In Love's Territory: A Western Historical Romance Page 3

  She might have overreacted a bit, Sam thought, but I can’t fault her reason. She’d abandoned all propriety—not to mention all her clothing—so she could warn her family about a threat. No harm in that. It was actually touching, now that he thought about it. More than that. She’d been brave. She’d been fearless. As she’d burst into the dining room, her cheeks flushed and a pink glow covering the delicate skin of her neck and dropping below her collarbone, she’d been… passionate.

  Sam shook his head to clear his thoughts and tried to turn his attention back to the pages before him. No call to think of her in that way. Nor in any way in particular. If there was one thing he’d learned from the men in town, it was that chasing after the boss’s daughter was rarely a good idea. He glanced down at the figures on the page. He was over halfway though year one of his five-year plan and ahead of schedule. He quickly scanned the goals for the upcoming months and years as if he could have forgotten them. Nope. No women mentioned at all.

  He closed the book and turned out the lamp. In the darkness, he made his way across the room to the door and stepped outside. The night was pleasantly cool, and as he sat down on the fat tree stump next to the door and leaned back against the cabin wall, a shred of cloud floated across the moon, lighting up like a gauzy flame. Down the hill he could see a glow in one of the upstairs rooms. Wonder if that’s Kate’s room. He stared at the window, hoping to see some shadows moving, to see some hint of who was inside, but the glow was calmly undisturbed by his attention.

  Sam yawned and let his eyes close for a bit. He was tempted to stay outside and enjoy the evening, but he knew from experience that he’d only wake up in an hour or so with a crick neck and a hundred mosquito bites. Time to go to bed. He opened his eyes and was surprised to see a figure silhouetted in the upstairs window at the house, as if somebody were looking out into the night. Could be her. Could be anybody. He stood and reentered the cabin, laying his clothes over the back of the chair and getting into bed. The day’s labor had tired him, and he felt himself slipping into sleep before he’d even had time to organize his thoughts. The last thought he had was one he wouldn’t even remember come morning. No room in the plan for women. But plans can change.

  ~

  Kate’s first day on the farm was ending in a far more subdued manner than it had begun. After the spectacle of the morning she had only reluctantly crept downstairs when sheer hunger had forced her to, and she was pleased to see that neither of her brothers had anything to say to her about the morning’s events; their father had clearly forbidden it, although for several days afterward Jake couldn’t resist sneaking up behind her and shouting “Indians!” just to startle her.

  While her father and the boys had eagerly gone out with Sam to inspect their new property, Kate had remained in the house the entire day, claiming that the fatigue of travel had not yet disappeared. This was only a slight exaggeration; she truly had felt a bit tired and a walking tour of the farm in the humid afternoon hadn’t appealed to her in the slightest.

  There was more to it than that, of course. After making such a fool of herself in front of Sam this morning, there was no way that she was going to put herself anywhere near him for the time being. There would be plenty of time to become familiar with the farm once the image of a barefoot Kate wrapped in a sheet had faded from Sam’s memory.

  Instead, she had spent the day getting to know the staff and unpacking her things with Becky’s help. The girl was much quieter in the light of day; Kate attributed her chattiness of the previous night to nerves, for as she spent more time with Kate, she curiously became more subdued and less expressive, her face a mask that exuded only a pinched look, as if she were constantly nervous about making some mistake. Still, she was far closer to Kate’s age than either the cook or the housekeeper—only three years younger, in fact—and just for that reason easier to talk to. Kate had spent the day quizzing her on the farm, Mineral Point and Wisconsin in general, and although she went no further than the porch, by the end of the day she’d learned as much about her new home as the men had on their tour.

  She’d also learned about the small cabin perched atop the hill. It had originally been built by Sam’s father, Becky had said, with the permission of Kate’s uncle. What a time that must have been back in the old days, she thought, and a smile came to her lips as she imagined the farm twenty years earlier, when the cabin was home to a toddler Sam, his Indian mother and his English father. It was a sweet image; much nicer than the one that had sprung into her mind when Becky had continued speaking about Sam.

