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Now, she was at church, looking far too fetching for Josh’s liking. If only she hadn’t been wearing those ridiculous trousers, she would have looked like any other pretty young woman enjoying a pleasant spring morning.
Of course, Gabi rushed over to Rena and hovered close to her like a bee buzzing around a honeycomb.
Part of him felt jealous as Gabi settled close to Rena on the church pew. They’d barely finished the opening hymn when Gabi leaned on Rena’s arm and fell asleep. He reached for his daughter, but Rena shook her head, acting like it was the most natural thing in the world to hold Gabi close to her side. The tender way Rena cared for his little girl made his heart feel like melted butter.
Rena looked lovely with her hair in a fashionable style. Instead of the loose shirts he’d seen her wearing on past occasions, she had on a feminine floral shirtwaist and a tailored jacket that accented a womanly figure. That figure became prominently outlined after the service when Rena bent over to speak to Gabi and he got a full view of her from the back. His mind jumped off the track and started chugging away in a direction it had no business going before he even realized what was infiltrating his mind.
Shamed with himself, he yanked his thoughts in line and kept them there all the way to the Milton home on the outskirts of town.
Annoyed with himself and his inability to stop staring at Rena, he’d found it impossible to concentrate on anything at lunch except how Rena’s face transformed from attractive to beautiful when she laughed at something one of the children said or smiled at a comment made by one of the other women.
When Jace asked her what she planned to do now that she’d settled in and she mentioned working with Theo at the mine, Josh nearly choked on the bite he’d just taken. He’d assumed, quite in error it seemed, she’d stay at Theo’s cabin and shoot more holes into hearts she’d drawn on targets. The realization she was not only doing a man’s job but a dangerous one, pushed him beyond reason.
As soon as the children and men went outside, Josh cornered Theo out by the barn, giving him a piece of his mind with fists clenched at his sides. If he’d held a club in his hands, he might have thumped Theo with it like an enraged cavedweller.
“Have you lost every last speck of your common sense?” he growled at his friend, not wanting anyone else to hear. It was a good thing the others were leaning against the corral fence on the other side of the barn, looking at a horse R.C. had recently acquired.
“Not last I checked.” Theo turned from watching the children play and frowned at him. “What’s tying a knot in your rope today, Josh? You’ve looked like you sucked on sour lemons since church let out. Didn’t the pastor’s sermon sit well with you this morning?”
Josh tensed. “The sermon was fine,” he barked, then realized he hadn’t listened to most of it with his attention centered on Rena and Gabi.
“Then what’s eating at you?” Theo’s frown deepened. “You act like I’ve gone out of my way to rile you.”
“You haven’t … it’s not …” Josh paused to try to gather his erratic thoughts into some semblance of order. “I don’t like Rena working at the mine. It’s no place for a lady. And why on earth can’t that girl wear a skirt to church like a normal female?”
Theo’s eyebrows shot up so high, they both disappeared beneath the hat he’d settled on his head when they’d come outside.
“First off, Rena has her reasons—good reasons—for choosing to wear trousers. No one had better insult her by telling her otherwise, or they’ll answer to me. Secondly, I don’t see how Rena’s work is any concern of yours. She’s doing a good job and earning every penny they pay her, so why do you care?” Theo took a step closer to Josh, hands fisted, as though he prepared to defend Rena’s honor.
The realization that he had feelings for Rena and worried about her well-being, made Josh even more irate. “I don’t care!” he yelled, then lowered his voice when everyone looked in their direction. Even as the words came out of his mouth, he knew they were a lie. He cared. Far too much, and that was the problem. “I just—”
Before he said something he shouldn’t, he spun around and marched off. A brisk walk was what he needed to clear his head. He strode from one end of Holiday to the other and back, but he was still agitated when he returned to the Milton home.
Rather than join the men as they watched the children play games in the yard, Josh walked around to the back of the house and silently entered through the kitchen door. He poured a glass of lemonade and glugged it in a few swallows, then he heard the women’s voices and couldn’t stop himself from eavesdropping as Rena told her story.
He heard the raw pain in her voice as she spoke, the shared grief as the others assured her, and the sound of all of them crying as Rena finished the terrible tale of what had happened to her.
George Stafford was fortunate he was all the way in Texas, or Josh might have hunted him down and pummeled his face a few times. He sincerely hoped the curses Henley jokingly cast upon the spineless coward all came to pass. It would serve the mindless idiot right for leaving Rena when she most needed a friend.
What she’d survived was a tragedy, but he thought she’d likely come away from it a stronger person. It was absurd for her to think all men would be like the one who’d abandoned her and that God had all but forsaken her.
He longed to join the women as they offered words of encouragement to Rena, but he remained in the hallway, feeling like a lurking sneak.
Before anyone caught him, he turned to head back to the kitchen and outside when a floorboard creaked beneath his feet. He froze in place, fearing one of the women would hop up and see him lingering in the hall.
Then the children poured inside, followed by the men, saving him from a wealth of embarrassment if one of the women had peeked around the doorway and spied him. He blended into the group with no one knowing he’d heard a story not intended for his ears.
Any joy the day might have held dissipated the moment he heard Rena explaining why she wore trousers.
Josh had wanted to go to Rena, to speak from his heart, but he wouldn’t. Not only would she realize he’d been listening when he shouldn’t have been, but he wasn’t prepared to make any declarations to her beyond being her friend.
Distraught, he took Gabi home and tried to act as though everything was normal, but nothing was.
Three days later, he was still brooding as he stood over a piece of leather on his worktable. He’d been trying for an hour to concentrate enough to cut out the pieces for a new saddle the marshal had ordered, but so far, he hadn’t accomplished more than picking up his tracing pencil.
“What is he thinking?” Josh asked the question aloud, although he was alone in his shop. “Surely Theo has more sense than to let Rena continue to work at the mine.”
He stood and blew out his breath.
