The Cowboy Comes Home

“Is it safe to go back to digging the garden?” Linc asked.

Sally sprang into action. “I have to get to work. No more play.” She hurried back to her raking. What had she been thinking? She had responsibilities.

Behind her Linc spoke to Robbie. “She didn’t mean it. There will always be time to play.”

Sally snorted. Showed what he knew. “Play is for children.”

“Do you really mean that?” Linc picked up the shovel and resumed digging.

“I guess there is a time and place for play. And people who can take the time.” She spoke the words firmly, as much to convince herself as him.

“I gather you don’t count yourself one of them.”

“Not when I have responsibilities.”

He worked steadily. “There will always be responsibilities.”

“True.”

He reached the end of digging and stopped to wipe his brow on his shirt sleeve. “So you don’t play? Grandmama says you have two sisters. Surely you played with them.”

“I used to. When I was young and carefree.” Why did she feel she had to defend herself? She expected him to ask why she wasn’t any longer carefree, but instead he asked, “What games did you and your sisters play?”

“Dress up. Plays. Tea parties.” She didn’t want to mention the games she’d played with Father.

Linc placed the stake in one end of the garden and stretched a length of twine to the far end, marking a row for Sally. As he worked, he was acutely aware of her studying his question, though her fingers sorted through a small tin bucket full of seed packets.

She’d been a good sport joining in Robbie’s game. The boy seemed almost afraid to play. Or rather, to engage adults in his play.

Linc tried to remember a time his father had played with him, but couldn’t. Harris, five years older, had been the one who roughhoused with Linc, threw a ball endlessly while he learned how to connect with the bat, and involved him in long complicated games of cops and robbers.

“My father died almost five years ago,” Sally finally said. “Just before the crash. Mother says it was a mercy. That it would have broken his heart to see how his family had to struggle.”

Linc sat back on his heels and watched her. She had forgotten about the pail of seeds and stared into the past. Her eyes darkened to a deep pine color. A splotch of dirt on her cheek made him want to reach out and brush it away, but he didn’t want to distract her. He guessed she would stop talking if he did, and he longed to hear who she was, who she had been.

A shudder raced across her shoulders. “I can’t believe how things have changed.”

He didn’t know if she meant from her father’s passing or the depression that followed the stock market crash. Likely both. “It’s been tough.” It was both a question and a statement. So many unemployed men, many of them in relief camps in the north. The idea behind the camps was to give the unemployed single men a place to live, food to eat and meaningful work to do. Linc thought the reason was more likely a way to get the desperate-looking men out of the way so people weren’t reminded of the suffering of others. He had seen women with pinched faces, aching from hunger and something far deeper—a pain exceeding all else—as they helplessly listened to their children cry for food. The drought and grasshopper plague took what little was left after the stockmarket crash. Things were bad all over, but he wanted to know the specifics of how her life had changed. He wanted to know how she’d survived.

“The whole world—my whole world—went from safe to shattered in a matter of days.”

“Losing a parent can do that to you.”

She blinked, and her gaze returned to the present. Her eyes, holding a mixture of sorrow and sympathy, connected with his. “I guess you understand.”

Something in the way she said it, as if finding for the first time someone who truly understood her feelings, made him ache to touch her in a physical way, to offer comfort. And keep her safe. Only the distance between them stopped him from opening his arms. “Your sisters would, too.”

She averted her gaze, but not before he caught a glimpse of regret. “Of course they do, but they coped in their own way. Madge, she’s a year older than me, did her best to take Father’s place. She guided Mother in making decisions about the farm, and because of her efforts our house is safe and secure.” She brought her gaze back to his and smiled, as if to prove everything was well in her world. “Louisa is two years older and spent so much of her time sick and forced to rest that she lived in her books. Father’s death hit her hard.” This time she seemed to expect the shudder and stiffened to contain it to a mere shiver. She brightened.

He discovered he’d been holding his breath and released it with a whoosh.

“I didn’t mean to get all sentimental. I mentioned my father because you asked about games. He taught us to play softball.”

