Where’s your ribbon?” Lily’s gaze raked the kitchen table, where she’d set out the accoutrements for Georgie’s toilette: curling tongs, pins, and the rosy band that matched the flowers on the little girl’s dress.
“On Cat.” Georgie pointed to the corner. Cat, her tail wrapped in pink from base to tip, lapped her dish of morning milk.
“When did you find time to do that?” Lily pinned the last ringlet.
“You and Miss Delia were whispering ’bout how peaceful it is here and what a nice fellow Uncle Fred is, and Miss Delia turned red as a tomato.”
“Well, it is peaceful.” Delia’s jaw set in a mulish expression while she unwound the ribbon from Cat’s twitching tail. “Quite pleasing.”
“’Specially Fred.” Georgie patted Cat with a thump.
“Everyone’s nice,” Delia protested.
“Even Pa?” Georgie twisted to look at Lily. Delia stared, too.
Mercy. “Of course he’s nice. So are you.”
Lily tied the ribbon through Georgie’s pinned hair, but once she finished, her fingers trembled. Who would curl the little girl’s hair when they were gone?
Martha, who was closeted in the salon with her improving literature, enjoyed teaching Georgie the alphabet. Maybe she’d learn to like sharing other things with the girl, too.
“There’s Fred.” Delia’s voice pitched higher than usual as she peered out the kitchen window. “He doesn’t have many chores today, so he’s teaching me how to throw a lariat.”
“I want to come,” Georgie said, half out the door.
“As long as you don’t tell I find him pleasant.” Delia followed behind without a farewell for Lily. She wasn’t happy with her sister since Lily reminded her they would soon leave Wildrye. This wasn’t their home, and while Georgie had moved back into the house, Jackson and Fred couldn’t sleep in the barn forever. Lily tidied the remnants on the table, peeking out at Delia, Georgie, and Fred in the yard. Carrying a coiled rope, Jackson strode past them then headed toward the house.
The curling tongs were still hot. Lily took them to the lank red strand at her cheek, finishing before Jackson’s boots thumped on the porch.
He paused at the threshold, knowing better than to stomp his mud-caked boots on her clean kitchen floor. “Red, you busy?”
She was. She had a hundred things to do before their trip to town this afternoon, but the prospect of ironing shirts held far less appeal than whatever Jackson wanted. “Not at all.”
He led her outside, past the farthest corrals. A sea of grass spread before them, punctuated by cattle and brush dotted with small white flowers.
Jackson nudged her arm. “Aren’t you the least bit curious where I’m taking you?”
“To catch supper?” she joked. The crisp morning breeze played with the tendril of just-curled hair, straightening it. So much for looking well coiffed. She shoved the coppery strand behind her ear.
His smile faded, replaced with an expression that was almost shy. “Delia’s learning to lasso. You want to, too?”
They stopped walking, or maybe they had stopped an eon ago and she hadn’t paid mind to anything but his closeness. His gaze touched her eyes and chin and cheekbones, leaving a trail of fiery heat over her skin.
“Don’t you have chores?” Her voice squeaked.
“About as many as you do.”
Tingles, pleasant and uncomfortable all at once, radiated over her limbs. “Oh.”
He took that as consent, busying his hands with the rope. He formed a loop and tied a strange knot. “Hold the end of the shank.”
She didn’t know what a shank was, but she took what he offered. The rope was stiff as wire, heavy in her hand. “Don’t I need gloves?”
“Not if you want to feel the rope.” His hand was hot and rough under hers as he rotated their wrists so the rope turned. Then he sidled behind her. “Swing like this.”
His breath was warm on her ear. Her arm jerked and the rope flung back to hit their legs. “Sorry.”
He laughed. “Good thing I’m wearing chaps. Let’s try again.”
Shouldn’t have been hard. But he was behind her, smelling of dust and sweat and the starch she’d put in his shirt, everyday smells that somehow, paired with his proximity, made her knees wobble. She forced her focus onto the rope. To her surprise, the rope formed a perfect circle before her. Her hand stilled, and she spun to face Jackson. “I did it!”
“You did.” For the span of two breaths, he stared down at her. Then he dropped her hand.
She wanted his hand back. Ninny. Instead of holding hands you should be holding your Jenny Lind token.
“Now try without me,” he said. “When you feel the weight pitch forward, throw the rope at that oak stump.”
