High Country Bride

by Jillian Hart

  He was doing the right thing, whatever anyone else thought, even his trusted minister. Pastor Hadly had helped him get through his grief, but nothing—not even his stout faith—could begin to help Aiden cope with what had come after the grief. Life hadn’t been the same. It would never be the same.

  Not until this moment, watching the pretty woman as she hefted the dishpan and disappeared from the window, did he feel life calling to him once again. Like the murmur of the nearby waterfall, he could hear the whisper in his soul. It grew stronger when she appeared on the back porch, marched down the steps and tossed the dishwater far out into the grass. When she turned, she smiled at him.

  He found himself smiling back.

  I have Joanna’s concern at heart, too. The minister’s words came back to him, stirring the anger like a hard fist in his chest. Already people were talking. He should have considered this before he asked her to stay. What would be the consequences for her?

  “Ma!” The boy’s call rose on the wind, echoing on the vast prairie. “Look what I get to do! I get to ride a real mustang.”

  “Me, too, Ma!” the little girl shouted.

  Aiden did his best not to look at them, so small and vulnerable, with no man to protect and provide for them. He closed off his feelings, knowing full well that he was a man prepared to protect and provide—with no wife and children to look after. It was hardly fair to either of them.

  “Are you being trouble to Mr. McKaslin?” Joanna set the dishpan off to the side of the walkway and hiked through the knee-high grass. “Thad, you oughtn’t to feel obliged to let them ride your horse.”

  “I don’t mind, Joanna.” Thad seemed to hold back a lot of amusement.

  Aiden frowned. Sure, his brother might say he understood, but he was understanding the wrong thing. Now what was Aiden going to do? Even Thad believed he was sweet on the widow.

  Aiden steeled himself as she swept closer. The sunlight seemed to find her and follow her, and she was pure golden goodness as she swept the little girl into her arms and onto her hip.

  “You two be sure and do exactly what Mr. McKaslin says when you’re up there on that horse.” She straightened her daughter’s flower necklace. “And remember to stay away from the wild horse pasture. And to thank Thad kindly when you’re through.”

  “Yes, Ma.” James climbed up onto the bottom rail, excitement vibrating off him. “I want to thank you right up front, Mr. McKaslin.”

  He was a sweet, sincere boy. Aiden had to look away.

  It was Thad who answered. “You’re welcome, little buddy. You know how to approach a horse?”

  “Yes, sir. You stick out your hand.”

  “Yep, so he can scent you. That’s how he learns who you are. That’s right, but put your hand the other way. Palm up.”

  Not to be left out, the girl leaned in her mother’s arms to stick her hand over the fence. She was a darling thing, a lot like her ma. Light haired and wide eyed with a button face. So little and trusting.

  Aiden tried to glance away, but Joanna held him captive with the love on her face. A softness came over her as she watched her children. She was tenderhearted and a sensible woman, not pining after frills and frippery. Content with the simple necessities of life—a shanty roof over her head, food on the table, security for her young ones.

  He hadn’t known too many women who were like that. Joanna was a rare one. She’d certainly made his life more comfortable, maintaining a clean and polished house from top to bottom, true to her word. She brought cold water to the field straight from the well, a luxury for a man who did not like to put down his work. Her cooking was some of the best he’d tasted. The garden was thriving. All of that, and he hardly knew she was there. She was making her presence in his house as easy for him as she could. She understood how tough the situation was for him, when not many people seemed to. His family included.

  “I’d best get back to help out.” Joanna set her daughter on the grass. “Do you want to come with me, baby, or stay here?”

  “I wanna ride the pony, too, Ma.”

  “It’s all right, Joanna.” Aiden found himself reassuring her as he took the halter rope from Thad. He’d let his brother lift the children onto the horse and steady them. He’d do better leading the horse. “Sunny is as trustworthy as could be.”

  “I trust you.” Her smile was for him alone, quiet and gentle as her soul. “You hold on tight, James.”

