Homespun Bride

by Jillian Hart

  He moved close to help her with it and time seemed to freeze. For an instant, anyway, as he noticed the damp curls of her chestnut hair—she’d unbound her braid and combed out her hair and it fell in a cascade of color and light around her heart-shaped face and past her delicate shoulders. He barely noticed she looked beautiful in the dress of white and gold she’d changed into because the sight of happiness on her face was drawing him more than any beauty.

  “Just you wait and see,” she said as the door opened fully.

  He tried to imagine the entire Worthington family taking his measure with a whole new outlook.

  The family was already seated around the elaborately set table. He hardly noticed the room and its blue-and-silver wallpaper, crystal lamps and highly polished woods because of the way the women in the room were studying him, the younger ones with curiosity and the older ones with assessment.

  Henrietta, regal at the foot of the table, squinted her eyes at him. Her mouth pursed. “I hear from Robert we owe you yet another thanks. You saw the new foal safely into the world. I hear there was a complication.”

  “Just had to get her hooves heading the right way, was all.” Thad shrugged. “It wasn’t anything Robert couldn’t have done himself if he’d been up to the task.”

  Robert nodded in greeting from the head of the table. “You’re a humble man, Thad. I can learn a lot from you.”

  “I’ve been around horses all my life.” Thad took care not to trip on the carpet as he followed Noelle around the table. The whole house was fancy for his tastes, and he felt as discomfited by the surroundings as by the females watching him with unblinking gazes. “I’m a cattleman, mostly.”

  “Is that so?” Henrietta’s gaze narrowed. “Are you done with your wandering all over tarnation? Or is that the life you intend to return to?”

  He gulped, a little taken aback. Noelle had stopped at a chair beside the oldest Worthington girl, and he held her chair while she sank into it. “No, ma’am. I’ve come home to Montana to stay.”

  Noelle turned toward him, searching his face as if she could see him plainly.

  Was that hope he saw? Or sadness? So many uncomfortable emotions were muddying his mind, he couldn’t seem to tell up from down.

  “Very well then, I suppose that will do.” The way Henrietta said it, it didn’t sound good at all. Not at all. She gestured toward the empty chair beside her. “I’m determined to get at the truth of your character. You will sit next to me, young man.”

  Where she could keep a good close eye on him, no doubt. Thad swallowed hard at his murky emotions, but couldn’t seem to dislodge them. They were made worse by Noelle and the way her emerald gaze followed the sound of his steps around the table, sparkling with merriment. Good thing she was enjoying this because sweat was starting to bead up on the back of his neck.

  As he took his chair at the table, he couldn’t shake the notion that Henrietta was out to find his every flaw. She was bound to find quite a few.

  “When you went on those cattle drives, did you sleep on the ground with your saddle for a pillow?” the girl directly across from him burst out.

  “Y-yep.”

  “Do you really call the cows little dogies? Did you tell tall stories around the campfire like in the dime novels?”

  “Angelina!” Henrietta looked scandalized. “Those are hardly appropriate questions for a young lady to ask.” Henrietta’s oblong face looked severe, or maybe it was the tight way she’d pulled her hair back, so that her face looked drawn back, as well.

  Well, he should have expected that. He had no illusions. All he had to offer was a savings account that used to be bigger and an old shanty that was three times smaller than the dining room.

  Thad shifted again, and the chair wasn’t getting any more comfortable. He’d be more at ease sitting in a sticker bush facing down a porcupine bare-handed.

  It was a saving grace when Robert spoke. “Lord, bless this food we are about to receive.”

  Thad realized that hands were folded and heads bowed all around him and he did the same.

  “—keep us mindful of our many blessings. Thank you for bringing us together again, as friend and family, and teach us dear Lord to better love one another. Amen.”

  Thad looked up to a course of “amens” and where did his gaze naturally go? To Noelle.

  “So, where did you learn all of this horse knowledge?” Henrietta passed him a bowl of dinner rolls and she gave him a stern look over the crusty tops. “Did you attend some kind of training?”

