Something in Silas turned as cold as the Montana wind that howled outside this little niche of warmth. His wife, cuddled safe in his arms, cried over the thought of having his child.
Belle was just barely conscious. He knew she was only vaguely aware of what she was saying. Did that mean he should pay no mind to what she said? Or did it mean she had no strength for anything but the truth? Did it mean Belle was truly, deeply heartbroken to think she was carrying his child? Whether she was expecting or not, her tears meant she didn’t want to be. So why had she let him make love to her? Belle was a grown woman. She knew what caused babies.
Silas knew the answer. Pleasure.
It was new to Belle. She wanted the pleasure and had found it irresistible. But she didn’t want to move over and give up being boss of the Tanner Ranch, and she didn’t want his child growing in her body.
She was using him. She’d support him and feed him, probably even dole out spending money if he asked, all so she could keep him around. But the ranch was hers alone, and his baby was a cause for tears.
Any way Silas thought of it, he came out sounding like…like his mother. Earning money in the upstairs of a saloon.
That’s what a man got for coming to a rich woman when he had nothing to offer. He’d known it was wrong, but he’d married her anyway because he wanted her so much. And he thought love was enough. And now he had to pay the price of being a man with no honor and no pride.
He’d lost two ranches in his life by turning coward. Running away was getting to be a habit, because right now he hurt so badly from hearing her cry, he wished himself halfway across the country from Belle.
He tested her warm, supple limbs and saw that she’d fallen into a natural sleep. He checked her toes, and even they were warm and pink in the crackling firelight. Trust Belle to tackle a pack of wolves and freezing cold and then shake it off with no damage to herself.
He wrapped her up good and snug. “You’re all right now, Belle. You’re going to be all right.” Knowing he shouldn’t, he held her close, thrilled that she was safely warm.
She wound her arms around his neck. She tilted her head to reach for his lips.
He met her searching lips and thought about the baby she was most likely expecting and never wanted to bear. He broke off the kiss.
She protested but settled back into a deep sleep.
He held her through the long night while he nurtured his anger and vanquished his love and planned how to be a man who could stand to look at himself in the mirror.
It was still dark when Belle woke the next morning.
Silas was shaking her. “We’d best be on the trail home.” She sat up and a wave of nausea lurched in her stomach.
The baby.
Silas was fully dressed. When she moved, he stood away and started quickly packing up the meager camp. She remembered everything. Crying herself to sleep. The wolves. Emma’s smoking rifle. Silas.
Things were foggy after Silas had picked her up off her horse and started fussing over her and scolding her for working her ranch. Like she hadn’t put up with enough already yesterday.
She’d never had a husband quite like this before. The others had complained and whined and laid low when chores were being handed out. But she’d never had one not only refuse to help but get upset when she did it herself. It was just a new twist on the same old story, but she couldn’t figure out why Silas didn’t just shut up and let her get on with her work.
Once her stomach settled, she thought of Betsy needing breakfast and got up to start packing the camp.
Silas had everything done except dousing the fire. “You up to the ride home?” Silas almost growled the question.
Belle had beaten back one pack of wolves only to face another this morning. “Yep.” She brushed his question aside brusquely.
Beyond that, they didn’t talk.
Both horses were already saddled, so they were on the trail within minutes. They had no food, and she was in a hurry to get to Betsy, so they set a brisk pace.
Her husband was obviously angry. Belle assumed it was because she’d gone and done another chore he considered his. She didn’t have the strength this morning to deal with his infernal wounded pride.
They made good time in the sharp cold, and the sun wasn’t fully up when they rode into the ranch yard.
Without making eye contact, Silas said with tight sarcasm, “If it’s all right with you, I’ll take care of the horses.”
Belle looked at him through narrow eyes, disgusted at his temper. She checked the impulse to tend her own mount because she was eager to be away from his surly company. “Thank you.” Tossing him the reins, she dismounted without checking to see if he caught them and headed to the house.
