“I won’t tell, either.”
“Promise?”
She nodded with such enthusiasm her braids were flapping around her.
“Your ma was right. I’m tired. It’s been a long day. But I’ll come back and look at the rest another time. How about that?”
“‘Kay.”
Displaying the same reverence with which she’d opened the book, she closed it. He pushed himself to his feet while Faith simultaneously rose from the rocker, and they both stood there awkwardly, he with his hands shoved in the pockets at the back of his pants, she with her hands clasped in front of her.
“Thanks for indulging her,” Faith finally said.
“She’s quite the pistol.”
Faith smiled, the first genuine one she’d given to him since meeting him at the depot, and it caused a pain in his chest that made him wonder if he was suffering from the same affliction as Dallas. “She is that. If you’re not careful, she’ll wrap you around her littlest finger.”
“That warning comes a little too late.” He glanced around. “I’m surprised you’d want to live here.”
“It wasn’t being used. You said you were tired, so we shouldn’t keep you.” She hurried to the door, as though a coyote was nipping at her heels, and opened it. “We’ll see you tomorrow—at the gathering if nowhere else.”
The gathering, when the remainder of the family would descend on him like locusts, wanting answers. Reaching back with a wink, he tugged on one of Callie’s braids. “Sweet dreams.”
She gave him such an innocent smile that he wanted her to never have anything but the most pleasant of images racing through her head. The things in his tended to be ugly, made for a lot of restless nights. When he got to the threshold, he stopped beside Faith. She no longer wore braids, leaving him nothing to tug. He remembered a time when he might have leaned over to buss a kiss over her cheek. But those days were long behind them. “Night, Faith.”
She merely nodded, closing the door on him as soon as his boot heels were clear of it.
Taking a meandering path back to the house, he passed a cow or two along the way, feeling small and insignificant with the vast sky above him. Darkness settled in, bringing with it black velvet dotted with stars and a sliver of a moon. One of the reasons he enjoyed working with cattle was because he never felt hemmed in, because the horizon was always in the distance, beckoning, promising more space beyond it. It had once satisfied, but now it suddenly seemed empty. And he felt that a chunk of his life had been lived without him really being a part of it. What an odd thought to be nagging at him as he climbed the steps and went into the house.
A lamp had been left burning on a table in the entryway, so he suspected Dallas and Ma had already retired. He was surprised Dallas hadn’t gone to the trouble of having electricity introduced out here but figured it would come in time. Picking up the lamp, he made his way to the large library where he’d learned to love books, set the lamp on the marble-topped table that held an assortment of crystal decanters, poured a generous amount of whiskey into a tumbler, and stepped through a door onto the veranda. Leaning against a beam, he took a slow sip and looked out on the familiar, the land stretching before him for miles, the occasional shadowy windmill standing proud. He’d built a couple in his day, had always enjoyed the strenuous labor of it.
A gentle hand landed between his shoulder blades, rubbed the tightness there, skimmed over his shoulders before drifting away. Turning his head slightly, he looked over at the second woman he had ever loved, the first being his mother—or at least his memory of her, faded and frayed as it was. “Why didn’t you tell me Faith had a daughter?”
“She asked us not to. Whatever your reasons for leaving, she didn’t want to be the reason you came back.”
He’d have married her without hesitation to spare her the shame and embarrassment of being an unwed mother. “Do you know who the father is?”
Turning, she pressed her back against the beam and met his gaze head-on. “If you want answers, you’ll have to talk to Faith. She’s the one who decides what people know when it comes to Callie.”
“She’s being tight-lipped.”
“That’s her prerogative. I suspect there are things you never shared with her.” Slipping in against his side, she wrapped her arms around him. “I’m glad you’re home.”
In one smooth movement, he set his glass on the railing and enfolded her in his embrace, holding her securely. “You know Dallas is too ornery to die.”
She laughed lightly, but he heard the whisper of encroaching tears, the edge of worry. “I know. Still, everything needs to be set right between you and Faith.”
After his mother gave him another hug and went back inside, he lowered himself to the top step, stretched out his legs, and breathed in the warm Texas air, traveling back in his memories to the night everything changed.
Chapter Five
May 1903
With a great deal of amusement, Rawley sat astride his horse, watching as Faith bossed the oilmen around. While Leigh money and land was making the search for the inky black pools possible, Faith had her opinions on the matter and a way about her of making folks listen. She took after her father in that regard.
Rawley didn’t know if in the middle of the jaw wagging someone said something to her regarding his presence or if she just sensed it, but suddenly she swung around, smiled broadly, and waved. “Rawley!”
Her strides ate up the ground separating them. Like her mother, she was tall, only an inch or two shorter than him. A man didn’t have to wonder about the length of her legs because when she was out on the range, she wore denim pants that outlined that sweet little backside—