  “Training? No, ma’am.” It sure looked as if he’d hit a rocky trail with this woman. He got the notion that the Worthington Inquisition was just getting started. “I learned what I know from growing up on my family’s homestead.”

  “I see. No formal education?”

  “Just the local school.”

  “No academy or college?”

  “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but do I look like I’ve been to college?”

  “No, but it was a hope.”

  He took a dinner roll and passed the bowl to the youngest girl, who looked at him as if he’d turned into a horse right there before her eyes.

  Yep, he was feeling mighty uncomfortable. As he accepted the bowl of creamed potatoes from a tight-lipped Henrietta, he caught Noelle’s amused expression across the table. She had to know that he was suffering. She didn’t seem to mind it at all.

  Well, she had warned him.

  “I got a good look at that mustang you ride.” The girl across the table—Angelina?—dumped a spoon of buttered peas on her plate. “Was he once wild? Did you catch him in a roundup? Did you break him?”

  “Yes,” Robert said from the head of the table. “Tell us about your mustang. A plucky breed, as I understand it.”

  “Sunny is a mustang?” Noelle asked breathlessly.

  His pulse ground to a halt. Regret bit him like barbed wire. He forked a helping of roast beef on his plate, knowing what no one else knew at the table. She’d once dreamed of raising her own horses—mustangs, native to this rugged country. It was a dream they’d shared long ago.

  “I’d just finished a drive on the Northern Trail and was on my own, heading from Baker City in Oregon to my next job. It was a long haul following the Yellowstone River and there wasn’t a town in sight, so I chose a spot near water to camp. Something woke me up around midnight. My horse was nervous, so I got up with my Winchester thinking there was a hungry wolf or mountain lion nearby, but it was an injured colt.”

  “Was he still a foal or was he more grown-up?” the littlest sister asked wide-eyed.

  “He was probably six months old, I reckon. When I got up to him, he tried to run, but couldn’t get up. He’d been shot.”

  “Shot?” Noelle gasped.

  “On purpose?” Angelina burst out.

  “Hard to tell but I don’t think so. Likely as not he caught a stray bullet from a hunter, since we were far up in the high country. I searched for his mother, too, after I’d patched him up, but there was no telling how far he’d wandered hurt like that. I found out later there was a wild horse roundup a few days before that.” He picked up his fork and knife with a slight clink. “I always figured that’s how he got separated from his ma.”

  “It’s lucky you found him.” She could see the image in her mind, the dark night, the campfire, the caring man and the fragile colt.

  “I always figured I was the lucky one.” Thad cleared his throat for all the good it did. There was no hiding the fondness in his voice. “I wasn’t sure he’d last the night, but he had spirit and surprised me. I named him Sunny because he was a palomino pinto. His coat is as bright as a summer day.”

  “He took to you like a best friend.” Noelle could see that, too.

  “Did you break him like a bronco?” Angelina asked again, her voice resonating with excitement. “He was a wild horse, so did it take longer than a tame horse?”

  Noelle took a bite of her dinner roll, but her attention remained
on Thad and his answer. She suspected she wasn’t the only one since the clink of silver slowed around the table. In her heart, she already knew Thad’s answer.

  “Sunny was and is my best buddy. He’s no more wild than I am, and when it comes down to it, breaking a best friend isn’t my way of doing things.”

  “That’s how the last horseman Papa hired did it.” Angelina ignored her mother’s throat clearing. “He got up on the horse’s back and stayed on while the stallion kicked and bucked like a bronco. It was exciting.”

  “Probably not for the horse,” Thad pointed out.

  How was it that she knew Thad so well, after all? Noelle searched for her glass of water with careful fingers, listening to more questions fired from around the table, including one from Uncle Robert.

  The meal progressed as Thad told of how he taught his colt to trust him. He painted a vivid picture of working with the mustang on the journey to his next job, introducing him to kindness and campfire bread and friendship. How he’d worked with Sunny in the fresh, green, wild grasses.

