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each other. He seemed to seek her out at times, but then kept a careful distance between them as they conversed. She didn’t actively avoid him, but remained wary of the attraction that sparked between them, especially as he didn’t acknowledge feeling anything toward her. Maybe he wasn’t attracted to her.
    And every day, he refused to return her to Sheridan so she might catch the train back to Omaha.
    Carl leaned his elbows on the end of the table as he munched his cookies, watching Opal shape her dough into two loaves. “I thought you fancy town ladies didn’t know how to cook or nothin’.”
    “Mmm,” Opal hummed, ignoring the big man still skulking behind her. “Most of my friends from Omaha have cooks who serve in their homes, and don’t have to do for themselves.”
    “So how come you can cook?”
    Carl often ran in and out of the house, bringing in the pails of milk or basket of eggs in the morning, fetching water or stacking firewood. Charlie had been right in his assessment that the boy had taken a shine to Opal. But Charlie hadn’t guessed she’d become attached to his nephew as well. Many times when Carl came in, he and Opal would converse or tease for a few minutes. He was much like the boys at New Hope, like dry ground ready to soak in all the attention he could get.
    If she didn’t belong with her father, at least she felt a connection with one member of the ranch family.
    But she didn’t particularly want Carl’s uncle listening in on their conversation.
    “Sometimes I help in the kitchen at New Hope Orphanage. I managed to burn things the first few times, so I enlisted my aunt Jennie’s cook to give me a few lessons.”
    “Well, your cookies sure’re good,” Carl said around a mouthful.
    “Come on, son. We’d better leave the women to it.” Charlie clapped a hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “Ladies.”
    “Ladies,” Carl echoed his uncle’s serious tone and nod.
    “Those two…” Gertie said, still peeling the potatoes she’d been working on. “Like peas in a pod.”
    Opal had noticed, though she didn’t want to. Charlie was certainly admirable for taking on the raising of a small boy when he could’ve probably been courting or carousing like some of the other cowboys.
    Charlie’s hard work and strong hand as foreman was something else to admire.
    But she couldn’t let herself fall for him. He was her father’s man through-and-through and continued refusing her requests to return her to Sheridan. In short, he couldn’t be trusted.
    Which was a shame, because she genuinely liked him.
     
     
    ~~~~
     
     

Chapter Six
     
    In hindsight, perhaps this hadn’t been Opal’s best idea. She was almost to the point of sending up a prayer—useless as she knew them to be in her own personal case—but wasn’t quite that desperate. Yet.
    Her legs ached from clinging to the horse for so long, but she was afraid to stop too often for fear someone from her father’s ranch would catch her before she reached Sheridan. Her eyes were gritty from lack of sleep after she’d crept out to the barn in the dead of night to sneak away. Now the midmorning sunshine had her squinting and wishing for a hat to shade her face. She was hungry.
    And she was afraid she was hopelessly lost.
    She didn’t remember riding this close to the mountains when they’d traveled from Sheridan to the Circle B, but then she’d also been distracted by Charlie’s nearness and the threat of riders chasing them.
    She’d hoped her horse would have some sense of direction, and the compass she’d pilfered from her father’s things would guide her. She knew Sheridan was to the north, but she still had no idea where she was.
    What could she do, other than keep going? She had to return to Omaha so she could put her plans in to place to care for the children.
    She might’ve been willing to wait for her father’s return to health, if she hadn’t looked in his desk and found his correspondence with her Aunt Jennie,