He chuckled. Hassie rolled her head to look at him and let go of his hand. “What are you thinking?”
“Just nonsense.” In fact he was procrastinating as surely as Hassie had over leaving Dearfield and the MacGregors. He needed to reassure her about his family and tell her about Mary. Now that the train was up to speed and the wheels clacking loud enough no one but Hassie could hear him, he was out of excuses to put it off.
“I know you wanted to go back out on the trail with me next year,” he said, “but the last two days put paid to any notion I had the decision is mine to make. There’s no way I’m going to be able to spend days in the saddle by spring. I may never be able to draw a gun with any speed again. I’m sorry.”
Angling sideways in the seat to give him a clear view of her hands, Hassie signed, “I did not want more bounty hunting. I wanted to be with you.”
He kissed her hand again. “You liked it in ways I never did, not the bounties, but the traveling, new places. You get all wide-eyed, and your face lights up.”
The hat lady stared at them more bug-eyed than wide-eyed, her mouth pursed into a disapproving little circle. Hassie reached down and pulled the slate out of the bag at her feet. Either she anticipated exceeding his growing ability to understand her signing or she worried the old lady would report someone having a fit to the conductor.
“It was a great adventure, and I enjoyed most of it, but we had enough adventures. Staying in one place with no bad men will be good.”
“I’m glad you feel that way. I’m looking forward to being home myself.”
She gave him a trace of the false smile and toyed with the chalk pencil, a bad sign. Come to think of it, all the delaying tactics in Dearfield had to have more cause than just affection for the MacGregors.
Reconsidering Hassie’s recent behavior, Bret heard Belle Chapman’s voice as clearly as if she had boarded the train with them, and Belle never had anything good to say about Sterlings. He’d better set the record straight. “I know Belle told you about my family, but you should take what she said with a grain of salt. She doesn’t have much use for us.”
“She never said anything bad.”
“She said I’m the best of a bad lot.”
Bret almost laughed at Hassie’s astonished look. “Gabe, Belle, and I have known each other most of our lives. She’s said those very words to my face often enough. Her family and Gabe’s have small acreages not far from ours.”
“They were for Union.”
“They were. I told you Gabe and I joined up together and went through the war side by side.”
“They left Missouri after the war.”
“He comes from a big family. The farm will go to his oldest brother.”
“You’re the oldest brother, and you won’t inherit.”
“That was my choice.”
“No, you chose to do the right thing. What your father did was his choice.”
He shrugged. “Say it any way you want. I knew what would happen, and I did what I did.”
“Because you are a good man. Belle also said that. You are honorable.”
“I’m glad to hear she admits it, but she should admit my parents deserve credit for that. They raised me.”
“You spent much of your time with Gabe’s family and Belle’s. Maybe those families should get the credit.”
“Some maybe, but I’m my father and mother’s son, not a Chapman. No matter our differences, they’re good people. You’ll see when you meet them. You’re going to meet my parents, my baby sister Caroline, and my younger brother William, his wife Mary, and their two children.”
“Belle told me. Your other sister is married and doesn’t live there, and your other brother....”
Hassie hesitated, and Bret finished for her.
“Albert died in the war.”
Hassie erased her last words and touched the chalk to the surface, then stared at the blank slate, fingers twitching. Which meant she wasn’t going to write what she really thought, and she shouldn’t be thinking anything so negative she couldn’t express it. Damn Belle anyway.
He tried to reassure her and maybe himself. “I admit things have been difficult between us since the war, but my parents aren’t like your grandparents. They aren’t going to slam the door in our faces or be rude, even if they won’t be as friendly as you are.”
“Why did you risk your life every year to give them money if they won’t accept what you did? If the farm will be your brother’s, he should have gone with you and helped or found another way to earn money.”
“Someone had to stay home and supervise the rebuilding, get things going again.”
“Your father could do that.”
“He did. The two of them did. By the end of the war Will had a wife and a baby. I wanted to help, and the best way I could help was to find a way to finance the rebuilding. No one forced me to do it.”
