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“Aye and it would not have happened if some fool had not blasted his gun beside the horses.” He eased himself to a more comfortable position, then leaned forward. “Now let’s have a look at the wee lassie.”
Sawyer peeled Jill off the back of his legs and pulled her forward. “Say hello to Mr. Morrison.”
She didn’t respond. Her jaw jutted out and he knew she wouldn’t.
He couldn’t force her to. Instead of trying, he glanced about the house. A big kitchen with the table in the middle of the room, the stove and cupboards to one side. A wide doorway opened to the living room. From where he stood, he saw a couple of comfortable looking armchairs, one with a table beside it and a scattering of newspapers and books. A footstool to one side of the chair. He wondered if that’s where Mr. Morrison spent some of his day.
Across the kitchen was a closed door. To one end of the kitchen, another closed door. No doubt the bedrooms. He eased slightly to his left and saw another door off the kitchen. The house was small, as Carly said, but more than adequate. He’d shared crowded quarters with a dozen men and slept in the open under the stars. This would do fine for a home for himself and Jill.
No doubt he would soon learn where he and Jill were to sleep and which rooms were used by Carly and her father.
Mr. Morrison took the initiative with Jill. “Hello, little Jill. So yer going to be living with us now.” Mr. Morrison eyed the child without saying another word. The silence grew heavy and uncomfortable.
Jill lifted her head and looked at the older man.
Mr. Morrison smiled. “That’s better.” He nodded. “You have beautiful eyes. You should let people see them more often. ’Tis my guess you have a beautiful smile, too. I can’t wait to see it.”
Sawyer could have warned the man it might be a long time before he did.
Mr. Morrison sat back and Jill shuffled to Sawyer’s side. She didn’t touch him. She wouldn’t. Sawyer understood. But perhaps living here and being settled would help her remember a time when it was okay to feel something besides caution.
“Well, if you’re satisfied,” Carly said. “I need to get some beds ready for these people.”
Mr. Morrison chuckled. A pleasing sound that spread a little honey to Sawyer’s insides. “You mean your husband and his little sister?”
“Uh-huh. I’m going to clean out the little storeroom.”
“Aye. It will be a nice bedroom for the wee lassie.”
“Or for the big brother.”
Mr. Morrison sat upright so suddenly he groaned with pain. He quickly recovered. “Are you telling me your husband is going to sleep there? What kind of nonsense is this?” His voice rose.
Carly dipped water from the bucket on the cupboard and had a long drink. “You said I needed a husband to keep the ranch. I got one. The ranch is safe. But I have no need of a man for any other reason.” She refilled the dipper and offered it to Sawyer.
He drank, more to distance himself from this situation than because of thirst. “Thanks.” He returned the dipper to her and she again refilled it and offered it to Jill, who likewise drank rather desperately. She might try to distance herself from people but she couldn’t help but feel the tension in the room.
“Are ye telling me this marriage is a mockery?”
Carly seemed unaffected by the man’s loud voice. “Nope. Just a contract between two adults.”
Mr. Morrison’s eyes came to Sawyer. Hard, challenging.
Sawyer met the gaze without flinching.
“Yer agreeable to this?”
Sawyer nodded. He was getting tired of explaining it. “We need a family. She needed a man.”
“That so? Seems to me a married man would be wanting to share his wife’s bed.” “Father! Enough. We agreed the marriage was for mutual benefit and that wasn’t one of them. We know what we’re doing.”
Her father sat back. “Aye. So you say.” He grinned and stroked his beard, as content as a cat full of warm milk. “This will be interesting.” He rolled the r.
Carly stared at her father, turned to look at Sawyer and he saw something that made his nerves twitch. A look of surprise, a flicker of fear and then she shrugged.
“I expect it will.”
A little tremor twisted Sawyer’s neck muscles. Had he bitten off more than he could chew?
Chapter Five (#u492ee97d-4ea8-58dc-936e-65ebc7395a9e)
Carly refused to let Father’s amusement trouble her. She knew what she was doing. She wasn’t being naive. There would be adjustments to make, things she might be surprised to learn. But she’d faced tough challenges before and always overcome them. She felt duty-bound to point out the fact to her father.
“Remember the time I brought home that wild horse?” She turned to Sawyer. “The gelding wasn’t really a wild horse, just a horse that had been mishandled and turned bad and then the owners turned him loose rather than bother with him or feed him. But he was a beauty. He’s a golden palomino. His coat glistens like sunshine. Or at least it did once he regained his health.” She shifted her gaze back to Father, reminding him of how that had turned out. “I made up my mind to gentle him and turn him into the best horse one could ask for. And now he is.”
