Luke was beginning to think that the naysayers might be right.
He lowered the plow. The wooden handles were damp with sweat, making them hard to grip. He wiped his arm across his brow. It would take another three days' worth of work to finish plowing the area. Replanting this late in the spring decreased the chances of a successful harvest.
That could mean yet another difficult winter on the bleak Kansas prairie. He unharnessed the oxen and led the huge animals to the corral that had been fenced with railroad stakes. It was Matthew's responsibility to keep the trough filled with fresh water drawn from the nearby creek. Luke checked to see that the job had been done, then dragged the gate closed and wired it shut.
"Let's go, Matthew," he called. "It's time to go home." Heaving himself onto the seat of the wagon, he grabbed the reins. Matthew came running across the field and scrambled up the side of the wagon to take his place next to his father.
Luke nodded his approval at Matthew for his promptness. The boy usually dawdled at this time of day, unwilling to go home. Today, in contrast, Matthew seemed anxious to leave the fields and head for the soddy.
As Luke drove the wagon along the narrow dirt trail, Matthew craned his neck as if searching the horizon.
What was he looking for?
Luke wondered. Miss Percy? Was that it? Not that he blamed the boy. She certainly did liven things up. In fact, he admitted, he felt a surge of anticipation, too. He had never thought she'd come back. What a fool he had been to let her go to Hays by herself. If anything had happened to her, he would never have forgiven himself.
The fatigue that normally gripped him at this time of day seemed to fade away as the memory of her running around the soddy came to mind. The bright, almost scarlet color that spread across the sky reminded him of the way her glorious red hair caught the sun as she ran, dancing upon her shoulder like quick burning flames.
He wondered how it would feel to be caught up in the passion of the moment. To act freely, without having to consider every possible consequence of one's actions. He tried to imagine himself running without restraint, laughing, feeling. On all accounts he failed.
Matthew tugged on his arm. "What is it, son?" he asked gently, reluctant to let the vision of her fade from his mind.
Luke's gaze followed Matthew's fingers. He was still dazed by the fanciful thoughts he was not willing to let go, and it took him a moment to comprehend what he saw. "What the…"
He squinted to get a better look. No doubt about it. An Indian tipi stood next to his soddy. What in the world? With all the land around here, why would the Cheyenne want to park themselves on his doorstep?
"Giddyup!" he shouted to his horse. If there was a problem, by George, he wanted it solved by nightfall!
Miss Percy was standing outside when he pulled up in front of the soddy. Her red hair was brushed back from her smooth forehead and cascaded in gentle waves down her back.
She didn't look the least bit perturbed by this latest intrusion upon his property. This lack of concern on her part struck him as odd, even for her. If anything, she looked like a soldier who had conquered the enemy. He hoped to God she hadn't messed with the Cheyenne Indians.
He gave her a wary nod. "Miss Percy."
She greeted him in kind. "Mr. Tyler."
He swung himself to the ground and pushed his hat back from his forehead. "Could you explain why there is an Indian tipi on my property?"
"I would be most happy to explain," she said, looking indignant. "Mr. Boxer insists that I live up to the terms of my contract, and that's exactly what I intend to do. As soon as Colton is rebuilt, I most certainly shall fulfill the terms of my contract."
He lifted his hat, brushed his hair back, and settled the hat back on his head. He wanted to know about possible trespassers, and she was talking about contracts. "Your difficulties with Mr. Boxer hardly explain the tipi."
"I need some sort of shelter." His scowl deepened. "This is your tipi? Are you saying that you're going to live in this tipi?" A worried frown crossed her face. "You don't mind, do you? You said I could stay here… It wouldn't be proper for me to…" She was talking so quickly, it was hard to keep up with what she was saying. "…And the wagon offers no protection against the weather and…I promise you that I won't pose a problem."
"Well…I…" He cleared his throat and began again. "It hardly seems proper for a woman to live in a tipi."
