“Not exactly. Well, yes, but,” Lucas paused, “it’s not for me.” Lucas smiled awkwardly. “See it’s—”
“Of course, not. It’s for your ranch. Your father and brothers.” Granddad scratched his jawline with the back of his fingers.
“Yes, but I’m not the one—”
“Mmmmhmmmm,” Granddad said, disbelievingly as he raised a brow, his lips protruding slightly, as he bobbed his head. “We’ll just let that sit for a bit. Now, tell me everything. I want to hear about you and your brothers.” He pushed his chair away from the table and leaned back, arms folded. “How is that stubborn son of mine?” He fired out one question right after another.
Lucas stared at his granddad a long while before answering. How could he fill the man in on everything in their lives in just one conversation?
I can’t, he relented. But, God willing, we’ll have a lifetime to catch up.
So much had happened. Where did he begin?
“Mama ran off a long time ago.”
“I’d heard that.” Granddad undid the top button on his shirt and pulled the collar away from his neck. “I always did think she was too big for her britches. Sorry, son. I know that must have been hard on you boys.”
“It’s simple really and, like I said before, it was a long time ago.” He shrugged. “She was given an opportunity and she took it. Singing on a stage in Chicago. She never looked back.”
“And you haven’t heard from or seen her since?”
“Nope. Not interested. She made her choice and we’ve learned to live with it.” He picked up his mug and sipped down the last of his hot chocolate. The cup tinged against the wood when he set it back down on the table. “And then Henry...” Lucas paused, checking the emotion in his voice. “Henry died, Granddad. Last year.”
His grandfather’s expression turned solemn and his jaw flexed with emotion. He swallowed hard. “Your Aunt Leah told me it was an accident.” He turned back to the table and rested his elbows on its top. “Those wild mustangs, for all their beauty and spirit, can be downright devilish. I ought to know.” He turned to look at Lucas and raised a brow. “Been thrown from enough of ‘em.”
“You break mustangs?” Lucas wasn’t sure why that surprised him, but it gave him a higher appreciation for the aging man. “I didn’t remember that about you, Granddad. Honestly, I don’t remember much about any of this.” Lucas pointed out the window with a nudge of his chin.
“I don’t ride much anymore. I’m getting on in years, but don’t let anyone know I’ve admitted that. I leave the wild ones to Hank, Sam, and their boys. A man could get himself killed if he’s not careful.” His eyes widened immediately as if realizing the mistake in his words. “Forgive an old man his thoughtlessness, son.”
Lucas stole a glance at Lucy. She was busy ladling stew into bowls, careful to avoid his gaze.
“He didn’t suffer,” he said with the shake of his head, “but it hit us all pretty hard.”
Silence passed between them again for a short time.
“Well, he’s with the good Lord now.” He patted Lucas on the hand. “I’ve got a confession to make, son.”
Cough.
Lucy raised her head to look at them, her eyebrows scrunched together and her ear turned slightly toward them.
Granddad leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and dropped his head.
Lucas sat up straight and narrowed his eyes.
“I know about Markham and the offer he’s made your father.”
Lucas wasn’t sure what he had expected the man to say, but that was not it. He furrowed his brow. “How could you possibly know about that?”
“You don’t get to be where I’m at without learning a few tricks,” he said, raising his head to look at Lucas. “After my Leah sent word about Henry, I wrote to a friend of mine in Oregon, who filled me in on your predicament. Of course, I knew that your father would never accept my help, so I made a purchase on his behalf. With his money. It was an offer Mr. Markham could not refuse.”
Granddad pushed off his knees and leaned back against the chair. His face was flushed. His eyes glassy.
Lucy quickly pumped a glass of water and rushed toward them. “Liam, you look like you are feeling ill. Is everything all right?” It was as if she could sense that something was wrong. She set the drink on the table in front of his grandfather—concern evident on her brow.
“Just a little warm now is all. Thank you, Lucy Mae.” He lifted the glass to her and took a large gulp. “Maybe we should go for a little walk.”
Lucy shot a look at Lucas that betrayed her worry. A storm raged outside. They would not be going for a walk.
“The paperwork for the herd is being drawn up as we speak. It now belongs to your family. It was paid for out of a portion of your father’s estate. The money he left behind.” Granddad laughed, then coughed. “You said before that Noah has hired on with Markham. Well, when he heads for home, he’ll do so with a full herd and the drovers to help him get them there.”
Lucas didn’t know what to say—something that had never been much of a problem at home, much to Jonah’s chagrin. But here, it seemed almost commonplace.
“It’s done? The herd’s been paid for?”
Granddad nodded.
“I know you’ve already got a full crew, but I’m a real hard worker and have been working the horse ranch near my whole life.”
“What are you talking about, Lucas?”
“I can work off our debt.”
“Haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve said? It wasn’t my money to pay back. It rightfully belongs to your father. I just helped him spend it.” Granddad guffawed, which quickly turned to a bellowing cough.
Lucas frowned as he patted his grandfather on the back. “I listened. It’s just more than I possibly could have expected.”
Liam tsked. “It must have been hard on you boys. Growing up without a mother.”
Lucas nodded. “Or a grandfather.”
