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He searched the crowd on the sidewalk for Ben. He’d need to talk to him—and Betsey. He dreaded that conversation more than he did the one with Noah.
Untying the horse’s reins from the hitching post, he turned to Morning Dove. “Looks like we’re going home.” He climbed into the saddle and helped her up to sit behind him. If he walked the horse slow enough, he’d have enough time to work that apology he owed his family out in his head. If he was lucky, they would be as forgiving as his ma was.
Chapter Three
Aaron haltedthe horse at the top of the road and stared down at the small farm he’d spent the last twelve years calling home. It hadn’t changed a bit. Guilt gnawed at his gut seeing that it hadn’t.
He sucked in a breath and clicked his tongue to get the horse moving again. They ambled toward the house and was near the barn when the door opened and his brother, Nate, came racing out into the yard. He was all legs and arms, tall for a nine-year-old, and skinny to boot. He slid to a stop when he saw them, his eyes going a bit wide before he yelled, “Ma!” and took off toward the house. So much for an uneventful homecoming.
Sliding out of the saddle, he was reaching up to help Morning Dove down when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. When Morning Dove was steady on her feet he looked toward the barn and saw Noah staring at him. He held his gaze so long the uncomfortable silence started making his ears ring. Aaron cleared his throat. “Hey, pa.”
Noah had been caught in a barn fire during the war and half his face was covered in old scars so Aaron didn’t notice the strain on his step-father’s face until he’d called him pa, then the tightnessaround his mouth loosened up and something in his eyes brightened. The knot clenched in his chest let go a bit at seeing the change.
His brother’s voice filled the silence and they all turned as Keri and Sophie Ann ran toward him. He was enveloped in more hugs and kisses and his face was heated clean to his ears by the time they’d stopped fussing.
“I’m so glad you decided to come home.” His mother’s eyes filled with tears again. “Please tell me you’re staying?”
“Depends.” They all seemed to notice Morning Dove at the same moment and his mother smiled.
“There’s plenty of room for both of you if that’s what you mean.”
He released a pent-up breath and nodded. He cast a quick glance at Noah, who still hadn’t said anything, then turned back to his mother. “Then we’re staying.” He turned and said, “This is Morning Dove,” before introducing her to the rest of his family. When the silence and open stares at Morning Dove grew uncomfortable, his brother blurted out, “Do all Indians have strange names?”
Keri gasped. “Hush, Nathaniel. There’s no reason to be rude.”
“I wasn’t being rude. Just asking.” Nate folded his arms over his chest.
Morning Dove took no offense to the question. “Most of my people have names very different from—like the names you choose for infants. My mother said a dove was the first thing she saw when I was born. It was sitting on a branch as the sun climbed over the mountain so, that’s how I came to be Morning Dove.”
“It’s beautiful,” his mother said. The look on her face said she wasn’t just saying it to make up for Nate’s blunt question, either. She held out her hand toward Morning Dove and said, “Come. You look tired. Supper is nearly done. You can rest until then.”
Morning Dove gave him a questioning look. “It’s all right,” hesaid. “I’ll be there in a few minutes. I need to see to the horse first.”
Something similar to fear filled Morning Dove’s eyes until Sophie Ann came closer. “Come on. If you stay out here pa will have you mucking out stalls.” She held out her hand and waited until Morning Dove took a step closer to her before she started prattling on like Sophie usually did when company came calling.
Aaron watched them until they disappeared into the house, then sucked in a breath. This was the part he’d been dreading since deciding to come back home.
He looked back at the man who’d raised him. Noah still hadn’t said a word. By the look in his eyes, he wasn’t sure he had any plan to do so. “I know saying I’m sorry won’t ever be enough—“
“—It is.”
Aaron stared in silence as Noah crossed the barnyard to where he stood and laid a hand on his shoulder, his eyes a bit too bright. “I’m sorry for what I said as well. We were both wrong that day and there’s no need to rehash it. You’re home and that’s all that matters.”
Noah took the horse’s reins and led him into the barn. Aaron followed behind him, noticing the slight limp Noah now had. The guilt flooded back when in remembering the day Noah had fallen, the break to his leg so bad the bone had come clean through his skin … and the total ass he’d made of himself at having to skip out on Holden Avery’s cattle drive to stay home and tend to things around here. That fussing turned into full-blown screaming matches and sneaking away to meet with Betsey had been the only thing that kept him sane. Or it had until the day the yelling had grown to the point he was sure, looking back on it, he was seconds away from having his head thumped in a way he’d not recover from. If his ma hadn’t stepped in and slapped his face when she did to put a halt to the argument—
He sighed. He didn’t even like thinking about it. He’d neverfelt the red-hot surge of anger he’d felt that day and he hoped he never did again.
The interior of the barn was cool, the light muted until the corners were painted in dark splotches. The scent of new hay was strong and walking further inside, he saw it stacked near the back wall. A few shafts of light filtered in from the holes in the roof and his old friend guilt came kicking back inside his gut. Helping fix the roof had been a simple request but you would have thought Noah had asked him to rebuild the entire building with the ruckus he’d caused. Looking back on it, he realized he’d been acting like an immature jackass, just like Noah said he was.
Noah had already started unhooking the straps on the saddle when he turned his attention back to him. “I can do that.”
“I don’t mind.” Noah loosened all the straps. “If I stay in the house too long your ma always finds some chore for me to do and I have enough of them as it is.” He was smiling as he said it, the first he’d seen on his face in over a year. He lifted the saddle and laid it across the rail, reaching back for the blanket across the horse’s back. “There’s fresh feed and oats over in the bin. Go fetch some while I get him brushed down.”
They worked in silence tending to his horse, the wind whistling through the loose boards on the side of the barn—and those gaping holes in the roof. He eyed them all, making a mental note of where they all were so he could fix them like he’d been asked to do all those months ago. He would have thought they’d be fixed by now but with the way Noah was limping, climbing the ladder and walking around on that rickety old roof had probably sent his ma into fits and demanded he let it go. And Noah—being the kind of man he was—wouldn’t ask for help from anyone. The Avery’s would have been over here in hours had he asked but his pa was a proud man, quiet, and still, after all these years, kept to himself.
“Was your old homestead still standing?”
Aaron was pulled from his musing at Noah’s voice. He hungthe bucket of feed where the horse could reach it and nodded. “Yeah, it was still standing but just barely. Uncle Robert either destroyed it before he left or it’s falling down from neglect.” If he had been a betting man, he’d say his uncle destroyed it. “There wasn’t much left of the place when I got there. I bunked in the house for a few nights then moved on. It would take me a year to get the place livable again on my own and …“ And it hadn’t felt like home anymore. He’d taken off in a fit of rage to start over. Was hell-bent and determined to make it on his own but couldn’t seem to get the faces of his family out of his head. Or the reminder of all the broken hearts and tears he’d caused.
