The newcomer looked surprised when he saw Hugh. “Mrs. Grace around?” he asked, a note of suspicion in his tone.
“No, she’s not.”
Who’re you?
the other man’s eyes demanded.
Hugh answered the unspoken question. “I work for Mrs. Grace. Can I help you?”
“My name’s Peter Collins. We’re her neighbors.”
“That’s my nearest neighbor’s place,”
Hugh remembered Julia saying.
“The Collins’ family. They’ve got ten children. All girls.”
Ten daughters, huh? No wonder the man had a slightly harried look about him.
“My wife sent me to ask Mrs. Grace to join us for dinner next Sunday. My brother-in-law’s coming to visit for a week or two, and Rose would like the two of them to meet. I’d be obliged if you’d tell her when she gets back.”
Before Hugh could respond, Bandit ran into the barnyard. The two men looked beyond the corral and paddock and watched as Julia loped her horse toward them. A minute later, she slowed the gelding to a walk and then came to a halt.
“Peter!” A smile of welcome brightened her face. “What brings you to Sage-hen? How’re Rose and the girls?”
“They’re all fine.”
“And the baby?”
“Growing like a weed. Prettiest baby in the world.”
Hugh saw a shadow flit across Julia’s face.
“Care for a cup of coffee?” She slipped from the saddle and looped the reins around the top rail of the corral.
“Don’t mind if I do.”
Julia looked at Hugh, her eyes sliding to the remainder of the bread and cheese in his right hand.
“Hope you don’t mind that I helped myself,” he said. “I got hungry and wasn’t sure when you’d be back.”
“I don’t mind. Only I promised good vittles when I offered you the job, and I don’t think bread and cheese measures up.”
There were times in his life when the food he held in his hand would have been considered a feast, but she didn’t need to know that.
“Come on,” she said. “The both of you. Come inside.”
Peter dismounted and secured his horse. Hugh waited on the
porch, then followed Peter into the house. Julia was already setting the coffeepot on the stove by the time the two men sat at the kitchen table.
“What brings you to Sage-hen, Peter?”
“Rose sent me to ask you to dinner next Sunday.” His gaze shifted to Hugh. “Your hired man too, if he wants to come. The more the merrier, like they say.” He held out his hand. “Sorry. I didn’t get your name when we met outside.”
“Hugh Brennan.”
The two men shook hands.
“Pleasure,” Peter said. “I guess that was you I saw with Julia on your way to town last week.”
Hugh nodded.
“You’ll be staying on?”
Julia answered before Hugh could. “Just until after I take the cows to market. Mr. Brennan is on his way to Idaho.”
“Oh? Sorry to hear that.” Peter turned his gaze from Hugh to Julia. “You could use some help here year ‘round.”
“Can’t afford it,” she answered with a patient smile. “But never mind that. What can I bring when we come for Sunday dinner?”
Peter chuckled, obviously knowing when a woman wanted to change a subject. “Not a thing. Rose has got it all planned out, and you know how she is. Likes to do things her own way.”
Smiling, Julia settled onto a chair. “Yes, I know.”
This was the most relaxed and at ease Hugh had seen Julia since the first day he rode in. That she and Peter were trusted friends was apparent, and it made Hugh feel envious.
Looking at Peter, he said, “Are you sure your wife will want me included? I don’t mind if—”
“She’ll want you. Rose loves herself a chance to sit down with
other adults. More than just me, that is. Most days she’s surrounded by a bunch of little ones, so she does love havin’ company.”
Julia laughed along with Peter, and the companionable mood inside the kitchen chased away the envy and began to warm the lonely places in Hugh’s heart.
Peter hadn’t lied when he said Rose liked to have company over, but he might have stretched the truth about her being glad to have Hugh Brennan join them. Not when his wife’s purpose for the Sunday dinner was to introduce her brother to Julia. Rose was a romantic, and she had matchmaking in mind. Peter had tried to tell her she was wasting her time. Julia Grace wouldn’t be interested in his brother-in-law. She wouldn’t be interested in another marriage to anyone. Not any time soon, at least.
His gaze shifted to Julia’s hired hand. Hugh Brennan was a difficult man to read. There was a wariness that never left his eyes. Even when he laughed, he held something back, as if he didn’t quite trust the others at the table. Still, Peter found himself liking the younger man. His wife said he had the gift of discernment. He hoped she was right. His instincts at the moment said there was no reason to wish Hugh gone from Sage-hen.