She’d named him Sunny and rode him everywhere. Did Father see that marrying Sawyer was much the same? Not that she thought she had to tame the man but she had worked out the problem of dealing with Sunny. She would do the same with Sawyer.
Father continued to stroke his beard, his gaze shifting from Carly to Sawyer to Jill and then back to Carly. “Aye? Is that what ye have in mind for Sawyer? Taming him to be a pet?”
Jill snorted behind her hand, a sound of amusement and derision combined.
“Of course that’s not what I mean.” She didn’t dare look at Sawyer to gauge his reaction. “Father, you’re impossible.” She ground around so her back was to the men, which had her facing the door of the storeroom and a reminder of the need to get Sawyer and Jill settled. “I have to get beds ready.” She hurried to the small room, more than half tempted to pull the door shut behind her and slip the hook in place to secure the door. Except the hook was on the other side of the door. So she settled for squaring her shoulders and looking about the room.
Sawyer’s boots thudded on the floor as he followed her.
She pushed back her annoyance. Of course, she wouldn’t have the same degree of privacy and the ability to be alone as she’d had prior to their arrangement. She could live with that. And if she couldn’t, Sunny and a ride in the open were but a few steps away.
Sawyer stopped at the doorway.
Jill ducked past him and looked about the room. Her eyes lit as she saw the trunk in the corner. “What’s in there?”
“My mother’s things.” And baby things Mother had saved, always hoping for a baby boy who survived. But Carly was the only baby to live past a few weeks and grow to adulthood. She was aware of four baby boys who did not live that long. Their little graves were on the hillside and her mother lay next to them.
“Where’s your ma?”
“She died when I was fourteen.”
“Oh.” Jill pushed her way through the boxes and other items until she reached the trunk. She examined the latches and tried to release them.
“Jill,” Sawyer spoke with a hefty degree of warning. “You don’t have permission to touch that.”
“Can’t I look?” Jill asked.
Carly had crossed the room and pressed on the latches to stop the curious child. “I prefer you didn’t.”
“Fine.” Jill stomped away, crushing an old hat of Father’s beneath her feet.
Sawyer grabbed it and punched it back to shape as best he could. “I apologize.”
Carly nodded. She wasn’t about to excuse the child but neither could she blame Sawyer. “Help me move the trunk to my room.” Not only would it clear out room for Sawyer, it would be safer where she could keep an eye on it.
She grabbed the handle on one side, he grabbed the other and they carried the trunk across the kitchen to her bedroom. She put it down outside the door. “Wait here a minute.” Jill would have followed her but Carly closed the door and leaned against it. She’d carelessly tossed a few items of clothing on the chair and floor and bent to pick them up and shove them into the wardrobe. She pushed the bed against the wall to make room for a cot for Jill. A little sister! She grinned. How many times had she hoped for a little brother or sister only to have her hopes dashed when the newborns didn’t live? Seems she was about to have her dreams fulfilled this way. It ought to be fun.
Someone kicked at the door. Sawyer spoke Jill’s name in a warning tone.
Carly faced the door. It might not be as much fun as she’d imagined. Oh, what was she thinking? The child was only eight. Soon enough she’d be chasing butterflies and playing with imaginary friends.
She opened the door. Sawyer had a firm grip on Jill’s shoulder and the little girl wore a mutinous expression. Carly wasn’t sure what to do...or even if she could do anything. Seems the child was Sawyer’s responsibility. Though Carly meant to do everything she could to help Jill feel secure. Everything, she added with a bit of foresight, that Jill would allow her to do.
“Are you ready?” Sawyer asked.
Carly nodded and grabbed her end of the trunk. They carried it into the room and parked it at the end of her bed. She dusted her hands off. “Now let’s get the other room ready.”
They tromped back across the room, Father watching them with a great deal of interest.
Sawyer stopped inside the storeroom. “Where do you plan to put all this stuff?”
Carly raised her voice. “I figure a bonfire out back will take care of most of it.”
“Dinnae burn me treasures,” Father roared, making Carly chuckle.
“I knew he’d do that,” she whispered, then spoke louder so she would be heard in the other room. “Father, it’s just junk.”
He thumped his crutch on the floor.
She rushed to the door. “Sit down. I’ll not burn it.” She released a heavy sigh. “Can we put some of it in your room?”
“Aye, that’s a fine idea.” He sank back, his mouth set in a hard line at the pain of moving.
With Sawyer’s help and Jill’s watchful supervision, several crates were stacked in the corner of Father’s bedroom.
