Love's Rescue (28 page)

And afraid.

Fortunately, they were rarely together, and the distance kept at bay the invisible mixture of desire and dread that choked her whenever he was near.

Jess worked in the garden every morning. So far, the manure had kept the plants growing despite the drought. In the afternoons, she rode out on the range, usually with Seth or Reese. She enjoyed looking after the cattle and searching for strays, though admittedly not as much as she had when she rode with Jake.

In the evenings, she sat by her open window until the hour was late, alleviating her heat and exhaustion with the balmy night breeze. By lantern light, she wove orange yarn on the loom into an ever growing blanket. Sometimes, she imagined the look of surprise Red Deer would have when she finally opened the gift for her newborn son. Other times, she simply wove with little thought, losing herself amid the sounds of the night.

A few weeks after the mustang catch, Jess was lying awake on her bunk late at night, too hot to sleep. She was drenched in sweat, and her chemise clung miserably to her skin. The bed sack was hot no matter how she shifted. Jess sighed. It seemed that hours rather than minutes had passed since she’d extinguished the lamp.

Through the window, the pleasant hoots of an owl and the sound of cottonwoods stirred by the breeze beckoned her. Before she knew it, she was pulling on the swim dress she’d sewn and slipping out the door with a towel.

The creek shimmered and snaked in the moonlight. Jess tossed aside the towel and wandered out into the refreshing coolness of it, then lay back until water covered all but her face. She stretched out her hands and drew them through her unbound hair, fanning it away, cooling her scalp. The mild current rinsed away her sweat and soothed her muscles. It was paradise. The fabric of her swim dress swirled gently over her legs while she held lightly to a rock to keep from drifting away.

She would rest well now, she mused, though she’d give anything if someone would just sling a hammock under her so she could sleep where she was. Jess smiled at the thought as the water purled around her. She tilted her head back to enjoy the view of stars and cottonwood branches above. There was a small, shadowy movement on a limb several feet up. As she watched, the owl that had summoned her from her bedroom roused himself. With slow, deliberate movements, he stepped to the end of his perch, then dove into the air with broad strokes of soundless wings.

Sensing another presence, Jess sat up in the water and searched the bank for the only one who might know where she would be. As the owl disappeared into the night, Jake lowered his gaze to hers. He leaned against the trunk of the cottonwood. They shared a smile at what they had witnessed while everyone else slept.

“Sometimes, I wish I didn’t have to sleep,” Jess confessed, feeling more comfortable with him than she had been in some time, perhaps due to the barriers of creek and night between them. “I wake each morning wondering what all I missed.”

Jake crouched down at the edge of the bank, his feet bare, the top of his shirt unbuttoned. “I used to walk along the creek before sunup, when I first settled here. I’d almost forgotten about that,” he murmured. “Sometimes, I’d find tracks; other times, I’d see animals still here—antelope, coyotes, raccoons—getting a meal or a drink. Panning for gold, Taggart used to say.”

They shared another smile.

“They mostly stay in the mountains now, but we still see them now and again in the fall and winter.”

Growing overly warm with Jake’s eyes on her, Jess shifted her gaze to where the moon hovered above the Sierras. One night past full, it laid a silvery glow on the mountains, on the tree trunk…on the clean, white shirt that fit Jake’s shoulders so well.

Fighting her awareness of his proximity, she pointed to where the moonlight was making tiny gold flecks glitter along the bank. “Taggart might have been right. You do have gold on your land, Bennett.”

“This?” He shifted his weight, reaching with his hand to smooth a few flecks in the sand.

“And the mine I saw that day you caught the mustangs.”

“There’s not enough here worth panning for, and that old mine was abandoned long before I came. Whoever dug it must have thought the same and given up.”

Jess’s mind swiftly turned to business. “Hiring a couple of men to work it might be a worthwhile investment. The initial excavation has been done. Once it pays for your workers, everything else is profit.”

Jake chuckled. “You sure have a lot going on inside that head of yours. No, I’ve had a look myself. There’s nothing there.” He leaned to rinse the sand from his fingers. “Besides, mining doesn’t interest me much. I prefer being above ground. A man can’t lope a horse far in a mine.”

