Evelyn tugged Rebecca’s blanket. “Since your daddy is busy, why don’t you sit on the railing and watch me train Jake?”
Rebecca’s eyes lit up, but she hung back as Evelyn went to work. Minutes later, Evelyn saw her creep a short distance into the paddock where she squatted, finger in mouth, to observe.
“Will he kick me?” Rebecca asked.
“No, honey. Horses are beautiful, gentle animals.” Evelyn squatted beside Rebecca. “The only reason Gus kicked at you was because you frightened him.”
Rebecca’s brow furrowed. “He was scared?”
Evelyn nodded. “He was hurt by a boy. Now he’s afraid of people. It’s going to take time for him to trust us again so you need to stay away from Gus unless I’m with you.”
“Daddy would be mad.”
A soft laugh escaped Evelyn. “Yes, he would. But only because he’s afraid Gus will hurt you.”
“Do I have to go inside now?” Rebecca asked, her eyes lingering on Jake as she squatted in the middle of the paddock, her small bottom touching the ground.
“I like having you here,” Evelyn said, unable to send her away. She held Jake’s reins out to Rebecca. “Want to help me?”
Excitement illuminated Rebecca’s eyes and she stood up, clenching her hands in front of her belly. “How?” she asked, entranced by the colt.
“Just hold on to these for me.” Evelyn slipped the reins into Rebecca’s small hands and showed her how to grip them then watched from the corner of her eye while setting up step blocks.
The sound of wood clunking drew Jake forward and Rebecca’s eyes flew open. She clutched the reins to her chest and gritted her teeth, her gaze flying to Evelyn with frightened uncertainty.
Evelyn nearly laughed at Rebecca’s surprised expression, but was too touched by the child’s determination and her obvious desire to succeed at the job she was given.
“Whoa, Jake,” Evelyn commanded from her squatted position and, thankfully, the colt obeyed.
Jake picked at tufts of grass, wandering from patch to patch while Rebecca followed with the reins clenched in her tiny fists. When Evelyn finished laying out the course, she stood and dusted off her hands. “Walk toward me and he’ll follow you.”
Uncertainty flared in Rebecca’s eyes, but she took two halting steps, checking over her shoulder with each one to see if Jake followed. When the colt lifted his head and trailed along, Rebecca’s face beamed with such confidence it warmed Evelyn clear to her bootlaces. She too felt as though she had accomplished something special.
Evelyn placed her hands over Rebecca’s and showed her how to walk Jake through the course. After the first pass, she let Rebecca do it on her own. After three mostly successful trips, Evelyn knelt beside the smiling little girl who was stealing her heart. “You were wonderful, sweetheart.”
Rebecca pulled at the front of her dress and rocked onto the outside edge of her shoes. “I like Jake.”
“He likes you, too. That’s why he’s sniffing your pocket. He wants a treat.”
Rebecca’s expression fell. “I don’t got one.”
“I do.” She reached in her worn shirt pocket and pulled out a small apple. “Do you remember how I showed you to feed him?”
Rebecca’s nod was full of enthusiasm. “Like this,” she said, making her hand flat.
“That’s right.” The apple dwarfed Rebecca’s hand. “Don’t let him nibble your fingers. It hurts.”
Rebecca giggled and turned eagerly to Jake.
When Evelyn stood to remove Jake’s halter, she saw Radford leaning against the fence watching them with an odd, lonely expression on his face. Dread pulsed through her and her stomach flipped. Please don’t let him spoil Rebecca’s happiness, she thought. Don’t let him crush the first rays of confidence that light her eyes.
Not wanting Rebecca to overhear in case Radford was upset, Evelyn slipped the bridle off Jake and pointed to the railing near the barn. “Would you hang this on that fence rail for me?”
Rebecca proudly grasped it with both hands, held it to her chest, and walked away, her hair bouncing softly against her back.
Evelyn lifted the saddle free and walked to the opposite side of the paddock where Radford stood, silent and watchful. She parked the saddle over the railing, resting her hand on soft leather. “I thought you’d rather have her with me than wandering off alone. I noticed you weren’t outside with her.”
