High Country Bride

by Jillian Hart

  “Lee?” She had to keep her voice low so the children would not be able to overhear this. “Lee? Where are you going?”

  “Away.” He bit out the word, then appeared annoyed as he reined in the horse. “Truth is, I sold the place.”

  “You what?” She couldn’t be hearing him right. Maybe it was the lack of sleep last night and the emotional upset over the funeral. It was all the hard kitchen work in this stifling heat. Yes, that’s what it was. “For a moment there, I thought you said you’d sold out, but there’s still the crop in the fields.”

  “I sold it, too. The banker said you’ve got until nightfall to get out.”

  “Get out?” There was something wrong with her mind. She could hear Lee’s words, but her brain was not making sense of them. Surely he didn’t say—“You want me to get out of the house?”

  “You can’t live in it if it belongs to someone else. The banker bought the place for his sister. She’d like to get settled tonight.”

  “Tonight?” The earth began to spin. “Lee, what about the children? You aren’t putting us out, are you?”

  “You aren’t my lookout. They’re your ragamuffins, not mine. I’m not beholden to them or to you. Pa left me this place fair and square. It’s mine to sell.”

  “But before Pa died, you said…” Not only was the earth spinning, but it was tilting, too.

  No, this can’t be happening. This cannot be right. She had to be ill from the heat, that was it. Her mind was fuddled from too little sleep and too much worry. “Y-you said we could live here.”

  “I know what I said.” Lee glared down at her. “I came to help you take care of the old man. The crops are still doing well in the fields because of me. The banker met my price and I took it. Leave the pigs and the chickens when you go. They’re part of the sale, too.”

  “But—” Her brain seemed stuck on that word like her feet to the dirt. “It’s not right. You just can’t—”

  “Sure I can. I only came back here for the money. You know I never held much regard for our old man. He was a louse.”

  “But you said—”

  “In this world, you’ve got to look out for yourself and no one else. It’s the only way to survive.” Lee gazed down on her with pity. He pulled his billfold from his shirt pocket. “Here.”

  She stared at the twenty dollar bill he held out, the end flapping in the brisk scorching wind. The truth hit her like dry lightning. “You really sold the land and you’re keeping all the money.”

  “It’s legal. Pa left everything to me. You know that.”

  “But you said you would stay to farm. You promised. You gave your word.”

  “Yeah, well, I hardly expected you to help me out if you knew.” Since she didn’t take the money, Lee tossed it at her. The wind snatched it and blew it away like a dry leaf. It stuck to the wall of sticker bushes growing along the road and flapped there, helplessly trapped.

  Joanna gulped hard. She fisted her hands, fighting to stay calm. Getting upset would not make this easier. “You lied to me. Lee, you’re my brother.”

  “Half brother. Take my advice and start packing. That banker’s not a nice man. He’ll put you and your young ones out by force. Do you want that?”

  A bead of sweat rolled down her spine. She shook her head once, but the horse was already trotting away, kicking up bits of earth and small rocks. In the matter of a few heartbeats, all that she could see of her brother was a thick cloud of dust.

  He’ll put you and your young ones out by force. The image of that tore through her and, without thought, she moved forward. She snatched the twenty dollar bill from the bush, ignoring the bite of scratches across her knuckles. She added the bill to the money Mr. McKaslin had given her. The sun was already sinking in the sky, the day more than half over. She had a lot to do if she wanted to spare her children any unpleasantness.

  Woodenly, she stumbled into the kitchen, checking through the open window to see them seated at the little battered wooden table, comfortably finishing their meals. The wind puffed James’s dark hair straight up like one big cowlick. Daisy sat as dainty and as dear as a princess.

  Lord, please help me to manage this well. For their sake. She might have prayed further for shelter and work and somewhere to go, but she’d learned from experience that the good Lord did not hear many of her prayers. So she kept them simple.

  “What’s for dessert, Ma?” James had hopped off his chair and stood at the window, happily watching her through the mesh screen.

