by Cora Seton
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” Sadie was shocked her mother-in-law-to-be thought she had to ask.
“Sean might feel he has a better claim.”
“Grandparents don’t get to make claims,” Sadie said tartly. “Babies need all their people around them.” She wished she’d had more of her people around her growing up. She wished the General had been close to them—had deemed them worthy of his time and attention. Cass had told her she thought it was his memories of their mother that kept him away—that the past, and her absence, was too hard for him to face.
Sadie thought that was an excuse. They could have mourned together. They could have moved on together as time passed. If the General still hurt so badly he couldn’t even set foot on her mother’s ranch eleven years on, then he was long past due for the kind of healing time was supposed to afford.
Many people had told her how brave the General was. Sadie thought he was a coward. He needed to face that fear—bridge that gap.
Come home to them.
Her wedding wasn’t enough to bring him home, though. She hated herself for feeling relieved that Cass’s hadn’t been either. She didn’t need to take it personally, although of course she did.
“I’m glad my son is giving marriage a chance. For a long time I thought what his father and I did would keep him from ever considering it. We made so many mistakes. I’m sure Connor has told you.” Keira dried another dish. Sadie thought she was a handsome woman. Knowing she’d run a ranch on her own for many years—even a small one—impressed her.
“I don’t know that much about your family’s history; just that you and Dalton stayed in Ireland and Connor went with his father to Texas. That must have been hard on everyone.” Sadie rinsed a pot and added it to the pile Keira was drying.
“You can’t even imagine. I hope you can’t,” Keira said. “Although with the loss of your mother and separation from your father, I suppose you probably can.”
Sadie nodded. “What happened to make that… possible? I can’t imagine one of my children moving so far away.”
“My husband grew far too homesick to stay in Ireland. And I couldn’t imagine leaving it. We both dug into our positions. Neither would budge.”
“But to split the kids…” Sadie held her breath. Had she said too much?
“I wonder sometimes if we’ll pay for that in the next world,” Kiera said bluntly. “We broke our own hearts and our children’s hearts. It seemed the fair thing to do, but it was fair to no one. I’d give anything to go back in time and change it.”
“What would you do? Keep both boys? Or send them with their father?” Sadie asked.
“Neither.” Keira pulled open one drawer after another until she found the one that held the silverware, gave the forks and knives in her hand a final polish and put them away. She shut the drawer with a thump. “I would have done whatever it took to keep my marriage whole. I learned the hard way home is home—but love is far more important.”
Sadie’s heart ached for all of them, and wondered if that was true. Could she leave Two Willows if Connor ever wanted to move away? Even the thought of it hollowed her out. He could change his mind about making Two Willows his home. What if he wanted to return to Texas?
Or Ireland?
When she glanced at Keira, the woman met her gaze sympathetically. “We were so young when we married. It didn’t even occur to us our different countries of origin might cause us hardship. We thought love conquered all.”
“But it didn’t,” Sadie said.
“It should have,” Keira said wistfully.
Sadie didn’t know what to say.
Cass and Brian came home a week later, and immediately brightened the mood on the ranch. The bustle and conversation that followed their arrival was just what was needed to dispel the awkwardness that had existed since Connor’s parents and brother arrived. Connor was sure the Reeds had breathed a sigh of relief each night when he’d taken his family members to the places they were staying. They’d probably braced themselves when he left early each morning to fetch his mother, father and Dalton back in time for breakfast.
At least building the walled garden had given the men something to do, and Sean and Dalton a way to spend time together that didn’t require a lot of conversation. Connor was pleased to see his brother and father’s relationship improving day by day as the wall grew higher, and he thought Keira and Sadie were bonding, too. Still, his mother and father hadn’t reconciled, and he was beginning to suspect he’d been naive to hope they would.
As Cass and Brian passed their phones around the kitchen table at lunchtime to show the photographs they’d taken at the Grand Canyon and elsewhere along their travels, however, Connor noticed his father wasn’t following the conversation; he was watching Keira.
Connor stilled. What did it mean? He could barely allow himself to feel any hope as far as his mother and father were concerned.
The ache he felt as he watched his family interact with Sadie’s around the table was more for them than for himself, he realized. Because none of them had done this on purpose. None of them deserved this pain. They simply were as influenced by the landscape of their childhoods as anyone would be. That didn’t mean they loved each other any less.
Later, he stepped outside for a breath of fresh air and Brian found him there.
“Everything quiet while I was away?”
“Mostly.” He filled Brian in on the excitement of the night of the quilting bee, and Steel Cooper’s warning. He wished he didn’t have to tell the other man about his absence from the ranch or the fact that he hadn’t checked in the whole time he was gone, but lying wasn’t his way. He told the tale truthfully, and was rewarded by a long, thoughtful look from Brian.
“Were you in town to find information about Grant—or were you trying to decide whether or not you wanted to go through with marrying Sadie?”
Surprised by the question, Connor hesitated and earned another long look.
“It wasn’t about Sadie at all,” Connor assured him. “You’re right; back then I was still figuring out if I was ready to marry her, but that was about me, not her.”
