She smiled, no doubt amused to see him tangled in his own tongue. “I thought you’d have started on the roof by now,” she said. She shaded her eyes and looked up at the sky, assessing it as if it had something to prove to her. “We’re burning daylight, you know. Breakfast will be ready in half an hour.”
He swallowed hard and finally got past the lump in his throat. “I’ve got the ring,” he said, and produced the small golden band from the pocket of his trousers as proof. It caught the early-morning sunshine as he held it up for her to see, a small and perfect circle, gleaming between his thumb and index finger.
She bent, picked up an egg, inspected it solemnly, frowned, and then threw it. It smacked against the trunk of a nearby birch tree. “You never did lack for confidence,” she observed lightly, without looking at him. Her whole countenance was telling him she’d already lost interest in anything he had to say. “You can take that ring, Trace Qualtrough, and—” Just then, Noah exploded through the cabin doorway, half dressed—and the wrong half, at that—with Skye in pursuit. Bridget straightened to face Trace again. “And give it to someone else.”
“I don’t plan on marrying anybody else,” he rasped. It was a private conversation, and he didn’t want Noah and Skye to overhear. “You’re going to be my wife, and I’m going to be your husband, and that, damn it all to hell, is the end of it!”
Bridget spoke through clenched teeth and a brittle smile. Skye captured Noah and hauled him back inside. “While it may be true, Mr. Qual-trough, that women have few, if any, legal rights in this country, if they can be forced into making wedding vows, I have yet to hear of it!”
He leaned down, caught the fresh-air, green-grass, lantern-smoke scent of her. Indignant as he was at the moment, and he was fit to yell, it was all he could do not to wrench her up onto her toes and kiss her, good and proper. Fact was, he’d wanted to do exactly that ever since she turned thirteen and started pinning her hair up, had even given in to the temptation once. “You’re mighty choosy, it seems to me, for a woman alone in Indian country!” He’d struck his mark, he could see that by the brief widening of her blue eyes, but he wasn’t proud of the victory.
“If you want a wife,” she retorted, for she’d always been one to regroup quickly, “then go into town and find yourself one. Let’s see—there’s Bertha, the storekeeper’s sister. She’s twice your size, has a beard, and speaks nothing but German, but I imagine she can cook. Or maybe you’d like Shandy Wheaton. She’s pockmarked, poor thing, missing a few teeth. But then, you’re pretty enough for the both of you.”
If he hadn’t been standing right at the tips of Bridget’s toes already, he’d have taken another step toward her. “Now, you listen to me. Mitch was the best friend I ever had. I would have died in his place if I’d been given the choice. He asked me to look out for you and Noah, and out here that means marrying you, ornery though you may be. So you might just as well get used to the idea, Bridget: you’ll be wearing this ring before the leaves change colors!”
She glared at him for a long moment. He really thought she was going to slap him, and he would have welcomed the blow, if only because it would break the tension. Instead, she simply turned her back on him and stormed toward the cabin.
He swore under his breath, kicked up a clod of dirt, and went to the creek’s edge, where he crouched to splash water on his face. The wedding band, back in his pocket, seemed to burn right through the fabric of his pants, like a tiny brand. Any sensible man would reclaim his horse, leave what money he had with Bridget, and ride out without looking back, but Trace wasn’t just any man, and where Bridget was concerned, he wasn’t particularly sensible, either.
Still sitting on his haunches beside the stream, skin and hair dripping, he turned his gaze toward the house, squinting against the polished-brass glimmer of the summer sun. I’ve never given up on anything in my life, he told Bridget silently, and I’m not going to start now.
Skye was perched on an upturned crate at the table, which had once been a spool for wire cable, her chin propped in one hand, her eyes misty with dreams. “I’d marry Trace if he asked me,” she said. Bridget hadn’t told her about the ridiculous proposal; she’d evidently been spying. If the child had one besetting sin, it was that: she was a snoop.
“Nonsense. You’re just sixteen—far too young to be a bride.”
“You were only seventeen when you married Mitch.”
“I was—” Bridget’s voice snagged in her throat. I was too young. I had a head full of dreams and fancies. She sighed. I wanted to keep Mitch from going to war.
