It surprised Thorpe that a woman would ask such a question unless she worked in a profession which required such knowledge. He could understand women who were with many men trying to avoid pregnancy. He stood to leave. “Thanks, Doc.”
* * *
Lily opened the door so Blue and Spirit could go outside with the puppies while she prepared breakfast. She didn’t realize Thorpe had already left, so she cracked a dozen eggs, the usual amount for the three men. When Stone and Jed joined her in the kitchen, Stone stoked the stove and Jed made the coffee. They tried to engage Lily in conversation, but they quickly noticed she wasn’t her cheerful self this morning.
Lily walked to the door to let the animals back inside, but Spirit and the puppies came in without Blue. She walked outside and called his name, but he didn’t come to her. Blue always came when she called. She had a sick feeling something was wrong. Snow was falling in large thick flakes and she worried if she waited to look for him, his tracks would be covered quickly. She walked back inside and said to Jed, “Can you finish breakfast? I’m going to look for Blue. He didn’t come when I called.”
“Maybe he went to look for Mr. Thorpe,” Jed said.
Lily was surprised Thorpe was gone. “He’s not here?” She wondered if he went to visit Evelyn, but she wouldn’t ask.
“No, ma’am, I heard him ride out early.”
“I’ll look for Blue,” Stone said.
“No, I want to go,” Lily said. She grabbed her coat off the hook and picked up her rifle by the door. As soon as she jumped off the porch, she saw Blue’s prints and started to follow them. She walked for an hour, and she decided she needed to go back and get Blaze so she could cover more territory quickly. Once she was in the saddle, she followed Blue’s trail until she could no longer see his prints. She refused to give up even though she wasn’t dressed for the cold and snow. This wasn’t like Blue. But Blue hadn’t been himself for several days. Had he been trying to tell her that it was time for him to leave? She started weeping; Blue was all she had and she was desperate to find him. He’d helped her to get over losing her parents. He’d protected her on the way to Missouri more times than she could count. Blue was her family, closer than any friend could ever be. She would be lost without him. She called and called to him until she became so hoarse that her voice could no longer be heard above the wind whipping around her.
* * *
Thorpe thought he might stop at the Tremayne ranch before he went home, but he had a feeling he needed to get to the ranch. He’d go back to the Tremayne ranch later and talk to Evelyn’s father. As soon as he opened the kitchen door, Jed and Stone were pulling on their coats.
“Did you see Miss Lily?” Jed asked.
Thorpe was taking his coat off and stopped midmotion. “What do you mean?”
“She went out to look for Blue. He didn’t come back when she let him out this morning.”
“We saw her come back and go into the stable to get Blaze,” Stone added. “We were just going out to look for her.”
Thorpe pulled his coat closed. “I’ll go. The snow has probably covered Blue’s tracks. Which way did she go?”
“North.”
“How long has she been gone?”
“Going on three hours, but she took a rifle,” Stone said.
Spirit walked to the door and started whimpering. “Stay here with your babies.” Thorpe walked out the door and headed back to the stable. Over an hour later he’d caught up with Lily.
“Why are you here? Did Blue go back to the ranch?”
“I’m here to help you, and no, Blue didn’t come back.” Thorpe noticed she could hardly speak, and he could tell she was freezing. She’d pulled her coat sleeves over her hands, but he could see the tips of her fingers where she was holding on to the reins were red. She wasn’t dressed for this weather. He pulled an extra pair of gloves from his saddlebag and handed them to her. “Put these on.”
Lily took the gloves and put them on her frozen fingers. “Thank you.” She hadn’t given a thought to the way she was dressed when she took off after Blue.
She didn’t even have on a hat, so he pulled off the wool scarf he wore under his coat and gave it to her. “Here you go. Put this over your head.”
Lily reached for the scarf and put it over her head and tied it under her chin. It was so warm and it smelled like Thorpe. But her shivering didn’t stop.
They hadn’t ridden much farther when Thorpe pulled Smoke to a halt. “Hold up.” He was worried about her uncontrollable shivering. He unbuttoned his coat and leaned over and pulled her off her saddle and placed her on his lap.
