The next day Flora donned a faded blue dress that was roomy and comfortable, ignoring Eve’s tsk of disapproval. Eve had threatened to throw it into the ragbag on more than one occasion but she held her tongue. Flora was grateful she did so. She was in no mood to argue about what she wore.
They descended to the kitchen. Ma shook her head at the worn dress but said nothing.
Flora almost sniffed. They should all be relieved she didn’t wear her trousers. And maybe they were, which would explain why they did nothing more than reveal their disapproval with looks.
It was Monday and as such, it meant doing laundry. Flora enjoyed hanging the garments and then removing them when they were dry, so that was her share of the work.
It provided her plenty of opportunity to study the landscape as she pinned damp clothes on the line, laughing as they blew around her body. Time and again, she stood with her hands on the line and the clothes billowing around her. Ma called to her twice that she was falling behind.
She quickly finished the task and as she returned to the house, glanced down the road leading south. Not that she expected Kade to visit, but if he did, he would come from that direction.
“Would you see to Stella?” Ma called. “Take her tea and toast.”
“Yes, Ma.” She quickly prepared the snack and carried it into the bedroom.
“How are you feeling?” She plumped pillows behind Stella so she could sit up.
“Much better. Your ma tells me to expect it to take a few days for me to get my strength back.”
Flora knew her ma had said a few weeks but she didn’t point it out.
“Where are my children?”
“Donny is digging a hole in the dirt. Says he’s looking for buried treasure. Blossom’s sitting in the sun with a rag doll Ma found for her. She’s where we can keep an eye on her.”
“You people are so good to me. It makes me feel guilty.”
Flora patted Stella’s arm. “It’s what we do. We help people.”
“Well, it’s very good of you, and I am beholding.”
“No need to feel that way. All of us owe something to someone, and sometimes the only way to repay it is to help another person.”
“That’s a very kind way of looking at things. But I can’t believe you owe anything.”
“My parents died when I was younger than Donny. The Kinsleys’ took in both me and Eve, and adopted us.”
“I didn’t realize.” Stella grew thoughtful. “It must have been hard losing your parents. If it happened to my children—” She choked off and couldn’t go on.
“Being a Kinsley is all I remember.” She looked past the walls of the room into her past. “Except for what Eve has told me about our parents. Our pa died when I was a baby and Eve only two. She was six when our ma passed, so she remembers more.”
“I’d say you are a fortunate young woman.”
“And I would agree.” She rose, preparing to leave.
“Please don’t go. I feel so alone here.”
So Flora sat at her bedside and told her about the Kinsley sisters. “All adopted.” And their older brother. “He’s not adopted, but we haven’t heard from him in almost two years.”
“How dreadful.” Stella grew pale.
“I must let you rest.” Flora took away the tray and tucked the covers around Stella.
As she left the room, she thought of what she owed Kade. First, for sheltering her through the storm and then for persuading Pa not to force them to marry. She would make it up to him somehow. One thing she could do was save him a portion of the chocolate cake. If he came.
She stared out the window. What made her think he would come? He had work to do. So did she. She turned away from staring down the road.
Maybe he would come in the evening. She made sure some chocolate cake remained, and if anyone wondered at her hoarding it, they didn’t say anything.
But he didn’t come that evening.
She wasn’t disappointed. Why would she be?
The next morning, she ate the last piece of cake at breakfast.
“Flora!” Ma was satisfyingly shocked.
Josie laughed. Victoria gave one of her gentle smiles, and Eve shook her head in exasperation.
“Nothing in the Bible against it,” Flora said with a touch of defiance.
Pa banged his fist on the tabletop, making the dishes and the females jump. “You will show your ma respect.”
“Yes, Pa.” Though she was at a loss to understand how eating a cake for breakfast constituted disrespect.
“Where is that young man of yours?”
He must mean Kade, but hers? Why would he say that? “I’m sure I don’t know, Pa.” She kept her head down, afraid what else Pa might have to say.
Instead, he harrumphed and took the Bible for the morning reading.
It was Tuesday, which meant there was ironing and mending to do. Flora took the mending and sat in the sun on the front porch. Donny and Blossom played nearby.
Eve came out with a basin of potatoes to peel. “Flora, you’re staring into space.”
She was actually staring southward, but she let Eve think her mind wandered. “Do you remember our real father?”
“No. He died when I was two.”
“I don’t remember what he died from.”
