The Homesteader's Sweetheart (10 page)

“Reminds me of hugging Poppy when I was a girl.”

Her words reflected the affection she felt. He’d never heard her call Walt
Poppy,
it was always Grandfather. Her speech was always proper, just like she was. Except for now.

Then she was quiet, her breathing even as it puffed against the back of his neck. He was still afraid she would fall asleep, so he asked a question.

“How often did you visit your grandparents?”

“Mmm…” she hummed, the soft sound vibrating through his shirt and making his stomach swoop. “Haven’t visited much since I left for Philadelphia. My father doesn’t want me to come. Before that…every summer.”

“Really?” That was surprising. He couldn’t picture her following Peg into the barn to milk cows or gather eggs. “I wouldn’t think you’d enjoy the homestead much. Too quiet.”

“I do like conversing with my friends, but…” She sighed. “I love the horses. I helped saddle-break Patches, you know.”

Another surprise. “No, I didn’t know that.”

They crested the final hill before Walt’s place and the moonlight showed the small house, barn and corral in stark relief against the darker landscape. A light burned in the window. Probably Walt waiting on his granddaughter to arrive home.

“I didn’t know a lot of things about you.” Her words came slower now, almost dreamily.

Jonas kept his eyes focused ahead, wondering what Penny thought every time she saw this place. It sounded like she had good childhood memories here, but now that she was used to finery and wealth, did she see Walt’s homestead differently?

“Thought you had loose morals…”

Her hands fisted in the material of Jonas’s shirt, brushing against his sides and making him jump. The horse beneath him shied a bit, reacting to his abrupt movement, and Jonas patted the animal’s neck, calming it. He knew it shouldn’t bother him that Penny had thought the same as all the others had, that he was capable of fathering a child out of wedlock, but it rankled. He’d wanted Penny to see past the bricklayer’s shy apprentice to who he was inside.

“But I found out I was wrong.”

Jonas hadn’t meant for her to find out about Breanna’s parentage; he still didn’t quite know what to say to her to convince her to keep it between the two of them.

They entered the yard between Walt’s cabin and the barn, and Jonas slowed the horse.

“…Found out you’re a man I can admire.”

Jonas’s heart pulsed at the same time he reined in the horse. His mind shouted
distance! distance!
because she didn’t know about his own past and she’d most likely think differently about him when she did. But his heart caught on her admiration. He wanted her to think highly about him.

He didn’t say anything as he dismounted from the horse and reached up for her waist.

“Oh!” she gasped softly, wobbling but not coming toward him. “My foot’s caught—”

Jonas rounded the horse and freed her ankle from one of the saddle straps. She swung her leg over the horse’s back and slid to the ground, putting them face-to-face with the horse between. Light from Walt’s window painted her features golden and Jonas knew his must be in shadow—an apt metaphor for the difference in their circumstances.

“Why did you do it?” she asked, her gaze aware and frank with curiosity. She wasn’t as sleepy as he’d thought. “Why did you take on Breanna’s care instead of telling the truth?”

He could still remember being in the Broadhursts’ stifling parlor, hat in hand, too afraid to sit for fear of getting brick dust on the fancy furniture. Remembered Millie’s formidable father and the accusations he’d thrown at Jonas while Millie had sat crying on a sofa nearby. And he still remembered his own rising anger that had caused words to spew from his mouth before he’d really thought.

“They were going to just
throw her away,
” he said, dropping his voice at the end of his sentence so maybe she wouldn’t hear the anger still simmering all these years later.

“What? Who, Breanna?”

He looked away, pretending to adjust one of the buckles on the saddle, because he didn’t want Penny to see the emotion he knew was written on his face.

“The Broadhursts paid me to take Breanna and leave Philadelphia. I think they still wanted to try and make their daughter a society match.” Something he knew Penny wanted as well. Something impossible to someone like him. “If I hadn’t…” He swallowed, the remembered words Mr. Broadhurst had said ringing in his ears.
Don’t want the disgrace. Atrocity. Trash. Mistake.
Words he’d heard applied to himself as a child…

“If you hadn’t taken Breanna…” Penny prodded, touching the back of his hand and bringing his gaze back up to meet her compassion-filled eyes.

He made himself say the words. “They would have given her up. Put her in an orphanage—” He exhaled heavily, trying to steady his voice. “Abandoned her.” As his parents had done to him.

