resemble the villain of the tale. His tail twitched as his eyes narrowed on Peter.
“No,” John told him. “Down, boy.”
Dottie looked at him in obvious amazement. “Does he obey you like a dog?”
He shrugged. “I thought it was worth a try.”
She shook her head, then crouched on the rug and held out a hand to the cat. Brian refused to so much as glance in her direction. He busied himself licking his white mitten paws.
“Where did you get a cat out here?” she asked. “I’d think they’d get eaten by foxes.”
“I found him in my barn,” John told her, edging back from the cat in case Brian did have designs on Peter. “Pitiful thing, more bones than muscle. Some of our neighbors had cats, so Beth and I thought he might have escaped from a litter nearby. She named him after the knight in Ivanhoe, the one who couldn’t decide whether he was a hero or a villain. I think she was hoping to keep him, but he seems to have attached himself to me.”
As if to disprove it, Brian raised his head and let out another hiss, ears going back and eyes narrowing.
Dottie stood and glanced at Peter. The baby had started at the noise. Now he giggled. Dottie drew in a breath.
John wasn’t nearly so pleased. The cat had been good company when he’d lived here alone, but Brian, like many of his kind, tended to do as he pleased. And he seemed to feel John was his personal companion. Would he attack Dottie or the baby? John wouldn’t feel comfortable putting the cat out of the house on a permanent basis, but neither did he feel comfortable leaving Brian alone with Dottie and her son.
Dottie crouched again, ran her fingers along the rug. Brian watched each movement as if fascinated. Once more, John tensed.
“That might not be a good idea,” he murmured.
Dottie didn’t respond. Instead, she held out her hand again.
Brian eyed her a moment more, then his face and ears relaxed and his back came down. He wandered up to Dottie and ran his back under her fingers.
“Sweet kitty,” she crooned. “Darling kitty.”
As Brian turned for another pass, he glanced up at John as if to say See? This is how it’s done.
Dottie gave the feline another pat before rising in a whisper of wool. “I think we’ll get along just fine.”
So it seemed. But, for the first time, John wondered just how many things would change in his life with Dottie and Peter at Wallin Landing.
John Wallin had a cat.
Dottie wasn’t sure why that surprised her so much. Perhaps it was because most of the men of her acquaintance preferred dogs, and then for hunting or protection. The majority of the felines she’d known had been barn cats at her parents’ farm. They’d been wild, rangy things, used to hunting for their dinner. John claimed Brian de Bois-Guilbert served the same function here. She found that hard to believe. A lady at the apartment building in Cincinnati had had a cat she treated with the utmost courtesy. Brian had the same sleek, overfed, self-satisfied look.
Of course, for all Dottie knew, Beth had been the one doing the pampering. Dottie must not allow this whimsy to sway her opinion of John. Only time would tell if he was truly a gentleman worth trusting.
“It will just take me a minute to lead the horses to the barn, bring in your things and pack up mine,” John told her now. He held out Peter to her.
That he seemed to be very good at cradling her son was another mark in his favor. Some people had no idea how to treat an infant. She’d had to learn, first from her helpful neighbor Martha Duggin at the apartment building in Cincinnati, and then from Mrs. Gustafson on the boat. Now, as the baby passed between them, John’s fingers brushed her arm, as soft as a caress. A tingle ran through her, and she stepped back lest he notice her reaction. She had to remember that a handsome face and a fine physique were no match for character. She was glad when he nodded respectfully and left the room. A moment more, and she heard the front door open as he must have gone out to the wagon.
Why did the room seem so empty without him?
She was used to emptiness, but she’d been a bit dismayed to find the land outside of Seattle so remote, the farms few and scattered. Beth’s stories had made Wallin Landing sound so alive and vibrant. Dottie had needed to believe in a place like that. After Frank had left her, she’d felt so isolated. But now that she understood how far away the place was from Seattle, she could only wonder whether her isolation would be worse here.
Still, she could not deny that she felt welcome in John’s house. The scrubbed wood floors gave off a patina that was reflected in the whitewashed walls and ceiling. The carved bench that served as the main seat for the parlor was draped with a quilt done in shades of brown and green, and the hearth was of rounded stones, browns and grays and whites, with splashes of gold almost the color of Brian’s hair.
The cat strolled back and forth around her skirts, setting the wool to swinging. Peter reached out a hand as if he longed to touch the softness.
“He’s a very handsome fellow, isn’t he?” Dottie asked. Then she clamped her lips shut. She’d become accustomed to talking to Peter, even before he was born. After Frank had left her with the threat that she should keep quiet or else, she’d stayed in the apartment for days. Talking to her unborn baby had been the only way to stay sane. But if John Wallin had heard what she’d said right now, he might think she was talking about him!
Although she would have been speaking the truth. He was a handsome fellow.
Dottie raised her chin. “Come along, Peter. If we’re going to live here, we might as well know where everything is.”
She started in the kitchen at the back of the house, Brian strolling along beside her. The cast-iron stove along one wall stood between a cupboard and a wood box, both well filled. Copper pots and tin pans hung on the wall on either side. The wood table across from it could seat four, and she wondered who else might join him on occasion. The gingham curtains on the window overlooking the barn had been tied back with bows.
Beth must have done that.
“I’ll be able to cook here,” she told Peter, smiling down at his beaming face. “I can make you applesauce. Would you like that?”
Brian meowed as if he thought it sounded like a fine idea.
She returned down the corridor, heading for the bedroom across the entry from the parlor, and again the cat accompanied her. She felt a little odd peeking into John’s room, but if the upstairs was full of curing furs, she would have no other choice than to sleep here. She was pleased to see the room contained a large bed made from hewn logs. The blue-and-green quilt in a block pattern looked thick and warm. Brian jumped up and dug his claws into it as if to prove as much. With a quick look out the window to make sure John had taken the wagon around to the barn and couldn’t see her, she bounced on the mattress. Not too soft and not too hard. Good.
There was also a trunk at the foot of the bed, the beautifully carved top showing an owl sweeping out over a forest with the moon riding high above. She traced the bird’s flight with one hand. “Look at this, Peter. Do you know what the owl says? Who-hoo.”
Peter pursed his mouth as if he could make such a sound, but nothing came out.
Might as well say “what-what.” What was she doing here so far from home? How could she make a way for her son with no husband, no employment?
From the back of the house, something clanked. Had John come in a back door instead of the front?
Brian’s head snapped up, then he leaped off the bed and darted under it.
A shiver ran up Dottie’s spine. She glanced out the window again but caught