  “His father died several years ago,” Becky had said. “He had a riding accident and never recovered. And then Sam’s mother passed on last October.”

  “Sam’s mother died last year?” Saying the words, even about somebody else, stung Kate. It was hard to believe that the young man with the warm smile was concealing such a deep loss.

  “Yeah, it’s been a tough time around here lately,” Becky said. “That’s why we’re all so happy you’re here.” In spite of what she said, the pinched look on her face gave her a little divot between the eyes, and her smile was more sad than happy.

  Kate had been in a melancholy mood ever since then. Her brothers and father excitedly recounted their tour of the property over dinner, not even noticing that she let the conversation flow over her without really taking part, and she retired early to her bedroom.

  She spent some time fruitlessly trying to write to Laura before getting into bed. Between the grueling train ride and her embarrassing first day on the farm, there wasn’t much that she felt like including in a letter, and the lure of a good night’s rest was too strong to resist for long. As soon as she lay down, however, she realized that her mind was still too active to let her sleep despite the fatigue that filled her body.

  Kate rolled over in bed and glanced out the window toward Sam’s cabin up the hill, where a slight glow could be seen through the window. It was hard to rid her mind of the loss that Sam had endured—the loss that they both had endured, in fact. And he had lost two parents. How horrible. Even though she hardly knew him at all, even though he was just a farm boy who worked for her family, she couldn’t help but feel that they were bound somehow by this most painful of losses.

  Still, enough lingering on unpleasant thoughts, she thought as she reached for the book on the nightstand. It was a slim volume of poetry that a friend from Boston had written and given her as a going-away gift; she had tried to read it on the train but had found the verse dreadfully boring. After a few pages she saw that it had not improved since then. Kate replaced the book and let out a long sigh.

  A flicker at the corner of her eye drew her attention back to the window, and she realized that Sam’s cabin was now dark. Kate rolled out of bed and went to the window, kneeling on the floor and resting her arms on the sill. So quiet. So different. In Boston there had always been someone in the street, there had always been some window lighted, always something happening somewhere. Here there was nothing but trees and corn, the leaves softly swaying in the night wind and moonlight, as if the hills before her were waves on the ocean. Prairie waves.

  Kate searched the darkness for the outline of the cabin, now only a bump on the hill that blended into the blackness surrounding it. There was something about it that just didn’t sit right with her. A young man—an orphan, really—all alone up there in a tiny house. Farm boy or no, it just wasn’t right for people to go through life without family around. It violated the natural order of things. The staff had said that Bill had treated Sam more like a son than an employee, and now even this second father was gone from him.

  Then I shall try to treat him like a brother, Kate thought. And with that, she extinguished her lamp and returned to bed, thinking no more about it as sleep finally rushed in and overcame her.

  Chapter 3

  After three days on the farm, Kate had come to the conclusion that there was nothing left to do. She had managed, with Becky’s help, to unpack and arrange a
ll of her clothes. She had finally gone out to see the property on a morning walk with Mark, discovering a lovely shaded spot next to the creek that ran along the western edge of the farm. She had even stepped into the barn one morning and seen the cows, although this was unintentional—she had actually been merely going to inspect the garden when she had seen Sam riding down the hill toward the house, and she’d ducked inside the barn to avoid being seen.

  Very shortly she realized that she’d done exactly the wrong thing for several reasons. First of all, the stench of the barn almost made her nostalgic for low tide back home. Second, the muck and straw covering the floor was most unpleasant, and she already was dreading what her shoes would look like when she got back to the house. Finally, however, she heard the heavy steps of Sam’s horse coming up right outside the barn door. Terrific choice, Katie. Hide in the barn he was headed for.

  “All right, old girl, let’s go outside,” she heard him call.