She got inside in time to pick Betsy up where she lay kicking in the wooden crate Belle had fashioned into a bed. She sat down and nursed her baby and fought back tears by building up the fire under her temper. She fumed and rocked and looked down at Betsy, not the youngest anymore.
Emma and Sarah slept on, even though it was well past their normal waking time. The night had been a late one.
Betsy ate and surprised Belle by falling back to sleep in her arms. Just as Belle laid her back down, the front door slammed open with so much force the rickety thing shattered into pieces and fell onto the cabin floor, letting the icy wind blast through into the cabin.
Emma surged out of her bed. Sarah sat up with a startled scream of fear. Betsy awoke with a loud cry. Belle whirled around, and her temper flared to white hot.
She stalked over to face Silas with only inches separating them, ready at last to put him in the place he needed to be. Ready to chalk him up as another mistake. So enraged, she was ready to plant him under the lone oak with the rest of the husbands without waiting for him to turn up his toes!
She’d trusted him! She’d thought she could believe in him! Well, so far he’d been a bigger disappointment than anyone she’d ever married. And in that instant, Belle decided she wasn’t going to put up with it. She wasn’t going to just accept this lazy, no-good polecat of a man and carry on doing everything herself while he lazed about and lived off her labor.
Silas was going to hear exactly what she thought of his no-account ways. And when she was done with him, he was going to measure up to her idea of what a husband should be or she was going to march him straight down the road. Things were going to change around here! “Silas, things are going to…mmph.”
One hard hand settled over her mouth, and the other clamped over the nape of her neck. He jerked her forward so hard it next to knocked the wind out of her.
CHAPTER 27
Things are going to change around here!”
Silas leaned down until his nose nearly touched hers. “Do you hear me?”
Belle grabbed his wrist. His arm left her neck and wrapped around her waist as immovable as a band of iron while his other stayed firmly on her mouth. “Settle down and shut up and listen to what your husband has to say for once in your confounded, stubborn, bossy life.”
Sarah snatched up the cast-iron skillet and waved it in front of her. Silas thought she looked pretty cute with the skillet in one hand and the baby in the other. Not real threatening.
“You get your hands off of my ma.” Emma erupted to her feet and dove for her shotgun.
That impressed Silas more than the skillet. But, unlike when Lindsay had threatened him that first morning, now he wasn’t afraid. He could handle all of these women with one hand tied behind his back. He noticed right now it was taking two hands just keeping Belle quiet, so maybe, just to be on the safe side, he wouldn’t tie one up. He’d let things go on too long while he worked on his idea.
He’d been happily toiling away for them while thinking they loved him and trusted him. But it appeared that wasn’t true. Still, he knew Emma. He knew what she was made of. Sure, she might shoot a man who hurt her ma. He’d expect her to. He wouldn’t respect her if she didn’t. But she wouldn’t hurt him.
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p; “Put down that gun.” He kept Belle’s mouth covered and kept his unshakable grip on her but his whole attention focused on Emma. “I’m not doing anything but making your hardheaded mother listen to me, and you know it.”
Emma half raised the gun. She had her eyes riveted on Silas, then glanced at the hold he had on her ma and lowered the muzzle to the floor.
Silas noticed that Belle had quit fighting and squirming. He had the impression she did that because it was upsetting Emma. And just maybe his wife’s heart wasn’t in having him shot. Either was encouraging.
“And Sarah, you mind Betsy and set that pan aside. You are the most contrary bunch of females I have ever been near. I am going to give you one more chance to back up and make room for me in this family.”
“Make room?” Sarah said in disgust.
Emma gave Silas a narrow-eyed look, but she didn’t raise the gun again.
Good sign.
“Like you haven’t been sneaking off every day while we do all the work,” Emma said. “Like we wouldn’t have let you help.”
Belle made a garbled noise of accord with her daughter and gave a firm nod.
