Wonderful. A little house in town. And how were they supposed to live? Then she brought herself up short. She had no husband, and no intention of giving up her farm. Not for a little house in town, or anything else. Ever. She would find that receipt and wave it in Mr. Traynor’s face.
She uttered a quick prayer to herself that Papa had made the payment. That he wouldn’t didn’t seem likely. He was not the type of person to let something like that go.
“I’m afraid I must decline your offer, Mr. Melrose.” She crossed her fingers behind her back. “My husband and I are very happy right here, and when I find the receipt I will have him bring it into town so this is all settled.”
The smirk on Rupert’s face frightened her. Did he know something she didn’t? “If you will excuse me, I have work to do.”
Mr. Traynor looked to Rupert, almost asking his permission to leave.
“Let’s go.” Rupert practically shoved the man out the door. Before she closed it, he turned to her. “We’ll be back.”
9
Stephen rolled onto his back on the straw mattress he’d made in the barn, and stared at the ceiling. Early morning sunlight peeked through slats in the barn walls, the shadows of the boards looking like a jail cell. He’d been back at Daniel’s farm for almost two weeks.
Two long, miserable, weeks.
He doubted there was a part of any one of those days that he hadn’t thought of Calliope. Damn the woman! She was stubborn, ornery, and had crawled under his skin in a way he could not shake. He didn’t want to have feelings for her. He’d agreed to the marriage to save her from having to marry Melrose and to help with the chores on her farm.
Never had he planned to have these feelings of missing her, of wanting to hold her, talk to her, make love to her again.
He’d spent part of the time at Daniel’s farm scouring the area for land to start a horse farm. Just yesterday he found a spot that was perfect. Rolling hills, flat land to build a house and barn and training arena. Room to grow a vegetable garden to sustain himself. He only needed to save for another couple of months with the job he’d secured in town tending bar at the saloon and he would be able to reach his dream by putting a down payment on the land.
Rolling off the mattress, he sat on the edge and ran his fingers through his hair. What good would a horse farm be with no wife to work it with him, no children to learn the horse business, and to eventually leave it all to? Sore from working until midnight at the saloon, then sleeping on the straw mattress, he groaned as he rose. He grabbed a towel from a shelf above his makeshift bed and headed to the water pump.
After giving his head a good dousing, he dried off, shaved, and headed to the house for breakfast. As soon as he took a seat at the table, Jace, his four year old nephew climbed on his lap. “Hey buddy. You gonna help your mama today?”
Rosemarie placed several platters of bacon, eggs, hotcakes, potatoes, biscuits, and gravy on the table. “Jace will be entertaining his little sister while I do laundry today.” She set the coffee pot alongside the platter just as Daniel came out of their bedroom next to the kitchen. He wrapped his arms around his wife and nuzzled her neck. She tried to bat his hands away, but the smile on her lips and flush to her face told him she was enjoying his attentions.
A jolt of envy gripped him as Stephen piled food on his plate while Jace helped himself to a piece of bacon. If only things had worked out between him and Calliope, he might also have had a table full of kids and a wife he could cuddle up with. He sighed. No point in dwelling on what would never be.
“I could use your help out at the orchard today,” Daniel nodded in Stephen’s direction as he poured cream into his coffee. “We have to trim some of the trees.”
“Whatever you need.” Stephen shoveled his food in, trying his best to ignore the murmured conversation between Rosemarie and Daniel. His brother bent and whispered into her ear, she giggled. He laid his hand on her shoulder as he spoke. She propped her chin on her hand and stared at him while he described his plans for building a new training arena for the horses.
The sooner he could get his own place, the better.
Alone.
Damn, that thought bothered him more than he wanted it to. Finally unable to take anymore of family happiness, he pushed himself away from the table. “I’ll see you outside.” Slapping his hat on his head, he left the house
Stephen trudged to the house with the setting sun at this back. He and Daniel, along with two of the farm hands, had put in a full day in the orchard, and Stephen was tired to the bone. He still had to clean himself up and ride into town for his six hour shift at the tavern. He drew a pail of water from the pump, carried it to the barn, then stripped to his skin and washed the dirt and grime from his body. Pulling on a clean shirt and pants, he headed to the Bartlett Creek Saloon.
The tinny music from the bar reached his ears when he was still two blocks away. The newly installed gaslights paved the way from the darkness of the prairie to the town. Another saloon a ways down on the boardwalk and across the street was doing a good business. He slid from Topaz and entered the saloon. He nodded at Jake who unwrapped the huge white apron he wore around his middle when he saw Stephen enter.
“How’s business? Things seem to be hopping down at the Full Bucket.” Stephen asked as he took his place behind the bar.
“Busy.” Jake hung his apron up and lumbered away. The man was never much of a talker.
Within minutes Stephen was pouring whiskey and washing glasses. He liked staying busy because it kept him from thinking about Calliope and how much he missed her. A few of the saloon girls had given him the eye now and then since he’d started, but aside from the fact that as a married man he would never take one up on her offer, none of them appealed to him. They weren’t the right size, didn’t have the right hair shade, their eye color was all wrong, didn’t have that special smile. . .