  Who does he think he’s talking to? So insulting! She stepped into view and aimed her most steely glare at him.

  “There is no reason to speak to me like that,” she said, and she could tell by the shocked look on Sam’s face that he knew he had overstepped his bounds. She almost let a satisfied smile cross her lips, but she fought to keep an icy expression. “And if I want to stay in the barn all day long, that’s what I’m going to do. It belongs to us, after all.”

  “Miss Taylor, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know you were in there. I was talking to my cow.”

  Oh, good Lord. “Your cow?”

  “It’s the one back there in the corner, with the white tag on her ear.” Kate turned and glanced back; sure enough, there was a white-tagged ear flicking at her in the gloom. As she turned back to look at Sam, she was glad for the dim light in the barn, which hopefully would hide her burning cheeks.

  “I was coming down to let them out to pasture,” Sam continued. “Did you need some help with something out here?”

  “No thank you, Sam,” she said. “I was just looking around for…well, I was just bored and looking around.” Kate gathered up her dress and carefully stepped out of the barn, trying to make a graceful exit for once. When she was on the dry ground outside, she turned and looked back into the barn. Sam was up on the gate, one arm outstretched to scratch behind the cow’s ear, as if it were a giant puppy.

  “What’s your cow’s name?” she called.

  “She doesn’t have one. It didn’t seem very important when I bought her, and I never got around to naming her.”

  “Well, I think you should name it,” Kate said. “That way you won’t have to call her ‘old girl’. You know, in case some other old girl is hiding in the barn too.”

  His smile lit up the gloom of the barn. “That’s a good point, Miss Taylor,” he said. “I’ll have to think about it.”

  Kate turned and went back to the house. She returned to the parlor, taking up the same spot on the sofa where she’d been before she had decided to go outside in the first place, again watching her brothers continue their game of backgammon. She reached to the side table for the letter to Laura that she’d been working on, but after rereading the first few lines she realized that it was going to be difficult to continue writing about the goings-on at the farm if nothing was going on.

  She sighed and replaced the letter on the table. Half an hour later, with the only sounds the click of the backgammon pieces and the tick of the grandfather clock, she had nearly fallen asleep when there was a knock at the front door. Jake went running out to see who it was, returning to the parlor almost immediately.

  “Kate, Sam is here to see you.” He stepped aside to reveal Sam, who thankfully hadn’t stepped further into the house with his boots fresh from the barn.

  “Actually I’m here to see all of you,” Sam said. “I’m heading into town for a few things and I thought I’d see if you wanted to go along.”

  Mark and Jake were on their feet before Sam had even finished speaking.

  “You bet,” Mark said. “Let’s go.” He and Jake had already started for the door when Kate cleared her throat.

  “Thank you, Sam,” she said. “That sounds lovely. I’ll only need a few minutes to get ready.” She could hear her younger brother sigh from across the room. “Appearances matter, Jake,” she said. “You might take my advice and change your shirt, by the way.”

  Kate was fairly sure that among the grumbling she could hear the words “bed sheet”, but she paid it no mind as she went up the stairs, interrupting Becky as she was making the bed.

  “Becky, I’m going to town. Let’s dig around in the closet and see what we can find.” A slight smile arose on Becky’s lips; the normally stern-faced girl had almost shone when they’d unpacked Kate’s clothes, and Kate had quickly realized that in spite of her own plain clothing, Becky had an eye for fashion and a real talent for picking out just the right combinations. On her first trip into town, Kate wanted to make an impression without looking like she had tried too much, and as Becky laid out several dresses, Kate realized that her selection had hit the mark exactly. Becky helped her get dressed and quickly did her hair; in only a few minutes Kate was headed back downstairs, where the men were waiting for her in the parlor.

  Her brothers leaped up, ready to go, as soon as she stepped into the room. Sam rose more slowly, a smile spreading over his face as he looked at her.

