The Cowgirl Who Loved Horses, Queens of Montana Bonus Book

by Vanessa Bartal

  Chapter 29

  Cecily didn’t tell Marcus what Lydia said to her. It wouldn’t change their situation, and it would only upset him and add stress to an already stressful situation. Instead she stifled her feelings, bit her tongue, and resumed working at whatever Lydia wanted.

  She wondered if maybe it was working because Lydia was becoming more agitated. Cecily’s theory was that she would eventually wear herself out when she realized her young daughter-in-law couldn’t be defeated. While the theory worked well in her mind it was difficult in practice, more so because as the days progressed, Cecily became larger and more uncomfortable.

  Lydia seemed to delight in her discomfort and never missed a chance to tell her how hard she had worked during her pregnancies, once even going so far as to say that she had helped Evan brand cattle in her ninth month with Mathew.

  Cecily had been so disturbed and intrigued by the thought that she had asked Marcus about it. He laughed for a long time.

  “That’s what she told you? Honey, can you ever picture me allowing you to do that?”

  “No,” she said.

  “And I’m liberated in my treatment of you, compared to my father. He would never in a million years allow her to endanger herself in that way. In fact he hired a housekeeper with each pregnancy so Mom wouldn’t work too hard.”

  “Really,” Cecily said. She tapped her foot impatiently. “Interesting.” She hadn’t told Marcus any of the things his mother had been taunting her with lately. He was on her side, and she knew it. She had no need to make him more resentful of his mother, although he was becoming that way just by watching his mother at supper.

  “The meal is delicious, Mother,” he snapped one night. “Cecily is a wonderful cook, and you know it. Stop complaining and eat your food.”

  “Don’t talk to your mother that way,” his father had said.

  “Then tell her not to talk to my wife that way,” Marcus said.

  Evan kept silent. His son had a point.

  The tension in the house was making Cecily crazy. She couldn’t wait until it was over, and she was depressed that nothing was progressing in her relationship with Lydia, other than the other woman’s hatred.

  “The windows need cleaned today,” Lydia said one morning.

  Cecily sighed. The windows were the old fashioned kind that didn’t tilt in for easy cleaning.

  “I’ll do what I can for the first floor, and I’ll ask Marcus to clean the second floor,” Cecily said.

  “Never mind,” Lydia said in the injured tone Cecily had come to dread. “I’ll do it myself. I’m sure I can ascend the ladder with one good foot.”

  If Cecily thought she was bluffing she would have ignored her, but she knew her well enough to know by now that she actually would ascend the ladder with her broken ankle, if only to make Cecily feel guilty.

  “Fine,” Cecily said. She only hoped she could finish before Marcus arrived home because if he saw her on a ladder eight and a half months pregnant, he would most likely kill her.

  She asked one of the stable hands to set up the ladder for her and then ignored his protests when she told him she intended to clean the windows.

  “I’ll do it for you, Ma’am,” he offered pleadingly.

  She wished she could take him up on the offer, she really did, but she knew how well that would go over with her mother-in-law; she had no desire to listen to a lecture on keeping the cowhands from their assigned duties by doing work that she, Cecily, was too lazy to do herself.

  “I appreciate that, George, but I’ll be fine, really. Thank you.”

  He stood back and studied her with troubled eyes, unsure of what to do. Everyone on the ranch knew of the terrible feud between the two women, and everyone knew of the outrageous tasks Miss Lydia was assigning to her daughter-in-law. Surely she wouldn’t make a pregnant woman clean windows on the second floor, would she?

  He debated with himself for another minute, and then he left to call Marcus.

  Cecily cleaned all the windows on the main level first. They were her height, not very dirty, and easy to clean.

  “Let’s hope the second floor goes this well,” she muttered. She took a deep breath and started to climb.

  Marcus was in the far pasture when George called him. At first he laughed.

  “There is no way my wife would be that stupid,” he said. “She’s very protective of our baby.”

  George paused, clearly uncomfortable in what he was about to say. “With all due respect, sir, your mother has been riding her pretty hard here lately, and it seems to be getting worse. She’s said some not nice things that have carried into the barn and yesterday I saw your wife standing on a chair. It looked like she was dusting ceiling fans.”

  Marcus frowned. Cecily had been tight-lipped about what went on during the daytime. He hoped it was because she and his mother avoided each other. Now he wasn’t so sure. “Is she on the ladder now?”

  “No, sir. She’s cleaning the windows on the first floor.”

  He let out a relieved breath. “I don’t think she’ll get on the ladder, George, but thank you for calling all the same. Most likely she got it out for me and I’ll clean the second floor windows when I get home.”

  “If you say so, sir,” George said, clearly not convinced.

  Marcus hung up, still feeling uneasy. As far as he was concerned he didn’t even want Cecily to be cleaning the main level windows. If his mother had truly put her up to it, what had she been thinking?

  He picked up his cell phone again and called his father. “Dad, I’m going back to the house to check on Cecily.”

  “I’ll come with you,” his father said. “I have a bad feeling about things.”

  Now Marcus’s unease accelerated into panic. His father was even more level-headed than he was. For him to rely on a gut instinct spelled disaster in the making.

  Sure enough as they pulled up to the house there was Cecily balancing her bulk on the top of a ladder.

  “Glory be!” his father exclaimed.

  “I’m going to kill her,” Marcus ground out.

  Cecily heard their truck. She turned to look at Marcus with a sheepish expression, but she didn’t take into account her new center of gravity. She scrambled to hold on, and then she pitched backwards. She felt the unbearable weightlessness of dropping and then hit the ground with a terrible thud. After that everything went black.