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How could he possibly think that she would want a marriage based out of obligation? She’d rather be a spinster for the rest of her life.
Standing, she willed her arms to remain at her sides as she looked him square in the eye. His words pierced her soul, pricking the raw wound that still gaped from Jonas.
She wouldn’t marry Aaron now—even if he dropped to his knees and begged. She barely even knew him. Besides, she could list off ten different reasons why this man had likely never married: his emotionless, unfeeling approach to things of great importance, being first and foremost on her list.
“So, I guess that settles it then.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “How soon do you want the wedding?”
“There isn’t going to be a wedding.”
Her simple, measured answer took Aaron aback. With the fanciful way she’d likely been raised, he thought for sure she’d find relief in the offer and that she’d be glad to have someone take care of her.
“No?” He looked for some kind of hesitation in her gaze.
“No.”
Though his pride was a little stung, the way she stared down her nose at him made him immensely glad she’d just declined his offer. They were as different as night and day. And she was nothing like Ellie.
He wasn’t exactly sure what Paul had seen in the woman, although it could’ve been very easy for her to hide her true colors in letters. She was a highfalutin city slicker. The way she held her head high, he guessed that she probably considered herself above those here in the West.
But she didn’t seem dull. In fact, she struck him as being intelligent, so why would she travel all the way from the East if she knew what she was getting herself into? Had it truly been for love?
She slid a hand down the buttoned front of her waistcoat and then adjusted it as if it was askew. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I believe I’ll go outside for a breath of fresh air.”
Her heeled, brown-booted feet tapped in quiet succession from the room and to the front door where she grabbed her parasol on the way outside.
After she’d made it down the steps, Aaron collapsed onto the sofa next to Zach. He held his head in his hands, willing the incessant pounding that had started suddenly to stop.
“Do you think you could’ve been any more insulting?” Ben’s terse voice reverberated in Aaron’s head. “I mean, really, Aaron. So, I guess that settles it?”
“How soon do you want the wedding?” Zach mocked.
He glared at them. “What was I supposed to say?”
Ben gave his head a sorry shake. “I don’t know, but that definitely wasn’t it.”
“A woman doesn’t want to feel like some obligation,” Zach scolded, slapping his knee.
Narrowing his gaze, Aaron turned to peer at him. “And how would you know? You’re not even married.”
“True. But do you think Ellie would’ve wanted to be proposed to in that manner?”
Aaron pulled a hand over the back of his neck, trying to massage away the pain. He scrambled for some reasonable excuse to support his actions, but no matter what justification he grasped for, it fell apart in his hands. “No. But this is different. It wasn’t a proposal—well, not exactly, anyway. It was more like a business arrangement.”
Zach just stared at him in that way he had that made a man feel small. “Regardless, that sure was a dead-fish way to go about it. Remind me never to ask you for romantic advice.”
Aaron held his hands up. “Believe me. That area of my life has been sealed and shut for good. There is no way I’ll ever love again.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Ben cautioned, raising his brows for a fleeting moment.
Aaron dragged his hand over his scruffy face, thinking for the first time today how disheveled he must look. He hadn’t had time to clean up before racing into town to meet the train—before everything had changed, before life had taken another jolting turn.
“I’ll watch out for her and help her on the farm,” he muttered. “Since she doesn’t want to get married, at least I can do that much.”
“What about your job at the wood shop? Won’t Joseph need you?” Ben queried.
Aaron recalled the orders they had waiting to be filled. “I’ll talk with him. See what we can work out. He’s been getting along so well on his own.”
“That’s good to hear. But he’ll still need you, won’t he?” Ben was protective of Joseph. Since Joseph had lost his sight in a shop accident about a month before Ellie had died, he’d been making great strides, but Ben was always watchful.
“I’m sure he will, but apart from lunch I’ll be working my usual hours.”
“Well, I’ll do what I can to help.” Ben clasped his hands between his legs.