“Would that have been so bad? Aren’t—don’t orphanages, I mean, they help children who don’t have anyone else, right?”

He could see in her face she didn’t understand. She had probably never ever set foot in one of the overcrowded, noisy, lonely places. Had never been told she wasn’t wanted. Something he never wanted Breanna to feel.

“But she did have someone,” he stated simply, matter-of-factly. “Me.” Unwilling, unable to tell her more. “You’d better go in.”

Her face crinkled at his dismissal, but the emotions crowding his chest made it necessary.

He’d known she wouldn’t understand what abandonment felt like, or what it meant to grow up in a place with a hundred other kids, crowded and with no privacy, no hope of finding a place, a family. Or on the streets, in the cold, moving from place to place.

Well, he’d made his own place, his own family. And he was happy out here on his homestead, with his kids.

“Penny?”

The porch flooded with light and the outline of Penny’s brother filled the doorway.

“Grandfather’s ready to turn in.”

“All right. I’m coming.” Her gaze continued to pierce Jonas as she backed toward the porch. “Thank you for telling me,” she said softly.

She seemed to think he’d done something admirable, even if she didn’t understand exactly what he’d saved Breanna from.

So why did he leave with such a bitter taste in his throat?

Chapter Ten

“W
hatcha doin’?”

Taking a break.
Exhausted from a morning spent on her knees forking potatoes out of the hard-packed soil, Penny looked up from the letter she was penning to smile at Breanna as the girl wandered into the dining room. Breanna had been playing with a crude corn-cob doll in her bedroom, and now emerged with tousled hair and bright eyes. She’d probably fallen asleep.

“I’m writing a letter, Miss Breanna.”

“To who?” The girl plopped onto the end of one of the table benches, straddling it in a most unladylike fashion.

“Hmm, I think it’s time for a manners lesson,” Penny said, hoping to divert the girl’s attention.

She stood and moved next to Breanna. “A lady never sits with legs apart. You may sit with your feet together on the floor.” Penny demonstrated. “Or with your ankles crossed, like this.” Penny tucked her crossed ankles beneath her, showing Breanna the proper position.

Breanna scrambled to sit up straight and copy what Penny was doing. She almost toppled from the bench because her feet didn’t touch the floor, but Penny righted her and took the opportunity to put her arm around the girl’s shoulders and hug her.

“Is this right, Miss Penny?” Breanna looked up with an eager expression. “Am I doing it?”

Penny nodded. She couldn’t help but notice that Breanna’s skirt fell well above the girl’s ankles. Not to mention its state: worn and stained. The other dress she’d seen Breanna in was just as bad. The girl needed some new clothes. But Penny hesitated to broach the subject with Jonas, who already had more than enough worries about money.

And Penny couldn’t help but think of her wardrobe full of silks and satins back at home. It was a shame the silks would not fare well on a farm with this many rowdy children, or she’d send for some of her older dresses and remake them into something that would fit Breanna.

“May I have a cup of tea?” Breanna asked, brown eyes shining up at Penny. “Isn’t that what ladies drink?”

“Yes,” Penny said with a smile. “But how about some milk instead?”

Breanna shrugged. “Okay.”

They were going to throw her away.
Jonas’s words from the previous night reverberated in her head as Penny fetched Breanna’s drink. Even with Breanna’s tendency to follow her brothers around and her propensity to become dirt-smudged and the rips in her hems, she was a beautiful, vibrant girl. She was kind to animals, especially one of the chickens she’d taken to. And Breanna always saw the little things like Walt talked about, like a pretty wildflower or an unusual patterned leaf.

The beauty that shone through her reminded Penny of her grandfather’s comments when they’d spoken privately near the barn. Between keeping track of Breanna and learning the farm chores, Penny had barely had time to ensure that Sam wasn’t causing too much trouble and her grandfather wasn’t too worn down. She hadn’t had a decent conversation with him since.

And still, his words echoed through her mind at the oddest times. Like now, in a child-like moment spent with Breanna. Her grandfather
was
right. Breanna didn’t need frilly, lacy dresses to make her beautiful. She was that on her own.

Of course, it wouldn’t hurt to augment that beauty with a new, better-fitting dress…

But what could Penny do about it?

She brought Breanna’s milk and sat back down to finish her letter. At least this was one thing she could do for the girl who’d started blooming in Penny’s heart.

