studs, but none of it could compare with the work Tanner could do. It was all hers, her safe place, where the potter’s wheel hummed and fear and worry spun away in the clay. She couldn’t let him into her life; she couldn’t. “I’ve got work to do—”
“Sure you do, Gwyneth.” His singsong taunt said he didn’t believe her, that he knew she was trying to escape him. “You can yell now. I hear it’s good therapy,” he said before turning and strolling toward Anna’s two milk cows.
Penny and Rolf followed at Tanner’s heels. “Deserters,” Gwyneth muttered darkly and tried not to notice how Tanner had become broader than the boy, his walk easy in the manner of a man who was proud, who knew who he was, and where he was going. As if he decided his fate. She resented that confidence, resented the hungry lingering of her gaze upon him. When Tanner reached to pet Sissy, she heard herself call, “You’re no farm boy, Tanner Bennett, and those cows need milking twice a day. Make sure you let me know when you turn them back into my pasture, and make yourself scarce in the meantime. And don’t you sell them to anyone but me. And don’t you sell Anna’s house until you let me—”
She hated swallowing the rest of the words. But the new well had cost too much and her mortgage to the bank wouldn’t allow the purchase of Anna’s home. Somehow she’d find a way, she always had, and she always paid her bills.
Tanner turned slowly, like a man who chose everything in his own time, not another’s; he studied her across the small distance of the field. Then he blew her a kiss that sailed across the morning air and knocked her back into the old barn and pushed her breath from her body. “Don’t you dare start up with me, Tanner Bennett,” she heard herself whisper shakily. “Just go somewhere I’m not.”
Late the next day, Tanner slapped his hand against the stack of new boards. Gwyneth drove herself too hard to keep the Smith ranch, doing enough work for two men. As a boy, Tanner had seen his mother too tired, pitting herself against work that was never done. He remembered the late nights when she made jams to sell, doing other people’s laundry, and then sitting down with a pad and pencil and her checkbook to see what was left. She’d cleaned houses and baby-sat, and never once complained. As soon as he could, he helped, sending money home—there was college tuition for Kylie and Miranda, but Anna wanted nothing for herself; she was happy with what she had, with the balance in her life. Anna had achieved what most sought and couldn’t find—peace.
But the frustration of seeing his mother work too hard, draining her body and mind to keep them together, to feed her growing family, had remained deep within Tanner. He’d been too young to help much, but he had, hiring out to ranchers for bailing, farm and cattle work. He’d hated the way his mother’s shoulders drooped back then, weary from work, the way her hands were too broad and callused for a woman’s, the way she’d made do with old clothes.
Now Gwyneth was doing the same thing, working too hard, trying to hold her land. Without looking at her hands, Tanner knew that Gwyneth’s were callused and competent. The defined yet feminine muscles of her shoulders, arms and legs said she’d tested her strength to the limit. He’d planned to collect Anna’s chickens, too, but Willa at the café had said that Gwyneth needed the egg-money, just like his mother had. He glanced at Koby Austin, who had come to help him build a new chicken house. Koby had lost a wife in childbirth and a son who never drew breath. Now his power saw tore across boards as fate had torn him apart. He glanced at Tanner and switched off the saw, lifting his safety glasses to his head. “This is like old times, isn’t it? You and me working together, like when you came to help my folks build that barn. You were just twelve, when your dad died, and you hitched a ride to the ranch, toting your father’s toolbox. My mother said you’d be a catch someday and that she was in love with you right then.”
Tanner tossed Koby a cola from the small cooler. “My dad taught me a skill that will always serve me. Teaching wasn’t for me and in the merchant marine, I made enough money to help Mom and my sisters. But I like the smell of new lumber, the feel of wood in my hands, waiting to come to life. I want this place in good shape—for Mom. I built the old chicken house when I was twelve and taking up where Dad had left off. It was my first project without him.”
“Some say you’ll sell, others say you Bennetts are like your mother, that Freedom Valley is where you’ll settle. That means you’ll be meeting Gwyneth upon occasion. Can you handle that? Or have you moved on since the last time you were moaning about how much you loved her?”
“Love can be evil and cold,” Tanner said, tilting his cola high. “It’s better to leave it behind.”
They sat on the stack of new lumber, facing the Smith ranch and sipped their colas in the shade of Anna’s biggest oak tree.
Tanner took a long, assessing look at his friend and Koby smirked knowingly. “Nope. Never thought about asking Gwyneth out. Rejection isn’t good for my psyche and besides that, it would seem incestuous, starting up with a good friend’s woman. But if we’re going to debate on the logic of women, we should do it in comfort—food, music and beer to ease the pain? In a righteous place where men come to understand the meaning of life and the intricacies of the female mind?”
Tanner lifted his eyebrow. “The Silver Dollar Tavern?”
Koby chugged the remainder of his cola and grinned. “I’ll make a few calls. The Women’s Council needs a little competition and we’ll have our own meeting. Now that you’re back, the rest of the pack will want in on this.”
Is the Women’s Council still shoving men around?” Tanner remembered all that his mother had said about the ten women who had come from all parts of the world to settle in Freedom Valley. They’d banded together for protection, setting the rules for potential suitors who had to pass standards before marriage.
“You betcha. My sister, Rita, wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s a widow now, with kids and a small farm, and she’s active in the Women’s Council. My brothers, Adam and Laird, scoff at the tradition and Rita jumps them. Those ten women in the 1880s may have needed protection by sticking together, but Freedom Valley’s women still have a fist hold on how a man treats a woman he wants. Our families are descended from those stubborn women who came to Montana and banded together, and times haven’t changed much.”
“So much for man’s country. Did you court your wife according to the Rules for Bride Courting?”
“I did, and so did any man around here who wanted to stay on the good side of the Women’s Council. You, my friend, did not. You rushed Gwyneth into marriage, and you’ve got a big red “Cull” marked on your backside. You may get a notice from the Women’s Council to appear before them, just to set you straight. They really enjoy defining the rules of a Cull to someone who’s been away. And you’re prime for their picking. I’m not coming to the funeral.”
Tanner took a long, deep breath filled with the scent of the newly mowed lawn. “Sometimes I wonder if things would have worked out—if I had followed the Rules for Bride Courting with Gwyneth… If I hadn’t pushed her into marrying me so quickly.”
Koby shrugged again, a man who had lost a wife and a baby. “You’ll figure it out. Every man has to come to terms with the past and the here and now.”
“You don’t intend to marry again, do you?” Tanner asked his friend.
“Nope. I had a good marriage. I was happy. That’s enough for me. It’s more than some people have in a lifetime. Your mother was like that—happy with what she had. You still have a football we could toss around later, old man?”
Tanner sat brooding, dawn filtering through the lace curtains of his mother’s quiet house.
