Mary Connealy (76 page)

Oh, this was lining itself up to be one of the best days of his life. He wondered how much she’d take. “And I don’t like the way you’ve been breaking the horses. There’re none of ’em trained the way good cow ponies should be. I might let Emma help once they’re green broke, but I don’t want you taking a hand. You teach ’em bad habits it’ll take me years training out of ’em.”

“Silas! My horses are—I’ll have you know—” Belle must’ve bit her tongue, because she got the words to stop spewing.

Silas tilted his head a bit sideways. He expected nothing less than her trying to do things her way and leave him out. And considering her horses were some of the finest, best-trained stock he’d ever seen, it was reasonable for her to want to help. Still, tormenting her was too good to miss.

She breathed in and out of her nose so loudly he could hear it. Then she said through her bared teeth, “I’ll let you take care of that, Silas.”

Silas started backing across the porch. He opened the door behind him. “Come in here, woman.”

Belle hesitated, and Silas saw some of the flashing rage in her eyes ease.

Silas had the impression she was feeling guilty, like maybe she didn’t think she deserved to go into such a fine house as the one he’d spent every waking moment of the last month building just for her. But he didn’t give her a break, not when he was having such a good time. He crossed the threshold with her still standing on the ground, and he decided the best way to get her inside was to say, “While we’re on the subject of changes, I don’t like the way you dress. I’d like my woman to look a mite more like a female.”

Belle surged forward up the stairs, so mad Silas thought her hair might stand on end if it weren’t caught back in her braid. She stormed into the house. “You listen to me…
mmph.
”

Silas shut that yapping mouth right up with his lips. He swung the door shut and broke off the kiss just enough to speak. “Did I mention that I want more children with you than you’ve given to the other husbands?” He made sure to kiss her so deeply she couldn’t respond to that.

Finally, he pulled back. “Combined.”

When she was clinging to him, he kissed his way along her jawline and murmured in her pretty little ear, “I won’t feel right about it if my young’uns aren’t in the majority. So that’s five more babies, woman.”

“Five more?” Belle asked weakly. “That’s nine children.”

He silenced her again until she shuddered in his arms. “Did I say just five more? I meant five
boys.
However many babies it takes to get that number of
boys
is what I expect from you.”

“I…I don’t think…I may not be able…I’ve shown no talent for birthing boys, Silas.” She was almost wailing before she was done.

He slid his hands down her back and pulled her hard up against him. “Are you disobeying me, woman?”

“Umm…the other girls all have your name.” She was starting to sound wimpy. Like a regular female. He thought he almost had her toeing the line.

Silas kissed her again. He really didn’t want to think of Belle going through the dangers of having babies many more times. Besides, he considered the girls to be, in all ways, his own, so there was no point in trying to match up the number of children. But what was the fun in admitting that?

Belle said, when he let her breathe, “I’ll do whatever you want, Silas.”

“Anything?” She wasn’t obedient worth a hoot as a rule, but he remembered how agreeable she always got when they were alone. This sweetness would no doubt wear off. In fact, he was surprised it had lasted this long. And the only reason it had was because he was distracting her.

But obedience aside, as soon as he was done teasing her, he was going to sit her down and apologize for his own foolishness in not telling her he was building a house. Silas admitted he’d been selfish in wanting to impress her. He should have known his hardworking, self-sufficient wife would take care of her land with or without him.

Silas wasn’t going to make that mistake again. He’d almost lost his precious wife last night through his own prideful behavior. From now on he’d talk everything over with Belle. But he wasn’t going to start apologizing quite yet.

She let her head drop back as he nuzzled his way down her neck. Breathlessly she murmured, “Anything, if you’ll just forgive me for mistrusting you ….”

Silas didn’t know if she noticed or not, but he was acting real forgiving right now.

“And if you’ll let me live with you in the beautiful house you worked so hard on.”

“Where are the girls?”

“And let me love you again, Silas. Please, will you believe I love you? Please say you’ll love me like you did before I was so bad.”

Now Belle was begging, and as much as Silas loved it, he couldn’t stand that he’d reduced his proud, strong wife to that. But he decided to listen for just a second longer because he wasn’t likely ever to hear it again.

“I’ll do whatever you want, including starting on those five boys. I do believe I’ve got a start on the first one already.”

