Texas Gold

“You’re not planning on going out in that mess, are you?” Max stood behind her, his presence warming her back as she shivered in a gust of wind and the smattering of raindrops that accompanied it across the width of the porch.

“I was thinking about it,” she confessed. “The hens will be hungry.”

“They’ll live another couple of hours,” he said dryly. “And from the looks of that sky, it’ll be at least that long before this lets up.”

She nodded. “I know. I figured that out already.” Stepping back, she shut the inside door, dodging him as he moved from her path. “I might as well fix breakfast, I guess.”

“Where’s the dog?” He went to the window and bent to peer through the glass. “I didn’t hear him last night at all.”

“He doesn’t bark unless someone comes around or varmints show up near the chicken coop. Right now, he’s no doubt warm and dry under the porch. I stuck a wooden box under there, facing away from the wind, and he has an old blanket he sleeps on.”

“All the comforts of home,” Max said, straightening and stretching a bit. Faith wondered if the bed she’d offered him was too short. Certainly it was not akin to the mattress he’d paid a pretty penny for back in Boston.

“How long have you had the pooch?” Max asked. “He doesn’t look very old.”

“He’s not. Nicholas and Lin gave him to me last year when they built their new place and let me move in here. They decided I needed him worse than they did.”

“Probably a good move on their part. It never hurts to have a dog around.”

Faith was silent, thinking of the pet she’d left behind in Boston.

“He’s fine,” Max said, as if he discerned her thoughts. “He missed you terribly after you left. After he’d howled for a couple of nights, I let him sleep on the rug beside my bed to make up for your absence.”

“I wanted to take him with me, but I couldn’t see any way to do it.”

“Maybe he’ll make coming back with me more appealing.”

And wasn’t that a cunning way to coax her into his way of thinking? “I don’t think that ploy is going to work, Max,” she said, hoping to dash his hopes before he could make a full-fledged assault on her defenses.

He picked up the coffeepot from the stove and filled two cups with the dark brew. “Give me points for trying, anyway.”

“I’ve already given you more of an advantage than I should have,” she said, breaking eggs into a bowl. “Your moving into my home was certainly not a part of my plan. If I weren’t unwilling to bring the wrath of the sheriff and Nicholas down on your head, it never would have happened.”

“Well, I suppose I must be thankful for small favors,” he murmured dryly. Opening the bread box, Max lifted a wrapped loaf and placed it on the table. “Do you want this sliced?” At her nod, he picked up her cutting knife and neatly severed four thick slices, then opened the oven door to place them on the rack.

“You know, the sheriff has no power to keep me from you—not legally, anyway,” he said quietly. “And your neighbor is wisely keeping hands off.”

Faith quickly glanced up at him and then turned her attention to the work at hand, pouring the eggs into a hot skillet. “You told the Garveys to stay away?” she asked. And then she looked at him more fully. “I’m surprised that Nicholas didn’t run you off.”

“His wife is the one who warned me that my hide would be at stake if I harmed you in any way. She’s a formidable woman.” A grin softened his description of her friend. “She told me she was very good with a shotgun. And her husband let me know I was here on sufferance.”

“They’ve been wonderful friends to me, and I fear they may be a bit protective,” Faith told him. “Lin and I hit it off the first time we met, and I was on hand to help deliver their little boy a while back.”

Max looked surprised, she thought. “I saw the girl, but no one mentioned a baby.”

“He was probably asleep. Lin has help—a woman called Katie, who runs the house with an iron hand.”

“It’s a big place. Looks more like it belongs in Boston than out in the middle of nowhere,” Max said. “The man must be successful at ranching.”

“He’s a banker by trade,” Faith said. “Still owns a bank in a town south of here. He and Lin have quite a background.”

“I’m more interested in what you’ve been doing the past few years,” Max said. “I want to know how you ended up here.”

She thought for a moment, remembering the day she’d walked away from the big house in Boston. Actually, she’d only walked to the end of the front walk, then loaded her sparse amount of baggage into a passing conveyance for the trip to the train station. “I was interested in finding a place where I wouldn’t need a great deal of winter clothing,” she said. “And Texas was in the south, so I headed in this general direction.”