Hell, they weren’t Calliope.
By the time he was sweeping up and locking the door he seriously doubted he would be able to ride Topaz all the way home without falling asleep on her back. He toyed with the idea of curling up on the floor in the back room of the saloon, but that was even more unappealing than his straw mattress in Daniel’s barn.
With a heavy sigh, he removed his apron, hung it on the peg by the back door and left. The ride through the cool night air revived him a bit, and he was surprised to see a light on in the parlor in Daniel’s house. Hoping to grab a bite to eat before bed, he brushed Topaz, gave her a bag of oats and headed to the house.
Rosemarie stood in the middle of the parlor, holding Lucy in her arms, crooning to her as the child slept. She looked up as he entered. “Stephen you look like hell.” She whispered the words.
“Fine language coming out of a lady’s mouth.”
“Whoever told you I was a lady?” She raised her eyebrows.
He grinned at her sassiness. “What are you doing up?”
“I think Lucy is teething. She wasn’t able to sleep, so I rubbed some whiskey on her gums and walked her for a while. I think she’ll stay asleep now.”
“She’s probably drunk.”
“I’m going to put her down. If you wait for a minute, I’ll fix you something to eat.”
He shook his head. “No, Rosie, you go on to bed. I’ll find something.”
“Just wait. I’ll be back.”
He wandered to the kitchen, thinking how lucky his brother was with Rosemarie for a wife. This was her farm, left to her by her late husband, but Daniel was just as much a partner as she was. He laughed remembering the story Daniel had told him of how Rosemarie had held a gun on him when he’d first arrived and called him “Reb.”
As a Confederate soldier, he had escaped from a Union prison and was making his way back to the south when he found Rosie near death from an infected wound in her leg. After patching her up, he stayed and helped her. That had all happened right at the end of the War Between the States. He and Rosie married and he adopted her children, and
they had one of their own—little Lucy with the whiskey breath.
“Stephen, I’m not kidding, you do look like hell. You can’t keep up with the chores around here and working a full shift in town.” Rosemarie came back into the kitchen and took out bread, meat and cheese and proceeded to fix him a sandwich.
“I’m fine. This is heaven compared to what we went through during the war.”
She didn’t reply, but merely nodded. He was certain his brother had shared enough stories about the war with his wife.
He dove into the sandwich, along with a large piece of dried apple pie and a glass of cold milk. Rosemarie fixed herself a cup of tea and sat across from him at the table. “So tell me, Stephen, when are you coming to your senses and going home to your wife?”
Calliope chewed her lower lip and stood with her hands on her hips in the center of the parlor. She slowly turned in a circle, looking at every shelf, every table, every piece of furniture in the room.
Damn!
She’d been scouring the house for two weeks, but she could not find the receipt for the last payment on the mortgage. Surprisingly enough, she couldn’t find any receipts. Which led her to believe someone had been in her house and taken the receipts. And she knew who that someone had been, just no way to prove it.
In any event, she was in deep trouble. She gripped her middle and sat on the sofa, fighting tears. Why had she been so foolish to let Stephen leave? If she could only take back that last argument, and tell him she hadn’t meant it. He was not her employee, but her husband. She wanted him back, as a partner. She’d merely been scared after what they’d shared the night before. So afraid to lose her farm to him, and now she would lose it to Rupert.
Because she had no doubt that as soon as the farm was repossessed, he would buy it. What she couldn’t understand was why he wanted it so much.
She wiped away the tears with shaky hands and headed to the kitchen. Maybe a cup of tea would settle her nerves. Her eyes were drawn to the envelope on the kitchen table. She’d written a letter to Stephen three days before, but never had the nerve to mail it. It was an apology, but her conscience would not allow her to send it off. She needed him. Plain and simple. And not just for this latest debacle.
She needed—indeed wanted—his laughter, his teasing, his warm, tender touch. She needed his strength to help her through the days. It wasn’t until he’d been here, by her side, that she’d realized how lonely and frightened she’d been since her papa had died. The same way she felt now that she’d driven him off.
Taking a sip of her tea, her musings were interrupted by a knock on the front door. A door she’d kept locked after Stephen had left, just as he’d insisted on once he’d arrived. In fact there were a lot of things she’d continued to do that he had begun.
“Good morning, Mrs. McCoy. I’d like a word with your husband, please.” Both Mr. Traynor and Rupert stood on her doorstep.
She gritted her teeth. “He’s not at home right now, he’s working in the fields.” She began to close the door when once again Rupert stuck his foot into the opening. If she pushed hard enough she might break his foot, but even with the hatred she felt for the man, she couldn’t bring herself to cause him harm.
“Ma’am, with all due respect, we have reason to believe Mr. McCoy has been absent from home for weeks now.” Mr. Traynor looked down his bespectacled nose at her.
Had they been watching the house? This was all very strange. First the insistence on a marriage between her and Rupert, then the bank’s threat to take her farm, the missing receipts, them watching her house. What was going on?
She raised her chin and adopted her haughtiest demeanor. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I will remind you that this farm is in my name, so there is no need to hunt down my husband.”
