Love Inspired Historical June 2014 Bundle: Lone Star HeiressThe Lawman's Oklahoma SweetheartThe Gentleman's Bride SearchFamily on the Range

by Griggs, Winnie; Pleiter, Allie; Hale, Deborah; Nelson, Jessica

  Katrine let her head fall against the tall back of the rocking chair. It was so soothing, to sit here and rock. I will want one of these in my new house, she thought, bemused to remember she had no such house at the moment, much less a chair or a porch on which to rock. “I am glad to know. I feel too weary to remember my own name right now.”

  “Grief is tiresome business. It wears on a soul to lose ones we love. And you’ve lost much more than that.” She placed a brown paper package on the arm of Katrine’s rocking chair. “I wanted to give you a little bit back.”

  “Me?” Evelyn was becoming one of her closest friends here in Brave Rock. She loved to look at Evelyn’s talented sketches, and Katrine had often enjoyed telling stories to Walt, Evelyn’s charming young son.

  “Walt is fond of you. Now that he talks again, he has tried several times to tell me stories like Miss B’s.” Back when Katrine first met Walt, the trauma of his father’s death had rendered him mute. Now, finding a new father in Clint’s brother Gideon, Walt was an endless stream of chatter and generous affection. He loved Katrine’s stories, but they’d had to resort to Miss B when Walt couldn’t possibly get his five-year-old mouth around Brinkerhoff.

  “I am fond of Walt.” She fingered the twine on the package. It was too soft to be a book, too small to be yet another must-be-altered item of clothing. She undid the knot to pull a beautiful linen pillowcase from the wrapping. Delicate and soft as a cloud, it was embroidered along the side with familiar yellow flowers with six long thin petals. “Star of Bethlehem!” she exclaimed.

  “I asked around town to see if someone had a book that would show me a flower that comes from Denmark. I thought you needed an extra touch of home. Did I get it right?”

  Katrine brushed away a new wave of tears. “It is perfect.” She had never felt so welcomed, so part of a community in all her years in America. If she had ever had doubts that Brave Rock was her new home, today had erased them. “Thank you so much.”

  “I thought you might like something that is all yours. A soft pillow is one of life’s great luxuries. And a good night’s sleep makes everything better.” Her eyes took on a shadow of memory that spoke of experience. Evelyn had lost her first husband on the day they staked their claim here in the territories, and the land been at the center of a long argument between herself, her three contentious brothers and Gideon Thornton. The worst fights sprung from contested claims out here, where two settlers claimed rights to the same land. It had been a heated battle—one which became as much about the decades-old feud between the Thornton and Chaucer families as it was about good land. Katrine only knew the bits and pieces Evelyn chose to reveal—something about land and the war—and what her brothers and those who listened to them muttered or whispered. Despite Evelyn’s loving relationship with Gideon, that rift had yet to heal. So, when Evelyn spoke of needing softness at the end of a trying day, Katrine could believe she spoke from experience.

  How many sleepless nights would pass before Lars could come home? “I miss him terribly,” she admitted, running her hands across the sweet yellow flowers. It had become the safest thing to say; she did truly miss him.

  Evelyn only nodded. While it was clear to everyone who saw them together how much she loved Gideon, something in Evelyn’s eyes told Katrine her first husband had not won her affections so deeply. When she married, Katrine wanted to miss her husband desperately whenever he was gone, even hunting. Lars was fine company, but a brother was not a husband. And a sister was not a wife. They had come to the Oklahoma territories to build whole new lives for themselves, not just to acquire land. For Katrine, that new life had always meant a happy family.

  “I think you will tell your children wonderful stories about their uncle Lars one day. He was a good man, and you are a wonderful storyteller. Until then, you may tell Walt as many stories of Lars as makes you happy.” She leaned toward Katrine. “In fact, I will be grateful if you steal his attention now and then. Five-year-old boys can be such a handful.”

  Katrine felt just enough of a laugh bubble up to let her know the day’s tensions were indeed slipping from her shoulders. “I will tell him endless tales of how Lars Brinkerhoff always minded his mama.” That made Evelyn laugh, as well. “I’m afraid not all of them will be true, however,” Katrine went on, “for I must say Lars was not at all good about minding his mama.”

