Jake leaned against a tree, smiling as the boys squealed then began to flail at the water. For a few minutes he could hardly see them through the spray.
He caught glimpses of Hannah as she retreated. Water beading on her skin caught the sun making her appear to be sprinkled with diamonds. Her hair fell from the coil she usually wore and hung in dark, thick ropes down her back. Her face glowed with laughter.
Suddenly Jake felt old and alone.
Hannah, tossing water into the air and laughing, didn’t seem to notice the boys closing in on her.
Jake jumped forward. He knew what happened when Sammy tackled people around the knees. They fell like big old trees in a high wind. He reached the water’s edge the same time Sammy reached his target. “Hannah,” he yelled.
But she tipped backward, seemed to lie on top of the water for a heartbeat, then folded and disappeared under the surface.
His brain kicked into a gallop. She might be caught on the bottom, hampered by her clothing or unable to pull herself free from Sammy’s clutches. He strode into the water, pushing through the resistance. He reached the place where she’d gone down just as she emerged blowing out water and scrubbing her hair out of her face.
“You trying to drown me, Sammy?” She laughed.
Jake grabbed her shoulders and dragged her to her feet. “You scared me.”
She gasped and clutched his forearms to steady herself. “Where did you come from?”
He jerked his head in the direction of his horse but kept his gaze on Hannah, enjoying the way her eyes lit with recognition then shifted to confusion.
“How long have you been here?”
“Long enough to see you playing in the water.”
She grinned. “I was being very responsible. Making sure the boys were safe.”
“Such a wearisome task.” He caught a strand of her wet hair and dragged it off her cold cheek and then felt her sharply indrawn breath. He paused, considered dropping his hand to his side, reconsidered, caught another strand of hair, and lifted it off her face.
Her eyes widened, reflecting the bouncing light off the running water and gentling it into something warm. She drew in a breath that seemed not quite steady to him. “No reason a person can’t enjoy her responsibilities.”
“First I heard about it.” He again watched her emotions fill her eyes and shift through a range from amusement to surprise and then to mischief. He noticed the latter a second too late as two soaking bodies tackled him. “Uncle Jake, play with us.”
He staggered under their assault and grabbed at Hannah to catch his balance. He knew immediately he’d made a mistake and pulled his hands away and let himself fall.
Unbalanced by his attempt to steady himself, Hannah splashed down beside him, sputtering as she took in a mouthful of water. She dragged herself upward until she sat swaying in the water.
Jake struggled against Sammy and Luke, who seemed intent on drowning him. “Boys,” he yelled, “get off me.”
Instead of obeying, Sammy sat on his chest and Luke on his legs.
“See my rock,” Sammy yelled, shoving a small boulder in Jake’s face.
“Nice rock,” he grunted as he fought to a sitting position. “What’re you going to do with it?”
“Keep it.”
Why would he want to keep a rock? More specifically… “Where will you keep it?”
“On my pillow.”
Hannah chuckled. “Nothing cute and cuddly about his pets.”
“Audrey will probably let him, too.”
Luke splashed his hands in the water. “I’m all wet,” he announced.
Jake stated the obvious. “We all are.” Suddenly it struck him what a picture they made sitting fully clothed in the middle of the river having an ordinary conversation. Something deep inside his gut started to rumble and build. It tickled at his insides and bubbled upward until he roared with laughter.
The boys grinned and started to giggle, and Hannah joined in with her musical laugh.
Jake laughed so hard his eyes teared. No one would ever know, though, as water trickled down his face from his wet hair. He laughed until he felt weak and his stomach hurt. He couldn’t remember when he’d laughed so hard. It made him feel like his insides had been scrubbed.
Still chuckling, he pushed to his feet, pulled Hannah up, and then grabbed a boy in each hand. “Come on. Let’s get out of the water.” On the shore he worked off his boots and drained out the water, scrubbed his hands over his hair, and let his clothes drip. He watched as Hannah twisted and squeezed her long dark hair.
Seeing his gaze on her, she gave an uncertain little laugh. “I’m a mess.”
He wanted to say he’d never seen anyone more beautiful, but his mouth had developed a temporary case of lockjaw. He could only manage a little grin and a shake of his head.
She must have read something in his expression that gave her a clue to his thoughts, because she lowered her head, hiding her face behind the curtain of hair.
Jake thought it was a good thing she didn’t realize the gesture made him even more tongue-tied.
She stole a glance at him through the fringe of her moisture-beaded eyelashes.
He’d had girlfriends. He knew of the natural attraction between a man and a woman. Seen it in others. But what he felt with Hannah went far beyond that to something more personal, more special, more demanding, yet comforting. He felt as if their hearts had jumped from their chests and danced together in the bright sunshine.
He jerked his gaze away and pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. The cold must be affecting him, making him fanciful. Downright foolish, in fact. “Good thing the sun is warm,” he murmured as he turned to watch the boys racing up and down the bank of the river, collecting more rocks, leaves, and twigs.
“Uncle Jake,” Luke called, “help me get this rock.”
Glad of the diversion, he hurried to help Luke pull a rock from the grass. He could see nothing special about the rock. It was just black, mottled with white specks.
