Love Inspired Historical October 2015 Box Set Read online

  Which meant that when his brothers came for him, he’d have no excuse not to go with them.

  Even though a part of his heart would remain here with Catherine.

  *

  Twilight had fallen, everything growing darker in hues of blue and gray. The rain hadn’t stopped, and Catherine slogged forward even though her moccasins felt as if they each weighed several pounds.

  “We should stop,” Matty said again. She knew he believed it was ridiculous to continue searching for Pop in this weather, but her dread had continued to mount as the day wore on.

  Tears clogged her throat, though she cleared it so she could speak. “I don’t want to stop.”

  But she drew to a pause in the shelter of a tall birch. Beneath the canopy of its branches, the relentless rain was more of an occasional drip.

  “We won’t be able to see anything in the dark,” he said. “We could walk right by Pop and miss him.”

  “What about a lantern?” She ran a damp hand down her face. Exhaustion weighed her down, but the feeling that something was terribly wrong with Pop persisted.

  She hadn’t brought a lantern in the rucksack she’d packed. “Or a torch,” she added belatedly.

  “Doubt you’d find any stick of wood dry enough to light,” he said.

  Her stomach rumbled. They’d consumed the biscuits and handful of jerky she’d packed earlier in the afternoon.

  But she couldn’t just give up, not when Pop could be injured.

  Matty’s hand closed over her elbow. “What if we go back and get a few hours’ sleep?”

  It was a good idea.

  After a slight hesitation, he went on, “And I was thinking I might ride to Elliott’s place and ask if he could spare his hands. If they’re willing to help us search, we could cover more ground.”

  Her head jerked up. She searched his face, but beneath the shadow of the tree and the rapidly darkening sky, she couldn’t make out his expression.

  As if he sensed her uncertainty, he reached out and clasped her hand.

  “How can you be sure… Can we trust them?”

  He squeezed her hand. “If it was any of my pa’s neighbors, I would say an unconditional yes. But if something has really happened to Pop, we may have to chance it.”

  He believed her that Pop wouldn’t have just run off, not in this weather. He believed her that something was wrong.

  Silly tears burned her eyes and one overflowed, rolling down her cheeks. She used her wrist to brush it away, breaking the connection between them.

  She didn’t know what to think since this afternoon. Since that kiss. Did he really see her that way…? Could he possibly be sweet on her?

  Her? Homemade happy Cathy?

  “I thought…you wouldn’t want to go searching with me again. That you’d think I was foolish.”

  She started away from the tree, back out into the relentless rain. Though she remained upset and uneasy about not finding Pop, it would be a relief to be inside and out of the elements.

  Matty followed, as faithful as ever. They were maybe three-fourths of a mile from home. A hike that would normally take less than an hour.

  He didn’t speak until they’d climbed the top of the hill she’d fallen down earlier. “When I was nine, when the sickness came over my family…it was the winter after you’d come to school… I don’t like to talk about my parents’ deaths, but maybe there’s a lesson to be learned here.”

  He who was usually so jovial, never lacking for words, seemed unable to find them now.

  “I’d succumbed to the fever first. When I finally came out of it, came back to an awareness of myself, it was so quiet.”

  She skirted a cedar, brushing against a lower branch, the motion sending a shower of raindrops falling to the ground.

  “There was no fire burning in the stove. No sound of my ma’s knitting needles clicking. My pa wasn’t a quiet man. He was always talking. Always.”

  Perhaps Matty had inherited that trait from his father, then.

  “And I realized I didn’t hear his voice or his laugh. I was lying in my bed, quilt soaked with sweat, and I was scared.”

  She stopped. His voice… The emotion underlying his tone told her how serious he was, telling her this, that maybe he still felt scared thinking back to that time.

  “I was weak as a newborn foal, but I made myself get outta bed. I found their bodies, and I knew. No one was coming for me.”

  She didn’t think, she just reached out for him. Where his hand had closed over hers earlier, offering her comfort, she now repeated the action, taking his larger hand in hers.

  He didn’t pull her closer, didn’t pull away. Just accepted the comfort she offered.

  When he spoke again, his voice was coarse with emotion. “I think your Pop is real blessed to have you to come after him.”

  She had to swallow the lump in her throat before she could form any answer for him. “I’m real glad someone did come along and find you.”

  He squeezed her hand, the same way he had earlier.

  And it was nice to have someone to hold on to. To know that she wasn’t alone. She didn’t know if it could last past the next few days, but for this very moment, she couldn’t let go.

  Complete darkness had fallen now. It was going to be difficult to find their way back, even though she could recognize the familiar landscape.

  She didn’t let go of Matty’s hand as she carefully picked her way through the woods, knowing they would have to be careful crossing the creek when they came upon it. It would be swollen from today’s rains, and in the dark…

  An unnatural noise startled her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “What was that?” Catherine’s voice held a fine tremor. She’d gone still beside him.

  He hadn’t heard a thing, but let go of her hand and rested his own hand at his hip, just above the butt of his revolver.

  “Did you hear it?” she asked, her voice barely a breath.

  “No.”