Fortunately, before Skye could pursue the subject further, Trace rapped at the door and stepped inside without waiting for a by-your-leave. Just like him.
“Mornin’, monkey,” he said, ruffling Skye’s hair. Noah stood a few feet away, watching him shyly, but with a hopeful expression in his eyes that hurt Bridget’s heart. “Hullo, cowboy,” Trace said.
Noah beamed. “Hullo,” he replied in a staunch little voice. “Do you have a horse? You can’t be a cowboy if you don’t got a horse.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Bridget saw Trace’s gaze slide in her direction, glance off again. “No, sir,” he said, squatting down to look into Noah’s face. “I reckon I can’t. Need some cows, too, if you’re going to be particular about it.”
Noah frowned. “We got horses. Two of them. But Mama gets our milk from town, so we don’t have no cows.”
“We don’t have any cows,” Bridget corrected automatically. Perhaps Noah was destined to be raised in the wilderness, with few playmates and little opportunity for culture, but that didn’t mean he had to grow up to be an unlettered ruffian. She had had tutors during her girlhood on the prosperous McQuarry farm, as had Skye and their cousins, Megan and Christy, and she’d saved her school-books, brought them along so she could teach her son to read and write when the time came.
“That’s what I said, Mama,” Noah replied, with an air of worldly patience. “We don’t have no cows.”
Trace laughed and mussed Noah’s hair. Skye grinned, her eyes shining. And Bridget turned her back on all of them and made herself very busy with breakfast.
Trace dragged one arm across his brow and then glanced ruefully at the resultant sweat and grime. There ended the sorry story of his spare shirt; he’d head into town, once he’d finished sawing down and trimming the large cedar tree he’d chosen for roof lumber, and outfit himself with some new clothes. If he didn’t, he’d soon have little choice but to strip himself bare, soap up his duds, and walk around in the altogether until they’d dried. The image made him grin—it was almost worth doing, it would annoy Bridget so much.
Finally, the cedar was ready to come down. After making sure no one was close by, he gave it a hard shove and watched as it fell gracefully to the ground, lushly scented, limbs billowing like a dancer’s skirts. He mourned the tree’s passing for a moment, then set aside the ax, took up a saw with Gideon McQuarry’s initials carved into the handle, and began the pitch-sticky job of cutting away branches.
As he worked, he thought of the old man, Bridget and Skye’s grandfather, and smiled. Gideon had been as much an original creation as Adam in the Garden, a tall, lanky man with eyes that missed very little and a mind that missed even less. Most of the time, his manner had been gruff, even abrupt, and yet there’d been a well of kindness hidden in that crusty old heart. Gideon had taught Trace to ride and shoot, right along with Mitch and later Bridget as well. By that time, Gideon’s beloved wife, Rebecca, had passed on, and his two sons—J.R., Bridget and Skye’s father, and Eli, Megan and Christy’s—had fought a duel over the same mistress and accomplished nothing except to inflict each other with duplicate shoulder wounds and permanently alienate their wives. They’d gone their separate ways that very day, Eli and J.R. had, and Gideon had said he was glad Rebecca hadn’t lived to see her own sons make fools of themselves in front of the whole county. Then he’d wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt and turned his back t
o the road.
Bridget’s mother, Patricia, always given to the vapors, weakened after that and eventually died. Jenny, who was Megan and Christy’s mother, showed more spirit; she hooked up with a rich Englishman, applied for a divorce on grounds of desertion and disgrace, and left Virginia behind forever.
Gideon had grieved anew over that parting, not because of Jenny’s going, for he’d never thought she had much substance to her character on any account, but because he feared he would never see Megan and Christy again. And he’d been right, as it turned out. When Trace had finally returned to Virginia, after a year spent flat on his back in an Atlanta hospital, recovering from a wound that nearly cost him a leg, he’d found Gideon dead and buried beside Rebecca. Eli and J.R. had been there, too, one having died for the Union cause, one for the Confederate. Bridget, long since widowed, had packed up the wagon, according to the neighbors, and headed west to Nevada, bound for a place called Primrose Creek, to claim her and Skye’s share of the land Gideon had left them. The once-thriving farm, home to the McQuarry family since the Revolutionary War, had fallen into the hands of strangers.
