Mary Connealy (44 page)

Not a complete lie. God had definitely come and taken Anthony away. Chances were she could pull off Anthony being somewhere just for overnight. Th en the drive would start and there was no reason Silas would have to know anything more about the missing husband.

She’d never considered it before she left for town, so she hadn’t had a chance to mention it to the girls, and for all her mental gyrations, she’d known there was a good chance Anthony being dead would come out. So why did she feel her face heat up? This was the second time it had happened since she’d gotten home and the third time today.

Also the third time in her adult life.

To conceal her overly warm cheeks, she headed for the washbasin to stand in line behind Emma.

Lindsay was already washed up and putting bowls of food on the table.

Sarah had contrived fried chicken, mashed potatoes, a baking of bread, and the last of the green beans from their kitchen garden. A custard stood cooling by the window, rich with their own eggs and cream and honey.

They were seated at the table, and Belle said grace quickly but from the heart, because she considered being spared a husband’s company the act of a loving God.

When the food had been passed and everyone was settled in to eat, Silas asked casually, “So what exactly did Anthony die of?”

Belle thought he was looking at his food rather suspiciously, like maybe it was poisoned.

She almost smiled. Then he caught her eye and did smile, and she knew he was teasing her. She looked back at her plate. That moment of mutual amusement might well constitute the nicest exchange she’d ever had with a man. And that definitely included the four times she’d gotten pregnant.

Sarah, always helpful, piped up. “He claimed to be looking for leaks, but he were hiding out from work like always. He fell off the roof.”

Silas quirked the corner of his mouth but managed not to smile. “That’s terrible.”

Without looking up from her food, Sarah responded, “Not really.”

Silas pressed his hand to his mouth for a second. “How long has he been gone?”

“A couple months, I reckon.” Emma was, as a rule, shy around strangers. Not today, more’s the pity. But then Anthony’s worthless-ness was one of her favorite subjects. “Didn’t rightly notice what day it was. We planted him by the Husband Tree with the other husbands. Lost nearly a quarter of a day of work, but we made it up soon enough.”

Sarah said with overly solemn dignity, “They was a worthless lot. Anthony Santoni was Betsy’s pa.” Sarah pointed her fork at the dark-haired, dark-eyed toddler.

Sarah shook her head of red curls and yanked on one of the corkscrews, pulling it down past her eyes before letting it spring back. “My pa, Gerald O’Roarke, was drunk when he died, as usual. He fell off his horse on his way home from the Golden Butte and let hisself get dragged for nigh onto twenty miles. Ma says he was no great loss ‘ceptin’ it was right hard on the poor horse.”

Silas coughed into his napkin for far too long. “Husband Tree?”

Somehow Belle had never heard her words echoed back at her in quite this way before. Her neck was getting warm again, and she thought desperately of something to say to change the subject. The best she could come up with was,
Let’s talk about something else.
She opened her mouth to say it, but before she could …

“My and Emma’s pa was William Svendsen.” Lindsay, who had been mercifully silent until now, smoothed her white blond hair, pulled back in a single, waist-length braid, and spoke. “He got hisself gored by Rudolph.”

“And Rudolph is …” Silas waited.

“Our bull. Maybe a ten-foot spread of horns. Getting old now, but he’s been a good bull. Wasn’t his fault William went right into his pen.” Lindsay rolled her eyes.

Emma arched her blond brows over her crystal blue eyes. “Any idiot knew better than to climb in that pen with Rudolph.”

Silas covered his mouth with his napkin and seemed to be having a problem breathing.

Belle was pretty sure he was choking to death, and she wished he’d get on with it.

“Any other husbands planted around here?”

Sarah mulled it over for a moment. “Umm…no, I think that’s the lot of ’em…so far. Likely another one’ll come sniffin’ around now that ma’s a widow lady again.”

“They always do,” Emma said with heavy resignation.

“We’ve learned our lesson.” Very sternly, Lindsey added, “Haven’t we, Ma?”

Belle rubbed her forehead and stared at her plate as she nodded without saying a word.

“Yep, don’t care how many of the mangy varmints come a-courtin’,” Sarah said blithely. “We finally got shut of husbands for good. Now we can settle down and run this ranch right.”

“We always did run it right,” Emma added. “The husbands just slowed us down some.”

Finally, far too late, Belle said weakly, “Let’s talk about something else.”

Betsy chose that moment to whack her spoon against the table and splatter mashed potatoes across Silas’s face. He was at the foot of the table and Belle at the head, with Betsy beside her, so the man was clear across the table from the baby. Even at that distance, the potatoes hit him square in the eye.

Belle snatched the spoon out of Betsy’s hand and began wiping her messy face while Silas cleared his vision.

Betsy grinned straight at the poor man. “Papa!”

Glancing up, Belle saw mute horror in Silas’s eyes as his face turned a startling shade of pink under his deep tan. He rose from the table, knocking his chair over backward in his haste.

The girls didn’t seem to notice and started cleaning up the supper dishes.

“Thank you for the fine meal.” He set the chair back up. “I’ll bunk down with the buckskin in the barn.” Silas backed toward the door, grabbed the knob, and wrenched the door open. “I’ll be ready to move out with the herd an hour before first light.” He practically ran out of the house and slammed the door so hard Belle waited to see if it would fall in.

As soon as Belle could get her humiliation under control, it occurred to her that Silas had known she was a widow lady for several minutes now, and instead of proposing to her on the spot, he’d run like a rooster with his tail feathers afire. That man was horrified at the very thought of marrying her.

It was the nicest thing a man had ever done for her.

She cheered right up and even sang with the girls while they cleaned the kitchen.

