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Kent listened, relaxing slightly. “I’m hopeful Alice told you why I’m here?”
“Alice? No. I saw you grab that dog out of your wagon and head to the barn. I’m pretty capable of putting two and two together. Whose dog is it?”
Good, he had firm ground to stand on in that case. “Blake and Hannah’s. Whoever they purchased it from weaned him a little too soon and he’s not handling the change well.”
“Some animals don’t.” Gideon passed him and headed for the dog. “Lilly.” He crouched near the dog and patted her head. “How about you take a look at this little guy? See if he meets your approval.” He motioned Kent forward.
Kent slowly placed the bundle of blankets and the puppy near the dog. The other puppies shied away, heading behind the security of their mother. Lilly leaned forward, sniffing the interloper. The weak dog raised its head slightly, bobbing its nose toward her.
Lilly pushed it away with her snout and gave a soft growl. Kent’s stomach plummeted. “Maybe if we wait until they’re nursing, we can sneak him in while she’s unaware?”
Gideon pulled up a stool from the other side of the barn where a cow stood, chewing her cud. He placed it a few feet away and lowered into it. “Not sure if she’ll take it. They are mostly eating scraps now.”
And if Colby, the little puppy, had been given one more week with his mother, he would be in the same happy state and ready to find a place away from his mother. “Alice was going to care for him if the dog didn’t take to him.”
“I haven’t seen her. I thought she went to Hannah’s this morning. You say she’s back?”
He nodded. “I brought her with me. Dr. Spight asked me to check in there, to see to the dog. Thank you for coming out. She mentioned Bodey wouldn’t welcome my presence, and I wasn’t sure what to do. Wandering around your place without good cause to be here wasn’t a good plan.”
“Seems like you have enough cause.” Gideon leaned back against the wall and watched the puppy as it slowly looked around.
Lilly wasn’t aggressively preventing it from coming near, but he had little energy to do more than sniff the area outside his ring of blankets. Kent lifted Colby and placed him by Lilly’s side. She sniffed him deeply, and he hoped she recognized and remembered Hannah’s scent, since the blankets had belonged to her.
Lilly licked Colby’s head but thwarted all his attempts to nurse. “I’ll have to warm a bottle for him. He needs to eat. Goat milk with a little sugar is what we were taught.”
“I don’t have a goat, but I have a cow.” Gideon thumbed over his shoulder at the cow tethered there. “We’ve had her for a few years now. Good animal.”
Kent nodded at it, recalling the Johlman’s had never kept a cow before. They’d always wanted to be able to claim they didn’t keep a single one, so Pa could never claim they’d stolen one. “I’m glad. It’s not quite what we need, but better than starving, I suppose.”
“I’ll go inside and have Mrs. Eliza warm some of the ewe milk we use for the lambs. That might be closer to goat's milk for you.”
“You’re sure Bodey won’t send me on my way if he comes out here?” He tugged down his bandana so he didn’t look like a robber. The barn was dark enough to hide most of his face, anyway.
“Pa has settled down quite a bit where you Douglases are concerned. He’ll wonder why you’re here, that’s certain. But he won’t toss you off without reason.”
“And it’s quite possible that this Douglas, being the Douglas who originally asked to be part of the family but isn’t, might give him reason enough to be angry.” And send him off the ranch without questioning him. If he’d been in Bodey’s place, a father to a daughter, and the same had happened, he’d blister the bounder first, then escort him off.
Gideon stopped in his tracks and turned, his face more deadly serious than he’d been the day he’d pounded Kent for picking on Alice over a decade before. His hands instinctively when to his hip and the gun at his side.
“Pa would have every right to ask you to leave, but he won’t. He wanted that union between the Johlmans and Douglases. But if that Douglas isn’t man enough and won’t stand up to even my pa . . . then he’s not man enough to stand up to the real threat, Louis Douglas.”
Kent lowered his hand and flexed his fingers to release the tension. “Armstrong is doing his best to control Pa. You shouldn’t see him again.”
Gideon narrowed his eyes and took a few paces back toward Kent. “I’m not worried about Louis or Armstrong. I haven’t seen either of them in months. I’m talking about you. If you want to be part of this family, then you need to be a man and face what you’ve done and what you’ve said.” He turned on his heel, leaving Kent in the barn to wait for his return.
Leo appeared behind him from the entrance by the cow. “I couldn’t help but hear.”
Kent threw his hands out. “And should I leave?”
“I never asked you to. Tell me about Louis.” He motioned Kent to the side.
Instead, he headed back over to Colby, who made a valiant effort to make nice with Lilly, but it was having no effect. “Pa isn’t acting right in the head. They asked me to come home to watch him as if I might be able to help, but I know nothing. They’re afraid to ask Dr. Spight to come out because of the things Pa says. I worry every day that he’ll get loose and come over here.”
Leo sat on the stool his brother had left behind. “Thank you for the warning. Everything has been so quiet, we assumed the worst was over.”
Kent slowly shook his head. “I fear the worst is yet to come.”
* * *
