“I’ll send the twins out to take the horses to the barn. You come inside so I can tend to your leg.”
Jake could have refused, but that would have been biting off his nose to spite his face. There was no way to dismount without putting weight on his bad leg, which he could feel had swollen tight inside his boot. He gasped as he put his full weight on the injured leg in the stirrup so he could slide his other leg over the horse’s rump.
Miranda came running back to him, pressing herself against his side and lending her shoulder for support. A shot of agony streaked up his leg each time he hopped up a stair. Getting up the three steps to the back porch felt like a huge accomplishment.
He was hurt bad. Worse than he’d hoped.
His mother held open the back door as he limped his way inside.
“ ’Bout time you got back, Miz Blackthorne,” Slim said as his mother closed the kitchen door behind the three of them.
“Can we have our pie now?” Harry asked.
“He’s been calling me names!” Noah accused, pointing at Nick.
“He started it!” Nick retorted, pointing at Nash.
“Boys, boys, that’ll be enough of that,” his mother said in a calm voice. “How about some pie?”
To Jake’s everlasting embarrassment, at the mention of the word pie, his stomach growled. It had been a long time since he’d tasted anything that required skill in the kitchen. He gazed longingly at his mother’s apple pie, knowing it would probably all be gone before he could get back for a piece.
His mother smiled and said, “Don’t worry, Jake. I’ll save some for you. You’ll have to wait to eat it, though, till I can see to your ankle. Why don’t you go find someplace comfortable to sit in the parlor, while I serve up this pie.”
As Jake hobbled to the parlor, he realized he wasn’t going to be sleeping upstairs in his marriage bed anytime soon. Not unless he wanted to endure the agony of hopping up stairs. It made more sense to stay on the ground floor, where he could use a crutch.
The sofa was too short to serve as a bed, so he was going to be stuck making a pallet on the floor. Which meant he either had to kick Miranda’s brothers upstairs, or share the floor near the fireplace with them.
At least he wouldn’t have to worry about keeping his hands off his wife. She provided far more temptation than he’d imagined. When he’d woken up this morning, his arm had been wrapped around her waist. Her blond curls lay across the pillow and one of them was tickling his nose. He’d blown it away with a whisper of air and watched her pert nose wrinkle in her sleep.
He’d noticed she had very long, very dark lashes, despite her blond hair. Her cheeks had gotten sunburned during the wagon ride to his ranch the previous afternoon. He’d have to show her where Priss kept her bonnets, so she could protect herself from the hot Texas sun. That is, as soon as it showed its face again.
“Help me over to one of those wing chairs in front of the fireplace,” he said to Miranda, who was still supporting him. She was a lot stronger than she looked, which was a damned good thing, considering he was going to be an invalid for the next however-long.
“I need to take my coat off,” he said, starting to unbutton it.
“Let me,” she said, looking up at him. “You just hold on to the chair to keep the weight off your foot.”
He looked down at her as she struggled to release the bone buttons on the shearling coat. He reached to help, but she brushed his hand aside and kept working. “I can do it.”
When the coat was open, she drew it down off his shoulders and threw it onto the sofa. As she eased him into the chair, he felt her jerk when his arm brushed against her breast.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“I know you didn’t mean—” She cut herself off.
He glanced up and saw she was blushing, like the untouched bride she was. He felt so damned bad for her, and for himself. “I’m sorry I got you into this,” he said quietly.
“I’m not,” she replied. “If your accident had happened and I hadn’t been here, you might not have made it back to the house. Then what would have happened to Slim and the baby? I can help you, Jake. We can help you.”
“Yeah, but you shouldn’t have to,” he said. “No telling how long I’ll be a cripple.”
“You’ll mend fast, I’m sure,” she said, laying a soothing hand on his shoulder. He could feel how cold her hands still were through his shirt. She’d had no business risking her life riding out in a snowstorm. She wasn’t going to last long out here if she kept taking chances like that.
