“Careful with the baby, Tate.” Lorna looked up, hearing Gabe and not surprised to see Tate did have the kitten clutched to his chest. “Give her to me while we go down the steps, and then you can hold her once we’re downstairs.”
“Brother’s got kitty,” Tate said as he shot down the stairs in front of Gabe. The couple’s sons had clashed with Gabe’s arrival, but Tate worshiped his soon-to-be older brother now.
Gabe handed the kitten to Lorna and she stooped down so Tate could get close to the kitten but not hold and squeeze it.
The kitten looked sleepy and confused at first, but then relished the attention, not minding the toddler’s clumsy attempts at petting her. Even Amelia held her hand out, wanting to touch the fur.
“I assume you have several barn cats at the Bar E, don’t you Tate?” Lorna asked since Tate seemed enthralled with her kitten.
“Yeah, but they all run away from me...” Tate answered. The adults all laughed, knowing why the animals would avoid the boy at age two.
“Well, you’re welcome to visit Missy any time you’re in town visiting your family then.”
“Can we, Momma?” Tate whirled around to ask his mother.
“I’m sure we can, if it is all right with Mrs. Jantz. Now it’s time for the kitten to take it’s nap, so tell it good-bye.”
“Bye, bye kitty.” Tate patted the kitten’s little body, and then leaned up to kiss the top of her head.
Such a sweet boy, but she had heard stories of him streaking—without a stitch of clothing on—around town when he first arrived, and several typical tantrums and tricks. Lorna hadn’t let herself look forward to life with her child, because it meant raising the baby by herself. But spending time with Darcie’s children make her think of life with a baby, a toddler, a teenager.
Soon I’ll be a part of a family, even if it is just me and my child. Making ends meet would be hard, but the love of a tiny being would make all the difference in righting her world.
Darcie turned back to Lorna after the rest of her family walked back down the alley. “I see Lyle is courting Miss Ramsey, so you won’t have his company or assistance anymore. I’ve been on my own, taking care of my children, I know what it’s like to be alone. Please feel free to ask me for help, or just to talk, because I know what it’s like.” Darcie gently squeezed Lorna’s forearm before turning around to follow her family.
***
Maeve was a good cook, and Lyle made himself enjoy her company, because it was the polite thing to do. There was no reason to be rude to the woman who went to the work of preparing a meal, even though she sprang the impromptu date on him unexpectedly.
If only there was a spark of...something...between them when their hands briefly brushed each other.
No feelings for Maeve, a prospective mate, yet he was excited to spend the evening with a married woman and her cat. His friends in Boston would be aghast at his change in behavior.
Lyle knocked on her door since she hadn’t come over to his place. He’d fixed a simple meal of meat and cheese sandwiches, and fresh pears, now available at the mercantile. It was sitting on his dining room table, ready for them to eat.
“Yes? Who is it?” Lorna called out, confusing Lyle, because it was time for them to be together for their evening meal.
He turned the doorknob and let himself in as he often did. “I was checking on you since you weren’t over for supper yet.”
Lorna had a half-eaten sandwich on a plate on the tiny side table in her room. The lack of a regular table is the reason they’d been eating evening meals at his place.
“I have supper already on the dining room table for us.” Maybe she was needing to eat and made a snack for herself before their meal together?
“Thank you, but I’m almost done eating, so I won’t be over.”
She looked at her sandwich instead of looking up at him. “I...didn’t think we’d be eating together anymore since you’re courting your future wife.”
“Lorna...we’re friends and we can still visit and have meals together.”
“If I was Maeve, I’d have a strong opinion about my fiancé seeing another woman.” Lorna sounded sad and envious at the same time, if that was possible.
He could see both woman’s point of view, but didn’t like it.
So, her eating by herself was about him seeing Maeve? Someone must have said something to Lorna about it? Well, by the way it looked to Lorna and the rest of town, they’d soon be setting a wedding date, so of course Lorna didn’t want to look like the “other woman”.
