Montana Rose (Petticoats and Cowboys #4)

Chapter 1

Cassie wanted to scream, Put down that shovel!

As if yelling at the red-headed gravedigger would bring Griff back to life. A gust of wind blew Cassie Griffin’s dark hair across her face, blinding her.

For one sightless moment, it was as if the wind showed her perfectly what the future held for her.

Darkness.

Hovering in a wooded area, concealed behind a clump of quaking aspens that had gone yellow in the fall weather, she watched the hole grow as the man dug his way down into the rocky Montana earth.

Muriel, the kind storekeeper who had taken Cassie in, stood beside the ever-deepening grave. If Cassie started yelling, Muriel would start her motherly clucking again and force Cassie to return to town and go back to bed. She’d been so kind since Cassie had ridden in, shouting for help.

In a detached sort of way, Cassie knew Muriel had been caring for her, coddling Cassie to get her through the day.

But Cassie had gone numb since Muriel’s husband, Seth, had come back in with the news that Griff was dead.

Cassie listened and answered and obeyed, but she hadn’t been able to feel anything.

Until now. Now she could feel rage aimed straight at that man preparing the hole for her beloved Griff.

“I’m sorry, little one.” Cassie ran her hand over her rounded stomach. “You’ll never know your daddy now.” Her belly moved as if the baby heard Cassie and understood.

The fact that her husband was dead was Cassie’s fault.

She should have gone for the doctor sooner, but Griff ordered her not to.

At first, Griff had been worried about the cost. He’d shocked Cassie by telling her they couldn’t afford to send for the doctor.

Griff had scolded Cassie if she ever asked questions about money.

So she’d learned it wasn’t a wife’s place.

But she’d known her parents were wealthy.

Cassie had brought all their wealth into the marriage.

How could they not afford a few bits for a doctor?

Even as he lay sick, she’d known better than to question him about it, though.

Later, Griff had been out of his head with fever. She stayed with him as he’d ordered, but she should have doctored Griff better. She should have saved him somehow. Instead, she’d stood by and watched her husband die inch by inch while she did nothing.

Cassie stepped closer. Another few steps and she’d be in the open. She could stop them. She could make them stop digging. Refuse to allow such a travesty when it couldn’t be true that Griff was dead.

Don’t put him in the ground! Inside her head, she was screaming, denying, terrified. She had to stop this.

Before she could move, she heard Muriel.

“In the West, nothing’ll get you killed faster’n stupid.” Whipcord lean, with a weathered face from long years in the harsh Montana weather, Muriel plunked her fists on her nonexistent hips.

Seth, clean-shaven once a week and overdue, stood alongside his wife, watching the proceedings, his arms crossed over his paunchy stomach. “How ’bout lazy? In the West, lazy’ll do you in faster’n stupid every time.”

“Well, I reckon Lester Griffin was both, right enough.” Muriel nodded her head.

Cassie understood the words lazy and stupid. They were talking about Griff? She was too shocked to take in their meaning.

“Now, Muriel”—Red, the gravedigger, shoveled as he talked—“don’t speak ill of the dead.”

On a day when Cassie didn’t feel like she knew anything, she remembered the gravedigger’s name because of his bright red hair.

One of the last coherent orders Griff had given her was, “Pay Red two bits to dig my grave and not a penny more.”

Griff had known he was dying. Mostly delirious with fever, his mind would clear occasionally and he’d give orders—about the funeral, what he was to be buried in, what Cassie was to wear, strict orders not to be her usual foolish self and overpay for the grave digging.

And not to shame him with her public behavior.

“Well, honestly, it’s a wonder he wasn’t dead long before this.” Muriel crossed her arms and dared either man to disagree.

“It’s not Christian to see the bad in others.” Red dug relentlessly, the gritty slice of the shovel making a hole to swallow up Cassie’s husband. “And especially not at a time like this.”

It was just after noon on Sunday, and the funeral would be held as soon as the grave was dug.

Cassie looked down at her dress, her dark-blue silk.

It was a mess. She’d worn it all week, not giving herself a second to change while she cared for Griff.

Then she’d left it on as she rode for town.

She’d even slept in it last night…or rather, she’d lain in bed with it on.

She hadn’t slept more than snatches in a week. Ever since Griff’s fever started.

She needed to change to her black silk for the funeral.

