His Dry Creek Inheritance

by Janet Tronstad

  Bailey stared at Mark. “How many pregnant women have you known?”

  “None,” Mark admitted. “But I’ve shepherded many a recruit through basic training. I doubt it’s much different.”

  Bailey didn’t even know what to say to that. She turned slightly and saw a smile on Josh’s face.

  “I have a cousin who was pregnant,” Josh offered. “She would drink herbal iced tea and she was very careful so I think you’re fine with that mint tea.”

  Bailey nodded. At least one of the men had a clue. “What should we have for dessert? There’s some cherry pie and some pineapple upside-down cake.”

  “I like pie,” Rosie offered when no one else said anything.

  “I’ll get it,” Bailey said and put her hands on the table to make it easier to rise up.

  “Let me,” Mark said as he got to his feet. “You just sit there.”

  Bailey was happy to have the men help with the dishes, as well. She sat in one of the recliners in the living room with her feet up, counting her blessings. She was up to number fourteen—Rosie’s sunny nature—when the men announced the dishes were done and the kitchen cleared. That action had been her blessing number five.

  Bailey put her hand on her stomach. The baby had been kicking. This was her first blessing. Every time she thought of this new life, she thanked God. She knew she needed to rest up though. She’d have her hands full soon with the baby and Rosie both.

  Bailey must have dozed off because the next thing she knew she saw Mark standing beside her chair. It almost seemed like a wispy dream, looking up at him while he was gazing down at her. The frown was gone from his face and she decided he had the most beautiful blue eyes she’d ever seen. And the strength in his chin was majestic. And his smile.

  “Oh.” She blinked and woke up completely. What was going on?

  She saw Mark glance back at the kitchen door like he was checking on something. Apparently, it was all clear because he leaned down. “I wanted to check with you before—”

  Bailey saw movement out of the corner of one eye.

  Rosie shot through the kitchen door like a rocket and headed straight for the recliner. “Mommy, Mommy, Markie is going to—” Rosie put her hand over her mouth then and looked guilty. “I couldn’t wait.”

  “Remember, I said I need to ask your mother first,” Mark admonished the girl.

  “Sorry,” Rosie whispered as she looked woefully up at Mark. He smiled down at her daughter. Bailey felt a knot in her stomach. That’s what his smile looked like when she woke up.

  “Rosie has agreed to take a long nap with you,” Mark said and then turned to look at the girl. “Isn’t that right?”

  Rosie nodded, looking adorable.

  “Willingly?” Bailey asked. Rosie hated naps.

  The girl nodded again.

  “What did you promise her?” Bailey asked Mark.

  She knew her daughter. The girl had Mark wrapped around her little finger. She wondered if he knew it though.

  “I told her we need to ask you first,” Mark said. “Either way—”

  “He’s going to read me a bedtime story,” Rosie interrupted, her delight shining through and her eyes dancing.

  Dread shot through Bailey and she was wide awake. She remembered the question her daughter had asked last night. It couldn’t be worse.

  “No, sweetie, I—”

  “It would just be a story out of that book of hers,” Mark said, clearly confused. “A short one. It won’t take but a few minutes. And you’ll be there the whole time.”

  “Those stories are fine,” Bailey said. “It’s just that—well, Rosie thinks it’s a daddy’s job to read bedtime stories to his children.”

  Bailey saw the realization dawn on Mark’s face. If she didn’t already know that Mark did not see himself as a father kind of guy, she knew it now. His chiseled face lost its smile. His blue eyes grew distant. His back straightened as he moved back. Her heart broke a little.

  “Maybe what I need to do is tell her a daytime story then,” Mark offered gamely.

  “What’s that?” Rosie asked with a tiny frown on her forehead. “Will it make me go to sleep?”

  “I think so,” Mark said as he walked over to the coffee table in the living room and picked up a newspaper. “We’ll pick something that happened in the daytime yesterday.”

  “Will it have a princess?” Rosie asked skeptically.

  “I don’t think so,” Mark replied as he glanced at the paper. “But I think we can find out something about the little pigs that went to market.”

  “That one’s for babies,” Rosie said scornfully.

  “Frogs, then,” Mark said, a little desperately. “How about that?”

  Rosie wasn’t happy, but Bailey figured it was better for her daughter to be a little disillusioned with Mark now than to continue to think he hung the moon. It did no one any good to believe in fantasies.

  Rosie had her chin jutted out in defiance and Mark had the stoic look on his face that hid his feelings.

  Bailey needed to give them both some relief. “Does anyone kiss the frog?”

  A sheepish look filled Mark’s face.

  “A kiss is a noble thing,” he finally said as he took Rosie’s hand. “And frogs need to find love, too.”

  Bailey snorted in disbelief.

  Rosie, though, nodded in acceptance. She might not be enthused like before, but she appeared willing to give Mark a chance.

  “Which room do you use for naps?” Mark asked Bailey.

  “The one on the left,” she answered. That was Rosie’s room and they often cuddled up and dozed together on the double bed there.

