But it was a long moment before he spoke, and though he sounded calm, an undercurrent of tension was in his voice. “He got angry with you? How often?”
She shook her head, feeling unsure, feeling that she’d said too much. “Just...sometimes. When I made mistakes.”
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Did he...hurt you?”
It had never come to physical blows, though she’d been afraid it might a couple of times. She shook her head slightly.
And Davy exhaled, a low burst of air. “Have you been worried about me getting angry all this time?”
She couldn’t lie to him, not when his steady, serious gaze was fixed on her. She ducked her head, though, so she didn’t have to look at him in the eye. “Only a few times,” she muttered.
But he didn’t allow her to hide herself from him. He put two fingers beneath her chin and raised her face so she couldn’t avoid his gaze. “Don’t you think it’s time you started judging me for myself? And not against him?”
The vulnerability in his voice brought tears to her eyes again, and one corner of his lips twitched before he folded her into his arms and tucked her head beneath her chin.
Hadn’t she thought the same thing just the other day?
In the safety of his embrace she allowed a few tears to fall.
“I can’t imagine what you’ve been through these last weeks,” he murmured into the hair just above her ear. “We’ll find our way through the difficult times. I promise.”
She basked in his comfort, even though she knew they needed to be on their way. Knew he had a full day of work ahead of him and that she likely would slow him down.
So she only allowed herself to remain in his arms for a few moments, and then moved away slightly, mopping up her face with his handkerchief.
“I’ll be glad enough when the baby is here and my emotions return to a more even keel.”
He touched her cheek, brushed away a stray tear she’d missed with the pad of his thumb. “Except you’ll be sleep deprived from waking in the night with the wee one.”
His gentle, teasing words were a reminder that she didn’t know what to expect. He knew more about children than she did.
What if she couldn’t care for her own child?
She shook off the shadows and smiled at him, even though the result was probably more than a little teary. “Let’s go.”
* * *
After the surprisingly emotional moments in the cabin, Davy was content enough to let Rose have some quiet time atop the horse’s back. She seemed enraptured by the dark silhouettes of the trees against the snowy backdrop. Her braid hung long down her back. She was beautiful.
He walked alongside the workhorse, which drew the hay-filled cart across the snow-covered ground.
Davy was enraptured by her. Not only her outward beauty, but the intelligence that shined behind her eyes and her tender spirit.
He wasn’t ashamed to admit he needed some time to gather his tumultuous thoughts. Learning that her first husband had all but crushed her spirit still had rage flowing through his veins like spring waters rushing to the river until it threatened to overflow its banks.
She’d said volatile. Had he yelled at her? Abused her with his words? It was wrong. So wrong. A woman should be cared for. Treated special. His pa had taught him that.
Now that he knew, her fearful reactions and extreme shyness with his family made more sense. The brute probably had made her fearful that everything she did would be wrong, made her believe that her every move would be scrutinized.
Regardless, Davy knew she must still love Jamie. She wouldn’t have married him if she hadn’t, would she?
Davy resolved that he would show her the unconditional love he felt for her. He couldn’t deny it any longer, though he wouldn’t declare his feelings for her yet. Seeing her bloom like the first crocus in spring, slowly peeking up through the snow...it was as if he’d been meant to find her holed up in the cabin. As if God had brought her there on purpose...for Davy to find.
He’d been so focused on wooing her, but now there was a deeper need. For him to find a way to show her that he could be trusted. That he wouldn’t blow up at her the way her first husband had.
The more that her husband had hurt her, the longer it might take.
But he loved her enough. He could wait.
She gasped softly as they crossed the last line of trees and the vista changed. He didn’t know how the landscape had come to be, other than by God’s own might, but the mountainside opened up in a narrow passage with high rocky walls and then farther unfolded to reveal a bowl-shaped valley. His pa had bought this land as he’d added to the family property, and it made an effective place to winter the cattle Davy had risked their future on. A small stream flowed through the back corner of the valley and there was grass enough left from the summer’s growth that he only needed to supplement with the hay every few days. A natural shelter.
And it was beautiful, especially with the sun shining down from a clear blue sky, as it was today.
“It’s something, ain’t it?”
“It’s amazing.” Her voice carried the same wonder he felt every time he was out here—except when it was storming on him.
She would make a fine rancher’s wife. She’d expressed some concerns about the predators they could face out here, but that was smart enough. She seemed to like the land, which gave him hope that she could be happy here. With him.
The cattle noticed their approach and began wandering toward them in waves. He saw Rose’s shoulders tighten and grabbed her horse’s bridle.
“They won’t bother you up on the horse,” he told her. “And the horse is used to them. Just be calm and you’ll be fine.”
She nodded a bit jerkily, and her knuckles whitened where she clutched the saddle horn with her opposite hand.
“You want to count them for me?” Maybe if he distracted her, she would be less nervous.
