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Glen took a breath in through his nose and let it out through his mouth. The hot sun must have baked his brain, because for a second he thought about it. Then he came back to his senses. "I'm sorry, ma'am. But I'm not selling it."
Anger flashed across her face, an instant before she managed to smooth herself back over. "Why's that?"
Because it wasn't enough, he thought. And because, if they somehow had enough to pay him off, then it would leave her children to starve. He wasn't about to invite that.
"I know that you've got your own problems, and I'm not trying to feed you a story. But I can't go back to that life." He considered it for a moment before correcting himself. "Won't go back."
Six
Catherine glowered. That stubborn son of a bitch. Did he think this was fun for her? That she was enjoying having someone in her house, sleeping in her barn? That she wanted this to happen, and that was why she'd married Billy?
It definitely wasn't because she'd thought he would turn things around. It wasn't that he had promised her that things would be different once they got out of Baltimore. She had just done all of this so that now, she could be right here, getting squeezed by some out-of-towner who suddenly shows up with a piece of paper.
Catherine took in a deep breath, looked back up at his perfect face, the face that just made him all that much easier to hate, but then she realized she was overreacting.
She didn't know any more about him than he knew about her, and if he were telling the truth, he wasn't like Billy much at all. Billy could never wait to get back to the table, could never wait to throw down a big risk on nothing, and yet he'd never had the skill to back it up, either.
Mr. Riley, first of all, had made several thousand dollars in a night, which was more than her husband had ever done, and second of all, here he was, insisting that he wouldn't go back to gambling. No matter what she said.
He nodded to her, seeing how angry she was. She'd need time to cool off, but she needed to realize he wasn't going anywhere either. Glen stepped out the door and walked around to the boys. Garth seemed to notice his temper and decided to stay away. It was the right decision, Glen thought.
Climbing up into the loft was easy. It was falling asleep was gonna be hard. He'd take the cows back out for a few days. That ought to give Catherine time to be by herself, to figure things out. And when he came back, then they'd be able to talk the next morning. Easy as that.
He brought the cows out under the supervision of Garth and Brady, and when they didn't correct him on anything he assumed he'd gotten it about right. Fifty three head. Same as the day before, and the same as it would be tomorrow.
It was important to check, though. He'd heard those magic words: Cattle rustlers. He hadn't seen any of it in evidence, not yet, but if the woman said it was a problem, then he believed her.
So it would be daily headcounts. How he'd do it out on the range, he didn't know. But he knew how he'd keep watch over the cattle easy enough, and he had always had good eyes, even in the dark. So he'd just have to trust himself, and trust that he wasn't making a big mistake.
They went out around. The property was large, and though he couldn't say for certain where it ended, he was pretty certain he was still inside it when he brought the calves to a stop. He got off the horse this time. It wasn't just a day-trip, he would be out here the better part of three days. By the time he got back, Brady and Grant would be long gone.
Without much to do their last day, he guessed they would likely be packing up already. Glen wondered for a moment if Catherine would be more amenable to their help if they did the asking, and then dismissed it. Whatever they did was what they did, and whatever she asked them to do was her own business, as well, for that matter. It wasn't his place to butt in, and it wasn't his place to worry about.
When he got back, he'd see what had been done with his last few hours' worth of pay. If it was nothing, well, he'd at least managed to figure out more-or-less what he was doing on a daily basis.
With that, looking out over the cows, mostly standing still, and his mind turned to Catherine. She seemed insistent on trying to get him off the land. She must have gotten it into her head that he intended to have her kicked right off. How could he, though?
After what had happened to her, he was tempted to walk away and find some other way to make his life work. There weren't no sense in frustrating either of them. But he couldn't afford that. If he'd given himself a buffer, he wouldn't have been able to make this opportunity work for him.
Glen didn't like to play aggressive. He preferred playing safe. It was easy to get away with a modest amount of money from a table if you were cautious. It was much, much easier to lose it again if you got greedy. But sometimes all-in was the only way to go.
That was the feeling he'd gotten when the deed passed into his hands, and Bill Howell had said the magic words: 'cattle ranch.'
Catherine let Ada sit in her lap while the twins were napping. She had a book open in front of her, one she'd already read twice, but she wasn't reading it this time. Ada turned the pages at odd intervals, which would have been frustrating if Catherine had been trying to read them.
Instead she couldn't get her mind off the problem that she was facing. Glen hadn't come home last night, which was a blessing by itself. She'd thought, one night away from his slender hips, broad shoulders, and manly face, and maybe she'd be able to sleep through it.
But the visions, the imagining, had come all the same. As if he'd been right there in the room with her, never mind in the barn. Worse, though, was the knowledge that with a whim she could be turned out of her house, and there wasn't a whole lot she could do about it.
Legally, she was a squatter. On his property. If he turned her out, she didn't have much in the way of place to keep her cows. She was holding a hot potato. Once the cows were big enough to sell, then she'd be fine, but until then she would have to worry about what happened if suddenly she had to find another place for them.
There had to be some way to pin him down, to make him let her stay. She was a smart woman. She'd had a good schooling back home, and there was no reason to figure that she wouldn't be able to figure it out.
After all, she had solved bigger problems. She had figured out what to do with the broken pieces of her life after Billy left. She'd paid off the massive debts that winter had incurred. She'd even started thinking about becoming a real ranch again, getting a few hands to help around the place.
She could offer him rent, but with the money she had… it wasn't going to be a pleasant prospect. Twenty dollars a month wouldn't be the worst in the world, and she could pay through winter up-front.
It wasn't as if there was too little space for them. With the herd he'd brought in, he could practically pasture the cows still in the paddock, if she took hers and left. But still, that was money she could use. Money she needed. Ada started coughing in her lap, hard. She wasn't
