Abigale couldn’t see through her tears, but she felt Chester shivering where he lay by the fire as she toweled him dry. Seth had settled him on a quilt while Abigale unsaddled her horse. If he’d seen the axes, she’d never hear the end of it.
Taking care with the sores on Chester’s head, she gingerly dabbed where buckshot left little bare patches. The mountain lion had grazed him but hadn’t had a chance to dig in its claws or fangs, thanks to Seth’s clear thinking.
If Chester died, she’d never forgive herself. He was all she had left of her family.
Coffee filled the house with a comforting aroma that did little to ease Abigale’s guilt. Seth clattered around in the kitchen and cracked eggs into a skillet of hot grease that sizzled and popped.
He’d kept his word and brought the eggs.
New tears joined those already streaming down her cheeks. Seth Holt had not only kept his word, he’d gone the extra mile—or three or four—again expending hard work, loyalty, and kindness on her behalf.
She leaned over Chester, consoled by his wet-dog smell as she ran the towel over his legs and side.
“Here, drink this.” Not so much an order as an offering, Seth handed her a mug and dropped beside her on the floor. Legs crossed like always, he held a plate of scrambled eggs in his other hand.
“I should never have taken him with me.”
Seth made no reply.
With her sleeve she wiped her eyes, then glanced to read his thoughts, expecting agreement. Reprimand. She saw neither.
He handed her the plate. “Eat.”
“I can’t.”
“Need me to feed you?” Not an offering this time.
“This is no time to be boss—”
“This is no time to pass out on me.” Humor did not mark his expression. “You eat half, I’ll eat half.”
She took the plate.
“If he doesn’t make it, Abigale, it won’t be for lack of your care. Age takes us all if something else doesn’t do it first, and there’s nothing you can do to stop that.”
Part of her wanted to believe that wisdom, but part of her doubted. She could have postponed her grandfather’s passing if she’d been here to help. And she could have locked Chester in the barn before she left this morning.
Seth boldly reached for her coffee cup and drank from it. “Everything that happens isn’t your fault.”
His words squeezed fresh tears, and she scarcely made out the eggs he’d scrambled. He was scrambling her heart as well, showing a side of himself she’d not imagined but for which she was grateful.
After two bites, she handed him the plate. “Thank you.”
He grumped. “Don’t like my cooking, I see.”
With a hand on his knee, she stalled his sarcasm. “Thank you for what you said, as well as for what you’ve done. The eggs yes, but mostly for coming after me. I couldn’t bear losing Chester like that—on account of my stubbornness.”
Seth laid the plate aside and drew her into his arms, holding her awkwardly against his side, but holding her. She wanted to be nowhere else than right there, close to him, feeling the beat of his heart, the security of his arms. He had become much more to her than a neighboring rancher’s son.
When he kissed the top of her head, his tenderness nearly undid her.
“Come home with me. Spend Christmas with us. Emmy and Ma want you to. Even Pa said so.”
She straightened and looked into his warm gaze, a dark forest in the fire’s light. Did he want her there? Temptation called. “But who will look after the animals?”
“We’ll take them with us. Drive ’em home for the winter.”
He picked up the plate and shoveled in a mouthful of eggs. “The timber-cutting will stop soon in this weather.”
“I saw them.”
His fork halted. “Who was it?”
“Not Blackwell.”
With a huff he shook his head. “I was so sure.” He took another bite.
“It was his wife.”
Seth miscalculated his swallow. Abigale slapped him on the back and handed him her coffee. Catching his breath, he set down the plate and cup and focused on her completely. “You’re sure.”
“Absolutely. I’d know that voice anywhere. And I saw her. Dressed like a man, but I recognized her.”
“Was Blackwell himself there?”
Abigale shook her head. “No. Just his wife and three hired hands. One might have been their son, I’m not sure. He’s not as memorable as his mother.”
Seth stared into the fire, his face a map of thoughts connecting, jumping, tumbling upon each other until finally he voiced what Abigale had already concluded. “She won’t make another run. Not now. I’m surprised she tried it again, though I’d hoped we could mark the trees before another cutting.”