“Pardon me, Calliope, Mr. Traynor and I are just concerned that you don’t understand that your farm is about to be taken from you.” Rupert assumed a very unlike-him helpful expression. “I’m here with Mr. Traynor to once again offer to purchase your farm with enough money to cover the unpaid mortgage and leave you a little something in order to re-settle.”
Once again her hackles were raised by his insistence on taking her farm. “I have no intention of letting anyone take my farm from me. You seem to forget that my payments are up-to-date.”
Mr. Traynor coughed and looked at Rupert. “Ah, yes. So you claim. Have you found the receipt, Mrs. McCoy?”
She fumbled for a moment to gather her thoughts. “I’m afraid with all I have to do there hasn’t been time to look for it.”
Nothing would feel better at this point than to slap the smirk off Rupert’s face. If she had any doubts before, she knew now he had something to do with the missing receipts. “Since I have so much to do, I must insist you leave so I can tend to my chores.”
A flash of something—anger?—flickered across Rupert’s face and was quickly gone to be replaced with his ‘I’m-only-looking-out-for-you’ expression. “Have it your way, Calliope. This could very well be my last offer to help you out. Once the bank takes your farm, you won’t get anything.”
“I’ll remember that.” She looked pointedly at his foot, which he removed and she closed the door.
She covered her face with her hands and leaned against the door.
What am I going to do?
Later that night she dragged herself back into the house covered with sweat and dirt from the heat and wind. Bertha was once again gone, and with the way her aged mother was feeling, she might not return at all. Faced with the chore of heating water by herself for a bath and fixing something for supper, she opted instead to sit on the sofa and stare into nothingness.
She crossed her arms over the arm of the sofa and lay her head down. Within minutes tears dripped from her eyes until she was sobbing for all the things wrong in her life. She’d driven her husband away, was about to lose the farm, had no one to turn to, and she was so tired it would be an effort to even haul herself from the parlor to make her way to her bedroom and collapse fully clothed on the bed.
Apparently she’d cried herself to sleep because she awoke to total darkness, having no idea what time it was or how long she’d slept. Her head ached and her muscles were sore. She raised her head and sniffed the air. Fear gripped her stomach as she realized she smelled smoke.
Had Rupert decided to burn the house down to get his way?
Still fuzzy from sleep, she quietly stood and realized someone had covered her with the woolen blanket she kept on the rocking chair. Confused, she glanced toward the kitchen where light from the oil lamp drew her. Tip-toeing across the room, she reached the doorway and sucked in a breath.
Stephen stood in her kitchen, his back to her as he stirred something on the stove. She shook her head to clear it, sure she was imagining things. She was chilly, thinking she should have brought the blanket with her. How she could be chilly on a warm early summer night was strange. Perhaps her nerves were getting to her again.
Moving into the kitchen, she stopped by the table. “Stephen?”
He turned and gave her the smile that always had the butterflies in her stomach dancing a country reel. “Good evening.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Is that really you?”
“Yes, Calliope. It’s really me.”
She reached her hand out to the back of the chair, then sat. “What? Why?”
He carefully placed the spoon alongside the stove and moved toward her. Taking her hands in his, he drew her up into in his arms, pulling her close, and leaned his chin on her head.
Lord, he felt good. The familiar feel of his strength and the memorable scent of him almost had her in tears once again. She also cringed as she remembered her need for a bath. She tried to move back, but he held firm. “Did you forget something here? Is that why you came back?”
He leaned back and cupped her chin in his hand. “Yes. It appears I did forget something.”
She tried to tell herself she wasn’t disappointed that he’
d returned for that reason. Although in the weeks he’d been gone, she hadn’t seen anything of his. “What did you forget?”
Lost in the mesmerizing depth of his blue eyes, she tilted her head in question. She licked her dry lips as her heart pounded so loud in her chest she was sure he could hear it.
“It seems, Mrs. McCoy, when I left here more than two weeks ago, I forgot my heart, which remained here with you.”
Not expecting that answer at all, she sucked in a breath. “What? What do you mean?”
“I love you, Calliope McCoy. Whether you want to share your life with me or not, I’m here to stay and we’ll do things your way.” He grinned. “For a while, anyway.” With that pronouncement, he bent his head and took her lips in a kiss that had her clinging to his arms since her knees had decided to turn to water.
He was home.
10
I’m home. And it feels right. Very, very, right.
Stephen closed his eyes as his mouth covered his wife’s. Yes. He’d made the right decision. His conversation with Rosemarie the night before had convinced him he loved Calliope and whatever issues there were between them they would work out.
Truthfully, he’d resented Rosemarie’s interference that had come with his sandwich. When she’d asked him when he was returning, he had immediately told her he had no intention of doing that.
“So your pride is more important to you than happiness?”
He’d pushed the empty plate away and leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. “Unlike Calliope, you had no desire to make this farm all your own. You were more than happy to share with Daniel. Even to the extent of allowing him to adopt your children.”
“But I didn’t want to do everything myself. Remember, your brother happened upon me when I was near death. I was only too happy to have his help.”
“Hmm. It seems to me I remember a story about you trying to chase him off with a gun.” He grinned at her discomfort.
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