  The rain had finally stopped as it had gone dark and now only occasional sounds of water dripping from the trees around them came. In the distance, a bullfrog croaked. Farther even than that, some kind of night bird chirped.

  Beside him, Catherine barely breathed. Probably straining her ears to hear. Was she hoping so hard that they’d stumble on Pop that she’d imagined it?

  Or could it be someone else out there? Ralph, spying again? Or Floyd?

  He didn’t want to think about them stumbling onto someone with nefarious intentions in the dark—especially if that other someone was armed. Not for the first time today, he wished for his brothers and his pa. They would’ve been able to cover much more ground today—and they were handy in situations like this, where he didn’t know if he’d need a couple more guns to protect Catherine.

  A low sound came. A hum? A moan? It was several yards away. In the dark, here in the woods, he couldn’t make out the landscape, and he couldn’t remember well enough from when they’d circled through here earlier. Had there been a large fallen log over that way?

  Catherine started to move in that direction, but he stopped her with an outreached hand. It landed at her waist, and she froze. He nudged her closer.

  “Wait.” He whispered the word, not wanting to alert whoever was out there to their presence.

  He could feel her panting breaths at his collar, warm against his rain-chilled skin, sending gooseflesh spreading down his chest, beneath his shirt.

  “It might be someone else,” he whispered, his mouth close to her ear, or as near as he could estimate in the darkness.

  “Who’s that? I’m armed, ya corncrackers.”

  The growl was definitely Pop’s voice, and Matty felt a rush of relief. They’d found him.

  Catherine’s palm rested against his chest for a brief moment before she began moving through the darkness. “Pop? It’s us. Catherine and Matty.”

  “Catherine?”

  Matty wanted to hold her back, knowing that if Pop was
lost in one of his memories, he could hurt her, as he had the other day.

  But he just followed a pace behind, hoping to stay close enough to intervene if he had to.

  “It’s me, Pop,” Catherine said. “We were worried about you when you were gone in the rain all day.”

  She rounded a darker, large shadow—the fallen tree that Matty remembered—moving more slowly now. His boots crunched over broken tree limbs.

  “Where are you?”

  “Here, girl.”

  Pop sounded lucid, which was a blessing in itself.

  Catherine knelt, her movement so sudden that Matty almost tripped over her.

  “Are you hurt? Where’d you go today?”

  “Ssh. They’re out there.”

  The hair on the nape of Matty’s neck stood up. He reached for Catherine, intending to put his hand on her shoulder and stop her, but in the darkness he missed completely, his hand flailing ineffectively as if to keep her from Pop.

  “Who, Pop?”

  “I went out to attend to my personal business and I saw someone hidin’ in the woods down by the creek—right where it bends, you know the good fishin’ spot.”

  Matty tensed. He’d guessed that Ralph might make an attempt at coming onto Catherine’s property during the storms. To what purpose? Had Pop scared him off? Or was he still out there?

  He bent low, coming shoulder to shoulder with Catherine. “Did you get a look at the man?”

  He held his breath as he waited to see if Pop would describe a Confederate soldier.

  “It looked like the younger Chesterton boy. I didn’t get close enough to see him—he ran off, and I was trying to catch up with him when I fell.”

  Catherine must have turned toward him, because he felt her warm breath on his jaw when she spoke. “He’s hurt. Favoring his left leg.”

  “I don’t think it’s broken,” Pop said, but now his voice was rough—with pain? Catherine must be prodding his injury. “I couldn’t walk on it, and I kept thinking I heard voices during the day. This place gave me the most cover.”

  Had those voices been his and Catherine’s as they’d searched for Pop? How had they not noticed him? They’d crossed within twenty feet of the fallen tree, but then, if Pop had thought they were someone else, he would have tried to make himself less noticeable, not more.

  “I’ve been hiding all day. Figured the leg’d be a bit better tomorrow and I could make my way back home then.”

  Matty’s mind spun. If the Chestertons had been out in the woods today, might they have tried something at the homestead? Had they watched Matty and Catherine searching for Pop? Used the advantage to try to steal the wheat Catherine was worried about?

  “Thought I saw a lantern a little bit ago. Wondered how you were keeping it lit.”

  Matty went still.

  Catherine must’ve had the same thought, because she said in a low voice, “Pop, we didn’t have a lantern.”

  The three of them went silent as realization washed over them.

  Matty’s hand went to his gun for a second time. His heart beat in his throat.

  Had they been too noisy getting to Pop? Was someone watching them even now?

  Catherine touched his sleeve.

  He leaned toward her. “I’m going to scout back toward the house.”

  “What if—” Pop was right and someone was out there?

  “I’m armed,” he reminded her. “And I wish I could carry Pop back home, but with my collarbone…” He couldn’t. “I’ll get the mule and make my way back once I’m sure everything is clear.”

  *

  Catherine wasn’t given a chance to argue as Matty bussed her cheek with a kiss and disappeared into the night.

  She might’ve said she knew the property better than he did, but he wore the badge and she didn’t know if she could point a gun at someone, much less shoot if the situation called for it.

  “Is it your ankle?” she asked Pop, kneeling on the ground next to him. “Not the leg?”