  Bailey watched them—the tall man with his cane and the little girl who held his hand—as they went down the hall together. She wished her daughter never had to be disappointed, but the world did not consist of princesses and fairy-tale kisses. Nor did it contain many grown men who found a heart where none had been before.

  Bailey stood up and started to follow them. She was never going to marry a man like Junior again and that meant she would only marry a man who could love without holding himself back. She feared that would never be Mark.

  Bailey liked her daughter’s room. It was painted a pale pink and the sun shone in through the white ruffled curtains on the window. A giant purple panda bear stood in one corner of the room because it did not fit in a chair. It was a treasure from the country fair last year. Eli had won it for Rosie by shooting five metal ducks in a carnival game. It had meant little to him and everything to her.

  The double bed was topped by a quilt pieced together by the ladies’ group at the church. Rosie had already lain down on the side of the bed nearest the folding chair they used for telling bedtime stories.

  A girlish desire for love was evident all around this room, Bailey thought as Mark opened that newspaper and her daughter snuggled down into her pillow.

  “It was a great day at the market,” Mark began to read, his voice dramatic enough to do justice to the storytelling.

  Rosie closed her eyes as Mark was in the middle of reading a list of numbers. He’d already read a bit about clouds and rain.

  “There was no frog,” Bailey mentioned finally, her voice drowsy. She had lain down and curled around Rosie who had already gone to sleep.

  “Only found a recipe for the legs,” Mark explained. “It didn’t sound like it had a happy ending—at least not for the frog.”

  “Poor frog,” Bailey murmured as she turned on her side and closed her eyes.

  Mark stopped reading and silence stretched out endlessly. Bailey thought he must have left the room until she heard him walk around the bedstead.

  “Just because there’s no frog, doesn’t mean there can’t be a kiss,” Mark whispered. Bailey had her eyes closed. She knew he thought she was asleep. She wasn’t quit
e sure she’d even heard him though so she didn’t respond.

  More time passed. She was almost asleep when she felt the soft blanket float down over her. She definitely thought she was dreaming when she felt his lips on her forehead. Her last thought was to wonder if there was any chance Mark could fall in love with anyone. Maybe hearts could grow.

  Chapter Six

  Mark woke up shivering in a bitter cold bunkhouse. The room was dark; the sun had not come up yet. He had slept in his jeans and socks. He could hear Josh, who had done the same, stumble around, muttering something about a tank that had run out of propane.

  “Did the old man ever get the wiring out here for electricity?” Mark asked as he put the covers aside and pulled on a T-shirt. He’d forgotten that the bunkhouse stove used propane. The ranch hands had complained about it all winter long one year because the outside tank was too small and it was empty on many mornings like this.

  “There’s some electric around,” Josh answered as he turned on a flashlight. “We can, at least, use an electric shaver over here now. And we have an electric coffeepot.”

  “Welcome to the twenty-first century,” Mark muttered wryly. He was so chilled his teeth were chattering.

  Josh chuckled. Then he shone the beam of the flashlight halfway around the large room until he settled it on a different cast-iron stove and then circled it around to the empty wood box next to it.

  “That was always our backup,” Mark said as he stood and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. The bunkhouse needed more insulation in its walls and, at this time of year, the temperature frequently plunged overnight. Mark figured they’d be warmer in an army tent. “I don’t suppose there’s any wood piled in a shed somewhere.”

  “Usually, the shed is full in February,” Josh said as he opened the stove door and shone his light inside. There was some newspaper laid out awaiting a match. “I doubt anyone even thought to order firewood this fall. The bunkhouse was empty.”

  By this time, Mark had gone to the connecting door to the foreman’s suite and squinted to see inside. “I think there’s some wood in the box in there. Bring the flashlight over and we’ll see.”

  Mark and Josh each brought an armload of chopped logs back to the wood box by their own stove.

  “That’ll keep us until daylight at least,” Josh said as he put a few chunks into the stove. Mark had some matches and he struck one. It flared up and caught on the paper which started to curl around the wood.

  “No point in either of us being up yet,” Josh said as he headed toward his bunk.

  “You’re right about that,” Mark said as he walked back to his own bed.

  Once the air warmed up a little, Mark thought he would go right back to sleep, but he didn’t. There was no time like a cold, dark night for a man to examine his situation and Mark couldn’t help but wonder what forces in his life had led him here. He was staying in a place now where he’d long been permitted, but had never been particularly welcome. Josh was friendly, but they weren’t friends. Bailey and he had played at being family to each other when they were young, but she had outgrown him and now had true family in her daughter and the coming baby.

  He was like one of those trees that a man would see in the mountains in isolated parts of Montana. A traveling seed had caught in a crevice and the resulting tree grew strong, but there never would be a group of trees around it. Some would say the seed had been nothing but a mistake all along.

  From the mumblings he’d heard early in life, Mark was like that seed. His father, the Irishman, had been a wandering man. His mother refused to say anything about him except that he had come whistling up from a coulee on a day close to dusk with a full pack on his back and worn boots on his feet. He’d asked for water and no one else had been home. When she asked his name, he said he was an Irishman and would say no more. He’d stayed that day and never returned. When his mother died some years later, she’d made no arrangements for Mark even though she’d known what was coming. Her family took him to a gas station by the freeway and left him there. Someone eventually called the foster care people.