A letter she had no intention of telling Jonas about. After his disclosure last night, she’d thought back over every interaction she’d had with Millie and her family, trying to see them as Jonas must have seen them: a wealthy family intent on getting rid of a problem their daughter had caused. It wasn’t a nice picture.

She herself couldn’t call Breanna a problem, not after getting to know the girl.

But she’d remembered a vague memory, one of Millie talking about episodes or seizures she’d had during her childhood. Penny couldn’t remember the young woman ever having a seizure during their acquaintance, but if she’d suffered them during her childhood, perhaps it meant they’d lessened or even disappeared as Millie had grown older.

And if that was the case, then perhaps Breanna didn’t need to have the expensive treatment that Jonas was worried about. Not only could Jonas save money, but if the operation was dangerous for Breanna and they found it was unnecessary, Penny could save the girl from possible danger.

During the wagon ride from Calvin, Jonas had been adamant about not seeking help from the Broadhursts. If he knew about her letter, he could very well be furious. Although Penny had yet to see him lose his temper, even with all the mischief the boys got into. He was a remarkably even-tempered man.

Shaking her head to clear the distraction, Penny continued writing. If Jonas found out about it and objected, she would simply tell him she was corresponding with a friend. Which she was. Millie Broadhurst.

Shouts from outside brought Penny to her feet, Breanna following. She knew Jonas was driving down cattle from the southern field today with several of the boys. Maxwell was helping at Walt’s place, alongside Sam. If something was wrong, what should she do? Ride home and fetch her grandfather?

A wild whinny and more shouts drew Penny outside and down the porch steps before she even realized she’d headed toward the corral. Oscar and Ed had roped the same sorrel filly they’d been trying to break yesterday and were trying to settle her, but the mare kept rearing and whinnying.

Penny willed Oscar to release the rope as the horse’s hooves came within feet of his body, but he kept reeling her closer, putting himself and Ed in danger of getting kicked.

“Drop the rope,” she said under her breath. Didn’t the boy know what danger he was in?

The horse whirled, jerking its head against the noose. Ed got jostled by its hindquarters and fell in the soft dirt, and the horse chose that moment to rear again. Its hooves came perilously close to Ed’s head as he tried to scramble away, unable to get to his feet—

“Drop the rope!” Penny screamed.

Oscar released the rope in time for the animal to turn and gallop to the opposite side of the corral, narrowly missing Edgar, who scrambled to his feet and slipped through the cross-planks to stand outside the corral. He was shaking all over.

Oscar threw up his hands, a crude word slipping from his mouth. “The horse won’t cooperate! I’ve never met a meaner piece of meat. She won’t listen to me at all.” He spat in the dirt in disgust.

“Don’t curse,” Penny corrected absently, watching the mare dance and try to shake off the bridle.

“What about ol’ Blackie? He’s plenty mean.” Breanna crossed her arms on the middle corral railing and leaned her chin on top.

“Aw, why don’t ya two gals go back inside where ya belong?” asked Edgar belligerently. He still hadn’t warmed up to Penny since their first encounter over the breakfast dishes.

Penny paid no attention to the argumentative boy; she was focused on the animal quivering at the back of the corral.

“Blackie’s a mustang stallion Pa got last year,” Oscar put in, still breathing hard. “He’s wild, and even Pa couldn’t break him.” This was said as if it was unimaginable.

“Don’t worry. Blackie gets his own pasture. Pa has him in a special fence so’s he don’t stomp on any of us kids or visit with the mares or anythin’,” Breanna said.

“Hmm,” Penny hummed, still considering the idea that had come to her. “I’ll be right back.”

She went into the house and quartered the early apple she’d set aside as a snack for later. She slipped three of the pieces into her apron pocket and held onto the other. Jonas had lent her the apron and she still had a hard time visualizing him wearing it. When she returned to the corral, Oscar had joined Ed and Breanna outside the corral, arms crossed. The horse still dragged the lead rope from her neck.

Penny hiked up her skirt and maneuvered her way through the rails into the corral. The horse immediately reacted, neighing a warning for Penny to stay away.

“Miss Penny, what’re you doing?” Breanna gasped.

Penny ignored her. “Don’t speak too loudly, you three,” she ordered. “I’m going to try a trick my grandfather showed me.”

“
You’re
going to tame that filly?” Oscar scoffed.

