As Will nodded in agreement, Owen realized there was one part of the plan he hadn’t considered. His girls were becoming attached to Laura. How would he keep their hearts safe once he was done protecting her?
He’d already figured on his heart getting broken, but it didn’t seem right to involve his daughters, as well.
Chapter Ten
Laura managed to keep the girls busy in the library while she set the kitchen to rights. She’d made a big mess of things, but at least this disaster was one she could easily fix.
She grabbed the bucket to go out to the well, and when she opened the back door, she saw the rooster sitting there, as though he was expecting to be let in.
“Did you want to come inside? I have to get some water first, then we’ll help you out, all right?”
The rooster cocked his head as though he understood exactly what she was saying. Then he followed her to the well, where he seemed to wait patiently while she drew the water. Clearly she was crazy for giving a rooster such human attributes, but after today, Laura couldn’t say she was sure of her sanity anymore anyway.
Once she got the water, she turned to go back to the house, and the rooster followed. Silly bird.
She set the bucket on the table then glanced at Henry. He wasn’t wearing the contraption to prevent him from making a mess all over the floor. She wasn’t going to scrub the kitchen only to have to redo everything to get rid of rooster droppings.
“Hi, Henry,” Laura said, bending down to the bird. “Do you think I could pick you up? Would that be all right?”
Though she’d seen everyone else carrying the rooster around, she’d never even touched the creature. Henry looked at her like he thought she was crazy. She probably was.
She bent and gently picked him up, trying to remember how she’d seen the girls do it. And, just as she’d observed with Owen carrying Henry around, she tucked him into her arm like a baby. The rooster seemed content with this arrangement, so Laura carried him into the library.
“Hello, girls.” Laura smiled at them. “Henry wanted to come inside, but he’s not wearing his um, covering, and I don’t want him to make a mess.”
The girls giggled as she stumbled over the word, covering, then Anna smiled at her.
“We can help you. You have to do it a special way so that you don’t hurt him,” she said, reaching for the rooster.
Though everyone had said Anna was the shy one of the twins, Laura had noticed the opposite. Where Emma barely spoke to her at all, Anna seemed to have taken to Laura. Which was so frustrating, considering the fact that Laura had been telling herself not to get attached.
It seemed so unfair that the girls’ natural mother had thrown them away when Laura would have given anything to realize her dream of having children. She almost hated knowing the story, even though it had given her a lot of answers about the family.
Someone had suggested that Laura adopt a child from an orphanage, but no one would give a woman on her own a chance. People wanted a family for a child, not a divorced woman with a scandalous past. The scandal wasn’t even her own doing, but it didn’t matter. People still saw her as the murderer’s wife.
With a sigh, she turned her attention back to the girls. Emma had taken out a bonnet and was spreading it on a table as Anna set the rooster on top of it.
“Now,” Anna said. “You must be very gentle with Henry when you do this. He is very del-i-cate, and you don’t want to hurt him.”
Once again, Laura was struck by how much the children had picked up from their father and Lena. Though Owen’s heavy-handed ways irritated her, she couldn’t find fault with him as a father. He was so good with the girls, so patient. More importantly, he did so much to empower them.
Laura’s father would never have given Laura this kind of freedom or allowed her to do so much for herself. Why would she need to know how to do anything on her own? The expectation for most women was that they would find a good man to marry, and he would take care of everything for her. The trouble was, no one had prepared her for being married to a man who wasn’t so good. Even if her parents had fostered the kind of closeness Owen had with his daughters, they’d been gone for some time now and couldn’t advise her on anything.
And so, here she was, still learning basic life skills that no one had thought to teach her because a young lady of standing wasn’t supposed to need to know these things. She supposed, even though being here at the ranch was proving to be an incredibly painful experience, she was learning valuable lessons about life on her own.
Once she could finally go home, she would take inventory of all the skills a woman on her own needed to know and come up with lessons to teach the women who came to her boardinghouse. Some had family to fall back on, but so many were forced to start new lives alone. Most lived in the hope of finding another man to take care of them.
But would the new man? What if he, too, was a bad man?
Anna cleared her throat. “Now, Laura, you must pay close attention to this part. Papa says that if you aren’t careful, you could make it hard for the rooster to breathe.”
“We wouldn’t want that,” Laura said, smiling at the little girl.
Owen was raising his girls to be confident, independent women who could do anything. They weren’t going to need to find someone who could take care of them. No wonder Lena hadn’t married. She didn’t need a husband for all the things most women did.
As Anna demonstrated how to properly attire the rooster, Laura couldn’t help but smile. At six, the girls had far more skills than Laura did, and while it was humbling to be taught by a child, she loved seeing how the twins seemed to gain confidence as they shared their knowledge with someone else.
When Anna finished getting the rooster situated, she undid the covering and handed the animal to Laura. “Now it’s your turn. Papa says that if you want to learn, you have to watch, and then you have to do it yourself.”
