Authors: Tamera Alexander
Intimate relations between them had been . . . well, better than she could remember in a long time. Larson’s tenderness had reminded her of their early years together. But even after sharing such physical intimacy with her husband, she had awakened during the night with a loneliness so vast that it pressed around her until she could hardly breathe. She’d turned her head into her pillow so Larson wouldn’t hear her cries. How would she have explained her tears to him when she scarcely understood them herself?
As she stacked the logs on the woodpile, one last certainty cut through the blur of her thoughts, and its undeniable truth brought simultaneous hope and pain.
Larson would never willingly give up this ranch, much less desert it.
This ranch was his lifeblood. His dreams were wrapped up in its success or failure.
The truth pricked a tender spot inside her, but Kathryn knew it to be true. Deep down, she’d always known that Larson’s making a success of the ranch came before her. However, in recent days, to her surprise, that understanding had nurtured a growing sense of ownership she’d not experienced before. A dogged determination on her part to see the ranch succeed.
When Larson returned—and he
would
return, she told herself as her gloved hand touched the door latch—he would find the ranch holding its own or, by God’s grace, maybe even prospering. She would keep her husband’s dream alive, no matter the cost.
Muffled pounding on the snow-packed trail leading up to the cabin brought Kathryn’s head around. She recognized Matthew Taylor astride his bay mare, but none of the four riders behind him. She swiped any trace of tears from her cheeks and took a step toward them.
“Mrs. Jennings.” Matthew reined in and tipped his hat. The other men followed suit.
Kathryn nodded, including the group in her gesture. She easily guessed the reason for their visit. “I gave you my word, Mr. Taylor, and I intend to keep it.” Though she didn’t know exactly how yet. “You and the other men will be paid, like we agreed.”
She couldn’t tell if it was the cold or a blush, but Matthew’s face noticeably reddened. “I don’t doubt your intentions, ma’am. None of us do.” He motioned, including the men behind him. His gloved hands gripped his saddle horn. “Have you heard from your husband yet?”
Kathryn shook her head but injected hope into her voice. “But I’m expecting to . . . any day now.”
The men with Matthew muttered to each other, but with a backward glance from Matthew, they fell silent.
“Mrs. Jennings, I understand you want to keep hopin’, but you have to face the possibility that your husband might not have made it out of the storm that night. He might have—”
“My husband possesses an instinct for direction, Mr. Taylor.” Kathryn purposefully phrased it in the present. “He’s never owned a compass a day in his life and he’s never been lost. He knows this territory better than any man.”
Matthew’s eyes softened. “And I’m not sayin’ otherwise, Mrs. Jennings, but—”
One of the other ranch hands nudged his horse forward. He was a man slight of build but surly-looking—
mean
was the word that came to Kathryn’s mind. A ribbon of scarred ruddy flesh ran the length of his right jawline and disappeared beneath his shirt collar. Kathryn would not have wanted to be left alone with him. “Winter storms can make a man lose that sense of direction, Mrs. Jennings. It can blind you. Turn you ’round, where you don’t know where you are or where you been.” He laughed, and the shrill sound of it surprised her, set her defenses on edge. His eyes swept the full length of her. “You ever been out in a storm like that . . . Mrs. Jennings?”
Matthew turned in his saddle. Kathryn couldn’t make out Matthew’s response to the man, but his manner was curt and harsh. With one last look at her, the ranch hand turned and rode back down the trail.
Matthew slid from his horse and came to where Kathryn stood. From the concern etching his eyes, she had the distinct feeling that what he was about to say hurt him somehow.
“I’m here to tell you that we’ve been offered jobs at another ranch.” His announcement felt like a physical blow to Kathryn’s midsection. “The rancher’s payin’ double what we get here, Mrs. Jennings.”
“But, Matthew—Mr. Taylor,” she corrected. “You each have jobs here. You’ve agreed to work through the spring.” She knew they didn’t have formal agreements like her father did with his employees back East. But still, wasn’t their word worth something? She took a step toward him. “You gave my husband your word to work through the spring, did you not?”
