“Pa, did you have a good day?” Wade talked pleasantly, quietly. Abby doubted if Mort heard him. She also doubted that Wade cared if his pa heard him. “I took a ride after church. Abby ‘n’ I needed some time alone. With the roundup over and the men free on Sunday, it was the perfect time.”
“Sundays free, bunch of nonsense.” Mort rolled his chair forward.
Abby heard the gentle rolling of the wheels on wood as Wade dragged her into the kitchen. Gertie was pulling a roast out of the oven.
Wade was planning to widen a few doorways so Mort could get around more easily. Abby was tempted to ask if he could narrow a few of them so she’d have a place to escape.
Wade dropped Abby’s hand and rushed forward. With a quick grab for a thick towel, Wade protected his hands then relieved Gertie of the massive roasting pan. Abby had to admit that growing the cattle and keeping them nearby was far handier than going hunting. Except of course Wade had spent nearly every waking moment since he’d been home working with his cows, so how much easier was it, really?
Wade slid the black pan, with its domed lid, onto the top of the massive iron oven. He pulled off the lid, and a faint sizzle got louder. Steam that smelled like a lovely dream billowed from the pan.
Abby realized she hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and now the sun was low in the sky. “Did you expect us for the noon meal, Gertie? I never thought of discussing it with you.”
“No, Wade said you might be late. If he could get your brother to go away.”
“Oh, he did, did he?” Abby’s head swiveled to look Wade in the eye. He’d planned their little afternoon ride, then. Most likely with the intent of stealing a kiss. The truth was Abby had never been touched by a man in such a way. Wild Eagle had walked with her, but they had been mindful of the proper distance between an unmarried man and woman. Wade had no such consideration. Or rather, he’d spoken of propriety then ignored his own dictates.
“He never mentioned it to me until after church.”
Wade helped Gertie get the roast and vegetables out of the pot, and Gertie went to work turning the drippings into her wonderful gravy. Abby knew she should try to learn how Gertie made that delicious concoction, but it was hard. She’d tried once and nearly destroyed the meal. Quitting seemed wiser, but Gertie said she needed to learn.
Wade was taking a deep breath, bent over the meat, inhaling the savory smell. He straightened and grinned at Abby, unrepentant. “I didn’t think you’d go, and I had almost no hope of running off your leech of a brother.”
Mort bumped into Abby with his chair.
Startled, Abby jumped out of the way.
“Pa, you’re a menace with that thing. If you don’t be careful, I’m going to hang a bell on it so we hear you coming.” Wade stepped to Abby’s side, gently caught her upper arm, and pulled her out of the doorway when Abby would have preferred to snarl at the rude old man.
She wondered if their talk at the Griffin place had taken root. Wade exchanged a look with her and she knew he was thinking the same thing—how to handle Mort.
Abby gave him a barely perceptible shrug. The decision had to be Wade’s. She would have been crushed to her soul if either of her fathers had spoken to her the way Mort spoke to Wade.
Abby saw sorrow in Wade’s green eyes as if he pitied his father. Pity she could maybe manage. But never would she allow this old man to run roughshod over her.
Mort rolled to the head of the table then slammed his fist so hard a glass on the table toppled over. “Get supper on the table, Gertie. I’m hungry.”
Gertie began bustling around.
Wade went to a cupboard on one side of the sink and took plates out.
Abby reached for her knife.
Looking over his shoulder, Wade caught her eye and winked at her, as if he knew she wanted to attack.
That calmed her for some reason. She went to the cupboard, shoved Wade aside, and took over his job.
Wade laid out the heavy pottery plates carelessly, noisily, then went to the side of the table closest to the wall, around the corner from Mort’s left hand, and sat. Once he was settled, he turned to his father. “Pa, do you want me to stay on here?”
Turning with her hands full of silverware, Abby looked from Wade to Mort, bracing for a flood of cruel words.
