mine and I intend to keep her.”
He smiled agreeably. “That’s your right, ma’am.” His head nodded in the direction of the barn as he changed the subject with alacrity. “Thought I’d spend a couple of hours out there to pay for my keep.”
“It’s not necessary,” she countered swiftly. She’d felt the warmth creep up into her cheeks as the play of words had swirled between them, and she felt a sudden letdown as he turned from the fray so easily. For a few minutes, she’d felt alive and vital sparring with Roan Devereaux and, in an odd way, enjoying it
His index finger rose to tilt the brim of his hat in a courtly parody, and he headed for the door with long strides that carried him out onto the porch and down the steps before her protest could be enlarged upon.
She watched, almost unwillingly, yet drawn by the sight of him. Slim-hipped, he walked with a lithe swing that spoke of long years in the saddle and an ease with his own body. Only a slight hitch betrayed him, and Katherine’s gaze narrowed as she analyzed the hesitation that marred his easy stride. Then her father’s words came back to her, jolting her with the image of savage warfare they had painted.
“Roan paid for my life, girl,” he’d said grimly. “That leg of his will wear scars for all of his years. He dragged me when he could hardly make it himself…till both of us were so covered with muck and mire you couldn’t make out the pair of us from the mud we crawled through. Him pullin’ and tuggin’ on me, one hand holdin’ my belt and the other clawin’ for a good grip on the side of that hill.”
Charlie Cassidy had spoken often—and well—of the man who’d saved his life in the midst of battle in Virginia. Her eyes softened as they focused on the barely discernible hesitation in Roan’s step now as he strode across her yard.
“I owe you, Roan Devereaux,” she whispered with reluctance in the silence of her kitchen. Her shoulders lifted as an indrawn breath shuddered through her. “Maybe I can figure something out.” And maybe she’d better quit lollygaggin’ around and get busy, she thought, shaking her head as she reluctantly turned her back and headed for the cookstove to bank the fire.
Charlie had left a fine legacy. Although where the mares were concerned, who had produced these charmers was anyone’s guess. The yearlings frolicked about the pasture with long-legged freedom, heads tossing and tails flying, performing as though they sensed the admiration of their audience. Oblivious to their antics, a chestnut mare grazed, her nose lifting as she turned her head momentarily in his direction. The man who’d hooked one boot on the bottom rail, leaning casually to watch the animals gambol about in the pasture, was more than just an admiring audience. Roan had earned his respite, the sweat that drew his shirt to cling to the muscles of his back was a damp testimony to his morning’s work.
He’d walked the boundaries of the pasture, checking and repairing several weak places in the old fencing, tight-lipped as he considered the amount of work that needed to be done. The condition of the posts and wire had disturbed him, and he was aware that his nailing up sagging wire and shoring up fence posts could only be considered a temporary measure.
Charlie’s homestead was not what he’d expected. The horseman who’d befriended him in the last days of his service to the army had not been cut out to be a farmer, it seemed.
Charlie’d been more suited to be a roaming man, Roan thought. More geared to training horses and moving on his way than settling down here on green Illinois pastureland.
And then there was Charlie’s daughter. Roan’s quiet laugh broke the silence and one of the fillies tossed her head at the sound.
“Yeah, Katherine…” His voice caressed the name and his mouth twisted in a wry grin as he considered the woman. Unyielding at first glance, stiff and unbending with that old shotgun aimed in his direction, she’d glared her best at him. She was still glaring, he thought, only not quite as convincingly.
He’d glimpsed her uncertainty earlier, when he’d touched her arm. Sensed the withdrawal as she shrank from his hand. There was a lot of woman there, he decided, hidden beneath the coarse homespun dress she wore like armor against his gaze. But not just his. She made it her business to look dowdy.
“Doesn’t look to me like you’ve earned your dinner yet.”
He spun to face her, his hand brushing against his thigh in an automatic gesture. One her eyes followed with cynical awareness.
“You’re lucky you haven’t lost these horses before this,” he said roughly, his head inclining toward the pasture. “I mended several places that were just one good shove from collapsing.”
Katherine nodded. “I’ve been meaning to check it out. It was on my list,” she said dryly.
Along with a hundred other chores, he thought, aware of the unending job she’d taken on when Charlie died.
“Well, what I did will hold for a while. But it was only a lick and a promise. Some of those posts are rotting where they stand. You’re gonna have to replace them.”
Her sigh was tinged with defeat. “I do what’s most needed. And right now, training those horses in the corral is the most important thing.”
“Who are you gonna sell them to?” He’d lay money she hated the thought of parting with any one of the sleek mares she was so fond of.
“My mare’s not for sale to anyone,” she told him, nodding at the chestnut animal approaching them. Katherine’s hand reached out to stroke the white blaze that flashed through her mare’s forelock and slashed like a narrow sword down the length of her nose. “She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”
Roan nodded, admiring the picture before him…the woman caught up for a moment in her pleasure with the creature she fondled. “I like the looks of the tall bay,” he said, glancing back at the corral Charlie’d attached to the barn.
“The three-year-old? Well, I haven’t decided about her. The four-year-old is going to the banker’s daughter in town, soon as I finish gentling her real good. The black’s mine,” she said, her voice soft as she turned to watch the horses in the corral closer to the house.
“Charlie teach you how to train?” he asked as they began to walk back to the house.
She nodded. “Ever since I was big enough to snap on a lead rope and drag a six-week-old foal around in a circle.”
They walked side by side, their attention caught by the mares who stood in the shade offered by the barn.
“My pa bought this place from the man who cleared the land and built the house. Matter of fact, we moved in just a while before he left for the war. He’d been fretting about sitting on the sidelines, and one day, he just got on his horse and told me to take care of things till he got back.”
“Just like that?”
Her nod was abrupt. “Just like that.”
“What did you do?”
“I’ve always been a dutiful daughter, Mr. Devereaux. I did as he asked. I took care of this place till he did come back. It was a good thing he’d waited so long to go to war. Things had piled up on me by the time he showed up again. I pampered that four-year-old mare and delivered the three-year-old and bought the black with the last of Pa’s hidey-hole money. A neighbor
