An Impossible Price: Front Range Brides - Book 3

by Davalynn Spencer

  Clay’s sack held the same, plus two cloth napkins Hoss must have stuck in as an afterthought, and two spoons. Good man.

  Sophie folded her hands in her lap and waited.

  His stomach knotted, and he laid his hat crown down on a corner of the quilt.

  He couldn’t do it.

  She tipped her head, asking why.

  He couldn’t tell her.

  Clouds scuttled across her face, but she reached for his hand and bowed her head. “Lord, what a beautiful place this is. Thank you for our food and this time together.” Her voice dropped to a near whisper. “Thank you for Clay. For bringing him home.”

  With a squeeze of her fingers, she looked up. “Amen.”

  For the first time in his memory, the foreign word clawed up through his throat, sharp as an unsheathed cougar. “Amen.”

  Chapter 18

  The pain etched on Clay’s face marred all traces of his earlier joy, and Sophie’s heart broke for him. Had he never been loved? He’d not used the word when he spoke to her of marriage, though she believed he did love her. His kindnesses to her and his affection revealed his feelings. As did his kiss …

  But something was terribly wrong deep inside him. It had risen to the surface when she’d mentioned his mother and again today when she assumed he would ask God’s blessing on their meal.

  It was a perfect meal that he had gathered in his cowboy way, and she would not have changed a thing, other than the cause of his obvious agony.

  Again, the plea returned. Talk to me, Clay.

  The buckboard climbed to the top of the rise, where he reined in and turned to look at the land he’d claimed. She turned as well and linked her arm through his. He covered her hand, his fingers strong and callused yet soothing. Much like him—strong and soothing yet callused against sharing his pain.

  Doubt began circling like a hungry wolf—head low, eyes fiery and fierce, waiting to pounce and tear away what she held precious. If Clay didn’t share his deepest hurts with her, how could they share their day-to-day lives, certain to be shot through with pain as well as happiness?

  The ride back to the ranch was quieter than she’d hoped. Such a perfect opportunity to talk privately, yet Clay sat entombed in unshared thoughts.

  She had to try. “Did Mrs. Fairfax drive as hard a bargain as I did?”

  He looked straight ahead, but the corner of his mouth hitched, the first crack in his defenses. A deep rumble in his chest hinted at laughter, and he slid her a glance, eyes once more filled with warmth. “Not nearly.”

  Relief sighed from her like wind through a pine, and she scooted closer. Bold, Mama would say. Absolutely necessary, Sophie would answer.

  “Will she give you time to talk to the bank or have you already?”

  Nosy? Yes, if he hadn’t proposed marriage. Under the circumstances, she felt she had the right to know if the man she was marrying was also going into more debt than he could carry.

  “Nope.”

  Nope, what? Had her simple yes to his proposal shortened his speech to single syllables?

  “Don’t need to. I’m paying cash.”

  He straightened a little as he said it, the first hint of actual pride she’d seen in him.

  “Cash? You have enough cash to buy a small ranch?”

  The deep-chested laugh rolled out and he wrapped his arm around her, pulling her even closer. “Are you wonderin’ if I robbed a bank?”

  He was toying with her, and she didn’t appreciate it. She stiffened slightly. “I know you wouldn’t do that, but it’s about all I know of you.”

  They came to a dip in the road, and he lifted his arm from her shoulders and took the reins in both hands. “It’s from sale of the family farm out east, past La Junta.”

  Silenced for a moment by the sudden influx of information, she began forming pictures of his childhood. He had a family after all. At least a mother and father. Siblings?

  “Do you—”

  “I don’t talk about ’em.”

  End of conversation.

  He snapped the reins, and the gray picked up its pace on the straightaway. The door had closed, and she was left outside.

  If this was a glimpse of what life with Clay Ferguson was going to be, she had some serious praying to do—another thing he didn’t share with her. Maybe she had accepted his proposal too quickly, too rashly, befuddled by the beauty of the Fairfax place and her affection for him.

