He approached from the side and she didn’t seem to hear his boots crunching in the grass, so he cleared his throat.
She jumped and turned her face away, but not before he saw the silver tracks running down her cheek.
The cheerful greeting he’d planned died on his lips. “Are you all right?”
~~~~
Chapter Four
Opal wiped her eyes, embarrassed Charlie had caught her crying. As a girl, she’d shed so many tears over her father that she thought surely there weren’t any more. Apparently, she’d been wrong.
“I’m fine.” She winced as the words snapped from her lips. She hadn’t meant to be cruel, just wanted to be left alone. She’d slipped away after supper purposely, knowing her father wouldn’t be able to make it far from the house with an injured leg. He must’ve sent Charlie to find her.
It had been more difficult than she’d expected to sit through supper. Watching her father interact with Charlie and the boy Carl and Gertie, but not really being a part of their camaraderie, well, it hurt. Her father had attempted to ask her some questions about her life back in Omaha, but it was obvious Frank didn’t know her anymore after their long separation.
Even Charlie must have sensed the awkwardness, because he had tried to draw her into conversation, but she’d barely been able to force down a few bites of the meal before excusing herself.
Obviously, she didn’t belong in their little ranch family.
The whole thing had made Opal feel much the same as her first meal at Aunt Jennie’s fancy table at age six: out of place.
Her father had even called Charlie his son, piercing Opal’s heart. Obviously, her father had forgotten all about her after he’d sent her away.
That moment had dashed the secret hopes she’d been harboring since she’d left Omaha. Hopes that her father did want her to stay. That he’d really loved her even though he’d sent her away…
“You don’t seem fine,” Charlie said, touching her forearm lightly and drawing her out of her thoughts. He knelt next to her.
“You wanna talk about it?”
She shook her head. Her disappointment was too private to share. Besides, she didn’t trust the attraction between them. And Charlie was her father’s man. He would probably go running right back to “the boss” with news of Opal’s hurt feelings and she couldn’t bear the humiliation.
What she needed to do was get back to Omaha and get things settled there. Marry Grover so she could keep the orphanage from closing.
She closed her eyes for a moment, taking a breath to try and compose herself.
“Charlie, you can take me back to Sheridan, can’t you?”
He stayed silent for a long time, staring at the ground. “Your pa wants you to stay. For a few days anyway. And I’ve got stuff to do around here. You understand…”
She understood all right. He was loyal to her father. Pressing wobbly lips together, Opal toed the swing into motion, dislodging Charlie’s hand from where it still rested on her arm.
“Thank you for checking on me. I’m all right now.”
She meant the words as a dismissal, but he only stood and moved a few paces away, hands tucked into his trouser pockets, watching the sun go down.
“I think Carl is taken with you,” he said in an offhanded manner, not really looking at her.
She swallowed hard, remembering the moment when the boy had burst into her father’s study. She hadn’t realized until then that Charlie might have other obligations. Like a wife and child. He didn’t wear a ring—she’d looked during supper—but perhaps he couldn’t afford one.
“If you don’t mind my asking… what happened to your wife?”
She could only see one side of his face, but she could make out a muscle jumping in his jaw.
“I’ve never been married.”
“But—” She stifled the question begging to be asked—how did he come to have a son?—because it wasn’t really her place to know.
He turned to face her, but with the setting sun behind him, it threw his face into shadow.
“Carl is actually my nephew,” he said, voice low. “My brother and-well, that’s not something you need to know, I guess.” She saw his throat move as he swallowed. “Carl’s mother died during childbirth. My brother left him behind when Carl was a little tyke and I took on the role of his pa. That’s why he calls me by the name.”
“Does he know you’re his uncle?”
“Yes. We talk about his real pa from time to time but haven’t seen him since he left.”
“I’m sorry to hear it. It seems your nephew and I have something in common.”
She meant the abandonment of a father, but she went on quickly before Charlie could question her about it. She didn’t want to talk about a little girl’s shattered dreams.
“And I suppose you and I have a common undertaking as well.”
“What do you mean?”
“The cause I tried to tell my father about. The orphans. One of my dear friends from Omaha introduced me to the New Hope Orphanage and after visiting, I fell in love with the children there.”
Tommy, a delightful toddler, had been the one to first capture her heart. With his chubby baby cheeks and toddling footsteps that followed her wherever she went, he’d won her over to the cause nearly instantly.
“And that’s what you’ve used your allowance money for,” Charlie said. She still couldn’t make out his features in the growing darkness, couldn’t tell what was in his voice.
“Yes. The orphanage has been mismanaged and lost funding from some of its benefactors. There is some threat the doors will have to be closed unless more funding can be obtained.”
“And that’s what you wanted the gold for.”
“Yes.”
But there was no gold. She needed to find a way to get back to Omaha so she could put her other plans into action.
Even if she didn’t particularly want to marry Grover.
~~~~
Chapter Five
Four days later, Opal was no closer to getting off the Circle B. Her father had sickened the day after her arrival and although she’d been in to sit with him a few times, they hadn’t discussed the money she needed for her orphans. Every time she asked about returning to Omaha, her father feigned exhaustion and said they’d talk about it later.
