His leer erased any welcome she might’ve felt. Didn’t he have work to do around his own place?
“Ain’t you gonna say a nice, neighborly hello?”
His words and intent gaze sent a shiver of unease through her.
“What do you want today?” She considered turning and bolting. There was a chance she could melt into the underbrush and evade him, or even make it back to the soddy.
His eyes glinted. “Lots o’ things. Still have a hankerin’ to get married. We put our land together and we’ve got a nice spread.”
He’d told her before that the creek winding through her and Pop’s property would support a nice herd, if they had a mind to raise cattle.
“Floyd happened to be out for a walk yesterday and saw ya plowing up the wheat field.”
His words sent a cold feather down her spine. His brother had been watching her?
“We figure you must got some extry seed wheat stashed somewhere, and since the hailstorm crushed our field, too, it would be a mighty neighborly thing for you to share it. Unless you’re ready to get to the altar.”
She brushed moist palms against her trouser legs. Could she outrun him? “Spying doesn’t seem very neighborly.”
He grinned, but there wasn’t anything kind about his expression. “Y’all have always been so secretive over here. Never make social calls. Makes a body curious, is what it does.”
She knew better.
“I’m sure you can purchase what you need in town.” She said the words firmly, intending them as a dismissal, but instead of leaving, he stepped closer. The creek was still between them, but he could cross it in one wide stride.
“That bad winter storm took our cows, and we cain’t afford to buy anything outright.”
“I wish we could help you,” she said. She edged backward, her foot catching on a loose root on the bank. She stumbled, her breath ratcheting in her chest as Chesterton strode to the edge of the stream.
“I know you’ve got seed—”
“Catherine?”
Matty’s voice rang out from behind her, disjointed in the still-lifting fog. Relief rushed through her.
“Who’s that?” Ralph asked, his voice changing from slightly wheedling to something more menacing.
Boots crunched in the underbrush, and then as she glanced over her shoulder, the cowboy appeared out of the fog. He had something in his right hand, but it was slightly obscured by the fog and shadows, and she couldn’t tell what it was.
“Ralph Chesterton. Morning.” Matty’s easy greeting had her gritting her back teeth.
She wanted Chesterton out of here, not to have a morning chat.
“Deputy. What’re you still doing in these parts?” Ralph’s voice had changed again—he was like a chameleon Mama had read about once long ago. He was playacting at being a friendly neighbor and nothing more.
Her breath still sawed in her chest. She opened her mouth to tell Matty off, tell him that he shouldn’t believe anything Chesterton said, but then snapped it closed. Why should the cowboy believe her, when she’d barely tolerated him?
They weren’t friends, any more than she was friends with Chesterton.
“Had a little accident and found myself horseless,” Matty said. He’d moved until he was beside her, their shoulders almost brushing. “The Pooles were kind enough to take me in.”
Ralph’s eyes bugged out.
At her side, she registered the cowboy’s size. She’d done so when she’d pulled him from the creek, but since then he’d been mostly laid out. His height, his strength, somehow comforted her in light of Ralph’s presence.
Matty hadn’t mentioned his injury. Was he purposely keeping it to himself?
“They what?”
The disbelief in Ralph’s voice was clear, and she thought she heard an exhale as if the cowboy found it humorous.
“You and your brother recovering from the storm all right?”
“Fine.” Ralph’s gaze had narrowed and she could almost see his thoughts churning behind his eyes. “I was just checking on Catherine. You know, doing the neighborly thing.”
But when his gaze cut to her, his smile morphed into a sneer that sent a shiver through her.
“I’d better get home and make sure Floyd doesn’t burn the bacon. Catherine.” He nodded to her, but the intensity of his gaze told her this wasn’t over.
He nodded to the cowboy. “Iff’n you want a ride into town, you know where to find me ’n Floyd.”
He disappeared into the woods, and as the fog burned off, she watched until she couldn’t see him anymore and her eyes burned.
She blinked away the moisture, not wanting the cowboy to see a weak moment.
“What did he really want?” Matty asked quietly, still staring after Ralph.
She glanced up, and he looked down at her. This close, she was unable to ignore his presence.
“He came to find out if Pop and I had stockpiled any seed wheat.” She didn’t mention the marriage proposals.
His eyes scanned her face and the discomfort his scrutiny prompted made her raise her chin.
“You all right?”
“Fine.” She let her gaze slide past his ear. It was easier to affect a tone as if she was fine without looking him straight in the eye. It wasn’t a lie, not exactly. Ralph had made advances toward her before, and she’d learned to be careful.
If only she could tell her galloping heart that everything would be all right.
*
Matty watched the pulse jumping at the base of Catherine’s neck. If she’d been his sister, he would have pulled her into a reassuring hug.
She might not admit that Chesterton had scared her, but Matty wasn’t just any man. He was a deputy, trained to recognize the slight tremble in her hands, the white lines around her mouth.
“You know if there’s trouble that I’m honor-bound to protect you,” he reminded her. “It comes with the badge.”
Her eyes flicked to his face and then away again before she nodded tightly. “There’s no trouble.”