  Pulling up out of the dip, the mare jostled them back to level road. Was affection cause enough to give her life and strength to a man who held back from her?

  One thing she knew for certain. If she ever had children of her own, she’d steer them away from see-saws.

  ~

  Of all the outright stupid things Clay had done, gambling wasn’t one of them. The next morning, he added it to the list. He was gambling on Sophie not pressing him about his life prior to Olin Springs.

  His gut said he was a fool and she’d win.

  His gut—or rather, his nose—said he also needed to wash the clothes under his bunk, and no way in ten was he going to ask her to do it. He gathered everything in the sheet from his bedroll and dropped them by the pump handle outside. When she’d agreed to marry him, it was understood that she’d be doing his laundry, but not this side of “I do.”

  Deacon was checking on late heifers in the north pasture. Clay found a bucket in the barn and the soap cake he’d used for shaving and set to scrubbing. A couple shirts, a pair of trousers, socks, and whatnot. He draped it all over the hitch rail to dry.

  Things went just fine until he slipped inside for a cup of coffee and returned to find his whatnot missing. Didn’t take long to see the yellow dog dragging them through the dirt.

  “Hey! Get back here!” He went after the mongrel.

  It must have misread his intentions, for it took off like a brand-singed calf huntin’ its mama.

  He was about to go get his rope when he caught Sophie in front of the ranch house holding her sides and laughing.

  Busted.

  She went inside and returned with a soup bone that she tossed to the dog. It dropped his drawers at her feet.

  Don’t pick ’em up. Don’t pick ’em up.

  She picked them up. Dainty-like, holding a corner with two fingers and looking him dead in the eye. No question, she was still laughing.

  He gathered what pride he had trailing him and walked over to retrieve the item.

  She backed out of reach. “This is why we have clotheslines. Meet me around back with the rest of your clothes and I’ll show you how to pin them on the line.”

  He hadn’t bothered to grab his hat and could feel his ears burning bright as Christmas candles. To Sophie’s credit, she didn’t say anything.

  By the time he joined her with the rest of his wet clothes, she’d rinsed the dirt out of his under-riggings and hung them out in plain sight.

  She wasn’t laughing any more, but that crooked smile nearly wrapped around her ear. “This is also why the line is in back of the house, so things are kept more private.”

  He tossed everything over a wire and moved in for a private kiss, but she handed him a bunch of wooden clips from her apron pocket and side-stepped him. “Watch and learn.”

  The way she spread the shoulders of his shirt made him wish he was in it. She pinned it to the line, proving she’d done it a hundred times—the same way he’d trim a horse’s hoof and think nothing of it.

  She tossed him the second shirt. “Your turn.” Arms folded, she watched him like a schoolmarm. “Not bad.” And with that, she left him standing there with a bunch of oversized toothpicks. “You’re on your own, cowboy.”

  Dadgummit.

  At least Deacon was gone.

  The next morning, so was he. An hour before it broke light, wearing clean clothes and riding Duster with his saddlebags full of promise. He figured he could call on the widow Fairfax, sign the deed, and get to the land office in Cedar City by mid-afternoon. He’d be back to the
ranch well after dark, but he didn’t want to be gone more than one day. He’d ride all night if he had to.

  The only thing he didn’t like about his plan was the temperature drop and the feel of snow on its way.

  Dawn broke thin and gray as he topped the low saddle to the widow’s ranch. Her small herd was still bedded down, a sure sign that rain or worse was coming. He trotted into the yard and laid reins to the hitch rail.

  Mrs. Fairfax greeted him at the door.

  “It’s going to storm,” she said, leading him to the kitchen and the inviting smell of coffee and baked goods. “But I had a hunch you’d be here sooner rather than later.”

  The deed and other papers were on the table, and a crate sat off in one corner full of packing straw and china dishes. The woman was as eager to get on with life as he was.

  “What did she say?”

  Stalling, he took a seat and tried the coffee before realizing she was talking about Sophie.

