It was just as well Buck had fallen asleep yesterday afternoon, as he’d gotten no sleep at all throughout the long night. Smiley, the old coot, had come to after a few hours of good care, in a panic, fighting against Buck, unable to recognize him without all his whiskers. It took Buck a good half-hour to convince Smiley he was safe, at the hot springs, not in the hands of a cutthroat.
Sleeping fitfully after their go-around, Smiley spent the night in a sweat, hallucinating, thrashing, throwing off his covers. Buck worked to cool his fever with cold towels, and at last managing to pour a bit of restorative powder down the man’s gullet a couple of hours before. Buck didn’t think Petra had slept much either, supplying him with fresh water, more soup, hovering around the hallway to keep him company.
With Smiley at last sleeping more peacefully, and Petra and Gabriel asleep in his bed, Buck crept quietly downstairs and out to the barn to see to the animals.
Ike, in her stall a few steps from the tack room, greeted him with a playful whicker. He kept some apples in a barrel next to the tack room door for the horses and mules. He cut one in half and put it in the palm of his hand for Ike to gobble up.
“Bet you can guess why I am out here, talkin’ to you.” Ike chomped her apple and blinked her pretty, big, black eyes at him with indifference. “That’s right, ‘cause I got a house full of sleepin’ people,” he told her, clearly irritated, his voice low and intense. “Never would’ve believed it. If you’d a told me I’d spend my winter playin’ daddy to a newborn, makin’ love to a sweet little half-breed, and nursin’ a silly old codger, I’d a told you, like hell. Over my dead body.”
Ike bobbed her big head up and down a couple of times, then shook it and blew out her nostrils. “It ain’t funny. You can laugh, out here eatin’, sleepin’, shitin’, gettin’ fat, you old hay-burner.” With that, Ike tuned her back on him and flicked her tail. Buck had to stand back or get slapped with it.
“Think I’m full of shit, don’t you. You’re right.” He chuckled. “You’re God damn right, Ike. I’ve been havin’ the sweetest time lovin’ my woman and watchin’ her baby take on a personality all his own. And besides, I’ve been writin’ better stories than I ever did before.”
Buck’s grin sagged a bit, and Ike turned back around. He folded his arms across the stall rail. “Then there’s Smiley, comin’ along and muckin’ up the water a bit. Didn’t see that one comin’. But I should’ve known the good stuff wouldn’t last long.”
Shoving his hands down deep into his coat pockets, he started off toward the chicken-coop in back of the barn, but Ike called him back, butting her head against her stall gate.
Buck snorted, found the rest of the apple and offered it to her. “You don’t let me get away with nothin’. I’ll be back to turn you out into the paddock. You got company, too. I s’pose you already got acquainted.”
With the chickens fed, the livestock turned out for a bit of air and bunch grass, Buck headed back toward the house. The sun peeked over the horizon, but the air held the metallic sharp scent of more snow. The mailbag behind the wagon seat caught Buck’s eye as he passed Smiley’s wagon, and he wondered if it contained anything for him. He figured it was probably illegal to tinker with the mail, but under the circumstances, he thought his chances of getting caught pretty slim. He didn’t have to dig very deep into the bag before he found a bundle of newspapers and magazines with his name on it.
Glancing up to the scudding white clouds above, Buck slung the bag over his shoulder. As soon as he entered the house, the savory smells of coffee and breakfast started him to salivating, reminding him he hadn’t eaten much other than chicken soup since yesterday afternoon.
Petra stood in the doorway of his room with Gabriel cradled in the crook of her arm. “The coffee’s ready.”
For a moment he could only look at her. His breath caught in his chest and formed a sweet knot of emotion, much like the feeling you get when you see a falling star.
She looked like a girl, a thick braid of black hair over one shoulder, her face scrubbed pink, her blue eyes pure and full of light, and this was the intruder. The intruder he never wanted. She was here, here in his house, in his life, and he didn’t ever want to lose her. The realization hit him so hard he had to cling to the door to keep from crumpling down to his knees.
She shifted the baby in her arms and took a tentative step toward him. “I looked in on Mr. Cummings, he’s still asleep.” She held out a hand to him. “You look about to fall over. I think you have time for some fried bread and eggs.”
He sucked in a deep breath to snap himself out of his trance.
