seemed.
Charlie’d been more suited to be a roaming man, Roan thought. More geared to training horses and moving on his way than settling down here on green Illinois pastureland.
And then there was Charlie’s daughter. Roan’s quiet laugh broke the silence and one of the fillies tossed her head at the sound.
“Yeah, Katherine…” His voice caressed the name and his mouth twisted in a wry grin as he considered the woman. Unyielding at first glance, stiff and unbending with that old shotgun aimed in his direction, she’d glared her best at him. She was still glaring, he thought, only not quite as convincingly.
He’d glimpsed her uncertainty earlier, when he’d touched her arm. Sensed the withdrawal as she shrank from his hand. There was a lot of woman there, he decided, hidden beneath the coarse homespun dress she wore like armor against his gaze. But not just his. She made it her business to look dowdy.
“Doesn’t look to me like you’ve earned your dinner yet.”
He spun to face her, his hand brushing against his thigh in an automatic gesture. One her eyes followed with cynical awareness.
“You’re lucky you haven’t lost these horses before this,” he said roughly, his head inclining toward the pasture. “I mended several places that were just one good shove from collapsing.”
Katherine nodded. “I’ve been meaning to check it out. It was on my list,” she said dryly.
Along with a hundred other chores, he thought, aware of the unending job she’d taken on when Charlie died.
“Well, what I did will hold for a while. But it was only a lick and a promise. Some of those posts are rotting where they stand. You’re gonna have to replace them.”
Her sigh was tinged with defeat. “I do what’s most needed. And right now, training those horses in the corral is the most important thing.”
“Who are you gonna sell them to?” He’d lay money she hated the thought of parting with any one of the sleek mares she was so fond of.
“My mare’s not for sale to anyone,” she told him, nodding at the chestnut animal approaching them. Katherine’s hand reached out to stroke the white blaze that flashed through her mare’s forelock and slashed like a narrow sword down the length of her nose. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”
Roan nodded, admiring the picture before him…the woman caught up for a moment in her pleasure with the creature she fondled. “I like the looks of the tall bay,” he said, glancing back at the corral Charlie’d attached to the barn.
“The three-year-old? Well, I haven’t decided about her. The four-year-old is going to the banker’s daughter in town, soon as I finish gentling her real good. The black’s mine,” she said, her voice soft as she turned to watch the horses in the corral closer to the house.
“Charlie teach you how to train?” he asked as they began to walk back to the house.
She nodded. “Ever since I was big enough to snap on a lead rope and drag a six-week-old foal around in a circle.”
They walked side by side, their attention caught by the mares who stood in the shade offered by the barn.
“My pa bought this place from the man who cleared the land and built the house. Matter of fact, we moved in just a while before he left for the war. He’d been fretting about sitting on the sidelines, and one day, he just got on his horse and told me to take care of things till he got back.”
“Just like that?”
Her nod was abrupt. “Just like that.”
“What did you do?”
“I’ve always been a dutiful daughter, Mr. Devereaux. I did as he asked. I took care of this place till he did come back. It was a good thing he’d waited so long to go to war. Things had piled up on me by the time he showed up again. I pampered that four-year-old mare and delivered the three-year-old and bought the black with the last of Pa’s hidey-hole money. A neighbor lost his mare birthing that one andsold her to me real cheap. He didn’t want to waste his time
Alice Clayton, Nina Bocci