by Tracey Cross
He kept his horse to a walk as he approached the soddy. Glancing around, he couldn’t help but frown. This was not what he had been expecting to find. It appeared the place had been well-kept. A pen toward the barn detained a pair of oxen. A clothesline was hung between two posts, and a woman’s dress whipped about in the mild evening breeze. A woman’s dress?
Frank mentally kicked himself. He must have come to the wrong homestead. Or perhaps squatters had taken up residence. He was about to dismount and make an inquiry when the door opened. A young boy stood there, looking up. Between chubby hands he held up a stick like a bow, pulled back a pretend arrow, and shot him.
Sliding from his horse, Franklin grinned at the lad’s outlandish Indian getup.
“Ma falls down when I kill her,” the lad scolded.
“I’m terribly sorry.” He reached out his hand. “My name is Mr. Lloyd. What’s yours?”
“Mr. Albright.” The lad slipped a dirty, chubby hand inside Franklin’s.
“Albright?” Franklin’s eyebrows went up in spite of himself. “Is your pa here?”
The lad nodded and pointed. “Over there.”
“Danny, who are you talking to?” The voice started before the woman appeared. Large blue eyes widened when she saw him, and she stopped short and gasped, eyeing the rifle next to the door. Her blond hair was pulled into a loose bun and strands had come loose, whipping around her mouth and neck. Bare toes peeked out beneath her skirts, and a streak of flour smudged her cheek. He found the entire image disturbingly attractive.
Franklin held up his palms. “Don’t worry. I’m not a threat.”
She tucked the boy behind her skirts, but he peeked around, watching Franklin.
“I’m sorry to be so bold,” he said, “but I’m looking for Mr. Tom Albright. The boy said he was over there, but I’m not sure what he meant.”
“He was referring to my husband’s grave.” The woman’s face hardened. “We buried him a month ago.”
She looked overwhelmed and weary. Franklin knew it wouldn’t take much for her wall to crack. But he had no desire to be the hammer.
“Please accept my deepest sympathy.”
She kept her gaze steady on his. “May I ask your business with Mr. Albright?”
The last thing Franklin wanted to do was tell this woman she and her child would be expected to leave the homestead as soon as possible. “It’s a delicate matter, I’m afraid.”
She turned to the child. “Danny, please go play. But don’t go too far. It’s almost dark.”
“Yes, Ma! Come on, Cheyenne!” The child dashed around Franklin’s legs, screeching as he pretended to be an Indian. A big gray sheepdog mix loped after him, barking in a deep, excited tone.
“Now, Mr. Lloyd, perhaps you would be so kind as to state your business.”
Franklin turned back to Mrs. Albright.
Her voice shook a little, but she leveled her gaze at him. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t invite you in.”
The shadows beneath her eyes told of sleepless nights and worry. She looked exhausted and perhaps a little ill. He hated to keep her standing.
“Of course. Let me explain why I’ve intruded.”
“You needn’t bother.” She expelled a heavy breath and swayed. “I assume you must be Mr. Lloyd?”
Surprised, Franklin nodded. Perhaps this wouldn’t be as awkward as he’d feared. She breathed out. Franklin peered closer, frowning at her flushed cheeks and glassy eyes. “Please excuse me for being so forward, but are you all right, ma’am?”
She lifted her chin. “I am quite fine, sir. Let’s get on with this.”
A breeze sent a chill down his spine that wasn’t entirely inconsistent with her icy stare. Clearly, this woman had formed an opinion of him long before the moment of their meeting. “I’m not sure what your husband told you before he passed away.”
“Tom told me nothing. His partner Hank explained that you are owed a debt, and my husband put up the freight wagon and oxen as collateral.”
“That’s correct.” He dreaded the next few words because she evidently didn’t know the extent of the debt owed by her husband. “But that isn’t all.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Lloyd. What else is there?”
“Ma’am, I’m sorry to tell you this, but along with the freighting business and the store in Deadwood, your husband put your land on the loan as well.”
“I—I didn’t know there was a store.”
