Montana Wife

It all depended on what those papers on Rayna’s table said. Bank notes. He couldn’t read, but he knew a mortgage note when he saw it. And judging by the number of pages, more than just the property was encumbered.

But, if Rayna was willing and her asking price was reasonable, this could be his. Sure, it would take hard labor to turn the soil, to plant and harvest one hundred and sixty acres in addition to his own bottom land that kept him busy as it was. He’d be working from dawn until midnight for a good part of the next year. That was a formidable prospect, but the gains would be worth it.

Hell, he’d come this far already. He might as well see if he couldn’t improve his circumstances.

Daniel straightened his shoulders as the tepid rays of dawn washed over him, bright but without warmth. His shadow stretched out before him, long and wide, on the ground littered with wheat chaff blown from the fields by last night’s heartless wind. Ground that would be his?

I sure hope so.

Determination turned his spine to steel. A little hard work was all it would take. He wasn’t afraid of hard work. It was the only kind he knew. What he didn’t like was that his future hinged on a woman’s decision.

She’d already agreed he’d have first option for the land. But did the bank’s mortgage cancel that? Or would she be able to keep her word if a better offer came from one of the other neighbors?

There she was—a blur of dark blue calico and matching sunbonnet—visible through the slats of the chicken pen. She emerged from the coop with a basket on her arm. She was obviously egg gathering. Hens clucked and pecked at the scatter of feed on the dirt and squawked angrily when the snap of her dress startled them.

The wan light teased her blond hair, which she hadn’t pinned up yet and fell in a long golden spill from her nape, where a ribbon bound it into a thick ponytail. With it down, she looked young and dainty, her shadow a thin wisp behind her as she swished up the path to the garden gate. She seemed far too young to be a widow and a mother of two boys, one of them fourteen years old.

That tangle of emotions was back, wedged like an ax blade right through his breastbone and bore deep until he couldn’t breathe at all. Feeling as though he were suffocating, he watched Rayna Ludgrin with her curving figure and flowing hair and her feminine graceful manner. He was a man. He couldn’t help wanting.

But it was more than that. It was admiration he felt at the grit of her spirit. Not many women would have worked like she did without complaint. Even though she trudged heavy with exhaustion and grief, she was graceful and quality. As if she were far too fine for the burden of this land.

We can help one another, he thought, a lone man standing in the threshold of the barn, caught in shadow, the cool, new light falling all around him. Summer was gone, and with it the vibrant warmth. The season had turned, and Daniel felt as if something unnamable were slipping away and just out of his reach, something he didn’t even know he’d been missing until now. When it was already gone.

Or maybe it was just that he realized Rayna had disappeared into her house. Seemingly taking the summer with her.

He left the pail of milk on the back porch, in front of the open door. Through the pink mesh of the screen, he could see her at the stove. Her back was to him as she worked, her long hair shifting and moving like liquid gold. Overcome, he turned away, wondering if her hair was as soft as it looked. It wasn’t his right to wonder such a thing.

If things went his way, she’d be gone and this land would be his. And he would be alone, as he was meant to be. As he’d always been.

His boots crushed fallen rose leaves and satin pink petals as he retraced his path across the back lawn. Toward the livestock gathering at the empty wooden feed trough. For a long second, it felt as if time had stopped marching forward and the earth had stopped turning between one step and the next. His breath stalled in his lungs. A strange flickering trail skidded along his spine.

What was happening to him?

Awareness moved through him, different from the jerk of instinct that warned him of a predator in the field, but just as strong. It was an awareness that had him turning on his heel to gaze back at the house in time to see Rayna framed in the window. With a batter bowl anchored in the crook of her arm, she returned to her work as if she hadn’t been watching him.

He headed to the far side of the trough and kept out of sight of the house while he finished the rest of the morning chores.

At the first tap of his boot on the porch, she straightened. Taking a breath, she wiped the stray wisps from her eyes and dug the hot mitt from the drawer.

