by Sharon Ihle
"Hawke," called Caleb. "I was wondering if you was ever going to come in. You did the work of ten men out there today—ain't you afraid rigor mortis will set in if you stop moving for too long?"
The crew chuckled at Caleb's reference to Hawke's stiff, sore muscles, but even as they turned toward him in respectful homage, he didn't join in their laughter. For one thing, he was too damn tired, but for another, he felt a little like an outsider, most especially after his talk this morning with Caleb. Kate, Lacey, and his good friend, miserable conspirators that they were, could just keep their little secret if it was so damned important. Hawke had never given a damn what anyone thought or did before, and he sure as hell wasn't going to start now.
Carrying a bottle of Caleb's home-brewed beer in one hand and a thick ham sandwich in the other, Lacey hurried over to where Hawke sat and kneeled down beside him. "You're looking very tired, husband," she said as she offered the items. "Maybe this wee bit of food will perk you up."
"I sure hope so." Hawke took the beer without meeting her gaze, and drank half of it down in three consecutive gulps. Then he accepted the sandwich, but before he bit into it, he impulsively asked, "How long did you and Kate work together at that hospital in Ireland?"
Her eyes flew wide open, highlighting the golden sparkles floating in their sky blue depths—along with a good bit of anxiety. "Oh, a few years is all. Why do you ask?"
He shrugged, the direct reverse of the way he felt. "I don't know much about your past. I was just wondering. Any reason I shouldn't?"
She gulped, not just visibly, but audibly. "I can not imagine why." Laughing nervously, Lacey got to her feet. "I had a very boring and... troubled childhood, so I do not like to talk about it much. That, or the time... you know, the fire."
That had somehow slipped his mind. Feeling a stab of guilt for prodding her, and too damn tired to think about it any more, Hawke pushed himself to his feet and said, "If I sit here any longer, my muscles will freeze up. I think I'll go back outside and walk around while I eat."
"That's a good idea. I'll come get you when we're ready to serve dessert." She leaned in close, lightly kissing his cheek, and whispered, "Kate and I made five—do you hear me?—five pies."
Even though he was groaning to himself, Hawke managed to smile and say, "That sounds great." Then he strode out the door.
Glad to have escaped the conversation relatively unscathed, Lacey hurried back to her serving chores. Once all the other men seemed settled and well-fed, she cornered Kate and insisted that she join her in the kitchen.
Pulling her over to the farthest wall, Lacey huddled with her friend near the window frame and asked, "What, by all that's holy, have you been saying to Caleb? You did not tell him about me, did you?"
"Hush, lass." Kate looked over her shoulder at the flimsy curtain separating the rooms, then turned back to Lacey. "I may have mentioned a wee bit about my past, and that ye were at the hospital with me, but I didna, er... er, well mention, too much of the goings on. Why trooble yerself with worrin' about it so?"
"Because something's gone wrong between me and Hawke, and I just know it has something to do with the hospital. God in heaven, I do not think I could stand it if he e'er finds out about me. I might even die."
"Hush, lass, and ye'll do no such thing. Dona fret so; Hawke will ne'er find out about you." She closed her eyes as if in prayer. "Dona give it another worry."
"You're so very sure?"
"Aye, lass. Come now, let us serve some of our baked goods to these weary cowboys. A taste of the pie we made today will put a smile back on the face of yer Hawke, just ye wait and see."
Outside on the porch propped against the wall directly below that same window, Hawke sat with a bite of sandwich frozen in mid-swallow. The hospital, the past, and the goings on? Jesus, he thought in horror, had those two Irishwomen run some kind of brothel back in their homeland and gotten themselves thrown out of the country?
A ridiculous theory, Hawke decided. He didn't know one hell of a lot about women, but he did know for certain that Lacey had been a virgin the day he made her his. And that automatically ruled out his previous "running away from her husband" theory, too. If not fleeing a house of ill repute or an enraged husband, then what? Kate's words rang a terribly ominous tone in Hawke's ears, one that told him whatever had happened in the past, it wasn't good. Damned if he didn't hate being in the dark, secrets swirling all around him that he wasn't privy to. Worse than that, he hated the fact that Lacey was so adamantly opposed to letting him in on the secret; she, his very own wife, a woman who already owned more of him than any human being ever had.