“Not much of one. A tent really, behind a rough storefront.”
“But the house and land.”
Miserably, he nodded.
The woman’s face blanched. “Are you saying Tom used our home as collateral?”
Feeling like a complete cad, he nodded. “The home and the business.”
A moan bubbled from her lips, and she swayed. Franklin reached out and caught her just before she hit the ground in a dead faint. Lifting the unconscious woman, he called out for Danny. Heat smoldered through the fabric of her dress.
The boy came running. When he saw his mother in Franklin’s arms, he did what any decent youngster would do. He began kicking and hitting for all he was worth. “Put her down, you varmint! Get him, Cheyenne!” The dog barked, playing the game.
“It’s okay. She fainted.” Franklin’s shins smarted from the kicks, but he couldn’t blame the lad. “Can you take me inside and show me where she sleeps so I can lay her down?”
His face scrunched, and he shook his head. “Ma wouldn’t like that.”
Franklin was positive she wouldn’t like it, but there was nothing to be done about that now. “We’ll apologize when she wakes up. I think she’d rather wake up in her bed than with me holding her like a baby, don’t you?”
Danny hesitated, as though considering the scenario, then nodded. “Yes, sir. I reckon she’d rather just go on to bed.”
The soddy was small, cramped, and barely tall enough for Franklin’s full height. As he followed Danny inside the one-room dwelling, he noted the rag rugs on the dirt floor, the clothing neatly hung on pegs, and books placed in an orderly fashion on a shelf in one corner of the room.
“Danny, pull back the quilt, please.”
With clumsy movements, the lad did as instructed, and Franklin lowered Mrs. Albright to a feather mattress. He was a little surprised she hadn’t come to yet, but if she was half as exhausted as she appeared to be, she probably needed to sleep.
Glancing around, he wasn’t sure what to do. He knew the woman would likely be mortified that he had carried her inside and even more so if he stayed, but he noticed a pot of stew simmering and the dough already made up for biscuits. He could certainly finish cooking supper. After all, he’d spent a year mining and a year living alone in Deadwood, so he knew how to cook a meal. Only in the past year had he hired a cook and a housekeeper.
He caught Danny’s gaze and grinned. “Guess I’m going to finish cooking for your ma. What’s on the stove?”
A wide grin spread across the boy’s mouth. “Rabbit. Ma shot it, and she even let me help pull out the innards.”
Franklin laughed out loud, then remembered to keep his voice down. He glanced at the bed, and his heart nearly stopped as her eyes opened.
“Mr. Lloyd!” she said, her voice still weak. “Just because you are taking my home doesn’t mean you have the right to move in before I move out.” She sat up slowly. “I’m afraid our talk will have to wait until morning as I am not feeling well.”
Her expression revealed her shaky condition. If she tried to stand, Franklin knew she was going down again. Her condition had to stem from more than simple upset over his revelation of the extent of her husband’s indebtedness to him. “Mrs. Albright, I don’t mean to behave ungentlemanly, so please forgive me. But you have no business getting out of bed. You’re burning up.”
“I—was baking earlier and became too hot.”
Rushing to her, Franklin pressed the back of his hand to her forehead.
She pulled away, weakly. “How dare you touch me!”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. But you have a fever. A high one.”
He knelt on the floor, so he didn’t tower over her, hoping the action would help her feel at ease with him. He met her eye to eye. “I know this is awkward, but you are sick and exhausted and must sleep. You don’t know me, but I’m not going to harm you or the boy. I’m giving you my word, and you are going to have to accept it. If you don’t stay in bed, you’ll get sicker, and then what’s Danny going to do?”
Tears filled her beautiful blue eyes, and her lip trembled as she nodded. “Okay, Mr. Lloyd. And thank you. Please don’t sleep in the house. There’s a nice loft in the barn. Take two quilts from the trunk over there. It still gets very cold at night.”
She lay back and covered herself. Franklin couldn’t resist reaching out and tucking the quilt in around her shoulders.
“You have my word. I’ll make sure Danny is fed and put to bed, then I’ll go.”