You can do this, Rayna. She was a grown woman after all. She had to face the unbearable truth. What was done was done, there was no going back and changing it. Kol hadn’t meant to die, of course, and he would never have wanted her to be in this position. Never would have wanted his family broken and his land sold…

It’s too much. Too much to manage alone. He never would have wanted that for her. Anger drained out of her and her hand started to tremble. She couldn’t get a good grip on the baking sheet through the layers of dense rug yarn that padded the mitt.

The biscuits, golden and fluffy, tipped dangerously and she slid the sheet onto the waiting trivet, the one Kol had sanded and shaped from river rock the long winter when she’d been carrying Hans.

She swallowed hard, somehow managing to flip the eggs without breaking all but one of the yolks. She watched the smear of yellow bubble in the grease and steeled herself for what was to come.

The rap of his knuckles on the door frame was quiet, not bold or demanding, but seemed like the ring of gunfire. She would do this now, while the boys were sleeping in from another rough night, when it was just her and Daniel. So she could spare her boys the heartache.

Daniel Lindsay’s step was sure and sturdy as he let himself in. He was a good man, Kol had said so many a time. And would take better care of her land than Mr. Dayton or whoever won the auction from the bank. Surely that was the wisest decision. Maybe he would give her enough time to settle her affairs and contact her relatives to see if anyone would take her and her boys in.

“Did you sleep at all last night?”

It wasn’t what she expected him to say. Surely he’d seen the mortgage papers on the table; they were obvious and hard to miss. “I’ll have time to sleep later.”

“No, you need to take care of yourself now. Your boys depend on you.”

It was the decency in his voice that undid her as he gently removed the spatula from her hand, took her elbow and tugged. Who was this man who’d bandaged her hands, who’d tried to harvest her fields with his machinery and horses, who by rights should have been as happy with her change in fortune as her other neighbors?

When her feet didn’t move, he laid his other hand on her back, on the space between her shoulder blades. His touch was unwelcome. He was not her husband, and close contact with her was…well, it was wrong. But the broad pressure of his palm on her spine was comforting, too.

Lord knew how much she needed comfort right now. So she allowed his closeness and let him nudge her to the closest chair. She eased onto the seat, more tired than she’d ever been.

And more defeated.

Daniel Lindsay moved away, leaving her alone in the cool shadows. She shivered. She couldn’t get warm, even a few yards from the blazing cookstove. There was a clink and a clatter of stoneware and then a steaming cup of coffee appeared before her on the table, left there by the tall, silent man who’d taken over her duties at the stove.

The coffee was piping hot and stung her tongue. But it steadied her to ask what had to be asked. “What would you say this land, even with the house, is worth?”

“I’d have to find out all the debt owed. And if a fair deal is possible. If so, then I would make you an honest offer.”

“I know you will.” She took another bracing swallow of coffee. Felt the heat burn inside her. It was the closest thing to determination she had at the moment. “I’m afraid any offer you would want to make wouldn’t cover all the debt I owe. What happens then?”

“I’ll talk to someone at the bank and find out. Likely as not, if you can’t make your next payment or if you can’t sell for the amount of your mortgage, then the bank will repossess.”

She’d known he was going to say that.

He turned with two full plates in hand and set them on the table, one before her and the other at Kirk’s place, where he sat. A solemn man with grim lines cut around his mouth and his eyes. Not the face of a young man, but of a hardworking one. A decent man.

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.

Maybe what was important was what the banker had failed to say. Maybe they had another buyer who was willing to use his land as collateral to assume the debt. Daniel had no doubt as to whom. There was only one man prosperous enough in these parts. Dayton.

Damn it. Daniel stared at the buggy and drowsing horses and saw red. Boiling hot rage blinded him and he wanted to turn heel and march into that bank and say the land wasn’t foreclosed yet. It was good, fertile land, the best wheat land in the county, and to own it was more than a humble man could hope to do in an honest lifetime. Why not see if he could make a better deal with the bank?

No, that would be a poor decision. He couldn’t go off half cocked and make a bigger mess of things. He had his land free and clear, good, productive land, horses, his own secondhand thresher and, best of all, no debt.

