LITMIR.BIZ

      Thad put away the last of the dishes and hung the dish towel up to dry. “You all set for the night, Ma? Is there anything else I can do for you?”

      “Not one thing. You’ve been a great help. You’ve had a long day, too. You go put your feet up and read some of the newspaper with your brother.”

      His older brother, Aiden, gave him a forbidding look over the top of the local paper.

      “I’ll go on over to the shanty, then, where my books are. Good night.”

      “I’ll make pancakes tomorrow morning just the way you like them.” Ida glowed at the prospect and untied her apron. “Good night, son.”

      Aiden didn’t look up from his reading. “’Night.”

      The clock was striking nine as he closed the back door behind him. He had to fight the blizzard across the yard and through the garden to his dark, frozen shanty. Typical Montana weather, snowing just when you thought there couldn’t be any more snow left in the skies.

      He found his home dark and empty and cold. As he knelt to stir the banked embers, air fed and sparked the coals. They glowed dull red and bright orange and he carefully added coal until flames were licking higher and bright enough to cast eerie shadows around the tiny simple dwelling.

      He left the door open and the draft out, keeping his eye on the fire as he pulled the match tin down from the high corner shelf. Ice shone on the nail heads in the walls and on the wooden surface of the table. The lantern was slick with ice when he went to light it.

      This was not the Worthington manor. Then again, he wouldn’t want it to be. He hooked his boot beneath the rung of his chair and gave it a tug. Noelle was as unwelcome in his thoughts as the bright red hatbox on his corner shelf.

      Just showed that what he’d come to believe in the last five years was true. The good Lord had better things to do than to watch over an average working man like him.

      The shanty was warmer, so he closed the stove door and drew his Shakespeare volume down from the bookshelf. While he read of lives and love torn apart for the better part of two hours, Noelle was never far from his thoughts. He knew she never would be again.

      When the shelf clock struck ten, he closed the book and got ready for bed. He shivered beneath the covers trying to get warm, and he prayed for her as he did every night. As he had for the last five years.

      Chapter Three

      “Three whole days trapped in this house by that blizzard.” Aunt Henrietta bored through the parlor like a locomotive on a downhill slope. Crystal lamp shades trembled on their bases with a faint clink and clatter. “Three whole days I could have been sewing on Matilda’s new dress, and instead I had to spend them in idleness.”

      “Well, not in complete idleness,” Noelle couldn’t resist pointing out as she paused in her crocheting to count the stitches with her fingertips. “You spent a lot of time composing letters to the local newspaper and to our territorial lawmakers.”

      “I hardly expect them to listen to a woman.” There was a thwack, thwack as Henrietta plumped one of the decorative pillows on her best sofa. “But I will have them know what a danger that contraption is. What newfangled invention will they think up next? I shudder to think of it.”

      “Well, you should,” Noelle said as kindly as she could. “With that dangerous contraption on the loose, do you think we ought to risk another trip to town?”

      “It gives me pause.” Henrietta moved on to pummel another pillow on Uncle Robert’s favorite chair. “I must post these letters of complaint immediately. Noelle, I am sure, poor dear, you are frightened beyond imagining. Perhaps you ought to stay home with Matilda. No sense the two of you endangering your lives. I shall be fine.”

      Across the hearth from her, Noelle could hear Matilda struggling to hold back a giggle.

      “I’ll come with you. I’d like the fresh air.” Noelle gathered her courage. Driving was a fact of life. She couldn’t stay afraid of one thing, because she’d learned the hard way that fear easily became a habit. It had nearly consumed her after she’d first gone blind.

      “No, I won’t risk it.” There was that smile in Henrietta’s voice again. “Although my trusty mare is now reshod, so we shall not have to take that wild gelding, there is no telling what peril we could meet with.”

      “If that’s true, then I must come, or I’ll sit here worrying over you the entire time you’re gone.”

      “You are a sweetheart.” Henrietta blew a loud kiss across the room. “Now then, I’ve got my reticule. It’s a shame about your new winter hat. Perhaps we can find another.”

      “The one I have is serviceable enough.” Noelle carefully anchored her needle in her lacework, so she wouldn’t lose any stitches or her place in the pattern, and folded it into the basket beside her chair. The floorboards squeaked beneath her weight as she stood.

      “Maybe you’ll catch word of the dressmaker’s nephew,” Matilda whispered, sounding a little breathless and dreamy. Perhaps she wasn’t aware that her affections for the handsome teamster weren’t well hidden. “Or, maybe you’ll happen into the stranger’s path again. If he’s new to town—Mama didn’t recognize him and you know she makes it her business to know everyone—then perhaps he’s looking to settle down. Homestead. Marry. He did rescue you.”

      “He stopped a runaway horse, it was nothing personal. Besides, he’s probably already settled down with a wife and kids at home.” But Thad married? She couldn’t imagine it. She told herself it wasn’t bittersweetness that stung her like an angry hornet as she crossed the room. Because she was steeled to the truth in life. It was best to be practical. She almost said so to Matilda but held back the words.

      Once, like her cousin, she’d been young and filling her hope chest with embroidered pillow slips and a girl’s dreams. Maybe that was a part of the way life went. Maybe she would be a different woman if she’d been able to hold on to some of those dreams, or at least the belief in them. She reached for her cloak on the third peg of the coat tree.

      “Goodness! I’ve never seen such poor manners!” Henrietta burst out and threw open the door so hard, it banged against the stopper. “You! Young man! Where do you think you’re going? You get back here and do this properly.”

      Thad. Noelle knew it was him. Somehow, she knew.

      “Uh, I didn’t want to disturb, ma’am.” His baritone sounded friendly and uncertain and manly all at once. “It’s too early to call, but I was on my way to town and didn’t want to make a second trip to drop this by.”

      “Still, you ran off before we could properly thank you the other evening.”

      “There was a blizzard raging, ma’am. I had livestock I had to get back to. The storm was growing worse by the second.”

      He sounded flustered. She really shouldn’t take any pleasure in that. If only she could draw up enough bitterness toward him—but now that he was here she realized that she couldn’t.

      “I’ll have to forgive you, young man, seeing as I am standing here alive and well to scold you, because of you.” Henrietta’s voice smiled again. “Are you coming in?”

      “I, uh, was planning to get on with my errands.”

      Noelle could feel his gaze on her like the crisp cold sunshine slanting through the open door. She wanted to say his name, to let him know she had figured out who he was and that he couldn’t hide behind her blindness any longer. She also wanted to hide behind it, too. It made no sense, either, but it was how she felt.

      Maybe it was easier

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