The two men broke away and headed to saddle horses.
"Clem, you and Cimarron ride the stream bank, send any cows their way. Roy, come with me. We'll bring the horses into the barn and corrals."
From the porch, Linnea watched the flurry of activity. Men on horseback galloped through rain just beginning to fall.
"What are they doing?" Corinne asked, coming up beside her.
Linnea had been at the ranch long enough to know the workings. "Herding the cattle onto high ground in case the creeks and streams flood. Someone will bring the horses from the pastures into the corrals and stable the mares and colts."
A bright flash of lightning lit the sky and illuminated the ranch yard as though it was daytime. Something cracked and sizzled, and both women jumped. Darkness immediately settled again.
"What was that?" Corinne asked, her voice shaky.
"I don't know." Linnea shook her head.
A slim trail of smoke fingered toward the sky.
"You stay here with the children and Abby," she said. "Rebecca is in her cradle in my room. I'm going to have a look."
Linnea took a hat and jacket from a hook inside the door and donned them as she covered the yard with hurried steps. From the corner of the house, she could see smoke curling from the outhouse. On closer inspection, a corner of the roof was singed and still burning.
Linnea ran to the pump in the center of the yard, dipped a bucket into the trough and ran back, swinging the pail so that the contents flew upward and landed on the outhouse roof with a hiss. After a couple more trips and buckets of water the rain had begun to fall in sheets and any perceived danger was gone.
She returned the bucket and ran to the house.
Corinne was holding Rebecca on her shoulder. "So far mine are still sleeping. Do you think I should bring them downstairs? The lightning is terrifying."
"Wouldn't hurt to have them all close and together, just in case," Linnea replied. "I'm going to get a towel for my hair."
Before she could do that, hoofbeats sounded, and Linnea turned to discover Will riding toward the house, another figure slumped in front of him.
Linnea ran down the stairs. "What's happened?"
"Lightning scared Roy's horse and it threw 'im. I can't see anything but a cut on his head, but he's not conscious."
"Bring him in."
Linnea cleared a few cups from the table and Will half carried, half dragged his foreman through the door, removed his slicker and stretched him out on the tabletop.
Roy's clothing was dry, except at his feet and ankles. His head and hair were wet, and a trickle of blood seeped down his temple.
Will stood and glanced from his friend to the door.
"Go take care of your horses," Linnea said. "I've got him."
Will backed away and hurried out. Linnea grabbed rags, dipped water from the stove, and proceeded to wash Roy's head and face, and examine him for injuries.
Corinne showed up, still carrying Rebecca and leading her two children, and hurried them through the kitchen and into Linnea's room. She returned alone, and her face was pale, her eyes wide. "What happened to Roy?"
"Horse threw him." Linnea had checked his arms and legs, not finding any breaks. "The only thing wrong with him seems to be this cut on his head. It's bleeding pretty bad."
"What should we do? Did Will send for a doctor?"
Linnea blinked. "I don't know." She examined the edges of the cut. "I can do it."
"Do what?"
"Sew it up."
"Linnea, are you sure?"
She nodded. "I've treated wounds worse than this before."
Aggie shuffled out of her room in her night dress and shawl, her wiry gray hair lose over her shoulder. "What's all the ruckus?"
Linnea explained while she gathered supplies.
"What can I do?" Corinne asked.
"If blood doesn't make you sick, dab the wound as much as possible, so I can see what I'm doing."
She nodded. "Okay."
Linnea fought back her own queasiness as she pieced Roy's flesh and stitched the cut high on his forehead.
His eyelids fluttered, he frowned, and his eyes opened. "Damn!" A flurry of curses followed.
"Be still," Linnea told him. "We're almost finished here and I'll have to charge you extra for your laundry if you get blood on this shirt." She smiled to let him know she was teasing. "And you're cursing in front of Mrs. Dumont."
Roy's attention wavered from Linnea to Corinne. "Sorry, ma'am."