“Ball, hmm.” He pushed his hat far back on his head and stared away into the distance, imagining a father and three little girls laughing and giggling. “Did you like the game? Were you good at it?” His question seemed to surprise her.

“I tried really hard because I wanted to please my father, but I preferred a game of tag. Father knew a hundred different ways to play the game—frozen tag, stone tag, shadow tag—” She giggled nervously. “I guess that’s more information than you expected.”

It wasn’t. In fact, he wanted more details. “Why did you like tag better than ball?”

She shuffled through the seeds and waited a moment to answer. “Because—” Her voice had grown soft, almost a whisper. “It’s just for fun. No one can be disappointed because you couldn’t hit the ball.” She again turned to the bucket of seeds. “Now I must get this garden planted. And I’ve kept you from your work long enough.”

Her words hung in his ears. She seemed to care so much what her father thought. But then, didn’t everyone? His father made it clear he thought Linc didn’t measure up to Harris. Although he didn’t want to be the sort of man his brother had been—rowdy and hard living, caring little for laws or who got hurt in his schemes—Linc did wish his father viewed him as more than a mother’s boy. Too soft for real life. Of course, his father’s version of real life hadn’t exactly worked out well for either him or Harris.

But Sally was right. Work called. He’d promised a day’s work for a day’s pay, and he intended to provide it. He went into the shed, found a ladder and saw and carried them out. Sally bent over a row, dropping seeds into a little trench. He paused, thoughts buzzing in his head like flies disturbed from a sunny windowsill. Noisy but nameless. His heart strained with wanting to say something to her that would—what? He could offer nothing. She came from a good family, and he? He was a McCoy.

Until today it hadn’t mattered so much.

He hurried across to the struggling crab apple trees. Every step emphasized the truth. He was here to take care of his injured father. She had aspirations to marry Abe Finley.

But as he tackled his job, he stole glances at her. She worked steadily, seeming unmindful of the searing sun and the endless wind whipping dirt into her face as she bent over the soil. At that moment the wind caught the branch he had cut off and practically tore him from his perch on the ladder. He struggled to keep his balance, and had to drop the branch. It lodged in the heart of the tree. He jerked to free it, and managed to kick the ladder out from under him. He clung to a solid branch with his feet dangling. The branch cracked ominously, and he stopped trying to pull himself upward.

How inglorious. Hanging like a kitten gone too far out on a limb. “Sally. Could you give me a hand?”

He couldn’t turn to see her, but he knew the second she realized his predicament.

She gasped. “Oh, my word. Hang on. I’m on my way.”

“Hang on?” he sputtered. “I fully intend to.”

She giggled a little as she trotted across the yard. The ladder was heavy and awkward and she struggled to place it in a spot that would enable him to use it. “Try that.”

He swung his feet, found the rungs and eased his weight to them. His body angled awkwardly between his hands and his feet. The limb cracked as he shifted. “Step back in case this breaks.”

“Hurry up and get down.”

He had to let go of the relative safety of the branch and fling himself toward the ladder. He sucked in air, tensed his muscle and made his move. The ladder shuddered but stayed in place. He looked down. Sally steadied it. His heart clawed up his throat. If the branch had broken … if he’d fallen … “I told you to step back.” He sounded angry.

She blinked and looked confused, as if trying to decide if she should obey, then her eyes cleared. “I will once your feet are on the ground.”

He caught two rungs on the ladder on his descent. His feet barely touched the ground before he swung around to face her and planted his hands on her shoulders. He wanted to shake her hard but resisted and gave her only a little twitch. “You could have been hurt if that branch gave way or if I fell. Next time listen to me when I tell you to get out of the way.”

Suddenly, as if obeying his words, she retreated a step, leaving him to let his hands fall to his side.

“If you had fallen and hurt yourself, how would I explain to Abe—Mr. Finley? He gave me instructions to see you had what you needed and offer you coffee. You do drink coffee, don’t you?” Her eyes alternated between worry and interest in his reply.

“Yes, I like coffee just fine.” His anger fled, replaced by something he had no name for. The dark churning feeling in the pit of his stomach made coffee sound bitter.

Her only concern was pleasing Abe, meeting his expectations.