Jodi Thomas (12 page)

He found it interesting that she’d named them, along with the oxen he’d brought in with her wagon, and the two squirrels that lived in the trees that shaded the corral. He didn’t mind the animals having names, but he figured he’d have to draw the line if she started on the chickens.

He walked to the barn and mixed dried strips of deer meat with a mush made of leftover milk and oats. When he handed each dog a bowl, he mumbled, “You’re welcome.” The dogs were as responsive as he’d been.

Next, he turned the milk cow out to graze and hitched up his buckboard. Except for rainy days, every summer morning was spent in the fruit trees. Carter’s father had brought saplings from Connecticut when they’d settled along the Canadian River. Apples and pecans. When he’d crossed into south Texas and headed north, he’d picked up peach trees north of Austin to add to his collection for his farm. With the ample water and protection of the bluffs, the trees had grown. Carter’s earliest memories were of following his father through the orchard, tending each tree as if it were a child.

Most of the peaches were ready to harvest, but the crop had not been huge this year. Carter would pull a few bushels tomorrow and store them until he had a wagon load. Then he’d make his third trip to town in less than a month. The apples were still weeks away from being ready, and the pecans could wait in boxes until winter.

Carter worked until past noon. It was his habit to finish tending the trees before stopping back by the house for a bite of lunch. The meal wasn’t important, but he enjoyed getting out of the sun for an hour and reading. Then he’d work until dark on his ranch, always building, or fixing, or tending.

He heard one of the yard dogs clearing the brush at the creek bed. Bailee was only a step behind the animal. She looked like she’d been running.

For a moment she glanced around, letting her eyes adjust to the shade of the trees. Then she spotted him and smiled. “I brought you some lunch. I wasn’t sure you’d want me to. I’ve never lived on a farm, but it seemed logical that I could walk out here as easily as you could stop your work and come in.”

She held out his lunch wrapped in a napkin.

Carter climbed off a box he’d been using as a ladder and accepted her offer. Lunch consisted of three strips of bacon and funny little round cakes that tasted like potatoes.

She handed him a jar of tea made with cold well water and sweetened with sugar.

Carter thought it was a fine lunch, but before he could say anything, she apologized. “I’m still figuring out where everything is. I found your garden out back and a small cellar in the house with all kinds of vegetables stored, but there was no fruit.” She looked around. “Do you mind if I take some of these peaches back to the house for a pie?”

He shook his head. He’d store apples and nuts when they were ready, but Carter never kept any of the peaches. When he’d been a boy, the peach crop had been the only one to produce. Sometimes that was all he had to eat. They never kept long, and once they were too rotten to eat, he’d almost starved until Willard could get a shipment to him. In the winter, that was never dependable. Many times he’d gone hungry with the last taste of overripe peaches lingering in his mouth.

Bailee held out her apron to take a load back with her.

From the direction of the house, two yard dogs barked. Henry the Eighth, who’d ventured to the orchard with Bailee, shot through the brush as though afraid he’d miss something if he didn’t hurry.

Carter listened for a moment more, then grabbed Bailee’s arm. He pulled her into the thickest part of the trees. “Stay here!” he ordered.

He retrieved a rifle from the box beneath the buckboard seat and ran toward the house. By the time he reached the back of the barn, his heart was pounding in his throat more from panic than exertion. Normally, when he left the house, he locked the door. Anyone wanting into his home without the key would have to use an ax.

If she left his fortress unprotected, all the precautions he’d installed over the years would be worthless.

He checked the windmill. The broken blade still pointed north. No one had entered through the back gate.

Carter moved in the shadow of the barn until he could see the house. He carried the rifle at ready, his finger on the trigger.

The front door stood wide open, but all was quiet except for the barking of the dogs.

Carter moved closer, knowing that if anyone had arrived recently, the dirt would still be settling.

Nothing.

He followed the sound of the dogs to the far side of the house. There, the three animals had a frightened mule deer cornered in front of the chicken coop.