Mort, busy centering his plate, froze. Then slowly his eyes went to Wade. “I don’t—”
“I know what you’re going to say.” Lifting a hand, Wade stopped his father with a motion. “You don’t need anyone, least of all me. You are ashamed to call me your son. I’m a coward, I’m lazy, I’m clumsy.” Wade said the words in a singsong chant as if they bored him to death. “What else, Pa? I’ve heard it all before.”
“You’ve never been—”
“Know this, Mort Sawyer”—Wade cut him off with a hard voice Abby had never heard before—“I am ready to leave. I don’t suppose I’ve convinced her yet, but I have hopes of persuading Abby to marry me.”
“Marry her?” Mort’s white brows arched to his hairline.
“Marry me?” Abby set the cups on the table with a sharp click of glass on wood, the fistful of forks clattering against them.
“You’re getting married?” Gertie set a platter on the table, heavy with roast beef, ringed with bright carrots and white potatoes and whole baby onions.
“Like I said, she hasn’t agreed yet.”
“That is an understatement.” Abby crossed her arms and glared. “In fact, I’ve told you—”
Wade cut her off. “Whether or not I can convince you doesn’t change the fact that Pa treats you terribly.”
“He treats everyone terribly. I’d feel left out if he was nice to me.”
“I don’t treat anyone terribly. If you’d all act right, I wouldn’t have to say a word.”
Wade snorted.
Abby exchanged a dark look with Gertie.
“I can put up with a lot, Pa, because I see it as my Christian duty to honor you. For me, that means not letting you waste away in your bed for the last few pitiful months of your life stewing in hate.”
“Now, Wade, Mort’s getting better.” Gertie put a bowl of gravy on the table then helped spread the utensils and glasses.
Abby chipped in setting the table.
Even Mort pulled his glass and silverware into place.
“Well, that’s the problem, Gertie.”
“What?” Mort roared. “Me getting better is the problem?”
With a kind expression completely at odds with his words, Wade said, “If you were going to linger a bit then die, I’d stay on for sure. Least I could do.”
“Wade, shame on you.” Gertie fetched a loaf of bread, still warm from the oven, and set it on a breadboard next to the roast. She added a tub of butter and a pitcher of milk.
“But since you seem to be surviving pretty nicely, and in fact it looks like you could live ten more years, I’m not going to stay on”—suddenly Wade’s calm voice began to darken as his pleasant expression faded to grim anger—“if you don’t find a way to get a civil tongue in your head and treat Abby and me with some respect! I’m not going to put up with it!” Shouting, he pressed both hands flat on the table and pushed himself up from his chair.
“You’ve been a tyrant all your life. I’ve talked with you about my faith and you’ve thrown it in my face. So fine, make that choice, cut yourself off from God. But do not think for one moment”—Wade slammed his fist on the table—“I’m going to live my life with your hate and spite! Decide now, Pa.” Wade’s hand slashed only inches from Mort’s face. “Right now. A man with no self-control is a weakling. So have you got any control over your mouth or not?”
Silence reigned in the kitchen.
Wade breathed as if he’d just completed a long race up a mountainside. His eyes flashed with angry fire.
For the first time, Abby saw a man she’d think twice—or three times—about making angry.
Wade’s breathing slowed, and he lowered himself to his chair. W
ith a huge, razor-sharp knife, he began carving the roast.
For a while Mort was frozen, his face beet red. Mort’s eyes, as green as his son’s, locked on Wade’s and they held in a battle of wills. Abby suspected Mort had a thousand horrible things to say, but Wade’s crack about his being a weakling had obviously started a war in the old man. Finally, Mort ate in sullen silence.
No one spoke a word through the entire tense supper except an occasional “Pass the bread” or something else necessary to complete the meal.
As they finished Gertie’s hot apple crisp, swimming in cream, Wade finally spoke. “It’ll do no good to give me an answer, Pa. Your promises mean nothing even if you could bring yourself to make them. The next time you’re deliberately unkind to me or Abby, or Gertie for that matter, I’m leaving. Chester is a good foreman. You’ll be fine without me.” Wade rose from the table and began gathering the dishes.
As he slipped past Gertie at the foot of the table, Mort spoke. “You’re right.” Mort sounded tired and defeated.