  “It don’t feel broken,” said Pop, his voice barely audible. “Just too sore to put my weight on it.”

  “What were you thinking, going after someone?” She wrapped both hands around his left knee and squeezed, slowly moving her hands down his leg and repeating the pressure.

  Pop grunted as her hands hit just above his boot. His leg was swollen and hot against her skin, even through the layer of his soaked pants. “I was thinking about protecting my family. Protecting you.”

  “Were you really? Or were you caught in your memories again, thinking it was an enemy soldier?” The words were out before she’d really thought about them.

  Pop went still for a minute. She couldn’t tell if he was even breathing. “I believed I was lucid, but…” He let out a harsh breath. “I don’t know. Maybe I only imagined I saw someone.”

  Her heart performed a slow flip in her chest. They never spoke of his episodes after he’d calmed. “Or maybe you didn’t.”

  She hadn’t planned to tell him about the tracks Matty had found, but after a day spent worrying for his health, the spill she’d taken and her wildly rolling emotions over Matty…the words had slipped out. She told him all of it. Their visits to the Chestertons and Elliotts, the repeated visits and proposals. The threats.

  He breathed a sharp, shaky breath. “So maybe some of what I was imagining was real?”

  She hadn’t thought about it before, but, “What if you’ve been sensing the Chestertons sneaking around? What if it’s made your delusions worse ?”

  He was silent as they both contemplated it. Now that he knew about the Chestertons, was there a chance that Pop’s mental faculties could improve?

  “What about your breathing troubles…? When you feel faint…”

  He hesitated, but she waited, let the silence draw him out.

  “That might’ve happened today, as well.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. “Oh, Pop.” Tears burned her eyes.

  He cuffed her shoulder. “What’re you going to do about that cowboy?”

  She sniffed, not following where he’d gone with the conversation. “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve seen the way you watch him.”

  Heat slipped into her face, even though it was dark and he couldn’t possibly see her blush.

  “It’s just because he’s a novelty. I’m not used to having another person around. It’s been years since Mama passed.”

  Pop was quiet for a moment. “It’s been…different, having another man around the place. Makes me feel better that you haven’t had to take all the burden of running the place. He’s… I guess you can count on him.”

  Catherine couldn’t help but think of Matty’s steady presence. He’d been beside her all day, even though she got the feeling he hadn’t believed they would find Pop.

  She…liked it. Liked knowing that he was out there protecting her, even now.

  Liked him.

  But the niggling remembrance that he would be leaving soon remained. What if she allowed herself to depend on him, got used to it…and then he left?

  He didn’t know that she’d been born to an unwed mother. She clearly remembered the whispers when she and Mama had gone to town.

  She could easily imagine being snubbed by Luella McKeever again, and possibly all of the friends in her quilting circle, if she had one. Because of Catherine’s parentage. Something she couldn’t help and couldn’t change.

  Worse would be if the way Matty looked at her—sometimes exasperated, sometimes with that warmth that took residence in her midsection and spread outward—changed. Would his eyes turn cool when he knew the truth?

  She couldn’t allow herself to depend on him. Pop couldn’t survive in town, and she needed to remain self-sufficient if she were going to survive the next several years here on the homestead.

  Chapter Eighteen

  More than an hour after he’d left Catherine and Pop, everything was quiet as Matty made his way into the clearing just behind the barn. He
’d taken the long way around, keeping his eyes and ears focused for any hint of the lantern that Pop thought he’d seen, any shadows moving where they shouldn’t be or any out-of-the-ordinary noises.

  There was nothing. Had Pop dreamed it all in a fevered hallucination?

  But the tracks that Matty had seen before were no dream. And neither were Ralph Chesterton’s threats.

  He visited the house first, bundling two of the quilts together and taking time to stoke the fire so that when they got Pop back they wouldn’t have to build it from scratch. Nothing inside had been disturbed.

  The barn was the same. The cow and mule stood placidly in their stalls, dry as could be. Unlike him. The chickens cooed softly from their perches.

  The mule didn’t protest as he found the harness Catherine had used with the plow and connected the buckles. It was harder in the dark, but Matty didn’t want to draw attention with a light if someone was watching the house.

  He retraced his steps back to Pop and Catherine slowly, leading the mule by its halter and stopping every so often to listen for sounds that didn’t belong.

  The night was dark, the moon and stars still obscured by clouds, though it had stopped raining at last. He felt as if he was steaming in his wet clothes after all the maneuvering and walking.

  For a moment, he got turned around and didn’t recognize his surroundings, but then got his bearings with the curve of the creek. He splashed through the shallows, noting how they seemed deeper than usual. Normally the water level wouldn’t be above his boots, but tonight it was nearly to his knees.

  He heard Catherine’s melodic tones before he could even make out the outline of the large fallen tree.

  “Hullo the tree,” he called out. “It’s me.”

  There was a beat of silence, and then Pop growled, “About time.”

  He reined in the mule as he neared, making sure it wouldn’t step on Pop. He tied it off on a low-hanging branch.

  “You run into any trouble?” Pop asked.

  “No. Didn’t see or hear any sign of anyone else. The house and barn were untouched.”