hadn’t stopped there. He’d tossed and turned in his cold bunk thinking of her.
It had been a long shot, proposing to her, sure. But he remembered when she’d first come to the ranch. Over a month ago now, he had finally been making some progress with that blood-bay mare. She’d been mishandled something fierce. Effie had made her way from the kitchen with some treat, and Dillon had overheard it then.
It was hard not to eavesdrop when Effie gossiped, since she saw no cause to lower her voice to a whisper when she did. Half-dead, poor thing showed up on the doorstep late last night, she’d said. The doc came and went and didn’t think she’d live.
He’d felt sad for her, hearing of her tragedy. But when he’d first laid eyes on her the night she’d climbed from her window, well, he’d never been the same.
He knocked the ashes from the pile of coals and stirred them. Watched them glow orange the moment air touched them. He opened the damper wide, because he wanted a good hot fire. The bunkhouse was drafty and frigid, although he’d risen first and early this morning. It was a good time to think, and he had some thinking to do.
The bunkhouse was silent, unless you counted the snoring. While the kindling crackled to life and sent hungry flames to lick at the seasoned logs of wood he’d added, Dillon hunkered down in front of the open door and held his hands to the warmth. Damn, that felt good. His fingertips prickled so sharp he gritted his teeth to keep the swearing in.
She’d sure been a sweetness against him. His thoughts drifted backward, to the precious feel of her tucked against his chest. Fragile and female. When he’d folded his arms around her and felt her hair catch on his unshaven chin, something had changed in him. His chest expanded, his blood quickened, his soul woke up and took notice.
He wanted to protect her. To take care of her. To hold her. Never let her go.
Why? He’d seen her a few times. He hardly knew her. He didn’t know a thousand things about her, what her childhood was like. Was the good man she’d known her real father? Had she always loved horses? Why had she married a man who wasn’t kind to her? What were her favorite foods?
See? He could make a list that would stretch from here to Great Falls of every single thing he did not know about Katelyn Green.
What did he know?
That when he looked at her, the world faded away. Everything he’d ever cared about, everything he was, came alive as if newly awakened. It made him feel better than the man he was.
She didn’t think so much of him. She’d thought he wanted money. Then again, maybe that’s what she knew. Maybe the man who’d cast her aside had done that. Looked at her and, instead of seeing the woman she was, saw her family’s wealth.
Dwindling wealth, he corrected. Times were hard and were about to get harder. He was going to take three mares, unless Cal Willman could cough up enough greenbacks.
It wasn’t as if he’d be riding out of here today with a wife. Disappointment raked through him, sharp tipped and hard. It was too bad, because he wanted her. His own wife.
Strange, soft feelings had beat to life within him. He wanted her. Still.
Didn’t that make him five times a fool? Wanting a woman who didn’t want him?
Grumbling sounds emanated from the back. The boys waking up, pulling on their ice-stiffened clothes and complaining about it. There were horses to feed, stalls to clean and, for him, horses to say goodbye to. Friends that he’d made, the four-legged variety that he understood far better than the two-legged.
Another wall of storm clouds had covered the sky from sight as he waded through the snow. Flakes started to fall, hard, fast, dry. The wind came from the north at a swirl.
Not a good sign.
He pulled open the door enough to slip inside, the same door he’d held for Katelyn last night. She’d shut it behind her. How long had she stayed in the loft? Had she watched the night stars move across the cloud-strewn sky and thought about him? Or had she hurried back to her fancy house and warm bed, glad to be rid of him?
A nicker drew his attention. The sorrel Arabian mare, one of the horses he’d been hired to train, leaned against her stall gate and stomped her right foot, demanding his full attention.
“Good morning, beautiful.” He slipped her a broken piece of peppermint from his jacket, as he always did, and offered it on his flat palm.
Pleased, the mare nibbled the treat, her delicate lips whisking over his skin like a tickle.
“I’m taking you, pretty girl,” he told her in his grandfather’s tongue. The reverent lilt of the language was a sound of peace to all living things. “You are one fine beauty.”
The mare leaned her forehead against his shoulder in response. His chest warmed at the emotional connection. Trust. She trusted him. It had been a hard journey they’d taken together, but what a reward. He rubbed his knuckles into a sensitive spot behind her ear. She pushed harder into him, her way of hugging.
Affection filled him, soft and sweet. Yep, he’d take this one for sure. What a fine addition she’d make to his herd.
With the job ending early, would he head home? Would he stay for a spell? Or move on, unable to take the emptiness of a lonely house? To sit alone evening after evening, sleep alone night after night.
Maybe he could remedy that. He moved down the aisle, digging more peppermint out of his pocket, stroking more soft, eager noses. There were all sorts of ways to get a bride. Now that he had some experience with a woman under his belt. Fine, not a successful one, but he’d managed to talk to Katelyn last night without stumbling and stuttering like a clodpate.
There were those magazines where women had placed advertisements in search of a husband. Maybe one of them would be nice. Kind. Gentle as an angel come to earth.
Even as he considered the notion of another woman, his chest seized up. The trouble was, whoever he picked wouldn’t suit him. She wouldn’t be Katelyn.
Cal sat on a big Windsor chair, pushed away from his rolltop desk, his elbows on his knees. His face in his hands. The rounded C of his back powerful and shadowed. The faintest gray of predawn peeked through the curtains, a witness to the sorrow in the room. Defeat hung in the air like dust motes.
She hadn’t realized how much trouble he was in. She’d been too hurt to notice. A sense of foreboding beat like a war drum in her stomach.
“Put the tray on the coffee table and leave me.” Cal didn’t move.
“I said, leave it, damn it!” Sharp, red faced, Cal whirled around, the chair squeaking as it spun with him. When he realized it was her and not the servant standing in the doorway, his impatience changed to hatred. “What do you want? Come to say goodbye?”
“What jewelry?” He straightened to his full height to glare down at her like an angry deity. “What jewelry?”
“The pieces you stole from the loose board in my room. I saw you offer my bracelet to the horseman.” Chin up, she met his gaze. Fisted her hands. Planted her feet. She refused to be afraid of him. Of any man. Ever again. “Those diamonds are mine and I want them back.”
Tendons stood out on Cal’s neck. “If you’ve lost your things, then that’s your own fault. Don’t come to me and complain.”
“It’s theft, and I’m certain I could ask the horseman to verify that you offered him my bracelet as payment.”
“Your bracelet? I took that as partial payment for your doctor’s bill, which is sizable. Or do you intend to pay the bill? And what about the room and board and trouble you’ve cost me and your mother?”
“Return the jewelry to me, and I’ll gladly pay my own bills.”
“Can you reimburse me for the business I’ve lost at the bank? My reputation is everything, and to think the best people in town are moving their money from my bank. Your divorce is a scandal, and it’s ruining me.”