He resisted the urge to tell her to go away and leave him alone. She didn’t deserve his bad temper. She didn’t deserve the mess he’d gotten her into. Things had been bad even before he’d gotten hurt. He didn’t know how they were going to manage now.
He heard a gurgle in his throat and swallowed hard over the painful knot that threatened to strangle him.
He felt his young wife remove his hat, which he hadn’t even realized he was still wearing, and watched through eyes blurred with unshed tears as she set it carefully on the table between the two chairs. Then he felt her hand gently scratching his scalp to rearrange his hair to her liking.
He turned his face away and closed his eyes, so she wouldn’t see the tears of frustration welling in them.
He felt Miranda’s hand withdraw an instant before his mother said, “Oh, darling, I know the pain must be terrible.”
The pain was bad. The despair was killing him.
“I’ll need your help, Miranda,” he heard his mother say, “cutting off his boot.”
He opened his eyes and said, “The hell you will! These are my best boots.”
“I’m sorry, Jake,” his mother said. “Your foot’s swollen too much to get the boot off any other way.”
“Please, Jake. It’s just a pair of boots,” Miranda said in a beseeching tone she must have used a hundred times with her little brothers. “You can get another pair. I can’t stand to see you in such pain.”
The problem was, he didn’t have money to buy brand-new boots. “Aw, hell. Go ahead.” He could always ask the cobbler in San Antonio to sew this one back up.
He had to bite his lip to keep from swearing as his mother sliced her way through the supple leather. He didn’t realize he was holding Miranda’s hand until he heard her gasp when he squeezed it too hard.
He tried to pull his hand free, but she held on. He looked up and met her gaze and saw tears of sympathy in her eyes.
He squeezed his eyes closed. He didn’t want her sympathy. He didn’t want her to see him like this. He wanted Priss back. He wanted his mother gone. He wanted his life before Blackthorne had come into it back again.
But there was no going back. He could only move forward. He could only take one day at a time and live it the best he could.
“Almost there,” his mother said. “That’s as much as I can do. The boot has to be eased off. Brace yourself, Jake.”
He screamed in agony when his mother pulled the boot off.
He heard her say, “Thank God, it’s not broken.”
Then he fell down a long black tunnel.
“Oh, no!” Miranda cried. “What happened?”
“He fainted,” Jake’s mother said. “We need to hurry and bandage his foot while he’s out.”
“How do you know it’s not broken?” Miranda asked.
“He wouldn’t be able to rotate his foot or move his toes so freely.”
“That ankle’s pretty badly swollen,” Miranda said uncertainly. “Are you sure?”
“I’ve treated sprains and I’ve set broken bones. This looks like a bad sprain.”
Miranda felt her body relax. “He was so afraid it was broken. I’m glad it’s not.”
“Me, too. It was brave of you to go out in this storm to find him,” she said. “I doubt my son has thanked you, so I will.”
Miranda smiled. “No, he hasn’t, but there’s no need. I thank you for bringing Jake’s cattle home. He’d figured ou
t for himself that the cattle must have strayed and what would happen if his stepfather found them before he did.”
“My husband is … a complicated man.”
So is mine, Miranda thought. She watched closely as Cricket wrapped Jake’s ankle snugly in the gauze Miranda had sent Nick to fetch from the kitchen counter, where she’d seen it that morning.
“What happened to him? Is he dead?” Nick asked as he watched Jake’s mother work.
“He’s resting,” Cricket replied.
Miranda had been so focused on what Cricket was doing, she hadn’t realized that the three boys had come into the parlor. “Where are Slim and the little ones?” she asked.
“Slim took Anna Mae and Harry to his room for a nap,” Nick replied.
Jake’s eyes fluttered open, and he straightened in the chair. He winced when he tried to lift his injured foot.
“Hold on there, cowboy,” Cricket said. “Let me finish.”
Jake shot Miranda a worried glance, and she smiled back at him. “You’re doing fine,” she told him. “Your ankle’s only sprained, not broken.”
