Big Sky Homecoming

A cowboy on foot chasing a sheep! Who would have thought she’d ever see the day? When she told Lilly, they would get a good laugh out of it.

Grub, their flop-eared, useless but well-loved dog, loped toward the sheep. Until now he’d been supervising Ma and Pa unloading the wagon, hoping for a handout.

He ran straight into the midst of the sheep, scattering them every which way.

Duke’s eyes grew wide. “Stop. Shoo. Shoo.” He waved his arms madly at the sheep.

Rose started to giggle.

Duke pulled to a halt at her side. “Share the joke.”

She shook her head, not because she didn’t want to but because she wondered if he might be offended.

He nudged her with his elbow. “No fair. I like a good joke.”

“Very well.” She fluttered her hands toward the sheep who’d decided to ignore Grub and follow the ram. “Shoo. Shoo.” She tossed her head like an annoyed sheep. “Baa. Baa.”

No doubt seeing in her actions how silly he looked, he grinned at her and then a chuckle rumbled from him. They held each other’s gaze as they laughed.

“They’re all in,” Billy called.

Rose pulled the gate closed and secured it firmly, as she did each and every time.

“How did they get the gate open?” Duke asked.

“Not by themselves, you can be sure.” She slowly came about to face him. “And I think you know it. This is another of the Caldwell tricks.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. His expression grew fierce. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“Oh, come on. Since we moved here, the Caldwell cowboys have harassed us endlessly.” The injustice of it burned a hot path through her thoughts. “Cows stampeded over the garden. Sheep turned out.” She waved at the tracks through the snow. “This fall a lamb drowned.”

Billy gasped.

“And my pa was injured when cows were run through the yard this fall.”

“I had nothing to do with it,” Duke averred.

“You’re a Caldwell.” She faced him squarely, her eyes burning with her raw feelings.

He studied her for a moment. Shock gave way to indifference. “Come on, Billy. It’s time to go.”

Without another word, they returned to their horses.

“Thanks for your help,” she said, reluctant to end the afternoon on such a sour note. For a few minutes they had worked together and laughed together.

Too bad it couldn’t be like that more often. But the land feud put them at enmity. That fact burned up her throat.

“Tell your father that the Bells aren’t leaving.”

* * *

“Rose is a pretty lady,” Billy said.

“She sure is.” In the year he’d been away, she had blossomed from child to woman. Not that she’d ever been ugly. He’d known her most of his life, attended the same school and the same church. But ever since he’d turned eleven years old they’d been separated by a wide chasm.

His father had never, nor would he ever, accept the mistake that had allowed the Bells to start a farm jutting into the boundaries of the Caldwell Ranch. Father resented the Bells taking advantage of the clerical error. The honorable thing to do, he’d insisted throughout the years, would be to stick to the spirit of the law rather than the letter of it. Worse still was the fact that the intruders were sodbusters who broke the land and put up fences. But the worst of all was that the Bells refused to budge despite every offer to buy them out and numerous attempts to drive them from the land. The whole disagreement had grown over the years until it had become a feud that made no sense.

“I like her,” Billy continued.

“Me, too.” He always had, though he hadn’t been able to express it properly when they were kids so he’d teased her. She’d gotten all prickly but beneath the prickly thorns was a beautiful Rose. He’d always known it but it had never been more evident than today.

He sat back in his saddle, reliving every moment of the afternoon. Rose, her face flushed from her exertion. Rose, her green eyes flashing as she laughed at him chasing the sheep. He grinned. He didn’t normally chase things on foot, but it had been worth it for those few moments of shared laughter.

His pleasure was cut short. She held him at least partially responsible for the feud simply because he was a Caldwell.

This feud should have ended years ago. His father had no call to try to drive the Bells from their land. It had to stop before someone got seriously injured. He’d noticed Mr. Bell limping the few times he’d seen him in town. He’d put it down to age. His teeth clenched. Instead, Rose held the Caldwells responsible. He knew Father would say it was an accident. Not the Caldwells’ fault in the least. But Duke knew Rose was likely correct—Caldwell cowboys had done it. And next time it might not end so well.

He rode up to the ranch house and dismounted.

“Billy, can you take care of the horses?”

Billy grinned as he took the reins of both animals. “I’ll brush ’em really good, Boss.”

Duke chuckled. Normally he wouldn’t have been so eager to take care of the animals, except all the cowboys were away, so no one would tease him. He’d met Billy in Philadelphia and, when he realized the young man had no family, had brought him back with him. Billy hadn’t started calling him “boss” until they’d arrived at the ranch and Billy had realized Duke’s family owned the place.

Still chuckling, Duke entered through the kitchen door. Mrs. Humphrey slipped cookies from a baking sheet onto a cooling rack.

“Mmm. Cookies. Smells good.” He snagged up two as he passed and bit into one. “Hot.”

Mrs. Humphrey shook a towel at him. “They just came out of the oven. What did you expect?”

“I sure did miss your cooking while I was away.” He crossed toward the sitting-room door.

“Glad to have you back, Duke,” she called.

“Not half as glad as I am to be back.” He’d enjoyed meeting his grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins in Philadelphia but every day he’d missed Montana.

He stepped into the sitting room and stared at the traveling bags lined up. Mother laid a coat across a nearby chair.

“You going away?”

“Governor Toole has sent your father an invitation to attend some meetings. Your father thinks he might be asked to work on a committee.”

“I need to speak to him before he goes.”

“You’ll find him in the office.”

Duke crossed the room and stepped into his father’s office. Father gathered papers together and slipped them into a satchel.