Chapter 21 #2
Danny returned within minutes, breathless and somehow muddier than he’d been before. “Here, sis, you know that Sadie doesn’t like gettin’ saddled by anybody but you. I’ll not risk gettin’ bit by some ornery mare.”
“Thanks, Danny. Would you pack us some biscuits? And while you’re at it, why don’t you let Ma know where we’re off to?” Kate walked away with Sadie before he could stop her.
“Oh, I see how it is!” He called after her. “You just want me along to do your dirty work for you!” She shot him a mischievous grin over her shoulder.
Kate was just throwing her saddle over Sadie’s withers when Jacob rode up, tall and strong and handsome, on his buckskin mount. Kate busied herself with the cinch.
“You almost ready, Miss McGrath?”
“Nearly,” she said, not looking at him. Pulling the cinch tight, Kate waited for her mare to let out the breath she held, then tugged it into place.
Jacob chuckled. “Does she do that every time?”
Kate rolled her eyes. “Every time. She’s as ornery a mare as you can get, but she’s worth the hassle, most days.” She patted Sadie’s neck fondly. The mare laid her ears back and took a nip at Jacob’s gelding. They both laughed.
Jacob dismounted, keeping a little distance between the two horses, and came closer, looking Sadie over from tip to tail.
“Nice confirmation. Good sloped shoulders. High withers.” He ran a gloved hand down her foreleg and picked up her hoof.
“Long legs, but not too dainty. Responsive.” He let the hoof drop gently.
“You’ve got yourself a nice cow pony here. ”
Kate grinned. “Thank you kindly, Mr. Munroe. I picked her out as a foal and trained her myself.”
“You’re kiddin’?” He glanced between her and her horse, blue eyes full of curiosity, as if deciding whether to believe her. He nodded. “Well done, Miss McGrath.”
The compliment warmed her to her toes. He was making it difficult to keep convincing herself that she didn’t want anything more between them.
“You thinkin’ of breedin’ her?”
“Just as soon as I find a stud worthy of her,” Kate responded resolutely.
“Might be hard pressed to find one out here.”
“I’ve heard the wild mountain mustangs are really somethin’.”
He laughed. “You gotta catch one first!”
“Maybe I will!”
“I’d like to see that,” he said with a wink, and Kate didn’t think he was being the least sarcastic.
“Jacob Munroe, fantastic to see you!” Danny bounded up and clasped Jacob in an eager handshake. “You two ready to go?”
Jacob wrinkled his brow, his eyes flickering to Kate. She jumped in quickly. “I hope you don’t mind, Mr. Munroe, but I knew Danny would hate to miss out.”
“Oh, ah, not at all. Glad to have you join us, Danny.” He smiled good-naturedly. Was that a flash of disappointment she saw in his face?
“Well”—Danny lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper and leaned in close, glancing surreptitiously over his shoulder—“I’ve got Ian holdin’ down the fort, but we might want to leave now before Ma changes her mind and calls us back to scrub pots or somethin’.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, Danny!” Kate said with a roll of her eyes, but she glanced back at the wagon and mounted quickly all the same.
The trio quickly cleared the muddy trail and ambled out into the seemingly untouched prairie as the gray curtain of rain welcomed them, muting the sounds of the train, enfolding them in soft silence.
The mist mingled with the scent of sage as the delicate leaves were crushed by their passage.
Kate breathed deep, feeling the tension melting away.
Letting the young men talk, she let her mind drift, dwelling on nothing but the feel of her horse beneath her and the quiet beauty of the moment.
Danny’s exaggerated storytelling was soon too animated to ignore, and, coming back into the present, she discovered that her twin was retelling a story of roping a steer that had somehow grown to include much more danger and deeds of heroism than the first time she’d heard it.
She glanced over at Jacob. He lounged comfortably in the saddle, obviously suppressing a grin as he added exclamations of “I’ll be!
” and “You don’t say!” at all of Danny’s dramatic pauses, and Kate listened, eyebrows climbing, as Danny’s tale grew wilder and wilder, clearly reveling in such an appreciative audience.
