Without Words (39 page)

She didn’t want him to go, did want a home of their own. As soon as they finished eating, she set herself to helping him pack.

B
RET SAW NO
reason to trail a packhorse along on this trip. Unlike the open spaces to the west, towns were close here. He planned to take just enough gear for safety. Only a fool took chances with the weather this time of year.

Without Hassie’s help he would have been finished and on the way to town in less than an hour. With her help, he finally fastened bulging saddlebags over his bulging bedroll shortly before noon. Still thinking about where in town he could stash the unnecessary gear she had insisted he pack, Bret kissed Hassie goodbye, and led Jasper out of the barn.

His father waved from across the yard and hurried over. “I need you to tie up that dog for the day,” he said. “Those men who drove up while you were packing are interested in the horses, and it growled at them already.” He glanced over his shoulder and shifted nervously, before continuing. “And I have a favor to ask. Would you delay leaving one more day? I mentioned how you’ve traveled through most of the West, and they’d like to talk to you. I want to keep these fellows happy, and I want them to look at the horses at least once more after lunch. Help me keep them here, will you?”

How could he refuse? With his father showing the first signs of facing reality, Bret felt compelled to help as much as he could. With luck, these potential customers wouldn’t ask for his opinion of Caesar.

The thought of what happened the last time idiots went to look at the stallion gave Bret a more powerful reason for putting off his trip. Hassie liked to walk around the farm with Gunner, and he didn’t want her out there if some fool let Caesar loose.

“All right, I’ll take care of the dog and meet you in your study.” To Hassie he said, “Wait, why don’t you, and we can walk together this afternoon?”

She beamed at him and nodded before disappearing toward the kitchen. Bret went to ruin Gunner’s day.

H
ASSIE TRIED NOT
to feel too happy over having Bret stay one more day. If the delay ended up keeping him from her longer in the end because he had to wait out a snowstorm somewhere, she’d be sorry.

For now, though, she enjoyed having him beside her at the table for lunch. The visitors seemed like nice men—Mr. Sterling’s age, a bit pompous, and certainly single-minded. Their conversation centered on two topics—horses, and only race horses, and new lands to the west. In fact, while they continued to quiz Bret, they also expressed disappointment that he hadn’t actually traveled over every inch of land west of the Mississippi.

“Kansas and Missouri are filled with enough sinners to make a man wealthy if he could catch them all,” Bret said unapologetically.

The table wasn’t crowded because Will had taken Mary and the children to visit her family. Dinner would be different after they returned. The children did have good manners, but Hassie wondered how the visitors would react to a five-year-old at dinner.

In spite of Mr. Sterling’s suggestion they look at the horses again after lunch, the men retired to his study. Resigned to the fact that Bret had never traveled west of the Rocky Mountains or much farther north in Wyoming than Cheyenne, they still wanted to know about every blade of grass he had seen.

An hour passed. Two. Hassie gave up waiting for Bret to walk with her. If those men were going to keep Bret until dinner and beyond, she would go for a long walk. Gunner would be happy to be off his rope and come with her.

At the sight of Will helping Mary down from the buggy in front of the barn, Hassie hesitated then changed directions. Gunner would have to settle for a brief run later. Right now she didn’t want to have to be polite to the pair.

Maybe Bret really didn’t still have feelings for Mary, but Hassie did still dislike Mary for hurting him all those years ago. As for Will—he could disappear from the face of the earth, and Hassie wouldn’t mind a bit.

Frozen weeds and grass crackled under her boots as she walked briskly across the fields. The winter air felt crisp on her face but not so cold as to burn and force her to wrap her scarf high to protect cheeks and nose.

She worked her way through a fringe of trees at the edge of one field and started into the next, daydreaming about the new home Bret would find. Something large enough for more than their one coming child, but not monstrous like the Sterling farmhouse. She didn’t want servants. She could....

“So, how is a woman as hot-blooded as you going to manage with Bret gone for a week or two?”

Will. How could she not have seen him? Hassie froze, heart pounding. He wanted to frighten her, and she was frightened. She backed up a step, two, regretting her decision over Gunner, wondering if she had any chance of outrunning Will.