“Me, too, but with calving season here, I’ll be hard-pressed to get away from the ranch much.” Zach stuck his legs out in front of him, draping one foot over the other.
“Speaking of seasons…planting season is breathing down our necks. There won’t be time to try and find a hired man.” Ben peered into the fire as if looking for some answer there. “Besides, Paul said that any man she’d hire had to first go through you.” He pinned Aaron with an intense gaze.
“You can be sure that there’d be men clambering for the job, but I wouldn’t hire someone unless I could trust them up one side and down another.” When he thought about how delicate Hope was, how vulnerable she’d seemed on the depot platform, the need to protect her rose up like some distant call. “In fact, at least for the first week or so I’m sleeping out in the barn. That way if she runs into any problems I’ll be close by. I’m not taking any chances with her being here all by herself. Not when she’s so—”
“Beautiful?” Zach finished for him.
Aaron slanted a challenge-laced glance his brother’s way. “If she’s so beautiful, I’m surprised you’re not stuttering around her.”
“So am I.” Zach’s gaze shuttered as though he was remembering the difficulty he’d had some years ago. At eleven years of age, an embarrassing case of stuttering had set in after he’d been trapped in a cave alone for two days. He hadn’t talked about the incident much and had worked hard the past few years to overcome his stutter. But once in a while he’d have a relapse—especially whenever he was around a pretty woman.
“Frankly, I’m not even sure she’ll consent to hiring someone. She seemed downright determined to get her hands dirty.” Aaron shook his head as he imagined Hope up to her elbows in garden dirt. “I can’t picture her dirtying those perfectly manicured fingers of hers, though. Can you? And did you see the way her skin looks like it’s never seen the light of day? Or the way she walks all straight and tall like some princess?”
His brothers exchanged a goading look that set Aaron’s hackles standing on end.
“Don’t give me that,” he warned, feeling oddly defensive. But he had nothing to defend. Or did he? “I couldn’t help but notice. She stands out like a sore thumb.”
“I wouldn’t exactly say a sore thumb,” Ben corrected.
“Well, she’s not who I would’ve expected Paul to marry, that’s for sure.” Aaron shoved his gaze to the pine floor, downright irritated by their provoking.
“Why? Because she’s such a fine-looking lady?” Zach prodded.
Aaron scowled. “Paul didn’t exactly look like the underside of a plow. I guess I thought he’d marry someone a little heartier. Like himself.”
“She might be heartier than you think.” Ben pointed out the front window. “Look.”
Aaron wrenched around in his seat to see Hope standing in the middle of the herd of cattle, her arms stuck straight up in the air as she shimmied through the livestock. When she suddenly dipped down, disappearing into the mass of beasts as they closed in on her, his heart came to a complete stop.
“Oh, for the love of—” He catapulted off the sofa, through the room and out the front door to rescue her. Already.
As he raced out to the corral, he wondered how in the world he’d be able to keep track of her from his home, two miles away. But as she sprang up with a yellow tabby kitten in her hands then bravely edged toward the gate, gentling the cattle in spite of her obvious discomfort, he wondered if the barn or even two miles away would be far enough.
Chapter Four
“I’m coming, Hope. Whatever you do, don’t make any quick moves,” Aaron warned. He slowed his pace, resisting the urge to throw open the gate since doing so could spook the cattle. His pulse pounded through his veins. The situation could turn disastrous in a mere fraction of a second if she panicked…if he panicked.
She hurled a cursory glance his way and then yanked the hem of her dress, tearing it free from beneath the hoof of a black Hereford bull—a bull, that minutes ago, had been corralled in a solitary confinement of sorts. With an irritated huff, she turned and gave the bull’s wet nose a single swat, eyeing the massive creature as though he’d purposely ruined her garment—her wedding dress.
“What in the world!” Ignoring his own trepidation, Aaron wedged himself between this woman and the cattle that had closed in on her like a giant litter of two-thousand-pound, menacing puppies. She either had a death wish or was completely naive to the unpredictability of ranch cattle—especially that of an aggressive bull. Wrapping his arms around Hope, he couldn’t miss the way her entire body trembled or her indignant look as he steered her through the small opening to safety.