And Charlie had been no help.
So Opal had set about making friends with Gertie, the only woman on the spread. And making her own plans to leave if Charlie still refused to take her back to the train station in Sheridan.
The two women were in the middle of dinner preparations when the kitchen door banged open and Carl rushed in, startling Opal into flinging flour across the broad table.
“Miss Opal, I found your kitty!”
She looked up to see him clutching her squirming, once-white Persian to his midsection, just as Gertie ordered, “Take that animal out of my kitchen, young man.”
Opal wiped her flour-covered hands on the apron she’d borrowed, turning away from the bread she’d been kneading to address Carl. “Where did you find her?”
“Carl,” Gertie warned, and the boy scampered out of the kitchen.
Charlie must’ve followed him in from outside because his overwhelming presence suddenly filled the kitchen. Opal couldn’t help being aware of the man, even though he frustrated her by refusing to help her return to Omaha.
“I’m afraid your fancy kitty was… erm… socializing with the tomcat out in the barn.”
His lips quirked, not a full smile, but it was his wink that brought a flush to Opal’s cheeks.
She pretended indifference and turned back to her dough. “Thank you for having Carl bring her inside. I don’t suppose you’re available to take me to Sheridan today, are you?”
“Mmm… I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”
“I thought not.” She tried and failed to keep the sharpness from her tone, but she needed to get back to Omaha. The children depended on her.
&nb
sp; And she would do anything for them. Including making her way back to Sheridan on her own, since Charlie still refused to help her. She’d already returned her few belongings in the satchel in preparation to leave on her own. She would wait until everyone was asleep and then sneak away.
She was disappointed she hadn’t gotten the answers she wanted from her father, but she had to think about the children.
“Miss Opal, I put the cat in your room and shut the door.” Carl skidded into the kitchen, wide smile flashing. Opal had learned he only had the one speed: full steam ahead. Her heart pinched at the thought of leaving the boy she’d only begun to get attached to.
“Thank you. I set aside a couple of the molasses cookies I baked earlier for you.” Hands busy with the dough, she nodded to the sideboard.
“What, none for me?” Charlie asked, coming behind her. Warmth radiated from him, she could sense his solid presence, could smell the combination of leather and horse and man that was Charlie’s scent.
She refused to respond to him. Wished her thudding heart would do the same.
“Sorry,” was her quick, clipped answer.
Since her first day here and their shared moments on the hill at sunset, they’d danced around each other. He seemed to seek her out at times, but then kept a careful distance between them as they conversed. She didn’t actively avoid him, but remained wary of the attraction that sparked between them, especially as he didn’t acknowledge feeling anything toward her. Maybe he wasn’t attracted to her.
And every day, he refused to return her to Sheridan so she might catch the train back to Omaha.
Carl leaned his elbows on the end of the table as he munched his cookies, watching Opal shape her dough into two loaves. “I thought you fancy town ladies didn’t know how to cook or nothin’.”
“Mmm,” Opal hummed, ignoring the big man still skulking behind her. “Most of my friends from Omaha have cooks who serve in their homes, and don’t have to do for themselves.”
“So how come you can cook?”
Carl often ran in and out of the house, bringing in the pails of milk or basket of eggs in the morning, fetching water or stacking firewood. Charlie had been right in his assessment that the boy had taken a shine to Opal. But Charlie hadn’t guessed she’d become attached to his nephew as well. Many times when Carl came in, he and Opal would converse or tease for a few minutes. He was much like the boys at New Hope, like dry ground ready to soak in all the attention he could get.
If she didn’t belong with her father, at least she felt a connection with one member of the ranch family.
But she didn’t particularly want Carl’s uncle listening in on their conversation.
“Sometimes I help in the kitchen at New Hope Orphanage. I managed to burn things the first few times, so I enlisted my aunt Jennie’s cook to give me a few lessons.”
“Well, your cookies sure’re good,” Carl said around a mouthful.
“Come on, son. We’d better leave the women to it.” Charlie clapped a hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “Ladies.”
“Ladies,” Carl echoed his uncle’s serious tone and nod.
“Those two…” Gertie said, still peeling the potatoes she’d been working on. “Like peas in a pod.”
Opal had noticed, though she didn’t want to. Charlie was certainly admirable for taking on the raising of a small boy when he could’ve probably been courting or carousing like some of the other cowboys.
Charlie’s hard work and strong hand as foreman was something else to admire.
But she couldn’t let herself fall for him. He was her father’s man through-and-through and continued refusing her requests to return her to Sheridan. In short, he couldn’t be trusted.
Which was a shame, because she genuinely liked him.
~~~~
Chapter Six
In hindsight, perhaps this hadn’t been Opal’s best idea. She was almost to the point of sending up a prayer—useless as she knew them to be in her own personal case—but wasn’t quite that desperate. Yet.