Jess smiled but continued with her train of thought. “Jake, you already own the land, so there won’t be any additional expenses up front… What?” She could have seen the grin on his face from a mile away.

Suppressing his amusement, he rested his elbows on his knees. “Well, you just called me Jake again.”

Her eyes widened, then narrowed in denial. “I did not!”

“Yes, ma’am, you did. You just said—”

“Never mind what I said!” With impatient strokes, Jess put a few more feet of water between them.

“Why does it bother you to say my name?” he asked softly. She paddled quietly, not looking at him. “Jess?”

Jess shook her head, lifted a shoulder. She had told Red Deer that saying his name was too personal, but it was more than that. If she started calling him Jake, she would finally see him as something more than a rancher, someone more than a friend. Simply saying that one word threatened to knock down all the barriers she’d placed between them, exposing her to love—and to loss.

Jake didn’t press the matter. Thank heavens for cattlemen’s honor, she thought.

“Are you getting cold?” he asked.

“I came out here to cool down.” She peered across the water at him. “Why did you come?”

“To look out for you. I saw you go downstairs without your gun.”

Jess dropped her gaze to the holster at his hip. She had become so used to seeing the men with gun belts that it hadn’t seemed unusual to her that he was wearing one at so late an hour. Just then, she recalled the strangers she had seen once or twice since the first pair they’d noticed riding past the ranch. “Are you expecting trouble?” When he hesitated, she added, “I’ve seen the riders, Bennett.”

“A couple of men have passed by, but they haven’t let on about their intentions. I think it’s best we stay alert, no matter what they intend. I’d like you to wear your gun at all times, same as the boys do. Even when you come down for a swim.”

He spoke with relative unconcern, so Jess let the matter go.

The cat appeared and began winding herself around Jake’s feet, purring softly. He picked her up, cradling her in his arm as he took a seat at the base of the tree. His expression changed, as though he was about to let her in on a surprise. “I also wanted to ask you about the Fourth of July.”

“The Fourth of July?” Jess realized that was only three days away. “What about it?”

“I always put on a big shindig for the cowhands and the Paiute families. Tomorrow morning, I’ll send Ho Chen and a few others to get some things we’ll need. I wondered if you’d fill in for him until he gets back tomorrow night.”

The idea of a party put a smile on her lips. A big smile. Nobody had done anything but work since the day she’d come. “I don’t mind at all. Is there anything else I can do to help?”

Apparently, he’d been ready for that. “The men will want to look their best.”

“Would you like me to fit in laundry tomorrow?”

“Do you think you can do it?”

“If I can get one or two of the other women to help me—but I don’t want Red Deer to be hauling water or scrubbing.”

“Ask them,” Jake said simply. “Everybody will take the following day off to get ready for the Fourth.”

When he fell silent, Jess’s mind churned with all that would need to be done. The dance would have to be held in the cookhouse, since that building had the largest wood floor. The tables would have to be moved outside, where the men could put up a large ring of torches for light and to give the place a festive air. There should be candles for lighting the big room…

“I can see I don’t have to trouble myself with planning.”

Startled, Jess looked up, then humbly glided a little closer. “Jake, I didn’t mean to…” She paused when she realized she’d just said his name again. Apart from an easy smile, he didn’t respond. She went on. “I didn’t mean to presume that I’d plan your party. I just—”

“It’s everyone’s party, Jess, and since I have to finish breaking in a pinto, I’m glad to leave you in charge of the planning. I’ll come lend a hand as soon as I finish.”

Jess couldn’t have pulled the grin from her face if she’d wanted to. As Jake petted the seemingly boneless cat, she recalled what he’d said about mining not being of interest to him. She realized he was right. Mining just wasn’t his passion. She thought of different times she had watched Jake when he was riding a horse, delivering a calf…when he seemed at peace with the land itself. “Did you always want to be a rancher?”

Jake’s hand slowed until the cat rubbed his wrist with its head, urging him on. After a moment, he answered, his voice quiet but sure as always.

