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He waited, not rushing her to tell what had happened, as if he understood she could hardly bring herself to say the words.
“One day she didn’t come to play as usual and Mother took me to my room. She pulled me down beside her and held me close as she told me Suzette had drowned while on an outing with her family.” Sybil shook her head. “To this day I can hardly believe it.”
Brand squeezed her hand gently.
She held on for dear life.
“How old was she?”
“We were both twelve.”
His hand clasped hers, warm, solid, reassuring. “So young. I’m sorry for your loss.”
The tension in her body slowly dissolved. “I haven’t let myself think of her or talk about her since she died.”
“Aren’t you robbing yourself of happy memories by doing that?”
Sybil turned to look into his face.
His eyes were filled with warmth. “It seems a shame to throw out the good with the sad.”
She looked deep into them, finding nothing but kindness. Something inside her shifted...a sense of being released. She sat back, stared at Dawg lying at her feet. A truth hit. “All this time I was so afraid of the pain I felt at her loss that I’ve buried my memories.” A smile filled her heart. “I miss her terribly and always will, but my childhood was rich because of Suzette. She was full of life.” Sybil told him many stories of two little girls with vivid imaginations. The games they’d played and adventures they’d had without leaving home.
Brand didn’t say much, but she didn’t need a lot of encouragement to continue.
Dawg stretched, turned around and settled at Sybil’s feet.
She grew quiet. She’d talked for so long. How could she be so selfish and thoughtless? She’d never learn anything about him if she did all the talking. And she still held his hand, as if her life depended on it. She slipped it to her lap. “I’m sorry. I’ve talked about me this whole time.”
“I don’t mind. I’m sure your life is more interesting than mine.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You lived a privileged life with all sorts of advantages.”
She turned to look at him. “You make that sound like it somehow makes me different.”
“It is different than my upbringing.” His eyes were curtained, letting her see nothing of what he thought. “It allowed you to cross the ocean in the company of other fine women.”
“Humph. Since my parents’ death I’ve been living with my elderly aunt Celia. She’s old and set in her ways. She doesn’t like the curtains opened, so I spent last winter in gloom.” Sybil jerked about to see his reaction. “Do you think that was a joy and privilege?”
His grin was lopsided. “Not when you put it that way.”
“How did you spend last winter?” There were so many things she wanted to know about him.
“Holed up in a remote cabin on my own with Dawg.”
“Sounds lonely. What did you do to pass the days?”
“I hunted game to feed us, chopped wood to keep us warm and twice ventured out to the nearest town for supplies. A man gets to crave coffee when he’s been out of it for almost two weeks.”
She laughed. “What I miss most about life in the West is having a grocer close enough to go every day. I could hardly believe it when I first came. But between the big gardens and generous storerooms, the ranch has its own grocer.”
He joined her in laughing. “From the little I’ve seen this is one of the best run ranches in the territory.”
“Eddie is determined it will be the best.”
They sank into silence again.
“Tell me about your dog.”
Brand chuckled, the sound filling her insides with pleasure at getting him to laugh. “Found him beside a trail a couple years back. Don’t know if he was lost or forgotten, but his paws were raw from walking.”
Dawg lifted his head and looked toward Brand as if knowing the man talked about him. His tail bent in one direction.
“I suppose he was glad to see you.”
Brand laughed again. “You’d think he might be, but even then Dawg had a bad attitude. He tried to bite me.”
Sybil wanted to know more. “What did you do?”