  “I will, Ma.” The little boy clung to the fence. “Can I come in, sir?”

  Aiden glanced down at Joanna’s son. “Sure.”

  The broken bits of him hurt as he nodded to the boy and noticed his eagerness and his earnestness. The kid ducked between two rails and landed with both feet on the ground. His shoes were patched in the toes, Aiden realized, carefully done to allow more room, which meant they were too small. Joanna had been making do on very little for far too long.

  This was such a hard world, he thought, watching her wait while Thad lifted her son onto Sunny’s back. Such a hard world. Perhaps he ought to do what he could to change that.

  “Ma! Look! I’m on a real wild horse.”

  “I see,” Joanna said as she backed in the direction of the house, surrounded by the deep green of the field and the dotted brilliance of wildflowers. “You look like a wrangler to me.”

  “Yep.”

  The little boy brimmed with excitement. He filled his fists with the mustang’s white mane, listening to Thad as he told of how he’d found Sunny as a colt on the wild plains. Joanna’s son was clearly awestruck. The little girl was swung up behind her brother.

  Aiden looked away, quieting his feelings. Best not to think of what might have been.

  “All right, our wranglers are mounted.” Thad cut into his thoughts. “Aiden? You all right?”

  “Sure.” He almost believed it as he led the mustang forward. The boy gasped in delight; the little girl gave one excited shriek. Sunny calmly kept walking, quite aware, Aiden believed, of the value of what he carried on his back.

  It was the sun making his eyes smart. He blinked hard and kept going. His gaze went to her, to Joanna, as she bent to lift the dishpan from the ground. With one last look in his direction, she spun with a flourish and skipped up the steps.

  He could not know for sure, but he felt that she’d been watching him, just as he had been watching her.

  Chapter Eight

  “Are they asleep?”

  Aiden’s low question seemed to come out of the twilight. Joanna padded barefoot across the shanty’s floor and stepped outside, drawing the door shut behind her. There he was, a shadow in the gathering darkness. She kept her voice at a whisper. “Their eyes were closed the second their heads touched the pillows. They haven’t had such a nice day in a long while. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “No need. It was mainly Thad’s doing.”

  “Yes, but your idea.” She made her way toward him through the grass. The soft blades tickled her feet and rustled against the hem of her skirts. “James was so excited to have met a real wild horse that he couldn’t stop talking.”

  “Yep, it was hard not to notice.” Aiden’s baritone rumbled with humor.

  “Even as he was getting ready for bed. He fell asleep midsentence.” It had been such a good day. She glanced back at the shanty, dark and quiet, where her treasures slept. “Daisy is in love with your ma. It was kind of Ida to sit on the porch and play dolls with her.”

  “You seemed to get on well with Noelle. I hear she hired you.”

  “Three afternoons a week. You don’t know what this means to me. I’ll have real wages, money for my children. Because of you.”

  “No. Because of you. If Noelle didn’t like you and didn’t feel comfortable with you, she wouldn’t have hired you.”

  What was she going to do with this man? He could not accept a compliment. The twilight was giving way to night, taking the shadows with it. Darkness wrapped around them both, making it hard to see him. “Has your brother ma
de it back home yet?”

  “Not yet. I imagine he’ll roll in sometime tonight. All I can do is apologize for him. Finn has a powerful weakness for whiskey.”

  “My husband did, too.”

  “Then you understand.”

  “More than you know. There’s nothing you can do to stop him. It’s painful to watch him destroy his life one swallow at a time, and it’s impossible to make him see what he’s doing.”

  “Yep. That about sums it up. It didn’t work with my pa and it’s not working with Finn.” Aiden turned toward the east, where the first stars were struggling to life. “I’m at a loss. I know Finn’s gonna do what he’s determined to do, but I keep thinking I’ve got to stop him or at least slow him down some.”

  “You love him. You feel a duty toward him.”