Eve grew thoughtful. “I don’t remember either.”
“But it wasn’t doing something foolish, was it?”
Eve studied her a moment before answering. “As far as I recall, he was ill. But what an odd question. Why would you ask that?”
“Just thinking.” Kade lost his loved ones to risky choices. She’d lost hers to other reasons. Her mother had been ill. Somehow it all seemed connected. Or was she trying to look for connections that weren’t there?
She set aside the basket of mending and hurried out to the stable, ignoring Eve’s questioning call.
Her trousers were in the house so she saddled her horse, tucked her skirts around her legs, and rode away, galloping until her hairpins fell out and her hair blew free.
She reined in on a hill that overlooked the town. Why did she have this incredible urge at times to ride away? Was Kade right? Was she trying to outrun something? That didn’t make sense, but she couldn’t think what else it might be.
Maybe she was searching for something. But what? She had a good, loving home. She had kind sisters. Her brother, Josh, was gone. She missed him, but it didn’t make sense to think she could find him by riding hard. Besides, this urge had surfaced long before Josh left.
Why this restlessness?
She turned Dollar to the south. Without having made a decision to do so, she rode toward Kade’s place. Talking to him seemed to help ease her restlessness.
Half an hour later, she reached his house and called his name. When she received no answer, she opened the door. The house was empty. So was the barn and the outbuildings. She rode toward the cows. They still grazed contentedly in the sheltered pasture. But Kade wasn’t there.
What did she expect? That he would hang around waiting for her to drop in?
Her gaze went to the trees where the grizzly had gone. What if he’d encountered the bear? Her heart jolted. Maybe he lay somewhere, injured, bleeding—horrible images filled her mind. There was only one way to calm her fears.
Slowly, cautiously, she made her way around the herd toward the river, pausing often to strain for any sound that would indicate the nearby presence of a bear or a man moaning in pain.
She reached the river and leaned over Dollar’s neck to study the tracks. Not that she was good at it. She saw a paw print that was wider than her hand. Then she made out a set of tracks from a horse. But she didn’t know what it meant. She had no way of judging if the bear sign was new or from Saturday. Or if the horse was Kade riding up the river or someone else.
A tremor raced across her shoulders and she carefully studied her surroundings. Was the bear watching her from nearby or even some man? Had the sheriff let Eagle Pete out of jail?
She reined about, made her way through the trees, then galloped toward home. She slowed the pace once she could see the town. By the time she reached the yard, Dollar had cooled off.
Ma watched her approach and shook her head.
Flora tended her horse, rearranged her skirts, and braided her hair. Knowing what to expect with her wild hair, she’d taken to keeping a store of ties in the stable. She selected one to secure the braid.
Ma stood in the doorway to the house, waiting for her.
“Ma, I’m sorry I am such a disappointment to you.”
Ma gave her a hug. “Child, it isn’t that I’m disappointed. I’m worried. Since the day you came to us, you have had this urge to run. I thought you’d outgrown it, but lately it’s back, worse than ever. Child, what makes you want to run away?”
“Oh, Ma, I’m not running away. I love you. I love my family. But there are times I feel like I have to escape or I’ll burst at the seams.”
“Flora, all I can do is pray you will find your peace.”
“Thanks, Ma.” Kade had said something similar. How odd that they both seemed to know what she needed when she didn’t. She could perhaps understand Ma being able to see Flora more clearly than she saw herself. But Kade? It didn’t make sense. She barely knew him.
He barely knew her.
Flora flung from her bed Wednesday morning and rushed downstairs without putting her hair up.
Ma and Pa looked up at her hurried entrance into the kitchen.
“What’s for breakfast?” she asked. “What do you need me to do?”
Ma handed her a bowl of thin porridge. “Take this to Stella and make sure she eats it all.”
“It looks like baby food.”
“Her stomach is still weak. Send the children out and I’ll feed them.”
Flora’s sisters descended and the kitchen was soon a flurry of activity. Flora hurried to take care of Stella.
She prowled the room as Stella ate.
“You’re restless today,” Stella said.
“I get like this sometimes.”
“Why? What’s bothering you?”
Flora plunked down on the chair by the bed. “I don’t know.” This restlessness was different than what she’d felt yesterday. She had no urge to ride away. In fact, she didn’t want to leave.
“Maybe you’re missing Kade.” Stella’s words fell into Flora’s brain like they meant to stay.