“All right, I guess.”
He kept her in sight from the corner of his eye as he spread hay across the field. The cattle moved in slowly until they were milling around, eating.
Rose was above it all on her horse’s back, and looked somewhat nervous even as he came alongside her, taking off his gloves and clapping them against his leg to loosen the dust from them.
“You got a count?” he asked.
“Seventy-three. I think.”
He grinned at her consternation. “Keep moving, do they?”
“Yes!” she exclaimed. “How many are there supposed to be?”
“Eighty-two.”
“Oh.” He heard the thread of uncertainty in her voice, and this time he knew where it came from. Her Jamie.
“There’s been several that have wandered off these last few days. We’ll go scout for ’em.”
He looked up at her. Her cheeks were pink but not too much so. The wind wasn’t really blowing.
“You okay? Not too cold?”
“I’m plenty warm in this coat and scarf,” she said.
He nodded. “You mind if I come up behind you?”
She didn’t, and he mounted up behind her. She let him take the reins and it was a fine excuse to keep his arms around her.
He mostly kept the horse to a walk, aiming for the scrub brush that paralleled the banks of the little stream on the west side of the valley.
He pointed a cow out to her, just its brown back visible above the brush.
“Seventy-four.”
“Will you drive it back to the herd?” she asked softly.
“If we were driving them to town for sale, we’d want to keep them all in a bunch, but we’re here for the winter. Mainly we want to keep them contained in this valley, but they’re going to do that by instinct because the food is here.”
She h
ummed low in her throat. He was glad that she seemed interested in learning about the cattle, their livelihood.
She spotted the next two drinking from the stream and partly obscured by the wild plum bushes that were now bare of fruit and leaves. The unease in her voice had changed to excitement, as if this was a challenge she was happy to answer.
And he was glad to give it to her.
They found all except the last cow, and had gone pretty far afield by the time they spotted it lying in some tall grass. This one was so far away that he urged it back toward the herd.
They meandered back toward the herd where he’d left the work horse. He was paying more attention to the woman he was holding than their surroundings. He felt her stiffen before he realized anything was wrong.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, voice low. He scanned the area around them for any signs of danger, and spotted it just as she pointed at an outcropping near the base of a mountain, out of rifle range.
A lone gray wolf stood on a rocky ledge, nose out into the wind.
“Will he...come after us? Or the cattle?”
He eased his rifle out of the scabbard attached to her saddle, where he’d stowed it this morning.
“Probably not. Wolves hunt in packs. But we don’t want him coming back.”
He raised his rifle to his shoulder and aimed it in the wolf’s general direction. “He’s out of range,” he told her. “So I won’t hit him. But this should scare him off.” They were far enough away from the cattle that they shouldn’t spook.
He pulled the trigger and she startled so violently that the horse sidestepped and Rose almost lost her balance.
He tightened his arm around her waist and settled the horse with a squeeze of his legs.
After the report had echoed across the mountain and the wolf had disappeared from sight, he leaned down to speak in her ear. “You okay?”
“I’ve never heard a gun fired before.”
And he’d fired it from close range, scaring her. “Sorry, Rosie. I shoulda warned you it’d be loud.”
Then he thought of something else. “If you haven’t ever heard a gun fired, I’m guessing you’ve never shot one either.”
She shook her head.
He slid the weapon back into its holster.
He pulled up the horse and threw his leg over its side, sliding down to the ground. He reached for her, settling his hands at her waist. “So you really weren’t going to shoot me that first day?” he teased.
She put her hands on his shoulders, and he lifted her down to the ground. She let her hands rest where they’d landed.
“I’m awfully glad I didn’t,” she said. She lowered her eyes as if she couldn’t quite hold his gaze. A sweet blush colored the apples of her cheeks.
And he couldn’t resist lowering his mouth to taste her lips. He kept the kiss soft and chaste, a simple brush of his lips on hers, and then he let her go entirely. “Me too, honey, me too.”
“You’re just trying to butter me up so I’ll give you your tarts.”
In the joy of being out with her, he’d forgotten about the treats, but as she mentioned them his stomach grumbled in remembrance of the one he’d eaten that morning.
“If I say please real nice, will you give me one?”
She rifled through the saddle bag and came up with the folded cloth napkin he’d watched her wrap them in. “Hmm...”
He gave her his best charming smile, but maybe it was too much because she laughed. “Here, you...”
Elated, he took off his gloves and stuffed them in his coat pocket.
She placed a tart in his outstretched hand, and he devoured it in a single bite. It melted on his tongue, both sweet and with a hint of tartness from the peaches. Delicious. “Will you make a trade for a shooting lesson?”
Her eyes narrowed on him. “What do you have in mind?”
“Three tarts for the lesson.”
She was shaking her head before he’d finished speaking. “One,” she countered.