Hawke supposed he wouldn't be sitting out here driving himself crazy with suppositions if he'd have demanded some answers back in the house instead of just asking. Then in the next instant, he realized exactly why he hadn't done just that. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the whole truth of a past that frightened her so badly she was compelled to hide it. That, or to hear any lies from those sweet lips should she take the easy way out. Call it false pride, call it pure stubbornness. It didn't matter in the slightest to Hawke what name could be put to the decision he made then. He was just happy to have it over with, knowing that he'd asked Lacey for the first and last time to come clean with him.
* * *
The following afternoon as Hawke turned the horse-drawn wagon around the final bend in the road leading to Winterhawke, Lacey thought she detected a very odd expression on her husband's handsome face. When the wagon stopped, he insisted that she stay seated until he came around to help her down, and in the next moment Crowfoot appeared at the front of the house, a long black strip of cloth in hand.
Before she could ask what was going on, the boy met them halfway up the stone steps leading to the porch.
"Surprise, for lady." he declared, circling around behind her. "No look yet."
Understanding that she was to be blindfolded, Lacey allowed the young man to tie the cloth around her eyes, then let him lead her into the house and to the center of the living room. A strong odor hit Lacey immediately, a bitter aroma which reminded her of the sharp tang of pure alcohol used at the hospital.
"You look now." said Crowfoot as he whisked the cloth away from her eyes.
The freshly-shellacked floor sparkled beneath her feet, the trail of shiny varnish leading into the kitchen and up the stairs to the bedroom as well. With a gasp of sheer delight, she said, "Oh, 'tis a beautiful job you've done, Crowfoot. This will make scrubbing the floors e'er so much easier, too."
"Hawke's idea," the boy explained, "but I make him pay plenty."
He laughed then, a sound she was beginning to hear more and more from Crowfoot, then turned to her husband. While he wasn't exactly flashing that dazzling smile she loved so much, Hawke was at least grinning. Thrilled to feel so close to him again, Lacey threw her arms around his neck, planted a big kiss on his mouth, and then said, "I thank you kindly, dear husband. 'Tis a wonderful surprise. Might there be something I can do for you in return?"
Clearly uncomfortable, and maybe a little embarrassed with Crowfoot looking on, Hawke took Lacey's arms from his neck and stepped away from her. "You don't have to do another thing, Irish," he murmured, before he turned and headed for the door. "This was just a little something we did to thank you for making those pies. I'm going out to check on the livestock. Need anything from the barn?"
Impulse almost coaxed her into blurting what she did need from him at that moment, but at the last second, Lacey pressed her lips together firmly, and shook her head. Then she resolved to find a way to properly thank her man if it took her all day and night to figure it out.
* * *
Much later, Hawke came back to the house halfway expecting supper to be on the table. The kitchen smelled faintly of smoke, lingering effects from the fire, but of nothing else. He wandered into the living room, still no Lacey, and then crossed over to the foot of the staircase leading up to their bedroom.
"Lacey? Are you up there?"<
br />
After a long moment she shouted down, "Aye. Can you come here for a moment?"
"In a little while," he hollered back. "I'm hungry. I'm going to go fire up the stove."
"The bloody stove can wait," she shouted in return.
Startled to hear such a demanding tone coming from Lacey's normally sweet mouth, he started up the stairs as instructed. Vaguely wondering what the hell kind of trouble his occasionally inept wife had gotten herself into this time, he pushed the door to their bedroom opened and walked inside.
Lacey was standing in the middle of their bed, facing him. Her glorious copper-colored hair hung free, tumbling over the porcelain white skin of her back and shoulders. Her eyes appeared to be closed, but Hawke could see that she was peeking through her thick russet lashes in order to gauge his reaction—and, weariness aside, he definitely had one.
Although they were strapped around her ankles instead of her boots, his painfully shy bride was wearing her lucky silver spurs. And not another damn thing.
