by Craig, Emma
They included him, though. Without making a production of it, both Grace and Mac directed questions at him, most of which he could answer with a nod or a shake of his head. Even little Maddie’s innocent banter, peppered here and there with questions and exclamations, seemed to be directed at him as much as at the other two adults at the table. After a while, Noah was stunned to realize that he no longer felt on edge. He didn’t experience the impulse every three or four seconds to jump up from the table and run outside that had plagued him for the first ten minutes or so of this meal.
The thought occurred to him that if he hung around with these folks long enough, they might, without knowing it, guide him back into the human race. Although, he acknowledged sadly, that would be a mighty large job, even for such hardy specimens of humanity as these three.
Besides, he didn’t think he was ready for such a formidable task; wasn’t sure he wanted to rejoin humanity. He’d have to gird his loins; prepare himself to tackle it. He had to talk to Grace Richardson, though, whether he wanted to or not, whether he was prepared or not, if he expected her to sell him her land.
The knowledge that he’d rather bed her, in silence, and go away again before either of them could 176176 † say a word, gave him a melancholy feeling in his guts. Sexual gratification for its own sake and without human love attached seemed such a cheerless thing. Yet he knew himself to be incapable of human love. Once, maybe. Not any longer.
Nevertheless, after supper, as he and Mac helped her and her daughter clear the table, he mentally braced himself and said, “May I talk to you for a minute, Mrs. Richardson?”
She jerked her head around and stared at him as if he’d grown another head. “You want to talk to me?”
Oh, Lord, he’d known this was going to be hard. She already looked suspicious. “About your land, ma’am.” He didn’t want her to get the wrong impression, or to think he was going to try to seduce her or anything.
Her expression changed to one of puzzlement. “About my land?”
“If you wouldn’t mind.”
“Aye,” Mac said, breaking into their strained silence. Noah silently blessed the old man, and hoped he’d be able to explain what Noah wanted. “Mr. Partridge took quite a fancy to your land, Grace. Talk to the lad. Maddie and me, we can clean up these dishes.” He chuckled, and looked happy, and the tension in the room dispersed.
“Well, all right.” She didn’t sound eager. “Let me fetch my shawl. We can talk in the parlor, but until the fire gets going it will be cold.”
Noah nodded and watched her leave the kitchen. Cold didn’t bother him, so he didn’t fetch a warm jacket for himself. He went to the parlor and poked up the fire, hoping the room would warm up some before she got back. He didn’t want her thinking about being cold when he tried to persuade her to give up her husband’s dream.
“Thank you, Mr. Partridge. I could have done that.”
He’d been kneeling in front of the fireplace. When he heard her voice, he rose slowly and saw that she was hugging a woolen paisley shawl around her shoulders. The gesture looked more like one of self-protection than one meant to ward off the room’s chill. Maybe she anticipated what he was going to say.
She sure was a pretty woman. Her cheeks were pink from having been in the warm kitchen, and her eyes looked big and dark in the dim atmosphere of the parlor. She looked way too appealing in the semi-darkness. Elusive. Alluring. To help himself concentrate, Noah took a sulfur match from his pocket, struck it on a stone from the fireplace, and lit an oil lamp standing on a table.
When he looked at her again, the faintly mysterious aura clinging to her had vanished. Thank God. It didn’t occur to him to ask her to sit down. He was too nervous.
“Like Mac said, ma’am, I liked your land.”
That was too abrupt. Damn. Noah shut his eyes for a second, recruited his resources, and backtracked.
“That is, Mac took me all over the Seven Rivers country and even up into the mountains, ma’am, and I think you’ve got the prettiest piece of land in the area.”
A tentative smile flickered on her lips. “Thank you. My husband homesteaded it the year before Maddie was born. We’d always intended to build a house on it. In fact, Frank had ordered lumber from Santa Fe, but died before he could begin building.” She looked away quickly, as if she had a hard time talking about her late husband. She added weakly, “I still have the lumber.”
