by Devine,Carol
The land, he thought. It always came back to the land.
He went to the window and looked down on the garden below, a little microcosm of the Masterson Ranch. It had sustained many generations, not in style but in substance. He could see the land for what it was now, unadorned and enduring, a setting for the pain in his life. But it wasn't the cause of it. Definitely not the cause of it.
In his youth, he had to blame someone. He had to blame something. His mother, his father, the house in which he grew up. Now he knew better, knew that he, too, had made mistakes. He'd cut himself off from the rest of the family deliberately, shoving everyone away out of fear. Sarah most of all. For she dared save his life. Worse, she refused to be rewarded. She didn't realize it but she saved lives every day by example. Spiritual lives. That was Sarah: doing what was right. She offered the kind of love he'd never had, the kind he always wanted.
How could he not love her? She was all that was good and pure and true. She gave unstintingly of herself. Yes, she was old-fashioned and stubborn and had a mind of her own. He loved her all the more for it, feminine with her comforts and practical with her pride, driven to make a home for herself and one for him, too, if he was man enough to take it on her terms rather than his.
Love was a certainty now. Before, he'd suspected the motives of anyone or anything, persuading himself that all they represented were attacks on his cherished ideals. Freedom. Autonomy. Only it wasn't autonomy he'd been running from. It was about keeping people away. People he loved most. People who could hurt him the most.
But wasn't that what love was? A reordering of priorities. A willingness to stay in one place, to think beyond the present into the future.
His hands tightened on the brushed felt hat brim. Zach went to the mirror and very slowly put the hat upon his head.
"You found it."
He whipped around. She was leaning against the frame of the door, wearing her flannel robe. Her glorious hair tumbled over one shoulder like a wavy waterfall streaked by the sunrise. She clasped her hands and arrowed them up, holding them over her heart as though in prayer, and he saw the quiet pride in her eyes.
"It looks good on you."
Since he couldn't trust his voice, he acknowledged her with a flick to the brim, fighting his instinct to rip the hat off and pretend she hadn't witnessed a moment of profound importance. Instead he pivoted and studied the man in the mirror. "You think so?"
"I know so."
She came forward and halted in front of him, close enough to touch, the back of her head framed in the mirror by the broadness of his bronzed shoulder. Next to him, she looked so delicate and fragile. Yet in many ways, she was stronger than he, stronger than he wanted to admit. He admitted it now by lifting his arm, though it trembled some, and beckoned her to stand beside him.
She fit herself along his body and looped her arms around his waist. Tilting her face up to smile at him, she said, "I think the color suits you particularly well."
"You don't think it makes me look like the bad guy in some Western movie?"
"Good men wear black hats, too. Does it fit all right?"
"Like it was made for me," he admitted, knowing it was. He kissed the top of her head and rubbed his cheek against her hair. "I've been awake for awhile, poking around here. This used to be my room."
The pressure of her arms around his middle increased. "I figured as much. I found a number of calf-roping trophies with your name on them in the closet."
"From little Britches rodeos. I used to be pretty good."
"I'll wager you still are."
"It's like riding a bicycle. Some things you don't forget. '
"Some things you're not supposed to forget."
"Didn't stop me from trying, though." He looked down at her and tried to smile but he was crumbling inside. "Oh, Sarah," he said.
She led him to the bed and sat on the edge. He knelt on the floor in front of her, afraid in a way he'd never been before. The familiar and heady rush of adrenaline wasn't there. Instead he felt something gentler, something borne of hope rather than the threat of dying. He bowed his head and let Sarah's peaceful presence seep into him.
She took off the hat and laid it beside her on the striped green bedspread. Seeing the hat there, he recalled his father's hands on the brim, strong hands that were weatherworn and tracked with the scars of ten thousand days of stringing fence and baling hay. Strong hands that couldn't help but be helpless at times. Strong hands that were human.
His arms came up to gather her close. He wept for the first time in many years, remembering the loneliness of his youth, needing to be held but afraid of rejection, of losing all hope like his father had. And so he'd become somebody less than himself, rejecting everyone and everything of what he knew and went off to carve his own place in the world. But some things weren't meant to be forgotten. He'd denied his own soul for too long.
She held him that way a considerable time, murmuring quiet words of comfort. Her hands soothed the skin of his face and smoothed the hair at his brow. Eventually he let himself slip into the calm place she created and laid his head upon her lap.
When he had the strength, he asked the question that had been plaguing him these past five weeks. "How did you know I needed to come back here?"
"I, too, have run away from the people and places I know best. When one has walked in the same moccasins, it is not a difficult thing to recognize."
He lifted his head and rocked back on his heels, wanting to see her face. "More pearls of wisdom from your father?"
"He was a wise man."
"I want to hear more about him."
"Yours first. He gave the hat to you, did he not?"
Zach nodded. "He could be stubborn as a mule and twice as hardheaded. Yet he had a soft spot in his heart for anything beautiful that came from nature. Snow in winter, rain in summer, the mountains and the plains. And animals, especially animals. He used to let us kids keep a whole menagerie of them: horses, cats, dogs, whatever, even though the sheer numbers of what we had was hardly practical."