"It's my understanding that Indian women find them quite comfortable. Besides, it will only be for a short while. Mr. Boxer said that as soon as he has acquired the appropriate funding, building will begin. I really don't have much of a choice."
He studied the tipi with dubious regard. He'd never before seen one this close. Lord, the thing was tall. Stood out like a sore thumb. Made his own soddy look like a pittance.
Still, size aside, it struck him as a strange abode and for reasons he couldn't fully understand, he felt responsible for this woman's welfare. Certainly it wasn't an appropriate dwelling for the likes of Miss Percy, even if she was the most unconventional woman he'd ever met. Not that the soddy was that suitable, either.
"Of course, I expect to pay my way," she said."I wouldn't feel right accepting money from you.""I'm mighty relieved to hear you say that. I have very little money, I'm afraid. But I do expect to pay my way nonetheless. I'm a rather good cook--or at least I was in Washington. I do suppose you can substitute buffalo for venison, don't you think? And rabbit for chicken?"
"I suppose so but…"
"And I really don't mind doing household chores, though I must admit, I've never seen so much dirt in all my born days."
"If you insist upon helping out, I suppose it would be all right." He wasn't at all certain he liked the idea of this eccentric woman taking over his house. Instinctively he knew that's exactly what she would do. Take over.
He tightened his jaw. The truth was, it wasn't his house he was worried about. His real concern was protecting Matthew. It had been a mistake to invite her to stay, though admittedly he had little choice in the matter.
If she stayed for very long, she would soon learn the awful truth about Matthew and himself. She had already witnessed one of Matthew's fits and was bound to witness more.
He walked around the tipi to where Matthew stood by the open flap, peering inside. Luke looked over his son's head. "Are you actually going to sleep in this thing?"
"That's my intention. Believe me, Mr. Tyler, you won't even know I'm here. I won't be any problem to you at all."
She sounded sincere enough, but somehow he doubted that he would so easily be able to forget her presence.
He laid a hand on Matthew's shoulder and walked his young son toward the water barrel to wash up.
He handed Matthew the bar of lye soap. "Don't forget to wash behind your ears." Setting his hat on the wooden shelf, he cupped his hands and drew the cool and refreshing water to his face. He scrubbed his face and arms and grabbed a towel.
"All the way up to the elbows," he reminded his son absently, his eyes on the tipi. Maddie was nowhere to be seen, and he assumed she was inside. Leaving the towel behind, he quickly walked around to the front of the house.
He walked inside and froze in his tracks. Squinting against the dim light of late afternoon, he stared up at the bewildering display of ruffles and lace that covered the ceiling. Petticoats, he thought, baffled. Why would the woman tack her petticoats to his ceiling? He hardly had time to ponder the question before he noticed something even more startling. The table he had intended to give Catherine-Anne for her birthday filled a third of the tiny room, its lovely smooth surface polished to a glossy high sheen.
A bouquet of wildflowers pilled over the brim of a chipped china cup, filling the room with a sweet fragrance that all but obliterated the usual dank odor of wet sod. He forgot the dark, grim surroundings, but only for the moment it took him to shake off the dreamlike spell that momentarily captivated him.
It was dangerous for men like him to stray from reality. Dreams were a luxury he could not afford.
Nor could he afford the feelings of loneliness and despair that surged from some previously unexplored part of him. He closed his eyes in an attempt to regain control, but this only made him more aware of the deep longing that welled up from within, awakening the dark recesses that were normally numb.
His senses spun in confusion. He tried to understand the emotions that assailed him but soon realized it was futile. He so seldom allowed himself to feel, he could barely put a name to the emotions that churned inside. Without a name, the emotions were impossible to fight.
He opened his eyes to the pretty white petticoats overhead and dug his fingers into his palms. Feminine they were, intriguing, just like the woman.
He tightened his jaw. Now she'd done it. Made him feel things he had no business feeling.
