Now he ran a hand over the whiskers itching across his jaw and neck and stood, stalking toward the soddy.
He pushed open the door and found Catherine and Pop in murmured conversation. They looked up when he entered.
“Can you give me another shave, Catherine? I’m starting to itch.”
She said something in a low voice to Pop, who waved her on.
She followed him silently to the stump where she’d shaved him once before. Lightning flashed, far away on the horizon. Here, the stillness before the storm weighed heavily in the air.
“Thanks,” he said as she knelt at the bank to work up a lather.
Her fingers were cold when she displaced the lather onto his cheeks.
She didn’t meet his gaze. Up close, he could see the tired circles beneath her eyes.
“Storm rolling in tonight,” he said when he really wanted to ask her if she’d thought more about what he’d said days before.
“Hmm.”
“If I was up to no good, storm might be a good cover.”
Now her eyes flicked to his face and he saw surprise and trepidation in their depths. “You still think Ralph is watching the place?”
He would’ve shrugged, but she had the blade at his neck and he didn’t want to get cut.
“I’ve been watching and listening and I couldn’t guarantee it, but yes. He hasn’t got what he wants yet.”
Whether it was just the land or Catherine herself had yet to be seen.
“Don’t suppose you want to tell me what you’ve got hidden in the barn?”
He felt the faint tremor of the blade against his cheek, though her expression betrayed nothing. “What do you mean?”
“Behind the false wall.”
Her emotionless mien remained for the barest instant, and then her shoulders slumped. Thankfully, she’d moved the blade to wipe it on the towel over his shoulder.
“How did you discover it?”
“Spent a lot of time in there these past few days and nights.”
She looked defeated and resigned, and stupidly, he still wanted to comfort her, even if she didn’t want his comfort.
“I found it accidentally,” he said. “I don’t think the structure is real sound, at least not after the recent bad weather. I was walking around, tapping on things, and noticed that wall was hollow.”
Her eyes remained shadowed.
“I didn’t open it up,” he said. “But I’d think by now I’ve earned enough of your trust to know what you’re protecting.”
“Grain.”
So he’d guessed right.
“If I guessed it, the Chestertons might’ve, as well.”
She wiped the rest of the soap free with the corner of the towel.
“We’ve built the stockpile over several years, and it’ll save us from starving this winter,” she said. “Once it’s planted, there isn’t much they can do.”
Not in the manner of thieving, but if they had a mind to dispose of Pop and Catherine and take their crop, that was enough to frighten Matty. Catherine and Pop had no friends. No one to take up for them. Would anyone even notice if they’d suddenly disappeared? Not likely if they never showed their faces in town.
And they were too far away from town for Matty to be any help as a deputy. How would he hear about it if Ralph assaulted her?
“So you think someone will try to come after it tonight?” she asked, her back to him as she faced the stream.
“If they expect me to be in the soddy because of the weather, they’ll get a surprise,” Matty responded.
“You’re going to sleep out in the elements?”
He quirked a smile. “Probably won’t do much sleeping, but I’ll stay out in the barn. I hope it’ll come to naught, but…”
Maybe that wasn’t entirely true. If he caught Ralph or his younger brother on the Pooles’ property, he could likely get the sheriff to prosecute them. And that way, at least, Catherine would be out of danger from those men.
But the issues with Pop remained.
*
Catherine woke in the middle of the night. This time, instead of Pop stirring in his bed—as it had been the past several nights—it was a loud crack of thunder that startled her.
She tried to even out her breath, tried to sink back into the bliss of sleep.
But her mind had begun whirring like a whole field full of cicadas.
Was there a chance Pop might think the thunder was enemy cannons? Would he get lost in his memories? Attack her again?
“Pop, you awake?” she asked over the drumming rain. She hated how shaky her voice emerged.
But even more, she hated the fear that pushed her to disturb him. Shouldn’t she be able to feel secure in her own home?
“Yes,” he answered. His voice sounded lucid, but she couldn’t be sure. She couldn’t see much in the inky darkness—lightning lit up the sky outside the window at short intervals, but her eyes had trouble adjusting to the darkness in between.
“All right. I was just checking on you.”
He didn’t respond.
A question had been plaguing her since the conversation with the cowboy down at the creek. What would Mama have done if they’d been in this same situation with Pop? Mama had stayed on the homestead to avoid rumors and mistreatment, for Catherine’s sake. She’d bartered with neighbors when necessary.
Catherine tossed and turned through the storms that abated just before dawn. She must’ve dozed off at some point, because Pop wasn’t snoring beneath his blanket. His absence worried her, and she rushed outside.
Though the rain had stopped, the sky remained gray with clouds swirling overhead. The creek rolled and frothed, high but not yet threatening to overflow its banks. She prayed it didn’t. Her eyes flicked to the barn, already damaged from before. Worrisome.
Her moccasins slipped and slid across the muddy yard. The rain still fell in sheets. She almost ran into the cowboy as he emerged from the structure, his hat slightly askew and his face softened from sleep.
