Page 11 of Beyond Montana's Sky
Young Frank-Swen followed on his tail, obviously just as inquisitive as his grandsire.
Cai tied off the reins, jumped down, and hurried around to the other side of the surrey. He reached up a hand to help Edith down. “Please come inside. My housekeeper will prepare some tea.”
Mrs. Grayson gave him a gracious nod. “Tea would be most refreshing, Mr. Driscoll.”
“Cai,” he corrected. “We’re mighty informal around here. Have to be with a herd of Mr. Andersons and Mrs. Andersons.”
As if conferring a title of nobility on him, she nodded but said nothing.
The gesture didn’t tell him if she agreed or not. Nor did she offer the same to him.
Mrs. Grayson pulled off her muff and left it on the seat. She placed her gloved hand in his and allowed herself to be guided to the ground. Reaching for her black reticule, she gazed around in obvious interest, at last tilting her head in the direction of the ranch house.
Holding his breath, he waited for her assessment.
“You have quite a home,” she said in a tone of admiration. “Much bigger than I expected and such scenic views on all sides. If I lived here, I could imagine myself spending all my time gazing at the beauty of my surroundings.” She smiled without a trace of her previous primness. “The ocean affects me in the same way. Almost mesmerizing.”
Letting out a slow breath, Cai examined his home, imagining the two-story log house through her eyes. The thick walls were sturdy, better than clapboard siding for hot, windy summers and freezing cold winters. The sky-blue shutters—Aurie’s choice of color—flanked the front windows and could be locked tight during storms.
Although you couldn’t tell from here, two wings—one the original cabin—angled sideways, forming a straight U, with a long, flat bottom, and inside a partially-covered interior courtyard shielded from the wind. A good place to sit a spell and watch the creek rush by or the sun set over the mountains or gaze at the orchard in times of blossom or fruit.
The broad front porch contained the requisite rockers and small tables. His sister spent many hours on the wide swing on one corner. As her illness progressed, he’d built her a swinging bed on the other side of the porch, painting the ceiling the same blue as the shutters and screening in the area. In good weather, Aurie could lie outside whenever she wanted and remain comfortable. She’d preferred the front view of the barn and horse corrals to the quieter back courtyard.
If Aurie were still alive and well, she’d burst off the porch with a yell and a wide grin and pelt over to them, braids bouncing, maybe coming undone. The sight of his hoyden sister in boy’s clothing and whatever dirt and smells she’d accumulated on her person would probably give Mrs. Grayson a propriety attack.
As always when Cai glanced at the empty porch, grief hit him. Sometimes, he wondered if the sadness always would.
Edith leaned closer and craned her head. “Is that an orchard I see? Those stone walls look straight from New England.”
“Apple, pear, cherry. I built the walls to keep out the critters and block the wind. Since then, the yield has considerably increased.”
She straightened, her expression astonished. “Youbuilt the walls? You must be so busy running your ranch.”
“In my spare time.” His smile was bitter. Closer inspection might tell Edith the height of the walls had recently grown two feet. She couldn’t, however, know from looking at the stone path—the shape ordered by his sister a few weeks before her death—snaking from the house to the orchard was a new walkway.
Hauling and stacking rocks worked better than liquor any day for tiring out a grieving man so he could sleep. But even physical exhaustion couldn’t stop the nightmares.
CHAPTER FOUR
Edith hadn’t known what to expect of the Driscoll homestead. Every ranch she’d visited around Sweetwater Springs had a different type of structure, from the Queen Anne belonging to the Sanders, to the two-story Carter farmhouse, to the long, narrow home of the Dunns at Green Valley Ranch, and the Thompsons’s big, white home of no particular style.
The Driscoll place, with the thick log walls, broad porch, and Mediterranean-blue shutters, with cut-out heart shapes, possessed its own rugged charm. She imagined the interior would be cozy in the winter.
She thought Mr. Driscoll—Caimight pull up outside the kitchen, but he flicked her a glance and seemed to make up his mind, driving toward the front.
He glanced over to the far side of the porch—an enclosed space—and his jaw clenched, expression saddening.
The unexpected vulnerability tugged on her heartstrings, and Edith couldn’t help wondering what had caused the change. She remembered him hinting at a sister’s death….
A broad-shouldered, bandy-legged old man headed over to meet them, a several-decades-younger version behind him.
Cai nodded at the withered, sun-browned ranch hand, seeming to give him a message that Edith couldn’t quite make out.
“Mrs. Grayson.” Cai lifted his chin toward the oldster. “I’d like you to meet the man who really runs things around here, my foreman Ole Anderson.”
“Good to have the recognition that is my due,” he said with a Swedish accent. “Call meFarfar, my dear. Everyone does. He gripped the boy’s shoulder with gnarled fingers. “And Frank-Swen, here, is of Cai’s generation. He’s my second to youngest grandson.”
“Farfarmeans grandfather in Swedish,” Cai explained. “Aside from his wife and sons, all the grandchildren and the rest of the hands call him that.Mormoris grandmother. She’s around here somewhere.”