“You and I are in the same boat, you know,” Will said, eyes raking over her in a way that made a transparent veil of her many layers of heavy clothing. “We’re married to people who have such a grand passion for each other it survived ten years. Do you ever wonder how it was between them? Don’t you agree you and I are owed a little—extra?”

Hassie shook her head violently and backed another step.

“Oh, come on. Just a kiss or two.” He laughed without any real humor. “Bret got that much out of Mary, if not more, and you can’t blame me for wondering what’s got my brother acting like a farm animal in front of us all.”

He lunged for her. She whirled to run, tried to bolt through the trees and underbrush, but he seized the back of her coat before she got away. He yanked her around.

“Now I’m going to hear what your voice sounds like. I’m going to find out a lot of things about you.”

Her low, whispery scream had no volume to carry on the cold air. His cursing did as she kicked his knee, drove a fist into his eye, and bit through his glove. His grip loosened. She broke free and ran, this time along the edge of the field, avoiding the trees and brush.

T
HE VISITORS WERE
on the subject of horses again, and Bret joined his father in urging them back to the barn. Bret was ready to heap praise on Caesar’s head if it would get him away from these probably decent but boring as hell men.

If they wanted to inspect every inch of Wyoming Territory, including those the Sioux were defending with bloody effectiveness, they needed to saddle up and go do it. Same for Texas and Comanches and New Mexico Territory and Apaches.

Eager to get away, Bret made it outside ahead of the others and broke into a hobbling run at the sound of furious barking from the barn. Gunner lunged against his rope as if intent on breaking his own neck.

Bret untied the rope and let the dog drag him out of the barn, past the visitors without a growl or glance, and toward the vacant fields to the north. The fields Hassie usually started out across on her walks.

Bret let go. Gunner streaked away. After only a few steps in the direction the dog had run, Bret dropped his cane, and limped and hopped at his best speed toward the pasture where his horses stood at the gate hoping for treats.

Jasper hightailed it in the other direction at Bret’s frantic approach, Packie right behind. Slowing and forcing a soothing tone, Bret caught Brownie before she followed the others, yanked a lead rope off the fence, and attached it to the mare’s halter.

He scrambled onto the wide back and drummed his heels against her sides. She lumbered through the gate, worked herself up to a canter, and reached something approaching a gallop halfway across the first field.

Gunner had disappeared. The mare plunged through the trees at the edge of the field, heedless of Bret’s attempts to direct her. He barely managed to duck under low branches, took a smashing blow to his bad leg as she ran through a narrow gap, and had to fight to turn her once through the trees.

Hassie ran along the tree line like a deer fleeing wolves. Gunner had Will down, savaging him in spite of blows to the head and back. Bret pointed Brownie right at the snarling, cursing tangle of man and dog and urged her on with legs, heels, and voice.

At the sound of reinforcements, Gunner let go of Will and dodged. The only thing that saved Will from Brownie’s platter-sized hooves was her refusal to run over a man. Unbalanced by the mare’s violent shy, Bret let himself fall on top of Will, grabbed him by the collar, and drove a fist into his gut, his face.

Gunner dove back in to help, attacking Will’s legs with renewed fury.

“Call off the dog,” Will gasped, fending Bret off as best he could. “Call off the damned dog.”

Disgusted, heartsick, Bret let up and pulled Gunner off. Hassie had returned. She stood a little distance away, wide eyes huge and dark in her pale face.

Bret limped to her, gathered her against his chest, and held her hard. She trembled against him, her breath still coming in the kind of gasps he’d felt once before when she’d run from a man intent on harm. Bret wanted to hold her forever on the one hand and finish tearing Will to pieces on the other.

“Did he hurt you?”

Even though he knew she couldn’t sign when he held her so close, he couldn’t let go. Her whispered, “No,” had to be enough.

Growling and barking made him look up. Will had staggered to his feet and retreated to the trees. Cautious now that Will had a branch he’d picked up as a club, Gunner circled him slowly.

“If I had a gun on me, I’d shoot that cur!”