Funny, that’s exactly how Owen had been teaching her. Except, of course, when he’d gotten exasperated with her. He’d been angry today, accusing her of not trusting him. And worse.
Did she think he’d ever raise a hand to her?
In the sanity of a calm moment, no. She couldn’t see him ever being violent. But sometimes, like this afternoon...
Was it her own fears? Or was it something in Owen? She’d failed to see James’s dark side until it was too late.
Such thoughts were not productive. Laura turned her attention back to the rooster and followed Anna’s directions as she got all the necessary parts covered.
“You did it!” Both girls cheered as she held up a properly attired rooster.
Henry gave a squak and started to flap his wings.
“He doesn’t like having to be still for so long,” Anna said. “You should let him go.”
Laura did as she asked, and was rewarded with an approving smile.
“We like you, Laura,” Anna said. “Emma and I think you should stay with us forever.”
Laura’s heart twisted at the words. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. There’s plenty of room for you. You just have to tell Papa you’re sorry for making him mad today. If he sends you to bed without supper, we’ll save you some of ours and bring it to you when Papa goes out to feed the animals,” Anna said.
Emma nodded. “We do it all the time.”
Was it wrong to laugh at two little girls who came up with clever plans for evading their punishments?
“I wouldn’t feel right doing that,” Laura said instead. “If you’re being punished, you should accept your punishment with dignity and grace. If he sends me to bed without supper, then I’ll be getting what I deserve.”
The girls looked at each other, then Anna turned to Laura. “But what if Papa sends you away? We heard him tell Uncle Will that you were making him crazy, and something had to be done. We don
’t want you to go away. You’ve got to make Papa understand that you’re sorry and you’ll never make him crazy again.”
If only it were all as simple as that.
Knowing that Owen wanted to be rid of her put an unfamiliar ache in her heart. She’d heard from James often enough that she was a useless woman who didn’t deserve to be alive. Those taunts had ceased hurting her a long time ago. But to know Owen didn’t want her?
A heaviness settled in the pit of Laura’s stomach.
Leaving the girls was going to be hard. Maybe it would be best if Owen did send her away now before they all got too attached.
Owen entered the room, hat in hand. “Laura, may I speak with you privately for a moment?”
She took a deep breath. Even knowing what he was going to say wouldn’t make this conversation easier. Especially since the girls looked at her so pleadingly, like they were counting on her to make things right with their father so she could stay. How she hated breaking the hearts of two sweet little girls. But what other choice did she have?
“Of course.” Laura swallowed the lump in her throat and followed Owen out of the library and into his private study. He closed the door behind them and gestured to one of the chairs.
Laura looked around, having not been in this room before. It was decorated much like the library, lined with walls of books. However, a rather large desk dominated the room, and there were only two chairs for sitting. One more side of Owen that Laura had never seen before. But, she supposed, it made sense that as a rancher, he would also have a business side.
“I...” Owen shifted uneasily on his feet. “I was hard on you earlier,” he said finally. “I let my temper get the best of me, and I spoke in haste. I apologize.”
Laura took a deep breath. She hadn’t liked how he’d spoken to her, but the things he’d said were true. “I accept your apology. But you only spoke the truth. I should have stayed in the root cellar as you asked. I’m sorry for the trouble I caused.”
Nodding slowly, Owen turned to the window and looked out. Laura could see the men walking around as if they were searching for clues.
“Still,” he said. “I should have been kinder in my approach. It was wrong of me to blame you. There are a million things that could have been done differently by all of us. The important thing is that Lena is going to be all right. So now we have to focus on the plan for the future.”
When he finally turned around, Laura could see the newly formed lines on his face. Even though he’d apologized, she couldn’t help but wonder if he did still blame her. Despite his explanation, she continued to blame herself.
As much as she wanted to hold Owen’s treatment of her against him, she was finding it hard to do so. It had been easy to compare him to James, but James had never apologized to her. He’d never taken responsibility for his actions the way Owen just had.
In the barn, Owen had told her that he wasn’t James and that Laura couldn’t compare him to her ex-husband. Perhaps, as much as she felt Owen had been unfair to her, she’d been unfair to him.
But where was the line between opening her heart to Owen and seeing him differently, and thinking their relationship was more than what it was? Even though he seemed perfectly able to separate his personal life and work, Laura didn’t have that ability. The trouble with letting her anger at Owen go was that it was the only thing keeping her from believing their relationship could be something more.
Laura closed her eyes, remembering her conversation with God in the barn. She had to find a way to trust in the Lord, and that whatever His plan was for this situation, in the end, it would be all right. Holding grudges against people wasn’t the way of the Lord, no matter what the excuse.
Help me, Lord.
It was all she knew to say, the way her heart was jumbled.
And while this conversation wasn’t about Owen sending her away, somehow that would have almost seemed kinder, because now she’d have to do the hard work of following God’s will and not her own.
