The Cowboy's Ready-Made Family

by Linda Ford

  The two of them grinned at him.

  He’d known all morning it was coming. He’d decided he wouldn’t respond but denial burst from his lips. “I am going to see ten mares. I’d hardly call them ‘lady friends.’”

  Neither of his brothers responded nor did they stop grinning.

  He led Scout from the barn, Levi and Johnny crowding after him. He swung into the saddle.

  “Give our greetings to Miss Collins,” Levi said.

  “Surprised you can talk around that grin on your face,” Tanner muttered. Louder, he added, “Don’t plan to see Miss Collins today.” He rode away before either of them could say another word.

  He didn’t plan to see Susanne, despite hoping she’d be around.

  He leaned forward as he neared the Collins farm, even as he told himself he wasn’t anxious to see them. His eyes scanned the property and lit on them. They were knotted together under a tree. The girls wore gray bonnets and dark blue dresses and the boys held their hats against their chests. But it was Susanne who drew his attention. Her blue dress fluttered about her legs.

  Janie and Robbie took a step toward him before Susanne could restrain them.

  He could feel their anxious waiting as he swung off Scout and draped the reins over the saddle horn. Scout would not leave so long as Tanner remained.

  Five pairs of eyes watched him cross the yard toward them.

  Susanne released the younger two and they ran to him whooping loud enough to cause the wild horses to race to the far side of the enclosure.

  “Hello, you two.” He squatted down and let them fling themselves into his outstretched arms. It sure felt good to be so welcome.

  Susanne and the two older children waited under the tree. If he wasn’t mistaken they looked as eager for his greeting. At least Frank and Liz did. Susanne’s expression revealed less.

  He let the younger ones ride his legs as he closed the distance to the others. “Good morning.” He squeezed Frank’s shoulder and tugged a lock of Liz’s hair. It hit him then. How would they manage to grow older without a father to guide and protect them? He couldn’t imagine how he would have turned out as capable and self-sufficient as he was without Big Sam’s guidance. Who would guide these little ones? Susanne for certain, but who would exert the male influence? And why was he so concerned? It wasn’t like there weren’t a dozen eligible men in the area who would almost certainly welcome a ready-made family.

  Like Alfred Morris. He’d figured he was the man he saw visiting the first day he came to the farm.

  He wondered at the pain behind his ribs.

  Finally, he let himself look fully at Susanne. He managed a fairly normal sounding “Good morning.”

  “Good morning,” she said, her blue eyes filling with sunshine. “We were about to have church.”

  He looked around. Had he missed something? He sure could have, his attention focused on the children and Susanne, but he saw no church, no benches, no gathering of people. “Church?”

  She laughed softly as if pleased with his reaction. “Every Sunday we have our own little service. We sing a couple of hymns and read from the Bible. You’re welcome to join us.” Her eyes flashed with warmth and welcome, or was it just what he wanted to believe?

  He darted a glance past her shoulder at the corrals. He’d come to check the horses. He surely didn’t belong in a tight-knit family, pretend-church gathering. “Thanks, but I don’t think I’d fit in.”

  Pink stained her cheeks and she ducked her head.

  Had he said something wrong? If so, he surely had no idea what. “I’ll see to my horses.”

  “Aw,” Janie protested. “I want you to stay.”

  “Maybe another time.” He got as far as the corrals, but it didn’t seem right to create a distraction while Susanne had church, so he leaned against the fence and watched them pray. Of necessity, he also listened.

  The children sat on the ground in a semicircle facing her. She, likewise, sat on the ground, her skirt fanned out around her like a large blue flower. “Remember the hymn we’ve been learning?”

  The children nodded.

  “All together now.” Susanne waved her hand to guide them and they sang, “‘My faith looks up to Thee, Thou Lamb of Calvary.’”

  It was the best choir Tanner had ever heard.

  He half snorted. Like he’d heard a lot of musical performances. The Hardings made it to church for special occasions—Easter and Christmas and July Fourth—and as often as possible during the summer months, but not regularly. It was too far and if they went to town it made more sense to go Saturday or a weekday when they could conduct business.

  Maisie lamented the irregularity of their attendance, though it had suited Ma fine. She’d sooner worship in the great outdoors than with those who often resented her.

  The words of the hymns caught at his heart. “‘Hear me...my zeal inspire...a living fire.’”

  A living fire. If only he could feel God’s love that way.

  “That was fine,” Susanne said. “I’m sure God is pleased. Now let’s try ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee.’”

  Tanner gulped. It seemed God had heard his longing and created a hymn to answer it. He couldn’t move as he heard the words, “though like a wanderer...yet in my dreams I’d be nearer, my God, to Thee.” The lyrics drilled through him. He had considered wandering and had rejected the idea. But still his heart wandered, searching for a home.

  He closed his eyes, reminding himself he had a home. He had parents and brothers. Yet there remained an aching absence inside him.

  He opened his eyes and let the enjoyment of watching Susanne and the children fill the void.

  “Today I will read Psalm 139.” Susanne opened the Bible on her lap.

