Jillian Hart - Montana Wife

That’s how she felt now. She was no longer that child in a strange new world, but she had lost her anchor. Kol. Her strong, life’s companion who had made her feel safe and protected. No matter what happened, she’d known they would see it through together.

I’ve lost your crop, Kol. When she most wanted to feel his arm around her, pulling her near, there was only a cool gust of wind at her nape. She shivered and set the gloves aside.

Daniel stood in the wide threshold of the barn, shoulders squared, feet planted, a dark, solitary man outlined by the white flash of lightning and the black void of sky and prairie. He had to be thinking of his fields and of his future.

He could have been harvesting his wheat instead of hers. He would have been better off if he had been. Rayna eased off the wagon seat, ignoring the sting and burn of her overused muscles, moving toward that lone silhouette.

How could she ever return in kind what he’d sacrificed for her family?

She curled her fingers around the wet wood of the door frame and cool rain sluiced down her skin. She shivered. The icy wind drilled into her bones. She felt as if the marrow were bleeding out of her. She didn’t know what to say to Daniel.

Lightning split the world of night and storm into pieces, giving a quick glimpse of the wind battering the sea of grain, now only reeds of straw.

“Rayna?” A steely hand clasped her shoulder, a strange grip. “Are you all right? You look ready to faint. Maybe you ought to sit down.”

Daniel guided her to a hay bale for her to rest on. He seemed distant and tentative as he ran his hand down the length of her arm, his touch foreign and yet gentle. He cradled her hand in his.

“You’re bleeding.” He traced the edge of her bandage with his large thumb. “I can’t do anything about your wheat. I’m sorry. But I can take care of this.”

“You lost your wheat, too. Everyone around here—” Her throat tightened and she fell silent. It was too much to manage. She would think about the effects of the storm tomorrow. “Where’s Kirk? I ought to be helping him. I need my gloves, so I can shovel—”

“No.” He released her hands and, when he rose, she shivered. He’d been blocking the wind. It hit her full-force, bringing mist from the rain to wet her face like tears.

The next time she saw him, he was carrying her oldest son against his chest like a child. Fast asleep, the boy’s white-blond hair was tousled and sweaty, his rangy form slack with exhaustion. Daniel carried him to the house without a word.

Gratitude broke inside her like ice shattering and leaving nothing but emptiness in its wake. She was grateful for the man’s kindness. His hard work.

Kirk had worked himself past his endurance today. Is this what lay ahead for him? Being forced to do the work of a man, when what he deserved was the rest of his childhood?

I’ll simply have to rent out the land, she realized. Daniel had certainly earned the right to that. With the rental income, would it be enough to cover her living expenses?

She had no idea; Kol had insisted on handling all their finances. He hadn’t wanted her to worry, he’d said, and since calculating the profit to be made in planting an extra field of corn instead of wheat was his decision to make, she’d left it to him.

She’d had that much faith in him.

A movement caught her attention. Daniel had returned, ambling through the shadows in the depth of the barn. The hammer strikes of rain on the roof, echoing through the night, hid the sound of his approach. The cloying darkness of the storm hid the bulk of what he gripped in one hand. He knelt before her and the razor’s edge of lightning flashed white across his granite features.

“You had a lot depending on this harvest,” she guessed.

He said nothing as he reached for her hand. The chilly whisper of metal whisked along her skin.

Raw pain made her eyes tear. The bandage fell away.

There was a clink as Daniel let go of the scissors. “Do you even have any skin left? You need a doctor to look at this.”

How much did a house visit cost? She had no notion. Or if she could pay. “It’s not bad. Just a little blistering.”

“The same way there’s just a little breeze outside.” Instead of scolding her, he uncapped a tin he’d found on a kitchen shelf. “This may sting a bit.”

He bent to his work, ignoring the woman-and-rain scent of her. Ignoring the way soft wisps of her hair danced against his cheek and the satin warmth of her hand in his.

Respect for her expanded inside his chest. Or maybe it was tenderness he felt as he laid a fresh square of clean cotton on her wounds. Tenderness he dared not give thought to as the rain turned to hail, shattering the night.

T he tick-tick of the wall clock echoed like a ghost in the darkness, marking the minutes and chiming the hours as the void of midnight deepened and with it her despair. The papers she’d dug through every corner of Kol’s big rolltop desk to find lay like black moldering leaves on the kitchen table, rustling whenever the wind gusted, bringing with it cold from the north.

Rain came with the first shadows. Icy rain that shot from the black-gray sky to pummel at the siding and strike through the windows and wrestle with the maples in the yard outside. Their limbs scraped the leaves and made it seem as if the trees moaned in anguish.

Her heart made the same sound, locked deep in her chest where no one could hear it. As rain sluiced off the roof to plink in the flower beds at the house footings and smeared the polished floor to puddle at her bare feet, she couldn’t move. Like a stick of wood she sat there, the mist from the droplets spilling through the sill. The moisture dampened her face, stained the front of her work dress and crept up the hem of her skirt.

Maybe, if she stayed still enough, the space between one breath and the next could stretch forever. Then maybe time would forget to move forward. The clock’s pendulum would freeze. The next hour would not chime. The night would not end. The dawn could not come.

She’d rather remain in this emotionless night where her soul would not have to endure another lethal wound. Another loss so unthinkable she would not survive it.

But her heart beat, her lungs drew in air and the clock’s echoing tick pounded through her, loud and unstoppable. The rain turned to mist and fog as the dark became shadow, and the shadow twilight, and the twilight dawn.

A shadow lengthened on the floor, a shade darker than the room.

“Rayna?” Daniel’s voice. His big, awkward hand gripped her shoulder.

That was not the halo of the sun behind the horizon. She would will it back if she had to.

The shadow knelt beside her, warm substance of a man pulling her from her numb cold state as the crest of the sun peered over the rim of the prairie, the distant slate-blue hills topped by gold and peach.

The world seemed to take a breath as the dawn came and tender, newborn light painted the land, illuminating the miles upon miles of downed wheat, sodden and defeated.

Nothing of the harvest could be saved. Not even the stalks could be salvaged for straw.

Her sorrow was reflected in Daniel’s eyes. On his face. His hair was a pleasant dark brown, from farther away it had appeared black, and tangled from a night in the wind and rain.

The harsh, square cut of his hard jaw was stubbled with a night’s growth. His mouth was a severe line that did not yield as he turned from the endless acres of desolation. His boots squeaked on the wet floorboards as he straightened. His grip remained.

“Even with my losses, I can afford to lease your fields. You should be able to keep your house.”

The warm, steady grip of his hand on her shoulder remained, so different from Kol’s. Heat radiated through her cold shoulder and into her arm. Into her torso. Dawn’s light spilled through the window, too bright after a night of utter darkness and it thawed her, too. The clock marked the hour, chiming in a pleasant dulcet tone five times.