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She surveyed her little kingdom, the legacy of her departed father. A sturdy stone house, a weathered barn, a shambling bunkhouse, a windmill with more baling wire than nails holding it together. Five years was a long time. Five years since her father had passed away, since the ranch hands had left, since she’d found herself alone on the edge of town and needing to make her own living, a living that didn’t stretch to building repairs or hired help.
The road into Silar Falls went by her place, but few folks stopped in...mostly the cowboys who dropped off their clothes to be washed and mended. None of them ever really saw her; some didn’t even say hello, just plopped down their bundles, touched their hat brims and rode on.
If she stood on her porch, she could watch them all the way into town, less than half a mile on a straight road. Half a mile, but it might as well be a hundred for as often as she traveled it. She went to town only to pick up and drop off laundry. That and a monthly trip to get supplies composed her entire social life. If it wasn’t for her friendship with Sarah Granville and Trudy Clements, both older women who had stepped in to help when her father died, she might not talk to another person for weeks.
She hefted a basket of newly washed laundry and headed to the clothesline to peg it out. “It’s not like some handsome prince is going to ride down that road, sweep you off your feet and take you away from all this.”
Esther had half the shirts hung up when the sound of hooves on the hard-packed road made her turn around.
Another cowboy. He must not need much washing done, since the bundle in his arm was so small. She didn’t recognize him as a regular. Shading her eyes, she watched him, even as she stooped to pick up another heavy, wet shirt.
Before she could dig a clothespin out of her apron pocket, a huge dog bounded up out of the road ditch alongside the rider. He loped ahead, turning through the gate and headed her way. His brindled coat and powerful build sent a memory ricocheting through her heart.
The shirt fell from her numb hands into the dirt, and her knees took on the firmness of damp washcloths. It was Rip. And if Rip was here...
Thomas Beaufort.
The pain she had often pushed to the back of her mind over the years came rushing forward like a stampede. A curious, empty feeling opened in her chest, crowding out her breath. She couldn’t move as he rode closer. He would go past her gate and on into town. He wouldn’t stop.
And she didn’t want him to. Not after she’d stood in almost this same spot five years ago and watched him ride away, taking her heart with him.
No, more like leaving her heart in the dirt at her feet as he chose a bounty hunter’s life over her. He had informed her of his intentions without showing even a hint of emotion. Had she imagined that he had come to care for her? She had fallen in love with him so easily, and she had thought he felt the same, though nothing had been spoken between them.
She jerked, her limbs suddenly awakening from their numbness, and stalked to the porch.
Rip trotted up the lane toward her, tail wagging, tongue lolling, as casual as if he hadn’t been away for years. She remembered when Thomas first brought the dog to the ranch, a little fuzz-ball baby, all yips and puppy fat and mismatched eyes. Thomas had been one of her father’s employees in those days, thoughtful, kind, winning her heart with no effort at all.
The dog bounded onto the porch and nudged her leg, letting out an exuberant bark. She prayed Thomas would ride on by without a look, even though she knew she was lying to herself. She wanted him to ride up. Perhaps if she saw him again, she could finally put to rest her feelings for him. Perhaps he wasn’t as handsome and kind and capable as she remembered. Her breath stuck in her throat when he turned off the road and into her yard.
He pulled to a stop. “Miss Jensen. Esther. It’s good to see you again.” He smiled, the dimple in his left cheek showing in spite of a few days’ growth of whiskers.
A wave of nostalgia, for all those times when he’d smiled at her and sunbeams had burst in her heart, washed over her. She steeled herself, remembering the hurt he had caused her, and she crossed her arms, hugging herself.
“Hello, Thomas.” Esther was proud of her flat, disinterested tone. She’d rather show up in church in nothing but her shift than let on that she had ever fancied herself in love with him.
“Hello, Esther.” He cast a glance over the warped boards on the porch, the cupping shingles, the weedy yard, so different from the prosperous young ranch he’d ridden away from. “What happened here? Where are the ranch hands?”
Shame licked through her at her run-down place, but she raised her chin. “Gone. If you’re looking for bandits or rustlers here, this place is a dry hole.”
He frowned, cocking his head. “Is your father around?”
Esther was helpless to stop the wave of grief that cascaded through her.
“My father is dead. He died a week after you left.”
Thomas at least had the grace to appear shocked. “I didn’t know. Esther, I’m so sorry.”
She backed up a step as he moved to dismount. “I can’t wash your clothes. I don’t have time for any more customers at the moment, so you had best ride on.” She motioned toward the bundle in his arms.