"You and he sound like you were cut from the same cloth."
Zach thought of Sarah's love of the mountains. It had always touched him because he loved them, too. As had her special relationship with Butcher, ornery cuss that he was. He pressed a kiss on her hand. "Dad would have liked you. You know what I remember most about him?"
"What?" she murmured, playing with his hair.
"The way he could sniff the wind and tell if a storm was coming or look at a head of wheat and know how much longer it needed to grow before it could be harvested or ride a herd of fifty head of cattle and sense instantly when one was missing. He had an awesomeness about him, a sense of, I don't know, it's hard to describe…"
His voice trailed away. Sarah cupped his cheek. "A man of the land?"
He covered her hand and smiled. "A man of the land."
Chapter Seventeen
Sarah felt awe in watching Zach be reborn within his own skin. He was full of energy, full of plans. Over the next few days, he went to the new owners of the Bar M and offered to buy it back, eventually going so far as to make a bid twenty percent over the price the developer paid, the most Zach could afford. But the new owner said no. He had big plans of his own.
Since Zach knew the old house wasn't part of those plans, he offered to remove the house for the price the new owner would have paid a demolition crew to tear it down. It paid for the structural engineer and historical preservation society to work together in assessing the possibility of moving such a well-constructed example of the architecture of its day, old enough to qualify as a historic building. It was also, essentially constructed like a big square box. The experts planned to divide it in two, load it onto two flatbed semis and take it pretty much anywhere she and Zach wanted to go. Which meant they had to find a ranch of their own to put it on.
Sarah knew she wanted to have a view of the mountains. Zach wanted enough land to support a bona fide cattle operation. Ev
en if he had been able to buy the Bar M, his goal would not have been possible. The suburbs were encroaching and too many people lived in the areas around Boulder. What was left of the Masterson's original land was not enough to support a successful ranching operation. So they decided they wanted a larger spread somewhere along the front range of the Rocky Mountains between Colorado and Montana.
Easier said than done. Although Zach had a considerable amount of money saved from the businesses he'd started and sold over the course of his travels, she had virtually nothing. His share of the proceeds from the sale of the Bar M was not enough to make up the difference, not after being split five ways between his siblings. They knew they were going to have to start small and work hard to upgrade and expand.
Zach confessed it was a scary thing for him to contemplate, living on the edge of disaster like that with Sarah to support as well. He wanted to give her so much more. She reassured him, saying faith in the Lord above would carry them through no matter what happened. And Zach vowed to do whatever it took to make the new Bar M a success.
They spent a week charting their future in more ways than one, spending days reviewing land listings in Colorado and Wyoming, and nights reviewing the many ways of sharing love. By the time Sunday rolled around, they decided to hook the trailer up to the truck and spend the next three weeks together looking for their new spread.
Zach had driven into town Monday morning to pick up some last minute supplies before they left. Sarah heard the truck coming up the lane and ran to put on her coat. The day was clear and cold, with a gusty wind that could put the chill of the devil right through a body.
When she stepped outside, she saw the truck wasn't the familiar white Ford Ranger that belonged to the ranch. This one was black and relatively new, with a row of headlights attached to the hood of the cab. The windows were tinted but she saw enough to spot a man's silhouette, wearing a baseball cap.
Ty came out of the bunkhouse and waved to her from across the yard. "You expecting someone?" he asked over the roar of the engine.
"No," Sarah called, shading her eyes against the glare reflected off the truck's shiny chrome. "You think it's something to do with the new owner?"
Ty shrugged and waited at the top of the bunkhouse steps. The rest of the hands had left after given their severance and Ty was the only one holding out for an offer from the new owners to continue his overseeing role of the ranch.
Butcher came galloping from his favorite hunting spot on the pasture behind the main barn and skidded to a halt in the middle of the yard between Sarah and Ty, barking his fool head off. Sarah shushed him.
The truck had parked close to the bunkhouse, next to Ty's battered Chevy pickup. The window rolled down and Ty sauntered down the steps to talk to the driver. Sarah saw a thick, sun-reddened neck and an outline of a broad shoulder covered in a plain shirt. The man gestured with a beefy hand, pointing at the barn, then the bunkhouse.
Hairs rose at the back of her neck. She froze, her breath short. But it couldn't be Cal. This man's jaw was clean shaven and he was wearing a hat that belonged to the world outside the Community. And people of the Community didn't own trucks. They used horses and wagons.
Before her, Butcher stood his ground, staring at the truck. He considered the entire ranch compound his territory and let everybody know it, Ty and Zach included. Visitors got even worse treatment. Sarah stayed beside him, trying to get a better glimpse of the man. He and Ty were having quite the conversation. Between Butcher's warning growl, she heard snatches from Ty but the other man's voice didn't carry.
She shushed Butcher to better hear. He whined and circled in front of her, lifting his nose to scent the air. Sarah noticed something else about the truck, something that made it different from other vehicles in these parts. The little rectangular plate in the back had Montana written on it.
The sick feeling grew in the pit of her stomach.
"Zach Masterson's the one you'll want to speak to about that. He should be home shortly if you'd like to wait," Ty said.