  “You sit down and watch your sister, handsome, and I’ll bring you both big pieces of cake.”

  “Cake! I knew it.” Delight rounded his sweet face and he dashed the short distance back to his chair.

  That’s my answer, she realized as she found a knife and went to work on the cake hidden in the cellar to keep cool and fresh. This will be an adventure, a special trip. Not a scary life living out of the wagon. They would be explorers, like in the book she was reading to them, a few pages at a time, at night.

  She swallowed all her fears and worries, put a smile on her face and cut two huge slices of cake. Her mind was busy making plans of how to pack and what they would take as she pushed her way through the screen door.

  Two darling faces turned toward her in sheer delight. “Cake!”

  She knew from sad experience that the Lord might not provide for them, but she would find a way.

  Chapter Two

  If it wasn’t one problem to deal with, it was another. Aiden McKaslin drew his horse to a halt and squinted into the long rays of the setting sun.

  Sure enough, there at the edge of his property, just inside the boundary fence, was a squatter. A covered wagon huddled in the shelter of an old maple. Judging by the fraying cover, it had seen better days. The smoke from a newly lit fire rose thick and unsteady from a tidy circle of stones.

  What with the glare of the sun, and the shadows the tree made on the ground, he couldn’t see a living soul. Just two horses nipping at the growing grass.

  He yanked his Winchester from the saddle holster by its barrel and cocked it with one hand. Aiden carried the weapon mostly for the wild predators that got to eyeing his livestock for dinner now and again. But when he ran into trouble of the human sort, he was doubly glad he always rode armed. He’d had trouble like this before, and experience taught him that squatters were mostly criminals.

  He hated trouble, but the law was a good five miles away, so he approached the camp with caution, studying the lay of things with a careful eye. There was wearing of the earth around the stubborn tufts of grass at the creek bank. The careful sweeping of footprints out of the dirt seemed to be a clue that whoever was staying here might not want to leave a sign of how many of them there were. The trampled grass around the wagon was another hint—still fresh, but with significant usage.

  What if the men were dangerous? Aiden drew his horse to a stop and considered. He was out in the open now. Too late to retreat. Trouble like this had occurred early last year, and a ranch hand had been shot and left for dead by squatters. They’d never been caught. Thankfully, the hired man had survived.

  Aiden would rather deal with dangerous wildlife anyday than a pack of armed criminals.

  Then he saw something in the dust by the right rear wagon wheel. He leaned forward in the saddle, squinted a bit and realized it was a small, crudely carved wooden horse—a child’s toy. A child’s toy? Not what he’d figured on finding here in a squatter’s camp. Then he heard a rustle, and a puff of dust rose from beneath the wagon.

  He lowered the hammer and the rifle. “Is your pa around?”

  A round face peered between the spokes of the wheel. “Nah. He rode away to heaven.”

  Aiden studied the wide brown eyes and dark hair sticking straight up, recognizing the child. The widow’s kid who had lived on the neighboring ranch for a spell. Probably another sad story, he figured as he dismounted. He was learning that life was full of sad stories. Even though he’d lost his heart long ag
o, and there was nothing but an empty hole where it had been, he steeled himself. He didn’t want to feel a thing, and he knew this situation was going to be full of sadness. “Your ma then?”

  “She said not to talk to nobody. Shh, Daisy.” There was more rustling and the boy drew back.

  To his surprise, a little girl with white-blond hair held back with a bright pink ribbon crawled out from beneath the wagon bed. She brushed the dust off her skirt primly. “Ma didn’t say I couldn’t talk to nobody.”

  Aiden couldn’t rightly say that he wasn’t affected by that cute little girl. Such a wee thing, not much to her at all, and living out of a covered wagon. The little boy crawled out, too, looking annoyed with his younger sister. He drew himself up tall—he couldn’t be more than seven or eight years old—and scolded his sister for not minding.

