Chapter 21
Twenty-One
The sky over Silver Sage had gone to midnight blue, dusted from one edge to the other with stars.
The insects had given up an hour since. There was no wind.
Della sat in the chair on the porch that she had put there for exactly this, though there hadn’t been time nor inclination to sit in it these past weeks.
She snuggled deeper into her blanket, toed the rocking off slowly with her boot, and looked up.
Behind them, through the open windows of the bunkhouse, came a sound like three men sawing logs in different keys.
"They'll suffer in the morning," she said.
"They will."
"Even Boyd."
"Especially Boyd." Beau's mouth moved. "He wouldn't take the extra wage. Stood there in the yard and told me to put it back in the bag. Said he'd not earned it after the Cutbank and he'd not have it."
"What did you do?"
"Told him it wasn't a gift. It was two months of doing another man's work, and if he wanted to argue about it, he could argue with you.
" He leaned back against the porch post. "He took it.
Then he and Jed went straight into town and bought whiskey with it, which is about what I'd have done at their age. "
Della laughed, the free, easy feeling one that she wasn’t quite used to yet.
The note was met and paid in full. There was no more clock ticking down in the corner of every single day.
It would take years to come back. She knew that better than anybody; she had done the figures. A hundred and eighty head of breeding stock did not come back in a season, and there was a Montana winter in front of them.
But nobody owned them.
Perhaps that was the thing she could not get used to. Not in Grand Springs, nor in New York.
"We should go in," Beau said. "It's been a long day."
"It's been a long few weeks."
"That it has." He didn't move. Neither did she. "Della, it's late."
"In a little while." She rocked the chair. "I'm really not tired."
"You've had your eyes shut twice."
"I was thinking,” she murmured, smiling sleepily.
"I've got forty dollars in my pocket," he said.
She turned her head.
"Tomorrow," Beau said, "we're going to drive over and buy that sorrel mare back."
She nodded, happier than if he’d given her a diamond ring. "I should like that very much," she said. "Though I imagine they will ask for more than the forty dollars they paid for her."
"They can try." It came out as a growl. "That's Mrs. Hawkins's horse, and I'll tell 'em so." He straightened off the post, walked to her and put his hand out. "Get up.”
“I told you I’m not tired.
“I heard you. I still want you to get up… please.”
She looked up then. Shadows danced on his face in the soft lamplight from the windows. She got up, going into his hands without thinking about it at all, and he drew her in until there was hardly anything between them.
"I want to dance with my wife," he said.
"Beau, there's no music."
He shook his head, and started to move her, slowly, swaying.
"It doesn't matter."
She had waltzed in fancy rooms, packed to the rafters with fancy couples and an orchestra behind a screen. She had been walked round the floor by men whose names she could not now recall, in dresses that had cost more than the mare.
Not one minute of any of it had been anything like this.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he said, after a while. "About the letter."
"And raise your hopes?"
"Della—"
"No." She shook her head against his shoulder.
"I couldn't have stood it. It was bad enough seeing the hope die in your eyes and then having to tell you about Duke.
Seeing how much it…hurt you. I couldn't have stood watching you check the post and hope.
" She laid her head against his chest, listened to his heart under her ear.
“But you carried that yourself?” His voice rumbled in her ear.
She looked up, into the light that landed in his eyes. She swallowed. "I'd do the same again, and you may be as cross about that as you like."
Beau was quiet. Then he looked down at her, and whatever was in his face turned everything inside her to something molten.
"Thank you," he said.
She didn't have to ask what for.
"For everything," he added.
He watched her a moment longer, and her heart stilled, before galloping in her chest. His hand came up, his thumb grazing along her jaw.
"I have wanted to kiss you," Beau said, "since about a half second after you fell into my arms on that depot."
"Beau—"
"Since before I knew who you were." His eyes traced the journey his thumb made alongside her lips. "I stood there with a stranger in a green dress hanging onto my coat, and I thought, well, there's a thing, and then the man came up and said Miss Warner and I nearly fell over."
“Beau,” She whispered. “Please, kiss me now.”
His head descended. Leather and dust, and cool Montanan air, and then his mouth was on hers. Slowly, as if savoring her like a fine wine, he kissed her. Moving his mouth on hers. She fisted her hands in his shirt and held on lest the storm sweep her away that his touch, his mouth, ignited within.
Everything she ever wanted and more, on this rickety porch in the middle of nowhere.
When he lifted his head, she stayed exactly where she was. “You all right?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Better than all right.”
"We're hiring," he said. "Two hands at least, and a girl for the cookhouse." He tipped her chin up. Kissed her again.
"Not tonight."
"No." His mouth curved, and the dimple went into his cheek. "Not tonight."
Della took a breath.
"Tonight," she said, "you're going to take me to bed."
Beau stilled, heat flaring in his eyes as he gazed down at her.
"Della."
"I know what we agreed." She got it out in a rush, in case she lost her nerve, even as her heart crashed against her ribs. "I know exactly what we agreed. That you wanted practical, but the truth of it is, well, the truth is I love you, Beau Hawkins.
Beau put both hands either side of her face. "I love you too," he said. "I've been sitting across that table from you for months, and I've thought it near enough every night."
"Then let me be your wife," Della sighed, feeling, finally, she was where she was meant to be all along. "In every sense of it."
And there it was. That Beau Hawkins smile. Rarer than hen’s teeth. "Ma'am," he said, "I thought you'd never ask."