“What are you doing?” Lily’s voice was now a mere whisper.
“Getting you warm. I’m not going to let you freeze to death out here.” He opened his coat. “Put your arms around me.”
She was too cold to argue. She wrapped her arms around his waist and he closed his coat around her. “You’ll be warm in no time.”
“I don’t want to go back,” she said.
He didn’t want to go back either. “We’ll keep going. Take the gloves off and put your hands under my shirt.” He knew that was the best way to get her hands warm in a hurry.
She didn’t question him and she tugged his shirt out of his pants. When her hands hit his bare skin she felt him shiver. “Too cold?”
“No, they will warm up more quickly this way.” He wasn’t sure if it was her cold hands or the fact that she was touching him that made him shiver. He took hold of Blaze’s reins and kept riding. “Why do you think he left?”
“I don’t know. I think maybe that’s why he was staying so close to me. He was trying to tell me he was leaving, or it was time for us to leave. Maybe he didn’t understand why we were staying here for the winter.” Lily was warmer, but she was still shaking and she didn’t know if it was from fear or the cold. “Maybe he wanted to go back in the wild and do what wolves do.”
She continued to shake and Thorpe asked, “Are you getting warmer?”
“Yes. You put off a lot of heat.”
“I remember you told me that when you changed my bandages,” he teased.
She thought of caring for him and how he would tease her that she liked looking at him without his shirt. He’d made her blush with his teasing, but his comments were on the mark. She did like looking at him, and she liked touching him.
Many times Thorpe had thought of how her hands felt on his skin when she was caring for his wound. Nothing had changed; he liked the way she felt with her arms wrapped around him right now. Last night, he’d wanted to feel her touching him, but he’d been out of line and he needed to apologize. “I’m sorry about my behavior last night. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you had shot me.”
Lily had forgotten her anger, but she was too worried about Blue to think of anything else. “You weren’t that bad. But if you do it again, I might consider it.”
“I wish I could blame it on the whiskey, but that wouldn’t be true. If things were different I would . . .” What would he do if Evelyn hadn’t come back? No sense wondering about that now. The hard reality was Evelyn was back. He glanced down at Lily and her blue eyes were focused on him. “It wasn’t the whiskey.” He paused, then said, “I just want you, Lily.”
She stared into his eyes and waited, but he didn’t say more.
Like last night, Thorpe was tempted beyond reason to kiss her, but he kept his head. It was easier when he didn’t have whiskey in his system and a more important mission at the moment: finding Blue. He pulled his eyes from hers and looked ahead. “I’m not seeing a trail anywhere.”
“Why don’t you go back? I know you have a lot of work and I can go on alone,” Lily told him.
“No. You’ve already lost your voice. I’m not leaving you out here, but we should turn around soon. The temperature’s dropping and you aren’t dressed for this weather.”
* * *
Another hour passed and as much as Thorpe hated to turn back, he had no choice. They hadn’t
eaten and they were unprepared for the conditions. He did take a different route back to the house, hoping to find some tracks, but no luck. When they reached the stable, he lifted Lily from Smoke. He asked one of his men to care for the horses so he could see Lily to the house.
They walked into the kitchen and Isabelle was waiting for them.
“Did he come back?” Lily asked.
Isabelle shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
Spirit left her pups and sprinted to Lily.
Lily kneeled down and wrapped her arms around Spirit, but she couldn’t say anything to console the poor animal. She understood her broken heart.
“Spirit has walked to the door a hundred times today, waiting,” Isabelle told her.
“Lily, I’ll heat some water and bring it up to your room. You need to get in the tub and get warm,” Thorpe told her. “And you need to eat something.”
“I’ll bring a tray up to you,” Isabelle said.
When Lily walked upstairs, Thorpe put some pans of water on the stove. “She hasn’t eaten all day.”
“Have you?” Stone had told her Thorpe didn’t eat breakfast and they’d both missed lunch.