He paused in his kisses and looked into her eyes. “Really? I wondered. But you cried when you talked about having my baby.”

Belle couldn’t seem to pay attention. “When was that?”

“Last night in the woods. After the wolves almost got you.” Silas shivered as deeply as if he was freezing to death when he thought about it. “You cried. Cried hard and said you didn’t want another baby.”

“I don’t remember saying that, but I know I’ve been a bad mother to the girls. I’ve done wrong by ’em, every one. And I regret that more than anything in my life. I don’t want to hurt another baby by not having time to love her and hug her and care for her the way she deserves.”

The last fear eased itself from Silas’s heart when he heard Belle’s regret over a baby wasn’t because of him. “I’ll make sure you have time to do things the way you want with him, Belle. I know the girls have been raised different from most little girls, but I think they’re perfect. I think they’re the kind of women the West needs to tame it. I’m so proud of them, I’d like to bust every time I hear them call me Pa. And that makes you a wonderful mother.”

“They are good girls, aren’t they?”

“The very best. And remember I’ll be here to make sure they don’t get mixed up with any no-account husbands, so we won’t have to worry about that.” He kissed her again. “Speaking of the girls…where are they?”

“The girls promised to stay busy until I called them.”

“Oh, yes. They are very good girls.”

And that was the last word spoken in the Harden Ranch house for a long time.

B
elle saw she’d had a boy seconds after his birth and looked at Silas with equal parts pride—at finally producing a son—and fear—at figuring out how to raise one.

“We’ll just do exactly what you did with the girls, honey,” Silas said.

She’d learned that the man could, on occasion, read her mind. “They’re all as tough and brave as we could ever hope our boy would be.”

Tanner would need to be tough indeed to out-tough Betsy, Sarah, Emma, and Lindsay, but from the way he came into the world kicking and screaming, Belle suspected he was up to it.

One warm summer day Belle strapped her son on her back and took a ride to her old cabin. She guided her mount up that steep hill to the Husband Tree and sat to rest and have a little talk with her boy about what she expected in a man.

Tanner slept through it, but Belle had her talk with him anyway, just to get in practice raising a son. She wanted the boy to grow up remembering where his ma had come from and how little she’d had to start and how far a person could go with hard work.

Belle looked down on the pathetic cabin that she’d built with her skinned knuckles and insufficient strength so long ago.

“I can’t bring myself to miss a single one of the no-account bums, including William, who I am most likely sitting on right now.”

Tanner squirmed a bit in her arms but didn’t wake up. “But I’m glad for what I went through, because surely only the steps I took led to the exact place I’m in right now with you and my daughters and your pa. And—sitting on William notwithstanding—it’s a very good place.”

Rocking Tanner gently, she marveled at the chance she now had to fuss with a baby and sing lullabies.

She saw Silas and watched as he spotted her and rode up to dismount.

“Missing your old husbands and that cabin, Belle honey?” Silas settled with his back against the Husband Tree and smiled right into Belle’s light brown eyes.

“Not even one little bit.” Belle leaned her shoulder against Silas’s. “I’m thinking that I needed these husbands to get my girls. And if I hadn’t had all girls and needed to hire cowhands, I’d have never gotten you. It worked out in the end, but could marrying these no-accounts have been part of God’s plan?”

“I don’t know if either of us took the direct route God had in mind, but in the end it led us both to a good place.” Silas reached a work-calloused hand to cradle Tanner’s head. It was covered with dark hair, and the boy had brown eyes.

Belle supposed she’d given birth to yet another child who looked just like his pa, but Belle could pretend the tyke looked like her if she wanted to.

“It’s possible I needed to go through those early years to understand—or at least accept—the ways of God.” Belle’s words drew Silas’s attention away from Tanner, and their matching brown eyes met and held.

Silas leaned forward until their lips met. “Well, however we got here, I like where we ended up real well.”

They sat together talking…and not talking…for a long while.

Then Tanner woke up and kicked up a fuss.

They got up to head home.

Before she left, Belle patted the Husband Tree good-bye and good riddance.

Montana Territory, 1877

G
unfire jerked Wade Sawyer awake.

His feet hit the floor before he made a conscious decision to move. Grabbing his rifle mounted over the door, he rammed his back to the wall, jacked a shell into the chamber, and listened.