“You know what the best thing is about owning land?” Joseph Van Meter said as he stretched out his legs and sank into the large porch swing.
The woman next to Joseph was curled up with her legs tucked underneath her body. Shoulder-length blonde hair fell in tight curls around her face as she tried to find the spot in the distance that had captured her husband’s attention. “I give up,” she said. “What is it?”
“Enjoying the quiet nights with nobody around to mess them up.”
“You mean nobody except for me and the kids?”
“You three don’t count.”
She leaned away from him and gave Joseph a good smack on the chest with the flat of her hand. “We don’t count?”
Joseph put on a grin that was almost hidden by the beard on his face. “You know what I mean. You don’t count when I’m talking about other folks.”
“Is that good or bad?”
Joseph snaked one arm around her waist and muscled her onto his lap. He easily positioned her so she was lying across his lap and one of his hands could work its way beneath her skirts. “That’s a good thing, Anne. It means you and the kids aren’t like the idiots in town or all those loud cowboys who storm through here like a pack of dogs.”
“If I remember correctly,” she said, squirming and trying halfheartedly to keep his hand from getting much farther, “you were one of those cowboys not too long ago. In fact, I thought you were handsome back then.”
“Just back then?”
Anne took her hand away from his roaming touch and used it to brush her fingers along Joseph’s chin. “You know what I mean,” she said, adjusting herself so her husband could get a good feel of whatever he liked. “That’s a good thing.”
Running his hand along her thigh, Joseph leaned in and kissed her powerfully on the lips. Soon, they were shifting to new positions on the swing until they were a tangle of limbs and twisted clothes. Joseph was wedged in the corner of the swing with one arm pinned beneath him. Anne hung halfway off the edge with one foot on the porch to keep from falling off. After they realized how they’d wound up, both of them started to laugh.
“This was supposed to be romantic,” Joseph grunted.
Anne winced and stretched her leg. “I hope you think it’s romantic when we fall off of this contraption, because that’s what’s about to happen.”
Joseph adjusted his hold around his wife and strained to set them both upright. Although the swing almost got away from them a couple of times, they somehow managed to keep from hitting the floor. When they were both sitting up properly, Joseph leaned back and let out a long breath.
“That was fun,” he said. “Maybe we should move somewhere else.”
Smirking and lifting one hand to the buttons of her dress, Anne was starting to lean in closer to him when she heard the squeak of the front door’s hinges.
Reluctantly, Joseph took his eyes away from his wife and put on a quick smile. “Oh, hello there, Sam. What are you doing up?”
An eight-year-old boy stood in the doorway. He was small for his age, but had an intelligent glint in his eyes that was hard to miss. Actually, now that he was half asleep, it was a little easier to miss than normal. “Are we moving?” Sam asked.
“What? Oh, no,” Joseph replied. “That was just talk. Why don’t you go on back to bed?” Just as he got his son to turn around and head back into the house, Joseph saw his other child come right out behind him. “Laurie, you should be in bed, too,” he said in a sterner tone of voice. “It’s late.”
Laurie was four years older than her brother. She had her mother’s features and soft hair, which was currently a mess due to her rolling out of bed. There was a toughness in her face, however, that had undeniably come from her father. “It’s hard to sleep with all the noise you two are making,” she said. “What are you doing out here?”
“Nothing,” Anne said, after straightening her dress and checking her buttons. “Now go back to bed, the both of you.”
Laurie smirked and took hold of her brother by his shoulders. “Ma and Pa want us to leave them alone. Why do you think that is?”
“Laurie!” Anne snapped.
Sam shrugged and pulled away from his sister so he could get back into the house. That left Laurie standing in place with her arms crossed and the same mischievous grin on her face. “You two were kissing, weren’t you?” she asked sternly.
“So what if we were?” Joseph retorted.
“That’s just…” After thinking about it for a second, Laurie shuddered and walked over to the swing. Without asking permission, she forced herself between them and sat with her arms folded across her chest. “I can’t sleep, anyways.”
“Well,” Joseph said, “maybe you should try harder.” It didn’t take long for him to see that the girl wasn’t intending on going anywhere. He could also see her head lolling back and her eyelids starting to droop. He draped his arm along the back of the swing so he could envelop his wife and daughter as they rocked back and forth.
Feeling the sway of the swing and the subtle movements of his daughter beside him, Joseph leaned his head back and let out another slow breath. Being a rancher with workers on his payroll and plenty to keep him busy, he was dead tired nearly every night. Because of that, he rarely got the chance to savor quiet moments such as these. Now, he drank in the coolness of the air as well as the sight of the blanket of stars spread out over his head. Each one glistened perfectly to form more shapes than he could ever remember. Rather than look at them as separate constellations, Joseph saw a giant work of art that changed each time he looked up. “It’s a nice night,” he said.
Anne looked over at him with a warm smile on her face and replied, “It sure is.”
“Who’s that, Pa?”
Joseph looked over at Anne first, but only got a puzzled shrug in response. “Who’s…who?” he asked.
“Someone’s coming,” the girl stated. “I can hear horses.”
When he looked down at his daughter, he saw the intensity on the girl’s face as she listened carefully with her eyes shut tightly. Since he knew better than to second-guess her right away, Joseph closed his eyes and did his best to follow Laurie’s example.
“I think I hear them, too,” Anne said.
Joseph felt like he was cheating when he opened one eye to glance over at his wife. “Really?”
“I…think so.”
“There’s horses coming, Mother. I can hear them.”
“Oh, well, sorry,” Anne said, responding to the scolding tone in Laurie’s voice. “I didn’t mean to doubt you.”
“It’s all right.”
As he sat on his porch, Joseph couldn’t open his eyes all the way or even take too deep of a breath. Something in the back of his mind told him that he needed to keep listening for those horses. Laurie was known for waking up at the first chirp of a bird and hadn’t told a fib since she’d gotten a scolding for it before Sam was born.
There were plenty of cattle out there, but Laurie had grown up on a ranch and would never mistake steers for horses. Besides, if there were cattle coming, it would more than likely be a stampede and would be impossible to miss. Joseph forced those things out of his mind and focused on the slow stirring of the breeze and the occasional bark of a coyote.
Finally, he heard it.
On a cloudy night, the rumble of horses’ hooves might have been easily mistaken for distant thunder. His first suspicion was that some of the ranch hands were making their way back from town. But there were more horses out there than the number of hands he’d hired, and they wouldn’t have been in such a hurry.
Joseph couldn’t put his finger on it, but something just didn’t set right with him. “You two get inside,” he said.
Anne’s eyes snapped open and she looked over at him. “Why?”