“Ha,” Granddad chuckled. “You’re straightforward, kid. I like that.” Cough. “Now, let me be straight with you.” He reached out and took Lucy by the hand and pulled her close to him as he spoke to Lucas. “I want you to stay at Whisper Ridge. I’ve missed out on too many years to lose you again. I want to know my grandsons. I understand you not wanting to get married, what with your mama the way she is and all, but Lucy needs a good man. A Deardon man.”
Why didn’t I bring Noah?
Chapter Seven
“Liam, please.” Lucy’s heart pounded heavily in her chest. It was one thing to agree to marry a stranger after exchanging dozens of letters through the mail, but quite another to be pawned off on a reluctant groom. “I told you. I want to do it right this time. I want to fall in love.”
“You want a husband, don’t you, girl? Babies?”
Heat flooded Lucy’s face. She couldn’t look at Lucas for fear of the rejection she would see there. “Of course, but not like this.” She knew Liam felt responsible for her, but he’d already given her a home and had seen to it that she’d learned what she needed to survive a life in the west. That was enough.
“Let’s get one thing straight in all of this,” Lucas looked between them, “I am not ready to get married. To anyone.” He met her gaze fully with a raised brow. “No matter how pretty…or perfect she might be.”
Lucy’s cheeks burned. She did not want to be the first one to look away, but heaven help her, if she kept staring at him, she might forget her place.
Why does he have to be so handsome?
Cough. Cough. Liam’s cough was getting worse by the minute.
Lucy broke contact to look at the man who’d become like a father to her.
Something’s wrong.
His heavily lidded eyes shone like glass.
“Your father left,” Liam said simply. “I thought I...I would give him some time to blow off steam, but...but he never came back. I didn’t believe he would deprive his children of their grandfather.” His face g
rew increasingly red and his skin had developed a tight sheen. “I was...wrong,” he whispered.
“Liam?”
Knock. Knock.
The back door opened and a dozen ranch hands came in, collected a bowl of vittles, and with nary a tip of their hats, retreated to the bunkhouse to eat their hot meal. She wondered why it had taken them so long to come in after they’d returned, but guessed after being out in the weather, they’d all had to change.
She looked back at Liam. “What exactly happened out there?” she demanded.
“It’s nothing, Lucy. I’m just more tired than I thought. Don’t you worry none.” He grabbed the glass she’d brought over earlier and guzzled the rest of it down as if it contained something a little more spirited.
She shot a questioning glance at Lucas.
“We lost the water tower. He didn’t get hurt, but he was caught up in the runoff and drenched in the icy water.”
“I’m fine. I think I’ll just go sit in my favorite chair and read for a spell.” Liam pushed himself out of his wooden seat and pulled one of the already lit lanterns from the collection of lights overhead and started for the living area.
He only got a few steps before he collapsed onto the floor. The lantern shattered and one of the small floor rugs caught fire. Lucas picked up the woven carpet and beat the edges together until the flames had been extinguished.
“Liam!” Lucy screamed as she rushed to him, knelt down at his side, and shook his shoulders as well as she could from her position. She lifted his head and patted his face. “Liam. Wake up.”
Cough. Cough. Cough.
She put a hand against Liam’s forehead. “He’s burning up.”
He moaned, but didn’t appear able to lift his head on his own.
Lucas picked Lucy up by the shoulders and set her aside, then crouched down, gathered his grandfather into his arms, and headed for the door.
“What are you doing?” Her breathing grew ragged, her heart raced. “What are you doing?” she demanded again as she followed him out into the near blizzard of a storm.
Lucas pushed through the gate at the front of the house where grass normally grew. He laid Liam on the ground and began to scoop snow on top of him. He covered his arms, his neck, his head, everywhere but his face.
“Stop it!” she screamed as she pulled hard at his arm and shoulder.
“Ahhhhh!” Lucas cried out in pain, startling her enough that she took a step back from him.
“Please stop,” she pleaded. What else could she say?
Please, God, make him stop.
“Go back in the house!” Lucas demanded loud enough to be heard above the deafening wind, but he continued to cover his grandfather until he was completely buried in the cold, packed snow.
Once Lucas stood up and backed away from Liam, she rushed toward him, but Lucas grabbed her and pulled her into his embrace. She pounded against him and writhed as if her life, or Liam’s, depended on it.
“Shhhhh,” he whispered against her hair, causing a stream of melting snow to trail the back of her head and down her neck.
She shivered.
“We have to break the fever. This is the fastest way I know.” His lips touched the top of her head with a comforting kiss.
His words made sense, but it took a moment before she could allow herself to relax against this stranger who had come into their lives in a whirlwind. It pained her to see Liam this way.
“Let’s get you inside by the warmth of the hearth fire and I will sit with him for as long as it takes. You’ll need to keep the fire stoked,” he instructed, “and be ready with warm blankets and dry clothes. When his fever finally submits, he’ll sweat it out and in order to keep him from catching a chill, we’ll need to dry him quickly and keep him warm.”
She didn’t want to move, couldn’t stand the thought of leaving Liam on the ground in the snow, even for a moment. Lucas finally let go of her, but she stayed, despite the growing chill that triggered an involuntary shudder to cascade from her shoulders downward.