Trace stopped swinging the ax to wipe his brow again and was grateful when he saw Skye coming toward him with a bucket and a ladle.
“I thought you might be thirsty,” she said.
He chuckled hoarsely. He was thirsty. He was also relieved to turn his thoughts from the devastation he’d seen in Virginia. With Gideon and Mitch both dead, Bridget gone, and the big house at once forever changed and eternally the same, in his memory at least, it had seemed to him that the whole of creation ought to creak to a halt, like an old wagon wheel in need of greasing. It had been a while before he’d set out to find his best friend’s wife and honor what he considered a sacred promise.
“Thanks,” he said, and took a ladle full of water. He drank that and spilled a second down the back of his neck.
Skye looked as if she were working up her courage for something; he knew that expression. Skye had been tagging along behind him and Bridget and Mitch ever since she could walk. He braced himself.
“If Bridget won’t have you,” she said, all in a rush, “then I will.”
Whatever he’d been expecting the child to say, that hadn’t been it. For a few moments, he just gaped at her, while his mind groped for words that wouldn’t inflict some hidden and maybe lasting wound. “If you were a few years older,” he said, finally, “I’d be glad to take you up on that offer. Time you finish growing up, though, I’ll just be old Trace. You’ll have a dozen fellas singing under your window every night of the year.”
Her lower lip trembled, and her eyes darkened. “You don’t want me,” she accused.
Don’t cry, he pleaded silently. Please, don’t cry. He could not bear it when a female broke down and wept.
“No,” he said, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say. “No, honey, I don’t want you. And if I did, somebody would have to shoot me.”
She bit her lower lip, looked away, looked back with a challenge snapping in her eyes. She had the same passion in her as Bridget did, he thought, the same fire. He could imagine a legion of boys and men warming up for their serenades.
By force of will, he kept himself from grinning at the picture. He took another ladle of water from the bucket, which she’d set at his feet, and drank, watching her over the enamel brim.
Skye put her hands on her hips. “You don’t want to marry Bridget because of any promise to Mitch,” she said. “You’ve loved her all along. Even when your closest friend was courting her. Even when she was his wife—”
“That will be enough,” he interrupted. It wasn’t true. He’d liked Bridget, that was all. And sure, he’d thought she was pretty. But love? He knew better than to fall into a trap like that.
Skye blinked, then thrust out her chin. “I saw you kiss her, the day before the wedding, in the kitchen garden.”
He couldn’t refute that charge; he hadn’t known anyone else was around, and neither had Bridget. He’d kissed her, all right, and she’d kissed him back, and he wondered if she remembered. Though an excuse came readily to mind, that he’d merely been wishing Bridget a lifetime of happiness on the eve of her marriage to his friend, he didn’t offer it. He would have choked on the first word, because he’d meant to do exactly what he did. To this day, he didn’t know what had possessed him.
Suddenly, tears glistened in Skye’s lashes, and she thrust out a disgusted sigh. “I’m sorry,” she told him, and put a hand briefly to her mouth. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“You shouldn’t have been sneaking around eavesdropping on people, either,” Trace pointed out.
“I was only twelve, for heaven’s sake.”
He chuckled.
She slumped a little. “I don’t know what gets into me sometimes.”
He pushed a dark curl back from her cheek, where it had gotten itself stuck in a stray tear. “I reckon it’s all pretty normal,” he said gently. “The time’ll come, sweetheart, when you’ll turn red to think of asking me to marry you, if you remember it at all.”
She went ahead and blushed right then. “I’m already embarrassed,” she said, and sat down on a nearby tree stump. “You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?”
“Our secret,” he promised.
She was visibly relieved, and her smile was tremulous and beautiful, like sunshine after a thunderstorm or candlelight flickering in the dark. “You’re a good man. Why doesn’t Bridget see that?”
“She’ll come around,” he said.
“Do you love her?”