  “She said yes.” He swirled the brew in his cup. The next pot of coffee made in this house would be by Sophie’s hand.

  “Good.” The widow nodded as if she’d just set the world back on its axis.

  Maggie and her manners kept him seated without rushing things along too much, but Mrs. Fairfax understood he was trying to make the land office in Cedar City before it closed. She waved from the front porch as he rode away, nearly all the money he had in the world stuffed in her apron pockets.

  With a stomach full of coffee and some kind of sweet bread he hadn’t expected, he skirted Olin Springs and cut a trail south. A napkin full of Sophie’s biscuits rode in his saddle bags, supper on his way home.

  Still not home, really. But she was there, and that made the ranch home for the time being. The blister in his chest throbbed, like it had been off and on since she’d said she’d marry him. Sweet, brave, compassionate Sophie Price was going to be his wife. That realization alone lit a fire in his belly and gave him more reason than doctorin’ ever would for building a life and a future.

  But she was also inquisitive, and she wasn’t going to take him at face value. He knew that as well as he knew Duster was a six-year-old buckskin gelding. Not after what she’d seen the day he patched the cabin roof. It busted open a whole barrel of questions for her. Questions he didn’t want to take out and examine one by one, tearing open wounds patched over like that roof. Too long he’d worn a poultice of avoidance, and he’d had no cause to peel it off until he saw the questions in Sophie’s eyes.

  She’d gently probed to understand, pressing him for his secrets. And like the stallion constrained in the stock car, it was only a matter of time before something gave way—the padlock on his past or her patience.

  Later. He’d look at it all later.

  Duster sensed his mood and took the trail at a good clip. A client in Olin Springs had mentioned a small town about a half day’s ride, Lockton. Said folks there had call for a veterinarian, but Clay couldn’t make the detour today. He’d telegraph the livery there and see if enough folks needed his services to make it worth a separate trip.

  The wind picked up at his back, and he raised his coat collar. Cloud cover bottomed out as he rode into Cedar City, but the land office was still open. He recorded his deed, answered the clerk’s questions about work as a veterinarian, and promised to come back for a few days. The man’s horse needed its teeth floated, and he’d said a couple ranchers might be interested in talking about treatments.

  When Clay left a half hour later, the temperature had dropped again. He pulled his slicker on over his canvas coat and vest and swung to the saddle, turning Duster into wind carrying the promise of snow. He passed the Stratford Hotel on his way out of town, tempted at the thought of a hot bath and soft bed. But a tug on his gut made him keep riding.

  Preacher Bittman would say that meant it was a good time to pray.

  Clay snorted. Problem was, he didn’t know how, and he’d made that clear as creek water at the picnic with Sophie. Dadblastit, today was not the day he wanted to rehash all the things he couldn’t do.

  No sunset to speak of that evening. Just a slow fade as wind-churned clouds quilted the sky. Trooper that he was, Duster kept his head down and plowed on. Snow flurries cut their trail off and on after full dark. The wind shifted, but it didn’t come a blizzard like Clay feared it might.

  Time was hard to measure when everything that told it was missing. He pulled his hat farther down and his scarf up over his nose and mouth, trying to remember what blue sky looked like. Duster knew the way home, and Clay knew enough to give the horse his head.

  When they rode into the yard, all the ranch-house windows glowed with yellow light, as well as the two lanterns beside the front door. The hair on his neck raised, and he tied up at the rail instead of the barn and stepped inside on a wind gust.

  Sophie, Deacon, and Mae Ann all turned at the same time, their frantic looks dulling to disappointment when they saw him.

  Sophie ran to him as though he was the cavalry come to save the day. “Willy is missing.”

  A sob broke from Mae Ann, and Deacon put his arm around her shoulders.

  Clay gripped Sophie’s arms. “Where have you checked?”

  “Everywhere.”

  He looked at Deacon.

  “The barn, out buildings, even Pine Hill and the cabin.” The old cowboy gave Mae Ann a quick squeeze. “I’m going out again.”

