It was time leave her alone.

“Thank you for taking care of Molly today,” he said, gathering the medical supplies he’d used. “I appreciate it.”

“It was nothing.”

“Nothing? You lost two perfectly good pies.”

She laughed. “And ended up with almost a dozen ramekins. So I think we’re okay.”

Brock stared at her a moment, dazzled. Her laugh was low and husky and perfectly beautiful.

She was absolutely beautiful.

Maybe too beautiful.

“Well, thanks again,” he said flatly, walking out, thinking that perhaps it was a good thing that Harley was leaving the day after tomorrow.

Harley was not an easy woman to have in his house.

She made him feel things and wish for things, and he wasn’t comfortable feeling and wishing. He wasn’t a man who hoped for things, either. Life was hard, and the only way to survive it was to be harder. Which is why he was raising his children to be smart, tough, and honest.

He’d never coddled Mack and Molly. He’d never read them fairy tales or indulged them at Christmas with holiday fuss, impossible wish lists, or trips to see a department store Santa.

And so, yes, it was an inconvenience to change housekeepers yet again, but better to change now, before Harley Diekerhoff had them all hoping and wishing for things that couldn’t be.

 


 

 

CHAPTER FIVE

 

 

The ranch hands devoured their beef roast and gravy, roasted potatoes, and braised root vegetables, before practically licking the little apple crisp ramekins clean, too.

Harley took the empty dishes and platters from Paul and Lewis, who brought the dishes back most nights, since they were the youngest hands, and low on the seniority totem pole.

“Everybody doing okay over there?” Harley asked, glad to see the youngsters on the doorstep, their scruffy faces ruddy from the cold. Paul and Lewis were nineteen and twenty respectively, still boys, and yet she’d discovered in her eleven days here, that these Montana boys knew how to work, and here on the ranch they certainly worked hard.

“Yes, ma’am,” Lewis answered with a shy grin, pushing up the brim of his hat. “We were all just saying that you take care of us like nobody’s business.”

“It’s my pleasure,” she answered, meaning it. She’d grown fond of these shy, tough cowboys, and she’d miss them when she left Saturday. It was on the tip of her tongue to mention that she was going but then she thought better of it. It wasn’t her place to break the news. Better let Brock tell them when he was ready.

“We made you something as a thank-you,” Paul said, reaching behind him and lifting a large hand-tied wreath made from fragrant pine. The green wreath had been wrapped with some barbed wire and decorated with five hammered metal stars, burlap bows, and miniature pine cones.

“It’s not fancy,” Paul added, “not like one of those expensive ones you’d buy in Bozeman at a designer store, but we all contributed to it. See? We each made a star and signed our name to it.” He pointed to a copper brown metal star in the upper left. “That’s mine. Paul. And there’s Lewis’s, just below mine, and JB’s, and the rest.”

“Hope you like it,” Lewis said. “And we hope you know how much we like having you here. We were also saying, if Maxine can’t come back in January, maybe you could just... stay.”

Both boys nodded their heads.

Harley smiled around the lump forming in her throat. “That’s so lovely,” she said taking the wreath and studying it in the light. “It’s beautiful. Thank you. Thank all the guys, will you? I’m really touched, and pleased.”

Paul blushed and dipped his head. “Glad you like it.” He hesitated. “There is one other thing...” Paul hesitated again. “Everything okay with Mr. Sheenan’s kids?”

“Why do you ask?” Harley asked.

“Earlier today Lew and me caught the twins trying to cut down a tree with an ax they found in the barn. The little girl was holding the branches back so the boy could chop the trunk. We were worried something would happen, he was swinging right over her head, and told them we’d help them if they wanted to cut the tree down. They said they didn’t need help so we left. But later the tree was still there, and the ax was on the ground, and we saw blood in the snow. We got worried they’d cut off their fingers or something.”

Harley’s stomach rose. Her heart fell. So that’s how Molly got hurt. She got hit by the ax.

Brock would flip.

The kids would be in so much trouble.

She struggled to smile. “The twins are fine, but thank you so much for checking on them. If you’ll tell me where they left the ax, I can go pick it up.”

“No need, we already did it,” Paul said. “And we finished cutting the tree down, too. We’d rather do it than see them get hurt. They’re just little kids still.”

Harley shut the kitchen door, wondering if she should tell Brock about the ax episode or not.