* * *
Owen watched the emotions play on Laura’s face. Had he hurt her irreparably? He’d known, when they were in the barn, that he’d been too hard on her. But Lena...
He glanced up at the ceiling. She was in bed just above them. Lena had been there for him at every stage of his life. The thought of losing her had been almost too much to bear. But as he’d seen the pain in Laura’s eyes, that, too, seemed almost unbearable. This poor woman had been through so much already. How could he have added more hurt to the weight she already carried?
The worst part of it was, as he told Will what had happened, Owen had realized that while, yes, Laura had been the one to leave the safety of the root cellar, he’d been far too focused on her to notice that James had come far enough out of his hiding spot to be able to shoot at the women. Had Owen seen him then, he would have been able to get him, and this whole ordeal would be over.
But he’d been so worried about Laura that he’d lost sight of James for just enough time that the man had been able to shoot his sister.
That was why, as much as Owen wanted to give a better apology, a better explanation so that things could be all right between them again, he couldn’t. He’d let her too far into his heart and cared too deeply for her. The wounded expression on her face when he’d chastised her mattered to him, and that put them all at risk.
And yet, he needed to find a way to distance himself from her while still doing his job. Especially given what he was about to ask her.
“Will says we need to go back to town. At least there we’ll have enough men to take turns watching out for James.”
Laura nodded slowly like she was expecting this outcome. But the next part... Owen took a deep breath. Was it too much to ask?
“I can’t leave Lena and the girls here by themselves. Lena isn’t going to be able to put any weight on her leg for a while, and if James comes back, I don’t want her to have to face him alone. I was wondering if we could all stay at your boardinghouse together until James is apprehended.”
She looked at him as though he spoke a foreign language. And maybe he did, but there was still more to what he needed from her.
“I know it’s a lot to ask, but I’d need your help taking care of Lena and the girls. Lena needs to stay in bed, and I’ll be busy with the investigation. My daughters seem to have taken a shine to you, so I don’t think they’ll be much trouble. Will would let them stay at his house, but his wife is expecting again, and—”
“I’ll do it,” Laura said, straightening so that she looked like the heiress she was. “Lena was injured protecting me. It’s only right that I assist in her recovery.”
Owen took a deep breath. While Laura’s agreement was exactly what he’d hoped to hear, he didn’t want it to be borne of her guilt.
“Her injury isn’t your fault,” Owen said quietly. “I don’t want you to do this because you feel guilty over what happened. Even if you hadn’t appeared, she still could have been shot.”
Will had pointed that out to him, reminding him that as simple as the situation with James had looked, any number of things could have gone wrong. Even so, Owen knew that the responsibility for the situation was on his head. Lena had been shot because Owen was paying too much attention to Laura. James had gotten away because Owen had chosen to keep his barn from burning down instead of chasing after him. Which, Will had firmly said, was the right decision. If the barn fire had gotten out of control, it could have started a grass fire, which could have turned into a forest fire and threatened many of the other ranches in the area.
But watching the way Laura shifted her weight, he wasn’t sure she believed him.
Convincing her, however, meant exposing the deeper fears within. Things he hadn’t even told Will, let alone admitted out loud. His last case before hanging up his badge, he’d made a mistake. He had been guarding a house with a woman and her children
inside, and a lady in a carriage stopped to ask him directions. He took his attention off the house for only a moment, but in that time, the lady, who turned out to be in league with the criminal he was trying to stop, had hit him over the head and rendered him unconscious long enough to put the family in danger. While everything had turned out all right in the end, Owen still couldn’t shake the guilt over how it had nearly ended.
He’d lost his edge.
And now with Laura in the picture, he had one more thing to distract him from his job.
Owen was the wrong man for the case, and with everything that had gone wrong today, they should have found someone else. But nothing he told Will about what happened in the barn with James had convinced the other man that Owen was unfit.
And here was this woman, whose wounded gaze made him feel even more inept.
“I’ll do my best to follow your directions in the future,” Laura said quietly.
How was he supposed to answer that? Yes, he wanted her compliance, but this seemed like such an empty victory. At what cost had her cooperation come?
But that didn’t matter. Not if he wanted to keep his focus on keeping them all alive. Instead, he changed the subject.
“I hope it’s not too much of an inconvenience for us to stay at the boardinghouse. Mary, Will’s wife, says there haven’t been any guests since you left. I’m willing to pay what you think is right.”
Laura shook her head. “I don’t need your money. Putting James back behind bars will be payment enough.”
He supposed she didn’t need his money. After all, Laura was a woman of means. It just felt wrong to take advantage of her hospitality.
Especially when it was clear he’d wounded her so deeply. Worse, they were putting her out because Owen hadn’t done his job properly in the first place.
Part of him wanted to do whatever it took to make things right with her, to bring the smile back to her face. But what good would that do him? Or her, for that matter? Fixing a relationship that wasn’t real had no purpose but to hurt both of them in the end. Especially when navigating that relationship would take too much of his energy away from keeping them all safe.
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