Mary Connealy (68 page)

Moving with almost desperate speed, she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him. His arms closed around hers and held her tight. “You’re not getting rid of me, Belle.”

His words were interrupted by her lips. “I’ve survived—” He went on, in broken sentences, “A long time in this land.” He tossed in words between the kissing. “I know my way around.” The gleam in his eyes made her wonder if they were still talking about ranching and his long life. “You’re stuck with me.”

“I am, aren’t I?” She thought now of the glow in Lindsay’s eyes the morning after her wedding and knew that Lindsay was already more of a woman than Belle had ever been.

But that was before last night.

“This is my first real wedding night.” She turned her thoughts from the others, only able to control a shudder at those memories because of where she was now and the strength and warmth of Silas’s arms.

And although she was furious at her husbands, she wasn’t going to dig them up after all, because she was too contented to move.

“We need to get going,” Belle murmured. “The girls will have breakfast on by now. We’re sleeping the day away.” “We’re not sleeping, darlin’.”

Which Belle had to admit was the plain truth. “But I need to check the herd. And I never did a good check on the saddle stock yesterday and—”

Silas quieted her right down. He drove every thought of work and the ranch and even her girls from her mind.

They got into breakfast late.

The girls were dressed and cooking. Sarah had outdone herself to make it a celebration. They had eggs she’d scrounged up just this morning. There were hotcakes on the grill. She’d sliced into a new side of bacon and shredded raw potatoes and onions into hash browns. They were all so starving for food that wasn’t laced with the flavor of trail dust that they ate like field hands, which, when it came right down to it, was exactly what they all were.

After they were sitting over their second cups of coffee, Silas announced, “This cabin is a disaster. It needs at least one more bedroom, and I’ve got to patch the holes in it before the snow falls. Which one of your worthless husbands built this wreck for you, Belle honey?”

An extended silence filled the room. Sarah’s eyes widened, and Belle could see she was trying to think of a way to warn Silas off dangerous ground. Emma slumped low in her chair as if she had been awaiting the first fight—and now here it came.

Belle set her coffee cup down with the sharp
click
of tin on wood. “I built it myself.”

Silas looked around for a long minute. “Well, in that case, I think it’s wonderful. In fact, I wouldn’t change a thing.”

“You wouldn’t change a thing?” Belle roared. “Why, this place is falling down around our ears.”

Silas grinned at her until she quit snarling. When she finally did, he started chuckling, softly at first then louder. He gasped over his laughter, “You said it. I didn’t.” Then he started laughing again.

Belle threw her coffee cup at him. But no one took it seriously, because it was both tin and empty. Silas just ducked and kept laughing. Before long the whole table was laughing along with him.

Silas finally managed to say, “Then I have your permission to fix a few things, Mrs. Harden?”

“Oh, Silas,” Belle said ardently, “if only you would.”

Silas rose from his end of the table and rounded it to pull Belle out of her chair. He took the seat she’d just vacated and dropped her right onto his lap. He kissed her with a resounding
smack,
then stood and returned her to the seat and just as easily returned to his own chair. “I’ll have the frame up before nightfall or your name isn’t…C’mon, sweetheart, this is a test. What’s your name these days?”

“It’s Belle Harden.
Mrs. Silas Harden.”
Her heart pounded from that kiss and from how much she loved her new name. “And from this day forward, all the girls are Hardens, too.” Belle nodded firmly to her girls, and they all nodded back just as confidently. No fussy legal formalities needed for the Harden clan.

Silas said with exaggerated severity, “And don’t any of you ever forget it.”

He got up from the table, dusting his hands as if one chore was done—naming his family. “Point me to the tools. Have you got an ax? I need to cut some trees.”

