Page 40 of A Steadfast Heart
“Our cook. She started looking when I was late for breakfast the next day. Took me to the kitchen and gave me some cookies.” Kaitlyn shook her head sadly. “Michael fired her that afternoon. Said he wasn’t going to have me rewarded for being rude to our guests. It wasn’t the first time someone paid a high price for helping me. I’ve always wondered if Michael didn’t know or just didn’t care what Brian had done.”
Drew’s teeth ached, and he carefully relaxed his clenched jaw. He’d thought society women were bad. Turned out the men were even worse. “He’s worthless either way.”
He wiped a new tear from her cheek. She smiled at him, her lips quivering a bit at the corners—but a smile nonetheless. Warmth that had nothing to do with anger spread through him. Maybe, just maybe, he’d handled this okay.
A bump sounded from downstairs. He looked that direction, then back to Kaitlyn. “Jo did this, didn’t she?”
Kaitlyn looked at her hands in her lap. “I’d rather not say.”
His eyes squeezed shut. She hadn’t denied it. “I’ll have a word with her.”
Drew left to find his daughter. From the stairs, he looked into the parlor, where Tillie had first told him a princess had come to visit. He’d looked at Kaitlyn’s fancy dress and thought she’d had an easy life. How little he’d known.
She was made of strong stuff, his wife. He admired that. Living here required it.
Maybe Kaitlyn would fit in here after all.
Chapter9
It wasn’t his day.
Drew glared at his horseshoe, which lay a good eight inches away from the stake. Most of his neighbors had stayed for the potluck after church. They’d moved it outside to enjoy the unseasonably warm April weather. The youngest kids were playing an energetic game of tag, and the women cleared the thrown-together tables. Before he left, he’d have to help take the sawhorse-and-board contraptions down and store them away for the next gathering.
His cousin Merritt’s new husband, Jack Easton, stepped up to the line to take his turn. “You’d score higher if you’d watch the stake instead of your bride.”
Drew glared at him.
Jack smiled back. “That glower doesn’t work anymore. Not since last Christmas, when I saw you braiding ribbons into Tillie’s hair.”
Drew scrubbed a hand across his face. “Trying to, you mean.” It was a mostly good memory. Jack had relaxed with the McGraws after that. Seemed a man’s scowl lost its power once its recipient saw you defeated by a hair bow.
Drew tossed his last shoe, and it didn’t land any closer than the one before. He wished he could claim that Kaitlyn had nothing to do with his distraction. He certainly had other things on his mind. None of the ranchers at the after-church picnic had shown any interest in buying his bull. Jo sat off to the side of the group, sulking. Nick and Ed seemed to be enjoying organizing the boys into a baseball game, but Isaac still refused to come to town. Yep, he had enough problems to justify an off day in the horseshoe pit without looking to his bride.
And yet, he always seemed to know where she was as she flitted from one group to the next. Right now she was talking to a group of ladies across the churchyard from the horseshoe pit. Discouragement poured acid into his gut. He should be happy that she was enjoying the day, but all he could do was wonder how it compared to the lavish entertainments of her past life.
Easton threw his last shoe, and they walked to the stake to score the tosses. Sure enough, Drew hadn’t scored a point.
Easton clapped him on the back. “Yep, a newlywed like yourself doesn’t stand a chance against an old married man like me.”
Drew shook the man’s hand. “I guess that extra month of matrimony made all the difference. Not like I’ve seen you watching Merritt out of the corner of your eye.”
Easton flushed, and Drew took the opportunity to leave the horseshoe pit while he could still claim the last word.
His neighbor, Sam Barclay, stepped up next to him, giving him a friendly nudge with his shoulder. “Haven’t seen you miss that badly in a while. If that’s what a wife does to your concentration, maybe I’m glad the Lord hasn’t seen fit to bless me that way.”
“Everyone has an off day now and then.” Drew purposely didn’t look toward the ladies gathered across the way. Not that he needed to. The image of Kaitlyn in her reworked green calico remained burned into his mind. That dress had never looked so good on Amanda. Kaitlyn stood tall and proud in the hand-me-down, but Amanda had always seemed ashamed to be seen in lowly calico.
His new wife continued to amaze him. Who would have thought a city girl would jump right in to help when Tillie and the dog got sprayed by a skunk? Or that she would know how to salt down beef?
Or that she’d go to all the extra work to get all three kids on horses and bring family lunch out to him on a day when he wouldn’t be home until late? Kaitlyn and the kids had spent the afternoon with him, “learning real life,” as Kaitlyn had put it. David and Jo had been a real help. Kaitlyn and Tillie, not so much. His lips twitched at the memory of a cow escaping Kaitlyn’s attempt at herding. She’d been so outraged as she watched it run off, and even more so when Jo successfully brought it back to the herd.
No, Kaitlyn wasn’t much like Amanda. But the way she flitted around this picnic talking to everyone present did seem to show that she craved more contact with people than the ranch allowed. Than his lifestyle provided. Her lifestyle now, since she’d married him.
“You having that problem, Drew?”
Drew pulled his attention from his wife. Just when had his gaze found her again? “Sorry, Sam, I missed that.”
“You haven’t missed much about your wife’s location.” Sam flashed a grin at him, then his expression turned serious. “I was wondering how your grazing’s holding up. Yours should be better than most, with the river access you have.”