“You sure about that?”
“Positive.”
After a moment, Brian nodded. “Good.”
Connor leaned against the railing that bounded the porch. “This is where I want to be, and Sadie’s the woman I want to marry.”
“Glad to hear it.” Brian braced his forearms on the railing and stared out at Sadie’s garden. “I don’t think we’ve seen the last of trouble around here, though.”
“Neither do I. Do you have any idea what direction it’s going to come from next?”
Brian shook his head. “That first round of troublemakers—they were all local boys. Seems to me when you’re talking about an operation this big, it isn’t just local.”
“Should we start asking around?”
Brian shrugged. “I think we start by watching and listening. By getting into town more, going to the bars, the restaurants, the grocery stores. Talking to people. Becoming part of the scenery. People need to trust us and feel like we’re part of Chance Creek. Then they’ll talk to us—give us a head’s up when trouble comes calling.”
Connor supposed that was the best they could do. “I think the next time I hang out at the Dancing Boot, I better take Sadie along, though.”
Brian grinned when Connor explained the comment. “That’s right; no more flirting with bartenders. That’s gotta be tough on you.”
“Fuck you,” Connor said companionably. He didn’t care if he ever flirted with another woman again. He had Sadie. He’d put her—and her sisters—ahead of such trivial things. They had to act as a unit now—all of them—to look out for trouble. Connor found himself grinning. That’s what this was—his new unit. Only this time it included women. Half of its members untrained, half wild and entirely disobedient. A unit of renegades.
This was going to be interesting.
“Stand still,” Alice said.
&nb
sp; Sadie did as she was told, holding her arms away from her body so Alice could take measurements. She was wearing her mother’s wedding gown, as Cass had done before her for her wedding. Cass was taller than Sadie, however. More curvy. Alice was altering the dress to fit better.
“What do you think of Connor?” Sadie asked Cass. She was nervous about her oldest sister’s reaction, since her entire romance with Connor had happened while Cass was out of town.
“I think the more important question is, what do you think of Connor?” Cass retorted. “You’ve only known him a month. Don’t you think you’re rushing this?”
“That’s the pot calling the kettle black,” Alice said.
Sadie knew what she meant; Cass had met and married Brian in a pretty short time frame, too.
“I don’t think I’m rushing anything,” Sadie said, but Cass’s words plucked the strings of her own uneasiness. Of course she thought they were rushing it, and if Connor hadn’t already invited his family to visit, she would’ve set their wedding day far in the future. But the invitations had been issued, the tables and chairs, dishes and silverware all ordered. Mia Matheson had handled all the details with a smile and a sigh. “Don’t worry about the short notice,” she’d said. “Everyone in Chance Creek gets married on short notice.”
Sadie had thought about it and realized she was right.
“What is it that made you fall in love with him?” Cass asked more gently.
Sadie found it hard to answer that question. There was Connor’s physical attributes, of course. She thought he was incredibly handsome, and his strength and the confident way he conducted himself attracted her. But more than that, she liked his lively sense of humor. His curiosity. The way he’d simply accepted her strange demands when she dragged him around the garden the day she’d realized he could help her listen to the plants. The way he’d held her when she needed to make the tonic for Jean. The way he’d lit up when he’d learned that Halil and his family were safe.
“I like the way he treats me,” she said simply. “Like he’s all the way here with me. Like he… likes me.”
She looked up to see both sisters nodding, and was relieved they understood.
“I think that’s what we’ve all been looking for,” Cass said. “It makes sense, given our past.”
“I sometimes think it would be easier not to want a husband at all,” Alice said. She rushed to add, “But I think Connor’s great. I’m so happy for you two.”
“I’m sure you’ll find someone,” Sadie told her. How could Alice not? She was so beautiful, and so kind. Sadie was surprised no one had snapped her up before this.
Alice nodded, but didn’t look convinced. “When I try to see my wedding, it’s… obscured.”
“It’s Lena I worry about,” Cass said. “She has so much anger in her. She thinks the General wishes we were all boys.”
“I think she’s right,” Sadie said, “but she shouldn’t hold off from marriage on that account. She should do what she wants to do.”
“We all should,” Cass said. “Which is the only reason I’m okay with two of us marrying men the General sent. This trend has to stop, though. So Alice—you, Lena and Jo better start hitting the Dancing Boot every Friday and Saturday night. Find your own guys.”
She was teasing, but Alice frowned. “Isn’t that how we all got in trouble in the first place?”
Cass’s smile faded and Sadie knew she was thinking about the men they’d been dating before Brian came to Two Willows. Men who’d been conspiring together to take their ranch. “I suppose you’re right. Well, anyway—I’m glad you found a man you have a connection with, Sadie.”
Sadie chuckled. “You have no idea.”
Alice looked up. “What do you mean by that?”
Sadie was about to brush off the question when she decided to tell them the truth. It had become apparent during the last few months that the secrets they kept from each other made them more vulnerable.
