Dorothy Garlock - [Tucker Family] (19 page)

“That’s why you came here tonight,” Owen said softly, his hand still on her back.

“Owen,” Charlotte answered, “Hale still thinks that you did it.”

“Shhh,” he quieted her with a finger against her lips. “Not tonight. There’ll be time to deal with that later.”

T
IRED FROM A LONG DAY
at school, Charlotte trudged up the walk to the main house, the sun still high enough for its rays to warm her skin. The
whole day had flummoxed her, with her thoughts swimming back to the kiss she had shared with Owen the night before, and she’d
had a hard time focusing on her students. Minutes felt as if they were hours, Paige Spratt was even more annoying than usual,
and Charlotte wondered if Owen would be the one to come drive her and Hannah home; she was greatly disappointed when he was
not.

Charlotte had just entered the front door when Amelia Grant approached her, absently wiping one hand on her worn apron, an
envelope clutched in the other.

“John picked this up at the post office when he went into town.” She smiled warmly, placing the letter into
Charlotte’s hands. “I was certain that you’d want to have it as soon as you got home.”

Even if she hadn’t seen the postmark, Charlotte would have known who had sent it by the slant of the handwriting; Christina
had written to her.

“It’s from my sister.” She beamed.

“Go on up and enjoy your letter.”

“Thank you, Amelia!” Charlotte shouted over her shoulder as she dashed up the staircase to her room two steps at a time, her
earlier fatigue and confusion utterly forgotten.

She opened the door to her bedroom, banged it behind her harder than intended, and dropped down onto the foot of the bed.
Tearing open the envelope and unfolding the letter, several pages in length, she smiled at the sight of Christina’s familiar
script.

Happiness blossomed brightly in Charlotte’s heart as she finished her sister’s letter, putting it carefully back in its envelope.
She hadn’t known it when she’d returned to the ranch, but something from home had been just what she’d needed. Although Christina’s
own self-confidence had often been lacking, she had never wavered with her unflagging support of her older sister.

Christina’s postscript made Charlotte laugh; she had no idea whether it was right to call Owen a “nice man,” but he had certainly
had an impact on her. Whenever she thought of the man who had shouted at her, who had made light of her name, who had shared
his feelings about his mother, or who had kissed her so passionately, she found her heart beating faster, filled with emotions
she had never imagined.

I’ve definitely met someone…

But there was another matter that needed her attention, something that involved a man who was most certainly not nice. If
her stay in Oklahoma was to remain pleasant, she couldn’t wait any longer to do something about him.

“Git after it! Git after it! Git after it!”

John Grant whistled and shouted, encouraging a pair of cowboys who were desperately trying to coerce an
unbroken colt to follow their commands. His tan ears were pricked high, spittle flew from his mouth, and he held his head
up and alert. Whatever movement the men made as they worked in tandem, the horse attempted the opposite, his hooves rising
up before slamming down into the earth as geysers of dirt shot up at every step. To Charlotte, it looked like an awkward dance
with only two willing participants.

Suddenly, the horse bolted hard to his right, directly toward one of the ranch hands who now was trapped between the obviously
upset animal on one side and the fence on the other. The hand grimaced, preparing to be struck, but at the last second the
horse veered slightly, just clipping the man with his front quarter. The blow was still tremendous; the man fell hard on his
rump, his hat flying off in a cloud of dust.

“Dang it all!” he shouted.

“All right there!” John bellowed. “That’s enough of that for now! Why don’t we let that horse run around some and work some
of that gol-damn steam out of what bothers him, then we’ll give it another go!” When he turned and noticed that Charlotte
had come up behind him, watching a few steps away, he added, “Sorry ’bout the language, young lady.”

“Nothing I haven’t heard before, I’m afraid.” She smiled. As the cowboys made their way from the corral, she said, “That looks
dangerous.”

“It is,” he agreed. “Horses don’t know their own
strength. This one’s wild and don’t take to tamin’. Course you gotta convince him otherwise, and that’s when a fella’s most
likely to get hurt.”

“How long does it usually take to… convince them?”

“A bit longer than I’d like!”

Watching John Grant smile as he talked about his horses, about his livelihood, Charlotte could see why he inspired such loyalty
in Hale, Del, and all the other men. John was equally quick with a smile, a shouted order, or even the quiet surety of purpose
she saw during the fire. He was friendly and a charmer. Charlotte wondered if she too hadn’t been taken in when she had agreed
to teach Sarah Beck.

“How about for this horse?”

“Give him a few more of these sessions and he’ll start comin’ round.”

“That’s how I feel about some of my new students,” Charlotte said with a chuckle. “Whether it’s reading or writing, arithmetic
or geography, I have them do it over and over again in the hopes that they’ll finally learn a little of what I’m trying to
teach them.”

“None of your students could possibly be as hopeless as some of the mustangs we got comin’ through here.”

“Other than Sarah, you mean.”

John’s eyes narrowed and there was a beat of tension that passed between them, if only for an instant. “I didn’t quite mean
it like that,” he answered. “How’re things goin’ with her schoolin’?”

“Better than I’d expected, to tell you the truth. We’ve been working on building her reading skills, and while she can get
frustrated quite easily, she tries as hard as she can to sound out the words,” Charlotte explained, pausing before dropping
her reason for coming to speak with him. “But there is a problem, a big one, although it’s not with her.”