He blinked against the vision that suddenly came to mind, a vision of her running free as a colt. Made him think things he damned well better not think.
How dare she interfere with his life? Intrude in his thoughts? Rearrange his living quarters? What gave her the right?
He stormed outside, slamming the door shut behind him. What did he care if the ceiling collapsed?
Matthew barreled into him suddenly. Luke grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him once before releasing him. "Why don't you look where you're going?"
Matthew looked up with startled eyes. His freshly scrubbed face had such a worried expression that Luke fell back, crushed.
"I'm not angry at you, Matthew." He wrapped his arms around Matthew and hugged him, fighting against the cautionary voice that warned him to hold back. As always, the inner voice won. Quickly withdrawing his arms, Luke let his hands fall to his side. "Go in the house, Matthew. I'll be there in a few minutes."
Matthew ran inside, leaving the door ajar. Luke stood for a moment, struggling with the demons that still churned inside. He couldn't even say what he was angry about. Not the table, certainly. What then? Not that it made any difference. Anger might be a normal emotion for most people, but to him it was akin to a lethal weapon.
Falling back on years of practice, he took deep breaths until he felt his body relax. He forced himself to think of other things, mundane things, things he didn't care about, things that were far removed from Maddie or the past, or even Matthew.
It was only after he was convinced he had regained full control that he trusted himself enough to walk around the tipi and call her name. "Miss Percy!"
Maddie stepped from her tipi, and he took another deep breath. "How dare you meddle in my affairs?" Realizing that his anger was beginning to flare again, he forced himself to lower his voice. "Why did you move that table from the barn?"
She studied his face for a moment as if trying to puzzle something out. "It seemed like an awful waste--"
"That wasn't for you to decide--"
"I'm sorry, I…"
"Sorry? Do you actually think an apology will excuse your behavior?"
"My behavior?" Her eyes flashed with indignation. He had never known eyes could be so green. "You make it sound like I committed a crime. I merely moved a table."
"Which you had no business doing!"
"I was thinking of Matthew."
He stiffened, as if suddenly wounded. "What's Matthew got to do with this?"
It gave her some small measure of satisfaction to watch the look of surprise cross his face. The surprise, at least, was spontaneous. She was disappointed to see his usual bland expression settle quickly back in place, for she could no longer read his emotions. At that moment she would have welcomed even his anger, for anything had to better than the cool, detached look he now gave her.
"The old table was dangerous. I cut myself on it." She held up her hand and indicated the small wound on the side of the palm. "I was worried that Matthew might hurt himself, too."
"Is your hand all right?"
"It's fine. Just a splinter."
He studied her face. "From this moment on, I must insist that any decision regarding my household or my son be cleared through me."
She lifted her chin. "As you wish."
"Then we understand each other."
"I don't know that we could go as far as to say that, Mr. Tyler."
A look of uncertainty and confusion fleeted across his face. He wasn't as much in control as he would like to think, and knowing this gave her great pleasure. She couldn't help but wonder what other emotions she could provoke in him.
For reasons she didn't understand, she had the most overwhelming need to find out.
The dining room table was hard to ignore. Not only did it take up more space than the other table, it stretched between them at suppertime like a chessboard during a high-stakes competition. Both made a gallant effort to make polite conversation, but it was hard to ignore the underlying current that seemed to punctuate their every word.
"Are those your petticoats, Miss Percy?" he asked finally. "Up there on my ceiling?"
Maddie had nothing but disregard for the bothersome garments that her mother insisted she bring to Kansas.
"I'm glad to put those pesky things to good use," she declared. The yards of soft cotton fabric had worked better than she had hoped. For once, not a speck of dirt marred the table or seasoned their plates. "I would like to--" His spoken words hung between them and she wondered why he felt the need to watch every word, every, action, every smile, even. "…thank you."