Driven to know for sure, Sarah walked forward toward the cab of the strange truck. Ty touched the brim of his hat in acknowledgement and stepped back, blocking her view and nearly tripping over Butcher. The dog whimpered and went down on his belly, fawning at Ty's feet, his tail going a mile a minute.
"Hey, you old mutt," Ty said, bending forward to pet the dog. "You finally decided to make friends with me?"
"Ty, look out!" Sarah yelled.
She ran toward him but it was too late. The truck's door opened. She saw the familiar hobnailed boots hit the ground and the butt of a shotgun hit Ty across the side of his head. He crumpled.
Sarah jumped and broke Ty's fall but he was already unconscious and too heavy to hold. Choking back a sob, she caught him to keep his head from hitting the ground.
Above her came the sound of laughter. "Dumb cluck. Didn't I tell you I never give up, Sarah?"
She looked up to see Cal step away from the truck, the shotgun held tight within his big fists. Butcher continued to fawn and whine, cowering at his feet.
"No," she said. "You have no right."
Without taking his eyes from hers, he flipped the safety off the gun. "I married your mother. That makes me your kin. The fifth commandment gives me the right."
"I will never honor you as my father. My father is dead."
Cal aimed the shotgun at Ty's head. "Lessen you want the old man to end up like your pa, you'll change your tune mighty quick."
Chapter Eighteen
Zach drove into the yard and cursed. Ty Coburn's truck wasn't there which meant he must have gone on an errand. Zach was hoping to get some help unloading the supplies he'd bought.
He spun the steering wheel with one hand and backed the truck as close to the trailer as he could get, for most everything needed to go in there. After Ty came back, they'd unload the supplies. Then, Zach told himself, he and Sarah could plan exactly when the two of them would leave to look for a ranch of their own.
Zach grabbed the mail and a bouquet of flowers wrapped in florist paper from the front seat and headed toward the house where Sarah was packing the last of the food in the kitchen before the big move. The wind came up, ruffling the hair under his black cowboy hat. Zach didn't worry about it flying off. It fit that well.
Enjoying the feel of the cold, crisp air, he let the wind fill his coat. It was brand-new and he'd be needing it now that he'd made the decision to stay with Sarah and look for a place somewhere along the Front Range. Manuelo had accepted the decision with grace, especially when Zach gave up his share of the guide business in Brazil for the token sum of one dollar. It seemed like the right thing to do.
Clouds were rolling in from the north. He made a mental note to check the weather report for the next several days, for there was no point in leaving if he and Sarah were going to run into a major snowstorm. It was getting to be that time of year.
"Sarah?" he called as he opened the door and stepped inside the house.
"In the kitchen," she answered from the back of the house.
She must be up to her elbows in something. Usually she came running out to meet him as though they'd been apart days or weeks rather than hours. Although he acted nonchalant about it when she did that, inside he marveled at how freely she bestowed her affection. It made him feel like the luckiest man in the world.
"Do you know where Ty went off to?" He hung his coat on the hall tree, left his hat hanging on the knob at the end of the banister at the bottom of the stairs and picked up the mail and flowers. There were no more to be had in the garden, and whenever he'd gone to town this past week, he had brought her some fresh ones.
"No," she answered as he headed down the hall.
"Where's Butcher?" he asked as he stepped into the kitchen. "I didn't get the usual twenty-one-bark salute when I drove into the yard."
She stood at the sink piled high with suds, wearing her old brown skirt and calico blouse. Her hair was pinned up in her old style
, though lately she'd taken to wearing it down more and more, especially if he offered to brush it for her.
"Out hunting, I suppose," she said.
He tossed his stuff onto the table and came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist while he nuzzled her shoulder. "You must be working hard. You're wearing your old clothes."
She ducked his kiss although her hand came out of the sudsy water and grabbed his wrist, holding on like she didn't want to let go.
"Where're your rubber gloves?" he asked. "That water is hot."
"It doesn't bother me. I'm used to it."
"I'm going to make sure our new place has a bigger dishwasher. I don't like to see you working like a kitchen slave." He released her and stepped back to pick up the mail.
"I need to speak to you about that, Zach."
"I need to talk to you, too," he said sorting through the mail. "While I was in town, I heard a good-size parcel of land is for sale in the Wind River area of Wyoming, near the Grand Tetons. That's beautiful country, Sarah. I got a phone number and if the price is right, I think we should head there first when we leave tomorrow."
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I won't be going with you."
He stopped sorting and glanced at her, puzzled. She had turned to face him, her hands wrapped in her long apron. For the first time, he noticed the gravity of her face and the faint shadows underlying her eyes. "Are you feeling sick?"
"I'm fine."
"If we need to delay a few days because you're a bit under the weather, that's okay. Looks like there's a cold front moving through anyway. And I got permission from the new owner to keep the house here until we've found a new place and we're ready to move it."
"It's not that at all," she said. "I've changed my mind about going."
"Sarah, you've got to come. I don't want to buy anything without you seeing it first. This is going to be our home and I hope our only one. I want us to pick it out together."