"Apology accepted," she replied, and some color returned to her cheeks.
"One more stitch, Roy," Linnea told him.
"Go ahead."
"I'll hold your hand," Corinne said and proceeded to pick up Roy's hand and clasp it between both of hers.
"If you should have a little scar, your hair will cover it," Linnea told him.
Roy chuckled. "A little scar would get lost on this face, Miz McConaughy."
Finished at last, Linnea washed the area around her handiwork and Corinne blotted a little seepage away.
"Think you can sit up?" Linnea asked. "I'll get you a cup of coffee to warm you up.
Roy sat on the edge of the table. "I'd best get back to help Will. Where's my hat?"
Linnea brought him a steaming cup. "Drink this first. You weren't wearing your hat when Will brought you in. You took a nasty fall, I think you should rest."
Roy sipped the coffee and got to his feet and immediately favored one leg.
"Does your leg hurt?" Linnea asked.
"My knee, but I've done enough lollygaggin' for one night. Thanks for the doctorin', ladies."
"Roy, wait!" Corinne called to his back, but he had picked up his slicker and limped to the door.
Aggie chuckled.
Roy made it no farther. He swayed on his feet. Linnea and Corinne both ran and barely caught him before he knocked his head against the wood. Even with two of them, his weight bore them to the ground, where they eased his head to the floor.
Rebecca's cry reached them. "She's hungry," Linnea said.
"What are we going to do with him?" Corinne asked.
Linnea thought a moment. "Let's make a pallet on the floor in the parlor. There's barely any furniture in there, so if he wakes and thrashes around, he won't hurt himself."
Linnea ran to pick up Rebecca, changed her and handed her to Aggie while she and Corinne made a bed of blankets and comforters on the floor. Together they dragged him into the other room. "We should get his pants off and check that knee," Linnea said. "Wrap it probably."
Corinne looked flustered at the idea.
Linnea didn't particularly want to undress the man, either. "We could cut his pant leg."
"I'll get scissors," Corinne agreed quickly.
Together they sliced his pant leg and tightly wrapped his knee.
Rebecca was putting up a fuss in the other room.
"Poor Aggie. If you'll watch him for a while, I'll feed her."
Corinne nodded.
Sitting in her rocker in her room, Linnea nursed her daughter and let herself relax. Outside the thunder still rumbled, but sounded farther away. The lightning had dwindled to an occasional flicker.
Corinne showed up and sat beside her children on the bed. "Where's Aggie?" Linnea asked softly.
"I helped her back to bed."
"Roy's resting?"
Corinne nodded and touched each of her children with a brief caress.
"Lay down with them," Linnea offered. "I'll stay up and keep an eye on Roy. Later, I'll wake you so you can return to your room, or I'll go sleep up there."
"You sure?"
"I'm sure. Rest."
Corinne removed her shoes and lay down, wearing her dress.
The rain was a steady patter on the ground outside the window and a continuous splash in the water barrel at the corner of the house.
"I knew Roy back in Indiana, where we grew up, you know," Corinne said much later.
Linnea thought the other woman h
ad fallen asleep. "Will told me they'd been friends for a long time," she replied.
"Roy was around quite a bit. My father didn't care for him, because he didn't come from money. And, like Will, he didn't have aspirations in business."
"What do you mean?"
"My father wanted Will to work in the mill. To take it over one day. Will didn't want any part of it. He and Roy worked there because the money was good, but they always talked about horses, about how one day they would have a ranch."
"And here they are."
"Yeah." She glanced at her soundly sleeping children. "I wanted to marry him."
"Roy?"
"Yes. He courted me, along with suitors my father arranged. He was the one I wanted, though, ever since I was old enough to think about things like that."
Her story held Linnea captive. Linnea had known there was more to the relationship, but she hadn't imagined. "What happened?''
"Edward Dumont asked me to marry him. I didn't reply because I was waiting—well, hoping—for Roy to ask. But when the time came that I thought he would, instead, he told me that I should marry Edward. I guess he didn't feel as strongly about me as I thought."
