As happy as Sophie was for her mother, the dread of her life was coming to pass. Mama would be a bride before she was. “If you’ll excuse me, please.”
She fled upstairs to her room at the end of the landing, feeling all of twelve. Was there no end to this emotional see-saw? Falling across the bed, she buried her face in the quilt and held her breath. If she didn’t breathe, she wouldn’t cry. And she mustn’t cry. Not over this.
At a gentle tap on her door, she groaned, not unlike Mae Ann had in labor.
Another knock.
Sophie sat up and fingered hair off the sides of her face. “Come in.”
Mae Ann entered with Madeline and sat on the edge of the bed. “Is it your mother and Deacon, or is something else troubling you?”
Against Sophie’s deepest wishes, tears broke free and she buried her face in her apron. Mae Ann’s arm around her shoulder merely brought more.
Not much was hidden between women who shared the birthing process, and that included fears, faults, and dreams. So close in age, she and Mae Ann had become more than patient and midwife.
“It’s everything. All at once.” Sophie dried her face, not surprised that giving voice to her pain eased it a little. “Deacon’s been sweet on Mama for a long time. She twitters like a spring robin when he’s around. And why shouldn’t she? Papa’s been gone for years now, and she’s worked hard to keep the farm. Who knows if Todd will stay on, or if he even wants to, and I’m often gone tending to women when their time comes.”
She laid a reassuring hand on Mae Ann’s arm. “Don’t think for a moment that I begrudge time here with you. But Mama needs someone with her as well, and Deacon is who she wants.”
Madeline fussed, and Mae Ann unfastened her bodice. “Your mother is a fine woman, and she’s done a notable job raising you and Todd and tending the farm. Deacon is blessed that she’ll have him.”
The baby latched on and soon the contentment of a nursing child wrapped around the three of them.
“And?”
Sophie glanced up.
“You said everything. That usually means more than one.”
She was worse than Betsy, and her matter-of-fact tone brought a weak smile to Sophie despite the open wound. A sigh broke free with words in its wake. “I am ashamed to admit this, but it hurts a little to see Mama married before me.”
Mae Ann cooed at Madeline and brushed her cherub cheek with a finger. “Did you and Clay discuss a wedding date?”
Sophie rolled the hem of her apron. “No. It seemed foolish to ask so quickly on the heels of saying yes.”
Mae Ann looked out the window as though viewing the strange past that brought her to the Parker ranch. “Our proposals and weddings aren’t always as we imagined they would be.”
A tattered breath caught Sophie in the chest, and she considered the events that had led to Mae Ann’s marriage. “I’m sorry. I’m one to talk.”
Mae Ann gave her a tender smile that encouraged Sophie to spill even more of herself. “Make that I’m the only one to talk. Though I feel like Clay and I have grown somewhat closer, he doesn’t share anything about his past or his family. The day he proposed is the day I learned he paid for the Fairfax place with money from the sale of his family’s farm, and only because I asked him point blank. Yet when I started to mention his parents and siblings, he cut me off.”
Mae Ann clearly understood, based on the compassion in her eyes. “Give him time. I have a sense that he is one who must build up trust before he reveals the unseen.”
The words pricked Sophie. She had lived her life trusting, yet lately had been faced with trusting God when things fell apart. She didn’t know who or what Clay trusted, or if he even trusted her. The bow around her dreams began to loosen.
“I believe you and I need a turn in town,” Mae Ann said. “What do you think of taking the buckboard in to church this morning? Do you think it’s too soon for Madeline?”
At mention of her name, the baby noisily broke from nursing and looked up at her mother as if awaiting an answer.
Sophie stroked the silky head. As much as she’d enjoy seeing Betsy, she did not agree with Mae Ann, who was already bristling against confinement. “Give her another week. And yourself. The trip and the exertion of greeting everyone will be tiring. One more week of rest will do you both good.”