“Wash my clothes?” Puzzlement froze him, leg swung over the saddle, halfway to the ground.
“That’s what you came for, isn’t it? That’s all anyone comes here for these days.” She motioned toward the washtubs and clotheslines. Pushing her straggling hair off her face with her shoulder, she wished she didn’t look quite so much like she’d been washed over a scrub board herself...then chastised herself for caring at all what Thomas Beaufort thought of her looks. Where’s your pride, girl?
“I’m a laundress now.” She infused the statement with all the dignity of a duchess.
Rip looked from one of them to the other, head tilted to the side. He gave a little whine, no doubt picking up on the tension in the air, and plopped his rear on the porch.
Thomas didn’t even slow his steps. “Esther Jensen, would you just hear me out? I came to you because you’re the only person I could trust.”
“Trust?” Her voice went high. The last thing she would ever do was trust Thomas Beaufort, or any man, ever again.
Without another word, he peeled back the fabric in his arm to reveal the sleeping face of a baby, and from the looks of it, fresh as a bean sprout.
Her veins felt as if sand trickled through them, draining out and leaving her empty. Thomas had a baby? Where was his wife? All those dreams and ideas that Thomas had shattered when he left her five years ago exploded into finer bits of dust.
She opened her mouth to ask, when the baby stirred and gave a pitiful little mewl.
Thomas shot her a terrified look. “Can we at least go inside? I want to get him out of the sun.”
The baby began to cry in earnest, and the sound pierced her lonely heart.
Esther stepped aside, and Thomas tromped up the steps and into the house. Rip wriggled close, hopeful, but she shook her head. “Stay.” She pointed to the floor, and the big dog dropped down and put his chin on his paws, looking up at her with his mismatched eyes, one tawny yellow, one pale blue, both sorrowful and pleading.
Thomas jostled the baby, who continued to cry. Esther laced her fingers and pressed her thumbs to her lips.
“What do I do?” His brow wrinkled. “Hush, little fella.”
So the baby was a boy. “Where is your wife?”
“Wife? I don’t have a wife.” He shot her a bewildered look and adjusted the crying baby in his arms to no avail.
She didn’t know whether to be relieved or disgusted. “Then where did you get a newborn?”
“I plucked him out of a cactus flower, where do you think? I was hot on the trail of...a fugitive...when I came on a woman in trouble. I helped her deliver her baby last night.” He quit bouncing and started swaying, speaking over the baby’s wails.
“Where is she then?”
He shook his head. “She died early this morning. She was a consumptive, and with the strain of the birthing...”
Esther couldn’t stand the crying any longer, and she reached for the newborn. “Give him to me.” Though she had little experience with babies, something in her needed to hold him. She cradled him against her shoulder, fitting his little head into the hollow of her neck. His dark hair was plastered to his head, and his eyes were screwed shut. “Didn’t you even wash him off?”
Thomas held up his hands. “There was no water at the cabin where I found them, and when I did reach a creek, I didn’t think it was proper to just dunk him in. I figured getting him to shelter was more important. I wet my bandanna and wiped his face, but no, I didn’t take time to give him a full-blown bath.”
“Dip some of the water from the stove into the basin.” Esther soothed the baby. “Have you fed him yet?”
“With what? All I have is some jerky and beans.” Thomas grabbed the porcelain basin off the washstand and strode to the stove. “Do you have a cow?”
Esther sat in her rocker under the window, laying the baby on her lap and peeling back the man’s shirt wrapped around the infant. “No.”
She had sold the cow to help pay the taxes on the property the first year after her father died. “I have a can of milk. In the cupboard.”
Thomas brought her the basin and the cloth that hung on the peg by the washstand. The baby continued to snuffle and whimper, so helpless and new Esther’s eyes burned, and she blinked fast. She dipped the corner of the cloth into the water and wiped the baby’s face and neck. “He needs a proper bath, with soap.”
Rip whined from the open doorway, and Thomas chuckled. “He’s taken a shine to the little fella.”
“That’s fine, but he still has to stay outside.” Esther unwrapped the baby further, finding a bandanna fastened around him as a diaper. It needed to be changed. “I’m pretty sure you have to warm up milk before you feed it to a baby this small. Open that can and get it heating on the stove. You’ll need to thin it with a bit of water.”
Thomas found the can, a saucepan and her matches. With a minimum of effort, he had a fire started in the stove and the milk warming, as efficient as ever. She had always admired his resourcefulness and capability, but to have him using those skills in her kitchen, as if no time had passed, had her battling resentment. He dusted his hands together. “What else can I do?”
