“If it’s all the same to you, brother, I would like to get settled in before you go marrying me off.”
“I only want to see you happy,” he said.
“Then show me around our new home.”
With a smile, Mark led her to the wagon and secured her belongings. After that, they walked up one side of the main avenue and then back down the other. Mark indulged her by letting her stop in some of the shops to look around, even purchasing a couple of small things for her.
Isabelle was charmed by the town. It was every bit as vibrant and alive as she hoped it would be. The people she’d met were refined and cultured. There were no men lying in the road in a pool of their own sick. Everybody she had met so far was articulate and seemed to be educated. Stephill seemed to be the exact opposite of Grimepass in every way.
They stood in a dress shop and Isabelle ran her fingers over the fine, soft fabrics, admiring the cut and design of the garments. Crafted in a fashion similar to that of those she’d seen some Chinese women wearing before, the dress was red with a high collar, long sleeves, and black trimming. She had never seen anything so fine in Grimepass − everything was plain and drab. The clothing, she’d always thought, reflected the lifelessness of the town itself.
To be free of that place, to have finally cast off the shackles of her hometown filled her with a sense of freedom that was as delicious as it was overwhelming.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
Isabelle gave her brother a smile. “I was just realizing how hopeless I felt in Grimepass. How trapped and bleak my outlook on life was.”
“And what is it you feel here?”
“Boundless optimism,” she replied, unable to keep the smile off her face. “And an indefatigable sense of hope.”
“It does my heart good to hear that. I had hoped you would feel that way,” he said gently. “Now, let’s get home.”
She followed him out of the dress shop and turned the corner. When they did, Mark pulled up short so suddenly, Isabelle nearly ran into him. She noticed that he was tense and when she stepped out from behind him, Isabelle saw a young woman − maybe around her age − with mousy brown hair and eyes the color of chocolate. She had fair skin and cheeks spotted with a soft red glow.
She and Mark were standing about a foot apart, their eyes locked onto one another and Isabelle could practically feel the heat coming off them both. She cleared her throat and Mark gave himself a small shake, seeming to come back to himself.
He looked at Isabelle and gave her a crooked smile. There was something strange in his eyes that she couldn’t define at first. But then it dawned on Isabelle and she had a hard time keeping the smile off her face − her brother was in love.
“Isabelle,” Mark began, his voice thick and slow. “This is Ruby Alford.”
The brunette looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. She saw the same depth of emotion for Mark in her eyes as she saw in Mark’s for her and she felt like she had been kicked in the stomach. She was stunned that her brother had kept something so fundamental from her. They told each other everything, so his failure to mention this woman felt like a betrayal. She stared at Ruby in silent disbelief for a long moment. It was Ruby who broke the awkward quiet that enveloped them.
“Hello,” Ruby said, her voice high and soft. “It’s wonderful to finally meet you. Mark has told me all about you.”
“It’s lovely to meet you as well,” Isabelle said, giving her a soft smile.
She cut a look at her brother, her expression telling him that he had a lot of explaining to do. Mark simply looked away, a sheepish expression on his own face.
“H - how are you?” Mark asked Ruby quietly.
“I’m well, thank you,” she replied equally as quietly. “How are you?”
Isabelle turned away, suddenly feeling like she should be giving them some privacy. They spoke in hushed whispers, reinforcing the idea that there was some sort of romantic entanglement between the two of them. It bothered Isabelle that her brother didn’t see fit to tell her − that he felt the need to keep this secret from her.
“Isabelle, we have to go.”
The curt tone in his voice snapped Isabelle back to the here and now. She looked at her brother and saw the tension in his face − an expression she saw mirrored in Ruby’s. She followed his gaze and saw three men walking their way.
But it was the man in the middle who drew her attention. He was an older man with iron gray hair, skin the color of old leather, with dark eyes and deep lines etched into his face. He was slight of build and not a physically imposing man.
But there was something about him that left Isabelle unsettled. He exuded some sort of menace the way a breeze carried the scent of a field of wildflowers. There wasn’t one specific thing Isabelle could point to that was disturbing about him − there were many. His eyes were hard, his face stony, and there was a small smile that lacked any sort of warmth upon his lips.
To Isabelle, he looked like a man who was well acquainted with violence − and in fact, seemed like the sort of man who would revel in it. When the older man’s eyes fell on her, she felt a cold chill creep across her body and she physically shuddered.
“Mark, who is that?” Isabelle asked quietly.
He took one last look at Ruby and Isabelle saw the longing in his eyes. But she also saw a stark sadness there too and it broke her heart to see.
“You need to go,” Ruby whispered, her voice tinged with fear.
The frustration wafting off her brother was thick but he ultimately took Isabelle by the elbow and led her away from Ruby without a backward glance.