“I’ll eat something after I take her some water.”
“I don’t know what she will do without Blue. He means everything to her.”
“I’d go back out, but there’s no trail to follow now.” Thorpe sat down near the stove while he waited for the water to heat.
Isabelle placed a cup of coffee in front of him. “Do you think he will come back?”
“I don’t know, but I hope so.” It didn’t make sense why Blue left, and he didn’t know how to comfort Lily. He’d wanted to take her in his arms and just hold her, but after last night she’d probably think he wanted more.
When Thorpe carried the water to Lily’s room, he found her standing at the window looking out over the ranch. He filled the tub and walked up behind her. “Why don’t you get in the tub before the water gets cold? When you’re ready, Isabelle will bring you some food.”
Lily turned from the window. “Okay.”
Thorpe heard her anguish in that one word. “Let me get a fire going.” Once he had a fire blazing in the hearth, he left the room so she could undress. He walked back downstairs and Isabelle had a plate of food ready for him. “Thanks. Let me know when she’s finished and I’ll take Spirit and the pups up to her room to keep her company.”
* * *
“She didn’t eat much,” Isabelle said to Thorpe when she came back to the kitchen.
“She’s probably worn-out.” Thorpe jumped up and gathered Spirit and the pups and took them outside for a few minutes before he took them to Lily’s room. When he reached her room, the door was open and Lily was standing at the window again. After he placed the pups on their blanket, he walked to the fireplace and threw some more logs on the fire. “Lily, why don’t you go to bed? I’ll wake you if he comes back.”
Lily turned, and she looked surprised that he was in the room. She glanced in the corner and saw the pups and Spirit. “I’m not tired. I thought about going back out to look for him.”
She seemed lost and it broke his heart. “Lily, I would go if I could find his trail. But there’s nothing to lead us to where he is going.” He walked over to stand beside her at the window.
“But I have to do something.”
He could tell she’d been crying. He didn’t know how to offer her comfort any other way, so he wrapped his arms around her. “I’m so sorry.”
Lily buried her head in his chest and sobbed. Thorpe picked her up and carried her to the chair and he sat and held her while she cried for her best friend.
When she could speak, she whispered, “I feel in my heart I will see him again, but that doesn’t make the hurt go away, or the worry.”
Thorpe rubbed her back, remembering the day she told him she felt it in her heart that she would see her grandfather again. He wouldn’t bet against it. Jed believed Lily had a direct line to the Almighty and he wouldn’t argue that point either. He’d never met anyone with her spiritual connection with animals. “It’ll be all right, honey. It may not seem like it now, but things have a way of working out for the best.” Now he just needed to listen to his own advice.
Chapter Thirty
Hours later, Thorpe was lying in bed thinking about Blue. Perhaps Lily was right and Blue wanted to go back to the wild. Blue was young when Lily found him, but he’d obviously been in the wild before he was shot. He was debating getting dressed even though it was the middle of the night, when the howling started. He threw the quilt off and walked to the window. There was another full moon and the howling was such a lonely sound echoing through the night. He figured Lily was probably hearing the same sad sound. He got dressed and left the house. With the light from the moon, he figured he could see tracks if he found any.
Finding no sign of Blue, Thorpe started his workday three hours later. He had a lot of work waiting for him, and he’d miss lunch again. He planned on going to the Tremayne ranch before dinner to speak to Evelyn and her father. There was no reason for secrets; anything he had to say to Evelyn he figured he could say in front of her father and get everything out in the open. Since Evelyn had told him her father had traveled to Kansas City to bring her home, he had to know what was going on.
He’d given a lot of thought to what the doc had told him about Evelyn. He didn’t give much credence to the gossip about Evelyn and Travis, their ranch foreman. Sure, Travis had brought Evelyn to his ranch on occasion because Evelyn didn’t ride. But he certainly never noticed anything improper between them. Then again, Evelyn had carried on an affair with Ainsworth right under his nose, and he’d been none the wiser.