Once he’d latched the sturdy wood gate and gathered one gigantic steadying breath, he turned and clamped a scolding gaze on her and folded his arms at his chest as he attempted to calm his raging pulse. “What were you doing entering the corral like that? You could’ve been injured or worse.”
“This poor little guy…” Hope nuzzled her cheek against the yellow tabby. Her hands quivered as she pulled the bedraggled kitten close. “He was about to get trampled beneath all of those enormous feet. This sweet little kitten’s life could’ve tragically ended right there.”
The kitten gave the smallest, most pitiful meow as it strained to climb higher, right into the crook of Hope’s slender neck.
“Shh. It’s all right,” she whispered, placing a kiss on top of the kitten’s head, its long hair fraying every which way.
“So you not only entered the corral, but you opened the bull’s pen and went in after the kitten?” he prodded, dreading the thought of having to coax the bull back to his own pen.
If Aaron hadn’t been seeing this with his own eyes, he might not have believed she could be so oblivious to the danger she’d put herself in just seconds ago.
“What else was I to do? He wandered in there.”
“You could’ve called for help,” he answered, remembering how enormously afraid Ellie had been of cattle—all cattle. He’d always wanted a milking cow and a few beef cattle, but Ellie had been outright terrified, and he refused to put her through the stress it would’ve caused. “We would’ve been out here in no time.”
“There was not a second to waste.” Her incensed gaze drifted up to Aaron and then shot over to the cattle as though to wound them straight through. “Badly done, cows. Shame on all of you.”
Amazed by her complete naivety, Aaron made no attempt to hide his dismay as he stared, slack-jawed, at Hope.
Her perfectly arched eyebrows furrowed for a brief moment as she took him in. Then she glanced down at her sullied dress and tattered hem. “I can barely believe the nerve of that cow,” she whispered, her words obviously meant for the kitten she cradled like some baby. She glared straight into the eyes of the bull at fault, her audacity making Aaron question whether the sturdy gate could withstand a sudden charge.
The angry puff of breath forced through the Hereford’s flaring nostrils was a sure sign that Hope was treading on shaky ground. “That’s really not a good idea, ma’am.”
“To what are you referring?” She narrowed her gaze on the guilty party again.
“Staring at him that way.” Sidestepping, Aaron made an effort to block her view of the accused.
“But look at him.” She craned her neck to glare at the culprit. “He’s being a bully.”
“They don’t call them bulls for nothing.” Incredulous, he gave his head a slow shake as he closed in on her, grasping her arm firmly enough so that she’d know he meant business and tenderly enough to assure her that he meant no harm. He led her away from the corral, stopping only to grab her parasol from where she’d dropped it.
When he recalled the trace of fright on her face as she’d bravely made her way through the herd with the kitten in her hands and then the sweet and tender way she cradled the scrawny tabby—likely a stray who happened to be searching for a scrap of food in the wrong place—he had his answer. She had no idea.
“We best get you back to the house before that bull decides to rally his friends and break through the gate.”
She gasped. “He wouldn’t dare.”
“This isn’t the cultured streets of Boston, ma’am.”
When a confused and almost fearful look passed over her fair features, he had a hard time getting mad at her. She was a delicate city flower dropped into the West, where only the heartiest took root and grew. And for some reason he felt compelled to make sure she was well protected.
After Aaron had accompanied her to a safe distance from the anxious herd, he brought her to a halt. “Listen, I know you’ve been in Boulder less than two hours and that your world has been turned on end, but if you’re going to stay here then there are some things you should know.”
There were plenty of risks she should know about, and if she was going to survive the next twenty-four hours on Paul’s farm, and if Aaron was to have peace, he’d have to set her straight. But even then he was sure that serenity would elude him, just like the river bass always dodged his fishhook.