“Yes, ma’am, we did. We made that agreement with your husband.” Kathryn didn’t miss the emphasis on his last words. “But he’s not here anymore.”
“But he will be.” Her voice involuntarily rose an octave.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And I’ll have the payroll as promised for every man this week.”
“Most of the men are taking the other offer, Mrs. Jennings.” At her protest, he raised a hand. “You have to understand that a lot of these men have families to feed. They got wives and children dependin’ on them. And I gotta tell you . . .” A sheepish look came over his face. “Couple of the men say they spotted an owl yesterday.”
Kathryn’s confusion must have shown on her face.
“It wasn’t just any owl, ma’am. They say it was pure white.” He shrugged. “I don’t hold much to the Indian lore around here, but the sayin’ goes that seein’ a white owl’s a bad sign. Means more snow’s coming, it’s gonna get colder. Things are gonna get worse before they get better.”
Kathryn tried to mask her mounting frustration. She looked past him to the other men. “Mr. Taylor, if I ask them personally, will they stay?”
“Ma’am?”
“I said if I ask each of the men personally, will they stay and work my ranch?”
A quizzical look swept his face. “
Your
ranch, ma’am?”
Determination stiffened her spine. “Yes, it’s my husband’s
and
mine.”
That simple declaration inspired courage and strength, and a hope she hadn’t known in nearly two months. Was this a small taste of what Larson felt for this land? If so, no wonder he had worked so tirelessly to keep it.
Matthew laughed low and quick. “I don’t reckon it’d make much difference if you ask them. Most of them don’t take to the idea of workin’ for a woman anyhow.”
Twilight shadowed the quivering aspen and towering birch canopying them, but Kathryn could see the hint of a smile tipping his mouth. It brought one to hers too.
“I gotta admit, it’s not something I ever thought I’d do.” His look sobered. “But I gave my word to your husband that I’d work through the spring. And I intend to stand by that.”
“I appreciate your integrity, Mr. Taylor. I look forward to doing business with you.”
After Matthew and the other men disappeared down the trail, Kathryn turned and walked back to the cabin. She wondered how many ranch hands Larson had to begin with and how many there would still be come Monday.
After latching the door behind her, she stood for a moment in the dark silence of the cabin. The utter stillness held an invitation she wasn’t ready to face yet. She lit a single lamp and set about preparing dinner. She hadn’t cooked much recently. Her appetite had noticeably, understandably, lessened.
Bending over to get a cup from a lower shelf, Kathryn’s world tilted.
She grabbed hold of the back of a kitchen chair, but it toppled under her weight. Her knees hit the floor with a dull thud. The room spun in circles around her. Giving in to the dizzying whirl, she sank to the floor. Her stomach spasmed, and she tasted bile burning the back of her throat.
She called out for help, as if someone would hear. The loneliness she’d been evading suddenly permeated every inch of the cabin. From the methodical ticking of the mantel clock, to the single dish on the table, to the bed in the next room—as barren and empty as her heart.
Curling onto her side, she cradled her head in the crook of her arm and wept. She wept for all that she’d longed for from her husband and had never received. She wept for life’s promises that remained unfulfilled, and for the innocence with which she’d once embraced them. Wrapping her arms around her waist, her heart ached for the child she would never have.
The flame from the lamp flickered and sputtered. The dwindling oil gave off a purple plume of smoke before darkness fell over the room.
Staring at the shadowed outline of the cabin door, Kathryn thought back to the first day she’d crossed that threshold—in her husband’s arms. She’d known then that God was with her, guiding her steps. The One who stood beside her that day was still beside her now, and somehow already dwelled in the moment when she would breathe her last, whenever that day would come.
Her choked voice trickled across the empty room. “‘Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?’ ” She clung to the psalmist’s promise. “Lord, I cannot be anywhere where you are not.” And the same was true for Larson, wherever he was.
Cradled on the floor, Kathryn surrendered herself—again—to the Lover of her soul, and laid her grief and worry at the foot of His cross.
L
ARSON AWAKENED TO A cool sensation sweeping across his legs and arms, followed by a heat so intense it seeped all the way into his bones. His skin tingled in response, and though the experience was far from pleasant, neither did it resemble the ravaging of flesh he’d endured and come to dread.