Julia’s next words jerked him from his thoughts. “I reckon Abigail will be getting engaged soon.”
“Engaged?” Peter felt his eyes go wide. “Who to?”
She was silent a moment and then laughed again. “Are you telling me you haven’t noticed the Kittson boy coming round your place all spring?”
“Mark Kittson? He’s been helping me with the planting. I’m paying him to be there.”
Julia shook her head, the laughter remaining in her eyes. He knew the look. Rose gave him the same one when she thought him obtuse.
Come to think of it, maybe he was being obtuse about Mark. The boy did tend to spend a lot of time hanging around the front porch before he left for home at day’s end. And Abigail did always seem to be present. But engaged? She was too young for that. Just seventeen.
Seventeen. That’s how old Rose was when he’d asked her to marry him.
“Great Scott,” he whispered beneath his breath.
Julia was still smiling as she waved goodbye to her neighbor before he rode out of sight. His visit had been the perfect tonic for her sagging spirits. And it would be good to spend an afternoon with the Collins family.
I keep to myself too much
.
It wasn’t easy to break a habit honed by years of practice. Julia had become used to sticking close to home, not socializing with her neighbors, staying inside the borders set for her by her husband. She’d only been able to become friends with Rose because Rose hadn’t been cowed by Angus. Rose had driven her wagon into the yard, every year or two with another daughter in tow, and plopped herself down for a visit, ignoring the scowls Angus sent her way.
Bless you, Rose Collins
.
“Julia.”
She turned toward Hugh, who had exited the house behind her.
“You sure I should go with you next week? I know Mr. Collins didn’t come here meaning to ask anyone but you.”
“Peter was right. Rose will be delighted to have you come.
Besides, I want you to meet her. You’ll like her a great deal. Everyone does.”
Hugh glanced in the direction of the road, his expression thoughtful. Silence stretched between them, and Julia thought their conversation was at an end. But before she could walk away, he said, “Would you mind telling me something?” He looked at her again. But it was more than just looking. He seemed to
see
her.
“If I can.”
“What made you change your mind about me?”
“Change my mind?”
“When I rode in ten days ago, you were wishing you had your rifle to point at me. Now you’ve got me working here and eating at your table and calling you by your Christian name. Why? You don’t know me from Adam.”
He was right, of course. She didn’t know much about him beyond his name and his willingness to work hard. Yet she wasn’t sorry that she’d asked him to stay on. “I’m not sure why,” she answered at last.
He studied her with his dark eyes, as if trying to see beyond her words to a truth she didn’t know herself.
Suddenly uncomfortable, she turned and stepped off the porch. “I’d best take care of Teddy.” She walked toward the gelding, putting an abrupt end on the conversation.
Hugh could ride a horse as well as most and he could shoot a rifle with some accuracy. However, he was by no stretch of the imagination a cowboy. Still he thought he could take to the life of a cattle rancher. There was something satisfying about getting up with the chickens, eating a hearty breakfast, and then riding out to check the fences and irrigate the land where the cattle grazed. There was something good about falling into bed at night, exhausted but knowing he’d done what he’d been hired to do. Maybe he wouldn’t feel the same way after a month. Maybe he’d be more than ready to move on. But for the present, as his second week on the ranch drew to a close, he was glad to be working and living on Sage-hen.
The afternoon had grown surprisingly warm by the time Hugh rode his horse into the barnyard on Wednesday. Sweat trickled down his back, dampening his shirt, and he was in need of a long drink of water to wash down the day’s dust. Julia’s horse, Teddy, grazed in the nearby paddock, but Bandit was nowhere to be seen. Unusual. The dog was normally quick to see who had ridden into the yard.
Hugh unsaddled his horse and turned the gelding into the paddock with Teddy. Then he carried the tack into the barn. It was
there he found Julia’s spaniel, sitting at the bottom of the ladder to the loft, staring upward.
“What is it, fella?” Hugh asked as he set his saddle on the rack. Then he heard Julia’s laughter from above.
Bandit whined.
“Julia?”
A few moments passed before she appeared at the top of the ladder. “Come up and see. We have a new litter of kittens.”