But there was no way he’d missed the tense undertones between her and Chesterton when he’d interrupted their conversation. Something was going on.
She didn’t want his help, that was clear. Too bad he needed hers until he healed up.
When he’d heard the male voice—Chesterton’s—from a distance, he’d rushed forward, almost losing his footing in the damp, crushed leaves at the stream’s edge. He’d thought to ask Chesterton to take him to town, or at least to get a message to his family that he was all right and to come get him, but the moment he’d seen Catherine from behind, seen her shoulders tensed up to her ears, his intuition had kicked in and urged him to tread carefully.
He hadn’t missed the intent way Chesterton’s gaze had tracked Catherine, or the way it had twisted Matty’s gut up inside. Catherine was barely an acquaintance, but the protector in Matty had bristled.
Catherine was virtually alone out here. If Chesterton was making unwanted advances, who would protect her?
Pop?
And she hadn’t seemed happy to see the other man. She’d been wound tight as an unbroken horse beneath its first saddle.
How could he ask Chesterton to send word to his family when it would leave Catherine unprotected?
Catherine shifted slightly, her sleeve brushing against Matty’s arm. “Were you looking for me?”
He held up the straight razor, towel and bar of soap he carried in his right hand. “Your Pop had a point last night. This scruff is starting to itch. I thought I’d beg you to help me out or follow you around until you gave in.”
He saw a flash of her white teeth as she bit her lip briefly. “I suppose I could. You don’t want Pop…?”
“Your Pop’s hands are about as steady as his memory.” Which continued to be a worry as the man grew quiet at times and sometimes called Matty by another name.
She nodded, glancing around. “Where—”
“There’s a stump back this way, rig
ht next to the stream bank. I think it’ll work if I lean against it…”
She followed him as he maneuvered through the brush to an area bare of underbrush but still within arm’s reach of the stream.
He awkwardly lowered himself to the ground, leaning his upper half against the stump. It was about the right height. He could lean his head back against the wood without much discomfort.
“What should I…do?” She sounded so hesitant, as if he was a coiled rattlesnake instead of a man who just needed assistance shaving.
“Work up some lather with the soap first. Then you’ll use the razor to scrape off the whiskers.” He kept the towel as he handed her the soap.
She recoiled a tiny bit. “What if I cut you?”
“You ever sit and watch your pa shave?” He didn’t ask about Pop. From the man’s scraggly, unkempt beard, the older man undoubtedly hadn’t shaved in years.
Her expression changed. Closed off. She shook her head.
“Come here.” He used his hand to beckon her closer. She complied, crouching at his side. He took the razor from her and stretched his opposite palm flat.
“You’re not cutting into the skin,” he told her, demonstrating by dragging the razor across his palm slowly. “Just scraping the surface. You try.”
Her hand trembled when she brought the razor to his exposed palm.
“I—”
“Here.” He closed his free hand over her smaller one, immediately noticing the difference in size. His pulse jumped. He guided her hand as if he was shaving his palm, unable to keep from noticing how close their proximity had brought her cheek to his. Wayward strands of her short hair tickled his skin. A beam of dappled sunlight angled just so and illuminated freckles across the bridge of her nose.
He swallowed in a throat that suddenly felt like sandpaper.
“Do you feel the contours?” he asked, voice gone hoarse. “The different planes?”
She nodded, wisps of her hair again tickling him, and he released her. She stood, moving several paces away.
His heart beat in his head and throat, choking him.
She didn’t seem to be affected at all, now kneeling on the stream bank and lathering the soap.
He unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt and wrapped the towel around his shoulders and neck, then leaned his head back against the stump and waited.
She appeared above him, blocking out the clouds and bright blue sky behind. Her hands full of lathered soap, she smeared it across his cheeks and jaw, then down his neck.
“Stand behind—” He started to talk, but her hand brushed his lip and he got a taste of strong soap.
He wrinkled his nose and a wide, unguarded smile crossed her lips. Her eyes crinkled at the corners, and her entire expression changed, taking her from pretty to something far more. Until she hid her smile behind her wrist.
He was so unnerved that he had to clear his throat before he could speak. He let his head fall back against the wood with a soft thunk. “If you stand behind me, you’ll be at a better angle to wield the blade.”
She did, and unfortunately the position put her lips—pursed with concentration—directly in his line of sight.
She took the first stroke with the blade, and the metal moved smoothly along his neck to just below his jaw. Her lips parted in a silent exhale.
The bottom of his stomach dropped out. He needed a distraction.
She moved to wipe the blade against the towel and he blurted the only thing he could think of. “Eye spy something green.”
One of her eyebrows crooked up as if she thought he was a little crazy to want to play at this very moment.
“We’re surrounded by green,” she murmured as she leaned close again. Her breath fanned his forehead and he closed his eyes against the sensation.
The blade scraped his neck again.
With his eyes closed, the smell of the soap stung his nostrils. He heard the distant caw of a crow. Still felt the moist warmth of Catherine’s breath on his face.
“Is it the budding leaves on the trees?”
“No.” He barely opened his lips to whisper the answer, not wanting to move and get nicked.