Thick haze surrounded his mind. Moving toward him through the fog, a dull pain throbbed with the rhythm of a steady pulse. He recognized its sickening cadence and fought to open his eyes, but couldn’t. Why couldn’t he see? He commanded his arms and legs to move, but they too proved traitorous.
As the steady thrum of pain grew louder inside him, Larson begged for waves of slumber to carry him to the place where agony was a distant memory, and where Kathryn waited.
His prayer answered, cool wetness slipped through his lips and down his throat. Murmurs of voices, far away, moved toward him through a distant tunnel. He willed himself to reach out to them, but he couldn’t penetrate the veil separating his world from theirs.
Sweet oblivion drifted over him, luring him with her promises of peace and escape. He embraced her whisper and surrendered completely.
When he awakened again, Larson sensed a change. Exactly what, he couldn’t figure, only that his surroundings were different.
He
was different. For the first time he could remember, he felt the flutter of his lids and knew he was awake. He slowly opened his eyes.
Darkness still hung close, cocooning him like a thick blanket. But this time it wasn’t for lack of sight.
Flat on his back, he sensed his body stretched out before him, somehow different from how he remembered. He tried his voice, and the muscles in his throat chastised the effort. The back of his throat felt like crushed gravel, and when he tried to move his body, hot prickles needled up his arms and skittered down his legs. He braced himself for the hot licks of pain to return and once again quench their thirst. But none came.
Pain’s thirst had apparently been slaked, at least for the moment.
He lay in the darkness, listening for sounds, for anything that might yield a clue to where he was. More than anything, he longed for the voices he thought he’d heard before. Or had they been part of the dream?
One reality was certain—he was alive.
He strained to recall his last memory preceding this nightmare. The recollection teetered on the edge of his thoughts, just out of reach. He shut his eyes in hope of bringing it closer. Scraps of disjointed images fluttered past his mind’s eye. Shadowed and jumbled, they wafted toward him then just as quickly drifted away, like ragged tufts of a down blanket ripped and scattered on the wind.
He flexed the fingers on his right hand and lightning bolted up his arm and ricocheted down his leg. He gasped for breath. But with the pain came clarity.
Bitter frost. His legs and feet going numb. Hands aching with cold.
Darkness. Needing to hide. A voice . . . wickedly taunting.
Brilliant light, more intense than he had thought possible.
The metallic taste of fear scalded the back of his throat, and he pressed his head back into the pillow. Memories from that night crashed over him. The stranger at the camp, the gunshot to the man’s chest, but not from Larson’s own rifle. Then clawing his way through the frozen night in search of a place to hide.
Cool lines of wetness trailed a path down his temples and onto his neck.
O God, were you there that night? Are you here now?
Then came an image so lovely, so breathtakingly beautiful, that his chest clenched in response.
Kathryn
.
He tried to call her name, but the effort languished in his throat. How was she? Was she safe? Did Kat know where he was and that he was hurt? Or did she think him already dead? Wetness sprang to Larson’s eyes, but oddly the sensation didn’t seem foreign to him. And what of the ranch? He couldn’t let all that he’d worked for be wrenched from his grasp—especially when success was so close this time.
His thoughts raced. The sale of cattle this spring was crucial. The increased demand for meat to feed workers in the mining camps would bring more sales, which should result in enough money to nearly pay off the loan they owed on the land. And it would also cover the second loan he’d secured this past fall—a loan Kathryn knew nothing about. He hadn’t wanted to worry her. He’d needed some extra to carry them through the winter months and had mortgaged their homestead, the last thing that didn’t already have a lien attached to it. But all the years of sacrifice and hard work would soon pay off.
That thought drove him forward. He tried to lift his head but strained at the simple task. It felt like a forty-pound weight was wrapped around his temples. He let his head fall back to the pillow and felt the room sway. His neck muscles bunched into knots. He wished he could rub the tension away, but his arms would not obey.
A noise sounded.
He went perfectly still, listening for it again. Had he only imagined it?