Chapter 24
“Hold up, Abby.” Wade pulled his horse to a stop. “Why would we staff a line shack this time of year? The cattle are all moved close to home for the roundup.”
Abby stopped beside him, clearly as suspicious as he and as unwilling to approach the house. She was about the smartest, trail-savviest little thing he’d ever seen. One tough hombre, for sure. Tougher than him by a long shot.
“I know an overlook where we can study the place before we ride in.” Wade turned his horse and went easily to the barely existent trail. There’d been a time when he’d worn quite a path.
That old obsession and his weakness of character haunted him to this day.
He knew he was forgiven. And that forgiveness helped him keep his heart open to his father.
The man’s cruelty had driven Wade to believe Cassie needed saving from her first husband and Red.
Wade could understand and explain away the shame.
But there remained a ghost of wonder that a man could be so confused and steeped in sin and still find God.
That wonder urged him on after his father’s soul.
Pa had done nothing worse in his life than Wade.
If Wade could find God and change, then so could he.
With Wade leading, they moved to a high, well-concealed spot with a clear view of the house. Abby rode up beside him, gasped, and pulled her horse to a stop.
Wade smiled as they studied the ridiculous, crumbling monstrosity.
White clapboard, three full stories high, stained glass windows shining from gables in each side of the roof. A second-floor balcony hung above a whitewashed porch, both wrapping around the whole building.
Abby turned to Wade. “Who would built such a…a…”
“Castle?” Wade suggested. “Mansion?”
She looked back at the house. A missing board on the porch and broken windows made him think of a gap-toothed old crone. The paint was peeling and weathered.
“A real fool of a man built this house about…five years ago.” Wade swung down from his horse, ground-hitched it, and leaned on the massive stone that had a lower spot just perfect for spying.
“It’s only five years old? Why is it…” Again words seemed to fail her. She dismounted and came to his side. “Who would build such a thing, then just let it die?”
“A man who had no sense. Simple as that.” Wade didn’t want to talk about Cassie’s first husband and how he’d wasted her money and left her destitute and pregnant at the mercy of the Rockies…a mountain range that had no mercy.
“It’s a shame, though.” Wade hated to see the waste, but he wasn’t going to pay the money to keep up this monument to a man’s foolish pride. “It’s a beautiful thing. The owner hired some guy to come all the way here from Denver to build it. Shipped the material in too.”
“Where is this foolish man?”
“Where most foolish men end up…especially in the West.” Wade settled his hat lower. “Dead.”
The smoke had thinned, then vanished from the chimney. No movement in or outside the house was visible. Wade studied the place before he asked Abby, “What do you think?”
“No horses around. No movement or noise from the house. And if the fire has burned out already, it was most likely left from the morning meal. I’d say whoever was in there is gone.”
“Can you smell them?” Wade turned and grinned at Abby.
She lowered her brows to a straight line and reminded him so much of Tom Linscott that he smiled bigger. “The only white man I smell is you.”
He smelled her, too, but she made it sound like a bad thing, whereas Wade had no objection at all.
“Abby, I want to ask you something important.” He barely whispered the words, afraid he’d scare her away like a half-wild mountain creature.
“We haven’t known each other long enough, but I want this thought to be in your head. ”
“What is this thought?”
“Me. The thought is me. I want to be in your head and in your heart, Abby. Because you are in mine. Could you consider letting me court you? Might the day come when you could see yourself agreeing to spend your life with me?”
“Marry a white? Never!” Her words were cutting, but she didn’t back away. No, in fact, his wildflower stepped a bit closer, studying him as if there was a speck of dirt in his eye and she was considering doctoring him.
And maybe she noticed a smudge on his mouth, too, because her eyes went there as well.
Wade leaned down and touched his lips to hers.
Abby jumped back. She kept her eyes locked on his, and the little jump was only her straightening away from him.
Fascination and fear were reflected on her face.
He would ignore the fear and take ruthless advantage of the fascination.
He captured her lips again, and this time, she wrapped her arms around his neck with the strength of a warrior.
The kiss deepened as Wade’s future unfolded before him with perfect clarity.