Betsy chose that moment to start crying. Silas supposed she could be hungry or wet or have a pin sticking in her little bottom, but he reckoned the truth was she was just female and decided to add to the commotion on principle. Silas wished he had enough hands to shut them all up.
“I don’t imagine anyone in this family is interested in seeing the house I’ve been building for the last few weeks.”
Dead silence met his announcement, except for the sound of the skillet hitting the floor. Betsy even reacted to the changed atmosphere in the room and stuck both hands into her mouth.
Belle quit fighting against his hold. “Eew ouse?”
Silas uncovered her mouth.
Belle repeated, “New house?”
“Yes. New house. What did you think I’d been doing ever since I got here?”
Silas thought he heard a cricket chirp in the dead silence.
“Never mind. I know what you all think of me.” He tugged his Stetson low over his eyes. “But confound it, how could you not trust me better than this? I punched a thousand head of cattle over a hundred of the roughest miles God ever put on this earth for you women. I worked eighteen- or twenty-hour days. I hauled you all over two mountain passes even though it almost killed me doing it! I—I—” Silas lapsed into silence to match the rest of them and took his arm off of Belle’s waist and stepped back.
Finally, he said, “How could you believe I’d—” Surprised at how hurt he was by their easy belief in his worthlessness, he fell silent. Sure, they’d known a lot of no-account men, but he’d next to broken his heart getting those cattle to market and building Lindsay her house and getting them all home safe. Didn’t that count for anything?
At last he said the only thing he could think of. “I asked you to wait for me with all the winter chores, Belle. And I told you I had an idea I needed to work on. Why didn’t you say something if you needed me? Instead, you just assumed the worst of me and did the work yourself. Do I have to prove myself to you every day for the rest of my life? Is that what I can expect from marriage to you?”
He stared at the floor for a while, trying to find in himself the pleasure he’d had at being married and being a father. It was so laced now with hurt it was as if he’d never even known these women. “Well, decide if you want to live here or with me.” He stalked out.
He was halfway to the barn when Belle called after him. “New house?”
Afraid of the scalding things he wanted to say to her, Silas ignored her and kept walking.
She hollered, “Where is it?”
He turned back.
Belle stood in her tottering cabin with the door in pieces on the ground. All three girls peeked over her shoulder at him.
He looked back at them for a long time, studying his wife, wondering who she really was. He knew the hardworking rancher and the sweet, loving woman in the night, but underneath the years of disappointment and hard lessons her life had taught her was there someone else? Was there someone who could trust and love, someone who could move over enough to include him in her life and find joy in wanting his child?
The events of the past day told him no. He’d signed on for a lifetime of bouncing off the brick wall of Belle’s doubts about all men. It hurt. He didn’t like it, and he didn’t want to live like that.
If there was a soft side to be coaxed out from under her toughness, he didn’t appear to have the knack of doing the coaxing. And he’d reached the point where he didn’t have much interest in doing it either. Letting him into her life and opening up to him had to be something Belle did herself.
“It’s in the mouth of the high valley near the south pass. I staked a claim to it while we were in Helena. It’s mine. I reckon I’m going to go live there.” He turned away from her and caught up his horse. Then, without a backward glance, he rode off in the icy cold to his empty home.
All three of them looked at each other. Then they looked around the ramshackle house they lived in. Hoofbeats faded in the distance.
Belle came out of her trance and whirled back to the door. She stared in the direction he went. “He said he had an idea. He said…he said I was a rich woman and it hurt his pride to come to me with nothing.”
Belle turned back to the girls. “New house?”
“He claimed that valley you wanted?” Emma asked.
Sarah said wistfully, “I’d kind of like to see it.”
“He said he’d do the winter chores,” Emma added. “But I never believed him. Not for a minute.”
Belle shook her head. It had never occurred to her either. It had never occurred to her to trust the man who had saved their lives several times over. “He worked so hard on the drive, but I just thought he was—I don’t know—putting on an act, I guess. Remember how Anthony dug that well for us when he was courting me?”