Contention is better than loneliness.
—An old Irish proverb
Chapter 16
It wasn't long after the branding that Hawke and Lacey settled into their married life, each under their own terms. The sensuality she'd unleashed on the night she'd displayed herself so boldly, worked extremely well in bringing them closer again, at least physically. But Lacey sensed that Hawke still wondered about her past from time to time, and with more fervor than mere curiosity. If something was missing from their marriage, she thought it might be trust, and so kept her declarations of love for Hawke to herself.
As the weeks wore on, the Wyoming summer slammed down on Lacey, striking her like one of Caleb's red-hot branding irons. Her fair skin was no match for the harsh noonday sun, her Irish constitution unable to cope with temperatures much higher than those of the homeland, dry heat or not. She suffered the months of that first summer bottled up inside the home she loved so much, daring to venture out-of-doors only during the early morning hours, or very late at night after the sun had gone down.
When fall came at last, whistling through the Centennial Valley on the coattails of a cool northern breeze, she all but dropped to her knees in the dusty parched earth to give thanks. The cooler temperatures even soothed her eyes, turning the lime-green leaves of the aspens to a bright lemon-yellow which was an even more striking contrast to the forest green pines. Then in what seemed like the space of a heartbeat, the very winds she'd so recently praised turned bitter cold, and in less than a fortnight. Although Lacey had thought herself prepared for weather such as this after her years in the wind-swept terrain of Ireland, the velocity and bone-freezing chill of the gusts that blasted her in Wyoming were a hair-raising contrast, indeed.
By Thanksgiving, the first few snowflakes of the season began to fall as Hawke and Lacey traveled from their ranch to Three Elk for a holiday supper with the Weatherspoons. Crowfoot, although he'd come a long way in grooming, manners, and speech, and was as comfortable at Three Elk as he was at Winterhawke, stubbornly refused to join the foursome, choosing instead to stay behind and keep watch on the livestock.
As the wagon pulled onto the road leading to Caleb's place, Lacey tilted her head back and stuck out her tongue.
Hawke caught sight of this out of the corner of his eye. "What in hell are you doing?"
She didn't answer him at first, but kept her tongue out until a snowflake finally landed on it. "There," she finally said. "I had to have a taste of the first snow. 'Twill bring us a very lucky winter, you know."
He chuckled gruffly. "Everything is lucky according to you. Is that an Irish thing, or just you?"
Lacey thought on that for a moment. "Perhaps a wee bit of both."
"In that case, see if you can't use that luck to wish for that snowflake to be the last of the day." He glanced up at the sky and frowned. "If there's a blizzard, we could be stuck at Caleb's for weeks."
Lacey hoped he was kidding. While it snowed in Ireland, it didn't happen often, and never to the extremes Hawke was suggesting. She kept a wary eye on the heavens even after they'd arrived at Three Elk, and intended on going outside from time to time to check on the weather. But then Kate bounded down the steps to greet them, pulled her inside the house, and insisted that she immediately go with her to the back bedroom. After that, never again did a thought of the weather cross Lacey's mind.
"What can be such a secret that we must hide in here?" she asked as Kate bodily dragged her into the room and quickly closed the door.
"I've a couple of surprises for ye and I wanted to let ye know about them in private so's we wouldn't blubber in front of our husbands."
"Blubber? If you're thinking to make me cry, then I do not want any of your surprises."
"Yer so sure?" Kate's pale blue eyes twinkled with both mischief and delight. Then she drew back the curtain which concealed her wardrobe, plucked a brown dress from the few hanging there, and draped it across the bedspread. "What do you think?"
With a sigh of admiration, Lacey said, "Oh, Kate—'tis beautiful. You'll be the envy of every woman in the territory wearing this down the streets." She touched the soft wool fabric of the mahogany overskirt and jacket, then slid her fingertips over the center panel and trim, which was made of crisp linen checkered in shades of black and brown.
"'Tisn't mine, lass," said Kate softly. "'Tis yers."
