Page 496 of Conveniently Wed
What kind of name is Lorinda?He’d never heard it before...and he couldn’t get it out of his head. Without thinking, he let the word spill from between his lips. Somehow it sounded different when he actually said it.
By the time he and the four hands, left on the ranch this weekend, came in to eat last night, Lorinda was sitting in the kitchen with Mrs. Oleson, clad in one of the older woman’s dresses that fit her like a tent. And her blond curls were tamed into a long braid that reached down her back. He’d kept his eyes averted from the woman as much as he could, but his gaze kept returning to her like steel balls to a magnet. And some flowery scent wafted through the air. He hadn’t remembered that from the time he held her in his arms on his horse. Where had it come from?
At least today, he wouldn’t be anywhere near Lorinda Sullivan. Maybe he could gain control over his thoughts on this ride.Lord, what am I going to do about her? I need some answers.He wished God would just speak out loud to him for once.
Reining in Major outside the gate to the RM ranch, he opened the latch and led his horse through. After closing the gate securely, he mounted up and headed toward the one-story ranch house at the end of the long drive. A number of outbuildings clustered close. Franklin hoped he would find Rand nearby, since it was barely dawn.
When Franklin almost reached the front of the house, he spied his friend exiting the barn, so he wheeled Major toward the large, weathered-red building.
“Hey, neighbor.” Rand greeted him after he dismounted. “What has you out so early this Sunday morning?”
“Disturbing news.”
Rand’s brow furrowed. “Come on up to the house for a cup of coffee while you tell me about it.”
They went in through the back door and wiped their boots in the mud room.
“I don’t want to disturb Stella this early.” Franklin followed his friend into the warm, welcoming kitchen.
“We’ve already had breakfast, and she’s upstairs laying out the kids’ clothes. She always wants them to look good when we go to town for church.” Rand poured two steaming mugs from the coffeepot perched on the back of their kitchen stove. He handed one to Franklin and leaned back against the cabinet, with his ankles crossed while he sipped his drink.
Franklin pulled out a chair and turned it around to straddle it. “You remember that miner Thomas and I took up to bury late last year?”
“Sullivan, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. Well, yesterday his widow’s log cabin burned to the ground. Thomas saw the flames when he was out on the range and came to tell me. We took four of the men with us and a wagonload of stuff to fight the fire, but the cabin was gone before we got there.”
For a moment, the picture of Mrs. Sullivan when he first saw her yesterday flashed through his mind, and his heart stuttered. An unwelcome emotion rushed through him. He arose from the chair and stared out the window toward a peak flooded with sunshine that glinted off the snow like diamonds. He loved these mountains at any season of the year. He wished he could just forget his problem and go on a long ride through the passes.
“What about his widow?” Rand set his mug down and crossed his arms. “You did say he was married, didn’t you?”
Franklin turned back toward his closest friend and nodded. “She’d gotten out of the cabin by herself.”
“Who had?” A feminine voice invaded their conversation as Stella joined them. “What am I missing?”
Franklin liked Stella. She was just the kind of wife Rand needed. Daughter of a rancher and used to the isolation. But she was interested in everyone who lived in Summit county.
“I was just telling Rand the Sullivan house burned yesterday.”
She gasped.
“Mrs. Sullivan lost everything in the fire, except the provisions her husband had stored in the soddy they lived in before he built the log cabin.”
“Oh my goodness. That’s awful.” Stella frowned. “We need to help her. I can find a few things to send to her. How big is she?”
That question was hard to answer, and it took his mind back to when he put her on his lap on the horse. He felt his face start to heat. If anyone noticed, he could blame it on being out in the cold and then coming into the warm kitchen.
“She’s small. About an inch shorter than you are. But...” He really didn’t want to keep talking about the woman. “...she is...large with child.”
“She’ll be needing a lot of things then. I’ll go up and try to gather what we can do without before we leave to go to church. We can drop them by your house on our way.” She headed toward the doorway.
“Thanks. I know she’ll appreciate it.” He knew no such thing.
She hadn’t welcomed the help he offered, but she needed more than he and Mrs. Oleson could give her. And maybe Stella could come up with an answer to their dilemma.
Franklin turned back toward Rand. “That’s not the worst part. Someone deliberately set the house on fire. I hate to think about an arsonist running around up here in the mountains. No telling where he might strike next.”
Rand rubbed his chin while he considered that. “Do we know what he was looking for? Did he get it?”