  He’d heard the psalm before, but this time the words nested in his head.

  You know me... Where can I go from your Spirit... You knit me together in my mother’s womb... Know my anxious thoughts...and lead me in the way everlasting.

  The yearning in his heart grew.

  After a few moments Susanne must have dismissed the children, for they ran to play and she joined him at the fence. She seemed so peaceful despite her losses and burdens.

  “I love Sundays.” She smiled at him, easing his troubled mind. “It was the one day at Aunt Ada’s that she didn’t bother me. I guess she considered it against her religion to act badly on Sunday.” Susanne chuckled.

  It was on the tip of Tanner’s tongue to ask how she could laugh when she said, “We went to church. I loved it.”

  He imagined she would. At church she could sit idle and not expect to get her ears boxed for doing so.

  “I loved the hymns and the Bible lesson,” she said. “In my church there were stained glass windows that showed Jesus the Good Shepherd.” Her voice grew dreamy. “God felt so close there.”

  She faced him. “Do you oppose going to church?”

  He shook his head. “I go when it’s possible.” He’d almost said when it was convenient.

  “Do you go because you love God? Do you belong to Him?”

  She was very direct. He owed her an equally direct answer.

  But what could he say?

  * * *

  She had been too bold. Still, she couldn’t pull the words back, nor did she want to. She needed to know. What were his beliefs?

  He gave a vague wave of his hand as if he didn’t care to discuss the matter, then he released a breath that must surely have been pent up for several seconds.

  “I recall a time when Ma and Pa took us boys to a grove of trees that Pa said was like a cathedral. The branches arched overhead, so thick the sky poked through in few places. The air inside was very still, with birds singing in the branches.”

  Susanne focused on his words, mesmerized by the soft tone
of his voice and the faraway look in his eyes.

  “Ma bowed her head and sang a song I’d never heard before. She said it was her own song, from her heart. Words to tell God how much she loved Him, the world He’d made and the husband and sons He’d blessed her with. I could feel God in every breath she took.” He shrugged a little and gave a half-mocking smile.

  “That’s beautiful.”

  “I was about Janie’s age. God felt so close, too.”

  “Have you gone there often since then?” She could picture him worshipping God in that place much as she and the children had recently worshipped under the generous branches of the elm tree.

  “No.” The skin around his eyes seemed to tighten.

  She couldn’t say what the expression meant, only that it made her want to comfort him. However, he wasn’t one of the children she could hug, so she locked her fingers together. “Why not?”

  “Ma died before summer came again and I’ve never wanted to return.”

  She could not deny him—or herself—the right to comfort and she pressed one hand to his forearm. “I’m sorry.”

  “Guess I’ll never feel that close to God again.”

  She sucked in a barely audible gasp. “But God hasn’t changed. He is still as near as our next breath, and His love is as warm as the sun overhead. He promises to never leave us or forsake us.”

  He turned toward the horses, shifting away from her touch. “I’m happy that you have found that so. I have not.”

  She dropped her hand to her side, longing to ask him for an explanation. What didn’t he find so? God’s love? His faithfulness?

  Was she right in thinking she glimpsed the root of his feeling distant from God?

  “Perhaps you are confusing God’s faithfulness with people’s faithfulness or lack of it.”

  He jerked about to face her and yanked up one sleeve to expose his dark skin. He jabbed his finger at it. “I’m a half-breed. Some people prefer to call me a dirty Injun.” He grunted. “Not that I’m Indian, either. At least not in the eyes of my relatives and their friends. I’m neither. I belong nowhere.”

  “Do your brothers feel the same?” It was awful to think of three little boys being treated so unfairly.

  He lifted one shoulder. “It doesn’t seem to bother them as much as me.”

  Susanne sniffed and widened her eyes to keep them from filling with tears. She’d glimpsed the depth of his pain and it ripped through her like a knife. Ignoring his earlier rejection of her touch, she pressed her fingers to the bare skin of his arm. His muscles twitched. Warmth flowed through her but she ignored her reaction. It was far more important to convey to him the truth she felt deep in her heart.

  “You are not a mistake. God made you in your mother’s womb. He placed you here on earth for His purposes. I know I’m grateful you’re here to help. Think about it. How is it you captured your horses and needed corrals and here I have corrals waiting just when I also need the crop planted? Seems more than coincidence to my way of thinking.”

  His gaze lingered on her fingers still resting on his arm. Slowly he looked up. “You realize not everyone will agree with you.”

  She understood he meant about his birth not being a mistake. “Not everyone matters.”

  “That’s so, isn’t it?” He withdrew and leaned his forearms on the fence as he watched his horses.

  She stood next to him, imitating his pose.

  “I didn’t tell you that some of these mares are offspring of my mother’s mare, who was turned out after her death to join the wild herd.” He explained how the mare would allow no one else to ride her.

  Susanne studied the horses more closely, then turned to Tanner. “I can see why they’re so important to you.”