Debt was a foolish man’s solution, and could turn into quicksand fast enough. Dragging down a man until there was no hope left. He’d seen too many farmers lose everything because they’d rather borrow than do without.

No, he wouldn’t lose his independence. He refused to risk everything he’d sweated blood for. Lucky for him, he had time. The bank had yet to foreclose. That would take time, and he’d have the chance to think this all through. Take a look at his options.

“Hey, Lindsay.” That caustic sneer could belong to only Dayton.

Stomach tight, muscles bunched, Daniel spotted the man he’d come to dislike, breaking through the tangle of a half dozen women gazing at the front window of some dress shop. Typical, how Dayton expected folks to make way for him without so much as a courteous, “Excuse me.” Dayton was the kind of man who got Daniel’s hackles up.

The kind of man he’d come to despise in his life and with good reason. He’d worked for too many men just like him growing up.

Be civil. As hard as that was going to be, he might as well try jumping to the moon. “Dayton. Tough storm.”

“Yep. Wheat’s a total loss, but I got investments to fall back on.” Dayton hitched up his shoulders, the gesture of a man pleased with his high self-opinion.

An opinion Daniel didn’t share. With a low word, he reassured his gelding as he came up to him and loosened his reins from the post.

“Noticed you sniffin’ around the Widow Ludgrin’s skirts.” Dayton sent a stream of tobacco juice into the mud. “She’s one fine-looking woman.”

“It’s not my habit to covet another man’s wife.”

“She’s a widow now, my boy, and you know what that means. A woman without a man to protect her. Or satisfy her. Too bad all that wheat land of hers is mortgaged. Not worth the paper owed on it. Guess you know that.”

“Didn’t know that was any of your concern.”

Dayton didn’t have the grace ethic to be ashamed. A cat’s grin twisted his features. “I’m just lookin’ out for the widow’s well fare.”

Yeah, he could see what was on the man’s greedy mind. Daniel swung into the saddle. “I’m not a betting man, but I’d stake my horse on Mrs. Ludgrin. She strikes me as the type of woman who can take care of herself.”

“Rayna? Nah, she’s a pampered little thing. She’ll be on the lookout for a man to take care of her. And mind you, boy, she won’t be wanting to spend her attentions on a Confederate mutt. She’s used to being spoilt, and she’ll go with the man who can give her what she wants.”

Was Dayton talking about himself? He was a married man. Daniel watched in disgust as the older man shot a final stream of brown juice into the street. With a self-righteous wink that looked suspiciously like a leer, Dayton glanced down the boardwalk at something catching his attention—a young and pretty woman.

Yeah, there’s another reason I don’t trust you. Daniel reined his horse around, anger boiling inside him. What was it the old man had said about Rayna? That she was a woman without a man to protect her. Or satisfy her.

What was Dayton thinking—that the new widow would award her affections to the first man to come along and help her keep her house? Rage blew through him like steam through a whistle, and he sent his gelding into the busy street.

Sure, he didn’t really know much about Rayna Ludgrin, but the time spent lately in her presence told him one thing. With the way she’d tried to harvest her crop with a hand scythe, she was a woman not prone to taking the easiest path. She had character and fortitude.

As if his thoughts had conjured her, there she was on the boardwalk in front of the mercantile. Was it his imagination, or did she stand out among the other women hurrying on their errands?

Her wool coat was a plain tan color and finely tailored to show the dainty curves and tiny waist and the flare of her skirts. The pointed toes of her polished brown shoes peeked out from beneath the ruffled hem of a fine black dress. Maybe it was the way she walked, even in mourning, that spoke of dignity.

His heart clutched in his chest with sorrow for her losses, that’s what this emotion was. He’d been alone all his life, and he wasn’t a man of Dayton’s ilk that lusted after a woman, so it couldn’t be a desire for her that he was feeling. She was newly widowed and vulnerable. He wasn’t about to let his thoughts go there.