Cassie wanted to hate Muriel for her words, but Muriel had mothered her, filling such a desperate void in Cassie that she couldn’t bear to blame Muriel for this rage whipping inside her head, pushing her to scream.

“Well, he was a poor excuse for a man, and no amount of Christian charity’ll change that.” Muriel clucked and shook her head. “He lived on the labor of others ’n’ spent money he didn’t have.”

“It’s that snooty, fancy-dressed wife of his who drove him to an early grave.” Seth humphed, and his shoulders quivered as he chuckled. “Of course, many’s the man who’d gladly die trying to keep that pretty little China Doll happy.”

Griff’s nickname for her. She ran her hands down her blue silk that lay modestly loose over her round belly.

Fancy-dressed was right. Cassie admitted that.

But she hadn’t needed all new dresses just because of the baby.

Griff had insisted it was proper that the dresses be ordered.

But however she’d come to dress so beautifully in silks and satins, there was no denying she dressed more expensively than anyone she’d met in Montana Territory. Not that she’d met many people.

But snooty? How could Seth say that? They were slandering her and, far worse, insulting Griff.

She needed to defend her husband, but Griff hated emotional displays.

How could she fight them without showing all the rage that boiled inside her?

As the hole grew, something started to grow in Cassie that overcame her grief and fear.

Rage. Hate.

“A time or two, I’ve seen someone who looks to be snooty who was really just shy…or scared,” Muriel said.

That shovel rose and fell. Dirt flew in a tidy pile, and she hated Red for keeping to the task.

She wanted to run at him, screaming and clawing, and force him to give Griff back to her.

But she feared unleashing the anger roiling inside her.

Griff had taught her to control all those childish impulses.

Red kept digging, determined not to join in with this gossip.

But not joining in wasn’t enough. He needed to make them stop.

Instead, he kept digging. Poor Cassie had already been tucked into Muriel’s back room when he’d come to town yesterday, but he’d seen Seth bring Lester Griffin’s body in.

He couldn’t imagine what that little woman had been through.

“When’s the last time she came into our store?” Seth asked. “Most times, she didn’t even come to town. She was too good to soil her feet in Divide. And you can’t argue about fancy-dressed. Griff ordered all her dresses ready-made, sent out from the East.”

Everything about Cassie Griffin made Red think of the more civilized East. She never had a hair out of place or a speck of dirt under her fingernails.

Red had seen their home too. The fanciest building in Montana, some said.

Board siding instead of logs. Three floors and so many frills and flourishes, the building alone had made Lester Griffin a laughingstock.

The Griffins came into the area with a fortune, but they’d gone through it fast.

“That’s right,” Muriel snipped. “Griff ordered them. A spoiled woman would pick out her own dresses and shoes and finery, not leave it to her man.”

Seth shook his head. “I declare, Muriel, you could find the good in a rattlesnake.”

Red’s shovel slammed deep in the rocky soil. “Cassie isn’t a rattlesnake.” He stood up straight and glared at Seth.

His reaction surprised him. Red didn’t let much upset him. But calling Cassie a snake made Red mad to the bone. Muriel brushed back wisps of gray hair the wind had scattered from her usual tidy bun. She stared at him, taking a good long look.

Seth, a tough old mule-skinner with a marshmallow heart, didn’t seem to notice.

“This funeral’ll draw trouble. You just see if it don’t.

Every man in the territory’ll come a-running to marry with such a pretty widow woman.

Any woman would bring men down on her as hard and fast as a Montana blizzard, but one as pretty as Cassie Griffin?

” Seth blew a tuneless whistle through his teeth.

“There’ll be a stampede for sure, and none of ’em are gonna wait no decent length of time to ask for her hand. ”

Red looked away from Muriel because he didn’t like what was in her eyes. He was through the tough layer of sod, and the hole was getting deep fast. “Doubt she’ll still be single by the time the sun sets.” He tried to sound casual despite a sharp pang of regret—and not just a little bit of jealousy.

Muriel had a strange lilt to her voice when she said, “A woman is rare out here, but a young, beautiful woman like Cassie is a prize, indeed.”

Why did saying that make her sound so all-fired cheerful?

Seth slung his beefy arm around Muriel with rough affection. “I’ve seen the loneliness that drives these men to want a wife. It’s a rugged life, Muriel. Having you with me makes all the difference.”

Red understood the loneliness. He lived with it every day.