With a nod, Noah said, “Yeah. Mac told me.” That didn’t sound right. He tried again. “I mean, he said something like that.” No. That wasn’t right either. He finally realized what he should say. “I’m real sorry about your husband ma’am.” There. That was it. Why did he want to stomp over there, wrap his arms around her, and kiss her until thoughts of her dead husband were driven from her memory? Lord, he was crazy.
He raked a hand through his hair, wishing he could reach into his head and unkink the twists in his brain at the same time. This was so damned hard.
She flickered another small smile and murmured, “Thank you.”
“Well, um, it seems to me that a single lady with a little girl to raise might have a hard go of it on a place that far away from town, ma’am, and I wondered if you’d ever considered selling it.”
“Sell my land?”
“Yes. Since it would be hard for you to live out there, and I’ve been looking for a plot of land. And all that.”
He was getting better at this. Maybe, if he could keep her talking long enough, he’d—
“No.”
His thoughts stopped abruptly, as if they’d been lopped off by an axe. He swallowed. Had she said no? Just no? Without even a polite explanation attached? He mentally released her from his hug, took a step backward, and scratched his head. “Um, beg pardon, ma’am?”
Grace turned away from him and went to the table with the lamp on it. Light from the lamp lit her face, and Noah could see the traces of weariness and sadness there. She’d loved her husband; he could tell. His lips tightened.
“I’m sorry for having been so brusque, Mr. Partridge. Your question startled me into speaking more curtly than I should have.”
He made a small, jerky gesture with his left hand. “That’s all right, ma’am.”
“No.” She turned again, and smiled at him. “I was rude, and I didn’t mean to be.”
She had a very nice smile. It was as warm as Noah’s insides were cold. She seemed to be a genuinely nice person, a person who, in former times, Noah would have liked. Hell, he might even have courted her. He’d been another man back then. Not like he was now. Now he was damaged goods. Nobody’d want him now, especially not this lovely, loving woman.
“I didn’t mean to be so irritable, Mr. Partridge, and there’s no excuse for it. As I said, your question surprised me.”
“Um, I reckon nobody’s ever asked you about selling that property before.”
“No. No, they haven’t.”
Her smile seemed melancholy to him, and he didn’t know if he was projecting his own unhappiness onto her, or if she was genuinely sad. He wondered what to say now. “Um, I, ah, reckon this is a new idea to you, ma’am, but do you suppose you’d be willing to think about it?”
She turned around again. Noah saw her hand, small-boned and delicate in spite of the rough work it was called upon to do, caress the polished arm of the medallion-backed sofa. After a moment, she said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Partridge. I wish I could encourage you to hope, but I plan to hold on to that land. It was Frank’s dream to build a place for us out here in the territory, and I aim to see it through.”
“It’ll be mighty hard, ma’am,” Noah reminded her. Not, he expected, that she needed reminding.
“Oh, I’m used to hard work.” She gave a soft chuckle that curled through Noah’s insides like incense. “But I’m not going to sell that land. It was willed to me by Frank, and it’s his legacy to our daughter. It’s all she’ll ever have of him, you see.”
She looked at him over her shoulder, and he saw
that her eyes were glittering, as if there were tears standing in them. His guts twisted painfully. Damn it all, why was she being so stubborn? What the hell did she think she owed her dead husband’s memory, anyway? Hell, Julia had forgotten her promise to Noah before he’d been gone a month. All the soft feelings he’d been harboring for Grace Richardson crashed and died.
With more sarcasm than he intended, he said, “Wouldn’t money provide her with a better legacy, ma’am? Money you could provide for her with? I aim to give you a good price for the land.”
“Money isn’t the same as land. Money is transitory. The land is solid. It endures. It lasts, Mr. Partridge. Money helps, but land is forever.”
Exactly. That’s why Noah wanted it. And he still couldn’t understand her stubbornness. For the love of God, she’d never be able to work that place by herself. Even providing she could ever get anything built on it, what the hell would she do to support herself on it?”
“What do you aim to do with it, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I don’t mind your asking.” She seemed to slump a little. “And I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it. Not yet. I’ll think of something. But I’m not going to sell it.”
Before he could think himself out of it, Noah blurted, “I think you’re being foolish, ma’am.”