“They took money from you. They should let the bad feelings go.”
“They can’t let it go. It’s all mixed up with Albert’s death and pride and a lot of other things. Maybe if the South had won and Missouri joined the Confederacy, but not now. They hate every change in their lives, and if it’s not all my fault, I’m the only Sterling to blame. After all, if no one fought for the Union, there would be a Confederate States of America.”
“I will not give them the money you say is mine, that you put in the account in my name.”
“You’re right you won’t, and since most of this last money is yours, they won’t be getting much more this year.”
“Most is not mine. It’s ours. If you want to put some in my account, it should be 50-50.”
“It should be one hundred—naught, but I’m going to give them five hundred of it.”
Her fingers twitched again, her conflict obvious. She wanted to argue with him about who should get credit for the reward money, but she didn’t want him to give any of it to his family.
Since she was already riled up, now was the time to tell her about Mary. It would distract her from the money, and Hassie needed to know it all before they got to the farm and someone else told her.
Bret tried one last time to think of a way around it. Couldn’t.
“There’s something else,” he said finally. “One of the people you’re going to meet.... The thing is....” There was no good way. He had to just say it. “Before the war I was engaged to marry a girl named Mary Lytton. She was—her whole family was strongly pro-Southern. You know how bad things were in Missouri back then. The worse it got, the more Mary and I argued. When I wouldn’t promise not to enlist, she broke the engagement.”
Her fingers barely moving, Hassie wrote in small tight letters.
“Belle told me. Miss Lytton married someone else while you were away fighting.”
“Quite a source of information, our Belle. Is that all she told you?”
The chalk pencil twirled some more.
“Did she tell you who Mary married?”
Hassie finally looked up, her brows drawn.
“She married my brother Will.”
Disbelief flashed across Hassie’s face. Bret couldn’t interpret the expression that followed.
“You want me to meet her, stay in the same house with her?”
He nodded.
“I don’t want to do that.”
“It won’t be a problem. Except for a polite please pass the salt, we haven’t even talked since I left to enlist.”
“Belle said you still have feelings for her.”
Double damn Belle. “She’s family, my sister-in-law. Of course I have feelings, but it’s nothing that matters to you.”
His usually agreeable wife had turned into a stranger with narrowed eyes and an angry slit of a mouth.
“I will not live there.”
“You’re letting what Belle said prejudice you. Just give it a chance.”
“You can live with your sister-in-law. I have a farm of my own. I will go back to Werver. ”
“Like hell you will.”
Before he could stop her, Hassie slipped from the seat, crossed the aisle, and sat beside the hat lady. Bret glared, a wasted effort, since Hassie kept her back turned and the hat lady sat rigid, eyes straight ahead.
Head bent, Hassie wrote. And wrote. The hat lady flicked her eyes down. Looked again. Said a few words and glared back at Bret. Moments later she was chatting away to Hassie, pausing now and then to read from the slate.
Bret leaned his aching head against the window. He hadn’t expected Hassie to like what he said, but he never expected a threat to leave him, even if he knew she didn’t mean it. Surely by the time they reached Oak Hills, his sweet, agreeable wife would reappear.
T
HE PROBLEM WITH
loving a stubborn—no pigheaded—blind, obtuse man was trying to say no and make it stick.
Hassie said goodbye to the hat lady when the train reached Oak Hills and rejoined Bret. By the time he deposited the drafts for the last reward money in her account at the bank, she relented and promised him she would meet his family and stay at the farm long enough to get to know them.
As they approached the farm, she rode with her free hand clamped over her stomach. The old nausea and burning sensations hadn’t returned, but something was flipping around in there as if getting ready. Knowing the gleaming white fence that had bordered the road for the last two miles enclosed thousands of acres of Sterling land didn’t help and neither did the elaborate gates leading to the farm lane.
The hard lines of Bret’s face gave no hint of his feelings. Was he glad to be back? Relieved? A stiff breeze had chased away what little warmth the weak winter sun brought to the day, penetrated through all the layers of Hassie’s clothing, and turned her feet and fingers numb. Bret must be just as cold, his shoulder and leg aching. Like a toothache in the bone he described it.