  Mark wasn’t sure if a man was fated to be like his father, but a tree grew from the seed that it had. Nothing changed that. It was easier to be alone than to risk marrying and disappointing someone because he was totally unable to be what they wanted him to be. Maybe he could not be a family man.

  Josh and Mark both slept late on Monday morning. By the time they got out of bed this time, the bunkhouse was reasonably warm.

  “After breakfast, we best go see Mr. Durham about the cattle,” Mark said as he put on his Stetson and flipped up the collar on his coat. “It is rough enough weather that those cows will want to come home. We have the storm sheds in the coulee and some of them can come up to the barn.”

  Josh nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  Together, they stepped out of the bunkhouse and headed for the house. It was almost eight o’clock.

  “Do they still have that three-wheeler around here?” Mark asked as he carefully made his way with the cane. When he worked here, that was what they used to help move cattle in the winter.

  “Eli didn’t believe in getting rid of anything,” Josh said. “So I’m guessing it’s still in the far shed by the garage.”

  Mark knocked on the door to the house and Bailey answered it, wearing a green-and-white top over black slacks. She looked almost like spring.

  Mark couldn’t help but notice that she ignored him and smiled at Josh. She even brought a folding chair for the other man to sit on so he could take off his boots in comfort. Then she went back to the kitchen, leaving Mark leaning against the door trying to take off his boots and, he thought indignantly, he’d been wounded in the leg. Plus, he fumed as he pulled the last boot off, she had put lipstick and eye makeup on this morning and she wasn’t even going anywhere. Not that he should be jealous, he told himself sternly. After all, it had been his plan to get Josh and Bailey together. He couldn’t help but wonder though if she knew the other man snored. Maybe not a lot, but those things got worse as a man got older.

  Mark tried not to feel left out as he stepped into the kitchen. Even Rosie didn’t look up from her bowl of oatmeal. Of course, the little one looked like she was still half asleep so maybe she wasn’t intentionally avoiding him.

  “We’re thinking of moving the cattle back this morning,” Mark informed Bailey when it was clear no one was going to be chatting around the table. “Unless, that is, you need us to go into town for groceries this morning.”

  Mark looked at Bailey, figuring she’d have to glance at him when he talked. Instead, she focused on lifting the milk pitcher to pass it to Josh even though the other man hadn’t even asked for it.

  “Thanks,” Josh said as he took the pitcher and poured milk into his second bowl of cereal.

  Bailey just seemed to know when someone needed something, Mark thought.

  “We’ve got plenty of groceries for today,” Bailey said without even turning his way. “We should go into Miles City tomorrow morning though.”

  “I’ll drive you,” Mark announced before Josh could volunteer.

  “Okay,” Bailey said with as much enthusiasm as he’d expect if he had told her he was taking her to the dentist for a root canal.

  Breakfast was quiet again. Mark helped himself to another slice of toast. “You make good oatmeal. Best I’ve had.”

  Bailey shrugged. “It’s not hard. Just follow the directions on the box.”

  Mark grinned. “I found in the army that following the directions is the hard part for me.”

  He thought he’d make Bailey look at him and smile. She did turn her attention to him, but she frowned.

  “Are you having trouble with your leg?” she asked, suddenly solicitous. “I know the doctors always give lots of orders and you don’t like to follow them—you never did like doing what people said�
��but you have to. It’s the only way to heal.”

  Mark opened his mouth to reassure her, but she didn’t give him time to say anything.

  As though it had just occurred to her, Bailey continued. “Or, is it the other? I don’t suppose they have many orders for that—”

  For a second, he wasn’t sure what she was talking about, but then she continued without losing a beat. “You know, the PTSD? Bad dreams, that sort of thing? Did last night go okay?”

  She looked to Josh to answer that last question and the other man shrugged. “He did talk in his sleep some.”

  “Lots of people talk in their sleep,” Mark protested firmly. “That doesn’t mean it’s PTSD. You could as well say it was because we were cold since the propane ran out and there wasn’t enough wood to burn on a cold night.”

  “Oh,” Bailey said, looking stricken. “We didn’t order fuel for the bunkhouse. No one was there and, with Eli being the way he was, we didn’t get to it.”

  “That’s okay.” Mark turned to assure her. “We’ll figure something out today.”

  “No,” Bailey said. “I’ll call the propane company when they open this morning. You can’t be out there with no heat and that leg of yours. It must be painful.”

  “I manage,” Mark said. It had been stiffer than usual this morning, but he could bear it.

  “You may need to call Mr. Durham, too,” Josh said as he pushed his breakfast plate away and pulled his coffee cup to him. “You’re as close to an owner as this ranch has at the moment and he’ll want an official okay before he lets us move the cattle.”

  Mark was surprised. “Folks used to be a lot more trusting around here. What would he think? That we were rustling the cows?”

  Josh grinned. “You’d be surprised the things that happen around here.”