  “I’ve been looking after him since our pa took off. It wasn’t a month later that he died. We don’t talk about it much, but the truth is Pa died in a tavern brawl in a little no place town south of here. It’s a shame to him. It’s a shame to the family.” He didn’t know how to put it into words. “There’s enough hardship in this life without making more for yourself on purpose.”

  “That’s how it was with my husband, Tom.” Her voice wavered. “I didn’t know of his problem when we married. He hid it from me, and by the time I realized that he would never care for me the way he cared for his liquor, there was nothing but one problem after another.”

  “It’s a hard way to live. I watched my ma go through it.” Aiden could see how it had been for Joanna, too. Her hardships had begun long before he met her. “You were not happy in your marriage.”

  “No. I wanted to be, but life doesn’t turn out the way you want it.”

  He thought of those two grave markers on the hill and gave thanks for the night that hid them. Somewhere a coyote howled, and the forlorn sound echoed across the prairie. “No. Life never turns out the way you want it. It is not our lives, but God’s for us.”

  “How do you keep your faith with all that’s happened to you?”

  “I guess the question is, what kind of faith would it be if I could not? Real faith isn’t something you put on and take off like a boot.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  Silence settled between them. Night had come to the high plains. The vast sky stretched out over them, rich with thousands of diamond-white stars. Starlight dusted the crests of the prairie rises and the glacial peaks of the Rocky Mountains. An owl glided on silent wings in front of them. Aiden tried to draw the peacefulness into himself, but no luck. The tight coil remained knotted up in his chest.

  There were questions he had to ask. Things he had to say. Putting them off wasn’t going to get the answers he needed. “How long ago did your husband die?”

  “It was more than a year and a half ago that Tom finished a bottle of whiskey at the kitchen table, fell asleep and didn’t wake up.” She looked down at the ground. Her braids fell over her shoulder and her hair shone like platinum in the starlight.

  It wasn’t sadness she felt, and he understood. “You did not love him.”

  “I did or I never would have married him. I did not have the kind of marriage you had.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. The darkness within him was complete. “I was blessed for a time. But I do not think something as fragile as love can last long in this world. My chance to love has passed.”

  “Mine, too.”

  “Is that why you haven’t remarried?”

  “Me? Remarry?” She wrapped her arms around her middle. “Available bachelors are not lining up to court me. A woman with two small children? I have little to offer a man. No, I can’t imagine that. Not unless he was admiring how hard I work, but I would not marry such a man.”

  “Then you plan to raise your children alone?”

  “Somehow.” The darkness continued, deepening its hold on the land, on the night. “I don’t see what other choice I have. I know staying here is just a temporary solution, and I am so grateful. Your help is like a burden off my soul. Maybe now our fortunes will turn, and if they do, you are responsible. I will always be grateful for that.”

  “You give me too much credit, Joanna.”

  “You do not give yourself enough.” She could make a long list of Aiden McKaslin’s outstanding attributes, but then, she had grown a bit biased. Starlight brushed him with a silver glow, and her eyes had adjusted to see the proud lines of his face.

  She liked him more than she should, she realized. Much more than she felt comfortable with. She wished that it was a black night with no stars to shine on her face and reveal the feelings she feared were too strong to hide.

  “Joanna?” He shuffled closer, his focus on her now, the dark pools of his eyes unrelenting.

  She shivered at the power of his glance. She wanted to lift her chin and keep that easily imposed distance between them, but where had it gone? And when? Suddenly she was intensely aware that they were alone, as if they were the only two people for miles with nothing but the stars as chaperones. The children were asleep; it was late. Her better sense told her she ought to say good-night and head back to the shanty—except for the tiny problem that she could not seem to make her feet move.

  A little flurry of panic broke out behind her ribs. She trusted Aiden. She trusted herself. But something frightened her. Maybe it was because he’d taken another step closer, so that she could hear the faint rhythm of his breathing and smell the hay on his clothes, which lingered from his evening barn work for the horses.