Luke, however, peered at it proudly. He grunted and tried to pick it up. “Uncle Jake, can you carry it for me, please?”
So Jake bore it back to the steadily growing mound.
Hannah met Jake’s eyes. He thought he saw a questioning warmth in her eyes, as if she, too, had been aware of the moment of connection between them. If she had, did she know what it meant? He didn’t.
Hannah turned to Sammy as he lugged another rock to the pile. She gave the boy the same gentle look he imagined he’d seen in her eyes when she looked at him. He’d been foolish in hoping—
He brought his thoughts to a halt. He hadn’t been hoping for anything. His life was already full to overflowing. Last thing he needed was someone else to take care of. He turned away and stared unseeingly at the river. Like Hannah needed taking care of. She’d made it plain she took care of herself.
Hannah laughed softly, making him forget who needed or wanted caring for. “What are you building?” she asked the boys.
“A mountain,” Luke announced.
Jake resisted an urge to slap his forehead. Luke wasn’t the only one building mountains. Jake had been doing so in his mind. Turning an innocent bit of play into something bigger and more important than it could ever be.
Six
Hannah shook the sand from her wet skirts, wishing she could as easily shake the confusion from her brain.
Why had Jake joined them? It didn’t seem as if he’d come to check on her, which she would have understood. Instead, he seemed intent on having a good time.
She’d never heard such heartfelt laughter as Jake produced sitting in the middle of the river with two small boys crawling on him. It was a long laugh in the right direction and made her feel happy inside. Just remembering it brought a smile.
But thinking how he’d looked at her caused her smile to slide into something softer, less amused, more—she shook her skirts harder. More what? What did she think she saw in Jake’s eyes? What did she
want to see? She didn’t know, but she felt achy inside. Like tears had built up somewhere behind her heart. She sensed if they escaped they would flood her insides. Her skin couldn’t contain all she longed for.
She missed her dad. She missed her mom. She missed something she’d never had. She didn’t even know what to call it.
She swung her wet hair over her shoulder. Time to stop being silly. No need to let a little jocularity affect her normal good sense. She longed for nothing more. She had her independence and a hotel full of opportunities.
She turned back to the little boys piling up rocks. “It will take a lot of work to build a mountain. You’re going to need some help.”
She searched along the shore, found a rock, marched over to the “mountain” the boys were building, and added to it.
As she and Luke gathered rocks, Jake stood looking at the river. She paused to study him. Did he have troubling thoughts similar to hers? She snorted softly. He was probably thinking about his cows.
Sammy bounced up to Jake. “Uncle Jake, give me a piggyback ride.”
Hannah waited to see Jake’s response. Part of her saw him as the big, unapproachable, in-charge boss. She still had a hard time accepting his warmth toward his family. Warmth and caring and—something more. She searched for the right word. Responsibility. That was it. He wore his responsibility like a shirt covering every other emotion. Maybe it explained his attitude toward her. Her independence simply did not fit into his frame of mind.
He scooped up Sammy and hung the boy around his neck then raced up and down the shore, bouncing the boy until he screamed with laughter.
Hannah smiled. She liked this relaxed Jake much better than the one who seemed to think he had to be in charge of everyone in his sphere. But which one was the real Jake?
They had each dried to a wrinkled mat when Jake glanced at the sky. “It’s time we got back.”
“Aww,” Sammy and Luke yelled together. They stood in front of their stone “mountain,” now as high as Sammy’s waist.
“Uncle Jake, what we going to do with our rocks?” Luke demanded.
“I wanna take them home,” Sammy screamed.
“You can’t haul rocks home,” Jake protested.
Luke stuck his bottom lip out. “Why not?”
Hannah chuckled at Jake’s quandary.
He shot her a helpless look. “Luke, there are lots of rocks at home.”
“We want these ones, don’t we, Sammy?”
The younger boy nodded vigorously.
Hannah giggled as the two small boys and one large man glowered at each other. The whole lot of them had stubborn streaks a mile wide and bright as polished gold. If someone didn’t intervene, they could wrangle at this for a long time. She swallowed back her amusement and put on a serious face. “Boys, why don’t you each pick out the rock you like the best and take it home. Leave the rest here. I’m sure you can come back and visit sometime.”
Three pairs of eyes shifted toward her then toward the stack of rocks. Jake opened his mouth.
Fearing he might order the boys to obey her suggestion and likely trigger their stubbornness rather than their cooperation, Hannah went to the rocks. “Which one is your favorite, Sammy?”
The boy squatted down and studied the rocks with such concentration, Hannah had difficulty not smiling. “I like ’em all,” he said. But he selected five and set them on the ground at his feet. “These are my favorites. Can’t I take ’em all?”
“No,” Jake muttered.
Hannah ignored him. “Can you carry them all?”
Sammy tried, but even with Hannah’s help at balancing them in his cradled arms, he couldn’t manage five and looked about ready to cry. “They’re so nice.”
“Maybe you can take three,” she suggested.
So with much deliberation, he chose three. “ ’Bye, rocks,” he said sadly to those remaining.
Luke crossed his arms and refused to follow his brother’s example.
