by Cleo Kelly
He caught their puzzled looks and explained. “Horses, about twelve of them. There’s an old stallion with mares and foals.”
Faith gasped and her face glowed. “Babies?”
He smiled and nodded before looking again at her mother. “There isn’t much cattle stock. He must have sold a lot last year. What he has is really good stuff hidden in some really high meadows. We have the makings of a profitable ranch here. The first years will be tight, though.”
He had barely finished speaking when Bonnie bowed her head and murmured. “Thank you, God, for the safe journey and the chance at a new life.”
Baya felt the air around him still. A premonition of life altering changes gave his heart a kick as she brought God into the equation. He still hadn’t made up his mind about how he viewed God, although he believed in the Almighty. Could the Creator of this magnificent world care for individuals, or was He just a permeating Spirit?
He looked once more out over the green valley before turning back to the family. “Maybe we should get a closer look at our new home. Let’s move ‘em out.”
Bonnie smiled as she carried Hope back to the car.
Faith pulled her hand out of Baya’s to follow her mother.
Rubbing his fingers against his cooling palm, he watched Bonnie bend over to put the baby in the station wagon. Mingled with the pleasure of watching her move was a faint feeling of bereavement in the loss of warmth from Faith’s tiny hand. A tug on his pant leg turned him back to the grinning urchin at his side.
“We gonna let ‘em beat us?” Daniel pulled him toward the cab of the truck.
Laughing. Baya picked up the boy and tossed him into the front seat of the U-haul. “No way!” He shoved the vehicle in gear and pulled out onto the narrow road before Bonnie was strapped into her seatbelt. “Yippee-ki-yay! Let’s go!”
The boy beside him dissolved into giggles before straightening with an attempt to mimic him.
They were still laughing when they turned into the dirt road.
He drove slowly so there would be a minimum of dust kicked back over the following car.
Once they had driven into the valley, the outbuildings became apparent. To the left a long bunkhouse stretched beside the roadway. The squared logs of the building softened the harsh wooden shape as the weathered gray blended with the leafy shadows of the trees around them. On the right, the barn stood two stories high. It looked like it had been transplanted from a Kentucky horse stable and sat stark in the bare pasture, naked of the old trees that surrounded the other buildings.
Baya eased the truck up the slight incline the house was built on. The clapboard of the field stone house under the trees was outlined in incongruous glaring white trim. Baya backed the truck up to the recently patched porch and got out slowly as he waited for Bonnie to arrive.
The boy scrambled backwards out of the truck cab and came to stand next to him.
While he watched the station wagon drive up, the boy faced the house in silence.
The vehicle stopped beside the truck and the front doors opened. Bonnie leaned on the door as she looked over the house.
The structure was old. It had probably been put up in the twenties. The two-story building with the steeped third floor attic was aged but solid.
He waited until she came to stand in front of the stonework steps.
“Maybe you should see the inside before we unload. Then you’ll have an idea where to put things you brought and what you’ll want to discard.” He spoke hesitantly, afraid she would be displeased with the house.
The furnishings inside were old as well. Not antiques, just old.
She looked at him blankly for a moment and turned her face back to the house. “I’d no idea it was so large. I thought a ranch house was long and low.”
“Most are. Several generations ago, the builders must have thought there were going to be children in abundance.”
“How many rooms?”
“I didn’t count. I know there are four bedrooms and two baths on the second floor. There’s water, but I’m not sure how well the baths work. The third story is jammed with old furnishings and junk in a divided room under the hipped roof. From what I can tell, your grandparents lived downstairs exclusively. They had a nice bedroom suite off the kitchen in what must have once been the old cookhouse. The kitchen is completely modern. The rest needs work.”
He paused and then offered his hand. “Come on. It’s time to see inside.”
Placing her hand in his, she followed him up the steps. As they walked across the wide porch that ran around three sides of the house she withdrew her hand and pointed to the new wood. “You?” She looked up at him.
He nodded even as he wondered whether she withdrew her hand out of nervousness or actually needed it to gesture. “I tried to get as much ready as I could after Dick brought your horses. Until then I wasn’t sure we were really going to get this far.” He opened the door and a smile teased the corners of his mustache.
Inside the entranceway, large archways opened to both wings of the house. The right side was set up as a dining room. The left side was one large living area that ran the length of the house. Heavily draped windows kept the light out and musty odors in. Following the line of the living room, a magnificent stairwell rose, from the entry, up half the wall, before turning sharply right to the second floor. The worn wooden floors where covered here and there with scatter rugs in areas of high traffic.
Bonnie moved toward the dining area and pulled the heavy drape cord causing the curtains to move in protest.
Sunlight pouring in was not kind to the bare floors. The old scarred table needed cleaning; dusts motes shifted uneasily in the golden light.
“Mom!” The boy came skidding to a halt in the entrance. “Way cool! Hey, Hope, we have upstairs this time! There’s a really neat swing outside. Can we use it? It has a tire and everything.”
