by Craig, Emma
“Make a big ball, Mr. Noah! Bigger than that.” Maddie pointed a fat, woolen finger at Grace’s effort, and Grace said, “Hmph,” once more to feign offense. Maddie giggled again.
When she glanced at Noah, he was nodding, his expression as sober as ever. She wondered if he’d always been serious. When he was a boy, had he been like this? Her curiosity was suddenly so intense, she very nearly forgot a lifetime’s worth of good manners and asked him. She caught herself just in time.
“Well, since you two don’t like my snowball, I’ll just leave you to build his bottom and top and go into the house to fetch his eyeballs.” She made a monster face at Maddie and wiggled her fingers at her.
Maddie said, “Ewww.”
Wonder of wonders, Mr. Partridge gave her a grin. A very small grin, but a grin. Grace felt as if she’d conquered an Alp.
When they were finished, they had themselves quite a snowman. He looked a little dirty, and his snow body bristled with debris from the yard, but Maddie glowed with excitement, and Grace was happier than she’d been in months. All three of them had eaten more raisins than they’d used to make the snowman’s mouth and eyes, and it had been Noah who’d suggested using an old dried yucca pod for his nose.
“There,” he said after he stuck the nose in place. “He looks like he’s been in a fight.”
Maddie crowed with glee. Grace smiled.
Mac joined them with a pipe for their project’s raisiny mouth and a straw hat for his head. Then he stood back and observed the snowman, his blue eyes twinkling.
“Poor lad needs some arms,” he said at last.
So they found some twigs and made him some arms with them. Then Grace had run inside to fetch a thin, striped Mexican serape, and they’d draped it over his humped shoulders. “There!” she said triumphantly. “He fits right in.”
She couldn’t believe her ears when Noah Partridge laughed.
# # #
Mac had been right, Noah decided. It was good that he’d made an effort to get to know Grace Richardson better, even if it had been difficult to stick it out at first.
Noah could hardly believe it, but he had actually—finally—enjoyed making that snowman with Grace and Maddie this morning. After the first several tense minutes, during which he’d had to wage a violent battle against his compulsion to run away and hide, his nerves had settled. He’d forgotten to remember that he was unfit and no longer able to mingle with the society of his fellow human beings.
At one point he’d realized he was behaving almost like a normal man; as if nothing in the world was more important at that single particular moment than finding twigs for a snowman’s arms. For the sake of little Maddie Richardson, who lived in the remote New Mexico Territory with no friends her age to play with. And no father.
And then Grace and Maddie had laughed, and he’d experienced a sense of pride all out of proportion to the accomplishment itself. He wondered if he could ever get used to that sort of thing again. He used to be a part of a community of people and hadn’t thought anything of it. Now he was apart from the whole of humanity, and trying to belong was something else entirely.
He caught himself shivering and forced his mind back to the project he’d set out for himself. He’d survived mingling with Grace and Maddie this morning. He’d even accepted Grace’s invitation to take lunch with them in Mac’s house. He hadn’t died. He hadn’t had a nervous attack. He hadn’t blown up and gone wild-eyed. And he hadn’t run away. These were good signs.
So what he was going to do at lunch was take another step toward his goal. He was going to ask if Grace and Maddie would like to ride out with him on a picnic. When the weather cleared, of course. With luck, he’d have enough time to gird his loins to face the trip, but not enough time to go crazy again.
Just in case the weather stayed bad, he’d make an effort—something he hadn’t done since his life went to hell—to talk to Grace every day, as Mac had advised him to do. Just one or two words at a time. That shouldn’t be too hard.
Oh, God. Noah clutched the post supporting a wall to his stall, and held on while waves of panic crashed through him.
Who was he trying to fool? He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t behave like a normal man anymore, because he wasn’t one.
He sucked in a deep breath and held it while he told himself to calm down. Breathe, he ordered his body. Breathe.
When his heart stopped thundering and his brain ceased shrieking, he sighed. All right. He was all right. At this one unique moment in time, he was all right, and he could plan a strategy by which to soften Grace Richardson up enough to sell him her land. The land was important; it might well be Noah’s salvation—or, if not his salvation, at least his refuge. If he could keep his goal in mind, perhaps he could keep his lunacy in check.