Silas clamped his Stetson on his head and started for the door. He stopped suddenly. “No, the house isn’t first. I need to ride out and check the cattle. We need to get them closer in, off the summer pasture, before their grazing in the highlands is buried under ten feet of snow. I need to check them over and make sure none are sick or injured, and I ought to do a tally before winter so we have some idea of what to expect for calves in the spring.” Silas dragged his hat off his head as he stood in front of the open door and stared across the rugged land.

“I’ll get started on all of that.” Belle got up from the table and went to his side. “Let me do it while you work on the house.”

“It’s not gonna be that way, Belle.” Silas shook his head. “You are done doing a man’s work around here. I’ll just have to push hard with the tally and get to the cabin later. We’ve got two months before the weather closes in on us, maybe more.”

“No!” Belle shouted.

Silas jumped and gave her a wary look. “Belle, I know what the preacher said about obeying, and I know you’re not used to stepping aside when there’s work to be done. That’s one of the things I love most about you. And I’m not trying to give you orders. I’m just trying to begin this marriage as I mean for it to go on. I want to make your life easier.”

“I didn’t mean to holler at you, Silas. I’m not fighting with you over giving up my work. Believe me, I’d like nothing better than to run this house and leave most of the outdoor chores to you. The problem is, if we mean to have this house enlarged and sealed up before winter, you’re going to have to hurry. We
might
have two months, but sometimes we get an early snow that surprises us. Let me keep on at the cattle chores for a few days. A week or two while you set yourself to working on the house. I can do the cattle, but I am a poor excuse for a carpenter. I guess I yelled because we don’t have much time and …” Belle leaned so close her chin rested on his chest, and murmured so the girls couldn’t hear, “I want our own room so bad.”

Silas pulled his gaze away from the horizon and looked down at her. Somehow, even though he wasn’t a huge man, not as tall as any of her other husbands, he made her feel small and feminine. He rested his open hand on her cheek. “You’ve done better here than any woman could have. Better than most
men
could have.

Don’t you speak badly of yourself because the house you built with your own hands isn’t good enough. Look what you’ve built here, and I’m not talking just about the cabin and barn. I’m talking about the sweet bunch of daughters, the herd, the money you’ve earned, plenty more things; all of this is yours and your girls’, and it’s something to be proud of. I wish …” Silas’s chin dropped and he didn’t meet her eyes. “I wish I could have brought more into this marriage, Belle. It isn’t honorable for a poor man to come to a rich woman with his hands empty.”

“Rich woman?” Belle had never thought of herself in such a way.

“Yes, that’s exactly what you are. You have this whole spread paid for and two thousand-plus head of cattle and fifteen thousand dollars cash money in that bag you brought home. I reckon you’re as rich as anyone in the state these days. I reckon I’m just another sorry excuse for a husband around here. This”—he waved his hand at the expanse of open pasture broken by clumps of trees and rocky outcroppings that spread out before them—“all this is yours. I want to contribute something more than I can right now. I’m going to add to it and put everything I have of myself in it, but it’ll take time, and I…well, I have an idea.” He looked up at her like he was almost scared.

Belle’s heart turned over to see him so vulnerable.

“I’m not sure if it’ll work, and I want to accomplish it before I talk about it.”

“What idea, Silas?”

Silas lay his hand over hers where it rested on his chest. More than ever she wanted that new bedroom built on. The barn was going to get mighty cold before long.

“Hush now.” Silas lay his finger over her lips. “I’ll tell you about it when I’m ready. If I tell you now, knowing you, little woman, you’ll just treat my idea like it’s a cantankerous bull. You’ll grab it by the horns and wrestle it right into line all on your own. For now, I’ll …” A shadow passed over his expression, and Belle knew he was unhappy about what he was going to say. “I’ll do it your way and let you keep on with the cattle, but only for the time it takes me to get this place spruced up and get some headway on”—he hunched one shoulder and said dismissively in a way that made Belle worry that she’d somehow wounded his pride—“my idea.”

His touch was so tender and his eyes so full of regret at letting her work at her cattle and having so little to contribute to their marriage that Belle wanted to take him off somewhere where they could be alone and cheer him right up.