  They hadn’t been living here long, Aiden decided as he glanced around. Everything was neat and tidy, and a woman’s presence might explain the swept dirt. While he didn’t have the best opinion of most women, he’d learned even the worst of them liked to dust and sweep with a vengeance.

  The little boy was shaking his finger at his sister. “Ma said to stay hid. You oughtn’t to be talking to strangers.”

  “Are you a stranger?” The little girl gazed past her brother and straight into Aiden’s eyes.

  He choked a little, feeling a gnawing of something in his chest. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like feelings. Life was too hard for them. A smart man didn’t give in to them. He set his jaw tight and answered between clenched teeth. “Your brother is right. You ought to mind him.”

  “Oh.” The little girl wilted like a new seedling in a late freeze. “Do you know where Ma is?”

  “No. She’s not here? Did she go off and leave you?” There it was. Fury. It roared through him unbidden and with a power that he hadn’t felt since—

  “Excuse me.” A woman’s voice carried like a gunshot on the wind. “Step away from my children.”

  He did as she asked, so as not to startle her. But as he pivoted on his boot heel to face her, he steeled himself a tad more. He still wasn’t prepared for what he saw. Exhaustion was a mask obscuring her young face. Her dress was clean and proper and pressed, and her soft blond hair braided casually in one long tail that fell over her shoulder. The air of her, the feel that hung over her like a cloud, was pure hardship.

  His emotions weren’t ironclad enough, because he felt the tug of pity. And more. The fury remained, digging deep. “This is my land, ma’am. You can’t go leaving your children alone here.”

  “I didn’t leave them alone. I was down at the creek.”

  As she strode to the crest of the rise, he could clearly see the two five-gallon buckets she carried, one in each hand. She was a tiny thing, and water was heavy. He was striding toward her before he realized he was moving at all.

  There was fear in her eyes—fear of him, he realized, as he yanked the first bucket out of her hand. She drew back fiercely, sloshing water over the rim and onto her faded skirts, clutching the remaining bucket’s handle with a death grip.

  “Give me the water.” He tucked his rifle against his forearm and held out his free hand.

  Her eyes widened at the sight of his rifle, pointed downward at an angle toward the grass.

  Women. He ought to have remembered what they were like, having once been married. He did his best to keep his annoyance out of his voice. “I use my rifle for defense, nothing more, ma’am. Now, give me the bucket.”

  She swallowed visibly, as if she were about to hand over a potful of money. He had frightened her more than he’d realized.

  Shame filled him and he took care when he lifted the heavy bucket from her small hand. He cleared his throat, not at all sure how to say what he had meant to say. Talking had never been his strong suit. He hefted the heavy water buckets and lugged them toward the camp, where both little children watched him wide-eyed. Anyone could see they were well-behaved, that their ma was doing a good job raising them up.

  “Where you want these?” He glanced over his shoulder, but the woman seemed frozen in place on the rise. Mrs. Nelson looked like a sensible sort. Her pink calico dress might be faded, but it was simple and clean, void of frippery.

  She came across as a decent lady down on her luck. And she was staring at him with fear on her face. Not the terrified sort of run-and-hide fear. No, the fear he saw on her delicate features was the kind that made him even angrier. The kind that spoke of ill-treatment.

  “Where do you want me to put the water?” he repeated in as clear of a voice as he could manage.

  Mrs. Nelson visibly swallowed. “Under the tailgate.”

  Without a word he turned and marched angrily on, his boots clumping against the hard-packed earth. He hauled the buckets to the back of the wagon and dropped them with a small puff of dust. When he straightened, he realized both children had followed him, single file, and were staring up at him with dust-smudged faces. Mrs. Nelson’s skirts snapped as she hurried to stand between him and the young ones.

  That only made him madder. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ll not have you using that tone in front of my children.” Her dainty chin came up, and she was all protective fire, though the old, worn fear was still there.

  He hated that fear. It was all he could do to keep his tone low and his voice calm. “This being my land, ma’am, I’ll use whatever tone suits me. Now, answer my question.”

