Page 489 of Conveniently Wed
He didn’t like revisiting the hurt he’d sustained when his intended ran off with his best friend. Franklin hadn’t trusted anyone since that pivotal time. And he never let himself feel any emotion. This broken woman demanded nothing of him, but something inside him wanted to take away her pain. If she wouldn’t accept the help he offered, he needed to get away from her as quickly as possible.
Lorinda felt the rancher’s presence before he spoke a word. Probably hunkering beside her as he had in the bedroom after she fainted.
“Mrs. Sullivan, I’d feel a lot better if you’d come home with us. You wouldn’t have to stay long, but I don’t want to leave you here alone.”
She lifted her head and turned to stare into eyes so dark, they were almost black. The intensity of his gaze pierced all the way to her soul. She reached one hand to the ground to steady herself as she started to stand.
Mr. Vine must have anticipated her move because he rose with the sleekness of the panthers that roamed these mountains. He gently pulled her to her feet, then stepped back.
Lorinda lowered her head and concentrated on his cowboy boots. “Thank you, Mr. Vine, but I’ll be all right. I don’t want to leave our land.” She pointed toward the newly-turned dirt. “Or my husband.”
Even though Lorinda meant every word she said, when she watched the two men head back down the trail, a feeling of desolation washed over her almost sweeping her away... A cumbersome loneliness settled in her heart like one of the many boulders lining the trail. She stood beside the mound that covered her husband’s body until no more hoofbeats echoed off the rocks.
“Mike, why did you leave me behind?” A wealth of meaning accompanied the thundering words as she stalked back into the cabin, pulling the door closed behind her.
She looked at everything with new eyes. Her world had just been torn asunder. This was her home, not hers and Mike’s. She touched his jacket that still hung on the peg beside the door, lifting the sleeve and breathing in his essence. One day, she’d pack his things away , but not right now. The need for her surroundings to stay the same engulfed her.
Mike had been her whole world. She’d stayed on the mountain whenever Mike went to Breckenridge. She didn’t want to chance being seen by her father or uncle if they came this way looking for her. Mike always brought her whatever she asked for, and she was satisfied to work on their happy home.
She’d never felt this strong need to be around other people, and she was too stubborn to change her mind about going to the Rocking V even though her solitude made her soul ache.
“How will I ever make it through the winter?” She spoke the words out loud, because for that moment she needed to feel as if she were talking to someone.
Life should be more than just sustenance, but that’s all she could see in her bleak, lonely future.
3
March, 1894
Franklin Vine’s attention was shanghaied from the book-work on the desk in front of him to that time right after the first snowfall when he took Sullivan’s body up the mountain to his wife. Almost every day since, her tortured expression broke into his thoughts at some time or another. More than once, he’d even sent one of the hands up to check on her, but she always insisted she was fine. Then the heavy snows made the trail impassable.
Since he’d had the men cut enough wood to last her through the winter and then some, he knew he didn’t have to worry about her. But that didn’t stop his uneasy feeling. When he and Thomas had been up there, he’d even checked the dugout she’d mentioned. Plenty of supplies for a couple of people reached the earthen ceiling. Being alone in a cabin for so many months caused more than one man to go a little loco. What would it do to a grieving young widow? He’d never been able to understand what made women tick.
As Franklin turned back toward his desk, he glanced over the wall of shelves lined with leather-bound volumes. If heknew he would spend the winter cut off in a cabin alone, he’d have made sure he had plenty of books to read. He couldn’t remember seeing any in the Sullivan cabin, but he hadn’t been looking for books. He hoped she had some packed away in a trunk. Or maybe, like many of the settlers, she couldn’t read. If she couldn’t, what would she do to while away the long hours...days...weeks in isolation?
Why did this widow weigh so heavily on him? She was really no concern of his, but maybe the Lord kept bringing her to mind because she didn’t have a protector. Surely God didn’t want him to step into the breach, but who else was there? She’d said she had no family, and something about the way she said it made him think that wasn’t all that needed to be said about her past. But if she had family somewhere, why would she stay on the remote mountain alone?
Franklin forced his thoughts back to the lists and figures on the pages of the ledger. The ranch finances were in good shape, and he should feel satisfied. Instead, restlessness ate at him, making him want to jump up and pace. But pacing wouldn’t balance the books. Neither would it provide any kind of assistance to Mrs. Sullivan.
He worked his way through three separate accounts before the sound of a horse’s hooves thundered closer and closer to the house. Might as well see what was going on. He laid his pen beside the capped inkwell before he stood and stretched the kinks from his shoulder then headed toward the front door.
Thomas pulled his lathered horse to a stop beside the hitching post outside the picket fence. The one Mariam insisted on. Franklin shook his head. Why was he thinking about her now? For years he’d been able to keep her locked in the dark dungeon of his mind, but since holding the Sullivan woman in his arms, memories of Mariam often intruded as well. He shouldhave the men pull up that blasted picket fence. Anything to purge her from his thoughts.
Franklin stood on the porch and frowned as he watched Thomas jump off his mount. Steam rose into the frigid air from the lathering sweat coating parts of the horse. His foreman must have ridden fast a long ways for the horse to be in that condition. Thomas loved good horseflesh, and Franklin had never seen his horse in this condition. Must really be some emergency.
“Boss, there’s a fire!” Thomas stomped up the flagstone walkway and placed one booted foot on the bottom step. He stared straight into Franklin’s face, waiting for his response.
The dreaded word made Franklin’s heartbeat race. Uncontrolled fire was never good, especially on a large ranch, even if the spring thaw was just starting. Enough dry trees and brush stuck up out of the dwindling blanket of snow that a small fire could quickly turn into a blazing inferno.
“Where?” He glanced around, trying to see the smoke.
Thomas took a heaving breath. “Up the mountain, near where we buried Sullivan.”
Once again, Mrs. Sullivan’s face swam before him, tears tracking down her pale cheeks. “Do you think it could be the cabin?”
Thomas nodded. “Looks like it, but we can’t tell for sure from here. Whatever it is, that woman’ll need help.”
“Hitch up the wagon and load it with barrels of rainwater, buckets, and blankets. Round up some of the hands on the way. Maybe we can keep the flames from spreading. Plenty of snow up there, too. We can throw that on the fire, if need be.” Franklin pulled the front door of the ranch house closed before stepping off the porch.