“Good,” was all he said.
“Did you get those horses put away in the barn?” Cricket asked one of the twins.
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered.
“How do you tell them apart?” Miranda asked Cricket as she looked from one twin to the other. “They look exactly the same to me.”
Nash grinned.
Noah grinned, too.
“Nash has a wider smile,” Cricket said with a laugh.
“What if they aren’t smiling?” Miranda asked.
“Noah has a scar through his right eyebrow.”
Miranda looked, and sure enough, there it was. A thin white line, right through the arch of the brow.
“Before I learned who was who, I kept a red string tied around Nash’s ankle,” Cricket admitted.
“Once we were old enough, me and Noah switched it so often, Mom still didn’t know who was who,” Nash said.
“Until we got old enough to tell her ourselves,” Noah said.
“There were twin girls at the orphanage where we grew up,” Nick said. “They looked so much alike, they could trade places anytime they liked. Miss Birch found out what they were doing, so she cut one’s hair real short and left the other one’s long, so they couldn’t fool her anymore.”
“I don’t think I like this Miss Birch,” Cricket said.
“I hate her,” Nick said vehemently. “Which is why I cut off the other girl’s hair for her, so Miss Birch couldn’t tell them apart anymore.”
“Nicholas Jackson Wentworth!” Miranda was appalled to learn her brother had been up to that kind of mischief. “That was you?”
He stuck his chest out and pointed a thumb at himself and said, “You bet it was me!”
Miss Birch had been sure it was Miranda. Miranda wished she’d thought of doing it, but she hadn’t. Miss Birch had threatened to beat every girl in the dormitory if Miranda didn’t confess. So she had.
“Miss Birch was always punishing somebody for something,” Nick said. “Miranda most of all.”
“That’s enough, Nick,” Miranda said. “Don’t be telling tales.”
“It’s not a tale,” Nick protested. “It’s the truth.”
“I can vouch for that,” Jake said. “Mom, while you’re here, would you take a look at Miranda’s back? I did what I could last night, but she’s got a lot of fresh wounds that—”
“Miranda!” Nick interrupted, his face dismayed. “You said Miss Birch didn’t beat you. You lied to us!”
“It’s nothing, Nick,” Miranda said, shooting a dirty look at Jake and then a warning look at Nick, not to reveal the existence of the rest of the Wentworths.
“I’ll be glad to take a look,” Cricket offered.
“I’m fine,” Miranda said, embarrassed to have Jake’s mother see what a chicken-heart she’d been, surrendering her back to Miss Birch’s wrath.
“Let her take a look,” Jake urged. “I’m not going to be able to come upstairs for a while, and there isn’t much privacy down here for me to be treating your back.”
Miranda realized he had a point. Jake’s treatment of her cuts last night had felt good, and her back hadn’t hurt nearly so much today. “All right,” she said, then asked him, “Do you need anything else before we go upstairs?”
“If I need anything,” Jake said, “one of the boys can get it for me.”
“I’m not your servant,” Nick shot back.
Miranda glared at her brother, wondering why he was being so quarrelsome. Before she could chastise him, Jake spoke.
“Around here, everyone does his fair share. Unless you’d like to find somewhere else to lay your head at night.”
She watched Nick open his mouth to make a retort and close it again. Nick narrowed his eyes at Jake and said, “Fine.”
Miranda wasn’t sure whether Nick was saying, Fine, I’ll move out when the snow stops, or Fine, whatever you say. Jake’s mother stepped in to resolve the matter. “Why don’t you three boys go clean up the kitchen?”
“Dishes are girl’s work,” Nash said.
Miranda and Nick exchanged a glance. Nick had done his fair share of washing dishes at the orphanage. They all had.
Jake’s mother put her hands on her hips and said, “I’m not going to ask you boys a second time.”
Both twins made the same face, but they turned and marched toward the kitchen.
Nick stood where he was.
“You can help, too,” Miranda said to her brother. “Unless you want my hand on your backside.”