  He didn’t say anything as his eyes held hers unblinkingly. She wasn’t sure what he sought there, but she knew what she needed to do. She needed to see him accept and be glad of his mixed heritage.

  “Do you know what else I see?” she asked.

  His eyes begged for more, but he pushed back from the fence. “I came to take care of the horses.” He vaulted into the corral.

  She sighed. Perhaps he was right. She hardly knew him. How could she expect him to believe what she’d been about to say? That he seemed to be a strong, kind, thoughtful man who kept his word whether to children or adults. That his heritage didn’t matter. Only his actions.

  But she never got the chance to say all that.

  He set about looking after the horses and she turned to spy the children playing a game some distance away. She returned to the house. At some point today she meant to spend a few minutes writing in her diary—something that happened so infrequently it didn’t deserve the name diary. Now was the perfect time, she reasoned.

  She sat at the table, but her gaze went often to the window, where every now and then she caught a glimpse of Tanner in the pen with the horses. All too soon, he jumped over the fence, looked around and spied the children.

  He went to them. Saying goodbye no doubt.

  He made his way back to his horse. Would he say goodbye to her? Not that it mattered. He had no obligation to do so.

  Obligation. The word seared through her. Had she so quickly forgotten what it meant?

  Surely wasting his time at the corrals would count against her in the ledger she kept in her head. Yes, she’d been trying to convince him of God’s love. But perhaps he was right to distrust people. She certainly shared a sense of caution around people. But trusting God was different.

  She needed to bear that in mind and not get so easily drawn aside by her attraction to a man who only wanted to exchange work for the use of corrals.

  She forbade herself to look out the window to watch Tanner depart.

  She had returned to her writing when a knock at the door jolted her from her chair.

  He’d come to say goodbye.

  Or maybe he’d come for some other purpose—maybe even to say he had changed his mind about their agreement.

  She purposely slowed her steps as she crossed to open the door. “Yes?” Surely her tone of voice conveyed nothing but politeness.

  Tanner removed his hat. “I’ve come to say goodbye.”

  “Goodbye.” She offered him nothing more. Not even a smile.

  “I’ll get back to the plowing tomorrow.”

  “Thank you.”

  He jammed his hat on his head and swung onto his horse.

  She closed the door and leaned against it, quelling her foolish longings to be more than a business deal to Tanner. She mustn’t let herself forget to keep the ledger balanced so that she’d never be owing him.

  Taking a deep breath, she pushed away from the door, gathered up the pen, ink and diary, and put them away. She had nothing she wanted to write on the pages. Not today.

  She picked up a book to read but it didn’t appeal. She sat in the rocker in the front room and pulled the Bible to her lap, then closed it after realizing she hadn’t understood a word. She looked out the side window to where the children still played a game of tag.

  With a deep sigh she went to her bedroom, opened the top drawer and pulled out the velvet box that held her mother’s brooch. She tipped back the lid and touched it with a fingertip. She missed her parents with an ache that still stung. Today she had let those feelings influence her response toward Tanner. From now on she knew she had to guard her heart and mind before she let herself forget what mattered—taking care of the children and being free to make her own decisions in life.

  A sound from outside drew her attention. Did she hear horse hooves?

  Had Tanner returned?

  She dropped the jewelry box into the drawer and hurried to the kitchen.

  No. She must control her thoughts. She slowed her steps and waited for a knock. Only then did she cross t
he room and throw open the door.

  She stared at the man before her. “Mr. Morris.” There wasn’t a person in the whole world she’d rather not see, with the exception of Aunt Ada.

  “You could invite me in for tea.” The man didn’t even bother to remove his hat.

  Susanne narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think that would be appropriate.” She eased past him to step outside and pulled the door closed after her.

  “Fine. Fine.”

  She walked away from the house, not wanting him to think she could be persuaded to change her mind and invite him inside.

  One of the horses whinnied.

  Alfred Morris stopped and cocked his head, then made a beeline for the corrals. “Where did you get these horses?”

  Not that it was any of his business. “They belong to the Hardings.” He need not know any more details.

  “Big Sam’s, you say?”

  She hadn’t, but saw no need to correct him.

  “I recall his first wife had a horse so wild no one else could touch it. Some animals, like some people, can’t be tamed.”

  Susanne could not bear to look at him. She suspected there was another reason besides ill manners for him not removing his hat. He had very little hair left. His lips, too, were thin, she noticed. Or perhaps it was the way he always pulled them into a frown. Come to think of it, he reminded her of Aunt Ada, with that constant look of disapproval.

  “Like Big Sam’s first wife. She was—” His voice carried the same note of disapproval.

  She cut him off. “You must not speak poorly of the dead.”

  He stiffened as if objecting to her correction, then relaxed, though it seemed to her it took a great deal of effort to bring a half smile to his lips. “You’re quite right, of course. She left him three wild sons to deal with, though.”

  Susanne would not justify his remarks with a response.

  After a moment he cleared his throat. “Perhaps we can go for a little walk.”

  She nodded. “I’ll call the children.”

  “Never mind. That’s not what I had in mind.”