~
When Deacon rode off, Clay turned the stallion out in the round pen and Blanca back with the herd. He shook out a loop on the sorrel he’d cut from the herd earlier and saddled it. Cold-backed, it humped up a couple times, but soon remembered what it meant to have a man in the saddle.
They rode out of the yard and circled around to the north pasture, the horse taking in the scents and sights. It flicked its ears at the cow-calf pairs and responded quickly to the touch of heel and rein. But he wanted to see how it was with Sophie. How they worked together before he’d trust it with her.
Parker would be back from Denver on Tuesday, and depending on what Mae Ann needed, Sophie might be gone soon after. If it were up to Clay, he’d take her to town, get Pastor Bittman to say words over them, and move to the Fairfax ranch. But he hadn’t talked to her about it, and he suspected she wanted a wedding and a get-together with her friends.
And he needed to talk to her about other things, like what happened.
But it was easier planning chores around the place he wanted to complete. Cleaning it up some. Painting the barn and a few other odd jobs that needed doing. He didn’t want to live there without her, but he might have to for a while.
He circled back to the barn, saddled Duster, and left both horses at the rail.
Sophie was in the garden. She pushed loose hair from her eyes and watched him approach.
“I’ve got something to show you.”
He could watch her break a slow smile any hour of the day, any day of the week. “You have the time?”
“I do.”
He liked the sound of those words.
She pulled off her work gloves and laid them on the gate post, then walked beside him to the barn. Her notice landed on the sorrel and she moved around to the rail where she could look it in the eye.
The horse swished its tail, calm as Duster, but followed her with its ears and tested her scent.
She rubbed under the forelock and along its neck. “Nice-looking fella.”
“Take a short ride with me?”
Surprise caught her around the eyes, and she looked back at the house before picking up the reins. “Just a short one.”
Testing both her reaction to the horse and its response to her, Clay turned Duster away from the rail and swung up.
Sophie hitched her skirt above her boots and stepped up pretty as you please. Confident but light-handed with the reins, she drew around, sitting easy in the saddle.
“The stirrup leathers are the perfect length. How did you—” She shook her head and the crooked smile looped her cheek.
He’d never seen her on anything but the old mare and was pleased with how she handled the gelding. In this case, the rider was as good as the horse, not the other way around. He pulled a pair of leather gloves from the back of his waistband and held them out.
“For you.”
She hesitated, glancing from the gloves to his face and back again before taking them. “Thank you.”
They fit as if special made for her, and he was more than a little proud.
“Show me the knoll?” She looked in a westerly direction as if she knew where it was.
He didn’t want to take her there. That was where he’d laid her mare to rest on the other side, and she might figure that out in the warmer temperatures. But she was already riding that way.
He loped up beside her. “You been out here before?”
“Not exactly. I’ve wondered about it though—that red rock that shoots up like a sentinel. The shortcut to the farm runs on this side of it, but I’ve never taken the time to ride closer.”
An easy walk took them up the ris
e. Rabbits darted across their path as they approached, and quail flushed out from under the scrub oak.
Sophie drew rein. “Is that where you found Willy?” Her voice was quiet, almost reverent.
He hadn’t been back since that snow-blinding night, but the alcove was clear. An arched branch, inviting in its symmetry and just the right size for a small boy and a big dog.
“That’s it.”
She looked at him then, not with a glance, but something inside her reaching for him with more than her eyes. “We prayed, Mae Ann and me. We prayed you’d find him.”
Clay swallowed the strange taste, still new in his experience and not yet something he could put into words. “Your prayers were answered.”
She waited, her question shouting through the silence.
The sorrel’s nostrils flared, and it tossed its head, uneasy with the rise of rancid flesh on the breeze. Clay turned Duster back the way they had come, hoping Sophie would follow his lead and not catch wind of the smell.
At the barn she stepped down and ran her hand under the horse’s neck, laying her head against it. “It felt good to ride again.”
Clay didn’t know if she was talking to him or the horse, but it didn’t matter. “He needs a name.”
