As Mamm might say, Malena hardly knew whether she was coming or going. Luckily, Hester knew the way back to the Circle M Ranch better than anybody—certainly better than she did right now.
Fifteen hundred dollars for the Glacier Lily! Malena had never seen that much money in her life. Mind you, she wouldn’t see what the quilt fetched, either, for all the money was going to the school fund for repairs and maintenance, some desks, new textbooks and workbooks, and a couple of cords of cut and stacked firewood for the woodstove that kept the scholars warm during the bright, frigid days of a Montana winter.
But just the fact that Rose, who was the closest Malena knew to an authority about quilt prices, thought the Glacier Lily would fetch such a sum was a balm to her soul. She didn’t suffer from false modesty—der Herr had given her a gift, and she did her best to glorify Him by creating the beauty He put in her head. And money didn’t give a quilt its value, not really. Value was in the eyes of a woman like Rose as she gazed at a quilt, took it into her soul, and loved it. Wanted to have it in her home, to give her joy. That was where its value lay.
But believing that a man or woman could feel that way about her work? That was the creek Malena had a hard time jumping. She loved her quilts, but as her brother Zach had once told her as he closed his sketchbook on some wonderful drawing, “It never looks as good as it does in my head.”
Maybe that was a gift from God, too. Just to keep a person humble.
Hester’s pace picked up as they passed the three-mile marker that denoted the boundary line of the Bontrager place. One driveway and a couple of gates, and the four-mile marker would tell her she was at the corner of the Circle M’s easternmost paddock, and home.
Just as she rounded the curve, Hester whickered and came to a clattering stop at the sight of a great big pickup nose down in a broad ditch full of Queen Anne’s Lace. A man waved at her as he slid out the passenger side and rammed a gray cowboy hat on his head.
“Glad to see someone at last,” he called as he loped through the flowers and climbed the slope toward them. “Is the highway always this deserted?”
“Neh—I mean, no,” she said. “It’s Tuesday. People have already gone to work if they’re going to, but usually there are lots of tourists.”
He reached the shoulder of the road and extended a hand to pat Hester’s neck.
The horse was used to people, but even so, she sidestepped and tossed her head.
He grinned as he looked up at her, and Malena blinked. How was it possible for anybody to be this good looking? His cheekbones could cut glass, his mouth was mobile and full, and his eyes, my goodness! They took her in with a frank appraisal that warmed into admiration. The breeze touched the back of her neck, exposed where her untameable red hair was pinned up under her white Kapp, and raised goosebumps.
Gracious. To break the spell, she said, “Something happen to your truck?”
Hands on hips, he turned away to survey the shiny truck nose deep in flowers. “Yeah. A deer. At least, I think it was. Could have been an elk. I tried to avoid it and wound up like that. Guess I should have listened to the guy in town.”
“What guy?”
He shrugged one shoulder, which only served to make her notice that his chambray shirt sleeves were rolled up, and those arms looked as though tossing hay bales wouldn’t be a problem for him. “An Amish guy. Young. Straw hat. Told me I was speeding.”
That pretty much described half the men in the Siksika Valley. She shrugged it aside. “Where were you heading?”
“The Rocking Diamond.”
“That’s not far. A couple of miles, on the other side of our place.” She waved a hand toward the grassy acres on the opposite side of the road.
“A couple of miles may not be far to you, but these boots weren’t made for walking.” He waggled one foot to show her some pointy-toed bit of silver-trimmed nonsense no self-respecting cowboy would put on his feet. “I don’t suppose you could give me a ride? I’m going to need some help getting my truck back on the road. I don’t think it’s damaged. But there’s a lot of water down there.”
“It is a ditch.”
“I see that, smarty. What’s your name?”
“Malena.”
“Ma-lay-na.” He said her name as though he were calling her. “Pretty. I’m Cord McLean.”
The name rang a bell, but she didn’t know why. “Well, hop in, Cord McLean. Trey and Chance Madison will get you out of there. Too bad you didn’t spin and go in rear end first. That comealong won’t do much good where it is.”
“Now you tell me,” he grumbled. He climbed into the buggy with the ease of someone who had done it a thousand times. Which was odd, considering his footwear. But she wasn’t about to remark on it.
Instead, she shook the reins over Hester’s back and guided her around the protruding bed of the truck. “Have you hired on at the Rocking Diamond?”
“That’s what the other guy asked, too. I’ll tell you what I told him. In a way. I’m going to be training there.”
“Oh?” The Rocking Diamond was a very expensive dude ranch. “Are you going to learn to ride a horse?”
He laughed as though she had told him a joke. “I want to learn the whole shebang. Riding, roping, cattle, you name it. By the end of the month, I aim to be a cowboy.”
Now it was her turn to laugh. “By the end of the year, maybe. Or ten. I’ve lived here all my life and I’m still learning.”
“You’re a cowpoke?”
Why did it feel like he was taking up three-quarters of the seat? He wasn’t—the Glacier Lily in its bag rested between them—but it felt like it. “No, but my four brothers are. Hester, neh, we’re not going home yet.”
The horse had drifted to the left to make the turn into their lane, and Malena guided her back, much to her confusion. Cord McLean took in the sign hanging from the crossbeam held up by two stout posts. “The Circle M, huh? What’s the M stand for?”
“Our last name. Miller.”
“And you’re Amish. I’ve never met an Amish person in my life, and now I’ve met two within an hour. Plus an Amish horse.”
“You’ll probably meet more,” she told him. “There are more than twenty families in the Siksika Valley. Mostly ranchers, but many provide services. Like the variety store in town. The blacksmith. The quilt shop.”
“And you?” he said, gazing at her, though anyone else would have been gazing at the scenery. “What do you do?”
“I’m a quilter.”