"What did you do?"
"I didn't have much choice. Soon after that, Will and Roy took off on a trail drive. My father was livid that Will had deserted him. He was in no mood for argument, and he wanted me to marry Edward."
"So you did."
"He was a good man. A good husband and provider. He gave me beautiful children."
"How did he die?"
"A carriage accident two years ago. I've had several men calling on me since, but I am financially sound and see no need. If I was ever to marry again, it would have to be…"
"What?"
"For love," she said. Corinne turned away.
Later, after placing Rebecca in her cradle, Linnea returned to the kitchen to clean away the bloodied rags and set things straight. She checked on Roy, finding him still asleep. Studying him, she imagined him younger, tried to picture him slicked up and calling on the beautiful young Corinne. Why hadn't he proposed and asked her to be his wife? What would have happened if he had, since Jack Tucker hadn't liked him?
Had he ever regretted not asking her? Of course he had. One had only to look at Corinne to see she was a woman any man would desire. Linnea covered Roy with a blanket and ignored the sadness Corinne's story made her feel.
Will entered the kitchen, lit by a single sputtering candle, and found Linnea, asleep with her head on her arms at the table.
He touched her shoulder. "Linnea?''
She raised her head quickly and blinked. "Is everything all right?"
"Everything's fine. How's Roy?"
She straightened. "He woke up once, while I was stitching his head, but—''
"You stitched him?"
"Yes. It wasn't a very big cut, but it was bleeding a lot. He passed out trying to leave, I think it was the pain in his knee. So Corinne and I got him settled in the parlor and wrapped it. He's been sleeping ever since."
Concern etching his face, Will hurried out of the kitchen and Linnea followed.
"Roy?" Will said, leaning over his foreman. "Roy, are you enjoyin' your nap?"
Roy's eyelids fluttered. "What, boss?"
"Just checkin' to see if you had your wits about you. Go back to sleep."
"All right."
Will turned to Linnea. "He'll be okay." They headed back to the kitchen and he poured himself a lukewarm cup of coffee. "Nice job with the stitchin'."
"You'll need to mend the outhouse tomorrow," she said.
He raised a brow in question.
"The roof is a little burned."
"What happened?"
"Lightning."
"You saw it hit? Lord, no one was in there, were they?"
"Corinne and I were on the porch. I ran to see what had been hit, and the roof was burning."
"Rain put it out?"
"It wasn't raining much yet, so I threw a few buckets of water on it. Didn't want to take any chances."
Will looked her over, from the loose tendrils of hair that had escaped to her wrinkled dress and the exhaustion on her face. "Hell of a storm. Came up all at once,'' he said.
Linnea was not the fragile china doll he had once believed her to be. Oh, she was small and delicate, physically. But her incredible strength of character was a muscle most people couldn't even claim to have used.
Her courage had been evident all along—in her willingness to forge a new life in a land she'd never seen, in her nurturing nature and her stubborn refusal to give up.
"You're ready to drop," he said.
"Corinne and the children are in my room," she said. "I kept them downstairs during the storm."
"That was the right thing to do. You're a levelheaded thinker. Will you sleep upstairs then?"
She nodded. "If it's okay, I'll get Rebecca and lie down in Corinne's room."
"Why wouldn't it be okay?"
She shrugged and went for the baby.
Carrying two lanterns, he placed one on the bureau in the room where she would sleep and backed out through the doorway without another word. What could he say to change anything?
Will had spent a lot of energy resenting the fact that everyone had taken to Linnea like bees to honey, but they'd all seen what he'd refused to recognize.
And now it was too late.
He'd fallen in love with her, and she wanted to leave.
Which one of them was really the strongest? Which one would put these past months behind them and move on?
Which one would think of the other every night and day for the rest of their life… and regret that they hadn't known what to do?
Which one…?
Chapter Twenty-Six
One day was all they could keep Roy on his back in the other room. The next day he insisted on getting up and sitting in a kitchen chair, with his leg propped.
