she gnawed at her bottom lip.
Jacob took the reins from her hands and smiled. “Can you believe that boy threatened me this morning?”
Her face went from worry to shock.
An easy laugh spilled from Jacob. “Oh, not how you’re thinking. But in his own way. Caleb told me that anyone who hurt Daisy would answer to him. In other words, don’t hurt her because I love her like a little sister.”
Lilly felt the emotions drain from her body. She’d gone from confusion, to worry, to shock in just a matter of minutes. At this rate she’d be emotionally exhausted by nightfall.
He pulled the horses over to the large water trough beside the barn, his shoulders hunched and powerful. They were broad and maybe strong enough to support the dread and fears that filled her heart as she worried about Daisy.
“Thank you for sharing your past with me.” She rubbed her horse’s neck as it drank from the fresh water. “I grew up on this ranch. It’s all I know and all I want to know.” Lilly thought about her little sister in the barn.
Jacob leaned against the barn and smiled. “Sounds like a nice childhood.”
She grinned. “It was. Mama died when I was about Daisy’s age. I remember her soft smile, warm smell and gentle hugs.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.” Jacob had crossed his legs and now rubbed the toe of his boot against the other. She wondered if he looked at the boots to avoid seeing sorrow in her eyes.
“Thank you. Then when I was ten, Papa decided I needed a mother’s touch and married my stepmother.” She laughed and heard the bitterness in it. “I know he meant well, but she was not mother material.”
“And now, your childhood isn’t sounding so nice.” His warm brown eyes, gentle and contemplative, looked into hers, inviting her to continue.
“Oh, it was nice. But, I grew up at the age of ten. Gertrude made sure of that. When Pa was away, I cooked, cleaned and was treated like the hired help.” Lilly fell silent as the memories took over. She hated those years of her life.
His silence reminded her that Jacob still listened patiently. “But five years ago, all that changed. Gertrude had Daisy. She died shortly after that but left Papa and me with a beautiful baby. Daisy has been my life ever since. I love her as if she was my child instead of my sister.” She realized how silly that must sound to him and giggled. “Well, you know what I mean.” Lilly felt heat fill her face.
Jacob remained silent; his hat shadowed his face so Lilly wasn’t sure of his expression. Had her story made him think that she’d been too silly in her love for Daisy?
He must have sensed her watching him because Jacob looked up again. A spark of some indefinable emotion crossed his features, but he spoke in a gentle, soft voice. “I’m sorry. Did your father leave after your stepmother died?”
Lilly realized he must have assumed that he’d abandoned her and Daisy like his mother had him. “No, he had a riding accident that broke his neck and killed him instantly.” Sorrow filled her heart. Even after four years she still felt her loss cut through her like a two-edged sword.
“So you’ve been taking care of Daisy and running this ranch on your own?” He pushed away from the barn.
Lilly nodded. “Yes, with Sam’s and Papa’s lawyer’s help.” Did knowing her father was dead change his view of her? Would he, like so many others before him, now see her as wife material? Making himself a ranch owner in the process?
Apparently unaware of her thoughts, Jacob tugged his horse around and walked toward the barn. Lilly followed with her own mount. He stopped just inside the barn door. He placed a hand against the barn, his demeanor stiff and tense. His jaw clenched as if he was holding raw emotion in check. She placed her hand on his forearm.
“What is it, Jacob?”
“Did I mention earlier that my mother’s name is Gertrude?”
Lilly’s breath caught in her lungs. Her fingers clenched around the fabric of his sleeve. She swallowed hard and tried to think of something to say. He seemed to have the same problem. Lilly’s heart told her Gertrude was the same woman. She walked past Jacob toward her horse’s stall. “Gertrude is a common name for women born during that time.”
Lilly began to remove the saddle from the horse. Trying not to sound strange, she asked, “Jacob, what is your last name?”
He looked at her as if she were dense. “Young.”
She swallowed. “I mean before you were adopted.”
Jacob grunted as he pulled the saddle from his horse’s back. He carried it to the tack room and placed it on a sawhorse. He adjusted it three or four times, finally latching on the saddle horn in a tight-fisted grip. “My birth name is Fisher.”
Lilly felt as if her knees might give out from under her. Her stepmother, Gertrude Fisher, was Jacob’s mother. That made him Daisy’s half brother. Strange and disquieting thoughts raced through her mind. Would he want to take Daisy away from her? Or would knowing she was his own flesh and blood make him want to protect her more? And, would he think he could protect her better by taking her away? Icy fear wrapped its ugly fingers around her spine.
She could tell him that half the ranch belonged to Daisy, but should she? New fears and questions twisted her insides. Would that make him less inclined to take Daisy away? Or would it make him want to take the ranch? Was he the type of man who would woo her to get his sister and the ranch?
Did he somehow already know all this? Had he secretly been checking things out, with plans already formed? And she had let her guard down. Her emotions had ruled that Jacob could be trusted, but what had emotions always proven to her? That they certainly could not be trusted. She had eagerly accepted Gertrude, longing for a mother’s touch and love, but that had led to years of loneliness and disappointment.
Over the next few days, Jacob got to know his new home better. He now knew the barn and everything in it as if he’d lived there all his life. He met the other men of the ranch and took his meals with them. Rode the fence lines and learned where the ravines were located.
Since the ranch wasn’t a Pony Express home station, but a way station where the riders exchanged horses to deliver the mail, there was no station manager. Jacob was free to come and go as he pleased as long as he was ready when a new rider came in needing a fresh horse.
He helped out where he could and kept an eye out for the Johnson women. Lilly and Daisy were never apart. He’d watched them puttering around the house, in the garden, washing clothes out by the well and playing tag on the side of the house. Lilly always seemed alert to their surroundings and had even waved to him a few times when she caught him looking in her direction.
However, since the day she’d told him about her past, Lilly had stayed away from the barn. According to Caleb it wasn’t like her not to take her horse out for a ride at least once a day. Jacob assumed it was because of her worry over Daisy that kept her close to home. Still, he didn’t think it was good for her or her horse.
As he put the recently returned