Wade turned, a wary look in his eyes. If his father had threatened him, he wouldn’t have flinched, but Abby thought Wade actually looked a little scared of this version of his father.
Abby had certainly never heard this tone. From his reaction, Abby guessed Wade had never heard it either.
“I’ll try. That’s the best I can do.” Mort’s hands gripped the arms of his wheelchair until his knuckles turned white.
Abby held her breath. She’d never expected Mort to give an inch. She still didn’t really believe he would admit he was wrong about anything.
“I’ve been wrong about everything. You’ve done a good job with this ranch since you’ve been back. I’ll watch my mouth, and you can take over the ranch I broke my back building out of nothing.” Mort jerked the wheels backward to roll away from the table. “While I wither up and die in my room.” Mort nearly ran over Abby as he left the room.
Good survival instincts served Abby well as she stood and pulled her chair out of the way for Mort’s exit. She watched him leave, and then her gaze went to Wade’s. “Maybe you should go after him?”
The door to Mort’s bedroom slammed so hard Wade’s Stetson fell off the elk antlers by the back door.
“Better let him cool off.” Gertie looked after Mort, regret plain on her face. “You were pretty hard on him, Wade.”
“Yeah, and he’s been pretty hard on me all my life, and you, too, Gertie. Why’d you put up with it all these years?”
A frown turned down the corners of her mouth, and from the lines on her aging face, Abby was sure frowning was something Gertie had done a lot in her life. Why had Gertie stayed? Why had she put up with Mort’s vicious temper?
“I stayed to protect you.” Gertie’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I knew how he was to you, but I couldn’t stop him. But I could be here and comfort you after it was over.”
Wade looked at Gertie in silence.
The silence was too much for Abby. “You couldn’t stop him? Why not? Did he hit you, too?”
“No, he’s never laid a hand on me. Oh, I got the same yelling as everyone else…but never a fist.”
“Well, I’d say you did a poor job of protecting Wade if that was your goal.”
Wade gasped. “Abby, Gertie was always good to me. No one could control Pa.”
“Two adults in a household.” Abby sniffed. She liked Gertie, but the woman had failed Wade just as Mort had. “One of them an abusive tyrant, the other a kind and decent woman who stands by while the tyrant beats a child. You could make a case that the tyrant is out of control, even crazy. But the decent adult has no such excuse. To me, that makes the one who stands by more evil than the one who swings his fist.”
Gertie lifted her chin and glared at Abby. The kindness that was usually there had vanished. “I did the best I could.”
“She wasn’t to blame.” Wade set his plate down as if he needed his hands free to defend Gertie from Abby’s unkind truth.
“The best? The best you could do is cower in the kitchen and come out with hugs and sympathy afterward? A true defender would throw herself between the child and the tyrant.”
Gertie turned her face aside as if Abby had slapped her. “I was too afraid to protect the closest thing I’ll ever have to a son. You’re right.”
“Being right in a family of whites isn’t hard.” Abby stepped away from the table and turned her eyes on Wade. “I can’t sleep in this house of grief and anger tonight. I can’t even breathe. I need the wind blowing to cool my body and the night sounds to soothe me to sleep.”
“It’s not safe out there, Ab.”
“And it’s safe in here? This home is a haven from danger? I don’t think so, Wade. All the danger is locked inside with you. Your father built a fortress to keep happiness out.”
“Now, Abby, just settle down and we’ll talk about this.”
“The time for talking is past.” Abby turned toward the door.
“Don’t go out.” Wade rushed across the room and literally threw himself in front of Abby, blocking her from the door.
“Get out of my way.”
“Calm down. It’s dark and damp. Don’t just go storming off. We’ll talk this through like two reasonable adults.”
“You want to talk, you come outside.”
“No.” Wade got a stubborn look on his face that reminded Abby of how he’d stood up to his father. “You stay in. You don’t get to win all the fights, Abby. A man is to be the head of the house. The Bible says so. You’re going to mind me, and that’s the end of it.”
