Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jed almost couldn’t believe it was finally August. The heat of summertime had reached its apex, and as uncomfortable as it was working amidst it, he reveled in the idea that both Thomas and his goons were just as uncomfortable as he was.
While his old friend had to walk amongst sweaty, untrustworthy folk, Jed spent his days alongside the family he’d come to truly cherish: a wife whose stubborn streak etched a deep vein of loyalty between them, and a daughter whose discovery of life made it seem like he, too, were experiencing everything for the first time.
“Let’s take Lila swimming today,” Maeve suddenly announced over breakfast.
“Swimming?”
Maeve nodded, clearly excited by the prospect already. “Mackler’s Pond’s just down the road, right between our and Samuel’s properties. I bet we could catch him and Sadie, make a day outta it!”
Jed gave his wife-aah, he loved that word-a bemused grin.
Part of him wanted to turn her down gently, remind her that danger didn’t simply vanish because they wanted a break.
Edgar had certainly made it back to Cheyenne at this point, meaning his case file might have already been placed before a judge.
It was only a matter of time until Jed would be summoned back home, which would back Thomas even farther into his self-made corner.
Just the thought of something happening while he was in Cheyenne made Jed feel sick.
“Dada! Aah-aah!” Lila banged her fists against the table, her wooden spoon clutched tightly in one palm. The noise brought Jed out of his anxious state, and he found himself staring at his wife’s dazzling smile.
“See? Even Lila wants to go.” Maeve shifted her chair closer to Lila’s, her wide smile only adding to the syrupy sweetness of her croon. “It’s too hot to stay cooped up inside, ain’t it? You wanna learn how to swim, don’t yah, lilac?”
Jed couldn’t help but grin at the use of the floral nickname.
What once seemed to disturb his wife was now lovingly being used as a term of affection.
Change. It really was possible for things to change around him for the better.
He believed in Maeve’s spirit, her willingness to get things done.
He believed that the case would go well, that Thomas would get what was coming to him.
He believed in a future where he remained at Maeve and Lila’s sides.
“We gotta get chores done first,” Jed began. “Make sure the herd’s taken care of, and that no tricks were placed around the property,”
Maeve wolfed the rest of her breakfast before quickly depositing her bowl in the sink. “I’ll go take a walk around the property if you and Lila let the cattle out!”
“W-wait, Maeve–!” Jed couldn’t stop himself from laughing at his wife’s child-like enthusiasm. In the blink of an eye, she’d gotten her boots on and headed out the front, leaving him and Lila alone to clean up the remainder of breakfast. “Yer Mama’s gone a bit off her rocker, Lila.”
Lila waved her spoon excitedly. “Ma-aah!”
He laughed again, moving to give the toddler’s face a quick wipe. “She’s gonna be awful mad if you say ‘Mama’ without her being here.”
Lila’s eyes sparkled with a mischievous glint. “Dada.”
“Yeah, Lila?”
“Dada!”
“Yeah, that’s me, ain’t it?”
“Da-da-da-da!”
Jed’s heart fluttered in his chest. He didn’t think he’d ever get bored of hearing that word.
A flicker of anxiety still lingered in the back of his mind, but he decided that, at least for today, he would fully enjoy the life God had blessed him with to the fullest. He would believe that, at least for today, all was right with the world.
“Alright, chatterbox. Let’s get started on chores. I dunno how long yer Mama’s patience is gonna hold out.”
***
Much to Jed’s surprise, his wife’s patience held out a lot longer than expected.
They’d managed to get a majority of morning chores taken care of–cleaning up breakfast, walking the property, freeing the cows–and it was only when they’d gotten halfway through weeding the vegetable garden that Maeve looked ready to lose it.
Lila acted as a good distraction, her expression stuck in wide-eyed awe as she and Maeve inspected their crops. The tomatoes reached higher than Lila herself, and she took extra care not to trip over the tangled vines from the cucumbers and squash.
