“You’re absolutely right about that.” She shifted the baby off her shoulder to cradle him again. Almost immediately, the baby’s mouth began searching anxiously as if he hadn’t eaten all day. “Goodness, I should take him inside.”
He held out his hand to assist her, but she appeared to be steadier on her feet than before. “It’s good to see you again, Molly.” He had turned to walk away when she spoke to him before going into the house.
“By the way, Mr. Forester, we’re not finished here. We will take up this conversation at another time.”
Brady tipped the brim of his hat and grinned. “Yes, ma’am. I look forward to it.”
He laughed when he heard her mutter under her breath and the screen door slap shut behind her. Yes, it appeared he could still ruffle her feathers.
A short time later, he spotted Yancey under a tree speaking with no one other than Lloyd Butters. The man sat in his chair like he was holding court.
“Brady, Lloyd, you two remember each other, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” Brady reached over to shake hands. “It’s been a while, Mr. Butters.”
“Sure has, boy, are you still rangering?”
“Yes, sir.”
Butters sat taller in his chair switching from friendly to commanding in a heartbeat. “Sheriff did you bring in the Rangers for anything special? Is there something going on around here that I don’t know about?”
“Nope.” Yancey rested his hands on his hips and rocked back on his heels.
Brady had seen Yancey do this in years past. He was either wanting to diffuse a possible situation or giving in to an old wound. One could never tell about Yancey. His facial expressions never gave his mood away.
“Mr. Butters, I’m not here in any official capacity,” Brady said. “I took some time to come home and work on my parent’s place.” He didn’t see the need to mention anything about recovering from his injury. Too much information could be a bad thing.
“That’s a job I don’t envy.” Butters lit a cigar, took a couple puffs and said, “Let me know if you need any help. I can send over a few boys that are quite handy.”
“I appreciate it, but I’d like to see what I can do before I yell for help.”
“Hey, Yancey!” someone shouted from the area where the where the barn walls were being hammered together. “We need more muscle. Bring the Ranger and come on over!”
Bring the Ranger. A blessing and a curse. Small town gossip never failed to disappoint, and Sugar Springs was no different. He’d hoped to keep a low profile for a while, but wish in one hand and spit in the other . . .
They reached the barn site and right away, Brady agreed there weren’t enough men to raise the wall. How the first two managed to be upright and still standing boggled his mind. He doubted adding only two men would make a difference, but he and Yancey would give it a try. Men stood on the outside of the wall, which was merely two by four studs nailed to a base plate and a top plate. They were ready to lift the wood frame while men on the inside pulled ropes tied to the top plate. Together, they would raise the frame to a standing position and hold in place until the side could be nailed to the back section.
Brady joined the four men standing inside the structure each holding a rope. He grabbed a fifth rope, tied it in the middle of the top plate, and joined the others with ropes in hand. Yancey waited next to Ham on the outside waiting for his order to lift.
Ham walked the length of the structure checking the knots on the ropes and that everyone was prepared. Apparently satisfied all was the best they could hope for, he took his place.
With a deep breath, Brady tightened his grip on his rope and waited for the command to start.
Ham shouted so all could hear, “Ready . . . set . . . Go!”
In a lot less time than Brady figured it would take, the frame for the east side stood tall and straight. He and the others kept tension on the ropes until the nails were in place to secure it and then, they repeated the actions for the front of the barn. The floor joists and rafters took a little longer, but finally they were in place, completing the roof and flooring for hay storage.
He looked toward the sunset in the west, the sky alive with various shades of blues, purples, pinks, orange, and gold. The sight reaffirmed his belief, Texas is Heaven on earth.
Brady said goodnight to the others and agreed to meet here tomorrow after church. He reached the Appaloosa and found Molly talking softly to her.
“Her name’s Emma.” He matched Molly’s quiet tone so as not to startle her.
“I like that. She’s sweet.”
“Not always.” He chuckled. “She has a mean side when she chooses.”
“Not this baby.” Molly kissed Emma’s nose and patted her neck. “You know there’s all sorts of speculation as to why you’re here.”
“So I heard.”
“Is it true?” She twirled Emma’s mane through her fingers.
“Is what true?”
“Don’t tease me, Brady. You know what I’m asking. Are you really here for a while?”
“Yeah, I’ll be here for a while. I plan to fix up the place like it use to be. If that’s all right with you?”
“Of course, it is. Although you don’t need my permission.” She finally smiled. “It’ll be good to see someone living in the house again. Perhaps I could help you fix it up.”
“I’d like that. I haven’t seen it yet, but I’m sure the house could use a woman’s touch.” His elation at having Molly near again suddenly spiraled downward. So far today he had avoided asking her, now he needed to know. “Will your husband mind you being at my place?”
“Husband? Why in the world would you think I’m . . . oh . . .” She covered her mouth with her hand and began to giggle.
He might have enjoyed the sound if he wasn’t the butt of some joke only she was privy to. The longer she laughed, the quicker his temper rose. Finally, he had had enough.
“Molly, would you care to share what’s so funny?”
“I ought to make you stew a little longer as punishment for not writing to me for three years.” After one more giggle, she said, “I’m not married.”
