“Humph!” Aiden cut loose with a grunt. “Can’t explain it to myself much less anybody else.”
Laughing, Finn lifted his jacket off the back of his chair, slipping it on. “Or Libby can fill you in since you two will be sharing a room.”
Shaylee squinted up at her uncle. “What’s an annulment, Uncle Finn? And isn’t Aunt Libby supposed to sleep in your room?”
A ruddy shade of red singed the back of Finn’s neck as he pushed in his chair. “An annulment means two people are no longer legally married, Shay, and like I said, it’s a mite complicated. But suffice it to say that I’m sure your aunt would be more comfortable rooming with Maggie for now. But I’ll tell you what,” he said with an overly bright smile, obviously wanting to move the conversation on, “I’m mighty glad I built six bedrooms upstairs. Sure comes in handy when five extra people move in, even if we do have to double up and send Angus to the bunkhouse.”
“By jingo, it’ll be like old times,” Angus said with a chuckle, rising to gather up the dirty dishes while he gave Maggie a wink, “especially if I can hone my poker skills on a few of the new hands.”
“Poker?” Gert’s brows bunched low over black eyes that suddenly held a glint of interest. “You any good?”
“Good?” Dash tossed his napkin on the table and stood, nudging his chair in with a crooked smile. “He’s a bona fide card sharp, Gert, who’s fleeced everybody in this family, so you best steer clear.”
Gert’s lips pursed in a thin smile before she shot Angus a narrow look. “Trust me, Mr. Dash, ain’t nothing I’d rather do than steer clear, but I’m cursed with a weakness for poker.”
“Pshaw, I can cure that right quick, missy,” Angus said, butting his way through the swinging door into the kitchen with a wink, the stack of dirty dishes in his hands clear up to his nose. “Once I hog-tie you and your money a couple dozen times.” The door swung closed behind him before Gert could even respond.
Scrambling to her feet, Gert swiped up the rest of the dirty dishes, the scowl on her face not boding well for Angus. “This here house ain’t big enough for the both of us,” she muttered.
“Sure it is, Gert,” Dash said with a slap on Blaze’s shoulder. “My nose-to-the grindstone big brother here and I barely see eye to eye on black and white without butting heads, so if we can do it, you and ol’ Angus can.”
“Only if I do all the cookin’ and he does all the dishes,” she said with a gum of her lips, piling the last of the dirty plates and utensils high on her way to the kitchen. She paused at the door to deliver a rare wink laced with a smirk. “Which one quick game of poker should fix right now, so wish me luck.” The kitchen door swung closed, unleashing more giggles and grins around the table.
Shaking his head, Blaze flicked his brother’s hand off his shoulder and rose, his patient smile veering left. “We got along before we shared a room, little brother,” he said while he pushed in his chair. “If my room starts looking like yours, you’ll be sleeping in the barn.” His lips quirked while he shot Shaylee a wink. “Where he belongs.”
Dash chuckled as he ambled to the door, turning to flash his dimples. “Not necessarily a bad thing when you consider how you snore. Might be a tad quieter and definitely smell a whole lot better than you after a hard day on the range.”
“Earned by doing a man’s work, baby brother,” Blaze said with a lazy smile, strolling over to loop an arm over Dash’s shoulder, “not working at the Ponderosa, where the heaviest thing you lift is a mug of beer.”
“Countless mugs of beer,” Dash said with a wink at Maggie, “in a profitable establishment that will one day be mine.”
“All things are lawful, but all are not profitable, Dash—1 Corinthians 10:23,” Finn said with an affectionate clutch of Dash’s shoulder, the easy smile on his face at odds with the hint of concern in his eyes.
“Uh-oh. Uncle Finn is spouting Scripture, so that’s my cue to go to work.” Dash offered a salute. “Good night, everyone, and I’m mighty glad you’re all here. It’s my night to close, Uncle Finn, so don’t wait up.”
“I’ll have a stall ready for you,” Blaze called as Dash slipped out the front door.
“Speaking of the barn …” Finn glanced at Maggie while she tackled her pie. “Back to my original question, Maggie—do you ride?”