“What’s that?”

Charlotte proceeded to tell John about her frightening encounter with a drunken Alan Beck outside the shack; she recounted
his horrible rant about how his daughter couldn’t learn a thing, his inappropriate advance toward her in the pouring rain,
and the fact that she had feared him. When John asked why she hadn’t told him when he had come to pick her up, she explained
that she’d been too shaken to think clearly, and that now, after she’d time to give the matter thought, she’d decided to talk
to him about it.

And I’ve been awfully preoccupied with Owen…

“I hate to say it, but I was afraid this might happen, though I sure hoped otherwise.” John frowned. “He looks the sort, like
a man who’s been beaten down a bit and finds a drop of courage in a bottle ’cause he ain’t got none of his own to spare. Ever
since him and Sarah arrived, he’s been hangin’ over the lip of that bottle, and from what you’re sayin’, looks to me like
he finally fell in.”

“I don’t know if I can go back there until I’m sure it isn’t going to happen again,” Charlotte admitted.

“I guarantee you that it won’t, even if I have to stay out there with you the whole time. This is too darn important to me
to have anythin’ gummin’ it up.”

“Why?” she asked, the question already out of her mouth before she could contain it.

“Why what?”

“Why is my helping Sarah so important to you?” Charlotte plunged recklessly forward, deciding that knowing was worth any potential
risk. “When you took me out to the shack the first time, you asked me to give your offer a chance, to trust you, and to try
to teach her something. I’ve done that. Now it’s
you
who should trust in
me
. Why would you want to risk our standing around town for someone you scarcely know?”

John was quiet for a long time, moving only to wipe his brow with a handkerchief. With every passing second, Charlotte felt
certain that he would not tell her anything, but finally he nodded.

“Life is full of a lot of things, some of ’em funny, some sad, even some angry, but the hardest thing I’ve ever tried livin’
with is regret,” he began, his eyes wistfully staring off into the distance. “When you’re young, you’ll do all sorts of things,
foolish and whatnot, things you wouldn’t if only you’d had a few more years on your bones to know better.”

John paused, falling so silent that Charlotte could hear the rebellious colt’s tail swishing away persistent flies.

“Even a young lady such as yourself,” John continued, “even though you comin’ to Sawyer, leavin’ your home in
Minnesota, is the first step in what’s sure to be a long life, I reckon even you’ve got a handful of regrets.”

“One or two,” she agreed, her thoughts again racing to her erratic relationship with Owen.

“Well, I’ve got one that weighs down on my soul.” John’s tone darkened. “Somethin’ I can’t rightfully make up for, and let’s
just say that when I first took a gander at Sarah Beck and her situation, it was the sort of reminder a God-fearin’ man ain’t
likely to ignore.

“In an instant, a man can make the sort of mistake he spends the rest of his life tryin’ to make up for. Me askin’ you to
teach that girl, to try to help her make somethin’ better outta the mess of her life, it ain’t much, but it’s ’bout all I
got these days.”

When John finished, he turned to look at her, allowing Charlotte to be witness to the competing emotions written on his face:
anger, disgust, and shame colored his cheeks. There was much that she could assume from listening to his words, much that
reflected poorly on him, but she resisted the urge to leap to any improper conclusions. She knew that she had been allowed
to share a part of John Grant’s secret, an honor that was both flattering and troublesome.

“I know it ain’t the whole truth, least not spelled out as simple as a story you might read to your students,” he said, “but
is it enough?”

“It’s more than I knew before.”

“It is at that.”

Given the modest success she had gained in trying to understand John’s interest in Sarah Beck, Charlotte felt optimistic.
Ever since Hale had told her that Owen was suspected of fouling the well, she had considered how she might come to his defense.
Since John was the owner of the ranch that was being threatened, he would be directly involved with any finger-pointing. If
she wanted to clear Owen’s name, there was no one better with whom to talk.

The only way I’ll ever know is to ask…

But before she could say a word, Charlotte was surprised to see a commotion start on the opposite side of the corral, cross
within spitting distance of the startled horse, and head directly toward where she and John stood; fast as lightning, she
understood that it was Salt and Pepper, one after the other, racing just as quick as their legs would carry them. Though they
were definitely interrupting, she couldn’t help smiling. She hadn’t seen them underfoot since the day of the fire when they
had been frantically racing back and forth from the ranch house to the nearest barn, as if they couldn’t decide whether they
wanted to be brave and fight the fire or fearful and hide in the house.

“And what are you two little rascals up to today?” John asked in false consternation.

As if he were providing an answer, Pepper began to yap furiously; Salt only occasionally barked one deep woof, filling in
what his partner left out.

“Sounds important,” Charlotte commented.

“More than likely it ain’t nothin’ more than one of ’em tipped over the water bucket we keep out for ’em and they’re too lazy
to head down to the creek.” He smiled. “I suppose I should go and see.”

“You wouldn’t want to make them angry,” she said, wondering if they usually got their water from the well that had been tampered
with.

“No, I would not,” he answered, giving no hint that anything was wrong. Turning to leave, he only made it a step before stopping.
“I promise you that I will take care of Alan, so are we settled?”