“God must have sent you to us.” A wisp of a smile touched her lips as she closed her eyes and drifted back to sleep.
Franklin stood, feeling more than a little baffled at the turn of events. He’d had no idea Tom Albright was a married man. Judging from the man’s conduct at Bedlow’s Saloon, he’d apparently forgotten that little fact himself. A man like that didn’t deserve any woman, let alone one as capable as the one he’d found.
Tom Albright had been worse than a fool. But that wasn’t his wife’s fault. Franklin hated to call in the note and evict the woman and her son. Especially now that he knew they existed and rather liked them both.
Perhaps Mrs. Albright would allow him to put her and the boy on a train headed east. Either way, this land and the land adjoining were where he intended to raise his cattle and get away from Deadwood once and for all. There was no room in his plans for a woman and a little boy.
They would have to go before the first of the herds arrived from Texas in the next few months. But he wouldn’t allow himself to think of the hardness of what he must do. For now, he had biscuits to finish and a hungry boy to feed.
Chapter Two
Jane came slowly awake to the aroma of bacon and coffee. The combination seized her stomach and rolled it over, forcing her to lie very still or risk retching right then and there. She took two deep breaths. As the nausea subsided, clarity slowly shifted across her mind, and she sat up.
The stillness of the room might have caused her to think she’d merely dreamed up the handsome Mr. Lloyd and his presence in her home, but on the table a single plate of food, covered with a kitchen towel, defied the hope.
Oh gracious, he had tucked her into bed. What would Mama Rose say if she knew? Right now the old dowager must be rolling in her grave.
Jane pressed her palms to her flaming cheeks and closed her eyes, taking stock of the events she could remember. Mr. Lloyd had shown up to tell her he was taking not only the oxen and wagon but the homestead also.
At the rush of memory, tears threatened, clogging her throat and stinging her nose, but there wasn’t time to give in to despair. The door opened, and Danny bounded in. He turned his beautiful brown eyes in her direction, and his face lit up. He tossed a few sticks of kindling in the wood box. “Ma! You’re up. Are you all better?”
“Much better, darling.”
He threw himself into her arms, knocking the wind out of her and nearly sending her back on the bed. But she didn’t mind, despite her weakness. Laughing, she squeezed him, then held him out at arm’s length. His hair was unkempt, and dirt smudged his cheek, but all in all he was a wondrous sight.
Mr. Lloyd followed Danny inside, carrying an armload of wood.
Jane, keenly aware of Mr. Lloyd’s attention, couldn’t resist meeting his gaze. She resented his command of the room. He looked completely at ease, as though his hands had worked at pick and shovel to cut out the home. As though he had soaked his own blistered palms in stinging salt water as a result. As though he had fought storms and shaken with fear when Pawnee came right up to the house and stole livestock and pots.
Yet, despite her resentment, something twisted her stomach as he smiled, a gentle smile that nonetheless reached his eyes. The type of look she’d always dreamed a man might bestow.
Then she remembered: if Mr. Lloyd had his way, she and Danny would soon be out in the cold. She forced herself to look away.
“Mr. Lloyd let me swing the ax.” Danny’s words acted like a bucket of cold spring water.
“He let you swing an ax?”
“Yep, and I didn’t cut off a toe or a finger or a leg or an arm.”
“Lucky for you.” She said the words to the boy but directed them to Mr. Lloyd.
He grinned in a most unapologetic manner. “It didn’t have the head on it.” He chuckled. “I was just showing him how it’s done.” He nodded toward the table. “You haven’t eaten your breakfast. Do you feel up to sitting at the table, or shall I bring it to you?”
“I’m not very hungry.”
“You need to eat.” A frown pushed his eyebrows together. “Do you realize how long you’ve been sleeping?”
“Thirteen or fourteen hours?” What must he think of her lying abed, leaving her chores and her child for him to tend?
“Two days.”
Jane’s jaw dropped. Surely he must be joking. “That’s not possible.”