“Horses?” Maggie said with a hard swallow, nearly choking on her vinegar pie. The smooth custard finally slid down her throat after she glugged a quick drink of water.
Blaze’s patient smile took a twist. “Unless you’re fond of walking, Miss Mullaney? In which case, you’ll want to rise well before dawn to get to work.”
Maggie gulped, the thought of riding a horse stuttering her heart as much as Blaze Donovan stuttered her pulse—two things she desperately wanted to avoid. She hadn’t given any thought to needing a ride to the hospital each morning, but she supposed she would, seeing that the Silver Lining Ranch was well past the outskirts of town. She peeked up at Finn, the vinegar pie in her stomach suddenly living up to its name. “No, I’m afraid I’ve never ridden a horse before.” she whispered.
“No problem,” Finn assured her with a kind smile. “Blaze is a great teacher.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“What??” Blaze’s and Maggie’s voices rose in unison, the only accord Blaze figured the two would ever share. Both of their heads jerked in Finn’s direction, the shock in their tones mirroring the horror on their faces.
“Sure.” Finn strolled into the foyer to snatch his Stetson off the coat rack before returning to stand beneath the dining room’s wooden beamed archway. “Blaze can drive you to the hospital each day until you feel comfortable enough to ride on your own.” He positioned his hat on his head just so. “Or you can take one of the buckboards, Maggie, but either way, you’ll need instruction.”
Blaze cleared his throat. “Uh, maybe it would be best if Dash teaches her, Uncle Finn. Or maybe one of the girls?” He tried to temper his desperation, the idea of spending time with Miss Goody Two-Shoes doing nothing for his mood. He stared at his uncle, hands buried deep in his pockets. “I mean, with branding starting up this week, I’ll be rising before the sun as it is just to get things done.”
“Yes, please, Dash or the girls would be fine,” Maggie echoed, her face leeching as white as that blasted sheet he wore the first time he’d met her.
Huffing out a heavy sigh, Finn propped hands on his hips, drilling both Maggie and Blaze with a steely look of authority neither were likely to defy. “Sorry, Maggie, but Blaze needs to be the one to teach you because there’s a tension between you two tighter than the reins on a buckin’ bronc, and I aim to nip it in the bud right now. The last thing I need when Miss O’Shea walks through that door is more hostility in my happy home.”
“It’s Mrs. McShane,” Aiden said in a matter-of-fact voice while he casually sipped his tea.
“What?” Blaze stared at his uncle, not sure he’d heard correctly. “What’s he talking about, Uncle Finn?”
“I mean your uncle and my daughter are still married,” Aiden explained with a satisfied smile, raising his teacup in a toast. “One of the few wrong things I did right, apparently.”
A low groan left Finn’s lips as he ran a hand down his face. “Thanks a lot, Aiden. I was hoping to save that bit of news for another day.”
“Why?” Aiden asked, leaning back with one arm draped over his chair. “The way I see it, you’re going to need all the help you can get corralling that stubborn girl of mine, so you may as well elicit your family.”
“What the devil is he talking about, Uncle Finn?” Blaze demanded, his features so tight, they could have been carved from the blasted bedrock of the Sierras. “You told us the marriage was annulled seventeen years ago.”
Finn expelled another weary breath. “Yes, I did, but it seems I was mistaken.” He nodded toward Aiden. “The papers were never signed and submitted, according to Mr. O’Shea, so it appears his daughter and I are still hitched.”
&nb
sp; “Oh my stars,” Maggie whispered, hand splayed to her chest. Sagging back in her chair, she gaped at Finn. “Does Aunt Libby know?”
Finn’s mouth tamped into a thin line. “Yes, which is why I need everyone to help make this transition as smooth as possible. God’s given me a second chance with the only woman I’ve ever loved, and come hell or high water, fire or flood, I aim to make her mine.”
Aiden cleared his throat. “Yes, well, that high water should come in mighty handy, my boy, once the sparks begin to fly and all hell breaks loose.”
A grin glided across Finn’s face as he tipped his hat. “The sparks are one of the things I’m looking forward to the most, Aiden.” He winked. “As long as they light a fire under your girl, that is, because right now she’d just as soon shoot as look at me.”