It looked like, when it came to men, hiring Silas was the smartest thing she’d ever done.

That wasn’t saying much.

Taking this job was the dumbest thing he’d ever done!

He hunkered down in the barn and wondered whether Belle had set her cap for him already.

The Husband Tree?

He was tempted to cut and run, and likely he’d’ve done it if he hadn’t given his word.

Papa!

That child had called him Papa, and Silas had nearly turned tail and run out of the cabin.

But wait a minute! He remembered the way Belle got all embarrassed. It was the most womanly thing she’d done so far.

Except she loosened up on the ride home and talked to him intelligently and smiled real regular.

He couldn’t recall having a better time talking to anyone, let alone a woman. He caught himself thinking about how pretty she was, and he remembered a couple of times he’d gotten close to her accidental-like and he’d noticed how good she smelled. He considered on that for a while, how a woman could dress like a man, ride a horse like a man, work like a man, and still have something so purely female about her.

Belle Santoni—or was it Belle Tanner? Silas hadn’t gotten it all straightened out in his head yet. Belle Whoever…worked this place like any man rancher would. And Silas would bet his life the woman didn’t even own a drop of perfume or a bar of sweet-smellin’ soap. But she still smelled like 100 percent, genuine woman.

Silas sat in the cold barn and remembered how she felt when he shook her hand. Strong and soft and…Silas rubbed his hand on his pant leg, trying to put into words what else she was. The best way he could describe her was honest, although the woman had already lied to him at least once about Anthony being dead. But there was honesty in Belle’s handshake and in her eyes. Or maybe a better word was
directness.
She didn’t have any of the women’s wiles that had pitched him such fits in his life.

So, if she was direct, then Silas had to believe she meant what she said. She was foreman of the cattle drive. She’d said she had more hands, but they must be coming in the morning, because there was no one else around. She’d said one of the drovers might be late, meet up with them along the trail. Was she meeting the others that way, too? If so, it might be that he and Belle would have to at least get the drive started alone.

He had no illusions about long, romantic nights by the fire. There would be none of that with a shorthanded cattle drive. He didn’t want to think of the brutal month of hard work ahead of them.

He also realized that meant she was leaving the girls home alone. That was the one thing so far about Belle he didn’t respect. Even the lying didn’t bother him too much, because she hadn’t really lied. She just hadn’t mentioned a few important details.

But leaving those girls. Silas shook his head. The two older ones were as tall or taller than Belle—but they were still young girls. Rough, dangerous men prowled this wild country, and even an occasional band of Indians. It was no place for a gaggle of little girls to be left alone.

He lay awake, thinking about the drive ahead. He dozed lightly several times and knew the day was coming soon when he’d look back on this night’s lost sleep with regret.

Finally, he decided to declare it officially morning. He tossed his blanket aside and went to saddle up in the early hours of the morning. He started with his own. Then he started making packs out of the grub Belle had brought back on her string of ponies.

As he worked around the place in the bright moonlight, he began to really see the Tanner ranch. It was a mess.

He remembered what Lindsay—or was it Sarah?—had said about Anthony falling off the roof checking for leaks. In the glow of the full moon, Silas could see the patched, shoddy job Belle’s husbands had done building this place. The fences sagged and were braced haphazardly with tree branches and strips of rawhide. The door to the barn hung from drooping leather thongs, and the logs on the barn and the house were all small ones, as if someone didn’t have the gumption to go cut down the big trees a solid house needed.

He started tying a line of horses to the hitching post in front of the barn, and the top rail fell off in his hands. He spent long minutes repairing it, and his fingers itched to set the rest of the property to rights. It was a beautiful site Belle’s husband had picked to settle, but the house was set wrong for the winter winds and the warm summer sun. The man who built this had been a poor excuse for a carpenter.

In a brief instant, Silas could see how it was for Belle. He knew how much a woman needed a husband in the West. Someone to lift heavy things. Someone to saddle the broncos. Someone to sign legal documents and deal with the rough characters who were the only kind of men who lived in an area like this.

So, she’d been widowed. The country was hard on people and there were a thousand ways to die that had nothing to do with outlaws or marauding Indians. And once widowed…well…women were rare out here, especially women as pretty as Belle Tanner. Especially pretty women who owned a valley as rich and fertile as this. The men came calling. And like any wise woman, Belle had said yes. But it sounded like she was no judge of men, because her three husbands, to quote Sarah—or was it Lindsay?—were “a worthless lot.”

As Silas moved around the yard feeding the chickens, collecting eggs, and milking the cow, the work helped ease out the snarls in his mind. He remembered Lindsay, he was sure it was the oldest girl, saying, “We’ve learned our lesson. Haven’t we, Ma?”

And one of the other girls had responded, “We can settle down and run this ranch right.” A weight lifted off his back as he realized that Belle Tanner had
not
set her cap for him. In fact, it was just the opposite.

That’s why she’d hidden the fact that Anthony was dead. That’s why she spent the whole mealtime last night blushing like a nun in a dance hall. The last thing Belle wanted was another husband, and she was doing everything she could think of to keep from acquiring one.

Grinning, Silas carried hay and water to the milk cow. He glanced up when a lantern flickered to life in the house. He smiled when he thought about the houseful of womenfolk, everyone of whom agreed that keeping men out of their lives was the only way to run the ranch right.

He picked up the basket of eggs and the bucket of milk and headed in with them and knew he’d finally found a woman he could stand to be around.

At least he thought he could stand it…for a month.

S
ilas showed up at the door with milk and eggs. Belle was dressed and on her way out, and they almost collided.

“The morning chores are done.” Silas hoisted the milk bucket a few inches to prove it. “But you’d better check. I may not do things your way.”