Mary Connealy (50 page)

Well, that wasn’t strictly true. He wanted it something fierce. It just wasn’t going to be one of those things he let himself have. He decided maybe he was safer when she was mad.

Before he could think of some way to get her hackles up, she said, “It’s so hard on them. They’re game as any man, and they’d never ask for me to give them any kind of break. But I’m worried about them. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but …” Belle stopped talking, and with practiced ease she swung the baby around to her front and looked down at the wide-eyed little girl who rode so patiently day after day. “Betsy has changed.”

Silas thought of diapers. “Changed how?”

Belle ran her hand over the baby’s cheek. “She doesn’t cry anymore.”

Silas leaned over and looked at that pretty baby, smudged with dirt and so quiet. Her huge black eyes, lined with lashes too thick for any baby, blinked up at her mama. Silas followed the baby’s gaze and saw the feminine side of Belle. He saw the mother in her and wished almost violently that she didn’t have to work so hard and that men hadn’t done her so wrong.

“Is she sick?” Silas nudged his horse forward to stand side by side with Belle, facing opposite directions, and looked at the little one.

Betsy turned her eyes on Silas, but she didn’t smile. Just watched.

Belle shook her head. “All the girls did this. They started out being these pink, perfect little babies. Then I’d carry them along with me while I did chores, and they’d get quiet and watchful. I’ve seen Indian babies act like this.” Belle raised the little one so she could look directly into her eyes.

Betsy reached for Belle’s nose, and Belle kissed the little grabbing fingers.

“I don’t suppose it’s bad. It just doesn’t seem quite normal to me. I don’t know what else to do than…than br–bringing them along.”

Silas heard that break in her voice again.

Belle pulled Betsy into her arms and hugged her tight, burying her face in the baby’s neck and rocking her gently.

“Betsy has been cared for more gently than the others were in a lot of ways, because Sarah stays in the house with her most of the time. But after only a few days, this drive has changed her.”

Silas looked at Belle holding her baby, and something burned in him that almost overwhelmed every lick of sense he had. And right at that moment it was a good thing they had two horses, a thousand head of cattle, a baby, and three suspicious girls between them, or he’d have dragged Belle Tanner into the nearest town and married her without another thought just so she could spend a little time sitting in a rocking chair, tending her baby, while someone took care of her and her girls. And while he was at it, he’d make sure her roof didn’t leak!

Belle hoisted Betsy into the crook of her arm and shook her head as if to clear it. “You have a knack for making me doubt myself, Silas. I don’t thank you for that.”

Silas sat silently, afraid of what might come out of his mouth if he spoke.

Belle turned her gaze on him. “I do thank you for saving me from that steer though.” She tucked Betsy back into her sling, lifted the reins with one hand, and squeezed her knees on the sides of her horse. With a soft clucking sound she rode away.

Silas turned to look after her as she rode away, and he surely enjoyed the sight of her working that horse.

Belle Tanner might be the toughest cowpoke he’d ever partnered with. She might talk and work and even think like a man. But Belle Tanner was 100 percent, through and through, pure female, and no one who got within ten feet of her ever doubted it for a moment. He had no doubt that when Belle turned up widowed each time, men came a-runnin’, and it wouldn’t be any different when word got out about Anthony. The thought of droves of no-good saddle tramps trying to get their hands on Belle didn’t sit well with him.

If she was going to get herself mixed up with a no-account saddle tramp, it might as well be him.

He tore his gaze away from her, and it was almost physically painful. Then he spurred his horse for the far side of the herd and worked himself hard the rest of the afternoon just to keep his mind off those hordes of worthless men…and the way Belle sat in a saddle.

R
esting a day was a poor excuse for an idea.

Rest was not agreeing with her. Instead, rest was giving her the energy to have her imagination running wild.

“I’ll go ride a circuit.” Silas bent over the basin of warm water and slid his scraped-clean plate in. Belle watched every move. What the man did to a pair of chaps was exactly why resting a day was a poor excuse for an idea.

Silas walked away from the camp, and she almost went after him. She felt her muscles bunch to rise and chase that man down right there on the mountainside.

It wasn’t the first time. She’d started toward him every time she came within seeing distance of him. She stopped herself before she could do anything foolish like catch the man alone and kiss him again, but she was fighting some powerful instincts. In the end, only the girls being there kept her from chasing him.

The cattle spread out across a high valley in the foothills of the Bitterroot Mountain Range. They would swing the herd slightly east after this and scale a saddleback pass that took them on the east side of a rugged peak Belle had heard called Mount Jack. That was the worst stretch of the trail. The herd would move slow, wear itself out climbing, line up mostly single file, and trudge at the most two or three miles a day for the next week. Then they’d drop down off the peaks to an easier trek with plenty of water but poor eating for the most part, which would take weight off her steers and make them edgy and difficult to handle for the last two weeks of the drive. The herd needed a few days to fill their bellies and rest up for what was ahead, just as her daughters did.

Belle thought of Silas, out there riding in slow circles around her cattle. She thought of the way he’d worked without asking fool questions or making excuses. She knew in her heart he was a different kind of man than the ones she’d gotten tangled up with before. But she also knew that Gerald had shown no signs of being a drinker before they’d married. And William had seemed like an eager, hardworking young rancher when he thought he’d be getting Belle’s pa’s ranch. And Anthony…well, she’d been down on men by the time she agreed to marry him. She wanted to stop the crowd of suitors, and beyond that, she had expected very little. And that was exactly what she’d gotten.

So, even though she thought Silas was different, she didn’t trust her judgment, having proved to be sorely lacking in that ability in the past. Belle spent a moment in silent prayer, asking God to forgive her for the life she’d provided for her girls and the sins she’d committed by marrying men who weren’t decent Christians.