It didn’t work. But it was fun to be out in the spring sunshine, laughing over her failed attempts, even though the rope burned her palms and the stump remained unconquered. After a while, he took the rope and lassoed the stump on his first try.
“Well done.” She applauded, her rope-burned hands stinging.
“Not hard when it’s not moving.” He coiled the rope, ending the lesson. But his gaze pinned her to the spot. “Georgie’s cottoned to you, you know.”
It was mutual. “She’s darling.”
He looked over his shoulder at the three figures closer to the house. “I was orphaned young and had to make my way, and I never wanted a rootless life like that for my own child.”
“Rootless—that’s how I felt, too, even though I always lived in Boston.”
“Things weren’t easy with your uncle, I reckon.”
Her thumb smoothed a wrinkle on her apron. “It wasn’t a home. That’s why I decided it’s safer to not have a home than be trapped in the wrong one. I forgot some people have… this.”
“This?” He gestured at a patch of sick-looking cactus.
She laughed. “You know what I mean. A house, generations together, sharing life.”
His stance shifted. Faced her a fraction more. “It took me awhile to find home. After a few years running the ferry business on the Rio Grande, I could buy this rancho. Fred came along, like the brother I never had.”
“And you married.”
He twisted the rope, even though it was plenty coiled. “Paloma was a good woman. But now there’s just me and Georgie. I wanted Aunt Martha to help us, but now I think she came here to rest and be loved.”
Lily’s heart skipped triple time. If Aunt Martha couldn’t care for Georgie, who would?
The answer settled over her shoulders like a warm shawl. She would.
In that moment, everything looked different. The light. The landscape. Her future. The way Jackson’s gaze burned her. Especially when it landed on her lips. Could she give up her dream? Or had her dream changed? She already cared for Georgie, and the thought of leaving her ached. Something was happening between her and Jackson, too, something slow but steady. Given time, what could it grow into? Her hand fumbled for the Jenny Lind token in her pocket.
If Jackson asked her to stay, she wasn’t sure she could say no. She didn’t know what she wanted anymore. Minute by minute, it was this. This family. This home. This man.
Delia wouldn’t argue. She never did.
Maybe God had brought them here for a purpose, after all, and it had nothing to do with Uncle Uriah’s greed. Or singing. Although praying about those two things had changed her view of them. Uriah needed God’s grace, and she’d forgiven him and prayed for him to find peace. And her singing… well, it was God’s gift for her to use for Him, wherever He willed.
Even here. She released the token into the depths of her pocket. Her hands pressed her apron front, as if the pressure would soothe the veritable beehive buzzing within. “I’ve been thinking. About my leaving when the coach comes. There’s nobody permanent to care for Georgie. We can stay a little longer.”
He looked away, breaking the spell, and when he glanced at her again, she could see why. Panic darkened his eyes. Fear of her? Of opening his heart again, or just to someone like her?
It didn’t matter why. What mattered was he wouldn’t ask her to stay and care for Georgie. To care for him.
He offered the polite smile he’d cast on her when they first met. “Mighty kind of you, Red, but it’ll all work out.”
So this was what heartbreak felt like. Ache to her bones. But Jackson would never know, so she smiled brightly while her fingers found the token again.
“Circuit preacher arrived in town yesterday.” Jackson, clearly ready for a change of subject, tipped his head north, the direction of town. The churchgoing folks of Wildrye met at the livery stable on Front Street—the only building large enough for a gathering—once a month, when the preacher made his rounds. “Are you going to church with us tomorrow?”
Each evening, she and Jackson discussed scripture, and he’d been patient, not pushing or judging. Maybe the folks of Wildrye were more like him than Ma’s friends, who’d shunned Lily and Delia once Pa started drinking.
She nodded. “Maybe I could talk to the preacher while we’re in town today.”
“Of course.” He smiled, but his eyes were still guarded. “Guess we should get ready to go, then.”
The lesson—and the magic—were over. She backed away, her skirt catching in a bush. She bent to tug it free. “We’re leaving after lunch?”
Thwap-a-thwap. A dark blur flapped before Lily’s face, accompanied by a too-loud gobble. Lily’s gasp coated her tongue with dry, salty feathers. A scream escaped her throat in a gargle. Jackson pulled her against his firm chest.
“You’re shuddering.” His grip tightened. “It’s just a turkey. Don’t cry.”