“Here, hold him while I fetch some things.” Esther transferred the baby into Thomas’s arms, ignoring the jolt to her heart as their hands touched. The items she wanted were in the trunk in her bedroom, and she refused to let Thomas in there. She went to the end of her iron bedstead and knelt in front of the trunk—the one her mother had brought with her from Virginia as a new bride, first to Tennessee, then to Missouri. After she’d died, Esther had used it when she and her father had come to Texas for a fresh start.
Inside the trunk was a pair of clean towels, a safety pin and the last slivers of castile soap she’d been hoarding. She paused, placing her hands flat on the domed trunk lid. Thomas was back, with a newborn. Her head whirled, and her mouth felt dry. She needed a moment to collect herself, to think. But the baby cried again, a weak, hopeless little sob, and she pushed herself up, gathered her things and returned to the main room.
Thomas, worry lines bunching his forehead, patted the baby, his big hand dwarfing the child. Esther relieved him of his tiny burden, and Thomas stepped back, wiping his palms on his jeans. “I’ll go tend to the horses.”
Esther spread a towel on the table and laid the baby down. She soaped a washcloth in the warm water from the stove’s reservoir, testing it to make sure it wasn’t too hot. The baby snuffled and squirmed, turning his head every time her hand brushed his cheek. He had hazy blue eyes that didn’t seem to focus too well, and a sweet little chin that quivered. She swirled the soapy cloth into all the creases and crevices and quickly rinsed him off. Before he could grow chilled, though it was a mighty warm day, she bundled him into a soft, clean towel, raising him to her shoulder and inhaling his fresh, brand-newness.
Thomas ducked back inside, this time remembering to remove his hat. He carried his saddlebags slung over his shoulder and his rifle in his hand. His holstered pistol rode his right hip, and bullets studded his gun belt.
Esther bristled at the sight of the firearms. She hated guns. Hated what they represented and what they did to people. Thomas carried his arsenal to hunt men. Guns never used to bother her, but now she could barely stand the sight of a pistol.
“Can’t you leave those outside?”
“Leave what outside?” He glanced toward the doorway, where Rip sat, looking in.
“The rifle. And your sidearm.” Particularly his sidearm. She cradled the baby against her shoulder. “I don’t like guns.”
“I never leave my guns unattended.” He leaned his rifle in the corner. “Guns never bothered you before.”
“A lot of things have changed since you left.”
She settled into the rocker, the pan of milk beside her on the table. Using her smallest spoon, she dripped milk into the baby’s mouth. His eyes opened, and he swallowed, pushing half the milk out again. Esther wiped the dribbles from his chin and gave him a few more drops. He smelled so good, felt so sweet in her arms. Her heart, cold and lonely for so long, warmed a bit, which made her pause. Do not let yourself get attached to this little scrap of humanity, Esther. He isn’t yours, he never will be, and they’re both leaving soon. Leaving is what Thomas does. It’s what every man does.
Thomas leaned over her shoulder to watch. “Say, he’s really putting it away. At this rate, he’ll grow six foot tall by morning.”
Discomfited to have him so close, Esther breathed in the scent of leather and sunshine and that unique something that was just Thomas. Against her will, she was thrust into the past when all she wanted was this man, the safety of his embrace, the warmth of his smile. Once upon a time, she had prayed her future would center around Thomas Beaufort, and all her dreams had been tied up in him.
But not now.
“At this rate we’ll be out of milk before sundown.” Her voice snapped like a clotheslined sheet in a high wind.
“Guess I’d better get some more then, huh?” Thomas still hovered at her shoulder, reaching down to put his finger into the baby’s tiny hand. When the minute clasp closed around his finger, it was as if something squeezed Esther’s chest.
Thomas chuckled. “Got himself quite a grip, doesn’t he? But he can’t go through life wearing nothing but a dish towel. Can you make a list of things a baby needs?”
“I don’t know what a baby needs. I’ve never had a child before.” And likely never will.
“You’ll know a mite better than me.” The reasonableness in his tone chafed. Her hard-won serenity had been upset by his arrival, and here he was acting as if nothing had happened in their past, as if no time had gone by. “If you have a wagon or buckboard, I’ll go hitch it up and we can head to town to get the little fella outfitted.”
Her first instinct was to refuse. Trips to town were painful reminders of her change in status, and going into Silar Falls with Thomas would be too much to bear. The infant in her arms stretched, arching his little back and sinking into a relaxed bundle. He snuffled, and his lashes skimmed his cheeks as he blinked slowly, completely helpless and trusting as he lay in her arms.