She smiled, recalling her naive mind-set. “I had no idea that winter in Texas could be brutal at times. Anyway, I traveled as far as I could afford to by train, and then walked as far as my legs would carry me,” she said simply. “I was told by a farmer’s wife closer to town of a cabin in the woods, and I decided it would serve the purpose.”

“A cabin? Was it weather-tight and furnished?” he asked, his frown dark with concern.

Faith pursed her lips, remembering. “A little of each. Barely leaked at all, and it had a bed of sorts and a small stove for heat. Thanks to the friendship of folks who lived here before Nicholas and Lin arrived on the scene, it became my home. When my cash supply reached rock bottom, I asked around and found folks who needed mending and sewing done. Even the sheriff sought me out, asking me to take care of his financial matters, writing letters for him and such.”

“I think he sought you out for another reason, too,” Max said in an undertone.

“Whatever you might think, Brace has been a good friend, and I’ve appreciated his help. Then one day, he came to pick up his mending and told me he’d heard of a horse for sale. The owner was moving on and needed money in a hurry and couldn’t take the horse. Brace paid him up-front and I earned it back.”

Max’s mouth thinned as if he held back words better left unsaid, and Faith shot him a dour look as she spooned his eggs onto his plate, reserving a helping for herself. She pulled the bread from the oven and joined him at the table.

“When the original owners sold this place a couple of years ago, it sat empty for a long time, and I was given permission to take anything I needed from it in order to improve the cabin. What I took were the books from the parlor.”

“Books? I don’t recall you being that much of a reader,” he said, buttering all four slices of toast, and then offering the plate to her. “What were they? Classics?”

“Actually,” she said, breaking apart a slice of toast, “a couple of them were textbooks on herbal healing, along with a medical book that had to do with anatomy and the setting of bones. I read everything I could that winter. It seemed like spring would never come.” Her voice sounded pensive, and she cleared her throat, unwilling to let Max think she was asking for his pity.

“You were lonely?” He was truly interested, she decided. Not feeling sorry for her, but wanting to know how she had survived.

“A little. But I learned so much. I fed the birds and the small animals that gathered in front of the cabin for handouts. I’d collected corn from the fields after the harvest was over, and gleaned wheat from the farm to the east, when the threshers were through. It gave me something to feed the wild things, and they were company for me.”

She looked up into his gaze, aware that he’d watched her closely. “You’ll think I’m foolish to be so bound up in the little things of life, Max, but I learned a lot about myself that first year or two. I found I could plant a garden and harvest it, and live from the land if I had to. A neighbor gave me a setting hen and a dozen eggs and I began my flock. Within a year I had a lean-to built to hold my hens and nests for their eggs.”

“You built a lean-to?” he asked. “By yourself?”

“Brace helped,” she said. “I found a barn that had fallen to bits on a deserted farm the other side of town, and dragged home enough wood to nail together. All it cost me was the price of the nails, and Brace lent me a hammer until I could buy one of my own.”

Max looked stricken. “I had no idea. I wanted to follow you when you left, Faith, but…”

She hesitated, then spoke the thought that had been itching to be expressed since his arrival. “Why didn’t you? I suppose I wondered why you let me go so easily, Max. And when you made no apparent attempt to find me, I decided you’d figured you were well rid of me.”

“Not true,” he said harshly. “Things happened after you left. My brother had an accident the next day and was laid up with severe injuries for several months. I was torn between abandoning the family business or setting out on your trail.”

“And the business won, hands down.”

“We employ a great number of people, and Howard’s wife was distraught. We thought at first he wouldn’t live, and my time was divided between the hospital and the business for longer than I like to remember. I couldn’t just walk away from all that, no matter how much I wanted to chase after you.”

She shrugged. “I suppose you’re right. I doubt you’d have found me, anyway.”

His mouth set in a grim line as he eyed her narrowly. “Trust me, I’d have found you. As it was, by the time I set detectives on your trail, it was stone cold, and I had to offer rewards all across the country before I heard word of a woman of your description here in Benning.”

Her brow lifted. “You paid a reward for me?”