“When I work in the garden, I’ve always had this—sense—of what the plants needed. It’s as if they’re talking to me, although not in words, obviously,” she hurried to add. “It’s been so strong, it’s enabled me to make the garden what it is today, to tend to the hedge maze and to make my herbal cures. But after Mark—it all went away.”
Alice touched her arm. “I always felt that you must have a sense for plants like that, to be able to grow things as beautifully as you do.”
“But it went away? What you mean by that?” Cass asked.
“I mean—it was like somebody had flipped the switch. Turned it off. I couldn’t feel or hear anything. And the garden started to die.”
Alice and Cass exchanged a look. “Now that you say that, you’re right; the garden wasn’t as green as it should be in summer,” Alice said. “But there’s been so much else to worry about, I guess I wasn’t paying attention.”
Sadie rushed to tell her, “It’s all right; it came back. But I was getting pretty desperate before it did. I thought—I thought the land was telling me—that I should leave. That I wasn’t good enough for it anymore.”
“Sadie—” Cass said.
“It’s okay,” Sadie said again. “Because when Connor came, and he touched me—it all came back.”
“Just like that?” Alice asked.
“Just like that,” Sadie said, “but at first only when I was touching him. You should’ve seen me.” She laughed. “Dragging him all around the garden, keeping him right by my side as I tended to it.” Her voice wavered. “But it’s more serious than I’m making out. The hedge was dying, too. It was all dying.”
“You said at first that sense you have only came back when you were touching him,” Alice pointed out. “What about now?”
“Now I can hear it all the time. He cured me. Somehow.”
Alice went back to her work, but Sadie saw her smile. Had her sister guessed when her abilities had returned fully?
“So Connor restored your ability to hear the plants?” Cass shook her head. “Our family is weird, have you realized that?”
“Are you just realizing that now?” Alice retorted.
“Does that mean he’s like you and Alice?” Cass asked. “He can hear things, too?”
Sadie thought she heard wistfulness in her sister’s voice, and she felt bad for Cass. It hadn’t occurred to her before how it would feel not to have that kind of extra connection to the world. But was that true? Cass was so connected to Two Willows, to their mother—and all of them. She was the glue that held this place together.
“No,” Alice answered Cass before Sadie could. “Connor restored your belief in love, didn’t he?”
She was right; love was at the heart of it, which was why Sadie thought Cass had more of a connection to Two Willows than she even knew. Cass was the embodiment of love as far as Sadie was concerned.
“He did,” she told Alice. “But I think more importantly he restored my belief in myself.”
“I’m glad the General sent him, then,” Cass said. “Although it’s beginning to alarm me how often I’ve said that lately.”
“The General is just trying to harass us,” Sadie told her. “We’re the ones co-opting his men. Pretty soon we’ll have an army.”
“I imagine he’ll stop sending them,” Alice said. “The General isn’t a man who likes to lose.”
Cass nodded, but Sadie didn’t think she was convinced.
Chapter Twelve
‡
“Glad to hear it,” Sean was saying when Connor entered the kitchen the following morning, after a quick trip down to the barn to lend Lena, Jo and Brian a hand with the chores. He’d picked up his family earlier and driven them back to the ranch, leaving them with Sadie as she prepared breakfast. Sadie wasn’t in the kitchen anymore, and neither was Dalton, but he found both of his parents at the table, his mother picking at the remains of a full breakfast of toast, sausages, eggs and orange slices, his father bent over a bowl of porridge and a cup of black coffee.
&nb
sp; “Glad to hear what?” he asked, grateful for the lack of enmity between them for once.
“The Blakes finally tore down their old barn and put up a new one,” his mother said.
“That place was an eyesore for years,” Sean chimed in.
“Some people think old barns are artistic.” Connor couldn’t help himself. His father was always going on about eyesores back in Texas.
“The Blake barn wasn’t artistic,” his father snapped.
“You remember it, don’t you? That awful shade of green. Blake got a discount on the paint.” His mother laughed, but when Connor shook his head, her laughter died. “You don’t remember it?”
“Nope. Who are the Blakes again?” He grabbed a plate from the cupboard and served himself some eggs, but the silence behind him made him turn around in time to see his parents exchange a significant look.
“Margaret Blake used to watch you when I went to appointments in town,” Keira told him. “She was our sitter for years.”
Connor tried to picture a woman like that, but nothing more came to him than a vague sense of a kind woman. As soon as Dalton was eight or nine, their parents had been comfortable leaving them on their own. “Sorry. Don’t remember her.”
“You have to remember her. What about the picnic we had? The one where Henry Davies turned the rowboat over and she went right in the pond?” his father asked.
“No.” He must have been very young for that.
“Margaret was watching you when you got that awful strep throat. Your dad and I were away overnight. You remember that, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “Not really. I remember my pocketknife, though. The first day I got it I cut down the clothesline. Got yelled at.”
“That was in Texas,” his father said quietly. “You must remember something from Ireland.”
“Sure and of course I do.” Connor put on a thick Irish brogue to lighten the moment. But instead of laughing, both his parents looked dismayed. “What? I remember. Of course I remember—I was ten when we left.”
“Name your best mate in school. The boy you walked with the very first day,” his father said.