Then she touched him. The barest brush of her fingers beneath his jaw as she guided him to tilt his head.
His eyes flew open.
“The grass?”
“No,” he whispered.
Their eyes connected, though she was upside down in his line of vision. Something tenuous and unfathomable passed between them before her eyes flicked away. “The finch over there.”
“It’s yellow,” he breathed.
When she still hadn’t guessed the moss on the side of a nearby tree, he asked for his boon, “Have you ever had a beau?”
A flush appeared high on her cheeks. “No.”
He did his best to ignore every sensation as she took her turn at the game and stumped him with the gray squirrel playing among the branches of a high tree.
“Are you sparking anyone?” she asked him in return.
He was completely surprised by the question. It was the first personal thing she’d asked him since his arrival.
“I…don’t know.”
There was a long stretch of silence as she shaved the point of his chin. Then, “How can you not know?”
Because as of yesterday, he was confused by the attraction he felt toward Catherine. Since he’d been here, he’d hardly though of Luella at all. And how could he want to fight for her when he was becoming interested in Catherine?
“It’s complicated,” was all he said.
An adorable crinkle appeared between her eyebrows.
“Complicated.”
“Like you and your seed wheat,” he said. “You do have a stockpile, don’t you?”
“If I do, that’s my own business.”
He forced himself not to smile, not wanting to get nicked. She was hiding something, he was almost sure of it. Whether it was grain or not, he didn’t know. But it gave him one more thing to find out about the enigmatic girl he was stuck with. Suddenly, he wasn’t so eager to head home to his family.
*
Catherine used the only unsoiled corner of the towel to wipe the cowboy’s face. “Finished.”
He sat up straight, one hand reaching for his chin as if he was going to check her work before it pulled at his injury and he dropped it to his lap. “Thank you,” he said.
She backed up as he stood, almost unable to tear her eyes from his face. Clean shaven, he was even more handsome. How was that possible?
She was still shaken from the run-in with Ralph. That had to be causing her reaction to the cowboy.
“I’ll return these where they go. Then I’ve got to get to work.” She held up the razor, soap and towel. She was surprised the cowboy had located the razor, tucked back on a high shelf. Pop hadn’t used it in years. The square of homemade soap was the same one they used for household purposes.
He followed her back toward the dugout. She ducked inside and quickly settled the shaving supplies, and emerged back into the sunlight to see the cowboy standing halfway between the soddy and the barn, looking curiously between the two.
“I’d like to help,” he said. “Only, I’m not much for heavy lifting these days.”
“It’s fine.” The less she saw of him, the less he could discombobulate her.
He sighed. “I owe you and your Pop a lot for putting up with me.” There was another pause. “Please.”
She looked away from him, let her eyes go to the horizon. “There are some tools in the barn that need repairing.”
She didn’t particularly want him spending more time in the barn, not after the events of this morning and his curiosity. But her secret was well hidden.
“My brother Ricky is the fixer of the family, but I can give it a try.”
She nodded and made her escape.
Chapter Eight
Matty spent the afternoon sorting out the mess in the shed. With the jumble of broken farm implements mixed
up with odds and ends and some items that were whole, it was hard to tell what pieces went where.
His feelings for Catherine weren’t so easily sorted.
He sneezed yet again as his task disturbed the dust in a cloud. Catherine’s cow mooed its displeasure at him.
It must’ve taken years of collecting to get this much junk accumulated. How did Catherine and Pop find the tools they actually needed?
He finally got the shed emptied, to where he could see the dirt-packed floor. He’d matched up what odds and ends he could and ended up with several hoe heads, a potato planter and malt fork that were in decent shape.
He’d piled the broken implements together. Among them were a scythe, milking stool, washboard, ax and what might be a turnip chopper.
And then odds and ends were spread across the grass. Wood and metal pieces that he couldn’t match to anything else, plenty enough to trip over if he wasn’t careful.
“What’re you doing, thief?”
The growled words from behind him had Matty whirling. He tried to raise his hands in a defensive posture, but pain ripped across his chest at the movement and he couldn’t get them higher than his waist. He was acutely aware of the gun belt that Catherine still hadn’t returned to him.
It was Pop, standing between the house and barn with a frying pan cocked as if he was ready to bean Matty with it.
Matty was fairly sure he could outrun the old man, but he was more concerned with the wild light in Pop’s eye. “Pop, you all right?”
Pop’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”
Mind spinning, Matty eyed the implements on the ground closest to him. He didn’t want to have to defend himself against Pop, but if the older man was so confused that he didn’t recognize Matty, he could be a danger to himself or Catherine if she came upon them suddenly.
“Matty. Remember, I’ve been staying at your place. We went fishing together yesterday.”
“You’re trying to trick me. Whatever you’re thinking to steal, you’d better get offa my land right now. I ain’t got no patience for thieves.”
Matty knew better than to let his guard down; he was frustrated that Pop had surprised him. Things had been peaceful the past several days. Pop hadn’t had any middle-of-the-night episodes and Matty even thought they were on their way to becoming friends after the fishing trip yesterday.
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