Her legs ached from clinging to the horse for so long, but she was afraid to stop too often for fear someone from her father’s ranch would catch her before she reached Sheridan. Her eyes were gritty from lack of sleep after she’d crept out to the barn in the dead of night to sneak away. Now the midmorning sunshine had her squinting and wishing for a hat to shade her face. She was hungry.
And she was afraid she was hopelessly lost.
She didn’t remember riding this close to the mountains when they’d traveled from Sheridan to the Circle B, but then she’d also been distracted by Charlie’s nearness and the threat of riders chasing them.
She’d hoped her horse would have some sense of direction, and the compass she’d pilfered from her father’s things would guide her. She knew Sheridan was to the north, but she still had no idea where she was.
What could she do, other than keep going? She had to return to Omaha so she could put her plans in to place to care for the children.
She might’ve been willing to wait for her father’s return to health, if she hadn’t looked in his desk and found his correspondence with her Aunt Jennie, who didn’t approve of Opal’s work with the orphanage. If her father sided with Aunt Jennie, there was no chance he’d help her find funding for New Hope.
It was a chance she couldn’t take. So she’d left on her own.
She had no other choice.
Charlie cursed Opal’s independence even as he admired her for taking matters into her own hands.
He’d never imagined she would take off on her own in the middle of the night. Didn’t know she had that much gumption.
Since she’d headed in the wrong direction, he figured he could catch up to her before lunch.
It was the three extra sets of hoofprints that had him worried.
He and the ranch hands that could be spared from their daily duties, five in all, had split off in separate directions when they’d come upon the additional tracks. Hoping they could surround or ambush the other riders before anything happened to the boss’s daughter.
All Charlie could think about were the thugs that had chased them outside of Sheridan and bullets flying toward Opal. He’d been a disappointment to his former fiancé, Edith, all those years ago, but this time he couldn’t afford to fail. It might mean Opal’s life.
Why hadn’t he tried harder to get Frank and Opal to reconcile their differences? He should’ve insisted Frank listen to his daughter even though the older man had been ill. If he had, she might not have run away. But his boss was stubborn and it seemed his daughter had inherited that same characteristic.
Now the sun was getting awful close to setting behind the Big Horns, and once it was gone, so was his hope of tracking his boss’s wayward daughter. No light meant he couldn’t see her tracks. He only hoped she planned to bed down instead of continuing on. There were too many things that could happen to a rider in the night. If her horse stumbled, or shied…
And then he topped a rise and caught sight of a riderless Misty standing near a grove of trees and all rational thought fled his mind. He kicked his horse into a gallop and only saw the landscape flying by in fractured pieces.
When he reached Misty, he threw himself off the animal, shouting, “Opal!”
Where was she?
Desperation, fear clawed at his throat as he imagined her body lying broken on the ground somewhere—
And then she appeared out of the trees, hair wind-tousled and falling out of a simple braid, frowning fiercely at him.
“Go away, Charlie.”
The stubborn tilt of her chin and her flashing eyes sent relief spiraling through him. He strode over to her and took her upper arms in his shaking hands.
She was alive. Unhurt. He hadn’t failed to find her.
“What’s the matter?” Opal demanded, then seemed to change her mind. “Nevermind. I want you to get back on your horse and go back and tell my father you didn’t find me.”
He ignored
her finger pointed toward Turk. “That’s not going to happen.”
That pert chin hiked up. “I’m not going back, so unless you plan to escort me to Sheridan, you’re wasting your time. I must get back to the children and I have a wedding to plan.”
Her sassy attitude quickly overpowered his relief and he scowled. “Do you even know where you’re going? Because Sheridan is that direction.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “You’ve backtracked some and it’s probably a two-day ride from here.”
He thought he saw her lower lip tremble, but she simply crossed her arms and glared at him.
“And I don’t know if you thought about this before you ran off, but horse thievin’ is a punishable crime out here.”
“I didn’t steal Misty,” she said quickly, hands gesturing wildly as she went on. “I planned to have her boarded in Sheridan until you or my father could come get her.” Her lips pressed into a thin line. “I have to get back to Omaha.”
Before he could follow up on her mention of a wedding—why hadn’t he heard about her suitor before this?—the sound of a pistol hammer being cocked froze him in place.
“Well, lookie here…”
Three scruffy, ill-kept men stepped out of the brush, weapons pointed at Charlie and Opal. “Looks like we’ve stepped in the middle of a lover’s spat or sumpin’.”
“Reckon you two had better not make any fast movements.” The largest of the men, with a scraggly black beard, waved his pistol at Charlie. “And I’d ‘preciate it if you’d throw down that gun belt you’re wearin’.”
Charlie reached to unbuckle the leather belt at his waist, lowering it gently to the ground even as he stepped in front of Opal. He didn’t like the light in the men’s eyes as they looked on her greedily.
How had he let himself get so distracted? If he hadn’t been so focused on making sure Opal was all right, he would’ve sensed the men sooner.
“Whatever it is you’re after,” and Charlie had a sneaking suspicion about what it could be, “I’ll ask you to leave my wife out of this. She can ride on back the way she came.”
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