His thoughts moved to Lily. He wanted to be home in time for dinner to make sure Lily was eating, and she didn’t take off after Blue again. Lily was an independent woman, and he wouldn’t put it past her to try. Just like she took off by herself yesterday when Blue didn’t return. She was some woman, not only beautiful but very capable. He admired her, but at the same time, she needed to learn she could depend on someone. He realized she had depended on someone for a long time: Blue.
* * *
Lily was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee while Isabelle chatted away about baby clothes. Isabelle was cutting patterns from the cloth Lily purchased and trying to keep Lily’s mind off of Blue. They heard a knock on the front door and Isabelle jumped up before Lily to see who was calling. Before Isabelle reached the door, in walked Evelyn Tremayne.
“May I help you?” Isabelle asked.
Evelyn pushed past her and walked toward the parlor. “I want to see Thorpe.” Evelyn had expected Thorpe to visit her yesterday and she wasn’t happy that he hadn’t showed. She didn’t really expect to catch him at home during the day, but she was curious about the women staying at his home.
“Thorpe is not here. He’s working,” Isabelle said. Isabelle didn’t like the way Evelyn just waltzed in like she owned Thorpe’s home.
Evelyn stared at the pregnant woman. “Then get me some coffee. I’m sure he’ll be here for lunch, and I’ll wait.”
“I’m not the maid. If you want coffee, you can come to the kitchen.” Isabelle was fuming by the time she made her way back to the kitchen.
“Who was at the door?” Lily asked.
“That woman,” Isabelle answered.
Evelyn was right behind Isabelle, and when she entered the kitchen, her eyes zeroed in on Lily. “My name is Evelyn Tremayne. And might I inquire who you are?”
“I’m Lily Starr and this is Isabelle Justice,” Lily replied.
“Why are you staying in my fiancé’s home?” When she’d barged in the other day, she had thought Thorpe was getting married and it was too late to get him back. After Thorpe’s reaction to her story, she knew it was just a matter of time before she’d have him at the altar again.
“You mean your ex-fiancé?” Isabelle asked.
Evelyn glared at her. “Thorpe and I are
going to marry soon.”
“We are here by Thorpe’s invitation,” Lily said.
“How do you know Thorpe? I’ve never met you and I know all of his acquaintances.”
Isabelle held her tongue, but she wanted to tell her it was none of her business.
“We met Thorpe on the trail to Wyoming,” Lily said.
So that meant Thorpe met them after he left Kansas City. Evelyn glanced at Isabelle’s belly. “I guess you are taking advantage of Thorpe’s good graces since you are obviously unable to travel.”
Lily bristled at her rude behavior. She felt sorry for Evelyn after Thorpe related everything that had happened to her, but that gave her no right to be rude. “We are not taking advantage of anything. Thorpe invited us here. It’s as simple as that.”
“If not for Lily, you wouldn’t even have an ex-fiancé,” Isabelle told her.
“And what do you mean by that?” Evelyn asked.
“Lily saved his life.”
Evelyn’s eyes roved over Lily. She’d never seen another woman who might tempt Thorpe, but she thought this woman could be a threat. She wondered if Thorpe had taken her to his bed. She doubted it, or Thorpe would feel compelled to do the right thing. She wasn’t about to lose him to an interloper with long blond hair. She needed to rebuild her reputation if she was going to stay in this town, and that meant marrying Thorpe. No one was going to get in her way. She could handle Thorpe; she always could. She was confident he would believe any tale she told him. “Do you think you found yourself a rich rancher?”
Lily thought it was interesting that Evelyn didn’t even ask what had happened to Thorpe. “I wasn’t aware Thorpe was rich.”
Isabelle didn’t think Thorpe would appreciate Evelyn’s behavior. “I don’t think Thorpe would abide you insulting his guests.”
“Thorpe cares about anything that affects me. Just so you know, Thorpe and I have known each other a long time. We’re intimate and we share everything.” She stared hard at Lily with undisguised loathing. “Everything.”
Lily could hardly believe what she was implying. “Your relationship with Thorpe is no concern of ours.”
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