Bought by the Lone Cowboy

by E. Walsh

  She quickly discovered that getting Joseph to talk was like pulling teeth. He told her, in the course of the long ride, that he didn’t farm fields. His crop was plums, and the orchards stretched out for acres around the house. Both of the children had been born there.

  “David’s awfully fond of chickens,” Joseph said, looking out over the road ahead of them.

  “You mean eating them?” Laurel asked.

  He shook his head. “Chasing them, mostly.”

  Laurel thought she could hear in his voice that same small smile he had offered her earlier, but his face was turned away and she couldn’t see.

  “And Sarah?”

  “Sarah’s mostly too little to know what she likes. Food. Warmth. She just wants the basics yet.”

  The land rolled out ahead of them, flat and scattered with scrub, more brown than green for long stretches. Overhead, the sky was slowly painted pink with evening and the sun sank toward the horizon.

  “Not too much farther now,” Joseph said, giving the reins a little shake. “We’ll reach it before full dark.”

  He was silent, and Laurel was left alone with her thoughts. As pink sunset became purple twilight, she wondered if she had made the right decision, trekking off into the unknown with this taciturn farmer.

  They crested a slight ridge, and ahead of them there were suddenly trees. Row on row, they marched toward the horizon. And down among them was the warm, welcoming yellow light of a home.

  “Here we are.”

  Joseph clicked his tongue, and the tired horses picked up their pace, eager for food. In the yard before the house, he drew them to a stop.

  “You go ahead and go on in,” he said, pulling back the reins. “Mrs. Haney should have something made up for dinner. She’s the one who’s been watching the little ones for me. I’ll be in with your trunks after I take care of the horses.”

  He was already down from the wagon, moving around to her side to hold up a hand for her to take as she carefully climbed to the ground.

  She reached for the little carpet bag she’d kept by her side during the drive, clutching it a little too tight, and found a smile.

  “Thank you, Mr. Beyer.”

  A nod was all the answer she received.

  She went on toward the house and the warm glow of the porch light while he led the horse to the barn.

  * * *

  Chapter Nine

  When Joseph appeared, stamping dirt off his boots just outside the door, the two women were sitting together at the table. The lamp light gleamed on their heads – one raven and one ash brown – bent toward each other in close conversation.

  They heard him come across the porch. Emmaline Haney rose, and moved to ladle stew into bowls, but Laurel Ennis simply looked up and smiled.

  That was the moment Joseph knew he shouldn’t have hired her.

  Up until that instant, he had thought of her as attractive in a rather objective way, his concern more with how her presence would aid his children.

  But seeing her there in the warm light of the oil lamp, a smile on her face, he could not help but notice her again – the dainty nose and full mouth, the delicate curve of her jaw.

  And the smile that lit her face brighter than the lamp light. For an instant, he could imagine her sitting just there at that table when he came in from the fields, rising to greet him with that very smile. He pushed the vision away.

  “Sarah’s asleep for now,” the young Mrs. Haney said. “Put her down just about an hour ago. David’s in his room.”

  “Thank you, Emmaline,” Joseph answered. “If you want to dish him up a bowl, I’ll go get him for dinner.”

  He didn’t wait for a reply. The sound of his own footsteps followed him from the kitchen and down the hall.

  When he reached the door to his son’s room, David looked up from the wooden horse he was trotting across the floor and Joseph’s heart twisted.

  The warm brown eyes under the halo of pale curls were Rachel’s, and tonight especially they made him ache with missing her.

  They’d had such plans before the sickness took her; now, she would never see their little ones grow up.

  “Dinner time, David,” Joseph said, holding out his hand to his son, who scrambled to his feet and wrapped his pudgy fingers around it.

  “Were you good for Mrs. Haney?”

  His son nodded eagerly.

  “What did you do?”

  David began a rambling explanation of their day. Joseph felt his mouth curl into a smile as he listened to his son talk about the chickens. In the doorway to the kitchen, however, David stopped dead.

  “Daddy?” He looked up at Joseph with wide brown eyes. “Who is that?”

  “That is Miss Ennis. She’s going to stay here and take care of you and Sarah while I’m out working.”

  Laurel stood up and crossed the room to crouch in front of them, holding out one hand to David, who stared at it.

  “Hello, David,” she said, smiling wide at him. “I’m Laurel. I think you and I are going to have a lot of fun together.”

  David look unconvinced. Lowering the offered hand, Laurel stood. Her expression was amused, Joseph was relieved to note.

  “We’ll work it out,” she said, to him or maybe to both of them. Then she turned and went back to sit down again.

  “Come on,” Joseph said, leading his son in the same direction. “Dinner time.”

  They walked to the table together.

  *

  Later that night, Joseph woke to the sound of Sarah crying. Without thought, he rolled out of bed, and he was halfway down the night-dim hallway when he nearly ran into Miss Ennis.

  She was in a nightgown, white against the darkness. She’d taken her hair out of the elaborate twist she’d been wearing it in when he’d shown her to the room, and wore it in a long, loose braid that fell forward over one shoulder.

  In her arms, Sarah was slowly quieting while Laurel murmured and hummed to her. Joseph felt his face heat.

