The Horseman

He was a worrier, wasn’t he? “I do. The workmanship is stunning. Did you carve this?” She ran a fingertip over the intricate mantel where swimming salmon struggled upstream in a wooden river.

“One of my brothers.” He gestured past the fireplace to the arched doorway in the center of the house. His big hand caught hers.

His touch blazed through her as dazzling as sunlight. She held on, letting him warm her clear through. How good it felt, this bright love of his.

Would it last? Is any man’s love true? Dillon had her in his home as his wife. How would he treat her now?

The memories of another man crowded in, like shadows in a night room when a candle burned low.

She screwed her mind shut against the memories that crowded out, even as she fought them. The hope in her heart, the chance to be loved, it was all the same. Finally having a home where a wonderful man would love her.

And he had grabbed her roughly by one arm and had frightened her-

Don’t remember. She bit her lip, trapped the pain in her throat. She didn’t make a sound as Dillon’s touch, sustaining and true, brought her back to where she was. In his cozy home about to enter another room. The bedroom?

Panic clawed at her. No, he wouldn’t do that to her. He’d given her his word. She would find out today exactly how well Dillon Hennessey kept his promises.

“Do you want coffee or tea?” he asked, leading her not into a bedroom but a sparse kitchen where two big corner windows shed light on a small round table.

That’s your answer, Katelyn. See? Dillon was keeping his word. At least at this particular moment. The prospect of tonight loomed ahead of her, a dark, threatening cloud she couldn’t seem to escape.

“Tea would be wonderful.”

“Pull up a chair and rest. I’ll bring it to you.” There was a clang of metal as he set water to heat, working with the ease of a man used to taking care of himself.

It was odd to see a man at a stove. He dwarfed the small cooking range with his width and breadth. He swore when he dropped a spoon on the floor, picked it up, wiped it on his shirt and stuck it in the sugar bowl.

He glanced at her through dark veiled lashes, bashful when he must have realized she was watching him. “Oops. Guess I should have got a clean one out of the drawer.”

“At least you wiped it off first.” Katelyn bit her lip so she wouldn’t laugh. “The question is, if I would have dropped the spoon on the floor, what would you have done?”

“Probably used it. I’m not too finicky.” He switched the fallen spoon for a clean one. “I suspect the sugar doesn’t have any dirt in it. I just cleaned the floor.”

“I see.”

She tried to imagine her first husband being so unconcerned, and she couldn’t. How could she tell him what it meant? To take in the soft light from the window, to feel the peace in the room, to know that she wouldn’t be broken by a yelling man losing his temper over every small thing.

He isn’t going to hurt me. I know it. So why was her stomach cramped into a tight hard ball?

Because knowing something wasn’t the same as seeing that it isn’t true.

“What do you think of the kitchen? Think you’ll like cooking in here?”

Did she tell him that she couldn’t cook? “I think I’ll find it very interesting.”

“Good. Darlin’, you’re getting pale. Sit down so I can stop fretting about you.” He tossed her a grin that made pleasure glide in a slow fall all the way to her toes.

The room was proof that a bachelor lived here and not often. Dust clung to the tops of the cabinets and in the corners along the puncheon floor. The cook-stove looked brand-new, as if it wasn’t often used, and still bore its first coat of black polish from the factory.

And the furniture, heavens, she’d never seen the like. Mismatched set of chairs, one that looked as old as the Revolution and the other that sat hidden behind the hand-carved oak table.

Such workmanship. She ran her fingertips along the maple-leaf-and-acorn pattern carved into the rim of the rounded tabletop. She left behind a thin trail through the dust.

She’d have to figure out how to clean house, too. It would be a fine thing, to take pride and pleasure in her own home. To keep everything polished and sparkling. An act of love, she figured. And a much better way of spending time than going to social events.

I could be happy here, with this man. Would she be? She didn’t know. But anything was worth the chance. She craved the bright enveloping warmth of his love more than air, more than water, more than food.

“Your tea, ma’am.”

She sat in the closest chair and spooned sugar into the chipped cup he’d set before her. This giant of a man was her life now. And how she would live and how she was treated was up to him. Only him.

The knock at the door stirred Katelyn from her book. Dillon had gone out to put up the horses, leaving her to her tea and the sunny warmth of the kitchen.

Before she could rise, she heard the faint muffle of Dillon’s voice outside. Whoever it was, he was taking care of it. He did seem like a man who could take care of anything. Made of steel and nothing could bend him.

She drained a comforting swallow of the tea from the cup. It was cooling some, and only then did she realize there was a haze of rosy light glowing through the window behind her. Sunset. She turned in the chair, rested her chin on the wooden crown of the ladder-back and couldn’t believe her eyes.

Peace filled her at the sight of the streaks of purple and crimson and magenta painted on the underbelly of the clouds and the proud snowcapped mountains. The jagged lavender-tinted peaks dominated the horizon. Some things you could count on to last. To never change.

Was Dillon Hennessey such a man?

Horses grazed in the distant pastures. Why was she surprised to see them? Many of them bore the markings of the mustangs native to this country. Pintos with large patches of browns and blacks over their rumps and along their sides. Appaloosas with their showy blanket of white spots as if a hundred snowflakes had landed and decided to stay on those velvet coats of black or brown or gray.

She remembered the stallion, the one her stepfather had placed a reward on. Dillon said he’d captured him. Was the stallion here?

She felt Dillon even before the door opened on the far side of the house. The rustle of his clothes, the whisper of his movements and the snap of his approaching step rolled through her like a wave on a lakeshore, lapping lightly, inevitably, over and over again. Touching her in a way she couldn’t see or describe but could feel deep inside.

“Supper.” He burst through the threshold, stirring the serenity of the room, making every hair on her arms and the back of her neck stand up and tingle.

He carried a large wicker basket that he set on the table with a thud. Wonderful fragrances lifted from it when he opened the lid-roast beef and gravy and roasted garlic and fresh-baked bread. “I paid one of the neighbor ladies to cook up a feast for us, since I figured with the ceremony and whatnot I wouldn’t have time to cook for you.”

“I thought I was supposed to cook. I was going to try and figure out what I could make.”

“Not on our wedding night, darlin’. You sit there and rest. Want more tea?”

“I do.” She watched in amazement as he filled her cup with a steady hand.

Twilight crept into the room, and he lit the lantern on the table before he sat down to dish up the meal. As the evening passed, all she did was worry about the coming night. She couldn’t concentrate on her reading while Dillon read across from her in the parlor, his newspaper crinkling as he turned the page.

When the regulator clock on the kitchen wall gently bonged eight times, Katelyn closed her book, said good- night and headed up the flight of stairs and into the dark second story.

Moonlight spilling through an open window led her to the bedroom. A carved four-poster bed dominated the inside wall. There were two plump goose-down pillows at the head of the bed. She sat down on the feather tick and sank just right. The soft down felt like paradise.

Was that a footstep on the stairs? She listened, heart thumping. Yes, it was Dillon. Coming closer. Step by step. Slow and deliberate.