Montana Legend

Sarah Redding wiped at the floor with determined strokes, leaving tiny soap bubbles popping in the air above his bare toes. She was looking awfully hard at the floor, and now that his head was clear and the nightmare gone, he could see why.

Half naked, with a holstered gun in one hand. Now, didn’t that beat all? “Guess I’d best apologize. Next time I hear a commotion in the hallway, I’d better pull on a shirt first. If you come here often, that is.”

“Five nights every week.”

He reached into his room and found his shirt hanging on a peg by feel. “It’s two in the morning. When does your wild night on the town end?”

“When I reach the end of the hall.” Her mop dove playfully at his feet.

Being a wise man, he backed into the threshold. “So, you work half the night, and then you’re up before dawn to feed the chickens.”

“Sure. It keeps me busy. Out of trouble.”

He heard what she didn’t say. When you have a child, you do what it takes to provide for her. He knew all about that. And he’d had his share of seeing what happened when parents didn’t. Or worse, for that matter.

He closed his mind against the memories he didn’t want. From a time when he’d worn a silver badge on his chest.

“As you can see, I get into my fair share of trouble.” Her mop bumped the wall, scrubbing the last of the floor. “Banging my bucket in the hall, waking up paying guests. I hope you’re not angry with me.”

“I would have woken anyhow.”

“A light sleeper?”

“A troubled one.” It surprised him to admit the truth, but the low-spoken words escaped from his tongue and he shrugged, bashful at revealing so much.

“The life of a widow. Or widower.” Her voice softened and she straightened, turning to gaze up at him with understanding alight in her gentle blue eyes.

It had been a long time since he could look on the world and see goodness in the people in it. And it touched him right in the center of his chest, in the place where his heart used to be.

Where he hoped it still was.

“Don’t tell me you ride home alone this time of night,” he said as he lifted the bucket for her.

“All right, I won’t tell you.” She lifted her chin a notch as she stole the pail from his grip. “Now that I know you’re a light sleeper, I shall try harder tomorrow night not to wake you.”

A frown furrowed a disapproving line across his brow. “Your uncle thinks so little of your protection that he would allow this?”

“The countryside is safe.”

“No countryside is that safe.” He passed a hand over his eyes, looking troubled, looking weary. “Let me grab my boots and I will see you home.”

“No, that’s not necessary—”

“I’m not going to sleep at all if I let you go alone.”

“I have done so hundreds of times,” she reassured him, touched that he—nearly a perfect stranger—would care for her welfare when her kin cared so little.

Still, she was not his responsibility and she’d been independent far too long to lean on a man now. “Go back to your room, Gage Gatlin, and rest well. I’ll be fine on my own, and besides, what are you going to do? See me home every night?”

“Well, now, I admit I haven’t thought that far.” He flashed that grin at her, softened by sleep, edged by the dark shadow of a day’s growth.

He was a charming man. “You’ve got a child to look after,” she reminded him, because it was the practical thing to do. It wasn’t as if he was attracted to her, the way she was to him. He was simply being neighborly. Gentlemanly. Polite. That was all.

She clutched her mop close as she headed down the hall. “Good night to you, Mr. Gatlin.”

He didn’t answer as she swished down the stairs and into the lamplight of the lobby.

Someday, she thought wistfully as she stowed the broom in the back hall closet and carried the bucket out the side door and into the alley. One day she would no longer be alone. Someday she would have the warm embrace of a man holding her close through the night. Know the welcome comfort of a good man’s love.

“Done for the night, then?” Mrs. McCullough asked from the front desk, her knitting needles pausing as she looked up, squinting through her spectacles. “You sure do look tired, Sarah. These late nights are too much for you. I can get you a morning shift in the kitchen—”

“I wish I could.” Sarah sighed, trying not to think of the work that awaited her each day at her aunt’s shanty. “See you tomorrow evening.”

Sarah stowed the empty bucket in the small closet and her coat sleeve brushed her shoulder. As she lifted the garment from the hook, she tried not to think of the long walk ahead. Weariness weighed down her muscles as she tripped down the crooked board steps and hurried down the dark, narrow alley.

Piano music from the nearby saloon rang sharp and tinny on the icy wind. Random snowflakes drifted through the shadows and clung to her eyelashes and the front of her cloak as she shivered, walking fast past the lit windows where rough men drank inside.

For the ten thousandth time she felt the old anger rise up, anger at the injustice of David’s death. It wasn’t his fault, Lord knew, but nights like this when exhaustion closed over her like a sickness and even her soul felt weary, she longed for the way her life had been. For her own humble home, a cozy log cabin in the Idaho mountains, where Baby Ella had banged pots and pans on the polished puncheon floors and David’s laughter rang as he made a story over the events of his day at the logging camp, where he’d worked.

She longed for that gentle peace she’d known cuddling him in their bed at night, listening to his quiet breathing and feeling the beat of his heart beneath her hand. Of how when he stirred in his sleep, he reached for her, pulling her against his warm strong body, holding her close.

And although she’d grieved him long and well, she missed all he had given her. She knew she couldn’t go back, couldn’t live for the past and try to resurrect it. But she ached to know that kind of happiness again, the kind of love David had taught her a man and woman could find, if they were honest and loving enough.

Remembering made the night colder and more desolate as she left the town behind her. Walking quickly and steadily down the road as dark as despair.

Perched in his stirrups, Gage could barely make out the shadow of Sarah Redding as she walked the deserted road. The prairie winds moaned, making the landscape seem alive. Dried grasses rasped, an owl glided low, startling the mare. Coyotes howled, close enough to make the skin prickle at the back of his neck.

Old instincts reared up, ones that had once served him well. He’d vowed to keep away from Sarah, and here he was, looking out for her, making sure she was safe in the night.

But from a distance of half a mile. That was keeping away from her, right? Thanks to the long, flat prairie, he could see the road for a good mile and the lonely woman on it, walking with a tired hobble that was almost a limp.

He told himself it was sympathy he felt—not attraction—for the woman with the circles beneath her eyes and the worn dresses. For the widow with a daughter who’d been ill. He knew what it was like to be alone in the world with the sole responsibility of a child. And it was the former lawman in him that made him uncomfortable with the thought of any woman walking alone, in a peaceable countryside or not, because cruelty could dwell anywhere.

The road rolled down a gentle incline, stealing Sarah from his sight. He waited as a distant cow’s moo carried on the breeze until she reemerged, a slim shadow of grace against the endless prairie.

Sarah slipped from his sight completely, and he nudged the mare forward, searching for her in the dark.

There she was. Outlined against the empty road and rolling prairie. Looks like she was right all along. Maybe Buffalo County was as safe as it appeared. No danger in any direction.

Feeling foolish, he circled the mare around, nosing her north toward town. Keeping the reins taut, he hesitated, not sure what it was that made him pause. He felt unsettled, and it wasn’t the coyotes’s call or the restless winds that made him hesitate and gaze out over the plains.

Loneliness did. A loneliness that felt as bleak as a night without dawn.

Gage waited until he could see Sarah’s faint shadow at her front door before he turned, riding the mare hard. He knew from experience that it would take many miles to drive the demons from his mind and the nightmares from his heart.

Maybe there’d come a day when he could outrun them forever.

“Know what, Pa?” Lucy tromped through the tall thistles, casting a long shadow across the timber he was sawing. She paused, hand on one hip as she waited for his undivided attention.