“I’m afraid it is. Your fever shot up pretty high that first night and all the following day. Yesterday you slept. But”—he peered closely—“you don’t remember asking for water yesterday?”
Jane shook her head, still trying to gather her thoughts to include this impossible information. “I can scarcely believe I’ve been asleep for so long. And you took care of my home and my son….”
He opened the stove and fed the flame without looking at her. “I was honored. Think nothing of it.”
The impropriety of the unlikely situation hit her full in the stomach, sending another wave of nausea through her midsection.
As if sensing her discomfort, Mr. Lloyd did the gentlemanly thing and walked toward the door. Jane noted he barely stood at his full height in the low-ceilinged sod home without scraping his head when he walked. “I’ll finish up the chores outside and give you a chance to compose yourself.” He paused. “You can be assured that I didn’t—that is, nothing—” He swallowed hard. “If there had been anyone else to place the cool cloths on your head and help you other-wise, I never would have put either of us in such a difficult position in regards to modesty. But I only cared for you as was necessary to your condition and did not take advantage in any other way.”
His ears flamed red, as did his neck. Without awaiting an answer or casting a glance in her direction he ducked through the doorway and fled the soddy.
“Can I go too, Ma?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
As Danny bounded out the door after Mr. Lloyd, who had apparently become her son’s new hero, Jane closed her eyes and shook her head, determined to force the horrible “Mr. Lloyd” situation from her mind. When she opened her eyes, she glanced toward the table to the plate of food, suddenly finding herself ravenous. She needed to eat soon for the baby anyway, if it had been two full days since she or her little one had received nourishment.
She stood carefully, pressing her palm against the sod wall for support as the blood rushed to her head. Once she gained her footing, she went to the table and sat, removing the cover from her plate. The ham was a little cold, but that didn’t stop her from wolfing down every bite and then tackling the two biscuits.
Her legs felt as though she were walking through waist-high water in heavy skirts as she took her plate to the counter. She was about to bend and lift the bucket to pour water into the washbasin when Danny rushed back inside. “Ma, Mr. Lloyd said to tell you not to worry about tidying up your dishes. He will be inside directly to tend to that.”
“Oh he did, did he?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
�
�Well, little mister, what does Mr. Lloyd suggest I do?”
“He said to tell you you should probably go back to bed and rest up so you can get strong again.”
Yes, he wanted her strong again. So he could snatch up her land, her belongings. He could just forget it. “I expect I’ll make my own decisions regarding my own home. I refuse to leave dishes undone.” She reached down and lifted the bucket. Weakness overcame her arms, sliding downward, robbing strength from her fingertips. The full bucket slipped from her grasp. Water splashed to the ground, mixed with the dirt floor, and quickly turned to mud.
To Jane’s horror, Mr. Lloyd made an appearance in the doorway at that precise moment. He released a sigh as Jane bent to pick up the now empty bucket, bracing herself for a scolding.
But the censure never came. Instead he spoke in a soft tone. “Let’s get you back to bed.” He slipped his arm around her waist and gently guided her across the small room, deftly steering her away from the mud.
Too weary to resist, Jane allowed the ministrations as far as the side of the bed. She held up her palm. “Will you please turn around while I get back into bed?”
“I understand why you’re embarrassed, Mrs. Albright. But my intentions are completely honorable.”
“Yes, please, don’t talk about it anymore and—don’t look at me.”
“As you wish.” Obligingly, he turned his back.
Now that her stomach had food in it, sleepiness nearly overcame her. But she turned her gaze toward the man who was soon to throw her out of her home. “Mr. Lloyd, you needn’t stay. We’ll be fine. Danny is a very capable little boy.” But even as she said it, her concern for her son won over her need for modesty. “No, I’m sorry. Don’t leave until I can see to him—only please do not sleep in the house.” She hoped she wouldn’t sleep all day.
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Mrs. Albright.”
Vaguely aware she was drifting to sleep, she murmured a “thank you” that she wasn’t sure she had the energy to put voice to.
When she awoke later, the soddy was dark, except for a soft glow at the table where Mr. Lloyd sat bent over papers.
