,” went all around again.
“I’m fine,” Emilia said yet again. She hated that the children were getting in trouble because of her. She promised herself she would try harder to fit in here. She needed to change some things about herself, and one of those things was her ability to do things like they did here in Texas, like riding horses. She determined that she would give it another try when she felt a little better.
Carolyn sat her down in one of the overstuffed chairs in front of the hearth. Emilia was glad there was no fire going. It was much too warm for one today.
Carolyn ran around the living room in a fuss until she had propped Emilia’s ankle up and brought her a cup of cool water. “How are you feeling? Can I get you anything else?”
“No, it’s very nice, thank you. I do believe I can walk, if—”
“Nonsense, you stay seated. You are going to rest today and if your ankle so much as bothers you a bit tomorrow, you’ll rest then, too. We can’t have it getting worse. Don’t feel bad, dear. Accidents happen. In time, you will be stronger and then you can try again.”
Emilia nodded, but she did feel bad. The children had told her of all their plans for her today and she felt as if she’d ruined them.
She flexed her ankle. Propped up, it didn’t hurt a bit. Hopefully, it was all just a bad scare. Her heart was pounding, and she could still feel the adrenaline pumping through her.
It had been one of the scariest things she had ever done. If it were up to her, she would never get on a horse again, but she knew that it would be a huge disappointment to the twins and even Lily if she didn’t. Besides, she was tired of letting her fears forever dictate what she did.
No, she would have to banish her fear and try again, something that she was learning slowly how to do here in Texas.
It felt as if she was turning into a completely different person, even though she’d only been here for two days. She wondered what Mary would think of her trying to ride a horse.
The thought of Mary made her miss her family once more. She asked Lily for a pencil and paper and then propped the paper up on a book in her lap. She put the tip of the pencil down to the surface.
To my Dearest Family in Ohio,
An Enduring Love to Heal Her: A Historical Western Romance Book Page 9