“But the baby.”
“Davey? I was watching him for Sally so she could take her turn helping serve.”
“So, you aren’t married, and the baby isn’t yours,” he repeated, sounding a bit dense even to his own ears. He wanted to be sure he’d heard her correctly through her fits of laughter.
“No, Brady, I’m well on my way to being a spinster, at least my Aunt Clara says so.”
“Well, I wouldn’t put much stock into anything she says. She goes through husbands like water.”
“Are you still interested in saving damsels in distress?”
He remembered the games they played as children where he was the sheriff and she was the school marm. He always rescued her from the bad guys.
“Not these days. It’s just me and Emma for the foreseeable future.” The last three years had been hard. He’d seen things and done things that he had to sort out and he surely didn’t need a wife thrown into the mix. “Will you be here tomorrow?”
“I don’t know. It depends.”
“On what?”
She turned when her father called to her. “Molly! Get over here and take me home!”
Brady reached for her hand, as she started to walk away. “Molly?”
“I’m going to be busy tomorrow.” She pulled from his grasp, ran her hand down Emma’s muzzle, and headed for the wagon where her father waited.
He waved but she never looked back. Something he had said had dimmed the light in her eyes and he hated he’d been the cause. There were times words simply fell out of his mouth without thought as to how they might sound to others. One more thing for him to work on. Molly Butters was a friend and one could never have too many of those.
***
“Goodnight Papa, sleep well.”
Molly closed the door to her father’s room. She very seldom wait
ed to hear his response. Most of the time he only grumbled some sort of displeasure with her or the ranch and she didn’t need that tonight. She’d been giddy with excitement at seeing Brady Forester today. The butterflies had been flying fast and loose in her stomach. The two of them had always been close, and she longed to have that friendship back. Sally was her best friend, the one she shared all her secrets with, but with a husband and new baby to take care of, their time together was limited.
She stretched out across her bed, suddenly tired to the bone. She laid on her back, closed her eyes, and Brady’s image smiled at her from the backs of her lids. He’d always been too handsome for his own good. A wink and a smile were all it took for women everywhere to be at his beck and call. Fortunately, she’d never fallen under his spell. Until today.
If she was honest with herself, though, she had always been a little bit in love with him, like a big brother kind of love. Just who are you trying to kid, Molly Butters? You’ve been in love with Brady since you were four years old. It’s time you admitted it to yourself. The more she thought about it, the more she realized he had no way of knowing how she felt. They had never talked about their feelings for each other.
Why not go tomorrow? Go help serve the lunch after church and maybe there would be time for them to talk. She would have to be careful not to come on too strong. Heaven forbid she look desperate and make him rethink his plan to make his home here again.
Her mood perked up when she mapped out her plan. As she drifted off to sleep, she dreamed about which dress she would wear and how she would style her hair.
***
Brady traveled the main road to his family’s homestead, then turned right at the ‘Y’. The old trail was overgrown with weeds and briar bushes, and the trees’ limbs swept the ground, yet it was as familiar as if he had traveled it yesterday.
He neared the house and was glad his mother, Berta Mae, wasn’t there to see how badly it had deteriorated. The full moon showed how the once pristine white of the outer walls had greyed, the shutters and window boxes were hanging at odd angles, and the bushes almost completely covered the front porch. Johnson grass grew in the flower beds she had so lovingly tended. Morning’s light would give him a better idea of what needed to be done.
The interior had to be looked at and assessed but he dreaded what he might find. He rode around to the rear of the house, tied Emma’s lead to a dead rose bush, and stepped onto the back porch. The screen door had a broken hinge at the top causing it to hang at an angle like the shutters. He pulled it open and entered the kitchen past the thick wood door.
He retrieved a match from its holder on the stove and lit the wick in the oil lamp sitting on the table. Surprisingly, the room looked as if his mother had just cleaned and put dishes away after a meal or as she always said, she shut the kitchen down for the night. He ran his hand across the breakfast table leaving finger tracings in the dust on the oiled cloth cover. Dust was something you could always count on in West Texas.
The other rooms in the house were the same. Dust, dust, and more dust. Otherwise the place looked like Berta Mae and H.D. Forester had taken the wagon into town and would return at any time.
Brady retraced his steps through the kitchen and out the door, grabbed the Appaloosa’s lead and walked her to the barn. The structure had faired a little worse than the house, but all-in-all it would do until he could shore it up. He removed Emma’s saddle, set it on a makeshift sawhorse, and then walked her to the sturdiest looking stall. Amazingly, the pump still worked on the well, so he took water to her and gave her some of the feed he had borrowed from Ham Barton. Then, with her bedded her down for the night, he carried the kerosene lamp with him to try and get a little shuteye for himself.
He went into the room he had shared with his older brother James, dropped his saddle bags on his bed, and sat on the edge to pull off his boots. He stood to remove his pants, looked at the two beds, a grin slowly spread across his face. Mischief sparked as he remembered how he and Jimmy would wrestle for the best bed. Back then Jimmy was the larger of them and always got ‘the bed’. Back then, Brady never thought there would come a time when he would get to enjoy ‘the bed’.