Hannah rose and faced Jake. “I guess Luke doesn’t want to take any. That’s fine. His choice. Shall we be on our way?”
Jake grabbed the reins of his patient horse, muttering, “Why are you encouraging them? Who needs to carry home rocks?”
She chuckled. “I think they’ll give them up without an argument after a few steps. On the other hand, if they want to pack them all the way, what difference does it make? Might keep them out of trouble.”
Jake suddenly laughed. “If it does, I’ll be surprised.”
Luke waited until he realized they were indeed headed home then grabbed two good-sized rocks and followed.
For a moment they walked in relative silence. “Relative” meaning she and Jake didn’t speak and the boys yelled endlessly about new treasures discovered along the trail. As she’d predicted, they soon ditched their rocks in order to pick up something more exciting.
The boys’ clothes were spotted with mud and wrinkled. Her own blue cotton dress, one she normally thought rather attractive, was now bedraggled and dull with sand and dust. She glanced at Jake—his trousers stained, his blue shirt streaked from its dunking in the river. She chuckled. “We’re a rumpled-looking crew.”
He glanced down at himself, groaned, and then swept his gaze over her. “You’ve faired better than I.”
Uncomfortable with his grinning assessment, she shifted her attention past him to the dusty haze along the trail. “How did your business go? Did you get everything settled?”
“I hope so. Mr. Arnold said he’d come out Monday morning and assess whether the cattle are healthy as we claim.”
“Then you achieved what you intended. You must be pleased.”
They strode on for several paces, the horse plodding along behind them, before Jake answered. “I’m happy enough that he’s agreed to come, but this delay never should have happened. I should have foreseen the possibility of Murphy doing something and been a step ahead of him.”
Hannah heard the frustration in his voice but wondered why be blamed himself. “How can you be responsible for something another man has done?”
“It’s my job to be sure things go well.”
“But Jake, you can only be responsible for what you do.”
He made a noise she took to be disagreement before he spoke. “That’s easy for you to say. You’re set on proving just that. Responsible for no one but you, to no one but you, but I have others to think about, plan for, and make sure they’re taken care of.”
“You make my choices sound selfish. I don’t see them that way. By becoming independent, I’m giving my mother and stepfather the chance to start a new life together without my being caught in the middle. And I’m honoring my father’s memory by living up to his expectation of me.”
She again heard that noise that seemed to come from deep inside him. Not a grunt. And yet definitely negative in tone. “I would think your father would want what’s best for you.”
Her vision narrowed as she regarded him through squinted eyes. “Of course he would.”
“Then he would probably suggest you ask for help fixing the hotel.”
She shook her head. “He’d expect me to figure out how to do it myself.”
They stopped walking and faced each other.
A few days ago, Hannah would have erupted at Jake’s interference, his continued insistence she couldn’t manage on her own, but she began to suspect his problem stemmed from his own overgrown sense of responsibility. He seemed to think it was his job to take care of everyone. “Jake, it isn’t like I’m entirely on my own.”
He widened his eyes. “I thought—”
“I am God’s child. He will never leave me nor forsake me. Hasn’t He also promised to provide all our needs?”
“Well of course, but doesn’t the scripture also say, ‘If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel’? Doesn’t that make our responsibility plain? It seems you have only yourself to think about, s
o I suppose that verse has no significance for you. For me, it’s the guiding direction for my life.”
Hannah knew the scripture he mentioned but had never heard it applied the way he did. “It seems to me you feel like you are personally responsible for things that are beyond your control. Aren’t there times you have to let God do it? Trust Him?”
“I do trust Him. I trust Him to help me take care of the task set before me.”
Hannah and Jake resumed walking side by side. She turned her attention to the two little boys hunkered down, examining something in the dusty tracks, before saying, “That’s exactly how I feel. God has given me the desire for independence and now the means. I trust Him to help me take advantage of the opportunity He’s provided.”
Jake made that same sound of disagreement but didn’t voice his feelings, for which Hannah was grateful. She had no desire to argue and ruin the enjoyment of the afternoon, though she suspected it would come to an end as soon as they were back in town. Jake would revert to the man in charge of everything. His ranch. His cows. His men. His family. Did he also feel responsible for friends and acquaintances?
That would explain why he felt he had to tell her she couldn’t manage on her own. But she could. And she would. She’d prove it to Jake. Not that it would be her motivation. She wanted to live up to her father’s expectations of her, prove worthy of his approval and thus honor his memory.
“Wagon coming,” Jake said. “I’d better corral the boys.” He lengthened his stride and caught up to Sammy and Luke, who were watching a caterpillar crawl through the dry grass at the side of the road.
Hannah hurried to them and held Sammy’s hand as Jake held the reins on one side and Luke on the other.
The rattle and rumble of the wagon grew louder as the wagon approached and passed. The driver waved and called a greeting, and then Hannah turned aside to shield her face from the cloud of dust.
“Where’s he going?” Luke demanded.
“He’s taking supplies to settlements west of here beyond the railway,” Jake answered.
“Can we go see?” Luke asked.
Hannah chuckled as the man and boys stared after the wagon as if accompanying it in their thoughts.
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