"Does that mean you forgive me for the table?"He met her gaze. "I was thanking you for the…ceiling."But not the table, she thought. Not that it mattered. She thought it was a beautiful addition to the dreary dirt room, and she was convinced that once Luke had gotten used to the idea, he would agree. The warm, rich wood glowed beneath the light of the lantern. Even Matthew seemed awed by the table. He kept rubbing his hand along the wood as if he couldn't quite believe he could do so safely. At one point his father glanced up and frowned. "Eat your supper, Matthew." When his father's admonitions failed to get Matthew to eat, Maddie tried to divert his attention from the table. She pointed to his untouched plate. "This recipe was given to me by Julia Grant, the wife of the president."
Maddie had devised a substitute for each of the original ingredients, and what resulted was unlike anything she'd ever tasted. Apparently buffalo required more cooking than venison, and the roots she found were poor alternative for potatoes. The stew definitely required a great deal of chewing, but it was hearty, and the gravy, though thicker than she preferred, tasted quite good. "You do know that Ulysses S. Grant is the president of the United States, don't you, Matthew? Nice man. He was once a farmer, just like your father." She met Luke's steady gaze. "Just shows that you never know what the future has in store. That's why it's important for even a farmer to have a good education."
"If I recall, Grant wasn't much of a farmer," Luke remarked. "If he'd given more attention to farming, he might not have had the misfortune of being in politics."
"Some people consider politics a noble profession," she argued.
"Some people think stealing land from the Indians is noble."
Conceding that he had a point, she continued to give Matthew a lesson on government. She explained the functions of the House and Senate, punctuating her discourse with lively comments and humorous anecdotes. Matthew hung on to her every word, which only confirmed her earlier belief that the boy was intelligent and eager to learn.
Luke made no further comment throughout the meal, but his gaze continued to travel from her to the ruffled ceiling and back again, as if he were trying to reconcile the two.
After they had finished eating, he stood. "I thoroughly enjoyed your
unbiased
explanation of how our government functions. I hate to bring this to an end, but I do have work to do."
"That's quite all right," Maddie said. "I think we've had enough talk of politics for one day."
Luke lit a lantern and carried it the short distance to the barn. He hoped to finish putting up the wall that had toppled during the buffalo stampede. He hung the lantern on a nail. A stack of lumber that had been left over from the table needed to be moved before he could begin hauling the sod blocks into place. Once the wall was replaced, he would be able to lock up the barn and he would no longer have to deal with the ghosts of the past.
He picked up a piece of lumber, then stopped to run his hand along the board's unfinished surface. He'd forgotten the satisfaction that came from taking a rough piece of wood and turning it into something beautiful and useful. He'd heard farmers express a similar sentiment about land. If that were true, then he wasn't cut out to b a farmer. He had poured his heart and soul into that land, and what did he have to show for it? Callused hands and little else.
The furniture in the soddy, including the table and chairs, had been crafted from bird's eye maple that he'd carried all the way from New York. This particular wood was so hard that it was near impossible to remove rough chips from its surface by conventional methods. It required the skillful use of a chisel. He'd spent countless hours working on the table. Every night for weeks before Catherine-Anne's birthday, he'd locked himself in the barn. She pleaded with him to let her see his latest project, but he refused. It was to be a surprise, he told her. How could he possibly have guessed that she wouldn't live long enough to see her birthday, let alone the table?
Damn the table! He should have burned it. Maybe if he had, the ghosts would not have come back to haunt him.
He abandoned the wood and began heaving the heavy blocks of sod one on top of another. Nothing cleared the mind like hard physical labor. He had cut fresh sod earlier that day to replace the blocks that had crumbled during the stampede. He worked until the wall of sod blocks reached the roof line. All that was left to do was to fill in the cracks with clay, and that could wait until tomorrow.
His body soaked with the sweat of his labors, he ached, literally ached, with exhaustion. He'd had trouble sleeping since his trip to Hays. But he would sleep tonight.