He seemed to read her mind, because the wistfulness was gone out of his eyes. He leaned over and kissed her. “Just promise me you’ll leave all the real hard labor to me. Just do your tally and keep track of any animals that need attention. I’ll do the rest.” With what sounded like honest regret, he added, “At first, I reckon I’m going to end up being as worthless as your other husbands, but only for a while ….”

“Don’t you dare say that, Silas Harden. You’ve already done more for me than all three of those worthless old coots put together, so don’t you ever lump yourself in with them again.”

“Yeah, I noticed you enjoyed our…honeymoon.” He smiled with heat in his eyes.

She slapped his shoulder. “I meant on the cattle drive.”

Laughing, Silas said, “Oh, that’s right. I do remember helping you out a bit during that.”

“You work on the cabin, and whatever this idea is of yours, you go do it with my blessing.”

Silas tucked one finger under her chin and tilted her face a bit and looked into her eyes for a long moment. Then, as if satisfied with her sincerity, he gave her a brisk nod and slapped his hat on his head. “I’ll get on with chopping down some timber.”

“I can help, Pa.” Emma got up from the table. “I can hook a line to the logs and drag them back here.”

Silas looked over at the girls, and Belle had the impression that Silas had forgotten they had an audience. She knew how he felt. Sometimes it seemed as if they were alone in the world.

“Pa,” Silas said with quiet satisfaction. “I really like that, Emma. I’m mighty proud to have you call me that.” He took two steps to where the girls had stood watching them hash out their chores and wrapped Emma and Sarah, with Betsy in Sarah’s arms, in a bear hug. He even growled while he did it. He hugged them long and hard, and for just a second, with an especially big growl, he lifted all three of them off the floor. Sarah giggled.

He set them all down and said to Emma, “No, you’re not helping. Those logs have a way of rolling wild on a person. I don’t want you in the way. I can use your help when I’m back here, but I don’t want you on that mountainside with falling trees.”

Belle saw Emma’s eyes shine. No man had ever told her no when she offered to work before, and no man had ever acted like her safety was more important than the strength in her back.

Belle remembered how she’d struggled with trees, bringing them down here. One of the reasons she’d built where she did was because there was a nice stand of young growth ponderosa pines at this spot and she could get the logs from where they fell to the house site.

Later she found out this area had a stream of water flowing through it in the rainy season that turned the ranch yard into a mud hole and the corral and barn into a swamp. The wind whipped into the cabin with nothing to stop it, but a couple of miles of clear sailing to pick up speed. The snow tended to blow into deep drifts all around them, and they didn’t get any afternoon sun at all.

She’d had Lindsay on her back or toddling around her feet while she built it. Before she was done with the barn, she’d had Emma growing big in her belly. She’d only wanted a roof over her head, and she never thought to consider such things as spring flooding and afternoon sun when she’d begun struggling with the logs and the ornery horses and the lackadaisical William.

Thinking of Silas’s gift for quick, tight construction, as he’d demonstrated on Lindsay’s house, she got excited for what was to come and hadn’t a single qualm about keeping up her grueling work with the cattle. She didn’t have any plans to spare herself work and leave all the toughest jobs for Silas either. He didn’t deserve to have every task on this ranch settled on his shoulders from the first minute.

Silas said to Emma, “For now, I hope you don’t mind helping your ma with the cattle still. It won’t be for long. I promise.”

“No. No, Pa. I’ll help her gladly. I never figured to quit anyway. I’m happier on horseback than I am in the kitchen. Even when you’re done with the house, I want to keep riding herd.”

“I’ll always need help, I’m afraid.” Then Silas looked at Sarah. “And I can’t believe someone so young can turn her hand to a kitchen and take such good care of us like you do, Sarie. You’re gonna not have much extra help for a while either. I didn’t want it to be this way, but for now it’s gotta be.”