Barns, sheds, and other outbuildings clustered like a small village behind the house. Bret led the way to the largest of the barns, dismounted, and slid open the big door. The musky scent of horses wafted out on the cold air. Eager whinnies greeted them. Brownie and Packie answered.
Hassie dismounted too, pain jolting through her cold feet as they hit the ground. Bret had already dropped Jasper’s reins and Packie’s lead and moved off down the center aisle in the barn. She left Brownie and followed.
The bay stallion in the first stall made even Jasper seem like a cold-blooded scrub. The mares in the stalls beyond had the same racy look even with their hugely swollen bellies. There would be foals soon, and before the weather warmed.
Hassie had envisioned a farm that produced wheat and corn, maybe hemp, not horses. Before she could question Bret, the door at the other end of the barn opened, and a man appeared leading another gravid mare. Seeing them, he hesitated before continuing on and putting the mare up, then hurried toward them.
“So you’re the son they’re waiting on.” Wizened, gray, and at least a foot shorter than Bret, he peered up and held out a hand. “Sam Olson. Your father hired me for the horses. They’re something, aren’t they?”
“Something,” Bret agreed, shaking the man’s hand. “Where are they from?”
“Kentucky. And me with them. They were some of the best back home, and they’re
the
best in this state.”
When Bret turned to introduce her, Hassie stopped blowing on her fingers and shoved both her hand and the glove she’d pulled off into a pocket.
Sam grinned. “You and the missus better get inside and warm up. I’ll take care of your horses. There’s no room at the inn here, but they look like they’re used to the weather. I’ll put them in the south pasture.”
“They’re used to some care too,” Bret said. “Rub them down and give them a couple quarts of oats each before you turn them out, would you? You can pile our gear there by the door, and I’ll sort it later. I need a place for the dog too. I want him inside at night.”
Sam stared down at Gunner and frowned. Gunner stared up at Sam and growled.
“Your father won’t like having a dog like that around.”
“You’re right,” Bret said easily. “But he’s going to have to put up with it. I’ll find somewhere out of the way for him when I come back out.”
Hassie left the barn reluctantly. She’d really rather take care of Brownie herself. In all the stables where they’d left the horses, she and Bret had always at least done the unsaddling and checked out where the horses would go. And the longer she could put off meeting any of the Sterlings the better. Especially Mary.
The setting sun gave the big white front door on the house an orange glow. Bret brought the shining brass knocker in the middle down sharply twice, but didn’t wait for anyone to answer before ushering her inside an entry hall of shining oak flooring and pale green walls. The scent of furniture polish hung in the air.
A dark-skinned woman in a black dress and white apron appeared through the doorway to their right. “Oh, Mr. Bret. It’s good to see you. Just let me take your things, and I’ll tell them you’re home.” She gathered coats, scarves, and hats and disappeared through a doorway with her arms full.
“Don’t look like that,” Bret said, reading Hassie’s mind once again. “I know where she’s taking everything. If we need to make a quick escape, I can grab it all up.”
Hassie did her best to look as if the thought of a quick escape had never occurred to her.
A squeal sounded from above. “Bret!” The young woman who ran down the stairs threw herself at him, hugging and laughing, kissing his cheek. “Oh, your face is cold.”
Bret hugged her back, lifting her right off the floor. “My sister Caroline,” he said to Hassie around the laughing girl.
If Caroline held still long enough, Hassie might be able to find a resemblance to Bret other than dark hair, but Caroline kept moving. And talking.
“Oh, and this is your wife.” Caroline turned to Hassie. “Bret sent a letter, but he didn’t say anything but your name, and look at you. Even in trousers you look pretty. I knew you would. Not that I knew you’d be in trousers, but I knew you’d be pretty.” Caroline stepped closer and peered into Hassie’s face. “And your eyes. You must get tired of people remarking on them, but I never saw such beautiful eyes. Oh, I’m so happy to meet you.”