High Country Bride

His hand, so very large, reached out and covered her wrist, stopping her. His fingers, so very warm, squeezed gently. “I’ll finish up here. You had best go see to your little ones.”

“They’ll be fine enough until I finish.”

“Please.” It was the plea in his eyes that moved her, that revealed a man of great heart. “I’m not comfortable letting a woman do my work. I’ll bring you some of the milk after I strain it.”

How could she say no to the man who had given her one night of safe harbor? One night of peaceful sleep? He was like a reminder of hope on this perfect, golden morning, even with the shadows that seemed to cling to him.

“Go on.” It was softly said, and surprising, coming from such a hard-looking man. “You have done enough for now.”

She swallowed, lost in his midnight-blue eyes. They were shielded from her, and as guarded as the peaks of the Rocky Mountains towering over the long stretch of prairie. Curiosity filled her, but he wasn’t hers to wonder about, so she pulled away and rose from the stool. With the first step she took, she felt a pang of lonesomeness. Her hand, warm from his touch, was cold in the temperate morning.

He watched her with his penetrating gaze, unmoving. Behind him on the porch, another man came to a sudden halt, yanked down the wide brim of his hat to shield his eyes from the sun without bothering to disguise his disdainful frown in her direction.

Last night Aiden had mentioned a brother. A brother who made him look even kinder and ten times more mature and masculine by comparison. The intensity of this man’s scowl made Joanna shiver.

“Don’t mind Finn.” Aiden’s comment carried on the breeze. “He’s got a lot to learn about life and manners.”

Across the yard, Finn muttered a terse answer that was drowned out by the harsh clatter of his boots on the steps. Anger emanated from him like heat from a stove. Joanna took one look at him and stayed where she was.

“Don’t blame you for not wanting to cross his path.” Aiden had hunkered down on the stool beside the cow. “When Finn’s got his dander up, he’s meaner than a rattler trapped in a brush fire. I apologize for him.”

“There’s no need. I’m the trespasser here.”

“You’ve gone pale. He upset you.”

“No, he reminded me of someone. M-my husband.”

That explained it. Aiden didn’t need to know anything more to see how her life had been. Sourness filled his stomach. Life was hard enough without such people in it. “Finn would make a poor husband.”

She didn’t comment, but the way she tensed up, as if she were holding too much inside, let him know more than her answer ever could. “Come by in, say, thirty minutes and I’ll have breakfast on the table. Your young ones might as well eat while we figure out what you and I are going to do.”

“About what I owe you?”

“No.” Tied up inside, he said the word with all the patience he had. “You have to go somewhere, Joanna. You can’t keep living out of your wagon.”

He could see her face beneath the shadow of her bonnet. Really, she was very lovely; her forehead and nose, cheekbones and chin were so fine they could have been sculpted of porcelain. Her big blue eyes were as pretty as cornflowers and her mouth looked soft and cozy, as if she had spent a lot of her life smiling. Once upon a time.

Her brows knit and her chin shot up. “Plenty of folks live out of their wagons when times get hard.”

Pride. He knew something about that. “I wasn’t criticizing. Only saying that eventually winter is going to come. Maybe I can help you with that.”

Her throat worked at the word help. Pain shot across her face. Whether she suspected his motives or wanted nothing to do with his help, he couldn’t know. She gave a nod of acknowledgment—not of agreement—and went on her way through the growing, seed-topped grasses.

Painted with dawn’s soft golden light like that, framed as she was by the crisp lush green of the prairie, Aiden felt he was seeing her for the first time. She was a truly lovely woman. He might even say beautiful.

He wasn’t proud of himself for noticing.

Joanna kept swallowing against the painful burn in her throat as she whisked a dollop of milk into the egg batter. Eventually winter is going to come. Aiden McKaslin’s remembered words made that pain worse. Maybe I can help you with that. Charity. That’s what he saw when he looked at her. A woman to be pitied.

Shame filled her, because it was the worst sort of criticism. She stopped whisking to flip the thick-cut bacon sizzling in one of the frying pans. Charity was all pretty and tidy and wrapped up real nice when you were the one giving it. It was different when you were on the other end. She’d been able to keep her chin up before, because she had been doing her best. There had been solace in that.