If Bret had a gun on him, he’d shoot something too. Since he didn’t have a gun, he called Gunner off before Will landed a lucky blow with that branch.

“You know my wife as the Bible says. Turnabout is fair play.”

His leg wouldn’t bear weight. Bret had to watch his loathsome brother limp away.

He rocked Hassie in his arms, kissing her tears away when she looked up. After a while, her breathing steadied, and she pulled away enough to use her hands.

“I did not see him. I came through the trees, and he was there. He caught me and held me, and I was afraid I could not get away. I was afraid I could not run fast enough.”

The top button on her coat was gone, the next one hanging by a thread. The high collar of her dress was torn, her hair uncovered and hanging down. The pretty green scarf she would have had over her head and around her throat still hung on branches that had caught it as she fled.

“You did get away, and you did run fast enough.”

“Only because Gunner came. I thought he would kill Gunner, and then you came.”

“I think Gunner was winning. If you’re all right, that’s all that matters.”

“Your leg is hurt again.”

“It got banged up a little coming through the trees. It’ll be fine, but I’m not walking back on it for sure.”

“We can ride Brownie.”

Brownie grazed unperturbed a little distance away. Bret didn’t want Hassie riding anything, much less bareback and astride on that barge of a mare.

Hassie still looked pale and shaky. He only had one leg able to bear weight. Sometimes....

Bret hopped over to the mare, caught her up, and lifted Hassie to the broad back, struggling up behind her. At least there was no chance of their mount running away. Bret convinced Brownie to take an easier route back through the trees and let her head back to the barn at her own plodding pace.

Hassie slid down off the horse as soon as Bret dismounted, ran to where he had dropped the cane, and brought it to him before he finished closing the pasture gate behind Brownie’s big rump.

“Come on, let’s get inside and get you warmed up, and then I’ll deal with Will.”

“No, I will not go in there again. I want to go to town.”

One thing Bret would have sworn his wife would never be was unreasonable. She had come close that time on the train, but generally she was the most agreeable female he’d ever encountered. Which was why he had trouble believing she was serious.

“We’ll leave in the morning. It’s too late today. It would be dark before we got there.”

Her hands moved with jerky emphasis. “I do not care. I will not stay here.”

And if the look on her face didn’t tell him he’d have to physically force her into the house, the way Gunner stepped between them and growled did.

“Hassie....” His leg was on fire, pain throbbing from his ankle to his hip. Even though Will was the one Bret wanted to kill, her stubborn expression had him holding on to his temper by a thread.

He sucked in a deep breath. “I’ll take you around to the back door. If you’ll wait in the kitchen and get warm, I’ll pack everything up and we’ll go to town even if we don’t get there until midnight, but you have to go in and warm up. Don’t buck me on this, sweetheart. Just—don’t.”

After a tense moment, she nodded.

Sam Olson hurried out of the barn as they passed. “What happened? Did something happen out there? I couldn’t believe you running off bareback on that mare and leaving the gate wide open. I rounded up the other two for you.”

“I appreciate that,” Bret said. “My father will explain what happened later, but right now I need more help. Will you hitch up the buggy horse, catch up my horses, and saddle them? Packhorse too. Throw anything of ours in the packs and tie all three of them to the back of the buggy. I need to get my wife to town tonight.”

Olson looked at Hassie, back at Bret, and then away. “Yes, sir. Glad to help.”

Good. Bret’s hand, which had tightened on the cane at the questions, loosened a little. He left Hassie in the kitchen with Leda, who took one look at his face and had more sense than to ask any questions. “I’ll just make Mrs. Bret some tea,” she said and hurried to put the kettle on.

Bret crawled up the stairs. He could take Hassie to town and come back for everything in a day or two, but he didn’t want to have to come back and had a feeling he wouldn’t be willing to leave her for days. He threw clothing and everything else into their bags any which way. When he ran out of room he started throwing things in the middle of the bed.

A soft tap sounded on the door. He ignored it. Caroline stuck her head in anyway, of course. “What’s going on?”

“Hassie and I are leaving. If you want to help, go downstairs and keep her company. She’s in the kitchen.”