  “So I’ve heard.” The deep voice startled Katrine, bursting the small bubble of happiness she’d formed with Evelyn. “Lars was fond of boasting how he was no end of trouble as a child,” Clint added.

  “It is true,” Katrine said. “He was…” it took her a minute to choose the right English word “…precocious as a boy. What you would call a rascal, I believe.”

  “Now now, Katrine.” Evelyn’s voice was warm even though her words were chiding. “Let us not speak ill of the dead.”

  Evelyn’s words stole the smile from Katrine’s face. This was how it went every day; for seconds—when Clint was around, especially—she could allow herself to remember that Lars lived and would return. Then, like a splash of cold water, someone or something would remind her Lars needed to appear dead. The contrast was difficult to endure, exhausting at times. It made her crave time alone with Clint where she could talk about her brother in terms of life, of safety and of his return. To think just seconds ago she was giving thanks for what a supportive home Brave Rock had become. Just this moment, she would have given anything to ride out of town and hide with Lars wherever he was, away from all the compassionate, suffocating mourners.

  Clint picked up on her distress and turned to Evelyn. “Could you give us a moment? I have some delicate matters to discuss with Miss Brinkerhoff. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Of course.” She turned to Katrine. “Please forgive my earlier remark. I wasn’t thinking. Lars was a rascal, I’m sure, and knowing what I know of young boys, I can hardly count it speaking ill in any case.” She laid a hand on Katrine’s arm. “Anything. Anything at all, you call on me. I want to help.”

  “I know,” Katrine said, holding the soft, beautiful pillowcase tight against her chest. “I know.”

  The second Evelyn left, Katrine slumped back into the rocker, feeling twice as weary as she had before. She propped her elbow on the chair arm and let her forehead fall into her upturned hand. “This is too hard.”

  Clint sat on the porch at her feet, looking up at her with an expression of regret that caused a lump in Katrine’s throat. “I know.” She kept forgetting that this necessary charade was as difficult for him as it was for her. Still, he seemed so strong, so in control, where she felt like a weed tumbling across the prairie in hapless gusts of wind. “You need someone to help you.”

  She couldn’t help it. “I need Lars.” She tried not to whine the words, but the weariness had stolen all her good behavior. Evelyn was right, she hadn’t slept well since the fire. She looked straight at Clint until he looked right back into her eyes and then she whispered, “Tell me he lives. I need to hear the words out loud.”

  “Katrine.” His eyes darted around them, careful for nearby ears. “We’ll go out to the cabin again tomorrow.”

  “I can’t wait until tomorrow.” She stood up, pacing the porch. She needed to hear someone else speak the words, to know she was not so fogged up in thought and pretended mourning that it was still true. To know she could call her dear brother a rascal and not be speaking ill of the dead. She turned and simply demanded it of Clint. “I cannot.”

  He took one look around, and for that moment she resented his role as protector. She did not want his cautionary nature. Then, to her surprise, he walked toward her. He took one of her hands and pulled her close to him. One strong hand wrapped around her shoulder, the other held her elbow. Not the full, protective embrace he’d offered her after the fire, although she could feel his desire to do so, but a careful, much-as-could-be-allowed gesture. His face hovered just above her head, close and startlingly tender. “He is alive.” His words were as fi
lled with emotion as any she’d ever heard from the sheriff. “Lars will come home.”

  Chapter Six

  Not half an hour later, Clint found Winona Eaglefeather standing quietly on the edge of the Gilberts’ property where she kept a tepee with Dakota. The Gilberts had become good friends with Winona, as they had watched over Dakota when he first arrived in Boomer Town before Winona had arrived, looking for the boy.

  She still had on the plainclothes dress she had worn to the service. When she came from the reservation, she wore Cheyenne dress, but many times in town she dressed in the manner of other Brave Rock women. It was late in the day, but after talking with Katrine he knew the news he carried could not wait until tomorrow.