“Why doncha get outta there before ya get hurt?” Edgar chimed in, crossing his arms across the top railing and putting one boot on the bottom.

The boys’ remarks rankled, but Penny didn’t show her reaction outwardly. She needed to be calm so the horse would trust her. Pretending to ignore the horse, Penny leaned on the fence about halfway between the children and the animal, one arm outstretched against the top railing, the apple piece dangling loosely from her fingertips.

“There’s more than one way to break a filly,” was Penny’s response to Oscar. “You can try to manhandle her into submission… Perhaps to steal a kiss…?” She still couldn’t believe he’d done such a thing with a young woman last Sunday. Maybe she could use the horse-breaking to teach two lessons at once and encourage him on the proper way to treat a woman.

Breanna and Ed watched; the young girl with rapt attention, Edgar wearing a skeptical look.

Oscar’s eyebrows arched, his jaw lifting defiantly. She’d seen that look on Sam’s face many a time. “Or…?”

Penny held her breath as the horse snorted. She watched from the corner of her eye as the animal bobbed its head, trying to determine who Penny was and just what she was doing in the corral. Penny could wait.

“Or you can woo your filly.”

“Woo her? Yer joking.”

Edgar snorted as if to agree with his brother.

“I’m not.” Penny remained perfectly still as the horse took one step in Penny’s direction. “Yes, woo her. Just like when you’re trying to catch the attention of a girl you might fancy.”

Now Oscar’s eyebrows met his hat. He crossed his arms over his chest.

“When you want to get a girl’s attention, you don’t demand it.” Penny held her breath as the horse took two more hesitant steps forward. Still several to go before the rope would be within reach.

“You speak softly to her.” Penny kept her voice low and soothing. “Tell her things she wants to hear. That she’s pretty, if you like her dress, that kind of thing.” Another step. And another. “But don’t simply ask about surface things. You want to find out what is close to her heart. Her family, her dreams…”

One more step brought the horse close enough to stretch its neck and sniff the apple in Penny’s palm, tickling her with its warm breath.

“That’s right,” Penny encouraged the animal under her breath. “Take it…”

The horse lipped up the apple piece, crunching it between its teeth.

“And giving a girl—a filly—gifts can’t hurt your chances, either,” Penny finished, pride coloring her voice. It had worked!

Penny caught sight of a sharp motion from the corner of her eye. Suddenly, the horse shied and reared. She jumped away, banging her side hard into the corral post. The horse’s hooves narrowly missed her. She heard the air whoosh by as the filly galloped away to the other side of the corral.

“Miss Penny!”

“What’s going on here?”

Heart pounding so loudly that she only dimly heard Breanna’s shout and the second voice—Jonas’s—Penny clung to the corral post. The horse didn’t settle, instead heading around the corral and back toward Penny, who couldn’t seem to make her legs work. She knew she needed to duck between the rails and get out of the corral, but her feet felt like lead. She couldn’t move!

A pair of hands clasped her waist and she was bodily lifted over the top corral rail just before the horse thundered past, dirt flying up behind its dangerous hooves.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Jonas demanded.

Penny gripped his shoulders with both hands, trembling uncontrollably. “I just lost my footing. I’m all right.” She said the words to convince herself.

Over Jonas’s shoulder, Penny saw Oscar’s mouth twist snidely. “She thought to teach me how to tame that filly.”

“What?”

Pressed up close against Jonas like she was, with her nose nearly in his neck, Penny felt as much as heard his curt question as it vibrated through his chest. His heart thudded against her cheek, as if he’d run across the yard to get to her. Looking past Oscar to the horse saddled near the barn, where Davy and Ricky looked on from their own horses, she supposed he might’ve done just that.

She felt safe in his embrace. The sheer breadth of his shoulders made it seem as if he could protect her from any harm. He smelled of sweat and horse, but somehow the scent was more potent than the colognes some of her acquaintances wore. Jonas was purely male.

As suddenly as she’d become aware of Jonas’s physicality, she realized the children watched them curiously, and pushed away. Her legs were still wobbly, but they held her weight.

“Breanna and I came outside to watch the boys for a moment, and I saw Oscar having trouble… I told you that I helped Grandfather train Patches,” she finished quickly as a disbelieving look crossed his face.

He shook his head as if he didn’t know what to say to her. “You could have been hurt,” he chided.