  He shouldn’t be seeing her like this, in so intimate a moment. Laurel looked up from the baby and smiled at him.

  “Habit, Mr. Beyer?” she asked softly.

  He nodded. “Too asleep to remember,” he admitted. “But I’ll leave you to it.”

  “Good night,” she said, as he turned to go. “And have blessed dreams.”

  “And to you, Miss Ennis,” Joseph answered.

  Without even one last glance in her direction, he turned and went back to his room.

  But he laid in the dark for a long time, staring up at the ceiling, and when he finally slept it was with the memory of her smile haunting his dreams.

  * * *

  Chapter Ten

  They slipped easily into a routine.

  Joseph rose before dawn to go out into the fields. On mornings when she hadn’t been up late with Sarah, Laurel got up with him and made breakfast, sent him out with a lunch.

  A week passed, and then two, and those days became more common than not as Sarah’s restless nights grew fewer and farther between.

  After Joseph had gone out, David – who had thoroughly moved past his initial uncertainty about her – woke, and Laurel fed him, then woke Sarah and fed her.

  She and David cleaned up from breakfast. When that was done, she spent the morning entertaining them until lunch. The afternoons, while the children had their naps, were for chores.

  It was steady, plain living. Not exactly what she had expected of staying in California. And yet, she couldn’t remember ever being more content.

  At night, sitting together at the dinner table with a dusty and exhausted Joseph while David told his father about his day and she fed Sarah, Laurel felt like she was home.

  In the lamplight, her eyes traced Joseph’s features, grown familiar in the days that she had been there. They felt, in those moments, like a family.

  Laurel knew it was dangerous to think that way. Joseph wasn’t looking for another wife, only someone to watch Sarah and David when he was too b
usy.

  If she sometimes caught him looking back at her, it could only be in assessment, a father’s desire to be sure that his children were properly cared for.

  He still missed Rachel; she saw it in his eyes in unguarded moments. But that knowledge didn’t manage to change the little flush of warmth that bloomed in her chest every time he smiled at her.

  “I found something I think you might like,” Joseph said one evening as he sat down to dinner. “Thought I might take you and the kids out after supper.”

  Laurel looked up from the bread she was slicing. Joseph had Sarah in his lap, her tiny fingers curled around his calloused, sun-browned thumb.

  His head was tipped down so he could watch her, the smile that so rarely lit his face settled on his lips. She looked away again as her cheeks flushed with heat.

  “I would like that,” she said.

  She slid the bread onto a plate and carried it over to the table.

  Would she like it? As she dished up stew, Laurel wondered. But she trusted him. Joseph had been nothing but kind to her. She set the bowls out, and they ate.

  When dinner was done, Laurel gathered the dirty dishes and rinsed them, but Joseph told her to leave the rest. He picked up Sarah again, and beckoned her to follow him. Laurel got shoes for herself and David, who was wide-eyed with anticipation of whatever surprise his father might have in store, and followed Joseph out into the warm spring night

  He led them down the worn path between the house and the barn, picking up a lantern at the doorway and lighting it.

  Inside, it was dark, and warm, and the soft rustling sounds of the horses were soothing.

  Sarah babbled to herself, and Joseph smiled. David’s hand clutched Laurel’s tight.

  In the back corner of the barn, where the hay bales were stacked, Joseph knelt down and held the lantern out over a gap between them.

  Laurel leaned forward, and David slid his hand free from hers to clap them together as he saw what Joseph had brought them out to see.

  “Kittens!” he declared, a little too loudly.

  There were, in fact, six kittens in the little hay-filled nook, all of them snuggled up against their purring, tabby striped mother. Laurel leaned down closer to see them, a smile settling wide on her face.

  “Oh, Joseph. They’re adorable.”

  She realized too late how casual the words were. But then David stepped forward with every intention of reaching in and pulling out a kitten written across his face, and Laurel reached out to gently catch him back.

  She didn’t have time to see Mr. Beyer’s reaction.

  “Not now, honey,” she said when David looked up at her with hurt eyes. “They’re too little. But you can play with them when they’re a little older.”

  “Oh,” he said softly, turning to stare at the kittens again. “Like Sarah. She used to be too little too.”

  Laurel laughed. “Yes,” she answered. “Like Sarah.”

  One of the horses stamped a hoof, and Laurel glanced sideways at her employer.

  He was watching her.

  In the dancing lamplight, his expression looked soft, something almost wistful in the set of his mouth. When he saw her looking, he didn’t turn away, and for a moment they stood like that in the darkened barn, looking into each other’s eyes. Then Sarah began to cry. They both startled, their eyes dropping to her.

  Laurel immediately reached out for the little girl, and Joseph, after an instant of indecision, handed over her.

  His skin brushed against hers as Laurel took Sarah, and she felt it run like a shiver along her arms and down the length of her spine.

  Cheeks heating, she turned away to bounce Sarah gently on her hip, murmuring soft nothings as they walked back up toward the house and sobs slowly faded to hiccupping little sounds of tired unhappiness.

  “It’s past her bed time,” Laurel said as they stepped into the house.