Her words offered him food, but her eyes offered more. He came to her and put his hand against her warm cheek. She tilted her head into his icy palm and closed her eyes.
“I’ve missed you,” she whispered.
The second he set his eyes on her, his heart had stopped, then lurched into a rapid tattoo. The sound of her voice—the gleam in her blue eyes—drew him in. Turning to close the door, he dropped the mail sack and in two strides had her in his arms. Gabriel squeaked in protest, finding himself crushed within the embrace.
“I missed you,” is all he could say. “Damned old goat. Why’d he have to roll up to my door?”
Petra giggled, wriggling her shoulders to give Gabriel some breathing room. “I felt his forehead. I think Mr. Cummings will be better in a couple of days, then he certainly won’t need you hovering over him through the night.”
Buck drew back and took Gabriel from her. “Did he see you?”
Petra adjusted Gabriel’s blanket around his shoulders before completely relinquishing him into Buck’s care. “No, he was sound asleep. I don’t see how we’re going to keep Gabriel and me a secret.”
“No, I don’t suppose we can. When he comes to, we’ll do what we have to. I don’t want you to worry. I told you, you’re safe here, and you are.”
Petra set a plate of her fried bread and a skillet of shredded potatoes, onions, eggs and bacon on the table and started to serve him. Buck pulled out a chair for her and she sat down, then he traded Gabriel for the frying pan and put some food on her plate.
“We might as well face it, Petra girl, we can’t hide out from the world; it’s bound to find us.”
With her head tilted up to his, she nodded. The sorrow he read there in the depths of her blue eyes and the sober, droop of her full lips, pained him. She didn’t care for the truth any more than he did.
Turning her gaze down to her plate, she heaved a sigh. “It’s just that I like the feeling of you and me being the only two people on earth. All I need is you—and Gabriel. I don’t want to think about what’s happening out there—beyond this haven I’ve found. All I want is for the world to leave us alone. I know we could be happy for a very long time, if we just stayed apart from everyone else.”
Buck set the fry pan on the stove and came back to sit at the table. “That’s what I always thought,” he said, his hand going to Gabriel’s warm, soft as bunny-fur head.
Buck’s gaze locked with hers. Her eyes were brimming with unshed tears.
“It’s no life, no life at all, Petra. I thought I was doin’ just fine, livin’ out here by myself. I hated bringing you here. You were the trespasser, you and Gabriel, you were the intruders, keeping me from what I thought I wanted, solitude, days and nights of empty hours of solitude. But now, I can’t imagine going back to a vacuum of emptiness.”
Swiping the tears from her eyes, Petra lifted her chin and looked him defiantly in the eye. “I’ll tell you what’s worse. It’s much worse to find yourself alone in a room full of people, people you thought were devoted to you. It’s worse to be alone and to have no one who cares if you live or die. I’ve been delivered into your care, Mathias, for a reason. You are the answer to my prayers.”
He couldn’t help it—that made him laugh. “If that’s true, then the Lord has a keen and vicious sense of humor, if there is a higher power, that is. Which, I’ve never put much store in.”
Petra rose and put Gabriel in his cradle. She looked down on him with wonder. Her boy smiled back and cooed, kicked his little legs and found his feet.
She went back to the table, bent over, and put both her hands to Buck’s cheeks. “You are an angel, Mathias. You’re my angel,” she whispered, and leaned in for a long, deep kiss.
Buck growled, dragging her across his lap, one hand on her butt and the other coming around her back and under her arm. “To hell with breakfast.”
Picking her up, he carried her across the room to the bed. They collapsed, arms and legs entwined, lips devouring, and then, from above stairs, they heard Smiley cough, then retch and bark like a seal.
With his hand up her shirt, caressing her breast, Buck hissed. “Shit.”
Petra pressed her forehead against his. “Maybe you can sleep down here tonight.”
Buck nodded in silent hope.
Straightening her shirt and sitting up in the bed, Petra sighed. “I’ll bring up a plate of food. And some for Mr. Cummings.”
“One way or another we’re gonna find time for us,” Buck promised her, and himself, as he pushed off the bed.
“Like I told you, the only higher power I know has a vicious sense of humor and usually the joke is on me.”
One more kiss and he headed upstairs with the mail in his hand. At least he’d have something to read while playing nursemaid to the old peckerwood.