Chapter 25
“Honey, can we have lunch before you start stabbing the barn?” Yep, Red was whining, but the woman was obsessed with that knife.
Cassie pursed her lips and scowled at him.
Red fought a smile. She liked to scare him, so he did his best to act scared and begged sweetly. “I promise, we can work all afternoon on making you dangerous.”
“Red!”
“Oops, sorry, I mean even more dangerous. You’re already a real tough character, sweetheart.”
She smiled as if he’d offered her roses.
“But I’m starving after the ride home from church.”
With a little huff, she stuck her nose right up in the air as if she were put upon mightily. “Well, all right, but don’t expect me to help you with your chores.”
Covering a sigh of relief to not have Cassie risking her life in the barn, Red nodded, perhaps just a bit too frantically. “That’s fair. And with the herd culled, I don’t have that many cattle to check. I can manage without your help.”
Her eyes narrowed a little.
He gulped. “But it won’t be easy. I’ll miss the extra pair of hands.”
Cassie had come a long way helping with chores, but often as not, she did the chores with Michael on her hip and Susannah clinging to her skirt.
It scared Red to death to watch her try to feed Harriet—his very angry sow—with the children in hand.
To be fair, she hadn’t set the barn on fire in months.
“I’ll help you get the meal on too. I won’t leave it for you to do alone.”
That sweet smile broke out on her face again.
She looked like every kind of fragile there was, with her ivory skin and her endless dark hair.
The roses on her cheeks might have been painted on like those on a china doll.
Her brown eyes, circled by lashes as long and soft as a mink’s fur, shone with kindness.
It was just the plain truth that the woman didn’t have a mean bone in her body, no matter how hard she tried to be fierce.
He still thanked God a dozen times a day for the precious gift of Cassie.
They ate quickly, and the young’uns, worn out by the long ride home from Divide, went down for their naps without a whimper. Well, Susannah did a little bit of screaming, but Red could see her heart wasn’t in it. Michael fell asleep in his mashed potatoes.
They went outside to get to work. Red with chores, Cassie with stabbing the barn.
Red stayed for a few nervous minutes, scared to death she’d somehow throw the knife and cut herself.
But she was getting good. The knife stuck in the barn wall nearly half the time now, and the rest of the time, it splatted against the barn and fell to the ground.
Safe to do chores. Except for one little problem.
“I just can’t get the bull’s-eye, Red.” Cassie went to dislodge her knife from the barn wall, right near the ground. It always hit there. Always. “How come I can’t get more accurate?”
Red lifted his Stetson from his head and ran one hand through his unruly red hair before clamping his hat down to corral the mess.
He studied the circle of charcoal on the red barn with the single black dot in the center.
It was the pure undeniable truth—Cassie had never made a single knife hole in the bull’s-eye.
Belle and Emma, however, had stabbed it up pretty good.
“Um—have you tried aiming higher? Maybe if you aimed at the top of the circle?—”
“But that’s admitting failure.” Cassie crossed her arms and pouted like Susannah did when the cookies ran out. “I want to hit what I aim at.”
Red deftly plucked the knife from her hand and pulled her into his arms. When he’d kissed all the pouting out of her, he rested his forehead against hers. “Have I told you lately how proud I am of you?”
Her eyes, which had fallen shut—as if the kiss had robbed her of her thoughts—flickered open. That warm gaze made Red feel like the richest man in Montana. And it was the truth—he was. Not a whole lot of money, but rich in the things that endured.
“Thank you. I love you, Red.”
“Aw, Cassie, honey, not half as much as I love you.” Wrapping his arms around her waist, he lifted her to her toes. Then her toes must have curled, because she was all the way off the ground. The richest man in Montana swept his ten-thumbed, knife-throwing wife up into his arms.
She giggled, and he silenced her with his lips.
Red, with a herd to check and a cow to milk, chickens to rob of their eggs and a hungry killer sow and her ten piglets to feed, enticed his beautiful, precious Cassie into following him into the hay mow and forgetting all about throwing her knife for a long, long time.
While they passed an hour together, it occurred to Red once, briefly, that he should tell Cassie a baby was most likely on the way. She was as innocent as a babe in these matters. But she’d be excited. But then he lost all track of his thoughts, too, and never got her told.
Red whistled while he milked in the dark. Rosie, his black-and-white Holstein who’d come west with him, kicked him to punish him for being late, but despite her best efforts, Rosie couldn’t knock the smile off his face.
“We’d best have a look at that house.” Wade’s voice was hoarse as he pulled away from Abby, his wildflower.
She was acting purely tame just now.
He’d made his point with this kiss…and the few before. Well, honesty forced him to admit it had been more than a few. Abby was going to marry him. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
He had a sweet feeling the answer wasn’t going to be no.
With a grin, he slid his arm around Abby’s waist and turned to study the old Griffin place.
Abby leaned against him.
The happiness filled his heart until it barely fit in his chest.
“I don’t”—she cleared her husky throat and went on—“see any sign of life.”
Wade smiled down at her. “And if there’s someone sleeping there, just passing through, we’ll let ’em stay.”
Abby nodded, then stopped cold. Her body went tense.
“What is it?”
“We’ve had a jailbreak, cattle rustling, and a massacre within days of each other.”
Wade couldn’t find a single smile now. “And someone tried to kill you.”
“Or you.”
“Or both of us.” Wade knew his woman well.
“And these bad men must be staying around here somewhere.”
Wade studied the obviously recently occupied house, then looked at the wild woman he’d taken up with. “How good are you at sneakin’?”
The tension left Abby’s body, and she smiled and arched one brow. “I’m real good.”
“With the stand of trees around the place, we should be able to come up on it quiet, get a closer look. I don’t think anyone is there, but they may be back, so we’ll be careful.”
Nodding, Abby said, “Let’s get the horses to a place they can graze and go check that house.”
Sid stirred the cool ashes and looked sideways at Boog. “It’s time we get that gold.”
Boog grunted as he sipped the last of his coffee.
Paddy couldn’t sit still. He was on his feet, moving, twitching, pacing. “Good, good, let’s go. I’m tired of sitting.”
“We can find the gold and get back to the ranch. With me out as foreman and so many of the men fired or new, Wade doesn’t seem to realize you and Harv are gone. Why would he? He never knew you were there.”
Harv sat forward with a groan. A lazy man, Harv. Never stood when he could sit. Never walked when he could ride. Sid would be glad to get rid of his edgy, bad-tempered, do-little saddle partner.
Boog froze, so suddenly, so completely, Sid was instantly alerted.
“What?”
Boog hissed at him and slashed a hand inches from Sid’s face. No one talked or moved. Finally, Boog said, “Someone’s coming.”
Sid grabbed for his gun.
Paddy let a tiny giggle escape. His eyes shone with a hunger to shoot someone. They were hard men in a hard land, and Sid prided himself on being willing do to what he needed to do. But only Paddy smiled while he emptied his gun.
They turned to cover all approaches, guns cocked, eyes peeled, every sense alert.