Jacob caught her eye through Danny’s wild gesticulations and winked at her, grinning roguishly.
She rolled her eyes and they both laughed.
“I can tell you, this was not funny. I was pinned under that steer’s horns.
I coulda been killed! Gored and mutilated beyond recognition!
But”—he paused again, dropping his voice, building the intensity—“I looked that steer right in the eye, and with every last bit of strength I had in my body, I grabbed his horns, twisted and heaved, and he was on his side, and faster than lightnin’ I trussed up his feet ’til he couldn’t move.
That steer learned not to mess with Danny McGrath! ”
Kate and Jacob burst into exaggerated applause, their horses sidestepping and tossing their heads, and called out “bravo” and “well done” to which Danny, hand on chest and grinning widely, responded with many thank yous and I-did-what-had-to-be-dones.
Their laughter mingled with the rain and faded into companionable silence as they whispered through the prairie grasses.
A great dark shadow loomed suddenly out of the mist. Like a spire of some giant’s cathedral, Chimney Rock stood indomitable, mist curling like the incense of long forgotten prayers about the boulders and tangled brush strewn about its crumbling foundation.
The three riders stopped to admire its jagged height.
“Incredible!” Kate breathed. She shot out of the saddle, tied Sadie to a stout looking sage bush, and climbed up the rocky slope. “Come on!” she called behind her.
Chimney Rock grew with every step until it filled her vision with its brooding, massive presence.
She reached the base of the spire and hauled herself up onto the last rocky ledge.
Breathing heavy, heedless of the rain, she tilted her head back to look up at what she could see of its dizzying heights before it lost itself amongst the low-lying clouds.
She marveled at how the jagged rock was stacked with layers of many-hued stone, as if made by giant masons over centuries, reaching higher and higher to eventually be lost in the weeping sky.
She imagined great and ancient hands placing the rock with the precision of a jeweler, fitting each layer just so, brushing away the dust, a chisel here, mortar there.
Kate closed her eyes and saw the stone spire in front of her as one of many, a great row of columns in a colossal hall, the sky its ceiling, and the prairie grass its richly woven carpet.
The boys scrambled up the last of the rocky slope and stood panting on each side of her, heads tipped back to take in the monolith. Kate opened her eyes and reached out to place a warm hand on the cool, dripping stone.
“Marvelous, isn’t it?” Jacob said quietly.
“Mmm,” she responded, still drinking it in.
“It’s like it goes on forever!” Danny said.
“It must be incredibly high,” Kate mused.
“Some people suspect it’s nigh on three hundred feet,” Jacob said, squinting upward.
“I’ll be!” Danny exclaimed. “I wonder what it’s like at the very top.”
“Probably windy,” Jacob said, with such a straight face it made Kate laugh. He looked at her and a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
“Probably spectacular,” Danny countered.
Kate’s eyes were drawn down to the plethora of names carved on the rock in front of her. “So many people. It’s a marvel the West isn’t bursting at the seams already.”
“Oh, there’s room for a few more people yet,” Jacob said ruefully.
Danny moved over to the left, reading out names as he went. “J. T. Kerns, 1852. E. Bristow. Aaron Rose. John C. Fremont, 1843.” He continued, listing off names, until he shouted out excitedly. “Jake, come here! Look at this!”
Kate and Jacob shared a bemused glance and picked their way through the rocks as quickly as they could to reach him. Danny pointed excitedly at the rock in front of him. “I found a Munroe! Look here, see? ‘T. Munroe, 1857.’”
“How wonderful!” Kate said. “Could he be a relative of yours, Mr. Munroe?”
Danny broke in excitedly. “I’m gonna see if there are any McGraths on here!” And he moved off again, his noisy scrambling fading as he disappeared into the misting rain.
Kate smiled after her brother, but when Jacob didn’t move, she stayed by his side, standing in silence for a long moment.
She wanted to enjoy this return to friendship, even though it was incredibly hard to forget his kiss as the damp air brought the smell of his musk eddying toward her.