  She could see Thad, gentle and patient and dependable, never giving the colt a reason to doubt his kindness. She could picture man and colt together in the rugged mountain wilderness, surrounded by yellow, red and purple wildflowers and crowned by majestic mountains. The honey-gold colt and the dark-haired man painted an image she wanted to believe in.

  The lightning storm had passed by the time the maid cleared the dinner plates, and Thad had helped Robert back upstairs, so he’d taken his escape. The mercury had dropped well below freezing as he said his goodbyes and left Noelle with her family. But the way she’d smiled at him, and the hope in his heart stayed with him through the frigid ride home.

  As the wind-driven snow battered him, memories of her kept him cozily warm. He couldn’t seem to forget how she’d bitten her lower lip in worry as he’d told of Sunny’s first cattle drive two weeks later, and how he’d got swept away in a stampede. Likely as not come to a sad end, but the little guy had made it. Thad kept him on a shorter lead rope from then on.

  The sigh she’d made of delight wasn’t something he could forget, either, when he’d told of the evening, a year later, when he’d been trying to spark a campfire with a flint and looked up at the sound of thunder. It was a herd of wild horses streaking across the plains and there’d been no mistaking the yearning in Sunny’s eyes. So Thad had climbed to his feet and slipped off Sunny’s halter. The yearling had taken off with an eager whinny, bolting after the herd and out of sight.

  How lovely she’d looked, graced by the lamplight, and captivated by his story as he told of standing in the knee-high grass, feeling nothing but lonesome, when a low welcoming whinny sounded in the dark—Sunny had come back to stay with him.

  Had he been alone with Noelle when he’d been telling that story, he would have said it had felt like a sign on that lonely night. He’d been traveling too long, miserable living out of his saddle packs and Sunny’s return seemed to give him the hope that heaven was watching over him after all. Maybe there were still dreams to be had, and that he shouldn’t give up all hope.

  But since he hadn’t been alone with her, he’d kept those words to himself. They seemed to whisper within the chambers of his heart, in the lonesomeness within that he’d not been able to shake. He’d missed her. He’d been lonely for her these long years, for his best friend, for the woman he’d wanted to marry, for his one true love.

  Distant thunder rumbled through the mantle of cloud and snow, but the cold and dark did not feel as bleak as it once had. Thad nosed Sunny toward home.

  Noelle shivered in the cold as she knelt in prayer. The storm howled like an angry wolf outside the bedroom window. She ended her nightly prayers as she always did. I pray that You will watch over Thad, Father. Please see to his happiness. Amen.

  She rose, teeth chattering and dived under the covers. Cold had sunk into the marrow of her bones and the sheets felt as cold as the air in the room. The flatiron at the foot of the bed gave off blessed heat, and she scrunched down to find the warmth with her toes.

  “Amen,” Matilda whispered. Her teeth chattered, too, and the thwack of the quilt told that she’d covered herself completely beneath the blankets.

  The house had quieted. Henrietta’s voice came faintly through the walls two rooms down the hall as she wished Minnie good-night. A door shut and then silence.

  Surely Thad had made it through the storm safely. So, why was she worried about him? She rolled onto her side to contemplate that. It made no sense because she knew he’d managed to drive cattle and ford dangerous rivers and crest mountain summits for years successfully. Surely he could manage to find his way home through one blustery whiteout.

  She had to be honest with herself. It wasn’t his safety she was worrying over. It was her feelings for him. For the man he’d made her believe in tonight with his tales of strength and steadfast gentleness.

  That was the Thad McKaslin she’d fallen so hard in love with, she would have defied her beloved parents and a life of security for the chance at her dream—to love him for all the days of her life.

  How could that Thad, the one she’d known so well, have forsaken her? He was not a man who could break a promise, let alone a vow of love and forever. That man was the one she’d glimpsed tonight through his honest, plain stories of befriending a wild colt.

  He’d probably meant to tell of his horse-gentling philosophy, but she’d heard something different—a man who was trustworthy and steadfast and committed. The man Thad had always been.

  A sharp rustle came from Matilda’s side of the room. She must have thrown the covers off her head. “I’m too cold and tired to read tonight. Can I read two passages aloud to you tomorrow?”