She stepped back, set her hands on her slender hips, and cocked her head. “He’s a handsome thing. As shiny as a new penny.”
Clay flinched, and she saw it. “What?”
“You can’t call him Penny.”
“Why?”
“That’s a girl name.”
She snorted and covered her mouth.
He unsaddled the horse, brushed him, and exchanged the bridle for a length of rope around its neck and handed her the end. “Put him in that front corral.”
She didn’t move. Just looked at him.
“Please.”
Her easy smile lifted, and she led the sorrel inside the corral, where she drew him around, slowly pulled the rope off, and stepped back without turning away.
After she came out, Clay closed the gate behind her. “Happy birthday.”
She cut him a side look. “What did you say?”
“Happy birthday. It’s early, but you need a mount and neither of us might be here when the fourth of June rolls around. I wanted you to have him. But you can’t call him Penny.”
Again she covered her mouth with one hand and hugged her waist with the other.
If she puddled up, he didn’t know what he’d say, so he moved in and wrapped his arms around her.
“You are a kind and thoughtful man,” she whispered against his chest. “But mysterious.”
He tightened his hold, not ready to walk through the door she’d opened again.
~
Tuesday morning Clay saddled the sorrel and led Parker’s Cricket into town where he met Parker at the depot. As Clay suspected, he looked happier to see his horse than a buckboard.
A couple horses were led out of a stock car and down the ramp by handlers, one a finely bred filly that Parker watched with a keen eye.
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Clay said. “Why’d that fella back East send Xavier on the train without a handler?”
Parker’s face clouded over. “Someone was supposed to be with him. That oversight nearly cost me a horse.”
He glanced at Clay. “No luck to it that you were there.”
Clay agreed, but turned the conversation. “Mind if we stop by the livery? John’s been taking messages for me and earning himself some pocket money while he’s at it.”
John had no calls that morning, which suited Clay, and they were soon riding to the ranch, sunlight warming their backs. Conversation carried over the dry clop of hooves on hard-packed earth, easier shared when not looking each other eye to eye.
“I bought the Fairfax place.”
“That’s a nice little ranch. Good feed, water. Her husband passed some years ago. I might have bought it myself if it’d been closer.”
“She’s got about twenty head, all with calves. I’d like to run them in with your herd this fall if that suits you.”
Parker chuckled. “Goin’ into the cattle business, are you? Got anybody picked out to help you run the place?” He slid a knowing look in Clay’s direction.
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
Parker laughed outright. “You sound like Deacon.”
“He talked to the preacher on Sunday, but we haven’t heard.” Clay needed to do the same, but first he had to talk to Sophie. Really talk to her, about more than when to set the wedding date.
Parker didn’t say anything for a while, just sat the saddle staring down the road with what looked like the past on his mind.
“I knew it was comin’. Can’t keep a man like that forever, though I came close. But since I won’t let him top off the rough string anymore, he set his sights elsewhere. Probably hurt his feelings, but I didn’t want to see a bronc go over backwards with him and drive a saddle horn through his belly.”
A sober picture, but Clay had seen that and worse.
“You wouldn’t be interested in the job, would you? Stayin’ on as foreman?”
Parker didn’t give up easily.
“Not now.”
They kicked into an easy lope the rest of the way, and when they reined in at the barn, Clay brought up the sorrel.
“I’d like to buy this horse.”
Parker stepped down and loosened his cinch. “That’s a good little pony. You’ll need more than your buckskin now, but I expect you know that.”
“It’s for Sophie.”
Parker glanced at the ranch house, other things clearly on his mind. “Good choice.”
They settled on a price—much less than the horse was worth, but Clay didn’t argue. It would have been an insult.
“We had some excitement while you were gone. Mae Ann’ll tell you. It all turned out good, but it was a tight spot for a while.”
