CHAPTER 36
Denny found Brad sitting on the front steps. He held his clasp knife in one hand and a piece of wood that had been carved on in the other, but he wasn’t doing any actual whittling at the moment. He just stared straight ahead with a gloomy expression on his face.
He looked over, though, when Denny sat down beside him. “Is Sally going to die?”
“I don’t think so.” Denny thought about it and realized she wasn’t just trying to be encouraging; she really didn’t believe that the sickness would claim her mother. To think of her dying was just inconceivable. “She’s really strong, and you heard the doctor say that was a good thing. She’ll fight off whatever it is that’s ailing her, I’m sure of that.”
“I hope so. I haven’t even known her that long.” Brad was trying not to sniffle. “Do you think she’d mind . . . if I called her Grandma? Smoke said I could call him Grandpa.”
Even under the circumstances, just the thought of calling Smoke and Sally Jensen Grandpa and Grandma almost made Denny laugh. They were such vital people that they seemed much younger than their actual years. And yet it was true that Brad was their step-grandson, and it was entirely possible, even likely, that there would be grandchildren-by-blood in the Jensen family in the not so distant future. Melanie was young enough that she and Louis could have a whole passel of sons and daughters.
The likelihood of her presenting any grandbabies to her parents was a lot smaller, Denny mused.
In answer to Brad’s question, she said, “You’ll have to wait and ask her about that once she gets better, but I really don’t think she’ll mind.”
“Okay. I’ll do that.”
She nudged his shoulder with an elbow. “Want to practice some with your lasso?”
“I’m getting pretty good at it.” A faint smile curved Brad’s lips. “Maybe better than you.”
Denny laughed. “I don’t think so! Come on.”
As Brad got the rope he’d been using, built a loop, and started trying to drop it over a fence post, Denny reflected on the notion that had crossed her mind a few minutes earlier. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to ever have children, but doing so required somebody to be the father, and Denny didn’t see anybody who fit that description on the horizon at the moment.
Her thoughts went back to the night of the social. While she had cleaned some of the blood off his face, Steve Markham sat there for a few minutes, breathing hard as he tried to recover from the battle with Brice Rogers. Then he had reached up, closed his hand around the wrist of the hand holding the cloth, and lifted his eyes to hers.
* * *
“You don’t have to do that, Denny,” he said. “I don’t reckon I deserve to have a gal like you takin’ care of me, after all the trouble I’ve caused.”
“You didn’t start it,” she pointed out. Then she shrugged a little and added, “Well, maybe you did, with some of the things you said and the way you put your arm around my shoulders, but still, you didn’t throw the first punch. Brice made the decision to do that.”
“Yeah, but he wasn’t thinkin’ straight.” Markham chuckled. “Bein’ around you would keep just about any man from thinkin’ straight.”
“That’s enough flattery. That’s some of how we got into this, remember?” She moved his hand from her wrist and bent to the task again. “Now sit still and let me clean some of these cuts and scrapes. What we really need is something to put on them.”
“How about some whiskey?” he asked with a smile as he slipped a small silver flask out of an inside pocket in his vest. “I know I ain’t supposed to have this, but I figure I ain’t the only cowboy who brung in a little who-hit-John tonight.”
“Not by a long shot,” Denny muttered as she took the flask from him. Keeping her back to the rest of the room so it wouldn’t be quite so obvious what she was doing, she got a corner of the handkerchief wet with the strong-smelling liquor and began wiping it on the injuries.
Markham caught his breath sharply and grimaced.
Denny told him, “Stay still.”
After a few more minutes of work, she had tended to his wounds the best she could and handed the flask back to him.
He took the bloody handkerchief from her as well. “I’ll wash this for you.”
“That’s not necessary. Just throw it away.”
“Not hardly! If nothin’ else, at least it’s a momento from a, uh, what do you call it, an auspicious evenin’.”
“I don’t know about auspicious. It’s been eventful, though. Nobody can deny that.”
“Walk outside with me? I could use some fresh air.”
Denny hesitated. She looked around the room. Somebody had wiped up the drops of blood that had fallen on the floor, the musicians had started playing another tune, and folks were dancing again. She saw that she and Markham were still the objects of some people’s attention, but for the most part those who had come to have a good time had gone back to that.
She didn’t see Brice anywhere. Maybe he actually had left.
“All right,” she told Markham. “I think I’d like that, too.”
She was aware of eyes still on them as they made their way through the town hall to the doors. There was nothing unusual about couples stepping outside during the evening to stroll under the stars, but the two of them had a bit more notoriety than normal because of Markham’s fight with Brice. Denny just did her best to ignore the attention. She didn’t figure it was anybody else’s business what she did.
The air still held a hint of the day’s heat, but it was beginning to cool off and felt good on her face as she and Markham walked into the dappled shadows under the trees that grew near the building. They weren’t the only ones out there. She heard the low murmur of male and female voices from not far away. The shadows provided a certain amount of privacy, but enough light came through the nearby windows that it wasn’t like the strolling couples were completely unobserved. A suitor might try to steal a kiss, but that was about as far as such things ever went at one of those affairs.
“I reckon I lost my head in there,” Markham said when they paused. “I sure am sorry about that.”
“You don’t need to apologize,” Denny told him.
“Yeah, I do,” he insisted. “Ain’t no excuse for brawlin’ at what should’ve been a friendly occasion for all concerned.”
“Well . . . try to remember that next time.” Even in the shadows, Denny could see the grin that spread across his face.
“I’m hopin’ there won’t be no next time. Maybe Rogers has finally got the idea that you ain’t interested in him no more.” When Denny didn’t respond to that statement, Markham asked, “You ain’t interested in him, right, Denny?”
“At this point, that’s still none of your business, Steve.”
“It ain’t, huh?” Without warning, Markham took her in his arms and kissed her. It took her by surprise when his lips pressed hers, and her first impulse was to pull away, after which she would give him a good hard slap for being so bold.
She didn’t do either of those things. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him back, and it felt good.
Long seconds ticked past while they embraced.
Finally, Markham lifted his head. “Still say it’s none of my business?” he asked.
Denny had a little trouble finding her voice, but when she did, she told him, “Don’t push me, Steve. I don’t like that. You ought to have figured that out by now, even if we haven’t really known each other all that long.”
“Sure,” he said easily. “You know I didn’t mean no offense.”
“I’m not offended,” she said, and that wasn’t a lie.
What she was . . . was confused.
* * *
Brad’s triumphant whoop broke into her reverie. She looked over at him and saw him yank the loop tight where it rested around the fence post that had been his target.
“Just like Smoke—I mean, Grandpa—taught me.”
“Good job,” Denny said.
He went to the fence and loosened the rope, then, coiling the lasso, he walked over to Denny and held it out to her. “Want to try?”
“Sure.” She welcomed the distraction. She took the rope, shook out the loop, twirled it a few times over her head, and then made her throw. The loop sailed out, opening perfectly, and settled over the post. With a flick of her wrist, she snapped it closed.
Brad let out a whistle of admiration. “That was pretty slick!”
“I’ve roped a lot of calves. A fence post isn’t running and trying to get away.”
“Can you teach me how to rope a calf?”
“We’ll get around to that,” Denny promised. She glanced toward the house. She had distracted Brad from worrying about Sally, and she was grateful she’d been able to do that. The concern for her mother still lurked in her own mind, though, crowded in there along with everything else she had to worry about.