So he would make an effort, and he would talk to Grace Richardson every day. Perhaps not much. But he could take small steps. A word or two. Three, if he could stand it. Maybe with practice he could build up into a longer conversation. He would be pleasant to her. If he could make himself do it, he would even smile. Since he knew that if he pushed himself too hard too fast, his mania would take over the running of him, he told himself he didn’t have to force the smiles. If he could smile, he would. He would at least make an effort to be pleasant, to say more than one word at a time.
Since he’d become tense at the thought of what lay ahead of him, Noah forced his muscles to relax before he set out through the snow for Mac’s house. He looked at the snowman at the far end of the yard as he did so, and smiled. He only realized what he’d done after he’d rapped on the door.
# # #
Two days after Noah helped build the snowman, somebody knocked at the door of Mac’s house while Noah was inside playing a game of hearts with Maddie and Grace. He’d discovered that playing cards kept his hands busy, his eyes occupied, and he didn’t have to talk much. And if every now and then his hand brushed Grace’s and he felt an urge to crush her to his chest and beg her to hold him, he suppressed it without too much difficulty. He considered it a good start. At the sudden noise, though, he jumped and had to hold onto the edge of the table to keep from diving under it.
Grace looked at him with compassion in her eyes, and he felt like ninety kinds of a fool.
Maddie patted his hand. “Don’t worry, Mr. Noah. It’s only someone at the door. I don’t like sudden loud noises, either.”
Mac, who had been sitting in his rocking chair, smoking his pipe, and gazing at the card game with the face of a benevolent elf, chuckled. He heaved himself out of his chair. “Probably some poor soul has a wagon needs mending.”
His footsteps clumping across the floor echoed in Noah’s head like cannon fire. He tried to be inconspicuous when he took several deep breaths in an effort to fight down the panic that had burst, full-grown, into him at that damned knock. Hell. He’d been fine until that knock came. It had startled him and precipitated this crazy reaction. Some time ago, he’d decided he’d always be this way, but it certainly was inconvenient sometimes.
He didn’t like Grace looking at him like that, as if he were a poor damaged creature that needed her pity—even if it was the truth. Hell, Noah would bet money that the late, lamented Frank Richardson hadn’t been spooky like this. Unquestionably, her Frank had been a splendid, whole, undamaged specimen of hearty masculinity.
After he’d swallowed his heart, Noah murmured, “Sorry. I’ve been, um, a little jumpy since, um, since the war.”
Grace shook her head sadly. “Yes. I was very grateful that Frank didn’t have to fight in that awful war.”
Noah couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away from hers. He wanted to say Not fighting didn’t save his life, though, did it? He didn’t, because it seemed too cruel.
“It’s for you, lad.”
Mac’s laconic announcement jerked Noah’s attention away from Grace. He squinted at the door, sure he’d misunderstood, and saw a shivering, bundled cowboy standing behind Mac. Grace saw him, too, and hu
rried up from the table.
Maddie’s little face lit up, and she cried. “Look, Mommy. It’s Gus. Hello, Gus.”
The man named Gus looked like he couldn’t move his blue lips enough to smile. He lifted a swaddled arm in a stiff salute to the little girl.
Grace grabbed him and set a course toward the fireplace. “Good heavens, Gus, what are you doing out in this awful weather? You’re frozen solid!”
“C-c-come t-to f-find Mr. P-P-Partridge, ma’am,” Gus managed to get out through his chattering teeth.
“Well, you’ve found him, but you’re not riding back again until you have some hot cocoa and dry yourself by the fire. Why, look at you!” Grace had started wrestling the gloves off the cowboy’s hands. “I’m surprised Susan would let you ride all this way on such a freezing, windy day.”
With Grace fussing over him, Gus made his way to the fire. He held his hands, red with cold, out to the flames. “It was her made me come, ma’am.” His teeth weren’t chattering so hard already.
“Susan made you come?”
She grabbed the shoulders of Gus’s frozen coat and tugged while he shrugged. Together, they worked it off, and Grace hung it on the corner of the mantel where it began to thaw and drip onto the hearth.