But when he looked into those emerald eyes of hers, he suddenly had a hard time remembering those precautions that had seemed so imperative only seconds ago.
“Yes.” Her voice eased him from his silent perusal.
Jamming the toe of a boot into the dusty soil and kicking up a cloud of dirt, he struggled to clear his mind.
“What is it that you wanted to tell me?” She raised her chin a notch then glanced over to the herd of agitated cattle mulling about at the fence line.
Aaron cleared his throat. He gently grasped her chin and turned her head to look her in the eye. “First of all, never, and I mean never, stare into the eyes of a bull.”
“But I—”
“Never,” he interrupted, with more severity than he’d intended given the way she shuddered. But as the image of Hope getting trampled dashed through his mind, fierce protectiveness for her rose up strong and sure—and completely unbidden. “Do you understand me?”
After a long moment, she gave a single, conceding nod.
He shoved his hands into his pockets, desperate to wipe away the tingling sensation coursing through his fingers from holding her chin. “They take that sort of thing as a challenge. As unfair and rude as you think that fella was being to your little friend there—” he nodded toward the purring kitten “—or stepping on your dress the way—”
“My dress is simply an irritation. Nothing more.” She cuddled the kitten in the crook of her slender neck. “It’s this helpless one who gave me such a fright.”
“Lady, you gave me a fright,” Aaron choked out. He set a hand to his chest. “My heart nearly pounded right out of my rib cage. In fact, it’s still pumping like there’s no tomorrow,” he ground out, the admission carelessly spilling from his mouth without warning. It wasn’t as if he was fond of her. But he did feel obligated—no, honor-bound, he corrected himself, remembering Zach’s scolding—to watch after her. “If that bull decided to take you on,” he added, perusing her slight, feminine form, “all five-foot-two of you wouldn’t have a fighting chance.”
Just then he glanced over to find Ben and Zach standing at the window, their arms draped in a lazy fashion at their chests and irritatingly innocent grins plastered across their faces. They peered with shameless mirth through the crystal clear window as though watching some theater production. They’d done nothing to help him out here. They appeared to enjoy the fact that he’d pledged himself to this woman’s safekeeping.
He had to wonder…did he have a fighting chance?
The sun’s first light bathed the spare bedroom at the back of Paul’s home in a soft, rosy glow. At any other time the effect would’ve been soothing, but Hope didn’t feel any more at peace than she had eight hours ago. She’d lain awake all night long, thinking, praying and trying not to be angry.
She was angry at Paul for leaving her so soon.
She was angry at God for taking him.
She was angry at Aaron for being so unkind and severe.
Restless, she pulled in a deep breath, bracing herself to face the unknowns that today would bring—meeting Paul’s sister, going to the funeral, tending to duties on the farm…her farm.
Did she belong here?
After the way Aaron had scolded her about the whole cow fiasco, as if she were a small child, she had to wonder. And knowing what a contrast this kind of life was to her privileged upbringing she questioned even more. But she had no choice. Paul had been kind and loving enough to ensure her well-being. Even though he’d given her a way out at summer’s end, she couldn’t let him down.
Moreover, she couldn’t let herself down by giving up.
Reaching for where the kitten slept beside her under the covers, she stroked the tabby’s downy-soft fur. Theodore was what she’d named him, although she often called him sweetie. With all of his fluff of orange fur and his perfect little face, she couldn’t bear letting him fend for himself when he’d almost died right in front of her eyes. Besides, she’d never had a kitten of her own. It was nice having something to hold when it seemed she was so alone.
Last night after Aaron and his brothers had left her to herself, she’d brought Theodore inside. Hope’s mother could never stomach animals, inside or otherwise, but Hope had never understood the reasoning. And Aaron, as nervous as he was acting yesterday, would probably tell her that this innocent little kitten was liable to scratch her eyes out.
Aaron had seemed pretty intent on doling out a list of don’ts—almost as if he didn’t trust her to walk five feet without making some kind of grave or dangerous mistake.