“You have a lot of explaining to do,” she whispered harshly.
Chapter Nine
The sky was colored in soft hues of purple and pink as the sun began to crest the horizon in the east. Harvey had only just poured his first cup of coffee for the day when Charley’s voice echoed through the house. He shrieked like a banshee and it set Harvey’s every nerve on edge.
With a sigh, he put his mug down and wandered back to his son’s room. Harvey checked him out and saw that his diaper was clean. Charley apparently just decided that it was time for all of them to wake up.
Harvey picked up his son and held him to his shoulder, gently bouncing him the way he’d seen Chenoa do it. But when Charley kept screeching, Harvey sighed, bemoaning the fact that he didn’t have Chenoa’s touch when it came to calming his son down.
“Now, now, little man,” he says. “Let’s settle down now. No need to be screaming like this.”
If he cared about having a reason to be screaming or not, Charley didn’t show it. Harvey winced at the piercing shriek of his child. From the corner of his eye, he saw Chenoa step into the room. Even at this early hour, she looked refreshed and ready to take on the world. It was just one more ability Chenoa possessed that Harvey could only wish he did.
“Here, let me,” Chenoa said as she took the child from his arms.
Harvey watched as she gently bounced Charley up and down − and couldn’t see the difference between how she was doing it and how he did it. But as if she had worked some sort of sorcery on him, Charley calmed down and was burbling happily to her in no time. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, feeling as inadequate as he always did when he failed to soothe his child the way Chenoa did.
She gave him a smile as she handed him back. “Sometimes it just takes a woman’s touch.”
“Obviously,” Harvey grunted.
He held his son against his shoulder the way she had and Charley continued burbling happily. That Charley didn’t immediately start wailing the second he touched him made Harvey feel somewhat better.
“He feels how uncomfortable you are around him, Harvey,” Chenoa said. “He senses it and it makes him anxious.”
Harvey chewed on his bottom lip, thinking about what she said. The truth was, he did feel uncomfortable around Charley. He tried not to. Wished he didn’t. But his son was so small, so delicate and fragile,
that Harvey was sometimes afraid he was going to break him just by picking him up.
That was just one aspect of it all though. The other was more personal. It hit him on a deeper level. Harvey wasn’t a man well accustomed to dealing in emotion. He pushed it aside in favor of logic and reason whenever possible. And when it wasn’t possible, he did his level best to ignore or downplay whatever feelings arose inside of him. But there were simple truths he couldn’t deny − not even to himself. He feared that he would never be enough for his son. That he would never be able to make up for the mother who died bringing him into the world. Harvey feared that on a deep, primal level.
“You are too hard on yourself,” Chenoa said, as if reading his mind.
“I’m not so sure about that.”
She gave him a gentle smile. Chenoa was one of the most perceptive people he’d ever met. She seemed able to read him like a book without even trying. It was one of the best − and most annoying − things about her. It meant that she was always in his head, even when he wanted to remain alone up there. But, he couldn’t deny that she never failed to provide sage counsel − not that he always heeded it. But her wisdom was always sound and he appreciated that about her.
“You will never be able to replace what was lost,” Chenoa said. “No matter how much you beat yourself up about it, you will never be able to be his father − and his mother.”
Harvey chuckled. “That’s why I had to hire a wet nurse.”
Chenoa frowned at his attempt to deflect − which was more or less a standard practice when venturing into conversations Harvey was not comfortable with − which was any conversation having to do with anything that even remotely touched on his dead wife. He sighed.
Amy had been everything to him. She had been his whole world and after she died, he felt lost. Adrift. He felt like a hole had been torn open in him − a hole he was sure couldn’t be filled. He’d loved Amy with everything in him − he still did. And because of that love he still carried for her, Harvey couldn’t see himself with another woman.
He knew a lot of people were able to carry on with their lives after losing a loved one. He knew some who’d been able to remarry and he was always genuinely happy for them. He just didn’t think he could be like them. He didn’t think the shattered pieces of his heart would ever mend enough to let him find love again.
“I don’t know how to give him what he needs,” he admitted. “I don’t know how to fill the hole Amy left behind.”
“You can’t. And you don’t need to try,” she said. “Trust yourself, Harvey. Trust that you are enough.”
“I don’t know that I am.”
She gave him a soft smile. “If there is one thing I know, it is that you will do everything in your power to give this boy a good life,” she said. “You will move heaven and earth to make him happy.”
That was another of those simple truths Harvey couldn’t deny. He would do anything and everything he could to care for his son. Chenoa stepped forward and put her hand on his forearm, giving it a gentle squeeze.
“Stop trying to be what you’re not. Stop worrying about what you’re not or what you fear you lack,” she said. “And focus on being who you are. Focus on building a life for you and Charley. That is all that matters.”