She considered them a moment. “Maybe.”
“He’s a nice-looking young man.”
Flora chuckled. “I’ll tell him you said so. If I see him again.”
“Don’t you tell him.” Stella’s cheeks flared with color. “And you’ll see him again. Mark my words.”
Flora tipped her head to study Stella. “How can you say that with such assurance?”
“Because I’ve seen how he looks at you.”
“With dismay.”
“No. The two of you worked like one when you found me and the children.”
“That was because it was a crisis.”
“No. It was because you fit together.”
Flora pushed to her feet. “Are you done?”
“Yes, thank you. If I’ve offended you, I’m sorry.”
Flora stilled her urgency to leave. “I’m not offended, but I don’t see it as you do.”
Stella’s smile seemed to contain a world of wisdom. “That’s all right.”
Flora joined the others for breakfast, then helped do the morning chores, which she could probably do in her sleep they were so familiar. Ma announced it was time to prepare the garden for spring planting.
“Can I do it?” Flora asked. She much preferred being outdoors. And hard work would be an antidote to her restlessness.
“I thought you’d like to.”
A little later, Flora straightened from digging the soil. It smelled fresh and promising. She’d finish before dinner, and the family would work together in the afternoon to plant the seeds. Donny dug in the dirt at one end of the garden. The boy sure did like digging.
Her gaze searched the road going south. Would he come?
Why should she think he might? Why should she care if he did or didn’t? She jabbed the shovel into the ground and turned over another scoop of dirt.
Donny stood up. “Someone coming.”
A rider approached from the south. It was Kade. It was all Flora could do not to run out and meet him on the road.
Kade saw Flora standing in the garden. Strands of her hair fell around her shoulders, catching the sunshine. Like Donny said, her hair looked like it was on fire.
He skirted the church and rode directly to her.
She watched him, shading her eyes with her hand and making it impossible for him to see what she was thinking. Was she glad to see him? Or had she been relieved not to have him around? The clock was ticking on her father’s decree to persuade her to want to marry him. Ten days left.
He jumped to the ground and stood at the edge of the garden. “Hi.” He knew he sounded tentative, and he was.
“Where have you been?”
He grinned. “You missed me.”
“I worried about you.” She jabbed the shovel into the dirt. “I rode out there yesterday. Your house was empty. I checked your herd. The cows looked fine.” She turned over the soil. He glanced past her and saw the entire garden except for this last corner had been worked.
She continued, her words sharp. “Then I got to thinking about that grizzly and rode to the river to make sure it hadn’t circled back and attacked you.” She jabbed the shovel into the ground with a force that made him wince.
“It’s nice to know you care.”
Another stab of the shovel. “Who says I care?”
He laughed. “Let’s see. You ride out to see me, and when I’m not there you begin to worry about me. Yup, you care.”
She leaned the shovel against the fence and crossed to plant herself toe to toe with him. “Where were you?”
He caught her hand. “Walk with me and I’ll tell you.” He preferred to have her alone without the curious study of a little boy and the interest of her sisters as they crowded to the window to watch.
She looked toward the house, then nodded. “A walk is a good idea.”
The town ended at the back of the yard and they strode toward the river. The warm sun had dried up the last of the late spring storm. Green grass tinted the ground.
They came upon the river a distance from where they’d sat on the bench Sunday and instead sat on the grassy slope, watching the water ripple past.
“You want to know where I was the last two days?”
“I guess.”
He laughed, finding pleasure in the way she pretended she wasn’t almost overcome with curiosity. He decided to tease her a little. “Well, if you aren’t interested…” He waited. How long before she would demand he say?
She sighed. “Fine. Tell me.”
“You sure?”
She faced him. “Kade, just tell me, okay?”
“Fine. I will.” He caught a strand of her hair and tugged it gently. “Monday morning I decided I had to make sure the grizzly was not going to return and help himself to one of my calves, so I started tracking him.”
She shuddered. “It’s pretty risky tracking a hungry bear.”
He shifted his hand from her hair to her shoulder. “I was careful. I don’t take unnecessary risks.”
Their gazes caught and held. She searched deep. He let her, searching equally deep. They had begun this conversation when she ended up in his house during the storm. He had said similar words then but they felt different now. Had talking to her, listening to her views on risks, understanding a little about why she ran, changed him? Had being with him changed her at all?
“Good to know.” Her voice seemed deeper than usual. “What did you find?”