“You had no problems being together before church this morning. Why now? Just because I ate lunch with a friend?”
“Everyone in town has paired you and Maeve together for life now, seeing the two of you with that picnic basket.”
I can’t lose her... “I want to be with you, Lorna, even—if it is just to share a sandwich.”
She finally looked up to him. Her eyes were red, trying to hold back the rest of the tears he’d suspected had already started falling before his arrival.
“Lyle, you’re a wonderful man, but I can’t keep relying on you for everything. I need to take care of myself.”
Lyle’s temper rose because she was cutting off their friendship without talking about it.
“I suppose I can’t see Missy anymore, either?” Lyle threw out, frustrated with Lorna’s sudden cold shoulder.
“I think she’s healthy and adjusting to my place now, so she doesn’t need round-the-clock care anymore.”
Lyle sighed, feeling defeated and resigned, knowing he should accept his fate.
But he still wanted to be her platonic friend since they couldn’t marry, just like he was to Millie Wilerson, Edna Clancy and every other woman he knew in his circle of growing friends.
“Can we still talk when we see each other at the café, the church…from each other’s staircases?” Lyle’s voice cracked, thinking of keeping his polite distance from the woman he’d fallen in love with.
Lorna leaned over in her chair and picked up the kitten since it had been trying to crawl up her skirt, looking for attention, or smelling the uneaten sandwich.
She finally looked up, and nodded. “Of course. We’re neighbors.” Neighbors, not dear friends…
Chapter 7
August turned into a busy September for Lyle. After helping Reuben and Darcie adopt each other’s children to form their own family, business started trickling in for Lyle. A Will for Homer Johnson, a land dispute case which he won for another client...
People seemed to accept his change of behavior and seek his counsel. He still ate at least two meals a day at the café, oftentimes stepping up to help pass out plates or pour coffee if the waitresses got behind. Lorna’s bouts with morning sickness were less frequent, but customers were now sympathetic when it happened.
Now that everyone knew about Lorna’s missing husband, and Lyle trying to help her out, either through legal or personal ways, people seemed to accept her situation.
If it wasn’t for the fact that the man had showed the Bar E Ranch as his own, they’d have thought he’d died somewhere and there wasn’t anything on his body to let someone know to get word to Lorna of his death. The man had disappeared without a trace of evidence except for Lorna’s growing middle and their marriage license. Lyle had even traveled out to Hays and visited area ranches to see if they had sold any horses to Jantz in the past. Marshal Wilerson hadn’t found any leads either on her missing husband.
Lyle contacted the mail-order bride agency and hadn’t heard back from them yet. Depending on whether they could give him any leads, Lyle’s next step was to petition the court to dissolve Lorna’s marriage sooner than the statutory year, due to the circumstances.
In the meantime, he and Lorna kept each other’s company in ways which were deemed appropriate. After two days of not talking to him, Lorna, and Missy showed up on his doorstep one evening with cookies she’d baked at the café.
They sat together with Cora a
nd Dagmar in church, and Lyle hadn’t taken Miss Ramsey or anyone else out for Sunday drives. There honestly wasn’t another woman in town he was remotely interested in anyway.
Lorna was included in gatherings of the Hamner and Wilerson families just as he was, so they traveled together to the Cross C or Bar E ranches, often with Adam and Millie, or the Donovans, who also lived in Clear Creek.
In fact, this evening they were enjoying the evening breeze and the entertainment of...had to be around a dozen children, plus dogs and a few cats, as the adults sat in chairs or steps of the large wrap-around porch of the Cross C Ranch. Except for Gabe and his sister, Mary, all the kids had to be under age six or seven, and gosh, could they make a lot of noise. Good thing they were outside so the sound could drift away instead of being inside where the screams would bounce off the walls.
Everyone had brought food to contribute to the meal, set out like a pot luck buffet. Lorna had learned how to bake from her grandmother’s cook so she used Lyle’s stove to make a burnt sugar cake. It made his home smell “homey” and he wished Lorna would spend more time in his kitchen.