Emma and Sarah nodded.
Betsy kicked her legs and said, “Papa.”
“Anthony dug mighty slow though,” Emma said thoughtfully. “Kept on and on about the rocks. Even then we knew he was no-account, didn’t we, Ma? We just didn’t expect no better.”
Belle looked back out the gaping doorway. “Anthony would never have risked his life to haul us over the passes home. He’d have never put in the long days riding herd, and he didn’t have an ounce of Silas’s skill handling cattle and sticking his cow pony. A man doesn’t get good at things like that without practice, and lazy men don’t practice. How could I not know all of that after spending a month with Silas?”
“He did a right fine job on Lindsay’s house,” Emma remembered. “I could tell he knew what he was doing. Reckon any house he built’d be a good ‘un.”
Sarah said, “Do you think he’ll let us live in the new house with him?”
All three of them exchanged a glance. Then they started smiling.
Belle said, “Let’s go see.”
The girls dressed. They all pulled on their heavy coats, tucked Betsy in the carrier, and headed for the corral.
It was nearly a two-hour ride to the south pass. Belle thought how nice it would be to live two hours closer to Divide. The trail split, one half starting up the mountain to the pass, the other winding into Silas’s high valley. They had only gone a mile down that valley trail when they rounded the mouth of the canyon. There, sitting beside a spring, sat the most beautiful ranch house Belle had ever seen. It was all logs. One story high and built in a single straight line. The house was about four times the size of the one they lived in. It had a neat porch across the whole front of it, made with a split-log floor. Evenly spaced saplings formed a railing along the front.
Belle knew Silas hadn’t been able to go to town for anything to make his building easier because the pass was snowed shut. There were no glass windows—only shutters pulled firmly closed without a sagging corner in sight. Three chimneys of fieldstones adorned the roof. Only
the center one had smoke coming out of it. As they got nearer, she saw the leather hinges on the front door and the tight corners of the log cabin that had been hewn out by hand. She could see the wooden pegs that held the porch and doors and shutters together. It must have taken him forever to do such a lovely job on this big cabin.
She realized the stiff breeze was gone and the snow wasn’t as deep as back home. Silas had chosen a spot that cut the north wind. Belle knew the little spring flowed year-round out of a fissure in the cliff close behind the house, so they’d always have fresh water. Silas had thought of everything.
She rode closer and saw Silas’s buckskin grazing in a corral behind the house. A big barn stood beside the corral. Built with the same attention to detail. The same loving attention to detail.
“He loves me.” Belle stared at the proof. “He loves all of us.”
Emma nodded. “He’d never’ve gone to so much trouble elsewise.”
Belle’s hand went to her flat stomach, and for the first time in her life she was excited and proud to be expecting a baby. She remembered her tears of yesterday with shame. With ironclad resolve, she decided then and there to be the best mother to this young’un and to the rest of her girls that the world had ever known.
God, I don’t mind if it’s a boy.
On that shocking thought, she spurred her horse and galloped toward the home he’d made for all of them. She went to the corral to turn her horse loose. Even matters of the heart took second place over caring for her horse.
Emma jumped down beside her and caught Belle’s reins. “You’d better go try and cheer him up, Ma. We’ll give you awhile to grovel.”
Belle looked sharply at Emma.
Emma grinned.
Sarah piped up from behind, “Hand over Betsy, Ma. And don’t be shy about crying if need be. That’s supposed to soften men up something fierce.”
“Where’d you hear that?” Belle asked.
Sarah took Betsy, and the three girls headed for the barn.
Over her shoulder, Emma called, “We won’t come in until you come for us, Ma. If you have to be pathetic, then do it, but we don’t want to watch. We need to explore the barn anyway. We may set up a camp and spend the night. Even without a fire, this barn’ll be warmer than our old cabin. So take whatever time you need to convince Silas to let us live here.” Her two smug daughters headed for the barn, giggling.
Mary Connealy Page 56