She meant his tracking.
“I followed the tracks for a distance, then the bear left the river and veered to the south. I kept following, thinking he was hungry and circling back to the easy pickings of spring calves.” His hand still rested on her shoulder. She might have pressed into his hand or he might have imagined it.
“The bear meandered about. I could see where he unearthed a den of some smaller animal. Might have been a rabbit.” A patch of blood indicated the bear had managed to capture something to eat. “I saw where he’d nosed through some berry bushes hoping to find something. He went into a stand of trees.”
Flora shivered.
Kade enjoyed a moment of knowing she feared for his safety. “I rode around the edges looking for tracks to indicate the bear had left the trees. I found them and continued to follow the trail.” He paused, still dismayed from what he’d found.
“I came upon a homesteader. The bear had been there.”
Flora gasped.
“It wasn’t as bad as it might have been. The farmer had a milk cow. The bear must have threatened her or simply frightened her. She’d panicked and ran into the wire fence. Somehow, she’d gotten tangled in it. And of course, the more she struggled, the worse it got.” It was distressing to see her torn and bleeding.” I helped to free her but it took quite a bit of time. We doctored up her wounds. By then it was almost dark, so I accepted the invitation to spend the night with the man and his little family. He has a wife and two young sons.”
“Good idea. That was Monday.”
He heard what she didn’t say. Where was he Tuesday? He grinned. “I know you missed me.”
She looked at the river, avoiding his gaze.
He chuckled. “Wouldn’t hurt to admit it.” Then he continued his story.
“The next morning, I started tracking the bear again. Midafternoon, I saw him in the distance. He was on the ground, not moving. The farmer had said he shot at the bear but didn’t think he hit it. I wondered if he was mistaken. I rode a bit closer. I didn’t want to alert the bear to my presence, especially if it was wounded and cranky. Then I saw the bear had a carcass. He’d found something to eat. I don’t think he’ll be back.”
“Sure hope not.”
He finished the story. “I made my way home after that. Stopped to check on the farmer. He was worried about his cow, so I had a look. I think she was mostly still agitated, but I helped him clean her wounds again and put on salve. Then I rode home.” It was late in the day by the time he arrived and although he was weary, he still considered riding to town to spend some time with Flora. Instead, he’d decided to head for town first thing the next morning.
“And now here I am.”
She grinned at him. “If I’d known you were coming, I would have baked a chocolate cake.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to say he’d be there every day in the hopes of making her agreeable to marrying him, but if he said that, she would resist his courting.
In the distance, someone called, “Dinner.”
“I think that’s for us.” Flora held out her hand to invite him to accompany her.
He did so, anticipating a good meal and the hope of the rest of the day in her company.
Preacher Kinsley greeted him with a look that seemed to say it was about time he showed up and got serious about his courting.
Throughout the meal the girls amused him with their teasing and their questions.
He helped do the dishes afterwards though the girls all protested. Flora grinned at them. “He’s mighty handy in the kitchen.”
A beat of silence, heavy and surprised, greeted her remark, and then the girls all began to talk at once.
He tried to think why they had reacted that way then realized it was because she referred to the two days they’d spent together unchaperoned. Even her own sisters found it startling. He couldn’t imagine what those outside the family would think.
Except he could. He must work harder at winning her over to the idea of marriage.
He went to the parlor to speak to her pa. “I’d like to take Flora riding this afternoon.”
“In trousers?”
He didn’t answer, because the man knew the answer and simply had to express his displeasure.
The preacher waved him away as if to say, she’ll soon be your problem.
Kade was getting used to the idea. Indeed, he didn’t find it the trial he might have not very long ago.
He returned to the kitchen. “Do you want to go with me to check on my cows?” he asked her.
Her eyes lit. “Can I change?”
He nodded and she raced up the stairs. He faced Eve.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said.
“I believe I do.”
Eve studied him a long moment. “She’s my little sister, and I would not want anything to happen to her.”
“It won’t.”
Flora clattered down the stairs, grabbed his hand and, laughing, half dragged him out the door. She saddled her horse and swung to his back, where she sat grinning at him.
“I don’t know how you persuaded Pa to let me do this.”
He’d assumed she knew why he was spending so much time with her although, at the same time, he hoped she didn’t. Knowing would make her resistant.
But not knowing made his secret seem underhanded.
What would happen if she learned the truth?