A rueful smile touched Harvey’s lips. As usual, Chenoa provided some sound, simple advice. It made sense in his head and appealed to his logical mind. But he knew it would be difficult to slough off the insecurities and fears that wormed their way inside of him.
“Be a good father, Harvey,” Chenoa pressed. “Be all that your son needs in his life.”
He gave her a grateful smile. “Thank you, Chenoa. As always, your counsel is wise.”
“It always is,” she grinned and walked out of the room.
Charley was still calm and gurgling happily, his mood seemingly improved a hundredfold over when he first woke up. Harvey decided to take his son for a little air.
Walking back through the house with Charley still on his shoulder, Harvey made his way outside. The air was crisp but it wasn’t too bad. He figured the swaddling blanket Chenoa had wrapped him in would be sufficient to ward off the chill.
He walked down the path and took a right, opting to walk him through the fields. Although he had ranch hands who helped keep the place running, he liked to remain hands on with his business and had been meaning to inspect the crops in the eastern fields for a while. So taking a walk with Charley seemed to be an efficient way to accomplish two tasks at once.
He inhaled deeply and savored the rich, musky smell of the earth around him. A gentle breeze swept through, carrying with it the strong aroma of Mark’s apple orchards. It was a scent Harvey loved and he would often take walks in the fields in the evenings specifically to breathe them in. It reminded him once again to be glad he’d thought to move the grazing fields for his livestock to his far southern fields.
He carried Charley through the fields, feeling for the first time like he was building a connection with his son. Charley wasn’t crying. He wasn’t fussing. He clung to Harvey and made gurgling noises in his ear. He hadn’t yet uttered an actual word but there were times Charley made a noise that almost sounded like a real world. Whenever that happened, Harvey often found himself holding his breath, waiting to hear his son’s first word.
There were many times over the first couple of months of his life that Harvey feared his son might not make it. He was small − smaller than most babies his age. Even Thomas Masters − the man who’d been Stephill’s doctor for the last hundred years or so − was concerned about Charley’s overall health. He wasn’t taking to the wet nurse and seemed to be withering away a little more every day.
It was during that ordeal that Harvey learned just how much he loved his son. He had kept himself at an arm’s distance right after Charley had been born. Caught between his grief for Amy and his fear of raising a child without her, Harvey didn’t know what to do. All he knew was that this sweet, innocent little boy was a piece of Amy and he would be lost without him.
It was then that he met Chenoa and once she came into their lives, things began to turn around. With Chenoa caring for him, he eventually took to the wet nurse. He began to feed. And slowly, he started to grow bigger and stronger. He was still smaller than other babies his age but he seemed to be doing a lot better and was getting healthier.
As he walked with Charley, Harvey looked out over his fields. He had started with nothing but a small plot of land and a lot of ambition. Now, he was Stephill’s largest supplier of grains and meat and his plot of land seemed to stretch to the horizon.
“All of this is gonna be yours one day, kid,” he whispered to Charley. “This will be your empire to build and run.”
Charley made a noise that almost sounded like a word and Harvey held his breath. But when his son burbled and giggled in his arms, Harvey let that breath out. It was going to happen. His son was going to say a word. Soon. He felt it.
“Just be sure you are a good man,” he told the child. “Above all else, be a good man.”
They continued their walk along the fence line that separated his property from Mark’s. They’d put the fence up about six months ago when they realized some of Harvey’s cattle and goats were wandering into Mark’s fields and eating up some of the crops. Harvey had felt bad about it and wanted to pay him for the trouble but Mark just laughed it off, saying it was no big deal. That’s just the kind of man Mark was and Harvey appreciated him for it.
As they walked, with him quietly talking to his son, telling him all about his mom, something caught Harvey’s eye. He picked up his pace a bit and tried to keep from getting too excited about it − he didn’t want Charley to feel his upset like Chenoa said he could.
“What in the world is that?”
Harvey stood before the hole in the fence, staring at it with a cold chasm beginning to open up in his belly. The hole wasn’t ragged. It wasn’t the sort of hole an animal would make tearing its way through. No, the
edges around the hole had been neatly cut and the two sides of the wire fencing pulled inward to allow somebody to pass.
This was intentional.
He looked around, the feeling of having eyes on him prickling the back of his neck and his stomach churning. He turned and made his way back to the house, keeping an eye on his surroundings to make sure nobody got the bulge on him.
He hoped he was wrong and that he was overreacting to the situation. A cut fence could mean a lot of things. But he thought it was better to overreact and be wrong than to be right in this case.
Chapter Ten
A Healing Love for the Broken Cowboy: A Historical Western Romance Book Page 5