“Everything quiet?” she asked, reaching out for the door frame to keep herself upright.
He stretched his arms over his head, giving her a glimpse of his sidearm and flat stomach as his shirt tightened against it. “Discounting the thunder that blasted my eardrums all night? Yes.”
“Did Pop come out to milk Elsie?” She glanced over his shoulder, but in the low outdoor light and the shadowed interior, she couldn’t see her grandfather.
“No. He’s not inside with you?”
She shook her head. The niggle of worry she felt grew. “I…spoke to him, or woke him up maybe, in the night. He seemed fine then, but now he’s gone.” Was she attempting to reassure the cowboy, or herself?
“He likes to wander,” Matty reminded her.
“Yes, but not in the rain. And it’s barely light out. And what if the storms aren’t over?”
And what about Ralph Chesterton?
Perhaps the lack of sleep these past few nights was to blame for loosening her tongue, but the cowboy only touched her elbow. He didn’t laugh at her unease. His eyes met hers with that steady gaze that had become so familiar as he said, “If he’s not back by lunchtime, then we’ll start to worry.”
She swallowed back her unease. He was right. Of course he was right. She was overreacting, jumping to conclusions.
But after the scuffle with Pop and his silence since, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.
*
Pop wasn’t back by lunchtime, but the rain had continued.
Matty stood in the open dugout doorway. Rain pattered on the ground above his head and on his hat.
“We don’t both need to get soaked. It’s likely a fool’s errand anyway.”
Catherine threw a glare over her shoulder from where she was bent over a small rucksack, packing provisions.
Maybe he shouldn’t have said it so bluntly, but it was the truth. Pop had pulled this same disappearing act several times in the nearly two weeks si
nce he’d been with the Pooles.
“If it were someone you loved, would you be content to stay behind?”
For some reason, today, Catherine was spooked. He was willing to go out in the weather to track down the older man, but he didn’t see why they both had to go.
Catherine shoved provisions wrapped in a towel into her rucksack and tied the drawstrings.
“How far do you think he could’ve gone?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t think he would’ve gone out in this weather at all. Something could have happened to him.”
Or he could have happened to someone. Catherine still hadn’t told him about the Chestertons. If he’d come upon one of them out there, might he have attacked them?
Catherine straightened, slinging the rucksack over her shoulder. She mashed a floppy old hat over her curls.
He sighed as she moved toward him. There would be no changing her mind.
She snapped the door closed behind them, and he trailed her across the yard and into the woods. Water dripped from the trees in a different cadence than the rain on the grass.
“If the rain keeps up, it will obliterate any tracks he might’ve made.” He didn’t bother sugarcoating it for her. She needed to know that this was pointless. Pop would come back when he was ready, just like always.
His brothers would probably laugh at him if they saw him trailing the diminutive woman like a lovesick pup.
How had he gotten here? He’d changed his view of Catherine since the beginning, that was for sure. He’d come to realize that it took a smart, independent woman to run a homestead and care for her ailing grandfather.
He ducked under a low branch and received a stream of water down the back of his neck for his trouble.
“Careful,” he said when her footing slipped and she lost her balance. Grabbing a nearby sapling for support, she straightened.
What could he say to make her see that she couldn’t continue on like this? Ignoring his growing affections, just trying to think of her as a friend, he couldn’t see her isolation on the homestead ending well. He’d told her he was sorry for what had happened between them in their school days, but he hadn’t opened up to her about those dark days after his parents had died.
Maybe if he did, she would understand how she could lean on others, depend on her neighbors—and him—to help as this difficult time only got worse.
But that meant opening up about the one thing he hated talking about. Jonas knew the most, but he’d shared the bare minimum with the rest of his siblings. He just couldn’t talk about losing the two people who meant the most to him—and those few days when he thought he would die alone, too.
Being so reliant on the Pooles those first days after his injury had brought all that old grief back. It felt too close to share.
But if he didn’t, would Catherine continue her stubborn thinking that everything was fine just the way it was right now?
Chapter Sixteen
Hours later, soaked to the bone, Catherine admitted to herself the cowboy was right.
There had been no sign of Pop. They’d started their searching in the woods near home and made increasingly larger circles with the soddy and barn in the center.
The cowboy had gone silent, though he had stayed with her. Every now and then, his hand came beneath her elbow as she traversed a treacherous patch or she slipped on the damp, leaf-strewn ground.
As the crow flies, they weren’t far from home, but she hated to turn back. Her feeling that something was wrong with Pop had only intensified as they’d continued on without seeing a trace of him.
The birds that usually chirped and made plenty of racket were silent. The only sounds were of their movement as they hiked through the difficult terrain, and even that was muted.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d done wrong when she’d asked him if he was awake in the night. They hadn’t spoken openly about his worsening nightmares or whatever condition it was that made him faint and short of breath.
And she had thought to spare him additional stress by not telling him of the Chestertons’ threats. Had that been the wrong decision?
“It’ll be coming on dark soon,” the cowboy said, startling her out of her increasingly morose thoughts. “And your Pop might’ve turned back and be snug and warm in the soddy, wondering where we are.”