“Here,” Cate Connely handed Lorna one of the triplets, “you need practice for your baby, and I need a break.”
Lyle watched Cate place the baby—he didn’t know which one—in Lorna’s outstretched arms as her face took on a happy glow. It matched Rania’s, who sat next to Lorna with one of the other babies. Rania would be welcoming an infant into her life about the same time as Lorna.
The only problem with the scene was Jacob, Rania’s husband, stood behind her chair rubbing his wife’s shoulders and enjoying the antics of the baby’s animated face with his wife.
Lyle felt a stab of pain wishing he could be sharing moments like that with Lorna.
“Your turn to hold a baby, too, Lyle.” He was startled when Cate slid the third baby against his shoulder and let go, causing him to grip the baby with both hands to be sure he stayed in place.
“You’ll be helping take care of Lorna’s baby, so you’d better get in some practice now.”
“No, I...”
“Yes, you will. If you can’t be Poppa, you’ll be Uncle Lyle, just like the other men in our extended family,” Cate stated, so it was a fact. She and Isaac were Grandma and Grandpa to every child here, even if they weren’t related by blood to any of them. Rania’s child would be Cate’s first real grandchild, but she never played favorites when it came to the younger generation.
Lyle inhaled the sweet scent of the two-month old baby, and ran his finger against the dark downy hair on top of his head. “Hello...Matthew, Mark or Micah, whichever one you are.”
He looked up to see Lorna watching him.
“You have Mark,” she smiled as she gently rocked...whichever other one she had. The women could tell the babies apart, but he was clueless.
“Bring him over here so we can show you who is who.” Lorna motioned and he carefully stood up to join her and Rania.
“Now bring him down close to Matthew, which I have, and Rania has Micah.” Lyle carefully supported Mark’s head and body and held him next to the two babies.
“See the difference in their three sizes and hair coloring?”
“Uh, no...”
All the women around him laughed. So...he didn’t see the triplets often enough to see the difference yet, but that’s okay. He’d enjoy whichever one he was holding.
“Give me a few months for them to develop unique personalities and I’ll be able to tell them apart,” Lyle joked back.
“That’s the best way to tell them apart now,” Sarah, their mother, said as she walked over holding her sleeping two-year-old Maisie in her arms.
How the woman managed to go from a single woman to married with eight children in a week’s time made her a saint in Lyle’s book. ’Course his sister could do the same thing. He wondered how many children Lorna wanted if she should remarry and expand her family.
“How many children would you like to have, Lyle? You know I want a dozen,” Cora winked at him. Had his sister been reading his mind?
“I think under six kids is more my speed, but I’ll take whatever the Lord and my future wife will give me,” he answered. A quick glance at Lorna caught her looking at him, too.
Lyle wanted to be Lorna’s husband and baby’s daddy so much. He had to be patient though. Surely Jantz—or his body—would surface within the next two months.
***
Watching Lyle hold a baby caused Lorna’s heart to twist. He was a naturally nurturing man, all smiles and attention to the infant. How Lorna wished the mess with Maynard would resolve so she could tell Lyle she loved him.
It wasn’t just the fact she’d have lifetime security with his money, and be able to visit—or possibly move back to—Boston with Lyle. He’d love her child as his own and strive to make their marriage work.
Cate sat down beside Lorna, probably glad to sit for a moment without a little one crawling up on her lap or reaching for her. “Lyle doesn’t seem worried about carrying Mark around,” Cate mentioned to Lorna as they watched him carry the baby over to the men talking on the other side of the porch. “What a contrast to the young man who wasted time here some months ago.”
“I’ve heard of some rather dubious uh...circumstances he was involved in. Or are people creating stories because the Elison family has money? Was he as bad as everyone seems to let on?”
Cate laughed. “Bad? I’d say more mischievous. Locking chickens in the women’s outhouse behind the church? You can imagine the screams and squawks that were heard when Mrs. Taylor slipped out during service to use the necessary.”
“Sounds like a young boy’s prank. How did people know he did that?”