She raised a questioning eyebrow to Baya. As he nodded, she turned to look at her older daughter. “Take care of your sister. You stay with them, Faith. Don’t go wandering off to the barn.”
The young girl nodded as she walked to the staircase and looked up. Her hand rubbed the banister slowly. “Are we really going to live here?”
“Do you like it?” Bonnie asked.
The child turned to smile. “I always wanted an upstairs. I wanted to creep downstairs Christmas morning.”
A deep chuckled came from the doorway, Baya was surprised by the intensity of his relief. “Looks like you got what you wanted. This entranceway’s large enough to put several trees in it.”
Bonnie shooed the children outside and walked back through the dining room.
The small room between the kitchen and the dining area had Baya confused. “What is this room?” He pointed to the glassed in cabinets.
“It was probably a breakfast nook and serving room for when there were guests.” She paused and cocked her head to one side. “I like the idea of a breakfast nook. It will keep the children out from under my feet in the morning.”
Baya’s chest lost a tightness he hadn’t been aware of having until it eased.
She walked into the kitchen.
Where the rest of the house was shabby the kitchen gleamed. It showed evidence of being completely revamped. The renovation hadn’t stopped there. A door opened into an apartment room with an adjoining shower. Off the side door, a porch looked out over the mountain meadow behind the barn.
“They lived here,” she murmured to herself. “It is very nice. It is so Grandma. Where does this door go?” She moved through the opposite doorway and into the hall that ran to the back of the house. On her right, a door opened to a sheltered porch at the back of the house. From this porch, a latched door revealed stairs marching up to the second floor. She looked at Baya.
He grinned and made a bowing motion for her to precede him up the steps.
“Oh!” A smile grew slowly over her face as she stepped into the upper-glassed-in porch. “This is wonderful.”
Snowcapped mountain peaks rose in majestic beauty outside the windows.
“It’s a sun porch, part of the master suite.”
She turned to him, a question defined by her raised brows. “What was that downstairs off the kitchen?”
“I think the stairs probably became too much for them on a daily basis, and they made a place downstairs rather than trudge up here nightly.” He moved his hands in a shrugging motion to suggest it was just a guess.
She turned back to the mountains. “I would have put in an elevator.”
He laughed. “Well, it is pretty bare up here. You may want to look around before you decide what to do next. I think the elevator will have to wait.”
She nodded as she moved to open the double French doors and enter the bedroom.
The floorboards here were not as worn as the downstairs were. Still, they would have to be finished to restore the rich red color they where meant to be. The room’s wallpaper was peeling and gray. The long light fixture hanging from the high ceiling hung bare.
She moved on toward the bathroom tucked along the wall the stairwell butted into. The old claw tub made her smile. “You need a stepstool to get in this thing,” she said as her hand trailed over the cool porcelain.
“There are two of them.”
She looked at him expectantly.
He obligingly led the way out of the room and across the hall. He pointed behind him. “As you can see there is another outside porch at the end of the hallway. It has a wood shelf you can put a mattress on and sleep out, a very civilized type of camping.” He grinned down at her.
She stepped through a heavy-glassed door into a room serviced by the same stairs that led to the master bedroom. It would be simple to throw a bedroll or twin mattress on the shelf and sleep under stars.
Baya led her back to the hall and opened the first door on the left.
A large bedroom complete with a gas fireplace sat naked of furnishings. Two doors opened off of this, one to a walk-in closet and the other to a large bathroom that connected it to an identical room at the front of the house. Across the stairwell balcony another door opened onto a smaller bedroom.
“This room was probably the nursery. As you can see, it’s joined by the bath to the master bedroom. It’s the smallest room in the house.”
“It is still larger than any bedroom I ever had.” Bonnie looked around. “I thought there would be furniture.”
“They stored it in the attic. I think they were going to refinish the floors. Do you want to see it or do we have enough to get by tonight?”
“I have beds. They will be swallowed up by these rooms.” She stood frowning at the peeling faded wallpaper. “Were all the rooms wallpapered? I’m a little confused.”
“Only the upstairs.”
She stepped into the hallway.
“Pretty bad, huh?”
“I love it. It’s the home I always wanted.”
Silence wrapped around them as they stared at each other.
Relief flooded Baya and he smiled. She loved it!
“Mom!” The voice shouted up the stairwell. “Mom!”
Bonnie leaned over the banister. “Up here.”
The noise echoed in the empty space above stairs. Daniel raced upward, his dark hair an unruly mass of curls.
Faith moved slowly behind him, holding Hope by the hand as the little girl struggled with the steps.
Baya walked down the stairs to take the youngest in his arms, and Faith raced to catch up to her brother.
Feet pounded on the bare floors as they hurried to look at the rooms.
“Mom, see this! Wow! Mom, did you see this? Can I sleep here?” The echoing shouts from her son filled the air around them as he rushed through each room.
Hope squirmed out of Baya’s arms to trail after him.
“Which is my room?” Faith waited patiently in front of them.
Bonnie took her into the suite of rooms on the eastern side of the house. “You may choose one of these. The front room faces the creek, outbuilding and barn. The back one has a view of the house there and mountains.”