“We should put some baskets together,” Jed suggested. “‘Specially if we do run into Samuel. It’d be nice to give them volunteers something as thanks.”
“Oh, you’re right!” Maeve gasped. She then tugged gently on Lila’s hand, helping her over a particularly tangled patch of zucchinis. “Come here, Lila. We got some extra baskets in the storehouse we can use.”
That little project turned into over an hour-long adventure, with Maeve agonizing over which vegetables looked best and how many to put in each basket.
Jed helped as best he could, his main job being keeping Lila’s grubby hands out of the baskets once they were packed.
A few vegetables were set aside as part of their pond excursion, and Jed started on getting Lila properly dressed for travel while Maeve diced, chopped, and organized various foodstuffs into a bulging picnic basket.
Finally, with the sun high overhead, the Mercer family set out to Mackler’s Pond with a wagon packed to the brim.
Jed held the reins while Maeve sat with Lila, and the pair of them marveled at the countryside slowly rolling past them.
The grass had grown well past any man’s waist, and the landscape was dotted with towering evergreens packed tightly into shady little copses.
Even with the bright sun cooking the earth, large puffy clouds occasionally blocked its rays, working alongside the occasional cool breeze that tugged at Jed’s darkened locks.
“Yer hair’s gotten longer,” Maeve commented out of the blue.
“Has it?”
His wife nodded, one hand absentmindedly catching a strand before curling it between her fingers. “Yeah. I reckon it has.”
A beat passed between them. Jed watched Maeve’s face flush red as she quickly pulled her hand back and put it around Lila’s waist.
“Do-” Jed cleared his throat loudly, feeling a bit of a blush heating his cheeks as well. “Do you like it like this?”
Maeve caught his eyes. Her blue ones were a perfect match to the sky they were traveling beneath. “I…yeah. I think I do.”
The trip itself was surprisingly short, and Jed was startled by how quickly they came across an inlet.
Following Maeve’s directions, he carefully maneuvered their wagon off the beaten path, meeting only a bit of resistance at the roots of a few scattered trees.
The leafy canopy pulled closer together, creating a makeshift archway that fed into a proper woodland clearing.
There, he briefly passed an overgrown cabin–the aforementioned Mackler family’s, if he had to guess–and continued to follow the stream’s bank until it spilled out into a fairly impressive pond.
“Oh my gosh, Jed–!” Maeve excitedly shoved her husband’s shoulder, pointing across the pond.
On the opposite bank sat another parked wagon, accompanied by a few grazing horses and at least a dozen blurry folks.
One of the human blobs made a full sprint around the pond’s bank to meet the Mercer’s wagon halfway.
“Maeve, Jed!” Sadie’s frantic waving was impossible to miss, and Jed watched Maeve’s face light up brighter than the summer sun itself. “I can’t believe it! I was just telling Sam we should go and get you!”
If Lila hadn’t been sat on her lap, Jed was certain his wife would’ve jumped off the wagon then and there. “Are the rest of yer party the volunteers?”
Sadie nodded excitedly. “We were just about to set up blankets for dinner. Your timing is absolutely perfect.”
Jed helped to lay out a wide number of checkered blankets beneath the shadier spots, leaving Sadie, Maeve and the other ladies to sort out the food everyone had brought. Lila acted as the group’s foreman, waving her spoon about and babbling nonsense with a commanding tone.
Soon, dinner had been sorted and spread out.
Jed had never seen so many varieties of cheeses, and he was certain that the joint plate of cold cuts weighed more than Lila herself.
Other folks had taken to chopping up their garden’s vegetables, displaying them in a medley of salads or stuffing them into ham and salted beef sandwiches.
And the desserts were like a bakery had exploded across an entire blanket, made up of berried pies, pound cakes, and more pitchers of sweet lemonade than Jed could count.
“I’m gonna be put into a coma trying to eat all of this,” he joked to Maeve.
“Can’t let folks think we don’t like their food, though, can we?” Maeve teased back.
