Montana Wife

Gratitude warmed her more than the coffee had. When she was down, he’d pulled through for her.

He took a bite of biscuit and chewed, reaching for the loan papers. More creases dug into her brow as he scanned the pages. His granite jaw stilled.

As the clock ticked the seconds away, Rayna watched Daniel’s reaction as he appeared to read. The tension cording in his throat. The grim set of his brows drawing together as he leafed through the pages.

Like the hand of destiny laying down the final step in her path, the silence stretched between the ticks of the clock. Unbearable silence. She saw, as Daniel bowed his head and covered his face with his hands, that it was worse than she’d figured. And that meant—

No, she couldn’t face what that meant. With great control, she rose from the table and pulled two plates from the cupboards. Each scrape of the spatula as she began to fill the plates with the rest of the fried eggs, diced potatoes and salt pork gave her something to concentrate on so she could keep the truth from settling in.

If she couldn’t sell the land, with the hopes of keeping the house, then she would have no place to go. No way to make a living.

A chair scraped against the wooden floor and Daniel’s sure gait tapped on the floor. “I’ll talk to the bank. See what I can do. But I don’t know how it will turn out.”

His silence sounded oddly helpless. “I would truly appreciate any help, Mr. Lindsay.”

“Daniel.” He seemed to fill the room, his presence was that powerful. As was the shadow that fell across the floor, big hands fisting. “I wish there was more I could do.”

“You’ve done so much already. I can’t remember if I’ve thanked you.”

“It’s been a difficult time, I know.” Daniel swallowed hard, but the tangle in his chest seemed to sharpen and cut like knives at the insides of his ribs. He hated this feeling. Knew, that if he struck a deal to take over the mortgage, that he’d be taking everything from Kol’s widow and children. That wasn’t what he wanted.

“I have a good relationship with Wright at the bank. I’ll see what I can do for you.”

She layered salt pork on the two plates she was making, breakfast to be kept warm in the oven for when her children woke, no doubt. What fortunate boys they were, to have a mother like her.

It took only one look around to see the home she’d made for them, clean and comfortable and caring. The sharp feelings sliced into his chest and he turned away to grab his hat. To get as far away from this woman as he could before he remembered too much of his childhood. Or the boy that had never had a kindly woman worrying if he was hungry. Making sure he had a heaping plate of good food to start the day with.

He couldn’t spare Rayna Ludgrin one more look as he strode out the door and into the cool morning that warned of a hard winter to come.

It didn’t feel as if it were only the weather.

Daniel yanked the ends of the reins loose from the hitching post in the front yard and swung up onto his gelding’s back. With the odd feeling that Rayna Ludgrin was watching him go, he rode east and into the rising sun.

Chapter Five

R ayna leaned the four envelopes, ready to post, against her reticule on the stand by the door. She felt brittle and as wrung out as a washrag on cleaning day, but that was one hard chore done and over with.

She’d written to Kol’s brother, sister and cousin and asked to move in with her boys. Please God, may one of them have room for us. She refused to think what would happen if no one did.

The parlor clock chimed the hour. Nine o’clock. The boys were still asleep. Poor Kirk had worked himself into sheer exhaustion and she hated to wake him, but she would have to if he didn’t roust in the next half hour. She had to get those letters on today’s train. She dared not risk waiting until tomorrow.

Daniel would be back from the bank with bad news. There was no way it could be anything but. As long as I can get enough cash to get us settled somewhere else… Then she would have a roof over her sons’ heads.

And as for a job—she wasn’t too proud to clean houses or to wash strangers’ clothes, as her friend Betsy did for a living. From where she stood on the threshold of so much change, the future looked horribly uncertain.

Somehow, the Good Lord willing, she’d make do. She needed a little tiny bit of providence to come her way. Just a little. And she wasn’t asking for herself, but for her boys.

The muffled clop-clop of a team of horses coming up her drive had her opening the door before she realized it couldn’t have been Daniel. He’d ridden a dappled mustang rather than driven a vehicle to town. The jangle of the harness drew her gaze to the black buggy bouncing through the mud puddles in the road.

The matching bays, so sleek and fine, pranced to a halt at the post, and there was Betsy, her ringlets springing around her face from beneath the brim of her wide-rimmed sunbonnet.

Dressed for work, in a light calico and matching apron, she hopped to the ground, careful of the puddles that had yet to evaporate, and, arms outstretched, said nothing as she rushed up the steps.