Abigale hoped he wouldn’t ask what she’d done when she found them.
“Where were they?”
“Just south of the falls.”
He took her hand and folded his around it, then kissed her fingers.
The gesture sent a thrill of energy through her. “It’s beautiful, the waterfall. Frozen yet living beneath the surface. I rode up there to see it and was there when I heard the tree fall.”
“So you didn’t ride out to check on the timber?”
Unable to hold his scrutiny, she dropped her gaze. “I did at first. I couldn’t just sit here and do nothing. It is my land, you know. I’m responsible.”
He grumbled and it resonated from his chest and into her hand through his, but he didn’t let go of her.
“Once I got up there, where we used to ride, I wasn’t thinking about the timber. Not until they felled the tree.” Angered all over again, she tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her, so she resigned herself to his hold.
“They didn’t even take it from the edge. Cut it right out of the middle, crushing saplings and snapping branches of nearby trees as it fell. That’s what first caught our attention—the horse and Chester and me. The snapping. Like gunfire through the woods.”
Poor choice of words on her part. She prayed he wouldn’t pick up on that.
He frowned, as if studying their linked fingers, turning their hands over until hers was on top. “Is that where you picked up the two axes tied on the back of your saddle?”
She flinched.
Still, he didn’t let go. His green gaze latched onto her even tighter, shadowed like the corners of the room. Smoldering like a banked fire.
Please, please don’t ask about Pop’s rifle.
“Did they see you?”
She exhaled. “No.”
“Can you be sure?”
“Yes. Well—no. But we were still as death, several yards back in the trees near a granite outcropping above them, and they were making such a racket they couldn’t have heard our approach.” Though they clearly heard her rifle.
He looked away, nodding slowly, thinking silent thoughts she wished he’d share.
A log shifted on the fire, and his gaze slid to her again. Through her, really. Back through all their growing-up years, their scrapes and spills. Their arguments and adventures. “Will you come home with me?”
How could she not?
~
Before sunup, Seth had the fire roaring and Chester lapping water from a shallow dish. Frankly, he was surprised Abigale hadn’t stayed on the hearth with the old fella, but Seth had promised he’d watch him and convinced her to sleep upstairs in a real bed. He’d taken the sofa.
His neck reminded him how short that sofa was as he shrugged into his coat and clapped his hat on. He’d feed early and milk the cow so they could start at sunup. It’d be hard going after last night’s storm. Much harder than getting Abigale’s agreement had been.
She’d surprised him, but he hadn’t pressed his luck by asking questions. He doubted that meeting up with the mountain lion had influenced her. She didn’t frighten easily from critters. And she loved that old dog of her grandparents, but that wasn’t it either. There was a different light in her eyes when she’d nodded her consent. And Seth believed it had everything to do with the fact that he’d asked her.
He didn’t press her, or bribe her, or threaten to throw her in the wagon. He didn’t tell her what she ought to do. He simply asked, and she agreed.
A lesson he needed to remember.
When he came in from the barn, she had coffee on and breakfast frying. Her yellow braid hung down her back with a blue ribbon tied on the end, and an old skirt she used to wear fit her a whole lot better than it did before she went away two years ago.
He left his hat and coat on hooks by the door and washed at the sink, grateful for the icy water in light of his warming insides.
“You’re out early.”
“Yes, ma’am. Sooner we’re ready, the sooner we can leave.”
“Did you milk the cow? And please don’t say ma’am again.”
He grinned. “I did. On the ground. Wasteful, but necessary for today.”
“Sit down, then, and we’ll eat before we pack up the kitchen.”
He stalled behind his chair, and she cut him a look. “I am not leaving everything I bought to the mice and whatever else will work its way in here while I’m gone. And I’m sure your mother will appreciate my contributions since I’ll be another mouth to feed.”
What Abigale ate wouldn’t keep one of her imagined mice alive, but he didn’t argue.
She set their plates and the coffee pot on the table, then joined him and held out her hand.
He didn’t need to be told twice. He wrapped his fingers around hers and bowed his head. “Thank you, Lord, for seeing us safely home last night and for this food. Amen.”