Carter forced his muscles to relax one inch at a time. Whistling, he drew the dogs’ attention for a moment, allowing the frightened animal to escape.

Resting his rifle on his shoulder, Carter turned back to the house.

There, in the shadows along the porch, stood Bailee. She hadn’t waited in the safety of the trees, as he’d asked her. She stared at him with angry green eyes. He’d been wrong, her eyes weren’t the color of late summer, they were fiery emeralds and would warm even the hottest day of the year.

He’d asked her to stay so that he could protect their home and her, yet for some strange reason she looked mad at him.

When he reached the porch, the fire exploded. “Don’t ever push me into a corner again. If there is trouble, I stand with you, not hidden away in the trees, or shoved into a safe place. I stay with you. Don’t ever leave me again.”

He knew more inspired her demand than what had just happened, but he didn’t know her well enough to pry. Without answering, he turned and headed back to the orchard, knowing she wouldn’t follow.

An hour later he left a box of peaches on the porch when he brought the wagon back to the barn. He didn’t bother to step inside. He wasn’t sure he’d be welcome. A full day’s work remained to complete the corral fence. He needed to stop thinking of her and remember all his responsibilities.

But putting her out of his mind wasn’t as easy as he’d thought. Carter mentally listed all the ways she would help him around the house, freeing him to improve the ranch, build up a herd, and tend the trees. To be fair, he also listed how much of a distraction she was, taking his mind off work, changing his house around, making demands. He usually had the opportunity to read the books he ordered two or three times each before the next month’s shipment came into Willard’s. But since he’d brought her home, he hadn’t finished a page. At this rate he’d never read again.

It was almost full dark when he returned to the house. He stopped to wash at the stand by the well and changed shirts when he noticed a clean one hanging beside a clean towel. There was no sign of the blood he’d spilled on the front of the shirt yesterday morning, and it smelled of the starch his mother used years ago when she ironed. He’d forgotten how it lingered in the cottons, whispering of cleanliness.

He added another reason it was good to have Bailee around.

The aroma that greeted him a step inside the house washed over him like a flash flood. He’d smelled it before a few times. The wonderful perfume of fresh baked bread. It surrounded him so completely he felt as if he could open his mouth and bite into the very air.

Four perfectly shaped loaves rested on a cutting board in the center of the table.

Bailee’s voice drifted to him as he took a deep breath. “I see you found your shirt.”

She was somewhere near the stove, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the bread.

“I had a little trouble getting the blood out, but it washed up nicely. If you’ll leave your dirty clothes somewhere I can find them in the morning, I thought I’d wash a few tubs before it gets hot.”

Carter rested his hand atop one loaf of bread, feeling the warmth.

“Those may still be too hot to cut properly.” She set their plates on the table.

He fought the urge to pull a loaf in half and eat it whole.

She took her seat, and he followed. “I found your garden in good order, but there are no jars for canning. The next time you go to town, if you’ll bring back the supplies I need, I’ll put up enough peas and tomatoes to last the winter.”

Carter didn’t tell her his winter vegetables were usually beans and potatoes. Since he’d never learned to can, all extra vegetables at the end of the summer were fed to the pigs.

She continued to talk about growing up canning with her grandmother. As Bailee spoke, she sliced a thick piece of fresh bread from the first loaf and handed it to him.

Carter stared at it a moment. “Thank you,” he said, interrupting her.

“You’re welcome.” She didn’t meet his gaze. “I made butter in a jar the way my grandmother used to let me do while she used a butter churn. She’d put a little cream in the jar, and I’d shake for what seemed like forever, then she’d strain out the butter, salt it and let me make my own little butter presses with spoons.”

He stared at the butter she passed him. It never occurred to him butter would be so easy to make. He remembered it from years ago, but had no idea making it would be such a simple task.

“It’ll melt nicely on the bread,” she added.

He tried it sparingly at first, not wanting to spoil any of his bread. It had been so long since he’d had butter, he couldn’t remember if he liked it or not.