She picked her way carefully on the rocky, leaf-covered ground. Trees and woods were at their back and right side, but to their left, the ground sloped away in a hill that had become steep. “Or he might be lying injured, cold and wet.”
The cowboy started to say something else, but she couldn’t listen. She turned on him. “If you’re tired of hiking in wet socks, why don’t you go back to the dugout? You’re the injured one, after all, and I don’t need your help.”
Her inattention to her footing had been a mistake. Her boot slipped on a slick rock face, and she lost her balance. She struggled to right herself, reaching out for anything to grab on to, but there was nothing.
She tumbled down the hill, end over end. Views of green then gray sky swirled through her head. Water splattered her face.
“Catherine!”
She heard the cowboy’s cry from a distance, but couldn’t speak when a hard landing on her back knocked the breath from her lungs. She kept rolling, knocking her shoulder against a rock.
She scrabbled for a handhold, but the wet grasses provided nothing to hold on to.
And then finally she came to rest on a flat bed of grass. She gasped once, twice, trying to draw in a breath.
Lying on her back, her head was turned toward the hill she’d just tumbled down, and without moving she saw the cowboy scrambling down the hill, sliding on his hind end at times, his face a study in concentration.
He was upset. At her words?
I don’t need your help.
It was ironic that she lay prostrate, unable to even stir herself to get up, when she’d spoken such nonsense just moments ago.
Her body’s natural instinct took over, and she was able to draw a deep breath at the same time that he skidded to a stop and knelt at her side. She’d lost her hat somewhere along the way and soft raindrops washed her face.
“Catherine,” he breathed. What was that expression crossing his face? His brows were drawn and his eyes intense as he reached for her. He didn’t help her sit. Instead, his hands came to cup both sides of her jaw.
He was trembling.
“Are you— Can you feel your extremities?” Even his voice shook.
She inhaled and exhaled once more. “You mean the bruises I’ll have come tomorrow?”
He didn’t smile. His hands moved from her face to her shoulders. “Does anything in particular pain you?”
The breathless concern in his voice pinched her stomach, and she pushed up with her hands on the wet grass, sitting upright. “Just my pride.”
His hands fell away, but he didn’t move back as she expected. He was close enough that if she turned just so, their shoulders would bump. Close enough that water dripped off his hat and onto her muddy hand, lying in her lap.
His closeness discomfited her. “I’m fine,” she said through stiff lips. Except now she needed a bath, and she was still shaken from the fall.
“I’ve been trying to show you that you don’t always have to be.” His voice was hoarse, and his hand returned to cup her cheek.
What was he—
He leaned forward, and his lips brushed hers. The kiss lasted only seconds, and she was so stunned that she sat frozen as he pulled back several inches. Still close enough that she could see the fine stubble that had grown back where she’d shaved him last night.
His hand remained cupping her jaw while his lips spread in a slow smile.
Heat boiled in her belly and flamed in her face, but for once she had no idea what to do. She didn’t want to pull away.
He’d kissed her.
She was shaking now for a different reason, her heart in her throat. She couldn’t keep her th
oughts from the mad whirl they’d gone on.
What did it mean? Where did they go from here now?
She had to focus. Pop was still missing. He could be hurt.
“We…we need to go. Pop—”
Matty’s eyes remained steady on her face, but he seemed to understand that she needed time to think as he helped her up with a hand beneath her elbow.
*
Matty had seen the flare of panic cross Catherine’s face as he’d pulled back from the kiss.
Even now, as he helped her stand up and watched her stretch both legs out, checking for injuries, a knot of worry lodged behind his breastbone. His heartbeat still hadn’t slowed after seeing her tumble down the hill. She could’ve broken a bone or even hit her head on a rock and been killed.
And as he’d slipped and slid his way down the hill after her, the realization had shocked him to his core. He cared about her. He was falling for her.
He hadn’t been able to stop the kiss. He was just glad she hadn’t pushed away from him or slugged him. He still half expected it, but the sidelong glance she gave him was more filled with confusion than anything else.
“You sure you don’t want to go back to the dugout and dry off a little, get some rest?”
Her expression clouded, her brows drawing together. “I can’t shake a feeling that something isn’t right. I want to keep looking for him.”
The day had worn on. Darkness would fall soon, and what then? If she insisted on continuing her search, he’d follow her. She hadn’t brought a weapon, and he wore one at his waist.
More rain seeped between his hat brim and collar. There were no parts of him that remained dry.
And even with his socks squelching in his boots, he wouldn’t leave her out here alone.
“I’m wishing I had my horse,” he said. Riding horseback would hasten their search, allow them to cover more ground more quickly.
“Do you think you could ride now without pain?” Her question was laced with curiosity.
“I…don’t know.” His collarbone still tweaked occasionally, but the overall ache had dulled these past few days. He could probably manage riding without pain, as long as his mount was calm and he didn’t try any daring movements.
Love Inspired Historical October 2015 Box Set Page 14