He laughed and shouted. “Look out, James Cole Forester. I’m going to sleep good tonight!”
***
Brady opened one eye enough to let in a sliver of light. Surely, it wasn’t morning already? He rolled onto his right side facing the open door and settled into the pillow. Before he drifted off again, he heard a soft meow or something else he couldn’t identify. Were there goats he had missed seeing last night? If so, that might be a good thing. The noise continued, even after he tossed a pillow through the open window and seemed to get louder.
He realized he wasn’t going to get back to sleep and might as well get up. Resigned, he threw his legs over the edge of the bed and stood from laying on his back. The muscles in his left side and lower back seized and he fell to the floor from the sharp pain. His first thought went to his injury. Had he somehow busted open the wound or was it the bullet resting next to his spine? The doc, who patched him up, had told him he had neither the tools nor the talent to fix him permanently. His last words were to find a surgeon as soon as possible. That was six months ago, and he’d been fine.
He reached his hand around to where the pain still throbbed and then, brought it back to see . . . nothing. No blood. Maybe the doc really knew what he was talking about, but he’d wait and give it more time. He pushed off the floor, stood for a few seconds, and when nothing happened, he gingerly made his way to the front of the house following the sound. He opened the door, looked out into the yard beyond the porch but didn’t see any goats or anything else for that matter, except weeds.
Movement to Brady’s right caught his attention. The blanket on top moved with short jerky movements. His curiosity tugged at him to unfold the blanket, but his common sense screamed at him to go back in the house and shut the door. His humanity forced him to pull open the blanket, corner by corner.
The prettiest baby Brady had ever seen stared back at him with big blue eyes and a toothless grin. A little hand latched onto his finger and squeezed. Whatever hard edges might have remained around his heart melted away. He lifted the little one from the basket and smiled.
“What in the world am I supposed to do with you?”
Chapter Three
Brady returned the baby to the basket long enough to get both into the house. In the two minutes it took to go inside, the little one began to cry again.
“Hey, short stuff,” he said, as he picked up the infant again. “What’s the fuss about, huh?”
He sat the baby on his knee while he dug inside the basket. Inside were three cans of milk, a small spoon, some folds of white cloth, he assumed were to be used for diapers, and a bottle with a nipple. Which brought about other questions besides where the baby came from and where were the parents. He could figure out the bottle with its apparatus, but did he give the milk straight out of the can or dilute it with water, and how the heck was he supposed to fold a diaper?
“It sure would’ve been nice if there’d been a sheet of instructions in that basket.” He raised the blanket, shook it, and checked the bottom of the basket but didn’t find a note. “I don’t suppose you’ll be able to help me out any either, huh?” Obviously, he didn’t expect a response but inspiration from somewhere would be appreciated.
The baby, still balanced on Brady’s knee, waved tiny fists, and blew bubbles.
Brady collected the drool with his thumb wiping it on the corner of the blanket.
“That’s a talent I never mastered. You’ll have to teach me sometime.” His answer was a big grin and more bubbles. “I can see we aren’t going to get very far with this conversation, so what’s your name, short stuff? Can I call you, Shorty?”
The infant reached out to be held.
“Does that mean you’re all right with that for now?” He lifted the baby to his shoulder and patted softly.
> Shorty nuzzled into Brady’s neck and, eyes closed, went to sleep. The soft warm, even breathing was mesmerizing. It wouldn’t take much for him to nod off himself.
He stood and walked Shorty to the room where he’d slept last night and laid the baby on ‘the bed’. He nursed the crick in his neck and upper back, from sleeping on that atrocity, so he gladly relinquished the torture device. How the devil Jimmy could sleep on that mattress was anybody’s guess. A life lesson for all he supposed. “The grass isn’t always greener on the other side.”
Shorty hadn’t moved when laid down but continued to sleep peacefully and innocently. Brady watched him for a few minutes and then, walked around outside looking for footprints or wagon tracks. Any clue to who might have left a baby on his porch. He had heard of people giving their children away or, God forbid, selling them to the highest bidder. If Shorty had to be given to someone, he was glad the mother had chosen him. As a person, he was responsible and as a Ranger, he was resourceful. He would figure out a way to make this arrangement work regardless of what it took.
He figured he should take Shorty to see the doctor, get him checked out, and he might as well get supplies while in town. Paper and pencil were in the kitchen drawer where Berta Mae always kept them. He sat at the table to jot down a few things. Without warning, before he wrote anything on his list, he heard a thud and a wail from the area of the house where Shorty slept. If pressed, he’d have to say he didn’t remember his feet touching the floor but once, maybe twice.
Brady peered down at Shorty who stared up wide-eyed and looked as if the storm cloud might burst again. He picked the babe up and laid down on the bed resting on his elbow.
“Now how did you end up on the floor?” Here again, he didn’t expect a response, but he talked to Emma, so why not a baby?
Shorty looked back at him with a determined glint in his eyes and promptly rolled onto his belly.
“So that’s how, you little toot!” Brady laughed and patted the baby’s bottom. “Are you supposed to be doing that already?”
Brady (Bachelors and Babies Book 15) Page 2