He saw her mouth stretch down into a frown. He could tell she wasn’t used to frowning. “You may think of me in any way you choose, Mr. Partridge. I still won’t sell you the land. That’s Frank’s legacy to our child, and I won’t sell it. That land was Frank’s. Now it’s mine. Someday it will be Maddie’s. It’s all we have left of her father, and I won’t give it up. Not for any amount of money.”
“You’ll never be able to work it on your own,” Noah said flatly. It was the truth, dammit.
“What I do with my own land is not your concern.”
She was getting mad at him, and her eyes started to snap. Under other circumstances—hell, even five minutes ago—Noah might have admired them. Not now. Now, her resolution was frustrating the devil out of him. “Dammit, ma’am, you’re being hardheaded. Why do you want to hold onto land you’ll never be able to use?”
“I don’t know that I’ll never be able to use it. And you don’t either. And I prefer not to be cursed at if you don’t mind, Mr. Partridge.”
Damn. He was such a fool. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Richardson.”
“I believe this discussion is at an end. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I won’t sell my land. Not to you, and not to anyone else.”
She started to move away from him. He reached out to grab her, but stopped himself before he could commit another breach of etiquette. He’d already committed too many with her, and now she was mad at him. He was mad at her, too. Damned obstreperous, pigheaded woman.
“Listen, Mrs. Richardson, will you just think about it, please? I intend to offer you a fair price. More than fair. I didn’t see any other land I liked anywhere near as well as yours.”
She turned one last time and said coldly, “Yes, I like it too. That’s another reason I won’t sell. Find yourself another piece of land, Mr. Partridge. That one’s mine.”
She left him standing there in the parlor he’d warmed up for her; in front of the fireplace he’d poked into life for her. He watched her go, feeling powerless and inept and furious. Rage caromed through him, thundered in his blood, pounded in his head. He turned and slammed a fist into the rough stones of the fireplace.
“Careful, laddie. Ye’ll hurt yourself.”
It was Mac. Of course. Noah turned around and scowled at the old man who, as usual, looked as calm as if he hadn’t just walked into a room occupied by a madman. He couldn’t make himself speak; couldn’t think of a thing to say.
He wanted that land. With the tenacity of a lobster, the idea of owning that particular parcel of land had taken possession of Noah’s being. He craved it. He needed it. He sensed something there that would be his salvation.
In a voice as mild as custard, Mac said, “Reckon your little chat didn’t go the way you wanted it to, lad.”
“No.” Or did he mean yes? Well, Mac was a smart man; he’d figure it out.
The old man sank into his chair with a happy sigh and began to fill his pipe, peering up at Noah as he did it. “Grace thought the world and all of her Frank, y’know, lad. It won’t be easy to persuade her to give up Frank’s land and the dreams they had together.”
After he managed to pry his jaws apart, Noah said, “Evidently it’s going to be impossible.”
A grin. A twinkle. The snap of a match. A faintly ironic lift of a bushy white eyebrow as the old man drew on his pipe. Noah blinked when he saw those damned sparkles puff up in the smoke Mac released. He pressed a hand over his eyes. Damn, what was wrong with him? Stupid question. Noah knew what was wrong with him.
“You give up too easily, lad.”
“Do I?” Noah didn’t think so. If he gave up easily, he’d be dead by now. Of course, he’d probably be better off. He dropped his hand and watched Mac, sure he was going to say something more.
He did. “What ye need to do is get to know our Grace better, lad. Talk to her. Make friends with her. Walk out with her and Maddie. Maybe go on a picnic. Get to know them both. Then ye’ll be able to figure out what to say to make her change her mind.”
Noah stared at Mac, wondering if the old man had lost his mind; wondering if perhaps Noah wasn’t the only madman in the room after all. The old Scot’s shoulders shook, and Noah realized Mac was laughing at him. Again.
Peeved, he snapped, “Glad to know I can provide you with so much amusement.”
Silent no longer, Mac’s chuckles rolled out of his mouth and seemed to dance around the room. They played hide-and-seek with the smoke and sparkles, and Noah had to rub his eyes because the effect was jarring to his shaky nerves.