She squeezed his hand before slipping hers free, and it stirred the earlier warmth more than her hot coffee, eggs, and fried potatoes. So much for dousing the fire.
The sun peeked over the summit as they loaded the last of her stores. While Seth greased the axles, hitched up Tess, and saddled Coop, Abigale brought quilts and satchels out of the house and baskets full of he didn’t know what. But he didn’t care if she wanted to bring the table and chairs. She was going with him. Willingly.
They secured the door and shuttered all the windows, including those in the barn. Seth laid Chester on a bed Abigale made behind the wagon seat, then stuffed confused hens in the chicken coop.
He left the paint behind.
Abigale bundled up in her grandfather’s coat, hat, and a thick scarf, then climbed up and drove out along the ranch road, looking nothing at all like the proper young woman Seth had taken into town a few days ago.
He opened the corral gate and the animals followed the wagon with him trailing behind. Driving the little herd would be a lot easier than driving the wagon, but Abigale was up to it. Made him puff up like a rooster just thinking about it.
He trotted up beside her, his protective instincts stronger than his pride. “You want me to drive the wagon and you can push the livestock?”
Her glare was answer enough, and he reined around, choking on a chuckle.
They cut across the valley, edging the higher drifts, and the sun was straight overhead before they pulled in the yard at the Lazy H.
Nothing lazy about it other than the lying-down letter that made up his family’s brand.
His pa had seen them coming, for he stood at the corral gate, holding it open. Ma waited on the porch with Emmy, a shawl wrapped tight around her shoulders and a big smile on her face. He couldn’t hear what she said when Abigale jumped from the wagon, but the way she and his sister wrapped their arms around her told him plenty.
“I’m glad you made it, son. There’s a big one blowing in tonight. I feel it in my bones.”
“You’re usually right, Pa,” Seth conceded, taking in the cloud cover bunching up against the east side of the valley.
His pa forked hay into a couple of troughs and pushed the cows inside the barn. Seth unsaddled Coop and rubbed him down, then turned him out with the other horses before helping the women unload the wagon.
His ma clucked and fussed. “Why in the world did you bring all this food, Abigale? You have enough here to feed a branding crew for a month.”
Abigale blushed, but Seth didn’t think anyone realized it but him. He knew her every expression and all the shades she could turn.
“I don’t know how long I’ll be here, Mrs. Holt, and I intend to pay my way.”
“It’s Ida, dear. Ida and Ben. We’re just family, that’s all.”
Seth’s heart swelled until it nearly cracked his ribs. He hefted out the hens and stomped off toward the chicken house before he made a blubbering fool of himself.
“Emmy,” his ma called. “You go with Seth and show him where to set those hens.”
Like they needed directions inside their old roost. Ma was getting rid of a little pitcher with big ears.
“I didn’t recognize her!” Emmy’s surprise drew her up next to him, breathless with excitement. “Is she really going to stay for Christmas? I heard Ma and Pa talking to you about it at dinner, you know. How wonderful it will be to have another girl here for Christmas! I can’t wait to ask her—”
“Emma June.”
She scowled up at him.
“Abigale is not a girl, she’s a woman.” Boy howdy. “And don’t go bending her ear with everything that rattles through your head. Mind your manners.”
“Well, you should mind yours too. You know I don’t like Emma June.”
Which was exactly why he’d used it, to get her attention. “Open the gate for me.”
She complied and he lifted the coop lid. The hens hopped out and fluttered around their former companions, raising a ruckus to rival Emmy and her babbling.
“You’re sweet on her, aren’t you?”
He clapped the coop shut and carried it out, then latched the chicken-yard gate. “That hen? What’s got into you, girl?”
“You’re not funny, you know.”
He yanked one of her braids.
She took a swing at his arm. “Cut it out or I’m telling Ma you’re sweet on Abigale.”
“It’s Miss Abigale to you.”
“I knew it!”
She ran back to the house, pigtails and skirt a-flying. “Ma-ah!”
Emmy wouldn’t be spouting anything Ma didn’t already know.