“That’s the cookhouse for the cowboys who stayed in the bunkhouse.”
The slim girl walked through each room. She traced the patterns on the fireplaces and poked her head in each of the closets. She crossed the hall and looked in the small nursery and the master bedroom. “Will you put Hope in the little bedroom?”
“Her or Daniel.” Her mother didn’t try to hurry her.
“I think I want the front room. Dan will want to be close to the porch room. I’ll be able to see Gadfly every morning.” She walked back to the room. “Will we change the wallpaper?’ Her voice was calm, although her face betrayed the concern the faded flaking paper caused.
Bonnie moved to hug her. “We will probably paint the rooms. Wallpaper for a place this size would be too much money. We’ll make it as pretty as we can.”
“I’m hungry.” Daniel was not interested in which room he would sleep in. “I’m gonna get my sleeping bag and sleep on the porch.”
Baya’s eyes met Bonnie’s over the heads of the children, and the smile they shared encompassed the entire family. “We’d better start unloading,” he suggested. “Do you know what you want for tonight?”
Bonnie nodded and began herding the children down the stairs. “I’ll fix something quick to eat. I take it there are food stuffs in the kitchen?”
“Yep.” Baya swung Hope to his hip and began to descend the stairwell.
The children followed him.
Daniel was chattering away about nothing and Faith silently went down each step, her hand following the curve of the banister.
“Do you have them all or should I take Hope with me?” Bonnie asked. “She could help me cook while the other two work with you.”,
When Baya gazed up at her, his smile softened. The long blonde hair falling over one shoulder had caught the sunlight from the hallway window. He didn’t answer immediately; content to watch her. There never would be enough of looking at her to satisfy him. She was beautiful, and, if all indications were true, she was as beautiful inside as out. She trusted him. With her children and her life. She trusted him.
He heard the children moving through the downstairs rooms. Feet running, now soft on rugs, and then loud on hard wood floors. Laughter and shouting echoed against the walls.
The littlest one leaned against his shoulder sucking her thumb. He could never let on he had no idea how to deal with children. Hope slipped a plump arm around his neck and burrowed against him, and that warm glow surrounded his heart.
“I think this one will be out like a light in a moment,” he answered. “I’ll put her on the sofa in the living room.”
4
Baya lay in bed with his hands clasped behind his head, waiting for old injuries to quit aching. Once again, his mind ran through all of the things that needed to be done—he needed help. He’d been to the mountain meadow several times with the children this week, but there was no way he could make a gather alone.
He had tried to talk to Bonnie. She had it in her head that she needed to work on the house. While the radio played rock and roll through the house, the walls got primed and painted. She’d set mattresses in the middle of each bedroom and worked around them. The rest of her furniture was sitting in the middle of the living room.
As if his thoughts beckoned her, he heard the sound of bare feet hitting the floor and padding softly down the stairs. It was fast becoming his favorite pastime to watch her every morning. He deliberately slept with the door open in the little downstairs apartment so he could watch her prepare breakfast. The sound of her footsteps grew louder, and he rolled to his side raising his shoulder high enough to block his face but spread far enough he could watch her under his sheltering arm.
Her routine was the same each day. She walked to the counter, turned on the radio, and began preparing coffee for the morning. The music was so soft in the background he had to strain to rec
ognize the song.
She moved to the refrigerator and bent over to pull out fixings for breakfast.
Every morning for the last week, he had watched. Every morning for the last week, he’d stifled a groan and wished he hadn’t offered to let her have the upstairs bedroom alone. Cowboy chivalry be hanged. He didn’t feel generous and patient. He felt things better left unsaid. Closing his eyes with a grimace, he soon heard the door of the refrigerator shut.
He opened his eyes, watching as she turned back to the counter carrying milk, eggs, and strawberries.
She began pulling canisters of flour and sugar forward. When she reached over her head to get a bowl from the cupboards he rolled further onto his back so his shoulder wouldn’t obstruct his view.
After drawing the cutting board from under the counter she moved out of sight stemming and chopping before pulling the waffle iron out.
Baya moved restlessly and the bed creaked.
She turned to look into the shadowed room. “Are you awake?” She placed the waffle iron on the counter and peeked around the corner. “Do you want me to shut the door?”
He leaned back and placed his hands under his head, “No. I’m getting up.” His voice rasped with morning huskiness. “Should’ve been up, anyhow.”
“I didn’t mean to wake you.” She stepped back to the kitchen.
He drew a deep breath as she walked back to the counter. He ran his hands over his head and face. A man shouldn’t be allowed to make those kinds of decisions when he felt soft and cozy from rocking a baby to sleep.
Although Hope wasn’t a baby, she was a cute little girl who still needed cuddling. She pestered the life out of her brother and sister and had a toddler temper. But when she was tired and crawled into his lap, she smelled like baby. She felt like baby, even though her legs stretched over the arms of the rocking chair. His mind wasn’t right when he looked into her tired little face.