Chapter 21
Wednesday morning, Sophie set potatoes, eggs, and coffee on the table, then took her seat with Clay, Mae Ann, Willy, and Cade. Deacon came in with an unusually slow stride, on purpose, she supposed. He had an announcement, but he didn’t need to say a word. It stained his face like red on a rooster.
Cade bowed his head. “Thank you, Lord, for taking care of my family while I was gone.”
He paused and Sophie held her breath, knowing why. When he started in again, his voice was breathy and hoarse.
“Thank you for watching over Willy and bringing Clay when you did.”
Another pause.
“Amen.”
Sophie imagined God blessed the food even though He hadn’t been asked. It seemed a minor thing next to Willy’s rescue. She peeked under her lashes to find Clay watching her. She hadn’t taken his hand across the table and felt childish.
His brows pulled together, a question weighting his features.
Now he knew what it felt like.
More childishness, but her doubts outnumbered the days she had left at the Parker’s. In spite of his birthday gift, he’d dodged her curiosity again. Was curiosity such a bad thing where her future husband was concerned?
She might have to give the horse back to him.
Deacon didn’t dig in like he usually did but coughed and wiped his perfectly trimmed and clean mustache with a napkin. “You’re all invited to the weddin’ Sunday after service.”
He looked at Sophie and gentled his voice. “She said yes.”
Sophie blinked several times before getting her voice to cooperate. “I knew she would. Congratulations, Deacon.”
The old man puffed up like one of her mother’s fried fritters in hot grease and reached for the potatoes.
Sophie hid behind her coffee cup and stared at the table, feeling completely conspicuous. She also felt Clay watching her with that protective edge he sometimes carried.
Even though she knew it was coming, the suddenness of Mama’s wedding caught her hard. Mama’s wedding. The words flipped her right off the see-saw an
d she landed hard. She’d said yes too, but there was no celebration in her heart. And with Cade home from Denver and Mae Ann quickly regaining her strength, she was no longer needed.
The next day, she packed her things and tethered her bags to the handsome horse Clay had given her. “Penny,” she murmured.
One ear flicked back.
“Pen.”
He eyed her then and whiffled his breath against the palm of her hand.
“Pen it is. In light of your masculine sensibilities.”
Cade and Mae Ann joined her in front of the house, Willy in Cade’s arms, Madeline nestled in Mae Ann’s. They promised to do exactly as she had instructed them.
“That includes resting,” she urged, hugging Mae Ann. “As if I were here hounding you to do so.”
Turning to Cade, she gave him her sternest look. “I knew you before Mae Ann came along, so I know you can cook and take care of the kitchen. See to it that you help in that way.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, taking her hand and closing her fingers around an envelope.
Mae Ann hugged her husband’s waist. “Thank you for everything, Sophie. We’ll see you Sunday at the church.”
Clay was strangely absent when she turned Pen out of the yard for the pasture shortcut, and it was just as well. It was easier this way. Leaning over to pat the horse’s neck, she felt like she had a part of him with her. But this part didn’t have much to say either.
The red sandstone stood guard west of the shortcut, and as she neared it, Clay rode out from around the knoll and joined her on the deer trail. He stopped, facing her, straight-backed and on alert, his hat tugged low but not so low she couldn’t see his eyes. So blue and earnest, they threatened to steal her breath.
In deep, dark contrast, his voice bridged the narrow distance between them. “What is it, Sophie? What’s wrong?”
Her hackles rose that he would ask of her what he wasn’t willing to give himself, and she braced her shoulders. She hadn’t wanted a standoff, but it had come down to that.
“You want to know, but it’s not important to you that I want the same. How can I marry you if I don’t know you or anything about your past? Even Mae Ann knew something about Henry Reiker before she came out here from Missouri, and she was a mail-order bride. I want to know you, Clay, share your past with you as well as the future. But you won’t talk to me. You won’t share yourself with me. You won’t even tell me what happened the night you found Willy.”
An Impossible Price: Front Range Brides - Book 3 Page 18