“Two,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. Her eyes lingered on his forearms for a prolonged second, and he felt a moment of satisfaction in her perusal.
“One,” she countered again, unwrapping the bundle and giving him a tantalizing whiff of peach and sugar. She raised her eyebrow at him almost as if in taunt.
And he loved that she was becoming comfortable enough with him to tease.
“Agreed,” he said grudgingly. The tart she handed him was just as sweet as the others, and he licked his fingers clean.
He slid his pistol out of his belt holster and showed it to her. Her innate curiosity made her an apt student as he showed her the different parts—hammer, trigger, barrel—how to load it and how it would fire. And then he put its weight in her hand after warning her never to point it at a human or animal she didn’t need protection from.
He stood close behind her as she aimed and fired at a tree branch, which she hit on the sixth shot.
He whooped and tossed his hat up in the air.
Chapter Fifteen
The sun was setting.
As they headed toward the cabin, Rose basked in the warmth of Davy’s praise and his continued teasing about the peach tarts, though she’d given in and handed over the last two before they’d gone back to retrieve his horse and the cart.
The feeling of camaraderie and underlying joy lasted as they rode home. Home. When had the cabin become home?
There was work to do inside. The evening meal wasn’t going to cook itself. But she was loath to leave him and the closeness they had shared this afternoon. So she stood by watching as he unharnessed the horse from the cart and unsaddled her horse and turned them both out into the pasture.
He’d tucked the saddle and bridles back into the lean-to and was helping her across the icy, muddy patch in the shadow of the cabin when a whistle hailed them.
A horse and rider came crashing through the trees. Davy blocked Rose with his arm, tucking her behind him and up against the cabin.
“Halloo!” shouted a young, female voice.
Davy exhaled and dropped his arm to his side. “It’s Breanna.”
He went to meet his sister as she rode into the clearing. She hopped out of the saddle and they embraced. Rose felt a tug of jealousy at their close family bond. She still missed what she’d lost with Papa.
Davy took Breanna’s horse by the bridle and headed back toward the lean-to and corral.
And left Rose with his sister.
She didn’t know whether to embrace her new sister-in-law or how best to welcome her, but Breanna took the matter out of her hands when she came close and threw her arms around Rose.
“Hello!”
Rose couldn’t help the giggle that bubbled out of her. “What are you doing here? Checking up on your brother?”
“Someone has to make sure he’s taking good care of you. What have y’all been up to? You’re all bundled up.”
Rose led the way inside. The room was cool, but Davy had banked the fire this morning, and it should still be lit. She hung her coat on the peg near the door and went to the stove to stir the coals and feed the fire.
“Davy took me out to check the cattle today. And I had a shooting lesson.”
“Really?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Breanna had taken off her hat and coat and moved to the washbowl near the door. “If you’ve been out all day, I’ll help ya get supper started.”
The gesture touched Rose. “Thank you.”
Davy shouldered in the door, carrying a bundle in his arms that he set down just inside the door. “We only left the homestead two days ago. What’s all this?”
“Some things for Rose and the baby,” Breanna said as she joined Rose at the work counter. She nodded at
the makings for biscuits that Rose had set out and began mixing them.
Rose had been peeling some carrots to quickly boil but looked up at what appeared to be a canvas bag, stuffed full.
“Penny and Sarah got together with some of the women in town and took up a collection. It’s some baby clothes, a few things from each family. And some diapers—you’ll need plenty of those. Not new, but they’re all serviceable.”
“Oh.” Rose didn’t know whether to be embarrassed that she had arrived with nothing and that the women had had to do that for her, or to wonder if it had been Sarah who had pushed for the gesture.
She couldn’t forget how Penny had warned Davy against marrying her. Would Penny do something like this for her when she hadn’t been for the marriage in the first place?
But she couldn’t be impolite.
“Please send them my thanks.”
Breanna flicked flour on the counter in advance of rolling out the dough. “I think they’re hoping you’ll be down to thank them yourself. Do you really intend to have the baby up here? With only Davy...”
Her husband sat in a chair near the fire, face averted and she couldn’t see what he worked on, but his ears turned red at the very tips.
She hadn’t wanted to think about the babe’s birth, but wasn’t it almost upon her now? Could she ask that of her husband, to attend her at the baby’s birth, after all she’d already asked?
Shaken, she tried to focus on her task, but the pan before her blurred. “I don’t know,” she said softly.
“We don’t have to decide anything yet,” came Davy’s calm assurance from across the room.
As always, trying to give her comfort. And what had she given him? A dessert.
It felt like too little.
* * *
Davy put the small blocks of wood he’d saved from his last stint chopping wood in a cloth bag and set them in the corner. He’d had the idea to carve some stacking blocks for Rose’s baby.
But that project could wait until later.
He joined the women, grabbing plates to set the table. “You gonna stay the night, I guess?” he asked. It was already dark, and would be too dangerous to ride at night.
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