He needed help. He needed her.
Thomas was right. She could see this child properly clad and provisioned, but she’d have to go into town with Thomas to see it done.
She looked up from spooning the milk. “What are you going to do with him?” It was the question she’d been wondering since she first saw the baby in his arms.
Thomas knelt beside her chair, putting his big hand over hers on the towel-wrapped infant. “Esther, I know it’s a lot to ask, and you have no obligation, but I need someone to help me. His mama left him in my care, but I don’t know what to do. It was all I could do to get him here alive and squalling. I need someone to look after him until I can find his relatives.”
His “oh my” brown eyes looked deeply into hers, and she shivered at the power he still had to move her. She suppressed the tremor that rippled through her, wanting to thrust the baby into his arms and put some distance between Thomas and her feelings. His hand on hers, so warm and familiar, was the first touch she’d felt in a long time. When she realized just how good it felt, she shrugged him off.
“Will you help me, Esther?”
“For how long?” She closed her eyes, inhaling a deep breath to steady herself, calling herself all kinds of foolish to even think of letting him back in her life. How long could he stay before she betrayed herself, betrayed that she had once loved him?
“I don’t know, exactly. I should get back out on the trail, but I’ll put out feelers and try to find someone in the little gupper’s family willing to take the boy.” He cupped the baby’s head, and the tenderness in his eyes threatened to tear down a layer of protective bricks around her heart. “Please? I don’t have anywhere else I can turn. We need you.”
It felt so good to be needed. Even though she knew she should refuse, that she should send him and his problems packing, she found herself giving in. “I’ll help you, for the sake of the baby, for a week or so, until you can make permanent plans for him.”
She could do this. She could help Thomas get this baby fed and outfitted without jeopardizing her heart once more, without regretting letting her guard down.
Couldn’t she?
Chapter Two (#u1cd32bdb-ef11-5922-82a8-2283fade8527)
“The buckboard is in the barn, but you’ll have to catch the horses. They’re in the trap.” And a merry chase they would lead him, too. Esther usually had to bribe the horses with a carrot or two to get them to come to her in the pasture, or “trap” as the cowboys used to call it. The trap was the only fenced pastureland on the Double J Ranch. At one time, there had been more than thirty horses there, mounts for the many ranch hands her father had employed, but now, only the harness team remained. With good grazing and Silar Creek running across one corner, the horses mostly fended for themselves there.
Thomas nodded. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Figuring she had plenty of time, Esther rocked slowly, the baby snuggled against her shoulder. Regret warred with anticipation, and she took herself to task. “You had best keep your wits about you, girl. He won’t stay. He can’t. You heard him five years ago. He never wants to be tied down.”
And here she was, listening for Thomas to return, the same way she’d waited and watched five years ago when he rode away, praying he’d come back to her.
The baby stirred and nestled against her again. He was warm and smelled of soap and milk and newborn. She’d fashioned a diaper out of a dishcloth and wrapped him in one of her oldest, softest bath towels. Now that his hair was clean, she marveled at its fineness...like dark thistledown, and if she wasn’t mistaken, a bit curly. Cuddling him, she couldn’t believe how quickly things could change. Was it only this afternoon that she saw her life stretching out day after day with nothing to vary the monotony?
“You sure have a sense of humor, Lord.”
Rip inched toward her on his belly, creeping inside. Thomas had left the dog behind when he’d gone for the horses, or more accurately, Rip had refused to leave the baby. He was draped half inside, half outside the door, lying on the threshold, watching Esther and the boy with hopeful eyes, sneaking into the room a bit at a time when he thought she wasn’t looking.
The dog’s ears perked up, and he swiveled his head to look out the doorway. The sound of hooves on the road made Esther’s stomach flip. Thomas hadn’t been gone long, surely not long enough to accomplish his errand. Had he forgotten something? Or was it one of her customers?
She hurried to the bedroom and laid the sleeping baby in the center of the bed. Rip snuck in and sniffed the baby, tail wagging, eyes soulful. Esther ignored him and went to the door.
It wasn’t Thomas.
Four cowboys, all spit shined and slicked for a night on the town, turned into her gate, each one with a duffel tied behind his saddle.
Danny Newton rode in the lead. She bit her cheek. He was Esther’s least favorite customer. Brash and bold, he leered and smirked every time he came by, leaving her with a creepy-crawly feeling and a desire to bathe when he left. His father owned the Circle Bar 5, the ranch adjoining hers to the south, and he had designs on her property as a gift for his son.