Now he thought she expected his help, that she would accept it. He meant well, but she was afraid of being in a man’s debt. Even in a good man’s debt. Anyone could see that Aiden McKaslin was a good man.

“Ma.” Daisy gave her rag doll a squeeze where she sat on a chair at the round oak table. “Can I get a drink of water?”

“You just had one, baby.” Joanna knew the child wasn’t asking for water, but to be able to get down from the chair and move around. “This isn’t our home, so we have to mind our manners. I want you to please sit there a little while longer.”

“Oh. Okay.” The little girl sighed and squeezed her doll harder.

“Ma?” James fidgeted in his chair and swung his feet back and forth. “I’m awful hungry. Especially for some of that bacon.”

There was no missing the hope on his face. Real bacon. They’d had such a luxury when they had their own little plot of land and their own pig to butcher. Joanna sighed, remembering those times, harder in some ways, better in others. “This is Mr. McKaslin’s breakfast. We ate in the shanty before we came here.”

“I know, but I was hopin’…” He left the sentence dangling, as if afraid to ask the question he already knew the answer to, but wanting to hold on to that hope.

She couldn’t blame him for that. “Maybe there will be a surprise for two good children later on. How about that?”

“Yes, ma’am!” James stopped fidgeting and sat up soldier straight, eager at the thought of a surprise.

“Oh, yes.” Daisy offered a dimpled smile.

It took so little to please them. Joanna’s heart ached as she poured the eggs into the waiting skillet. If only there was something more than another few pieces of saved candy for them. They deserved more than she could give them—at least now, anyway. In a month’s time, there would be fieldwork to do. It was hard labor, and she still didn’t know what to do with her babies while she worked, but at least she could hope for real wages. Hope for a betterment of her children’s lives.

The eggs sizzled and she whisked them around the pan, reaching for the salt and pepper. She surveyed her work in progress. The bacon was crisping up real nice, the tea was steeping and the buttermilk biscuits in the oven were smelling close to done. Cooking for the man wasn’t much of a repayment, but it was all she had to offer.

The back door swung open and there was Aiden, leaving his boots behind in the lean-to and staring at her with shock on his stony face. The kindness she’d come to see there vanished, replaced by a cold blast of anger.

“What are you doing?” His voice was loud enough to echo around the room. He came swiftly toward her, with raw fury and full power. “Get out of my kitchen.”

She’d expected him to be happy that she’d cooked for him, saving him the chore. She kept stirring the eggs so they wouldn’t congeal. “In a moment. I’m nearly done here. I didn’t mean to intrude. I know it was forward of me, but—”

“I want you out.” He drew himself up as if ready for a fight.

Yet she was not afraid of him. She heard Daisy crying quietly at the table and James hop off his chair to come to her aid.

“Outside, both of you.” She laid down the whisk. “Aiden, the biscuits are ready. Let me take them out of the oven.”

“Now, Joanna.” The words came out strangled.

He was not angry at her, she realized. There, behind his granite face, she thought she caught something terrible—grief and sorrow—before that glimmer of emotion faded from his eyes. He stared at her, cold and imposing. He did not have to say another word. His face said it for him. She was not welcome here. Coming had been a mistake. An enormous mistake.

Miserable, she turned away. She had to detour widely to avoid bumping his arm with her shoulder, for he’d planted himself in the middle of the kitchen. Shame made her feel small as she hustled to the door, where her children waited, wide-eyed and silent, in the lean-to.

So much for her brainy ideas. She took James with one hand and Daisy with the other. They tumbled into the blinding sunshine together. Dust kicked up beneath their shoes as they hopped off the last step and into the dry dirt. To the right lay a garden, the vegetables small and stunted, wilting in the morning sun. Duty cried out to Joanna to water those poor plants, for their sake as much as for Aiden’s. She glanced over her shoulder, remembering the awful look on his face.

She could see him in the shadows of the kitchen, standing where she’d left him, his shoulders slumped, his hands covering his face.

She’d never seen a man look so sad. Her feet became rooted to the ground, even though James was tugging at her hand. Something held her back. Something deep in her heart that would not let her leave the man behind.