Their conversation had given Noah a chance to get his brain to form a coherent sentence. “You came to fetch me?”
Gus turned around and bent over slightly, as if to thaw out his frigid bottom. “Yes, sir. Mrs. Blackworth, she says to come and fetch you, because she wants you to fix that there piano she’s got in her parlor.”
Grace turned to gaze, wide-eyed, at Noah. The look of surprise suited her. Noah liked it. “You know how to repair pianos?”
Aw, hell. He shrugged and couldn’t hold her gaze. “I, um, used to work in my family’s piano and organ business, ma’am. Back before the war.”
“My goodness.”
When Noah forced himself to look at her, her expression had turned thoughtful.
Gus spoke again. “That’s what Mrs. Blackworth said, ma’am. Said to come out here and fetch Mr. Partridge back so’s he can fix her piano.
Thoughtfulness evaporated. Grace chuffed out an indignant breath. “Well, I swear. Sometimes Susan Blackworth is too autocratic for her own good.”
Gus grinned. “For my own good, anyway.”
She smiled and then laughed. “That’s what I meant.”
Their banter barely penetrated Noah’s muddled brain. “She sent you out here—in the middle of a frigid spell—because she wants me to fix her piano?”
“Yes, sir.” Gus apparently noticed Noah’s look of incredulity, because he grinned again. He looked like a nice, easy-going sort of fellow. “She’s like that.”
Noah believed it. He squinted at the newcomer. “She aim to pay me? Last time I was there, she wanted to give me her reed organ if I’d repair the piano.”
“Sounds like her, all right.” Gus’s grin made him look intolerably happy. “She said to tell you she aims to pay you in cash money, though.”
Noah nodded.
“Mrs. Blackworth, she’s kind of an old bully, but ain’t no man on the spread wouldn’t do anything she says, Mr. Partridge. She likes to pretend she’s a mean old hen, but she ain’t. Not really.”
Grace huffed again. “Too bad the same can’t be said of her husband.”
Gus’s smile faded. He looked as though he didn’t care to get into that one.
“I’m sorry, Gus.” Grace helped the cowboy unwind his long woolen muffler and draped it out on the mantel. “I didn’t mean to say that.”
Gus’s grin came back. “That’s all right, ma’am. Reckon I know pretty much what folks hereabouts think. Most of us hands’d just as soon keep mum on the subject.”
She let go of her temper and laughed once more. Noah thought how nice it was that she could do that.
“Now you just stay right there and try to get warm, Gus. I’m going to fetch us all hot cocoa. After you’ve thawed out some, you take the rest of those wet things off, and I’ll hang them up to dry.”
“Thank you kindly, Mrs. Richardson.”
She nodded and left the room. Noah noticed that he wasn’t the only one who watched her go. Gus’s appreciation was obvious. Which only figured. Grace Richardson would draw stares even if she wasn’t the only female within miles of the place. She was a fine figure of a woman.
Gus sighed when Grace left his sight. He turned to look at Noah again. “Mrs. Blackworth, she said she wouldn’t mind waitin’ for the ice t’melt ‘fore I set out to come here, but I didn’t feel like riskin’ it.” Gus winked at Mac, who nodded his approval of Gus’s sensible turn of mind. “Besides, it gets mighty stale settin’ in a cold bunkhouse with a bunch of bored cowboys with nothin’ to do but play cards and argue with each other.”
Noah didn’t doubt it, even if he still didn’t buy the part about Mrs. Blackworth being secretly benevolent.
“Does she want me to go back to her ranch with you?”
“Yes, sir.” Now that his limbs weren’t frozen stiff, Gus began to shed several more layers of clothes, including his boots and two pairs of thick woolen socks. “Sorry I’m drippin’ on the hearth, Mac.”
“Think nothin’ of it, lad. Worse things have fallen on that hearth than ice water.”
“Hope these here socks don’t stink.” He held one to his nose, sniffed, and said, “Peeee-ew.” Maddie giggled. Gus gave her a wink. Noah tried to recall if he’d ever been that easy-going around little kids. He thought he had been, once, but couldn’t really remember.