“Is that a thing?”
“If you mean, is that a way to make a living, I don’t know. It’s just what I do. Along with helping my mother with the babies and the house, and looking after the animals, and doing ranch work, and weeding the garden, and canning vegetables, and making pickles and pies and three meals a day, and—”
“Whoa!” He held up his hands, laughing. “I’m getting tired just listening.” He waited. “Aren’t you going to ask me what I do?”
She shrugged. He was Englisch. It could be anything. Or nothing.
“See now, I like that about you. You’re giving me my privacy. It’s a rare thing. Thank you, Malena Miller.”
She was doing no such thing, but there wasn’t much point in correcting him. They were nearly at the crossroads and the Rocking Diamond’s drive.
She pointed. “See those two pines, taller than the others? That’s the Rocking Diamond’s property line. And that building on the other side, past the stop sign, is our school.”
He peered through the trees. “It looks like a cabin.”
“A bit bigger. But it fits all eight grades and a couple of teachers, too.”
“Eight grades in a one-room schoolhouse?” He looked delighted. “For real?”
“That’s normal for us,” she told him. “Probably not for you, though.”
“You got that right. My high school graduating class was four hundred.”
There weren’t that many Youngie in the whole county. “We don’t go to high school. After eighth grade, we go to work. The boys apprentice, usually. Girls work at home.”
“Making pickles and pies and all that.”
She nodded, and guided Hester into the left turn. At the closed gates, when he didn’t move, she said, “Here we are.”
“The Rocking Diamond?” He looked from the gates to her. “Aren’t we going in?”
“You can. I need to get home. I have work to do.” Dat got along just fine with the Madisons, and so did her eldest brother Daniel, but after Taylor Madison’s little stunt trying to buy Joshua’s fiancée’s hay farm out from under her, the less Malena had to do with them, the better.
“How far is it to the house?”
Those silly boots must be more uncomfortable even than they looked. “Half a mile or so. Can you make it?”
“Of course.” Those intense blue eyes settled on her. “I just thought that, being neighbors, you might take me up there and introduce me.”
She nearly laughed at the thought of this forward young man needing help with an introduction. Instead, she rolled her eyes with only a little exaggeration. “Fine. Get the gate, then, and I’ll drive you up.”
He hopped out and opened the gate, then when she drove through and stopped, got in again.
Hester did not move. Neither did Malena.
After a moment, he said, “What? Why are we sitting here?”
“The first thing to learn about being a cowboy is the Law of the Gate.”
“Which is?”
“Leave it like you found it,” she told him. “If it’s open, leave it open. If it’s closed—”
“Close it. All right. So? I did my part. There’s nothing stopping you from closing it.”
Oh, did he have a lot to learn. “Driver manages the horse. Or the truck, on this place. Passenger gets the gate.”
“Fine.” He climbed down again, and with rather more care than it deserved, closed the gate and dropped the bar into place. “Happy now?”
“Don’t ask me. Ask Brock Madison when his cattle get out on the highway because they busted down a fence and this was the only gate between them and Canada.”
He didn’t say another word all the way up the drive. When the house came into view, he straightened on the seat. “Nice.”
To Malena, the Madison house looked more like a hotel than a home. It was enormous. Josh said it was five thousand square feet and had eight bathrooms, but she’d never been inside to count them. Granted, people paid ten thousand dollars a week to stay there, so maybe they wanted their own bathrooms. But imagine cleaning that much house.
As she pulled Hester to a halt in the wide circular sweep, Trey and his mother, Taylor Madison, came out on the deck. “Good heavens,” she heard Mrs Madison say as she descended the flagstone steps. “Is that one of the Miller girls?”
Cord got out of the buggy.
“Mrs Madison,” Malena said politely, “this is Cord McLean. He ran off the road and needs some help getting his truck out of the ditch. It’s at the four-mile marker.”
As though someone had turned up a lamp inside her, Taylor Madison glowed into a broad smile. “Mr McLean, this is a fine welcome for you. But I’m so glad you’ve arrived safely.” She glanced at Malena. “Thank you, um …”
“This is Malena Miller,” Cord said with a grin that matched that of his new boss’s wife. “She saved my life. Or at least my feet.”
Mrs Madison inspected his boots, her plucked eyebrows raised. “I see. I hope you have another pair. If not, we can find something for you. After we get your truck out of the ditch. This is my eldest son, Trey. He’ll give you a hand.”
“Nice to meet you,” Trey said easily. “Come on. Truck’s in the garage.”
Since Cord didn’t seem to need her anymore, Malena gave a wave good-bye that nobody saw, shook the reins over Hester’s back, and guided the buggy around the sweep. She set a smart pace back down the drive, and a good thing, too. She’d barely made the right turn onto the shoulder of the highway when Trey’s big red pickup wheeled around the corner and passed her with a honk of its horn that could have meant thanks or good-bye or get out of the way. Cord waved out the passenger window and in the next moment, they were around the bend and out of sight.
A bird trilled overhead, and two crows started an argument, one in each of the pines that marked the edge of the dude ranch’s property. Hester’s hooves made a familiar clip-clop on the asphalt, and the breeze carried the scent of the bishop’s hay field, which he’d cut yesterday.
Malena loved that smell. Not only its sweetness. Cut hay meant cows that could be fed on dark winter days, and fed cows meant healthy calves in early spring, and healthy calves brought in money. With ranch work, one thing led into another, and everything tied together. Sure, there were disasters like frozen water pumps and coyotes and dry springs. But on the whole, it was a rewarding life, its neverending work the best way she knew to stay close to the land and serve der Herr who had made it.
She hoped the new hand at the Rocking Diamond would learn to appreciate it. Between those boots and his truck, though, it seemed he had a long way to go.