  But the slight jerk of the foreman’s head said he didn’t hold much hope.

  Clay drew Sophie to the hearth and tugged his hat off. “Where did you see him last?”

  Mae Ann’s breath broke on her words. “At the kitchen table.”

  Sophie looked down as if ashamed. “We were all there, drinking coffee and talking about, well, things.”

  He knew what she was referring to, and it cheated him for her to be sad. But it cheated him more for Willy to be missing, and anger churned behind his ribs where the blister had been. “Do you know what time that was?”

  “With the clouds settling, we ate early. About four, but it felt like dusk,” she said. “The last thing I remember is him asking where you and his papa were.”

  Gut shot by double barrels couldn’t hurt more. “What time is it now?” He answered his own question with a glance at the mantel clock.

  “We looked everywhere twice,” Deacon said. “In every cranny a kid could crawl. But we’ll look again.”

  “All right. I figure six hours.” He plowed his fingers through his hair. “How far can a three-year-old go in six hours in good weather?”

  They all stared at him.

  “A man can make three miles in an hour if he walks steady. Let’s give him one, which means the farthest he could have gone was six miles from the house, but not in a storm. He wouldn’t have the endurance. He’s got to be around here somewhere closer.”

  Mae Ann strangled a cry and covered her face.

  “Deacon and I will ride a perimeter mile and keep circling in until we find him.”

  His teeth clenched tight enough to snap a horseshoe nail. “And we’ll find him.”

  He shoved his hat on, then pulled Sophie in for a quick embrace and whispered against her hair. “Listen for two shots. Two shots mean we found him alive.”

  Her eyes rounded in fright, but he jerked his head toward Mae Ann.

  On his way out the door, he swore a silent oath against what Sophie must have felt like when the Eisner baby died.

  Not this time. Not when I can do something about it.

  He and Deacon stopped at the cabin where he buckled on his .45, checked the load, and dropped extra cartridges in his vest pockets.

  Deacon did the same.

  Snow fell in fits and spurts as they rode a mile out from the yard, measured by fence line and pasture, and stopped.

  “One shot found.” Clay swallowed against a boulder in his throat. “Two shots alive.”

  Deacon screwed his old hat down and they turned in opposite directions.

  Clay di
dn’t think about his childhood. Didn’t want to think about it. But he needed to think like a three-year-old right now. Since he’d been one, it was all he had to go on.

  Where would he search if he was looking for someone? For his mother.

  The spot inside his chest stung like a scab ripped off. I’d go where I thought she was.

  Willy knew where the people in his life went. The barn, the corrals, Deacon’s cabin. Upstairs. But he hadn’t been in any of those places.

  Would he try to get under cover from the snow and wind? Had he fallen in a hole or crawled into a coyote den?

  Chances were he’d travel downwind from blowing snow, not into it, which would put him southeast of the house and barn—the way Clay was headed.

  With the wind at his back, he pushed into every juniper clump he came to. Most of the area was open range. Rocks peppered outlying areas, like the patch of boulders along the trail to the Price farm, but he found nothing.

  In an hour he met Deacon and they tightened their circle, closer to the barn and house.

  “Wil-ly!” Deacon’s holler was small and faint, yanked by the wind. It’d sound the same to the boy, if he heard it at all.

  Clay pulled his scarf up over his face and kept riding, feeling like he rode in mindless circles for no reason. Snow was drifting, so the ground was clear, but how much of a trail would a three-year-old kid leave?

  His oath came back to him, as empty as the night. Not when I can do something about it. Cold fear cinched his throat. He couldn’t do a blasted thing.

  Dread squeezed his lungs, and the cry came of its own accord. “Oh, God, show us where he is.”

  The words didn’t make it past his scarf, where his breath froze, hanging like icicles before him as he covered another hundred yards. At least he thought it was a hundred yards. Riding blind made it easy to lose all sense of direction and distance. How would a little boy know where he was going or should go? Would he just lie down and curl up in a ball? Hunker up next to a rock and freeze to death?

  God, no. Please.