Sean grinned. “So he’s here.”
Kate nodded. “He’s inside.”
They whooped and took off running toward the house. Leaving her calling to the empty barn, “He won’t stay long.”
Kate could hardly keep up with the flow of conversation during dinner. Sean and Ellie were coming up with question after question about what it was like to be a cowboy. Nathan didn’t seem to mind but his answers were becoming slower and his eyes seemed to hold the pain he disguised in his face. At the moment, he was smiling. “Of course I’ll teach you to lasso.”
Kate raised a hand to silence the celebration. “I hate to ruin your fun, but Nathan needs some rest. He’s tired and I’m sure he’s in pain. Why don’t you two finish eating while I show him to the barn?”
Neither Ellie nor Sean protested, but instead looked at their newfound hero with concern. Kate lit a candle as the two said good-night to Nathan, who then stepped outside. She waited for the door to close behind them before apologizing, “I still don’t feel right about you sleeping in the barn. What if you start feeling worse?”
“I’ll be fine,” he returned optimistically. “I’ve gotten over worse injuries than this.”
At the barn, she turned to light a lantern hanging there. “I left a few blankets out here earlier for you. Is there anything else you need?”
He was quiet for a moment and she turned to find him staring thoughtfully at his boots with his right hand in his pocket.
“Nathan, are you all right?”
“I was thinking.” He glanced up and shrugged. “I’ve bothered you enough. I don’t need anything else.”
“I’ll have to bother you for a moment. Doc told me to check your eyes before you went to sleep,” she explained.
He nodded and seemed amused though Kate couldn’t fathom why. She simply ignored him and did as Doc had instructed her. She lifted the lantern so that it was near his eye level, then raised its wick until it was very bright. She waited as he tipped his chin down to give her a clear view of his eyes while she stared at what Doc Williams called his pupils.
They quickly grew smaller as the bright candlelight reached them. Finally, she lowered the wick to a small flame and watched his pupils widen slightly. She couldn’t help noticing that he had beautiful eyes. They were coffee brown but tinged with gold with a slight ring of gold encircling his pupil. She took a quick step back.
Thankfully, he couldn’t know that she’d gotten distracted by something as basic as his eyes’ color. “They seem normal. How do you feel? Do you have a headache? Do you feel as though you’re going to throw up or anything?”
He frowned. “I have a slight headache but my stomach is fine.”
“Are you dizzy?”
“No.”
She looked down. “Don’t you think you should sleep inside for just this one night?”
“Kate, I’ll be fine.”
She frowned. “Well, if you’re sure.”
He nodded. “I’m sure. Thank you, Kate.”
“Good night, then,” she said, already stepping backward to leave.
“Good night,” he returned sincerely.
She took another step backward, almost reluctant to pull from his warm gaze before she turned away. Reaching the door, she paused to glance over her shoulder at him. He smiled gently. Her lips tipped into an answering smile before she stepped into the warm night air.
She hadn’t known he was coming, she hadn’t wanted him to stay but somehow, oddly, it was nice to have him there.
Chapter Four
The stalks of wheat seemed to whisper to each other about the stranger she led through the paths of their uniformed rows. Kate tucked an escaping tendril behind her ear, then turned to look for Nathan. Why he cared to tour a farm he wouldn’t stay at for more than a few days was beyond her.
Apparently he found it fascinating because he’d been lagging behind since they’d started. Every time she turned around he’d stopped to look at something new. If he didn’t hurry up she’d be late starting lunch, which would probably put her behind on the chores for the rest of the day.
She spotted him a few yards away kneeling in the dirt to get a better look at the wheat head in his hand. She smiled at the confused frown that marred his face. “You really don’t know much about wheat, do you?”
He glanced up, then slowly rose to his feet as though the movement pained him. No doubt that was a result of him throwing himself in front of the horse to save her. Maybe she should cut him some slack. She glanced up at the sky to gauge the sun and realized it was still before noon. She had more time than she thought.
“I grew up on a cattle ranch in Oklahoma so wheat and I haven’t been much more than nodding neighbors,” he said as stepped up beside her.
She glanced at him in surprise. “You’re from Oklahoma?”
“I guess you thought I was from Texas.” At her nod, he grinned. “I’ll take that as a compliment. But yes, I grew up in Rutledge, Oklahoma, with an older brother and three younger sisters.”
She stopped walking and turned to him with a suspicious smile. “Wait. You grew up in Rutledge. Does that mean your family owned the town?”
“That means my pa owned the land the town was built on. He was a cattle baron and he wasn’t much interested in running a town.” He took off his Stetson and fiddled with its brim. “He wasn’t especially interested in anything else, either.”
“I’m sorry,” she said softly.
“For what?”
“You said ‘he was.’ I guess that means he passed away.”
His confused frown lifted into an amused smile. “I should have said ‘is.’ He isn’t dead. At least, he wasn’t the last I heard.”
“It sounds like it’s been a while since then,” she said as they continued walking toward the end of the field.
He put his Stetson back on. “My folks weren’t pleased when I left for Texas to become a cowboy. I haven’t heard much from them since then.”
“That has to be hard.”
He shrugged away her concern. “A man can get used to almost anything, given the chance. It helped being on the trail. You get so caught up in being busy that it’s easy to forget how alone you are.”
“So that’s what you did before you came here? You were a cowboy?”
He shrugged. “Nothing else worked out.”
He was intentionally being vague and she knew it. She figured since he was living on her farm, she had a right to a real answer. “What didn’t work out?”
He was quiet for a long moment, then turned to meet her gaze. “I met two brothers while I was on the trail. We became really good friends and decided to start a horse ranch. I was in charge of training the horses. I loved it. I thought I’d found my calling. Things were great for a while, then they turned bad—real bad. We lost the ranch. There’s nothing left of it now.”
She bit her lip. “That’s what you meant about God scattering your plans to the wind, isn’t it?”
“Pretty much.”
“What happened to your friends?”
He frowned then tugged his Stetson farther down. “One of them died. The other one didn’t end up being such a good friend after all.”
“I’m sorry