He doused the lantern and walked outside. He leaned his head against the barn door for a moment before slipping the rusty lock back into place. His way lit by starlight, he turned to walk the short distance to the barrel of water to wash. Still distracted by thoughts of the past, he suddenly found himself jolted into an even more disturbing present.
The golden glow of a candle flickered inside the tipi, casting the shadow of the schoolteacher's feminine form against the buffalo sides as she undressed. He was rendered breathless by the beautiful shapes that dance upon the tipi walls. His startled gaze traced a line along the soft swell of her lovely, round breasts. Her hips flared from her tiny waistline. He'd had no idea she had such long, shapely legs.
He felt a stirring in his loin, an answering cry from that same lonely and previously numbed part deep within that had made its presence known earlier. He closed his eyes, but when that failed to block out the lovely vision of her, he opened them again and stood mesmerized and overwhelmed by all that he saw. He had no right, no right at all to intrude on her privacy. And even less right to give in to primitive desire and feelings. The last time his feelings had gone unchecked, a man had lost his life. Never again would he take the chance. Not as long as Gantry Tyler's cursed blood ran through his veins. With that silent vow, he tore his gaze away from her and hurried to the rain barrel where he plunged the upper part of his fevered body headfirst into the frigid water.
Chapter 11
The sound of gunfire ripped through the early morning stillness. Luke's eyes flew open and focused on the feminine ruffles overhead. As always, his first thought was for Matthew, and he quickly checked to make certain the boy was still safely asleep by his side.
It was cold inside the soddy, and he was tempted to roll over and go back to sleep. But it had been his experience since coming to Kansas that the sound of gunfire was best not ignored. Not if a man valued his life or his property.
By the second shot he was on the floor and running. He grabbed his trousers and pulled them on as he did a one-legged hop across the room. With his trousers in place, he grabbed his hat, not bothering with a shirt. His senses alert, he listened a moment before inching the door open.
Another shot sounded and he ducked back against the wall, waited a moment, then slipped outside. He quickly scanned the area. His back against the front of the house, he edged forward and peered around the corner.
Miss Percy stood not twenty feet away, aiming a pistol at the pile of wood scraps. Her head was turned away from her target as she fired, her eyes closed. The blast hit the ground amid an explosion of dirt, causing a stir in the nearby chicken coop. Her horse, Rutabaga, shook his head and gave a low whicker. The cow bellowed from behind the soddy.
Dropping his arms to his side, Luke stepped away from the house.
He walked toward her, shaking his head, half in amusement, half in disbelief. He rested his bare foot on the splintered fence railing and leaned his elbow against his thigh.
Maddie opened her eyes and grinned at him. "What do you think?"
Luke lifted his hat, pushed back his disheveled hair, and let his hat drop back in place until the rim covered his forehead. "Unless you were aiming for the ground, you missed."
"I wasn't aiming for anything," she said. "I was simply preparing myself in the event of an unfriendly attack."
Luke let his gaze linger on the spot where her bullet had hit the ground. "I've been here for four years, and I've yet to see the ground attack anyone."
She gave him a cool, appraising look. "I was talking about Indians or wild animals. I have no intention of letting a man or animal lay a hand…ah…paw on me." Her rosy cheeks seemed to grow a shade darker as he took in her figure. He couldn't help himself. Not after last night. Not after seeing the smooth, hard lines of her body exposed.
She blew on the barrel of the gun "Nor do I intend to allow myself to be scalped!"
Luke's gaze flickered over her gleaming red hair before he realized he faced mortal danger. The barrel of her gun was pointed directly at the part of his anatomy that was second only to the heart in terms of where a man least wanted to be shot. Some said they'd rather get shot in the heart.
"I do believe, Miss Percy, that you have found a most effective way to safeguard your virtue."
A puzzled frown crossed her face. She looked down at her gun and followed an imaginary line from the barrel to the spot beneath his waist. "Oh!" she exclaimed. It amused him to see her look so flustered. She moved the barrel in another direction.