It felt like the feasting lasted for hours, with constant chatter between strangers and old friends buzzing alongside the summertime insects.
Jed ate and observed and, occasionally, was pulled into conversations with folks he’d only briefly learned the names of earlier that day.
Everyone, including his fellow ranchers and Joshua’s lawmen, spoke with such kindness and genuine interest in their fellow man’s struggles and triumphs in life.
Mr. McCullen and his two grown sons. Joshua’s deputy, Charlie, with his shy and soft-spoken fiancée. The Davis family, whose vast array of children could have easily outnumbered a frontier’s worth of citizens.
“I never knew there were so many good folks living near us,” Jed marveled.
“I…didn’t visit them as often as I should’ve,” Maeve admitted. “You might’ve gotten to know them sooner, were me and my Pa not such recluses.”
Jed glanced her way, watching as his wife gently swished her bare feet through the pond’s shallow waters. They’d long since claimed a section of the bank as their own, taking a much-needed break from the constant presence of others.
Lila was more than happy with the arrangement, currently sat in the shallows with the water reaching just beneath her waist. She plucked rocks out of the pond bed for inspection, and if she deemed them worthy, she set them next to Jed and returned to her work.
He chuckled, helping the toddler lift a particularly large, smooth stone onto the bank. “Ooh, that’s a good one, Lila.”
She disagreed, hastily swiping it back into the water with a loud splash and a cantankerous stream of babbling.
“Sorry, boss,” Jed apologized, dramatically raising his hands in defense. “I reckon you know better than I do.”
“Dadaa.” Lila almost seemed to roll her eyes before plopping back into the water and continuing her search.
“She’s something else,” Maeve giggled.
“She’s our something else.” Jed had meant it partially as a joke, but the thought settled warmly into his soul, like he’d just found a long-lost puzzle piece.
Suddenly, he leaned in closer to Maeve and stole a kiss on the lips, and he reveled in the blush that caught her cheeks.
“And we’ll make sure she knows every bit of how great our little community is.
Maeve’s following kiss was the last piece he was missing for the perfect day, and Jed wished they could’ve stayed longer in the moment.
***
Dusk finally chased everyone back to their homes and patrol routes.
The first handful of stars had lit up the darkening sky by the time the Mercer family finally made it back home.
Lila slept soundly in Maeve’s lap, having conked out well before the impromptu party had come to an end.
Jed hopped down from the driver’s side and rounded Ash, holding his arms out toward Maeve in order to take Lila.
Instead, Maeve took his hand and allowed herself to be guided down from the wagon. He needed to put an arm around her waist, and briefly, their faces were close enough to kiss.
Jed took advantage of the opportunity without a moment’s hesitation.
They then took Lila inside and expertly worked together to ready her for bed, opting to wipe her face with a wet rag instead of trying to bathe her in her sleep-addled state.
Her hair came undone from its bow and fell lightly against her face, and her dirtied dress was exchanged for a clean nightgown.
“Let’s put her between us,” Maeve insisted as they entered the bedroom. “Just like we used to.”
Jed smiled softly, sensing the slightly anxious edge to his wife’s voice.
He felt similarly, but wanted to do everything in his power to act as Maeve’s anchor amidst her uncertainly.
He helped tuck their daughter in before he and his wife slid under the covers as well, then immediately finding Maeve’s hand to take.
She gave it a nervous squeeze.
“I guess…things gotta go back to the way they were,” she mumbled under her breath.
Jed shifted his body, trying to get closer to his wife without bumping into Lila. He managed a somewhat awkward position, bending his upper body to get within a hairsbreadth of Maeve’s face while his lower body curled around Lila’s sleeping form.
He wasn’t sure when he nodded off, but he relished the idea of his wife’s face being the last thing he saw before sleep took him. Her loving words rippled across his mind in a gentle whisper, and for the first time in weeks, Jed fell into a deep, peaceful sleep.
Then a crack of gunfire tore through the night, ripping Jed from the comforting embrace of his dream.