High Country Bride. Jillian Hart

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      “But you said you would stay to farm. You promised. You gave your word.”

      “Yeah, well, I hardly expected you to help me out if you knew.” Since she didn’t take the money, Lee tossed it at her. The wind snatched it and blew it away like a dry leaf. It stuck to the wall of sticker bushes growing along the road and flapped there, helplessly trapped.

      Joanna gulped hard. She fisted her hands, fighting to stay calm. Getting upset would not make this easier. “You lied to me. Lee, you’re my brother.”

      “Half brother. Take my advice and start packing. That banker’s not a nice man. He’ll put you and your young ones out by force. Do you want that?”

      A bead of sweat rolled down her spine. She shook her head once, but the horse was already trotting away, kicking up bits of earth and small rocks. In the matter of a few heartbeats, all that she could see of her brother was a thick cloud of dust.

      He’ll put you and your young ones out by force. The image of that tore through her and, without thought, she moved forward. She snatched the twenty dollar bill from the bush, ignoring the bite of scratches across her knuckles. She added the bill to the money Mr. McKaslin had given her. The sun was already sinking in the sky, the day more than half over. She had a lot to do if she wanted to spare her children any unpleasantness.

      Woodenly, she stumbled into the kitchen, checking through the open window to see them seated at the little battered wooden table, comfortably finishing their meals. The wind puffed James’s dark hair straight up like one big cowlick. Daisy sat as dainty and as dear as a princess.

      Lord, please help me to manage this well. For their sake. She might have prayed further for shelter and work and somewhere to go, but she’d learned from experience that the good Lord did not hear many of her prayers. So she kept them simple.

      “What’s for dessert, Ma?” James had hopped off his chair and stood at the window, happily watching her through the mesh screen.

      “You sit down and watch your sister, handsome, and I’ll bring you both big pieces of cake.”

      “Cake! I knew it.” Delight rounded his sweet face and he dashed the short distance back to his chair.

      That’s my answer, she realized as she found a knife and went to work on the cake hidden in the cellar to keep cool and fresh. This will be an adventure, a special trip. Not a scary life living out of the wagon. They would be explorers, like in the book she was reading to them, a few pages at a time, at night.

      She swallowed all her fears and worries, put a smile on her face and cut two huge slices of cake. Her mind was busy making plans of how to pack and what they would take as she pushed her way through the screen door.

      Two darling faces turned toward her in sheer delight. “Cake!”

      She knew from sad experience that the Lord might not provide for them, but she would find a way.

      Chapter Two

      If it wasn’t one problem to deal with, it was another. Aiden McKaslin drew his horse to a halt and squinted into the long rays of the setting sun.

      Sure enough, there at the edge of his property, just inside the boundary fence, was a squatter. A covered wagon huddled in the shelter of an old maple. Judging by the fraying cover, it had seen better days. The smoke from a newly lit fire rose thick and unsteady from a tidy circle of stones.

      What with the glare of the sun, and the shadows the tree made on the ground, he couldn’t see a living soul. Just two horses nipping at the growing grass.

      He yanked his Winchester from the saddle holster by its barrel and cocked it with one hand. Aiden carried the weapon mostly for the wild predators that got to eyeing his livestock for dinner now and again. But when he ran into trouble of the human sort, he was doubly glad he always rode armed. He’d had trouble like this before, and experience taught him that squatters were mostly criminals.

      He hated trouble, but the law was a good five miles away, so he approached the camp with caution, studying the lay of things with a careful eye. There was wearing of the earth around the stubborn tufts of grass at the creek bank. The careful sweeping of footprints out of the dirt seemed to be a clue that whoever was staying here might not want to leave a sign of how many of them there were. The trampled grass around the wagon was another hint—still fresh, but with significant usage.

      What if the men were dangerous? Aiden drew his horse to a stop and considered. He was out in the open now. Too late to retreat. Trouble like this had occurred early last year, and a ranch hand had been shot and left for dead by squatters. They’d never been caught. Thankfully, the hired man had survived.

      Aiden would rather deal with dangerous wildlife anyday than a pack of armed criminals.

      Then he saw something in the dust by the right rear wagon wheel. He leaned forward in the saddle, squinted a bit and realized it was a small, crudely carved wooden horse—a child’s toy. A child’s toy? Not what he’d figured on finding here in a squatter’s camp. Then he heard a rustle, and a puff of dust rose from beneath the wagon.

      He lowered the hammer and the rifle. “Is your pa around?”

      A round face peered between the spokes of the wheel. “Nah. He rode away to heaven.”

      Aiden studied the wide brown eyes and dark hair sticking straight up, recognizing the child. The widow’s kid who had lived on the neighboring ranch for a spell. Probably another sad story, he figured as he dismounted. He was learning that life was full of sad stories. Even though he’d lost his heart long ago, and there was nothing but an empty hole where it had been, he steeled himself. He didn’t want to feel a thing, and he knew this situation was going to be full of sadness. “Your ma then?”

      “She said not to talk to nobody. Shh, Daisy.” There was more rustling and the boy drew back.

      To his surprise, a little girl with white-blond hair held back with a bright pink ribbon crawled out from beneath the wagon bed. She brushed the dust off her skirt primly. “Ma didn’t say I couldn’t talk to nobody.”

      Aiden couldn’t rightly say that he wasn’t affected by that cute little girl. Such a wee thing, not much to her at all, and living out of a covered wagon. The little boy crawled out, too, looking annoyed with his younger sister. He drew himself up tall—he couldn’t be more than seven or eight years old—and scolded his sister for not minding.

      They hadn’t been living here long, Aiden decided as he glanced around. Everything was neat and tidy, and a woman’s presence might explain the swept dirt. While he didn’t have the best opinion of most women, he’d learned even the worst of them liked to dust and sweep with a vengeance.

      The little boy was shaking his finger at his sister. “Ma said to stay hid. You oughtn’t to be talking to strangers.”

      “Are you a stranger?” The little girl gazed past her brother and straight into Aiden’s eyes.

      He choked a little, feeling a gnawing of something in his chest. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like feelings. Life was too hard for them. A smart man didn’t give in to them. He set his jaw tight and answered between clenched teeth. “Your brother is right. You ought to mind him.”

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