“I was watching, like you suggested.” A light shadow of whiskers dusted his jaw and lent a rugged edge to his handsome face. His gaze held Evelyn’s, probing, searching, seeming to look right into her soul. “It’s not Rebecca who’s afraid, is it?” he asked quietly. “I knew that’s what you were trying to tell me yesterday, but I didn’t want to hear it. You were right, Evelyn. It’s my own fear I can’t get past.”
Evelyn had never heard the despair and regret that filled Radford’s voice, and it fed her guilt for being the cause of his heartache. “I shouldn’t have said those things.”
He turned toward the mid-September breeze and raked his hair off his damp forehead. “I was the one who said things I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry about that. When I saw Rebecca on the ground, my heart stopped. I’ve never felt that kind of fear.” His eyes met hers. “Not even in the war.” He sighed and shook his head. “I was angry, too. Only I realized I wasn’t angry with you or Rebecca. It was my own shortcomings I was fighting. It’s hard to admit that I’ve been a lousy father, but I have.”
Evelyn’s gaze shot to his. “You’re a wonderful father.”
“No I’m not.” His eyes sought Rebecca who was busy wrapping the reins around the railing. “But I want to be.” He placed his hand over Evelyn’s, trapping it between his callused palm and the saddle horn. “Will you help me?”
His hard, warm palm felt good and Evelyn wondered if Radford sensed her reaction to him.
“I don’t know how to make Rebecca laugh,” he said, as though giving his final confession, his eyes sad. “I’m failing her.”
Ashamed, Evelyn realized how deeply she’d hurt him with her angry words. “I’m sorry I made you feel this way. I had no idea I would cause so much harm.”
His lips tilted in a sad smile and he ran his thumb across her knuckles. “You know, it’s been months since I’ve heard Rebecca laugh. I can’t buy her the happiness you’ve given her today. I wouldn’t have understood that if you hadn’t challenged me to notice. Thank you for giving me some much-needed advice.” His expression softened. “You’re the only one Rebecca has had anything to do with since I’ve been home. Ma is crushed that her own granddaughter won’t let her cuddle her. Your father is just aching to get her on his knee.” Radford released Evelyn’s hand and leaned his elbows on the fence. “Rebecca seems to trust you. Even more than... “He cut himself off and glanced away.
“I won’t hurt her, Radford.”
His gaze returned to Evelyn’s and she saw him studying her, searching her eyes for something, lingering on her face until she felt the heat move up her neck. “I’m glad Rebecca has found someone to look up to.”
The absurdity of the statement made Evelyn smile. “I’m hardly what you’d call a role model for a young girl. Believe me, I’ve been told as much by the ladies in Fredonia.”
“Then they’re fools.” His eyes held hers, communicating his sincerity.
Warmth surged through Evelyn. That Radford would bother to look beyond her choice of clothing, past her feminine ineptness, deeper than the self-sufficient manner she wore like armor, was something no one else had ever done. Somehow, he saw beneath all that to the shy, vulnerable woman no one really knew. Not even Kyle.
“When can we meet Tom and Martha’s little girl?” he asked.
Evelyn’s chest expanded with hope. “You’ll let me bring Helen home to play with Rebecca?” At Radford’s nod, Evelyn smiled. “I’ll go get her as soon as they return from visiting their relatives in Ohio.”
“I hope it’s soon,” Radford said, watching Rebecca w
alk toward them. “I’ve got some making up to do.”
Chapter Nine
Since the day in the paddock, Radford had accepted Evelyn’s help with his daughter, and Rebecca had trailed Evelyn like a puppy ever since. She was full of questions and quick to imitate. Rebecca was opening up to Radford’s mother, as well, and despite being unrelated to Evelyn’s father, she’d given him the honorary title of “Grandpa,” which pleased him immensely. Rebecca had even let him read her a story and was now sleeping beside Evelyn’s father on the sofa.
Seeing the spark return to her father’s eyes and the wariness disappearing from Rebecca’s filled Evelyn with a new sense of contentment as she knelt on the porch to help Kyle and Radford finish painting.