“Yeah? Well, she’s not alone,” Blaze muttered under his breath, hardly able to believe that Uncle Finn wanted a woman back in his life who’d abandoned him, betrayed him, basically left him for dead. And a so-called Christian woman at that, one who supposedly espoused love and faith in God, but sure in the devil didn’t show it. A twinge of bitterness fanned the flames of his anger. Like my mother. He headed for the foyer. “Excuse me, folks,” he said without a glance back, but I need to check on the new foal.”
It took everything in him not to slam the blasted door off its hinges, but it wasn’t the guests who had lit a fire under him. No, it was Uncle Finn—the man he loved and respected more than any man alive.
Till now.
Storming down the porch steps, he barreled for the barn, ignoring his uncle’s call from the porch. It was a blatant lack of respect he’d seldom shown his elder before, but Blaze’s respect for Finn had hit a rock in the road, and it was rapidly becoming a boulder.
Starting with the day he’d learned Libby and her family would be living at the ranch for the next six months.
“What?” Blaze couldn’t have been more stunned if a blasted steer had kicked him in the head. “Aunt Libby left you high and dry, broke your heart and ours too, and now you’re going to bring her and her family into our house?” He’d stared at his uncle as if he were the one who’d gone plum loco from a hoof to the head.
“They’re homeless, Blaze, and they need our help.”
Blaze’s jaw dropped a full inch. “They’re richer than you are, Uncle Finn, and can certainly afford a hotel. Especially if that confounded woman who forced me to parade around town in a blasted sheet is with ‘em.”
A smile had flickered on his uncle’s mouth as he’d leaned back in the cowhide chair in his study, hands resting on the arms like a gunslinger biding his time. “I know your stubborn temper, Blaze, because you inherited it from me, remember? And somehow I doubt that sweet nurse put a gun to your head.”
“No, Sister Fred put the gun to my head,” Blaze had mumbled, pacing back and forth in front of the massive oak desk at which his uncle conducted most of his business, “but that dad-burned nurse sure in the devil loaded the bullets.”
Uncle Finn had risen to circle his desk and latch a hand to Blaze’s shoulder like the father he’d become. His tone was laden with the same kindness and caring that had won Blaze’s respect as an angry boy who’d just lost his mother. “It’s the right thing to do, Bren,” he’d said quietly, because like I learned and taught you long ago, true liberty is doing the right thing.”
Blaze hadn’t liked the whole idea at the time, but he’d known his uncle was right. Doing the right thing had been the first lesson Uncle Finn taught him after he’d rescued Blaze and his siblings following the deaths of their parents. And it had always proven true over the years whether Blaze embraced his uncle’s faith or not, so he’d bitten his tongue that day in the study, reining in his temper.
Until just now, when Uncle Finn had tripped it again.
“God’s given me a second chance with the only woman I’ve ever loved, and come hell or high water, fire or flood, I aim to make her mine.”
“Blaze, hold up!” His uncle’s voice carried across the yard, but Blaze just kept on walking, knuckles white and mood black as he blatantly ignored the man who’d become a father.
“I said, hold up, boy—now!” His uncle’s harsh tone, a rarity in itself, halted Blaze dead in his tracks.
Blaze bowed his head with a low groan, aware that he’d obviously torched Uncle Finn’s temper, something he seldom saw. He slowly turned to face the wrath of God. Which wasn’t too far off given the fire blazing in his uncle’s eyes and the tic pulsing in his jaw as he thundered up to go nose to nose with Blaze. “You work for me, boy, and don’t you forget that,” Finn said, his uncle’s six-foot-three looming over Blaze’s six-foot-two with far more than height. “When I call, you best listen, or you’ll be collecting a paycheck somewhere else—is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.” Blaze huffed out his frustration, facial muscles as stony as his uncle’s.
“And another thing—the next time you disrespect our company like you just did, storming off like a bull toward a red barn, you can just keep on walking. Because I will not tolerate rudeness in my home. Is that understood?”
Blaze shifted, hands clenched at his sides. “Yes, sir.”