Nick stared at her in amazement. She’d never laid a hand on any of her siblings, and he must be wondering what had gotten into her. The truth was, she was at the end of her emotional rope. She needed Nick to cooperate. She needed him to go along and get along. She needed him to be a help and not a hindrance. And she was desperate enough to threaten violence.
“Please, Nick,” she said.
“Oh, all right,” he said. “I’ll go help dry.”
“Thank you, Nick,” she called after him.
“That boy needs a hand to his backside,” Jake said, staring after Nick.
“That boy needs love and affection!” Miranda snapped at him.
Jake’s head swiveled to stare at her.
He was only saying what she’d said herself. But the thought of anyone touching her or her siblings in violence, after they’d finally escaped Miss Birch, was loathsome. Before he could say anything more, she growled in frustration, then turned and ran up the stairs. She could hear Jake and his mother talking behind her, but she couldn’t tell what they said.
When she reached her bedroom, she realized Nick must have brought loads of wood up here and set a fire in the fireplace to warm up the bedroom. Seeing his thoughtfulness, she felt even worse about threatening to spank him. A sob of loneliness built in her chest. If our parents had lived …
How many times over the past three years had she thought those five words. How futile they were! There simply was no going back to the life she’d lived before the fire. Everything had changed. She had to move forward. She had to make the best of her life with Jake.
She was disappointed in her behavior. She shouldn’t have threatened Nick. She should have appealed to his better nature. He was a good, a generous boy. He must be as frightened as she was to find herself so much at the mercy of a virtual stranger’s good nature and kindness.
Was Jake good? Was he kind?
So far he had been. Nick needed a man’s guidance. He couldn’t be allowed to do exactly as he pleased. He needed boundaries and limits and instruction. And love. He needed a father’s love.
Could Jake give that to her brothers? Would he keep his promise to become a father to them?
Miranda felt a tear drip onto her nose. When she heard footsteps on the stairs, she quickly swiped at her face. She didn’t want Jake’s mother to see her feeling sorry for herself. She didn’t want her th
inking any less of Jake’s bride.
When the knock came on the door, Miranda crossed to open it and let Jake’s mother in.
Once they were closed in the room together, Cricket asked, “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
Cricket lifted a brow.
“I’m fine, really.”
When Cricket put a hand on her shoulder in comfort, Miranda jerked away.
“Oh, I didn’t realize the wounds were so bad,” the older woman said. “Come, let’s get that blouse off so I can see the damage.”
She spoke almost as Miranda imagined her own mother might. It felt good to hear a sympathetic woman’s voice. Oh, how she would love to confide in the older woman!
She wanted to share her hopes that Jake and his stepfather would make amends, so Blackthorne no longer threatened Jake’s possession of Three Oaks. She wanted to admit how tired she was of carrying the entire burden of her family on her shoulders. She wanted to admit how wonderful it would be to have someone to share that burden with.
She didn’t say any of those things.
Miranda reminded herself that this woman was married to Jake’s ruthless stepfather. This woman’s husband was Jake’s mortal enemy. If a choice ever came, Miranda had no idea whether Cricket Blackthorne would choose her husband or her son. Better not to let down her guard. Better to accept the help that was offered, but keep her distance.
Cricket was so used to wearing men’s clothing herself—the result of her and her two older sisters having been raised by their father as though they were sons, rather than daughters—that she was just noticing that Miranda was wearing trousers, rather than a skirt, with the feminine blouse.
It made a great deal of practical sense for women not to wear skirts in the West, but it was still frowned upon. For a girl from Chicago to have donned trousers seemed more than a little strange.
“I see Jake lent you a pair of his Levi’s,” she said as she waited for Miranda to unbutton her blouse. Underneath the blouse, Cricket could see Miranda was wearing, not a chemise, but one of Jake’s long john shirts.
“I’m afraid I didn’t have anything warm enough of my own to wear,” Miranda said.
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