Other than a brief greeting, they had remained silent while they worked. Typical men, Evelyn thought, dipping her brush then finishing the railing spindles, which by some pact the men wouldn’t touch. Though Evelyn was used to working without conversation, she had hoped that Radford and Kyle would talk to each other, if only to share old memories or discuss business at the mill. They grunted, sweated, and slugged down liquids by the gallon, but neither of them spoke two words throughout the evening. Evelyn shook her head, wondering how brothers could work shoulder to shoulder and be miles apart.
“Your sleeve is marking the paint,” Kyle said, drawing her attention to him. He laid down his brush and rolled her cuff to her elbow with paint-speckled, efficient hands, his eyes focused on his task as if he were sharpening a saw or honing an axe, not touching the arm of the woman he was going to marry.
Unconsciously, she gazed over his shoulder at Radford, whose muscled arms were bared to the shoulder. Crisp black hair lightly sprinkled his forearms and the backs of his hands. As he swirled his brush inside the pail, gathering the last of the paint onto the bristles, he glanced up and gave Evelyn a tired smile that made her stomach cinch.
She ducked her face. Why wasn’t she experiencing this connection with Kyle? Perplexed, she found herself comparing Kyle’s muscular build to Radford’s lanky build as they painted the last few slats of the floor.
“I’ll be back in a minute to clean up,” Kyle said, balancing his paintbrush across the top of the pail.
With a relieved sigh, Evelyn sat back on her heels and watched him walk to the outhouse they used during the day when they were too dirty from work to use the water closet inside. Rubbing the back of her neck, she released a long, slow breath. She couldn’t keep letting her eyes and mind wander to Radford. Yet, spending so much time together made it nearly impossible not to do so, especially after the argument they’d had over Rebecca that day in the paddock. Somehow they had revealed themselves to each other during those tense moments. Their angry words had stripped away their pretenses and left them vulnerable to each another. There was a depth to Radford she hadn’t known existed, deep wounds that still pained him. And he was afraid. He’d said he was failing as a father, but she sensed a deeper despair, a level of desperation buried beneath his heartbreaking confession.
She closed her eyes and rolled her neck to release the tension. Radford’s secrets were none of her business.
“You have paint on your chin, Evelyn.”
She opened her eyes to find Radford watching her, wearing a tender smile. She lowered her face and wiped her chin across her lifted shoulder to avoid his eyes.
“You’ve made it worse.”
She used the bottom of her shirt to scrub her chin then displayed her face for his inspection. “Gone?”
His smile widened and Evelyn forgot about everything outside the realm of Radford’s face. There was something warm in his smile, something personal in the lazy way it developed, something in his eyes that said it was just for her. But his smile faded and Radford gave her a curious, probing look that made her tighten up inside.
“You know, I wouldn’t have paired you and Kyle,” he said, surprising her with the unexpected comment. “I don’t think I know two people who are more opposite than you.”
It hadn’t always been that way, but Evelyn had no wish to discuss feelings better left unexplored. “We’ve been friends for years.”
“So have you and Boyd.”
Evelyn laughed. “Yes, but I couldn’t handle all that wildness and oozing charm.”
“Then why not Duke?” he asked with a grin.
She shook her head. “I could never marry a lawman. I’d always be afraid he’d go to work and never come home. Duke is steady, but too high a risk. Besides,” she added with a grin to lighten the conversation, “neither one asked me to marry him.”
Radford smiled. “Well, it’s a good thing one of us did. Ma’s sure happy about getting you for a daughter-in-law. She’s always bragged about her little angel.”
Evelyn didn’t feel like an angel. She had noticed far more than was modest about her future brother-in-law since he’d been home.
“Your mother’s biased because she helped raise me.”
The reminder made Radford sorry he’d said anything. He could see how Evelyn’s eyes lost a bit of their sparkle, though she tried to hide it.
Radford crossed the porch then knelt beside her. The urge to stroke her hair was strong, but he withheld the hand that started to lift of its own accord. “I’m sorry I brought up hurtful memories. Since my father passed away, I’ve gained a deep appreciation of the pain you’ve suffered. We all lost someone special when your mother died.”
For the second time, he found himself searching her eyes, trying to recognize her as an old friend. But it dawned on him that she had never been his friend. She was the little neighbor girl who had played with Kyle while Radford was helping his father at the mill. During the war, she was William’s daughter. Now Evelyn was Kyle’s fiancée.