“Good.” Finn nodded toward the barn. “Now get your sorry hide in there to check on that foal so we don’t have to add lies to your bad manners.” Without another word he strode to the barn, leaving Blaze to follow. Halting in front of the stall where the new foal lay in a bed of hay beside its mother, Uncle Finn leaned his forearms on the fencing to study both mare and newborn while Blaze did the same. “You know, Blaze, you’re a man fully grown,” he said quietly, his tone that of an uncle now instead of an employer, “and I couldn’t be prouder if you were my own son. But being a man doesn’t guarantee always saying or doing the right thing, something I learned the hard way.” He paused, his voice suddenly thick with affection. “As you did, son, with both your pa and your mother.”
His mother.
Uncle Finn’s little sister.
And the one person Blaze blamed for all the tragedy in his life.
“She should’ve never married him in the first place,” Blaze had once overheard Uncle Finn say to Angus, “and Ma and I tried to tell her that, but Peg was in love and as stubborn as they come. A woman of faith marrying a man who had none, but she thought she could change him.”
Change him.
Blaze had felt the burn of his anger over the truth of his uncle’s words because he knew it was true. His mother had done everything in her power to “change” Blaze’s father, but she’d only succeeded in pushing him away, something Blaze had never forgiven her for. His father had been a kind man Blaze had respected and loved, providing for his family the best that he could. But it had never been enough for a woman who demanded submission to her God. As the oldest sibling, Blaze watched his mother harp and nag, finally driving his father to drink and gamble. The man he’d once respected became a drunk who put the almighty bottle before his family, and Blaze resented him for that. But not as much as the woman who drove him there. “A heathen destined for hell if he doesn’t change,” she would threaten, and so he did “change.” He “changed” his address, disappearing for months at a time to work in mines far enough away to escape condemnation. But at least he always sent money home whenever he could, lush or no.
His mother had taught Blaze and Dash how to pray, and so Blaze had, over and over, begging God to help his parents get along so that Pa would want to stay. But his mother made sure he never did, a “respectable woman” grinding her “infidel” husband into the dust until he left forever, killed in a mining accident just months before Shaylee was born. The burden of providing for the family fell to Blaze at the age of thirteen, a task difficult enough until his mother died giving birth, leaving them orphans … and Blaze full of fury.
Until Uncle Finn took them in.
Pushing the unwelcome memories aside, Blaze kept his gaze fixed on the foal, feeling a kinship with it for all the hard lessons of life
he had yet to learn. But despite the anger roiling in his own gut, Blaze knew there was no one he’d rather learn from than Uncle Finn. He was the one person who actually seemed to live his faith, not tap dance on top of it like everyone else he knew. No, his uncle’s faith seemed to breathe from every pore, as naturally as air in and out of his lungs, and although Blaze refused to embrace it himself, he couldn’t deny he respected it. And the uncle who professed it, a tried-and-true source of wisdom and strength in Blaze’s life.
“Much as I hate to admit it, son, your Aunt Libby’s departure seventeen years ago made me a very wealthy man. And I’m not just talking about the success of the silver mine or the joy of family with you and your brother and sisters.” He turned, the potency of his gaze boring into Blaze’s profile along with his soul. “I’m talking about the lesson God taught me when he set me free from jail.”
Blaze turned his head enough to peer at his uncle out of the corner of his eyes. “You were in jail?”
A chuckle parted from Finn’s lips as he reclaimed his position over the stall fencing. “Oh, yeah, as bitter and black an imprisonment as this man has ever known.” He tapped a finger to his head as he slid Blaze a tempered smile. “Up here. Bitter at Libby, bitter at her family, and most of all, bitter at the God who’d promised me a hope and future.”
A peaceful sigh drifted from his lips as he returned his attention to the mare nuzzling her foal, as calm as the faint smile on his face. “The Good Book says, ‘all things work together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose,’ so the day Libby left, I took that seriously. Figured if I made her wait long enough, she’d come to her senses and be the wife I needed her to be.”
His smile skewed. “Only she didn’t, so I went after her, thinking that at least she’d finally understand I wasn’t a man to be controlled by a woman. But I couldn’t find her, so I ended up being controlled by something far worse.” His chest rose and fell as he glanced Blaze’s way. “An anger and bitterness so pervasive, every breath I took was inside of the dark, cold jail of my mind.”
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