  “I’m glad you came to the service.” It didn’t feel like the right greeting, but Clint couldn’t find other words. “Lars spoke highly of you.”

  “Your fun-e-ral—” she worked the new word carefully on her tongue “—is so strange to me.” When Winona had first come to Brave Rock, she could only communicate in English on the most basic level. Now, only three months later, the language came much more easily. That had a lot to do with the amount of time Lars had devoted to teaching her. Lars was an excellent instructor—already Clint had learned a great deal about the area and tracking from the Dane—but Clint knew their motivation to communicate went deeper than a grasp of English.

  “Strange?” he inquired. A funeral for a living man was oddity enough, but since Winona could hardly have known that, Clint was curious about her reaction.

  “Yes.” She circled one hand in the air, as if reaching for the right word. “So…quiet.”

  He’d never had cause to see a Cheyenne funeral, but Lars had told him of the tribe’s colorful spiritual ceremonies. Solemn rows of folk in black couldn’t be further from costumes and fires and sacred dances. “I suppose it must look that way to you.”

  “When the Cheyenne mourn their dead, we place a body up high to speed them to the Great Beyond. There is much wailing and crying. Singing and telling stories.”

  “We tell stories—you heard Reverend Thornton tell a few about Lars as part of his message—but mostly to each other more than part of the ceremony.” Lije had indeed told several heartwarming tales of the help and support Lars had given people in Brave Rock. Clint had felt his soul warm to the fact that in three short months, this prairie settlement had become a true community. He and Lars were fighting to keep that community safe, and Lars’s own memorial bore truth as to why that was worth the current cost. “Lots of people stopped me in town or after the service and told me stories of Lars. People see it as a way to remember.”

  “And headstones.” Her eyes squinted up in consideration of this unfamiliar custom. Brave Rock had no graveyard yet, but even Lije had mentioned they’d need one soon. “Reverend Thornton tells me your people put the bodies down in the ground.”

  “That’s true, usually. Only there is no body to bury in this case.” He found his words ironic, given what he had come to say. Still, it wasn’t the kind of thing he could just blurt out.

  “You wear black,” she went on, then motioned to her own dark clothes. “We wear red.” He noticed that the elaborate beaded decorations she always wore in her long black braids were a bright red today. Even in American garb, she managed to retain her Cheyenne identity. Maybe that was why Lars felt such a connection to the woman—she had a gift for moving between the two worlds of her life. Lars was little different; he seemed to slide with ease between his Danish heritage, his American future and his time spent learning hunting and tracking on the Cheyenne reservation. It’s what made him such a good role model for young Dakota. Half white, half Cheyenne, the boy was struggling with who he was and where he belonged since his mother had died and his father, prior to his death, had never even acknowledged the boy’s existence. The more Clint thought about it, the more Lars had in common with this aunt and her nephew. Clint would be glad to put an end to their mourning.

  “We are so different,” she went on. “And yet death is sadness everywhere.” He did not need to see her wipe a tear from her eyes to know she mourned Lars deeply; it was clear in the tone of her simple words.

  “Can we take a walk, Miss Winona? I need to talk to you about something important. Private. To do with Lars.”

  She looked at him with curiosity, but turned as he gestured away from where Dakota sat working with some leather outside the tepee. “I have told you all I know. I do not know how I can help you, Sheriff Thornton.”

  Clint made sure they were a safe distance before he turned to her. “I have not told you all I know.” He took a breath, fully aware he was bringing danger to Winona’s door but also aware that Katrine could not go on without more support. “Lars is not dead.”

  Winona’s eyes, already dark and large, popped wide open. “I do not understand.”

  “Lars is alive, but in hiding. He did not die in the fire, but we thought it best to make it look as if he had died. The men who set that fire were looking to kill him for something he had seen, and we didn’t want them trying again.”

  “He lives?” she whispered. Her hand went to her chest, confirming Clint’s suspicions that Lars had come to mean much more to her than an English tutor.

  “Yes. Only Katrine and I know this, but I fear it’s too much for her to bear alone.”

  Winona’s eyes glanced over Clint’s shoulder back in the direction of the church where so many people had mourned just hours ago. “A great lie.”