Grace bustled back into the room bearing hot cocoa for everyone. “I’m not letting either one of you ride out to that place until every stitch of your clothing is dry, Gus Spalding, so don’t even think it. In fact, I’m going to insist that you spend the night here. If the two of you are foolish enough, you can start back in the morning.”
“Well—”
“Don’t worry, Gus. I’ll write you a note so Susan won’t get mad at you.”
Gus’s grin creased his recently frozen cheeks. “Well, in that case, I ain’t goin’ to argue with you, Mrs. Richardson.” They both laughed. Mac and Maddie joined in.
Noah wouldn’t have argued with her, either. In fact, he’d have done any damned thing she asked him to do. He watched the young cowboy grin at her, and the notion that the boy had a fancy for her solidified. Nothing to wonder at there. The wonder was that Noah’s possessive instincts were so deeply stirred by the thought of the other man desiring her. Hell, he hadn’t felt that tingle of jealousy for years.
“I don’t have any tools with me,” he said.
Gus looked over at him, surprised, as if he’d forgotten Noah was there. Something between cynicism and amusement curled inside Noah. He wondered how old Gus was. Noah’d guess he was maybe eighteen or nineteen, eight or ten years younger than Grace by his reckoning. Hardly old enough to grow a beard. Noah couldn’t remember ever being that young, although he must have been, once.
“Mrs. Blackworth, she says I wasn’t to accept any excuses you might care to give me, Mr. Partridge.” Gus grinned, and added confidentially, “She’s like that, don’t you see. Don’t accept excuses from nobody. Most of us don’t even offer her none anymore.”
“I can understand that. But I still can’t fix her piano without tools.”
“She says she’ll get you anything you need.”
“But—”
“Go along with the boy, Noah lad. It’ll be good for you to get out of the wagon yard. You’ve been cooped up in here for days. And it won’t hurt you to get to know Susan Blackworth better, either.”
Noah turned to peer at Mac, who grinned at him from the doorway. The old man sure was big on having Noah get to know people. Noah wondered if old Mac knew more than he let on.
“Yes,” said Grace, sending Noah’s attention swinging her way. “Susan Blackworth is definitely worth getting to know, Mr. Partridge. She’s one of the local characters.” She chuckled and handed him a c
up of cocoa.
He took it with a nod, and thought about Susan Blackworth. “Seems to me most everybody out here’s some kind of character, ma’am.”
Grace burst out laughing. So did everyone else in the room, including Maddie. Noah glanced around, wondering what he’d said that was so damned funny.
“I expect you’re right there, laddie.”
“I expect you are.” Gus took a sip of his cocoa and sighed contentedly. “If a man’s not a particle strange in his upper works, he ain’t going to leave his home and family and travel out here where life’s harder’n steel, and he’s got nothin’ but cows and hard cases for company twenty-three hours a day.”
Noah hadn’t thought about it that way. For the first time in years, he wondered if he wasn’t more like some of his fellow men than he’d believed. At least the ones who’d braved the territory.
“And let us not forget the women in this territory,” Grace said with a mock frown. “Any woman with half a brain would remain in civilization where she can attend church on Sundays and find playmates for her children. And schools.”
She held out her arms to her daughter, who’d been following the conversation with interest. Maddie climbed down from her chair and raced straight into her mother’s arms. Noah’s heart did a painful callisthenic maneuver in his breast. Lordy, it must be hard on a woman to live out here where there wasn’t so much as a convenience, much less a luxury, to be found within two hundred miles.
Grace gave Maddie a big squeeze. “But we manage.” She settled Maddie back at the table with a cup of cocoa. Maddie looked awfully happy for a kid with no playmates.
“Yes, ma’am. We manage.” Gus’s voice sounded almost syrupy. When Noah looked from Grace to him, he could swear the cowboy had tears in his eyes.
But all this sentiment didn’t solve his own problem. On the one hand, ever since he’d seen that organ in Mrs. Blackworth’s parlor, he’d itched to get his hands on it. If he went there to fix her piano, he knew he’d have a hard time leaving the organ alone. He supposed he could if he tried, especially with Susan Blackworth hovering over him like a bird of prey, ready to peck him if got out of line.