She wasn’t crying at all. She should be, with her heart splintered in pieces, but her heightened emotions made laughter froth from her lips like sarsaparilla foam. At last she caught her breath. “Hope you didn’t want a turkey dinner.”
He laughed, too. She and Jackson must look ridiculous, clutching each other and giggling like schoolchildren. But she didn’t care. Their laughter and his arms around her felt too good to put a stop to, even if it was just this once. He let go once Fred, Delia, and Georgie arrived, panting, brows creased with concern.
“Just a turkey.” Jackson pointed at the bush.
“Can we keep it?” Georgie squatted on the ground, dirtying her pinafore. “I want to name it Miss Feathers.”
“You name it and we’d never eat turkey again.” Jackson didn’t look at Lily again. Their moment of laughter was all it was—a moment. Unrepeatable.
After she’d made a decision to stay with him, he hadn’t even asked. It hurt, but if he was unsure of her, it was for the best. Even though she now knew she cared for them all. Martha, Fred, and Georgie. And Jackson. In a far different way than the others.
At least she could help him before he put her on the stagecoach. When she was finished shopping for dry goods and speaking to the preacher today, she’d look for someone to watch Georgie.
Because if she couldn’t care for this family, it had better be someone decent who did.
Sunday morning, Jackson struggled to keep his eyes on the road rather than Lily. She perched on the far end of the wagon seat, shielded by Aunt Martha, who sat straight and opaque as a pine plank between them. While Georgie, Fred, and Delia chatted in the back of the wagon, Aunt Martha exclaimed over every rut in the road, requiring no response from anyone. Which left him plenty of chances to sneak peeks at Lily.
He couldn’t stop. A crackling moment—or two, to be truthful—passed between them yesterday that made him quake in his boots. She’d felt it, too. And he’d known he was playing with fire. He didn’t want to be drawn to Lily any more than she wanted to stay in Wildrye.
He’d almost asked her to stay and help with Georgie. To give them more time together. To make things clearer between them, because he loved her. But if he cared for her, he shouldn’t stand between her and her dream.
He had to let her go live it.
“Go around that hole.” Aunt Martha pointed at a divot in the road. “Miss Lily is ailing and cannot tolerate all this jostling.”
“You’re ill?” There, he had an excuse to look Lily square in the face—which didn’t look the least bit poorly. Sparkling eyes, rosy cheeks…
“I’m fine.” Lily’s cheeks pinked a deeper hue.
“Keep your eyes on the road before your horses run away with us.” Aunt Martha sniffed.
Jackson held back a snort. He knew a thing or two about handling horses. Aunt Martha, however, moved on to Lily. “You’re putrid in the throat, aren’t you? Drank plenty of hot tea this morning for it, you said.”
“Oh. That’s to prepare my voice for singing. I assume we’ll sing in church?”
Jackson nodded.
Lily patted Aunt Martha’s arm. “But you had a headache last night. Are you feeling better?”
“Watch the road, Jackson! Mercy.”
He drove the horses straight over a gopher hole and exchanged a conspiratorial look with Lily. Then, as if remembering something somber, she frowned and looked away. They were almost to town when Fred gripped Jackson’s shoulder. “What’d ya find out in town yesterday ’bout that rumor from Mexico?”
Jackson snuck in a peek at Lily before turning back to Fred. “It was true. Drought decimated an entire village’s crops, so they’re selling off their stock. I think it’s a good opportunity for us. It’d help the affected folks, too.”
“Watch the road,” Aunt Martha snipped.
Fred released his shoulder. “Maybe we should head south this week.”
“Agreed.”
Lily leaned past Aunt Martha with furrowed brows. “You didn’t mention it yesterday. I suppose I monopolized the conversation on the ride home, though.”
“Your time in town was far more important than mine.” She’d practically gushed about her talk with the circuit preacher, Clark Wyatt, and the scripture passages he’d shared with her.
“Buying every animal in a village sounds important, though.” Her brows knit. “What’ll the people do?”
“Start somewhere new, I s’pose.”
Her mouth twitched. Maybe she was nervous about church. A quick prayer rose from his heart as he turned down Front Street. Beside them, three men wheeled the saloon piano up the street, an odd but kind loan by Frank each month for church services. One of the women who worked at the saloon, the mousy brown-haired one with a ratty shawl, trailed in the piano’s wake.