Lacey's heart caught in her throat. "Mine? B-But, how? You can not mean that—"
"I can sure enough. My dear Caleb has informed me there'd be a verra good chance we'll be snowed in by Christmas. 'Tis my early present for ye in case we canna share the day."
On second thought, Lacey decided right then that Kate's idea of coming to the privacy of the bedroom had been the best plan after all. She was most definitely blubbering. "Oh, heavens above," she cried, "I can not thank you enough! I've ne'er had a dress of my own before, only these uniforms."
"I'm well aware of that, lass. I thought it high time ye had yer own gown, so when Caleb and his men drove the cattle to rail in Laramie, I asked him to pick me up some pretty warm material to match yer lovely red hair. Do ye like the color?"
Lacey lifted the dress from the spread and pressed it to her bosom. "I love it, Kate, truly I do. Would it be all right, you think, to wear it to supper today?"
"That's what I was hoping ye'd do."
So excited she could hardly contain herself, Lacey dropped the gown to the bed and reached for the top button of her blouse, but before she could release it, Kate stopped her.
"There'd be one more surprise, first, lass." Moving to the edge of the bed, Kate sat down and patted the spot beside her. "Come, join me a moment."
Lacey dropped down on the bedspread wondering how she could possibly be any more surprised or pleased than she was with the dress. But she was—and very quickly, too.
"I've been verra suspicious about something for weeks now, changes in me that could have been caused by a number of things, especially since this tummy of mine is so fat, anyway. I wanted to be verra sure before I told anyone what I suspected, and this morning came the new sign I was hoping for—movement." A smile nearly splitting her face in two, Kate looked Lacey straight in the eye and took a deep breath. "Oh, lass, I can hardly believe 'tis true myself, but 'twould seem that I'll be having a wee one before the winter is over."
"A wee one? You mean a... a baby?"
"Aye. 'Tis truly a miracle."
"B-but, do you mean to say that you and Caleb have been, well, that you—"
"Aye, and I do mean to say just that." She laughed and patted Lacey's shoulder. "Surely you didna think the bedroom waltz was only meant for the young."
Blushing, Lacey looked away. "I guess I didn't think of it at all."
"Well Caleb did, and I'm verra happy for it. I ne'er even dared to dream this would happen to me so late in life—why I'll be thirty-six when babe is born."
Lacey looked at her in surprise. She hadn't realized a woman that old could even
get with child.
But Kate didn't notice her expression. She rambled on, spinning her joy around Lacey like a web. "I think I must be five months gone now, and as I said, this morning I felt the babe moving inside me." She closed her eyes and placed her hand over her round belly. Then she reverently whispered, "I simply canna believe 'tis happened to me again—'tis like the second chance I've prayed for all these years."
"Again?" asked Lacey. "I did not know you had a child."
Kate's eyes popped open as if awakening from a dream, then instantly, they became shuttered. "'Twas a long time ago, lass. I lost the babe well before it could be born. But..." She sighed heavily. "I dona wish to speak of it again. Oh. And ne'er breathe a word of that one to my Caleb. Please?"
"I wouldn't."
"Thank you, lass, and say nothing of this babe either when we go out to our husbands. Next to me, of course, ye were the first to know. I thought ye might like that."
Out in the living room, Hawke toasted Caleb's successful cattle sale with a bottle of home brew. "It looks like we're both about to see our way clear, at last. Congratulations, friend."
After a good long pull of beer, Hawke shifted his hips against his chair, the high stone hearth of the fireplace, then asked, "What do you think the women are up to so long in the bedroom?"
"Hold yur horses. I expect it's got something to do with the bolt of wool I picked up in town last month. Have a little patience, and you'll see soon enough."
"I hope by soon you mean in the next minute or so." He sniffed the air again, torturing himself. "I don't know what all Kate has cooking out there, but I'm just this side of going out to the kitchen and helping myself."
Caleb wagged a finger in his face. "Better not try that, if you know what's good for you. That woman's got herself a temper, eww-wee, does she got herself a temper. I don't know why she ain't red-haired like Lacey with all the steam she's got built up inside that head of hers."