  “Of course. I’m half-asleep as it is, and I hate to trouble you anyway. You know that.”

  “It’s no trouble. I’m just greatly fatigued. I think my mind is overworked from those thrilling stories Mr. McKaslin told at dinner.”

  “Yes, they were very enjoyable.” And for her, personal, although that wasn’t something she was about to admit to anyone, even to someone she trusted as much as Tilly. Why, she could hardly admit the truth to herself. “Angelina was enthralled. Do you think she’s going to torment your mother with a new desire to run off and herd cattle?”

  “Probably. It’s Angelina’s lot in life to torment poor mama. She ought to be careful or Mama just might make good on her threat to send her to finishing school.”

  “Think of all the outhouses to overturn there. Angelina will be quite busy.”

  “True.” Matilda chuckled. “He likes you, you know. Really likes you.”

  “You mean Thad?” Noelle ran her fingertips over the lace edging the pillow slip. “You’ve told me this before, but I only have f-friendly feelings for Thad.”

  And there were practical reasons, of course, why she could never risk her heart on him again. Reasons that could not be changed. She groped for the edge of her sheets to pull them up to her chin.

  Matilda’s mattress ropes squeaked as she leaned to put out the light. “Good night, Noelle.”

  “Good night, Tilly.” She rolled onto her side and closed her eyes, knowing she would dream this night of a wide-shouldered man and his wild horse.

  Chapter Twelve

  As Thad watched Noelle standing at Solitude’s stall alongside her uncle, who was leaning heavily on his stout wooden cane, he tried not to take it as a sign. Of course Robert was feeling strong enough to venture outdoors. It only made sense the first place he’d visit was his horses and had asked Noelle to accompany him.

  It didn’t mean that she’d changed her mind about his offer. That was the story he was trying to sell himself. He wasn’t sure it was working. As he patiently waited for the stallion to approach him, he knew one thing—Noelle’s face and manner, when she’d greeted him earlier, had been warm and friendly. Not polite and cool, as it had once been.

  It didn’t hurt to hold out a little hope, did it?
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  “You’ve done wonders with these spirited horses of mine,” Robert praised as he limped closer, leaving Noelle alone at Solitude’s stall. “I knew you were helping out with the stable work and heavier chores around here. What I didn’t know was that you’ve been working with these horses.”

  Thad kept eye contact with the ill-tempered stallion and kept the apple in his pocket. “I’m only doing what needed to be done.”

  “But your work with the horses. Triumph is standing still. A first for him, I believe. It’s amazing.”

  “Just a little horse know-how is all.” Thad shrugged, keeping his attention on the horse because looking at Noelle would hurt too much. He wasn’t sure what risk his heart could afford to take. He’d been up half the night, unable to sleep for working out his plans for the day—his plans for her. “It doesn’t much seem like work to me.”

  “You’ve made an impressive difference.”

  “Hate to argue with you about that, sir, but in my view, these horses have a long way to go.”

  “They’ll get there.” Robert leaned heavily on his cane, but despite the obvious pain he was in, he was grinning ear to ear. “I’d best get back in before my wife hunts me down and drags me back. She’s not keen on this horse-raising venture of mine.”

  “Do you need help, sir?”

  “I’ll manage.”

  There she was, right in his line of sight. Thad gulped hard, and, since Triumph had decided to be a gentleman and stand still without showing his teeth, he palmed him the apple. The stallion took the treat and then lunged back with it, his temper showing as he shook his head like a bull in full charge.

  “That stallion does sound more well behaved than he has been.” Noelle sparkled with good humor. “He doesn’t sound as ornery when he kicks the wall.”

  “This one has a long row to hoe, but he’d be all right in the end. I’m happy to work with him.”

  “That’s good of you.”

  “I can’t have your uncle getting kicked like that again, not if I can help it.” That had her smiling. He loved her smile; he loved everything about her. She tilted her head slightly to one side, as if focusing on the approach of his footsteps, and the soft fall of her hair brushed her face.