“One of Lyle’s not-as-drunk-that-night friends snitched on him eventually.
“And then there was the time he rode through town without a stitch of clothing on,” Cate chuckled.
“What? Lyle?!” Lorna couldn’t believe he would do that and then come back to live here.
“Someone at the saloon bet no one would ride buck naked through town. Three drunks, one being Lyle, said they’d do it, so it became a race to win the money pot. It was about two o’clock in the morning so at least not too many people saw it.”
Lorna wished she was in town, with a front window showing Main Street, to see that spectacle.
“Did Lyle win?” she had to ask, hoping it had been worth the trouble.
“No, the riders started at the saloon and raced around the block, but Lyle slid out of the saddle and fell off before he arrived back at the saloon.”
“Oh no!” Lorna giggled, thinking of Lyle sprawled out on the ground. “I shouldn’t laugh since he could have gotten hurt but...”
“The fall didn’t hurt him, but I’m not sure what happened after his brother, Carl, got a hold of him.”
“No wonder Lyle says he no longer drinks beer or whiskey.”
“Yes, that was a bad habit with consequences to his reputation. Fortunately, he’s turned his life around and seems determined to help others in the community.”
“He’s a good neighbor, too.”
Cate cleared her throat. “Any news on your husband’s whereabouts?”
She was probably asking since Lorna was relying on Lyle more than she should.
“No word about him. So I’m saving money and thinking ahead to life without a husband...until I can marry again.” She told herself she must be open to another marriage because it would be best for her baby. “Lyle says he can dissolve my marriage after a year’s time if we have no proof of my husband’s death before then.”
“Meantime, you’ve fallen in love with Lyle,” Cate quietly observed.
Oh, how she wished Cate’s observation was wrong, but she couldn’t deny it. She had fallen in love with the man next door.
Cate leaned over to give her a one-arm hug. “If you ever...no, when you need to talk, please don’t hesitate a moment to talk to me...or Kaitlyn Reagan, or Flora Donovan. We’ve all bee
n through situations in life that...have given us qualifications to pass on wisdom and help others.”
“Thank you, Cate. I appreciate it.” Lorna moved Mark up to her shoulder and slowly rubbed his back when he started to whimper. The baby relaxed with a sigh and went back to sleep.
“But no matter my feelings, Lyle’s committed to wed by his birthday. Maybe the old Lyle wouldn’t have bothered fulfilling his obligation to his grandfather, but the new Lyle plans to do so.”
Chapter 8
“Who’s that sitting with Homer and Clara Johnston?” Lyle whispered to Cora, who turned her head so she could see who was sitting three pews back from them. Lorna leaned back to look, too, and saw a young woman sitting between the older couple.
“I was introduced to her before church. It’s Ruby Johnston, their granddaughter.” Cora whispered back. “She’s here to help her grandparents for a while.”
“Married?”
“Single.”
Cora arched her eyebrow up while looking at her brother. Was she asking Lyle if he was interested in her?
“Maybe,” Lyle answered Cora, but glanced at Lorna for a second before saying it.
Lorna tried to inconspicuously look at the woman again. She looked pretty, poised...and a perfect match for Lyle.
“Where’s she from?”
“Kansas City.”
Lyle leaned back to study the woman again. Lorna’s stomach clenched at the thought he was interested in Ruby, but that was his prerogative. He needed a wife and time was running out.
Lorna rubbed her belly, trying to sooth herself and her baby who was kicking in protest of her anxiety.
“You okay?” Lyle leaned sideways toward her when he saw what she was doing.
All she could do was close her eyes and nod so he wouldn’t worry. He needed to be married next month and Lyle looked halfway interested in Johnston’s granddaughter. She needed to ease out of Lyle’s life so he’d get on with his own.
Should she leave Clear Creek? She didn’t know if she could stand seeing Lyle with his wife. They were bound to run into each other at the café, mercantile, church...
Lorna Loves a Lawyer: A Historical Western Romance (Brides with Grit Book 9) Page 8