Abby, the ranch, six sons and three daughters.
Maybe they’d live here. He could restore the old Griffin place.
He kind of liked the idea of all the children’s names starting with the same letter.
Having a name that came at the end of the alphabet, Wade was partial to A. Like Abby. Maybe Adam, Andrew, Alan?—
Abby slammed the heel of her hand into Wade’s stomach.
Staggering back, Wade gasped for breath that wouldn’t come. “What’d you do that for?”
“Keep your hands off me, white man.” She flashed that wicked blade right under his nose.
All right, so maybe a little early to be actively naming their children. Finally, he dragged in some air on a high whistle, and his lungs decided they’d let him live. “My hands?”
By way of an answer, she waved her knife close enough to draw blood if Wade made one wrong move.
Backing off would have been the sensible thing to do.
Wade never had much sense. How many times had his father told him that?
“You had your arms wrapped around me like a thousand feet of vine, Ab. Don’t pretend you didn’t like that kiss.
You may hate that you liked it. You may be surprised that you liked it.
You may even want to stab me because you liked it. But you liked it just fine.”
He actually heard the air whoosh past the blade as she swung the knife.
For no reason on earth, her fierce resistance to something neither of them could deny made him smile.
Raising his hands like a man surrendering, Wade backed away—not too far on the narrow, rocky slope, but enough to get her to lower the weapon.
He still wasn’t perfectly safe. The sharp, angry, downward slash of her white-blond brows could have cut him.
“All right, no kissing. You’re right, anyway. You’re right for the wrong reason, but I shouldn’t have taken such liberties, especially without your permission. I apologize.” He noticed he still had his hands up as though he was surrendering and lowered them, since he wasn’t giving up at all.
She sheathed her knife. When had she found time to add a hidden sheath to this dress? Did she stay up late at night planning to stab people? “Your words mean nothing when your actions presume so much. I do not want your hands on me.”
Wade suspected she did, but he didn’t mention that. “Abby?” He stood silently until she quit attending to her knife and faced him.
“What?” She nearly shouted her impatience.
It was with a bit of pain he gave up his dream of a perfect, gentle, Cassie Dawson–like wife. But his feelings were stronger than the dream. “I want your permission to court you.”
“No.” She crossed her arms that had been warm and fluid around his neck only moments ago. Now they were a flesh-and-blood fortress wall between them.
“I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“I will never tie myself to you.” Her head shook with absolute denial. “To no man.”
“What are you planning to do, then?” The woman had to use her brain if she intended to get on with her life. “Stop being angry and think for a minute. You’ve got no home with your Flathead people now. You’re the one who told me that.”
Abby lifted her chin defiantly. She’d left her hair down for church, and the sunlight of it curled and danced and swayed around her shoulders and all the way to her waist, alive and beautiful in the gentle mountain breeze.
“I will strike out on my own. I will hunt for deer, skin them, and build a tepee.”
“I’ll help you. We can live in your tepee together.”
“You will not.” With a silent stomp of her moccasined foot and a derisive snort, she went on. “I’ll make a buckskin dress instead of this foolish thing I’m wearing now.”
Her dress was the color of the Montana sky behind her. It brought out the blazing blue of her eyes. Or maybe the only blazing was caused by her temper.
“You can wear a buckskin dress if you wish. You had one when I found you. You brought it along to my house. Wear it. Or make another if you want. I’ll find you beads if you want to add them.
Sturdy clothes make sense on a ranch. I’m not trying to change you, Abby.
I think you’re wonderful. I wish I had half your strength. ”
Her arms dropped to her sides. Her jaw went slack too. “You do? No man should look to his woman for strength.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s weak.”
“Jesus said, ‘My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.’ ”
Abby narrowed her eyes. “What is this? How can strength come from weakness?”
“It’s a Bible verse. One of my favorites.
You’re strong and independent, but that’s never been true of me.
” Wade sighed and looked at the ground. It was hard to confess weakness to anyone, even himself.
But almost impossible to do it now, to this woman.
He would only deepen her contempt for him if he admitted just how weak he was.