frame several times in her wake.
“Ah, pepita,” Esme said, turning from the stove, “I was beginning to worry.”
“It took longer than I expected. Chessie’s man turned out to be a gunslinger with a bullet in his leg.”
Esme went back to stirring the pot on the black cast-iron cookstove, clicking her tongue in distaste.
Isabel moved to put an arm around her grandmother’s shoulders, giving her a quick hug. “Now don’t start, Nana. You’d have done the same thing. You have done the same thing.”
The old woman’s expression softened. “Sí, but I did not set foot in a place like Elish Dodd’s saloon. Every devil who comes to Whispering Creek beds there.”
“Yes, well, I don’t think you would have wanted Elish to bring this particular devil here.” An image of wild black hair, the scent of leather and denim, the feel of hard muscle, flashed through Isabel’s mind. The vision provoked a shivery feeling in her, something akin to uneasiness, except darker, more complex.
Shaking her head to rid herself of the image, she pulled out a chair and sank into it, resting her elbows on the smooth pine table in front of her.
“You must be starving, child.” Esme grabbed a bowl and ladled out a liberal portion of the succulent stew, holding up a hand to stop Isabel’s protest at the large helping. “You did not eat breakfast.”
“Oh…Nate split a seam on his shirt and then Matt needed help with his sums, and Mr. Davis—”
“Sí, sí, I know.” Esme poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down across from Isabel. She stared at her granddaughter a moment in silence then shook her head. “You take too much on yourself.”
Isabel swallowed a spoonful of stew. She knew she was practically inhaling it, but the morning’s excitement had left her famished. “No more than any woman with a family to care for.”
“You are young, beautiful, but so often the jewel you are is buried deep behind your tired eyes.”
Isabel laughed. “This jewel has no desire to come out and be polished for some man’s pleasure, if that’s what you’re hinting at, Nana. I was a wife once, I can’t imagine ever meeting another man with the power to convince me to become one again.”
“You can hardly call yourself a wife, you were married for so short a time. You are not an old woman, nor are you blind and deaf. You cannot truly be so uninterested in what a true man can give you.”
“And what is that? A home? I have that, and my children and you and now Katlyn as well. What else is there?”
“You know there is more. Much more. In your heart, you yearn for it. Yet you deny yourself because that man you called a husband broke your heart.”
“He didn’t…it was never like that.” Isabel glanced down at her bowl, not quite able to face the disbelief on Esme’s face. “He taught me that my dreams of building a home with a husband were something I could live without if I had to.”
“Perhaps, but it was not always that way, no matter what you tell me. Your heart is too tender. You will never prize freedom above loving.”
Isabel smiled a little. “Well, I will certainly never find a man who will give me the freedom I have now. What man would want to be husband to a woman who leaves his bed because she must go to a saloon to cut a bullet out of another’s man’s leg?”
“The man who loves you above all else. But if you refuse to see him, you will never find him.”
“I hardly think I’ll find him in this town whether I’m looking or not,” Isabel said, laughing. “You wouldn’t want me looking too closely at the kind of man I usually see.”
“And what kind is that? The man you went to help today?”
For some reason, Isabel felt her face flush. “Don’t start spinning any romantic dreams of him as a potential husband. He’s more the kind to bed all of Elish’s girls in a night, drink down most of his whiskey, shoot up the bar, then throw on his boots and ride out of town, bad leg or not.”
Esme swallowed the last of her coffee and shoved back from the table. “A dangerous man. Sí, you are right to stay away from that one then.” She said nothing more, but gave Isabel an appraising look.
Isabel got up quickly and took her bowl to the sink to rinse. “I must go to the shop for a few hours. Will you need help with dinner?”
“Of course not. Go then, since you are determined to listen to no one but yourself.”
“I always listen to you, Nana,” Isabel murmured, giving her grandmother a quick kiss on the cheek. “But all I have is enough. I don’t need the complication of another man in my life.”
Enough. Of course I have enough, Isabel told herself as she let herself into the front room of her house where she kept her shop. Her boys were enough. Esme and her newfound sister Katlyn were enough. Her borders were enough. Her work helping people was enough. The house was more than enough! Besides, if something—or someone—were missing in her life, it—or he—would have to have a lot more to offer than one of Elish Dodd’s reckless wanderers.
She knew that breed, and she’d had more than enough of them!
Isabel awoke early the next morning, determined to get to the Silver Rose, pay her obligatory call on Chessie’s wounded outlaw, and be done with him. Especially him. She rose before the boys, washed and dressed quickly, packed their lunch pails, and put a batch of cinnamon-and-raisin biscuits in the oven.
Just as she closed the heavy cast-iron oven door, Matt followed Nate into the kitchen.
Katlyn hurried in after them, looking, as usual, unsettled by the early daylight. It was later, fortified by breakfast and copious amounts of cold water, that Katlyn came alive in a burst of restless, infectious energy which often earned her raised eyebrows and disapproving frowns from Whispering Creek’s more staid residents.
But Katlyn, with a toss of her tumbled red curls and a flash of those lovely blue eyes, managed to charm them all and earn their indulgence for even her most outrageous acts.
“Oh, coffee,” she breathed in delight as Isabel offered her a mug. She tossed her haphazard pile of books and papers on the kitchen table and sniffed appreciatively at the steaming brew. “Cream and honey, too. You are an angel, Isabel. And you’ve made those wonderful biscuits.”
Nate rubbed his palm to his stomach. “Yum-my, does that smell good. My stomach’s aching this morning.”
“You have to save more for me this time,” Matt said, shoving past his brother. “Mama, he always gets more.”
“That’s ’cause I’m older and bigger.”
“It’s not fair!”
Isabel laughed. “Don’t I get a hug and a good-morning kiss?”
Both boys ran to embrace her, and she hugged them close, cherishing the warmth of the moment.
“Are you goin’ back to the Silver Rose again today, Mama?”