Carly didn’t give Father’s crowded quarters much thought. He insisted on keeping all this stuff so she reasoned he must enjoy having it crowding every corner.
They returned to the storeroom. It still held far too much.
She and Sawyer stood side by side in the little cleared area. “There’s a cot under that pile of—” she lowered her voice to a whisper “—rags. I’ll have to move them, though I itch to get rid of them.”
Sawyer glanced over his shoulder. “Your father likes to keep stuff?” It was as much statement as question.
“Aye,” Carly said, imitating her father. “Lassie, you never know when ye might have a need for this very item.”
Jill covered her mouth in an attempt to stifle her giggle.
Liking the child’s sense of humor, Carly grinned at Sawyer.
His blue-green eyes shifted to more blue than green as he met her gaze. He seemed a bit startled at her grin and blinked. His mouth twitched and for a moment, she thought he would smile. But he looked away without doing so. Like he said, he didn’t allow himself to have feelings.
What a sad way to live. She could understand why he wouldn’t want Jill to end up the same.
“I suppose we need to find that cot,” he said.
She returned to studying the room. “It’ll be more comfortable than sleeping on the floor.” They stood in silent contemplation for two seconds. She couldn’t think of him as her husband but at least if he slept here, she could accept him as a hired man. “Besides, I’ve been wanting to clear out this space. Father planned this to be a hallway to more rooms. But he never needed them, to his great disappointment.”
“No brothers or sisters?”
“None that lived.” She was so used to thinking that way that she didn’t consider how her words would affect Jill.
Jill had been poking through the piles of old newspapers. Her hands grew still. Carly thought she heard the child suck in air. “You got dead brothers and sisters?” Jill asked.
“Four brothers. Maybe I’ll show you their graves someday.”
“Sawyer gots a dead brother, too.” She tipped her head. “Does that mean I have a dead brother?”
Carly waited for Sawyer to answer. But his face had turned to granite and he stared at the wall.
“I suppose it does,” she answered in his stead.
“Huh. His name was Johnny.” Jill spoke with a degree of authority as if she thought Sawyer might have forgotten.
Carly wasn’t sure how to respond, so said words that might mean anything. “I see.”
Sawyer had still not moved.
“Let’s take some of these things out to the woodshed.” She gathered up a bundle of old clothes and stepped past Sawyer, making her way to the small building at the side of the house. She didn’t bother looking to see what he did. The man had agreed to marry her. That was all she expected of him. But she was mildly pleased when he followed, his arms holding the rest of the clothing.
He traipsed on her heels into the shed. She looked about. “If I put shelves along the top of the wall, I can store all this stuff on them.” She lowered her armload to the nearby bench.
Sawyer did the same.
She headed for the door, intent on getting to the barn. Her skirts tangled around her ankles. The first thing she would do was trade these cumbersome skirts for her customary trousers. She’d only worn a dress to town because of some vague hope she would find a man willing to wed her.
A smile tugged at her mouth. It hadn’t been so much hope that she’d find a man as desperation. Truth be told, she would have married almost anyone to save the ranch. Even if she’d had to drag him from the gutter. She shuddered as a couple of men came to mind. Thankfully, she had found a man in Miss Daisy’s Eatery rather than the gutter.
Sawyer followed on her heels. “I’ll help you.”
“I can do it. But got something to attend to first.” She hurried to her room and closed the door firmly after her. The pesky buttons on the bodice of her dress took forever to undo but she’d learned the folly of hurrying. It took even more time to sew buttons back on. She slipped the dress and petticoats off and donned her baggy shirt and fitted trousers, stuck her feet into her pair of well-worn cowboy boots and returned to the main room.
Jill sat on a chair opposite Father, giving him solemn study. She turned as Carly left her room. Carly knew she tried to hide any expression—having learned it from an expert—but her eyes rounded. Her mouth gaped and then she blinked and turned deadpan.
Carly didn’t care what Sawyer thought of her attire and yet she looked his direction. Would he see the warning in her eyes to keep his opinion to himself?
“Lassie.” Father sighed heavily. “Is it too much to hope ye’d be content to be the woman of the house?”
Carly snorted, her attention still directed toward Sawyer. Would he be as disapproving as Father? He might as well learn right now that she didn’t intend to be the sort of woman Father meant.
* * *
Sawyer’s gaze ran down the length of the woman he’d married. Brown trousers with worn creases informed him she made a habit of dressing like this. He tried to decide what he thought about it and realized he didn’t have an opinion. Why should he? Who she was and what she did had little importance to him. He’d agreed to do the ranch work in return for a home for Jill. He expected nothing more, nothing less, from either of them.