She cleared her throat. “Do you know anyone by the name ‘T. Munroe’?”
When Jacob didn’t respond, she looked over at him.
He stood transfixed, staring unblinking at the name carved into the stone in front of him, his face a mask, but deep within those blue eyes swirled a depth of sorrow that cut her to the heart.
Thoughts of their kiss faded as concern welled up inside her.
She stepped up to him softly, trying to catch his gaze. “Jacob?”
He kept staring at the name. “I don’t think I know this Munroe.”
She glanced at the carving again, then back at Jacob. “But you know a different T. Munroe?”
He nodded slightly. “My brother’s name was Teddy.”
Kate’s heart broke at the huskiness in his voice. “Was?” she asked as tenderly as she could.
“He died when I was eleven.”
“I’m so sorry,” Kate said softly. She thought of what it would be like to lose one of her brothers, and the sting of tears sprang up behind her eyes. “Were you close?”
He ran a hand over his beard. “As close as brothers could be, really. I didn’t like it all that much at the time, my little brother taggin’ along with me wherever I went, gettin’ underfoot. But I loved him somethin’ fierce.”
“What happened to him?”
“Scarlet fever. Same one as took my ma.” His voice caught and he hurriedly cleared his throat.
Kate’s heart broke further. “I can’t imagine how hard that must have been.”
He ducked his head, jaw clenching beneath his neatly trimmed beard. “I just wish I coulda done somethin’.”
“I’m sure you did all you could.”
“Maybe,” he said quietly.
“And your father?” Kate probed gently.
Jacob’s face grew stony. “He spent the next years drinkin’ himself senseless. I left as soon as I could make my own way.”
Kate imagined a young Jacob so hurt, so lost, and the only family he had left wasting away at the bottom of a bottle.
How could a father lose himself in grief so much that he lost his living son as well?
She quelled a surge of anger at a man she’d never even met.
She was surprised at how fiercely she wanted to protect Jacob from all this hurt he carried.
Kate took a deep breath, calming herself, reminding herself that she had no right to be that much a part of his life.
“And you’ve been on your own ever since? ”
“Well, Seb came with me. We grew up together, see. He’s been like a brother to me.”
“I’m glad you found someone to watch your back.”
“Yeah, me too.” He let out a breath, looking up at the heights of Chimney Rock. “You know, I’ve never told anybody this before. I mean, Seb knows. He was there. But no one else.”
Kate took in the hint of vulnerability around his eyes, even as he avoided looking at her. “It must be painful to talk about,” she said, laying a gentle hand on his strong arm. “Thanks for sharin’ that with me.”
He finally met her gaze. There was pain in his cobalt eyes but also a warmth that made Kate catch her breath. The corner of his mouth lifted in a sad smile, and he laid his hand on top of hers, giving it a small squeeze. “Thanks for listenin’.”
“Any time,” she said softly. Kate looked into his eyes for a long moment, savoring the thrumming thread that connected his heart to hers.
It wasn’t the electric intensity of that passionate kiss, flaring up and gone in a flash, but more like the long, slow burning of a well-built fire, enveloping them both in a tingling warmth.
She allowed herself to relish the moment, not thinking about how nothing could come of it, just enjoying this contented closeness.
“Well, no McGraths that I could see,” Danny said brightly, barreling up to them. Kate quickly turned away and Jacob stuck his hands in his pockets. Danny huffed, squinting out at the rain. “Should probably make our way back, though, ’fore the sun goes down.”
Jacob cleared his throat. “Ah, yeah, of course. Let’s head on back.”
Danny jumped off the rocky ledge and started down the slope without any further encouragement.
Jacob followed lithely, his broad frame moving in a masculine grace, then he turned and offered a hand up to Kate.
She took it, touched at his chivalry, and for some silly reason wished she had skirts to gather in her other hand as she leaned on his strong arm to hop down off the ledge.
She spent the entire ride back trying not to think of how good it felt for his strong, calloused hand to wrap warmly around hers.