At last Mac gasped in a huge breath. “Ah, lad, I’m not crazy. No more are you, though ye won’t believe me for a while yet, I’ll warrant.”
Frowning, Noah stared at the old fellow. What in blazes was he talking about?
Mac pointed his pipe stem at him. “I’m talkin’ about you, laddie. And Grace Richardson. And little Maddie, who’s hopin’ for a merry Christmas.”
A merry Christmas. How the hell had Christmas gotten mixed up in all this? Noah couldn’t think of anything to say. He sat down in the chair that matched the medallion-backed sofa and studied Mac’s face.
“Ye take my advice, lad. I mean it. Things will be fine if ye do as I say. Talk to Grace. Apologize for bein’ too sharp with her.” He paused and considered Noah thoughtfully. “If ye can find it in your heart to do it, explain why ye’re standin’ on shaky ground these days. Grace will understand, lad. She’s not had the hard life you’ve had, but she’s had to endure her share of unhappiness. She’s got a heart as big as all outdoors, and she’s capable of infinite love. She’s been missin’ havin’ somebody to share it with. A man could do worse than to have Grace Richardson as a friend.”
Befuddlement did a back flip into pique. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Another roar of laughter greeted Noah’s question. Mac had to wipe his eyes, he was laughing so hard.
“Glad I’m so entertaining.” Noah looked away, peeved.
“Ah, lad. Ye are that. Ye are that.” Observing Noah’s glower, Mac held out a hand to prevent an indignant outburst.
Noah watched that gnarled hand carefully, waiting for more sparkles to appear. They didn’t. Wouldn’t you know it? Every time Noah thought he had something figured out, the rules changed on him.
“It’s only that when a body’s seen as many years on this glorious earth as I have, laddie, he gets to appreciating the way folks go about things.” His voice changed timbre and became tender. “Aye, ye’ve been through hell, lad, and ye’ve survived. Nothing will ever be that bad again.”
Noah swallowed. He tried to sound sarcastic when next he spoke, but couldn’t do it. “Now what are you talking abo
ut?”
Mac didn’t answer him. “This here’s a great big, spanking new territory, lad. Ye can make something for yourself here without fearin’ the past will find you out and take it all away from ye again.”
He took a thoughtful pull on his pipe and blew out a series of smoke rings. Noah watched them, mesmerized, until he realized what he was doing and looked away.
“But y’see, lad, in order to do the thing right, you have to get to know Grace better. She’s a fine woman. Ye took her by surprise this evening, but if ye get to know her, talk to her without mentioning how much ye want to wrest her own departed Frank’s dreams from out of her grasp, you might be amazed by how well the two of you get along.”
“I’d be amazed, all right.” During Mac’s little speech, Noah had been sitting with his knees apart, his elbows braced on them, staring at the floor. Now he glanced up at the old man. He hated to admit it, but the scenario Mac had just painted appealed to him. He could use a friend. He hadn’t had one for years.
“Ah, lad, Grace won’t hold tonight against you. She knows human nature too well to do that. She sees inside you almost as well as I do.”
Lord, what an appalling notion. Noah started to say so, but thought better of it. He didn’t want anyone to know what was inside of him. It was too awful. Too twisted. To horrible.
“Ye’re not the first old soldier to pass through my wagon yard, lad,” Mac said in a velvety voice. “Ye’re not the first man Grace has met who’d seen too much and had too much done to him and too much taken away from him on account of the war. Don’t know why folks think they always have to be fighting. Silly thing to do, if you ask me.”
Noah couldn’t get past the lump in his throat to agree. His eyes burned. Hell.
He didn’t know how long they sat in the parlor after that. It seemed like hours, but it might have been seconds. It took a long time for his lump to melt and his eyes to quit burning.
“What are ye doin’ out of bed, Maddie-lass?”
Surprised by Mac’s soft question, Noah turned and saw Maddie standing in the doorway rubbing her eyes and staring straight at him. She hugged that same homemade rag doll to her chest, the one that looked like it was a hundred years old. “I need a glass of water, Mac.” She cocked her head to one side. “What’s the matter, Mr. Noah?”