It was her. She knew it.

Maybe God could give her a miracle and make her smarter, but so far the miracle hadn’t happened. She’d always thought she’d just had bad luck until near the end of her marriage to Anthony when the man had left her on the trail in the midst of giving birth to his child. Anthony was more than worthless; he was evil. And she’d picked him and exposed her children to him.

There was something broken inside her. It wasn’t bad luck. She was a pure fool when it came to men; or worse yet, there was something in her that brought out the worst in a man. Maybe Gerald had taken to the bottle because of the way Belle acted. Maybe Anthony had been driven to other women when Belle pushed him aside and did everything herself.

Belle knew there was some truth in it. More likely though, she picked men who were weak because she was used to being in charge, and men who could be pushed around tended to be shiftless from the start. Then she’d run roughshod over them.

“Why be surprised that they ended up being exactly what I expected?” she asked no one, or maybe God. Her question drifted on the air unanswered, but Betsy, who sat on her lap, looked up and raised her pretty dark brows.

The older girls were all away from camp, so Belle smiled at her baby and kept talking. “Maybe if Gerald had needed to get the chores done, he’d have sobered up. You think so, baby? You think I should have let the cattle next thing to starve in the hopes Gerald would take charge?”

Belle’s jaw clenched at the very idea. Betsy swatted her playfully on the chin, and she relaxed. “Maybe if, when William wanted to spend the few dollars my pa gave me on foolishness, I hadn’t stepped in and told him how it was going to be, William would have had to grow up and do something to put food on the table.”

“Mama.” Betsy kicked her feet, and Belle felt almost as female holding this baby as she did looking after Silas.

“It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

Betsy smiled.

The more Belle thought on it, the more she believed it. “I didn’t want a man to take charge, so I got exactly what I deserved, didn’t I? I’ve got no business complaining when my husbands turn out to be exactly like I knew they were. But that doesn’t mean I want a man bossing me around, now does it?”

Belle shook her head and tickled Betsy’s nose. Maybe resting a day wasn’t so bad if she could spend a few minutes playing with her baby. “What it boils down to, little girl, is that I am more determined than ever to stay unmarried.”

Betsy smiled and clapped her hands as if applauding Belle’s good sense. Or maybe the child was playing, but Belle didn’t see it that way.

Looking around to make sure no one was near enough to overhear her little conversation with the only person she dared tell, Belle leaned close and whispered, “But the way that man kissed me, Betsy darlin’”—Belle drew in a deep breath as she recalled it oh, so clearly—“well, it does make me forget some of the hard lessons I’ve learned about my complete lack of skill at picking husbands. It makes me want to just hunt that man right down on the range and kiss him all over again.”

Saying those scandalous words—at least scandalous considering she was determined never to remarry—made Belle look up and search the mountain valley for
that man.
She saw him just as he pulled out his lariat, dabbed a loop on a yearling calf, and started dragging it out of the herd. The herd scattered a bit, but they were too tired and too busy eating to worry about one of their own being hauled away.

He backed the steer a good distance away from the others then busted it and hog-tied it.

“What’s the man up to now?” Belle gave Betsy a final bounce then settled her into the carrier.

Before Belle got her horse saddled, Silas got the young longhorn in the clear, busted it, hog-tied it, and knelt on the ground by its head. Emma rode up beside him and got off, kneeling on the steer’s back. Belle rode over just as they were releasing the steer. It was skinnier than most. She’d noticed it as a straggler almost from the first.

It jogged away from her when she got close. Then, after a running start, it kicked up his heels the way young cattle do in the spring.

“What was that about?” Belle asked as she pulled her horse to a halt and crossed her arms over the saddle horn.

Silas pulled himself onto his horse’s back with a single smooth motion, not using the stirrup. Belle noticed that Emma mounted her horse like Silas did. Her daughter, the best horsewoman among them, was imitating Silas.

“I’ve been thinking that critter was doing poorly. I wanted to see him up close. I found a goiter growing in his throat and cut it out.” Silas turned to Emma. “Thanks for the hand.”

Emma nodded wordlessly and turned her mount toward the head of the herd.

Belle said, “Take a break, Emma. It’s almost time for my watch and the noon meal is on.”

“I want to check the horses first.” Emma nodded at the horses. “Some of the green brokes’ve been harassing the cattle toward the front of the herd. I might have to hobble ’em.”

“I’ve noticed them doing it,” Silas said. “I’ll go check. We’ll need you rested later when your ma has to see to the baby.”

Emma hesitated and studied them both for a long minute. Finally, she shrugged and headed toward camp.

When Emma was out of hearing range, Silas laughed softly. “I don’t think your daughter trusts us to stand watch together.”

Belle smiled. “I can’t say I blame her.”

“Not with your history of killin’ off husbands, then turnin’ around and marryin’ the first man what comes along.”

Belle turned angry eyes on Silas.

“Gotcha.” He grinned at her.

Anger twisted into laughter, leaving Belle sputtering as he turned his horse away from her and started riding toward the front of the herd to check the riding stock.

Belle clenched her hands so tightly on the reins, her horse skittered sideways a piece. It was only through pure force of will that Belle kept herself from riding after the confounded man and kissing the daylights out of him.

She was extra careful not to share the night watch with Silas, just because she wanted so much to ride alongside him in the dark. From the first, either she or Silas was riding herd at night, never together at the campfire, never alone in the night. It was exhausting for both of them.

The daylong break was good for the girls and good for the cattle.

But it was the longest day of Belle’s life.