  Kate quickly patted her hair to make sure everything was in place and glanced down at her dress. “Is something the matter?” she asked.

  “Nope,” Sam replied. “Not at all. Are you ready to go?”

  “I believe I am.”

  They stepped outside and Kate waited on the porch with her brothers while Sam went for the carriage; in only a few minutes they were heading up the long drive that led from their property to the main road. After days of being cooped up on the farm, it didn’t even matter that the landscape was just more of the same: gently rolling hills covered in green. It was just a relief to be out of the house, and as they went along Kate felt her mood improving.

  Rounding a sharp turn, Sam had to rein in the horses to avoid hitting a group of men walking along; they had been hidden by the thick brush growing alongside the road. It looked like they were all dressed simply, but it was difficult to say for certain due to the enormous amount of mud that their clothing bore. It seemed as if they’d been wallowing in the dirt. As they drove past them, Kate couldn’t help but stare, earning a glare in return from one of the men. His eyes were eerily bright against his grimy face. A shiver ran through her and she turned forward again.

  “Who were those men walking back there?” she asked.

  Sam threw a quick glance backwards. “Diggers,” he said. “Probably going into town for supplies.”

  “What do you mean, diggers?”

  “They’re miners. Around here, we just call them diggers,” Sam said. “That was John Tilton’s farm we just passed; this spring he found lead ore on his property, and he’s been having men work it ever since.”

  “It looks like those men haven’t bathed in months,” Kate said. “I do believe I could smell them as we passed.”

  Sam laughed. “Yeah, they don’t spend too much time around water. Some of them even live in holes in the ground.”

  Kate turned to look at Sam, but his face revealed no hint of a smile, no indication that he’d been joking.

  “You must be kidding.”

  “I’m serious,” he said. “Sometimes they just dig holes in the hillsides and live there. They call those guys badgers, in fact. Look up there.” He pointed to a rise off to their left; near the top of the hill, a gunny sack had been tied to a couple of poles stuck into the ground. In the wind, the makeshift door waved back and forth, revealing the tunnel behind. “Somebody lives in there.”

  “Those poor men,” she said. “It’s like being an animal.”

  “It’s a hard life, that’s for sure,” Sam said. “Especially now. They say that the lead is harder to find
now, so they’re not making as much money as they used to. A lot of men have gone out to California to mine gold instead.”

  The thought of living in a hole in the ground sent a chill though Kate’s body, and she shivered in spite of the sunlight that was drenching them. “Unbelievable. I never would have imagined that in the modern world people could actually live like that,” she said. She hadn’t really thought about it before, but at that moment she became very thankful for her large, comfortable bed inside her large, comfortable house.

  They drove on in silence for several minutes, content to simply watch the landscape. The road led them over the gentle hills, some of which were covered with broad swaths of corn and wheat in orderly rows, and others that still wore the long prairie grass of unfarmed land.

  “Warm day today, isn’t it, Miss Taylor,” Sam said, glancing over at Kate, who was trying to shield herself from the sun with her hand, but without much success.

  “Yes, quite warm. Just another thing I’ll have to get used to, I guess,” Kate said. “Back home—I mean, in Boston—we didn’t spend much time riding out in the country like this.”

  “We’re almost there,” Sam said, and pointed to the next hill rising in front of them. “In fact, once we get over this hill we’ll practically be in town already. You’ll be able to see it from the top.”

  Sam slowed the horses as they neared the crest of the hill, stopping the carriage just when the town below came into view.

  “This,” he said, “is Mineral Point.” Sam extended his hand as if revealing an artist’s masterpiece.

  “Wow,” Mark said flatly.

  “It ain’t Boston, that’s for sure,” Jake said.

  No kidding, Kate thought. Sam started down the last incline toward town, but Kate was sure that things weren’t about to improve by seeing them up close. In fact, the view from atop the hill had been very instructive. The entire town could be seen laid out as if looking at a map. A very small map.