Then why was Radford seeing another woman in the shadows of Evelyn’s eyes? And why did he feel the need to reveal that woman?
Uneasy with his thoughts, Radford sought to redirect them. “Did you know that your mother used to spit watermelon seeds with me? She usually beat me, but we had a grand time seeing who could hit the trunk of the oak tree.”
Surprise erased the shadows in Evelyn’s eyes. “My mother did that?”
“Your father laid wagers with my dad.”
A gasp of laughter escaped Evelyn. “They wagered on my mother spitting?”
Radford nodded and swiped at a maple leaf that skittered across the porch floor. He was glad he’d made her laugh. He liked her laugh. The leaf, slightly tinged by autumn color, landed on the freshly painted floor. He plucked it up. “Your mother told me that to catch a falling magnolia petal would make a wish come true. I don’t know if it works with maple leaves, but we can try. Make a wish, Tomboy.” He tossed the leaf and watched it flutter to the grass.
“I wish you’d tell me another story about my mother. It makes me feel like she’s still alive.”
Radford saw the bittersweet remembrance in her eyes and he ached for her. He knew the magnitude of that loss, understood the helplessness, the anger, the yearning. “I wish she was,” he said. “She was an unforgettable lady.”
“I wish I remembered her better. Papa says I resemble her, but I can’t see it.”
Radford smiled and cupped Evelyn’s paint-speckled cheek. “She was beautiful, Evelyn. And so are you.”
Kyle planted his foot on the bottom step with enough force to make it shudder. “Paying compliments to my fiancée?”
Radford jerked his hand from Evelyn’s startled face and glanced into Kyle’s snapping eyes.
“Well?” Kyle demanded, his angry gaze swinging between Evelyn and Radford. “You seem quite taken with my fiancée, Radford.”
“You should check on dinner,” Radford said to Evelyn then sighed with relief when she rushed into the house. The look on Kyle’s face told him there would be unpleasant questions that Evelyn didn’t deserve being subjected to.
“I asked what you were doing,” Kyle said, his voice growing harder.
“I was scrubbing paint off Evelyn�
��s chin.” Radford forced a nonchalance he didn’t feel. “If I were you, I wouldn’t ask her to do the painting in your house.”
Kyle’s brow went up. “She seems capable.”
Evelyn was good at everything she did, but Radford was trying to keep Kyle from misconstruing an awkward but innocent situation. “Let’s just say she’s better off in the livery.” He knew that would please Evelyn immensely, but make his life torture. He needed some distance from her to clear his head of the dangerous thoughts that had been plaguing him the past few weeks.
Kyle crossed his arms, his scowl deepening. “Do you need the help, or do you just like the company?”
Radford sighed and stood up. “Kyle, we were talking about her mother. Evelyn misses her. That’s all it was about.”
Kyle eyed Radford for a long moment as if deciding whether to believe him. “That had better be all it was.”
“I’m your brother! What do you think was going on?”
They stared at each other for several tense seconds before Kyle’s shoulders relaxed and he gave a dismissive shrug. “Forget it. I wasn’t suggesting anything.”
Yes he was, Radford thought, but was too relieved that the suspicion in Kyle’s voice had disappeared. “Look, just go in and spend some time with your fiancée. I’ll be in after I clean these brushes.”
Without a word, Kyle climbed the steps and went inside.
Radford gathered the bucket and brushes and cursed himself all the way to the livery. Where had his brain gone during those few minutes with Evelyn? Nothing had existed except the desire to remove the sadness brimming in her lovely eyes, but how could he have led them into such an awkward situation? He had no right to touch Evelyn, not even innocently. He had no business wondering what secrets she kept hidden. No matter how she stirred his curiosity, or how his heart ached for her loss, he should have kept his hands to himself. Gads! He had enough problems with Kyle over the mill. He couldn’t afford to add jealousy to the mix.
Resolved to get out of the house and salve Kyle’s ruffled feathers, Radford rushed through supper then tossed his napkin at his brooding brother. “Finish up and you can show what you’ve done on your house before it gets too dark to see.”
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