Page 2 of A Forgotten Heart
The man had been a menace ever since Nick’s pa had refused to sell his homestead to the greedy rancher decades ago. The man was still targeting the McGraw family, like a wolf hunting its prey.
Maybe it was telling that Quade was at the saloon. Two months ago, he’d suffered a hit to his reputation after his foreman and cowhands had been caught working with outlaws.
All of them had been arrested.
All except for Quade.
It unnerved Nick that Quade had kept his nose clean during that debacle—somehow. Still, whispers in town had finally turned against him. Some of the more prominent ranchers in their county had pulled support from Quade in his position as president of the Cattlemen’s Association.
Something like that could make a man furious.
If Nick’s gut was right, more than one storm lay on the horizon.
Nick puzzled over the rancher’s business in town until he reached his cousin Merritt’s house. He reined in his horse and dismounted, shaking snow from his shoulders and arms.
Patch faced the snow-splattered street with a whine. Nick reached down and scratched behind Patch’s right ear. “It’ll be fine, pup. We’ll hunker down at the newspaper office with Ed.”
With the snow threatening like this, the half-day’s ride back home to the ranch would be treacherous. It would be safer for Nick to stay with his brother Ed and Ed’s wife, Rebekah. They were newlyweds, so it would be awkward, but safer than being caught out in the storm.
Merritt swung open the door at Nick’s knock. Both eyebrows flicked up, concern etching her forehead. “Nick? I didn’t expect to see you. Everything okay?”
She opened the door wide enough for him to slip inside, but Nick hesitated, pinching his lips together.
He saw the quick flash of what he imagined was disappointment before she smiled.
He’d never told her why he’d returned to Calvin before completing his teaching certificate. She’d never asked.
Nick inhaled and removed his hat. He stepped past Merritt into the warmth of her entryway. “I can’t stay. I gotta rush over to the land office but wanted to find out…”
Merritt tucked her shawl closer around her and tilted her head.
She was going to make him say it.
“…whether you’d had an answer to one of your letters.” Nick’s words tapered off as his attention drifted behind Merritt, toward the parlor and the decorations saturating the house.
“Jack decorated,” she explained in a murmur. Her husband was new to celebrating Christmas.
Pine garland swagged along the ceiling and over the fireplace mantel. Perfectly tied bows of red velvet accented the boughs. A large fir tree stood in the corner, draped in strings of popcorn with ornaments of dried apples and starched yarn.
All of it screamed of a joyous season. Joy Nick could not share. Not anymore.
Outside, a gust pelted snow against the window. Merritt’s expression softened. “I didn’t realize you were in such a hurry to find a wife. It’s only been a couple of weeks.”
Nick rubbed the back of his neck, his face going hot. She was right. It’d only been a couple of weeks since he’d asked her to write some letters on his behalf, hoping that one or two of her long-distance acquaintances might be interested in corresponding with him.
But in those intervening weeks, he’d had plenty of time to observe his oldest brother, Drew, doting on his pregnant wife, Kaitlyn, and his next oldest brother, Isaac, teaching his adopted sons to carve a whistle. His other brother Ed had been holding Rebekah’s hand in church last Sunday, their clasped hands almost hidden in the folds of Rebekah’s skirts.
Nick had still seen it.
He didn’t begrudge his brothers their happiness. Quite the opposite. But he wanted someone to look at him the way Kaitlyn looked at Drew.
After what’d happened five years ago, Nick had given up on the idea of finding himself a perfect match. But watching his brothers find love had reminded him that man wasn’t meant to be alone.
He sighed. He’d figured it’d been a long shot. “I’ll be wintering up on the mountain with the cattle. After everything that’s happened with my brothers and their wives, I’d prefer it if they didn’t have a chance to interfere in this.”
Her lips twitched. She knew all of it. Kaitlyn’s unexpected appearance, answering a letter from Drew that had been addressed to someone else. Ed’s failed attempt at securing Isaac a mail-order bride—romancing Rebekah himself. And then David and Jo’s misguided attempt at matchmaking that had resulted in a wife for Isaac.
Nick didn’t want a surprise bride.