Trace wondered if a tactful McQuarry had ever drawn breath. He doubted it. “I feel something. Maybe it’s friendship. Maybe it’s regret, because she lost a husband and I lost a good friend. Whatever it is, I reckon it might grow into love, given enough time.”
Skye plunked her knobby elbows on her knobby knees and rested her chin in both palms, regarding him carefully. “Bridget cried, you know. After you kissed her that day in Grandma’s garden, and she sent you away, she sat down on that old stone bench and cried till I thought I’d have to let on that I was watching and put my arm around her or something. Then Granddaddy caught me looking and pulled me back into the house by my ear. He told me that eavesdroppers always hear ill of themselves, and I had to help Caney peel potatoes all afternoon.” Caney Blue was the family cook; she, too, had been gone when Trace got back to Virginia. To that day, he thought of the spirited black woman whenever he came within smelling distance of hot apple pie.
“He was quite a man, your grandfather.”
Skye sighed. “I miss him so much. He was more like a daddy than Daddy ever was.”
“I know,” Trace answered gently. Gideon had been a father to him as well, in all the most important ways.
“You know what he was trying to do, don’t you? Leaving half this land to Bridget and me and half to Christy and Megan?”
Trace nodded. “It was the greatest sorrow of his life, except for losing your grandmother, to see his family torn apart the way it was. You and Bridget and Christy and Megan have the same blood in your veins, whatever your differences might be. Gideon wanted the four of you to patch things up and get on with your lives, so he left you this land, probably figuring you’d have to get along if you were neighbors.”
Skye nodded, but a melancholy aspect had overtaken her. “I don’t reckon our cousins will ever come back from England. They’ve probably got all sorts of beaus and pretty dresses and hair ribbons.” She paused, sighed dramatically. “I bet they go dancing every single night.”
Trace allowed himself only the slightest smile. “Is that the sort of life you’d like to live, monkey?”
She pondered the question. “Sometimes I think it is,” she confessed. Then she shrugged. “Other times, I just figure I want to stay right here forever.” She took in the incredible vista of mountains and timber by spreading her arms, as if to embrace it all. “This place is beautiful, don’t you think?”
&nbs
p; It wasn’t gentle, rolling Virginia, but Nevada had a magnificence all its own. It was a new place, made for a new beginning. “Yes,” he said, and meant it. “This is as fine a land as God ever turned His hand to.”
Quicksilver—with Bridget-like speed—Skye’s agile mind careened off in another direction. “We didn’t even know Granddaddy owned these twenty-five hundred acres.”
Trace thought back. “I don’t recall that he ever mentioned the place.”
“The lawyer said he got them when an old friend defaulted on a debt. I guess that cabin we’re living in now must have belonged to that poor man, whoever he was.” She stood, with a resigned sigh, and smoothed her skirts. “I’d better get back. Bridget wants to work with the horse, and I promised to look after Noah so he won’t try to help.”
Trace had bent to put the ladle back in the bucket, and he was reaching for the ax handle when Skye’s announcement stopped him in mid-motion. “What did you say?”
“I said—”
“Not the stallion,” he said quickly. Damn, he should have warned them. He should have told them that Sentinel had been mistreated by his last owner, that he had injured at least half a dozen seasoned cowboys, that only he, Trace, had managed to win the animal’s trust. “She wouldn’t try to work with the stallion?”
“Sure she would,” said Skye, sounding baffled by the question. “Why would she want to train Sis? She’s been riding that mare ever since Granddaddy gave it to her for her fifteenth birthday.”
Trace was already running toward the house, his mind full of bloody, broken-bone images, leaping over fallen logs, nearly landing on his face when he caught the toe of one boot under a root, and half deafened by the sound of his own heartbeat drumming in his ears. Sentinel was a fine horse, the best, but he was dangerous and bad-tempered, too. That was surely why those thieving Paiutes had been willing to trade the critter for a pair of worn-out oxen; they hadn’t been able to tame him, either. And if a pack of Indians, every one of them riding from the time they could hold on to a horse’s mane, couldn’t break the paint to ride, Bridget certainly wouldn’t be able to do it.
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