Neither one said another word. Carter ate his food fast as though inhaling it so he could get on with other things. The only time he seemed to chew was when he took a bite of the bread. Then she could see pure pleasure in his eyes. But when she offered him another slice, he refused.

As he’d done before, he helped her with the dishes before settling into the rocker. She sat at the table, near the lantern and tried to mend her only other dress. She had to make it presentable enough to wear while washing or she’d be doing laundry in her petticoats.

Bailee couldn’t help but watch Carter out of the corner of her eye. He lifted a book from the table by his chair, but made no effort to read. As he rocked, he fell asleep as he had every night.

When his breathing grew long and low, his hand began to move once more, going through a pattern of movements that made no sense.

Tonight, she moved nearer and watched closely. The movements were repeated over and over. She gently cupped her hand over his and felt the pattern, trying to understand what he could be doing so diligently in his sleep. As her hand warmed over his, his movements slowed, then stopped, and she knew he finally relaxed.

She stood and moved silently through the shadowy room. She locked the door, turned down the lantern, and covered him with a blanket.

When Bailee leaned to kiss his forehead good night, sleepy blue eyes stared up at her.

“Good night, Carter,” she said more formally than she intended. Her lips touched his cheek so briefly, she barely felt his day’s growth of beard.

Hurrying from the room, she didn’t allow herself to breathe until she was safely behind her bedroom door. Bailee closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against her lips.

He hadn’t moved. Hadn’t said a word. Hadn’t made any advance, but she suddenly felt a danger in his presence. A pain rocked through her chest, for she knew. She was in danger of losing her heart to this man.

C
ARTER LEFT HIS LAUNDRY ON THE KITCHEN FLOOR before dawn. He felt strange imagining someone else doing it. He’d developed a habit over the years of scrubbing out his clothes the day he realized all were dirty. When he’d been a boy, he’d often gone naked for a day so everything could be washed. But as he’d grown, he bought enough trousers and shirts to stay dressed on laundry day. Old Samuel, the carpenter who sometimes stopped in, commented more than once on how he appreciated Carter’s wearing clothing.

Carter smiled remembering the old man’s joking as he left to do the milking and early chores. Samuel was not a man of many words, and most of them had been spoken to himself over the years he’d known Carter.

When Carter returned from the barn, his breakfast sat on the table, but Bailee was already hard at work at the washstand. Since she didn’t have a huge pot to boil outside, she’d left a pot on the stove to heat so she could change water. The smell of lye soap filled the morning air.

Without a word Carter carried out a few loads of boiling water and refilled the pots from the well before he left.

Four hours later, when he walked from the orchard, he noticed the washtub turned upside down behind the house and all the clothes pinned on the line to dry. He stopped and stared. There were sheets and towels and a half dozen shirts and trousers. And one dress.

He entered the kitchen with more noise than usual, hoping, for once, not to startle her. Bailee wore her apron with the lace ruffles on her shoulders. It had to be her best apron, he thought, and she’d worn it to protect, or rather hide, a dress that looked to have patches on patches. She reminded him of the rag dolls he’d seen little girls carry with dresses made from scraps.

She smiled as if proud of herself. “I’ve finished the laundry and have your lunch almost ready.”

He was glad she couldn’t read his mind.

“I would have brought it out to you, but it’s been a busy morning.”

She seemed nervous. Almost as if she expected him to be angry at her for running late. Had she lived on such a tight schedule all her life? Had no one ever allowed her time to spare? Something bothered her now, but he had no idea what it might be.

Without thinking of why, he leaned over and lightly brushed her lips with his.

Bailee reddened. She pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Well”—she hurried away—“that was nice.”

Carter had no idea if she meant it, but at least she wasn’t thinking up some new rule about kissing, which seemed to be her favorite thing to do any time he got close to her. He fought the notion to do it again, figuring it would be better not to push his luck. He sat down and ate his cold lunch in silence, even forcing himself to finish half of the peach she put on his plate.