  “Better get her to sleep, then,” Joseph answered. “I’ll take care of David.”

  Giving the boy a little push toward his father which David was only too happy to comply with, Laurel took Sarah to her own room and changed her out of her day clothes while she fussed, then laid her down in the crib.

  She was almost sure that Joseph had carved it himself, though she had never quite found the courage to ask.

  Now, she curled her fingers around the railing and leaned over it, reaching down with her other hand to run her palm over Sarah’s soft hair as the baby calmed and settled into sleep.

  Her heart twisted a little, looking down at the little girl who wasn’t hers. In her weeks with them, she’d fallen in love with both the children, and some nights she found herself lying awake and staring up at the distant black ceiling, wondering how long she would have before she had to leave them.

  Standing there, looking down at the sleeping rise and fall of Sarah’s chest, Laurel felt her eyes prickle, but she didn’t allow the tears to fall.

  When she turned, Joseph was standing in the doorway, dark against the faint light from the hall, and Laurel caught her breath in a gasp.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, voice soft. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  She shook her head and forced a smile. “No. I just did not see you. It is your house.”

  He took a step back to let her through the door, and she closed it quietly behind her. Joseph hadn’t moved. With her hand still on the door, they stood close enough that she could feel the heat from his body. Her heart stuttered in her chest.

  “Mr. Beyer,” she whispered.

  “Joseph,” he answered.

  Laurel swallowed. Her pulse raced.

  “Joseph,” she amended, hardly daring to let the word leave her tongue.

  His eyebrows drew together, as though he had expected it to shake him out of whatever weight hung now between them, expectant and trembling. But it only seemed to draw him closer.

  Slowly, so slowly, he reached out and brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheek. His skin was rough against her soft fingertips. Laurel tried to remember how to breathe.

  He opened his mouth to speak, and abruptly his expression twisted, lips pressing flat. The hand that had brushed against her cheek pulled sharply back.

  “We can’t do this.”

  Laurel looked across the space between their bodies. What had been intimate an instant before felt stretched now, a chasm where a few steps had been.

  “Why not?” Her voice came out tight, and she wished it hadn’t. She knew his answer even before he spoke it.

  “Rachel,” he said, and the name fell like a stone between them.

  Rachel is gone. The words bubbled up in her throat and she swallowed them back before they could escape. She just nodded – a sharp little jerk of her chin.

  “Good night, Mr. Beyer,” she said softly.

  This time, he didn’t correct her. Laurel turned on her heel and fled down the hall to take refuge in her rented room.

  * * *

  Chapter Eleven

  Laurel was crying. It wasn’t a loud cry, but the house was small, and in the silence the muffled noises lingered at the edges of Joseph’s hearing.

  His stomach turned with guilt. He should never have allowed himself to get so close to her.

  Should never have touched her the way he did in the hall. Her misery was his fault.

  If he had let it be, surely whatever feelings she had for him would have remained small and inert – easy to ignore.

  Restless, he turned over in his bed. A moment passed. Two. They stretched out long the way they had in the nights after Rachel died, when every lonely minute seemed to take hours to pass.

  Joseph rolled over again. Maybe bringing another woman in at all had been a mistake. Fatigue pulled heavy at his eyelids. The dawn would come too soon, if he did not sleep.

  The quiet sounds from down the hall had ceased. Joseph sighed, and shifted, pulling the sheet up a little higher. Night wore on, and he slipped into uneasy dreams.

  *

&n
bsp; “Joseph.”

  The sound of his dear Rachel’s voice made Joseph’s eyes flutter open. He looked up, and she was there, sitting against the headboard of the bed in her white nightgown, knees bent to tuck her legs against her hip. Even in the dim light, her blonde hair seemed haloed.

  “Rachel,” he said, and his voice broke on the word.

  She smiled, and reached out to thread her fingers through his hair, stroking with a tenderness he had ached for since her death.

  “I miss you,” he said, his voice a whisper.

  Her cool fingers moved through his hair again.

  “Why do you deny yourself?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “It is not good that man should be alone, Joseph.” She looked down at him, the smile traded for the warm expression she had always worn when he had done something foolish. “Don’t turn away love for memory.”

  “You mean Laurel?” His throat was dry. He shook his head. “I can’t love her, Rachel. She’s so young. She should have someone whole. Not a broken old farmer who already has two children.”

  “Not even if that is what she wants?”

  Joseph opened his mouth to speak and closed it again. Once more, Rachel smiled.

  “Love for another can never diminish what shared, my darling. Do not let fear stop you from finding someone again.”

  The hand in his hair slid down to press against his cheek, lifting his eyes to hers. He leaned into the brush of her skin.

  “Missing your second chance at happiness would be a sad thing indeed.”

  The sting of tears prickled behind his eyes, and Joseph let them fall shut, turning further into the touch to press his lips to her palm.

  There was nothing there.

  He opened his eyes to the light of dawn.

  * * *

  Chapter Twelve

  When Joseph walked into the kitchen, Laurel was already awake, bent over the stove to crack eggs into a pan.

  She heard the sounds of his boots on the wood of the floor and straightened, dropping the shells into the bucket to go out to the rubbish heap.