It was a lovely night for a walk in the woods. And Wade knew he was going for one when Abby snarled at him, dodged past him as spry as a mountain goat, and slammed the door on her way out.
He had to go after her, but first he needed to comfort poor Gertie. “She’s wrong.”
Shaking her head, tears welling in her eyes, Gertie said, “Maybe. I did what I was able to do for you, Wade. But we both know it wasn’t enough. I was a coward. I still am one.” Gertie turned and left the kitchen.
Wade was left alone. The silence was so profound he could hear his heart beat in his chest.
They’d all left him. It came to Wade then that he’d been alone all of his life. His pa had never been with him, not in any sense of affection or support.
Gertie’s arms had comforted him, but only when it was too late.
Now here was Abby, a woman he wanted to marry and bring into his home, into his heart. She didn’t want him, either.
Oh, she was drawn to him. Wade was sure of that. But it was against her will. If he married her, would her untamed ways just be another kind of loneliness? If he did convince her to marry him, would he spend his life bending to her will? Was that God’s vision of a good marriage? His trying to keep her happy, hoping and praying she wouldn’t dash off into the night and return to the life she loved far more than she would ever love him? Leaving him alone again.
She’d just this minute made that choice, and now she was in danger. There were dangerous beasts, four-legged and two-legged, outside this house. He’d lived in fair harmony through the winter out there, with a mountain and the bitter cold seemingly bent on killing him five times a day. He’d liked the barren life. The time with his Bible had been good for his soul.
And now he was back with Pa and Gertie and more confused than ever. Not about his faith. He needed the comfort of God more than he needed his heart to take its next beat. But what was he supposed to do with his life? What did God want for him?
Wade walked to the door and went out onto the back step, now a ramp sloping down to ground level on the left and a section that went straight ahead for several feet so Pa could roll right onto the buckboard. Wade went to the end of that section and sat down, his legs swinging, staring out into the night.
He prayed.
As the silence of the night embraced him, he saw a light in the bunkhouse and another in the foreman’s cabin. Everyone was abed for the night…or would
be soon. Except Abby, his Glowing Sun, who was no doubt using that confounded knife of hers to kill and skin a buck so she could build her own house.
He was an idiot to hunt for her. She was tougher than he was by far. Yes, she’d been caught by white men, twice. So she wasn’t invincible. She’d been kidnapped once last year when Wade had found her while on his way to help Belle Tanner—it had still been Tanner back then, before she’d married Silas—with her cattle drive and once this spring.
But the honest truth was she’d been running from the first men, already free, and she’d been slashing away at the second man. She’d saved herself both times before Wade ever got there.
Dew had formed on the ground, and he could see footprints leading around the house as clearly as if they’d been outlined by lantern light. With a sigh, he followed them. He’d just talk to her. Find where she was sleeping.
She’d said, “All the danger is locked inside with you. Your father built a fortress to keep happiness out.” He looked at the house he was right now rounding and knew she was right. He could never ask her to live in this house. So he’d make sure she knew he was ready to leave. To live anywhere as long as she was with him.
Shoving his hands in his pockets, he followed her trail toward a wooded area to the north of the house, hoping she’d just gone in there to fume and cool down. He stepped into the woods and felt an arm go around his neck and a pointed blade jab into his neck.
Either someone was trying to kill him, or…he’d found his woman.
Or both.
“Go back inside.” Abby needed some peace. She needed time to think.
“I was hoping that was you, Ab.” Wade’s voice worked, just barely, through her hold. He didn’t try to escape. In fact, after they’d stood there a few seconds, the grip she had on him seemed less like an attack and more like she’d grabbed him to give a hug.
A hug with a knife involved, but still—
“I meant it when I said I wouldn’t sleep in there tonight.”
“Okay, I’m not going to try and argue. I just wanted to know where you were going to stay. I want you to be safe.”
“As if I was safe inside.” With a sniff of disgust, Abby let him go, sorry she’d ever touched him. Her arm was warm where it had wound around his throat. Holding her knife felt foolish. She would never harm Wade. Never.
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