Rayna’s vision blurred and suddenly she was enveloped in her friend’s arms. Held tight in comfort and friendship. She and Betsy had been best friends since the first day of school when they were both six. They’d shared desks, books, laughter, hard times and grief.

Rayna held on while she could, fighting tears that were nothing but a weakness. When she pulled away, she was glad the tears remained buried deep in her chest where they belonged.

“It’s a workday. You shouldn’t have taken the time to stop by,” she scolded even as she took Betsy’s hand, drawing her into the shade of the parlor. “It is good to see you.”

“I’ve thought of you nearly every minute and I had to stop by. Look at you, you haven’t been sleeping.”

“No. I can’t get used to being in the bed alone.”

“It’s been five years and still I wake up in the middle of the night reaching for Charlie. The bond between a man and wife goes deep. Oh, Rayna, you look as though you haven’t been eating. And the storm. I saw the fields when I drove up.”

Bless Betsy for her liveliness. She could chase the shadows from the room with a single word. Rayna squeezed her friend’s hand tightly as they made their way to the kitchen. Daniel’s plate was still on the table, as was hers. She hadn’t gotten to the dishes yet, or the morning housework. The floor needed sweeping, the curtains were wet from the night’s rain. Bits of bark and cedar needles were scattered around the wood box.

“Good, there’s still coffee and it’s good and strong. Just what both of us need.” Betsy helped herself to the cups from the shelf and poured two steaming mugs full. “Sit here. Sip this until you feel a bit better. No, don’t argue. I seem to remember a certain bossy someone doing the same after my Charlie passed on.”

Yeah, she was grateful for her life and the people in it. For the steaming coffee that had grown bitter on the stove, bitter enough to make her mouth pucker and her eyes smart. For her to remember how this was the way Kol liked it best, when he’d sneak in after taking the boys to school and share one last cup with her.

Her life was gone just like that. It was Tuesday, she realized dully. By rights, the boys ought to be in school, Kol at work in the field and, with the turn of the weather, she would be getting the last of the vegetables up. One more cold night and she would lose every last remaining tomato.

“Mariah told me she’d be over. I’ll leave a basket on the counter. I’ll just run out and get it. Sit tight.” Betsy tapped from the room, taking the warmth and sunshine with her.

In the shadows, Rayna drained the hot coffee in one long pull. Tongue scorched, throat burning, she set the cup aside and stood. She was ready. For whatever she had to do. Whatever she had to face.

She wrung the dampness from the lace curtains and, after slipping them from the rod, laid them out on the chair backs to dry. That done, she swept tangled rose leaves and sodden petals from the sill and closed the window securely. Then she found the broom and had the floor swept clean by the time Betsy returned with a heavy bundle in each arm.

“What are you doing with my bed sheets?”

“I wrapped up the laundry I could find in them. Changed the bed, didn’t disturb the boys, of course. I’ll get these to you by the end of the week at the latest. And no, you have enough on your hands right now, so no arguing. I’ll be back on my route home this afternoon to check on you.”

“You’ve done more than enough. You are my friend, Betsy, and that is gift enough.”

“We are friends, no matter what.” Her eyes shone with emotion. “But we are women, and there is nothing we can’t do with a little help from one another.”

Yes, she was still so blessed. Even with half her heart gone and her land, too, with the failure of the crop, she had so much to be grateful for. She swallowed past the grief, for it was, after all, only grief.

She was not alone, not really, and even if she was welcomed at Kol’s brother’s farm in Ohio, she knew distance could not break their friendship.

She had her sons and she had her friends, come what may.

Daniel took one look at Dayton’s polished buggy with the fine-stepping Tennessee Walkers parked in the quiet alley behind the bank, safely away from the mud splatter from the main street. Appropriate, where the man parked. And predictable. Daniel would have bet every last acre of his homestead that Dayton had beaten him to the punch at the chance to buy the Ludgrin land.

Mr. Wright had turned down his offer with true sincerity. There was too much debt, more than the land, the buildings and the livestock were worth, and with a failed crop. All of which totaled more than the value of the property. No, they could not accept a deal for such a grave loss to the bank. They would need collateral. Wright was more than eager to say they’d accept Daniel’s homestead to secure the amount on the Ludgrin land.

Daniel could not afford to buy land that cost more than it was worth. It was that simple. But something stuck in his craw as he bought bushel bags for the few loads of wheat he’d managed to get in before the storm.