“I didn’t know you had a cat.”
“Neither did I.” She disappeared from view, her soft laughter trailing behind her.
He couldn’t resist climbing the ladder if only to follow that delightful sound. In the corner of the loft, a motley calico cat — her long hair matted — had made a nest for herself in the hay, and a half dozen newborn kittens were attached to the teats on her belly. Julia, kneeling on the floor of the loft, watched them from several feet away.
“I don’t know where she came from. She isn’t feral, and she doesn’t seem to have missed too many meals. She let me pet her, and I even held one of the kittens. They must have been born today.”
He knelt beside her. “They look like vermin.”
“What a horrid thing to say. They’re beautiful.”
Beautiful? That was not the term he would use to describe the newborn kittens. Not when they were tiny and hairless and their eyes stuck closed.
“All new life is beautiful,” Julia said softly.
He looked at her, saw the sweetness in her expression, seemed to catch a glimpse of her hopes and dreams.
You’re the one who’s beautiful
.
As if she’d heard his thought, she looked up, their gazes
meeting. Her smile slowly faded. He wanted to bring it back but didn’t know how.
She looked away. “Don’t you like cats, Hugh?” Her voice sounded strained.
“They’re all right.” He’d have liked a cat in his prison cell, if only to keep down the population of rats and mice, but he couldn’t tell her that. “Can’t say as I was ever around them much.”
“I had a cat when I was young. A stray that I found rummaging in the garbage behind the house where my mother and I lived.”
You like to take in strays, don’t you, Julia? Alley cats. Thirsty strangers on horseback
.
Once again, she seemed to know what he was thinking. Her gaze returned to rest upon him, and in her eyes he saw the compassion she felt for any of God’s creatures in need. She’d befriended him as she’d befriended this cat and her kittens.
Except Hugh didn’t have friends. Hadn’t had a friend since he was a boy. Then he’d had friends. Lots of them. Boys his own age who’d gotten into mischief with him, who’d teased their sisters just like he’d teased his own, who’d grown too tall for their pants the same way he had that last year before his mum died.
At the memory, regret slammed into him. Regret for the innocence lost that could never be recovered. Regret for the life that might have been but could no longer be. If there was one thing he could undo about his past, he would change the day his father came to that farm in Nebraska. If he had it to do over, he would look Sweeney Brennan straight in the eye and refuse to go back to Chicago with him. Because from the moment he’d left that farm with his dad, he’d traveled a road leading straight to perdition. But how could a boy of fourteen know his own father would betray him in so many ways? Even now, in hindsight, it was hard to believe.
No, a man like Hugh didn’t have friends. Especially not a woman as lovely and gentle as Julia Grace.
He got to his feet. “I need to wash up.”
“Hugh? Is something —”
“Been a long, hot day.” He moved down the ladder and out of her sight.
Julia sat back on her heels, her gaze returning to the cat and kittens. She’d offended Hugh in some way. She was sure of it. There’d been a moment when he looked at her that she’d thought … that she’d felt …
She shook her head, not wanting to explore what she’d thought or what she’d felt.
“What made you change your mind about me?”
She didn’t know the answer to Hugh’s question anymore now than she had when he’d asked it. Not really. Maybe her change of mind had been the nudging of the Holy Spirit, an act of compassion. Maybe it had been out of desperation; she’d needed a ranch hand and he’d needed work. Or maybe there was something about Hugh —
Julia stood quickly, more determined than ever to end such thoughts. “You need a bed, kitty. I’ll have to find you something.”
The cat meowed, as if in agreement, before pulling one of the kittens up to her face and beginning to wash it with her tongue.
Julia climbed down the ladder. Bandit immediately hopped to his feet and came to her side. She stroked his head. “We have seven new members of the family, boy, and you’re not to chase any of them. Agreed?”
The dog’s gaze was disapproving.
“Come on.” Her good mood restored, she laughed and patted his head a second time. “We’d better get supper started.”
Bandit understood what that meant — food! — and led the way out of the barn, making straight for the house. But Julia paused as she stepped into the sunlight. Her gaze went to the pump where Hugh was bent over, his head under the stream of cold water gushing from the faucet. Then he straightened and, with both hands, swept his dark hair back from his face. He exuded strength and masculinity as he stood there, water dripping from his face and hair.