  That chin lifted another notch before she turned to speak to her little ones. “You two go on and wash up for supper, while I speak to Mr. McKaslin.”

  They nodded and politely went straight to it. The little boy fetched a bar of lye soap and a worn but clean towel from the back of the wagon, and took charge of seeing to the hands and face washing of his little sister.

  With the children busy, Aiden followed Mrs. Nelson out into the grass. She turned to face him with her arms crossed over her chest and her spine straight. “We had no place to go, Mr. McKaslin.”

  “You have family.”

  “Family? I have no one and you know it.” She held herself very still. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get my children into the wagon and we’ll be off your property by sundown. That is what you want, isn’t it?”

  “You just said you have no place to go.”

  “And a man like you cares?” She heard the heartlessness in her own voice and stopped, took a breath and a moment to compose herself. She might be homeless, but she had her dignity. “I cannot reimburse you for our stay on your land. I am sorry for that.”

  “Sorry?” A muscle worked in his granite jaw. He repeated the word as if he’d bitten into something sour. “Sorry?”

  “There’s no need to be so angry.” She took a step back and drew in a gulp of air. “We hardly did any harm.”

  “Any harm?”

  “We wore away some of your grass, and the horses grazed on the bunchgrass, but it wasn’t as if you were using—”

  “This is unacceptable.” A vein throbbed out at his temple. “You’ve been living here for how long?”

  “Since Mr. Wessox found us camped out at the edge of his farm on the other side of the creek.” She curled her hands into fists, keeping her chin set and her tone even. This was not the first irate man she’d ever had to manage.

  “How long?” Tendons stood out in his muscled, sun-browned neck.

  “We were only there a few weeks.” She felt very small. “We’ve been on your land for a little longer.”

  “And you have no family?” A tick started in the corded muscles of his jaw.

  “You already know the answer.” She took a few slow steps in retreat. She could not get to her wagon—or her children—without going past Mr. McKaslin. “My half brother has no interest in helping us. There is no one else.”

  “What of your husband’s side of the family?”

  “As he’s passed away, and his family did not approve of me, they want nothing to do with us. Not even for the c
hildren’s sake.” She didn’t know how it could possibly be, but her words seemed to make the man towering over her even angrier. He appeared to be restraining his fury, but it was a terrible sight. He was more than twice her size and strength, and as he began to breathe heavily with his anger, he seemed invincible.

  A thin thread of fear shivered through her, but she firmly clutched her skirts, lifting them so she would not trip. Her first wobbly step took her closer to him. Closer to his rage. “Excuse me.”

  To her surprise, he let her walk by. She did her best to ignore the stone pillar he seemed as she hurried past him, adrenaline kicking up with every step she took. Her children were waiting, sweet and good, with their faces and hands washed. They were carefully wiping up their water splashes. Her heart warmed toward them as it always did, and she hoped she could keep them safe.

  “Ma?” James leaned close, all brightness gone from his face. “That man’s gonna make us leave again, ain’t he?”

  Before she could answer, Daisy fisted her little hands in the folds of Joanna’s skirts and looked up with frightened eyes. “I don’t wanna go.”

  “Why ever not?” She did her best to put a smile on her face and soothing love in her voice. She knelt down so they could look into her eyes and clearly see they should not be worried. “We always knew this was just a stopping off place. Why, we’re ready to go and start our next adventure. Doesn’t that sound fun?”

  “No.” James would not be fooled, her poor little boy. “Do we gotta go now? Before supper?”

  Aware of Daisy’s lower lip trembling and how intently the little girl watched her, Joanna tried to weigh her next words carefully. She did not want to make promises she could not keep. But neither did she want to be so truthful it shattered her children. She was out of options, and her prayers had simply gone unanswered for so long, they might never be again.

  All she could do was the best she knew how. “All right, you two, start rounding up your toys. Be sure to get them all. We don’t want to leave any behind.”