  “What if this is not a temporary solution?” He took her hand in his. His big, work-roughened, warm hand seemed to engulf hers.

  His eyes were shadows, his face as shielded as granite. It was too dark to see what he meant, and not dark enough, because she felt exposed and vulnerable to him. “Wh-what do you mean?”

  “You could stay here.”

  “No, I couldn’t impose on you like that. It is one thing to accept a little help for my children’s sake, but another entirely to take advantage of your generosity. I’ve got a paying job. Soon the fields will need harvesting and perhaps I can pay Ida to watch the children for me. If I work hard enough, I could have money for a new start.”

  “That wouldn’t be much of a start. The farmers don’t pay that well.”

  “Well enough for me.”

  “I admire your sense of duty.” His baritone rumbled, deep and strangely intimate. “You are talking of long days, maybe sixteen hours or more, working in the cornfields in the hot sun, day after day until the crop is in. That won’t be easy.”

  “I don’t mind, Aiden. If you are concerned I might fail and you will be stuck with a woman and kids in your shanty all winter, I promise you that can’t happen. I won’t let it. I refuse to let my children down.”

  “I know that.” His voice came warmer this time, deeper, and his hand wrapped around hers tightened gently.

  Emotion kicked to life within her. A little flame of caring she could not stop warmed her heart. “You have my word, Aiden. I know what some people must think—your brother Finn, for instance. I see how he looks at me.”

  “And that woman at church?”

  “Yes.” She bowed her head and winced. “You heard that?”

  “Hard not to.”

  She broke a little inside. Was this why he had been asking about her plans? About her not wanting to remarry? Did he suspect her motives? The night’s hot wind wheezed over her, stirring the dust in the air and making her eyes smart. “I promise you that I do not have designs on you. I hope you don’t think—”

  “No.” His answer came swift and sure, cutting her off. “I’m not worried about that, Joanna. It’s easy to see the kind of woman you are.”

  The kind a man like Aiden would never be interested in. The kind of woman, Joanna thought, who did not inspire real love in a man. It hurt, sure, but at least he didn’t believe the worst about her. That was some consolation. She brushed at her watery eyes. “I’d best turn in.”

&nb
sp; “It’s late, but I have one more question.”

  As if she could take any more. “It’s been a long day. Can it wait for tomorrow?”

  “I’m not sure I will have the gumption tomorrow.” He kept hold of her hand, so small and fragile within his big rough one. “I don’t know how to go about this, so I’m just going to say it. You don’t have to answer right away or even anytime soon. This is just something for you to mull over, and when you are sure of your answer, then let me know.”

  “I’m not sure I’m going to like this question.” She gazed up at him with so much worry on her face.

  It was easy to see her fears. She had gotten so used to one hardship after another that it was all she expected. He knew, because life had become that way for him, too.

  “This isn’t easy for me,” he choked out, hating that the words were so hard to say. His pulse began to hammer. He felt as if he’d fallen into a fast and deep river and was about to be carried right over the crest of a deadly waterfall.

  Just say the words, he told himself. He took one last breath and let the current carry him. “Marry me.”

  “M-marry you?” She jerked her hand from his.

  He could see he’d surprised her. His hand felt empty. He felt sorely alone. How did he tell her that? “I haven’t given it much thought yet, but I believe it is the right thing.”

  “How can it be right? I don’t ever want to be beholden and bound to a man who doesn’t love me. And I know you don’t, Aiden. You can’t.”

  “No, I don’t love you. I can’t. That’s true.” He fell silent, at a loss over how to say what he meant. He didn’t even know. “Folks are going to start talking about you, and it could get ugly.”

  “I have nothing to be ashamed about.” Her chin went up. She was so full of dignity, and yet so fragile. “Let people talk, Aiden. I would rather leave than cause you any shame. Maybe that is what I should do.”

  “We both know that’s not wise. You need to stay for your children’s sake.”