  “Yes, but a necessary one. And only for now. Lars’s life is worth saving at any cost.” After a moment he added, “I know you feel that way.” Lars had known the reasons Clint could pull her into this; she understood the cost, and her heart would make her willing to pay it.

  She paused a telling moment before saying, “You speak the truth.”

  “He needs supplies brought to him where he hides. And messages. I’ve told Katrine she can write to him but for her to visit is too dangerous. I suspect certain folks are watching her—folks who might aim to finish what they started.”

  “Katrine is still in danger?”

  “As I said, I believe her cabin was set on fire on purpose. To kill Lars. By the same people who have been setting other fires and doing other damage.” He paused a moment before adding, “Lars and I both believe we know who the Black Four are. I am trying to catch them even now, so that Lars can come home and everyone can be safe.”

  “A heavy task.”

  “One that is my job as sheriff. Only it makes it hard for me to help Lars. You, though, you slip in and out of town every day. And he is not far from the reservation.” Clint was used to telling folks what to do, to giving orders and planning strategies. It felt odd to be asking, pleading even, for assistance. “Will you help?”

  The Cheyenne woman did not need time to consider the weight of his request. “I will do all I can. My people owe Gaurang much, they will be glad to help.”

  Clint could never understand the complicated Cheyenne language which came so easily to Lars. How could an odd name like Gaurang be any simpler than Brinkerhoff? Still, he knew that was how the Cheyenne village referred to Lars, and the affection with which Winona spoke the name needed no translation.

  “No one else must know, Miss Winona,” he warned. “No one. I feel bad even asking you to keep this secret. There are…dangers.”

  “Life has many dangers, Sheriff, for red skin and for white.” Her own sister, Dakota’s mother, had died. Lars had told him many harrowing tales of the harsh life the Cheyenne community faced. Winona probably knew more of life’s darkness than many women in Brave Rock.

  “Yes, but every person who knows Lars is alive makes it harder to keep him safe. I need you to promise no one else—in Brave Rock or your village—will know Lars lives. Can you do that?”

  “You have my word. Where is he?”

  Clint gave details of the place where Lars was tucked away, glad to discover she knew exactly the spot he described. Her people had taught
Lars all he knew of hunting and tracking in these parts—of course she knew the countryside as well as the Dane. “It is a good spot,” she agreed, nodding her head. “Near water, far from eyes, good shelter.”

  Clint found his eyes wandering up to the ridge where he knew Lars sat hiding today. What must go through a man’s mind knowing his friends and neighbors were just a mile or so away sitting at his funeral? The cost of this plan seemed to rise higher with every passing day, but still no other option presented itself. “I’m hoping he doesn’t have to hole up there long. I’ve a mind to bring the men who tried to kill him to justice as fast as I can.”

  “Then I shall pray for just that,” she said, folding her hands in front of her with the serene grace her people always showed. “Your brother tells me God cares about all things—large and small—and this is a very large thing.”

  “Whopping huge, Miss Winona.” Big enough to press down on Clint’s chest every waking moment. “I’m glad for your help. Miss Katrine will be, too.”

  *

  Winona Eaglefeather walked up to Katrine an hour after supper, and without a single word Katrine knew Clint had spoken with her. A glow of relief spread through Katrine’s chest that one more soul knew Lars was still among the living. “A hard day.” Winona took Katrine’s hand in both of hers. “But I have spoken with Sheriff Thornton to learn it is not as hard as I once thought.”

  “Yes.” The reply was simple, but it held the full weight of the truth they now shared. So much had to be left unsaid, and yet Katrine felt a powerful urge to speak Lars’s name, to talk of him, as if the conversation could keep him tethered to the living.

  “Shall we take a walk together and remember our friend?”

  “I’d like that very much.” Katrine found her hand straying again to the pocket watch on its somber black ribbon. Grief—even pretended grief—was an exhausting business.

  Winona led the way quietly toward the edge of the churchyard, walking toward the setting sun. “It is a good thing to watch the sun go down on a day of sadness.”