“Either you go of your own volition or I’ll carry you back in the house over my shoulder.” Lucas’s warning was firm, but not unkind. His face, determined.
I believe he would.
She stood her ground a moment longer, but when he started toward her, she held up her hands and turned for the house.
Although Lucas was a Deardon, he was still a perfect stranger. She glanced back at him.
Can I trust him?
All she had left was hope.
Yes, she determined, I believe I can. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t wire for the good doctor. She picked up her skirt and headed inside.
Chapter Eight
Lucas rubbed his bare hands together and brought them up to his mouth, his breath providing momentary warmth against the chilly winter’s eve. He looked down at the man lying still in the mound of snow at his feet, wanting desperately to take away his pain. He hadn’t left his granddad’s side for the better part of half an hour, watching, waiting for any sign that the fever had broken. There was still so much to say. To hear. To repair.
Whoosh!
A fierce gust of wind racked the boarded windows on the barn and the shutters on the house shook. Beads of sweat finally appeared on Liam’s forehead.
Lucas jumped up off the milking stool he had retrieved from the barn and without taking the time to brush the snow from his grandfather, he shoved his arms beneath the old man’s ailing body and heaved him upward. When he reached the back door, it flung open wide.
Lucy had been watching from the window.
“In here,” she instructed.
He followed her into the house, down the hallway, and up the stairs to a spacious room with an enormous bed in the center and a hearth on one side, aglow with a roaring fire. She folded back the bedding, handed him a man’s dry night shirt and a large towel. By their feel, she had taken great care to warm them by the fire. She turned around to face the stone fireplace.
Lucas gently laid his grandfather down on the bed, leaning him up against several pillows that had been recently fluffed. He hastily tugged the man’s clothing from his cold, wet body and replaced them with the dry, striped night garment. Once Liam was tucked nicely between the sheets, Lucy handed Lucas a cream-colored linen bundle.
“I also heated some rocks in the fire. I thought they might help to keep the bedding warm.”
Lucas lifted the blankets at the foot of the bed and inserted the toasty package.
“Thank you.” Those two little words had been extremely hard to voice with his throat so swollen with emotion. He didn’t trust himself to say more.
“Where is he?” the sound of a man’s voice carried up from the bottom of the stairs.
Lucy rushed to the door. “We’re in here, Doc.”
It wasn’t long before a short little man appeared in the doorway and removed his snow covered hat, tossing it into a large chair in the corner of the room, as he hurried to Liam’s side. He placed the back of his hand against the sick man’s forehead and breathed out a sigh that sounded much like relief.
“I thought you said he was burning up, Miss Lucy.” The doctor pulled a metal stethoscope from his black bag, placing the buds into his ears and the flat, round side against his grandfather’s chest. “He’s scarcely a fever.”
Lucas had seen a similar listening instrument when the vet had come to check on the horses back home at the ranch. He didn’t need any tools to tell him how fast his own heart was beating.
“Mr. Deardon here,” Lucy stepped toward the physician, pointing to Lucas, “packed him in a mound of snow out back to cool him down.”
The doctor shot a look that measured the length of him. “Deardon, huh?” he asked as he returned his focus to the patient.
“Yes, sir. I’m his grandson. Lucas.”
“Ah...Gabe’s kid?”
“Yes, sir.”
It still surprised Lucas how everyone seemed to remember his father, even though they’d
been gone for many years. The folks around Thistleberry all seemed to have lived there a long time.
“Wasn’t sure we’d see any of you back around these parts after everything that happened.” The doc looked up over the end of his nose. “He here?”
And they all know everybody else’s business.
“No, sir. We have a ranch over in Oregon territory. He and my brother, Jonah, are handling our affairs there.”
“Oregon Territory?” The doc wrapped up his medical instrument and returned it to his bag. “That’s a might cry from here, son.”
“Yes, sir.”
Liam coughed again, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.
“He takes after his granddad, don’t ya think, Thomas?” Liam’s voice was low and scratchy.
Lucas snapped his head toward the bed. His granddad’s lips looked dry and cracked, but his eyes fluttered open and he blinked a few times before they stayed that way.
“Good lookin’ boy, ain’t he?”
The doctor laughed and shook his head. “You’re as stubborn as they come, Deardon.” The doc leaned over him, gently pulling at the skin below his eyes and looking them over. “Your grandson, Gabe’s boy I hear,” he reached up and patted him on the shoulder, “done real good burying you in that snow out there. Saved your life, if you ask me.”
An odd sense of pride seemed to work its way to the surface and relief washed over Lucas. He hadn’t known what else to do, but he’d seen the doctor back home pack ice around a child with a fever and had prayed it would work.
Thank you.
“If Liam’s fever was still as bad as Lucy said it was,” the doc said to Lucas, “he certainly wouldn’t be awake right now, let alone talking, if you hadn’t been so quick thinking.”
Lucy raised a large pitcher and poured some water into a tin cup and set it down on the night table. She wiggled her way in front of Lucas and gingerly lay down across his granddad’s chest.
The Deardons Complete Mini-Series Page 13