sit right with me. She always looks as though she expects I’m going to bite her head off.”
“I’m sure she’d rather you did that than telegraph the Boston police about her behind her back. If you’d just give her half a chance you’d soon see what a nice little thing she is.” Ruth concentrated on rethreading her needle. “I think you don’t like her because she reminds you too much of Marie.”
“Fiddlesticks.” Caleb scowled at the checkerboard as John handily won the game.
Had Caleb forgotten that he’d openly compared Jane to his late wife on the night she arrived? John wondered.
The men set up the board for a rematch, and for a while the kitchen was quiet except for the soft crackle of the fire in the stove and the click of checkers.
“She’s bound and determined not to go back East,” Ruth murmured at last, almost as though she was talking to herself.
John swallowed a grin. His sister had learned this trick from their aunt, Walks on Ice. Raising a subject again and again with a question here, a chance remark there, until she wore Bearspeaker down, like a hunting party trailing a wounded buffalo.
“I don’t reckon she has much to go back to, poor child.” Ruth shook her head.
His sister’s words hit John like a gunshot.
He knew perfectly well Jane Harris had nothing and no one waiting for her back in Boston. If he hadn’t been ambushed by painful memories from his past or terrified by his own involuntary confession, he might have paid closer attention when she’d told him about the deaths of her family.
Most folks might say it was a greater tragedy to have your parents murdered than to have them die of sickness or be lost at sea. Either way, they were still dead.
At least he’d had Ruth and their Cheyenne band. As far as he could tell, Jane Harris had been left completely alone in a pitiless city. All at once, John felt a sense of responsibility for this winsome little stray who’d landed here by mistake. Setting her adrift again in a few weeks’ time with the price of a train ticket out of their lives suddenly felt like a callous act of cruelty.
“We need to find her a husband,” said Ruth. “No reason a smart, pretty little woman like her couldn’t have her pick of the men around here.”
Part of John had to agree that it was a sensible plan. A less sensible part of him resisted the idea of marrying Jane Harris off.
“It’ll have to be a fellow who can look after her decently.” John pushed one of his checkers forward, and Caleb promptly hopscotched all over the board at his expense. “She’s not strong and she’s not used to this country.”
Exactly the opposite of what he’d need in a wife, if he could ever make up his mind to take one.
“Lionel Briggs has a good business,” volunteered Caleb. “An undertaker never lacks for work.” Jumping John’s last piece, he packed away the checkerboard and retired to his favorite chair by the stove.
“I wouldn’t wish a master like Lionel Briggs on a stray dog.” John shuddered at the thought of the liveryman’s cold hands on Jane. “Let alone husband for a lady like Miss Harris.”
Ruth nodded. “They say his first wife died just to get away from him. Besides, I want to invite any likely suitors out to the ranch for dinner to meet Jane. I doubt Mr. Briggs would want to darken our doorstep any more than I’d want him in my house.”
“On account of his pa being killed by the Pawnee?” Caleb lit his pipe and took a deep puff. “Good enough, then. Scratch Lionel off the list of husband candidates.”
“There’s the butcher, Mr. Lundburg,” suggested Ruth.
John shook his head. “He drinks.”
“Lou Lambert.” Caleb threw down the name like a challenge. “Hard worker. Churchgoer. Got a good spread.”
“And seven kids.” John stalked over to the stove and poured himself more tea. “Jane wouldn’t last a month.”
Several more possible suitors were proposed. John found some damning objection to every one.
Caleb shook his head. “We’re never going to get this gal married off if you’re going to be so particular.” He poked the stem of his pipe at John for emphasis. “It isn’t like she’s got a big dowry or comes from a fine family or is any raving beauty.”
John didn’t care for the knowing, slightly mocking glint in Caleb’s eyes that reminded him of the warning, “Be careful of this little maverick filly.”
Did Caleb think John was objecting to these other men because he wanted Jane Harris for himself? Why, if Ruth had put his name forward, he’d be the first to name a dozen reasons why he’d be wrong for Jane and she for him.
“Winslow Gray.” Ruth spoke the young doctor’s name in the same tone John had heard poker players announce a royal flush. She pinned her brother with a stare that dared him to find fault with her latest choice.
“He seems like a good enough fellow.” John wondered why he begrudged Dr. Gray this meager praise. “He hasn’t been in Whitehorn long, though, and nobody knows much about him.”
Caleb chuckled. “I’d say that makes him a perfect match for our Miss Harris. And if it turns out she isn’t anxious to stay in Montana, he’s got no ties to keep him here.”
“That’s settled then.” Ruth folded up her beadwork and laid it in her work basket of woven reeds. “When you go into town tomorrow, Caleb, drop by Dr. Gray’s dispensary and invite him out to dinner on Saturday night.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Caleb lavished a fond smile on his wife, and suddenly John felt like an outsider.
Would he ever experience that kind of bond with a woman? Where words were no longer necessary and a shared look could set them apart from the rest of humanity—in their own tiny kingdom with a population of two?
John realized his sister was speaking to him. What was she saying?
“I’ll expect you to praise Jane up to Dr. Gray when he comes to dinner.”
“You praise her. I’ll be out at Sweetgrass.”
“Go ahead, just be back in time for supper.”
He headed off to bed, muttering about bossy little sisters and trying to convince himself that Winslow Gray would make the perfect husband for Jane.
“We’re having company for supper tonight.” Ruth handed Jane a dinner plate to dry. “Why don’t you fish a pretty dress from Marie’s trunk and I’ll warm a couple of irons on the fire to press the wrinkles out of it?”
“Company?” said Jane in the same tone she might have said “Snakes?”
It had taken a while, but she’d finally grown accustomed to Ruth Kincaid’s family. Even her sometimes gruff husband and her often pensive brother. Jane no longer jumped or gasped when either of the men made a sudden move toward her. Her heart hardly sped up at all when one of them raised his voice. Now, the thought of a strange man at the supper table set her stomach aflutter.
Ruth nodded. “Caleb often takes pity on the bachelors and widowers in town and invites one of them out for a square meal. I think he remembers what it was like when he and Zeke had to shift for themselves to get a bite to eat in the evenings.”
“Of course,” murmured Jane. “That’s kind of him.”
How selfish to think only of how the presence of unfamiliar company would affect her, she chided herself. When this poor man was probably looking forward to a good, home-cooked meal after weeks of boardinghouse or saloon fare.
“We’ll eat in the dining room tonight,” said Ruth. “Put out the good china and silver. I’ll roast a nice rib of beef.”
“I could