Lily smelled of soap when he helped her down from the wagon. He’d have liked to linger over her hand, but Aunt Martha waited for him, her lips pursed like she’d eaten a pickle. When he’d seen her safely to the ground, he expected Lily to wait behind him, but she was gone.
Up the street, conversing with the saloon gal.
She was clean and bright in her ensemble of red plaid compared to the waif, half-dressed in a jade frock that looked more like underwear than a dress. Lily nodded then turned and rejoined him, her mouth and shoulders set in firm lines.
He took her elbow and allowed the others to precede them inside. “What was that?”
“Pearl? I invited her to church.”
“That was kind.” If misguided. A woman like Pearl—so that was her name—wouldn’t be comfortable in a church service, but it was thoughtful of Lily to ask.
She shrugged. “She declined earlier, too, but I thought I’d try again.”
Earlier? It was one thing for Lily to approach a soiled dove and invite her to church. The thought she’d spoken with her more than once, however, heated the back of his neck. He tugged at the collar of his best boiled shirt. “You’ve talked to her before?”
“I’d finished with Mr. Wyatt yesterday, but you were still busy at the bank. I thought I might find someone in town to help you with Georgie.”
The heat drained, leaving his fingers cold. “You asked a—her to come to my house?”
“It’s not my place to invite anyone to your house. And no, I didn’t consider her to watch Georgie.” Her eyes narrowed, a sign he’d already come to recognize as building anger. “Pearl was following me so I approached her. I thought maybe I could help her somehow. She doesn’t want to work at Frank’s. Aren’t I supposed to reach out to others in Christ’s love?”
“Aw, Lily.” Her renewed faith touched him, even if she didn’t understand the consequences of what she’d done. “You’re right about wanting her out of that occupation, but talking to her? It’s not proper.”
Her lips popped apart. “Inviting her to church and offering her my shawl because hers is so holey it can’t possibly keep her warm—well, if that is improper, I’ve misunderstood the definition of the word.”
Hot shame hit his midsection like a hoof to the gut.
He’d been humbled by unbroken horses. By his parents’ deaths. But this was different. Lily’s words shattered every pretension he held.
He’d always thought he was as good as anyone else. In truth, he’d thought he was better.
Shame lodged in his throat. When Lily looked at Pearl, she saw a person who needed help. But him? He’d judged her by her willingness to work in a saloon and forgot he was a sinful man himself.
He raised Lily’s gloved hands to his lips. “You are a far more generous person than I could ever hope to be, Red. Thank you for reminding me of so many things I’d forgotten.”
The angry lines around her mouth and eyes vanished. And she didn’t say a word.
Rendering Red speechless? Now that was an achievement.
The bell over the livery door rang as a call to worship. “After you.”
They took seats on a plank bench with their families. Beside him, Lily’s posture was stiff, as if she were tense. The other women eyed her and Delia with open curiosity. Someone muttered saloon. The way Lily had been treated in the past, it was no wonder she was nervous.
“It smells like horses.” Aunt Martha’s announcement echoed off the high ceiling.
A smile broke Lily’s tension. She patted his aunt’s hand.
Sometime during the service, Georgie shifted seats, from his to Lily’s lap. She settled there, restful, during the sermon. Lily’s attention was far more rapt than his, for more than once he had to remind himself to look at Reverend Wyatt, not Lily.
After the message, Mrs. Buckridge, the liveryman’s wife, took a seat at the saloon piano. The Isaac Watts hymn was familiar, but the words lodged in Jackson’s throat. Lily’s voice lifted the hair on his arms. She didn’t overpower the others. But it was clear she could if she wanted.
Even more moving was the passion evident in her voice. Her tearstained cheeks and closed eyes testified to the fact she meant each word she sang. It was a true act of worship.
He wasn’t the only one who’d noticed, for at hymn’s end, no one uttered a sound until Reverend Wyatt beckoned the Kimball sisters forward. Georgie scuttled back onto his lap while Mrs. Buckridge relinquished her place at the piano to Delia.
Reverend Wyatt beamed. “Some of you have met the Kimball sisters. Yesterday, Miss Lily told me she had nothing to offer the Lord but her voice—as if it were a meager contribution. But it’s fitting we give back to Him the gifts He’s given us.”
“What’s she doing, Pa?” Georgie patted his cheek.
“Singing, I think.” Really singing.