“Yes, I did. When I was little, my mother would sit in her rocking chair and read the Bible to us boys at night.” He looked aside at her. “There’re three of us. My younger brothers are Walt and Ty.” He went on. “One time, she read in Revelation that the walls of heaven were made of all kinds of precious stones. She told us they probably sparkled like the stars did, but in colors like jewels. That really affected me—to picture what heaven would be like. That night, I thought about it so much that I couldn’t sleep. So, I got up and went outside for a walk. I hadn’t gone far when I found Ma walking, too, wrapped up in her shawl and watching the stars, same as I was.

“I think she knew she was sick, even then. She didn’t send me back to my bed like she normally would have. Instead, we joined hands and walked together for a long while. We never said anything; just walked, looking up at stars that were shining like the walls of heaven.” He paused for a moment, scratching the cat behind the ears. “My mother died a few months after. I used to go out and visit her grave at night so my father wouldn’t know and be sorry for how much I missed her. I’d sit back against her headstone, and when I grew tired, I’d lay down beside the mound and sleep.”

Jess bobbed quietly in the water, stricken to imagine him losing his mother as a child. She suffered fresh twinges of guilt, as well, for behaving for so long as though she was the only one of them who had ever known grief.

“A few years after—I was nine or ten—I was sitting out there one night, remembering how she used to read to us from her Bible. As I thought about it, I looked up at the stars, and I decided they really did look like jewels. I could even see bits of color now and then. So, I figured those were the walls of heaven, and that was where she was.” He didn’t apologize to Jess for the naïveté of his boyhood ideas, knowing she would understand.

“I wasn’t as sad after that, because I couldn’t imagine her in a more beautiful place. Anyhow, I guess that’s why I first thought of becoming a rancher instead of a farmer like my pa. I needed to be out on the range, where I could look up each night and feel close to the place where she was. The place where the Almighty will take me when my time here is done.”

“So, you became a rancher because of your mother.”

Jake sighed, then smiled the crooked smile she liked. “That and the fact that I kept trying to be a farmer on horseback. My pa said I’d best learn to tend cattle if I was never going to use my own two feet to walk.”

Jess grinned. Then she grew thoughtful, lightly shaking her head at her own musings. “Jewels remind me of my mother, too.” At his questioning look, she explained, “The earrings and hair comb I wore the night of the fire were hers.”

“You have a few pieces of your mother’s jewelry?”

“Yes. I sewed them into my petticoats when I came here,” she admitted. “When I still had it in mind to leave.”

“Do you have a place to keep them?”

“I keep them in the dressing table in my room.”

“In a drawer?”

“No one’s going to steal them—not here.”

“True.” Jake set the cat on its feet and rose. “I guess we’d best get some sleep if we’re going to have a party in a few days.” He held out a hand to help Jess from the creek.

“Oh, I…that is…” Jess indicated the towel she’d left on the bank. “I’d rather have a moment to myself.”

Immediately, he put her at ease as he had done before. “I’ll wait over there to walk you back.”

Jess murmured her thanks. As soon as he left her, she emerged from the water, then paused on the bank to squeeze water from her hair and swim dress. That done, she wrapped herself in the towel, feeling refreshed and cooled. She held the towel close as she walked over to him, then together they continued toward the house. Deep within, near her heart, she ached with yearning.

“What all takes place at these parties of yours?” she asked, keeping her tone light.

“The boys compete in games. Horse races—rough ones,” he clarified, “not like you’re accustomed to. They’ll race the green mustangs around the circle of ranch buildings. The Indians always make the competition fierce.”

“Green mustangs?” Jess’s grin was genuine. Already, she was eager to see it.

“Then there’s shooting.” His eyes teased her again. “I’d keep away from that, though, if I were you. We’re miles from any doctor, should your aim be as it’s been.”

Jess tossed him a predictable glare.

His voice lowered as they rounded the bunkhouse. “Diaz taught the boys a game he grew up with—chicken pulling.”

Jess winced at the sound of that. “Chicken pulling?”

Jake laughed softly. “It’s as bad as it sounds. The men bury a live chicken in the ground—just up to its neck—then ride past at a gallop, leaning low in the saddle, and try to pull it from the ground by its head. When the chicken sees the hand coming, it dodges, of course, but when someone finally catches it, its neck snaps. We use a small sack stuffed with dried beans instead.”