Corinne took over seeing to him, and Linnea gave them as much time alone as she could. That morning she moved Aggie's rocker to the porch and took the children to pick berries. In the afternoon she supervised their riding lesson with their uncle.
Will was tirelessly patient with his niece and nephew, even when they begged to ride outside the corral and he had to lead the horses.
He walked them back to where Linnea stood holding Rebecca. Corinne had sewn the baby a matching hat and bonnet, and Will admired her fashionable attire. "You haven't ridden the whole time you've been here," he said to Linnea. "Do you ride?"
She nodded. "I haven't had an opportunity. Cimarron and I take the wagon when we go to town."
"Want to now?"
She glanced at the horses he led. "What about Rebecca?"
"She and I will get along for a few minutes."
She smiled. "Okay."
He reached to lower Margaret to the ground, then asked her to sit with Rebecca on her lap for a moment while he assisted Linnea into the saddle and adjusted the stirrups.
Her skirts rose up her calves, but he acted as though he didn't notice. He stepped away and leaned over to take Rebecca from his niece. Linnea turned the animal's head with the reins, used her heels to gently kick its flanks, and rode away.
She urged the horse into a gallop and traveled the outer perimeter of the corral, across a grassy meadow and back.
She hadn't ridden for a long time, and never just for pleasure, and she enjoyed the sense of freedom and the time to free her mind.
She returned to find Zach and Margaret gone, and Will walking along the corral fence with Rebecca in one arm. The sight made her chest ache.
"How did I know you'd be a good rider?" he asked, smiling up at her.
She stood in one stirrup to swing her other leg over and step to the ground. "Where are the children?"
"Probably pesterin' their mother for lemonade."
Linnea handed him the reins and reached to take Rebecca from his hold. Her hand brushed his arm, and she pulled the baby away a little too f
ast to avoid the disturbing contact. "I'll go help her make it."
She felt his gaze on her back as she made her way to the house.
Corinne didn't seem as cheerful as she had only an hour or so ago; in fact, Linnea thought she looked downright upset. Her face was flushed and when she smiled, it was forced. Linnea helped her finish making lemonade. Corinne didn't offer Roy a glass, so Linnea poured one for him. Roy didn't meet Linnea's eyes. The rest of the afternoon stretched out uncomfortably, and Linnea was glad for supper, when the men arrived and their talk filled the room.
Afterward, Roy thanked both women for the care they'd given him, gathered his belongings, and hobbled out after the men.
Linnea waited until she and Corinne were alone to speak to her. "Whatever is the matter?" she asked.
Corinne was helping her lay out a pattern for another baby dress on fabric she'd brought from Saint Louis.
Corinne stopped pinning and sagged onto a bench. "I'm just as confused as when I was a girl," she said. "It's all still there between us. The feelings." She turned a tortured expression on Linnea. "He feels it, too, I know he does." Impulsively she reached out and grasped Linnea's hand. "His kisses are like nothing I've ever known."
Linnea's heart went out to her, for she understood those confusing feelings.
"But he doesn't say anything," she said, frustration in her voice. "He pretends like it didn't happen, like it was nothing."
"Maybe he doesn't know what to say," Linnea said, not knowing how to comfort her.
"He could tell me he loves me," she said on a half sob, but collected herself and steadied her voice. "God knows I still love him as much as I ever did. That man broke my heart once, and he'll do it again if I let him." The floor creaked behind them, and both women turned in surprise. Roy stood just inside the door, hat-less, a look of shock on his face.
Corinne covered her face with her hands in embarrassment.
Roy limped forward. "Do you mean those words, Corinne?"
Face flaming, she lowered her hands and raised her chin. "I meant them, you fool-headed, rock-hearted man. I loved you when I was a girl and you left me so you could chase cows."
"I left so you could marry a rich man," he contradicted. "A man with family and money and your pa's approval."
The Tenderfoot Bride Page 21
