Chapter Sixteen

They prepared to leave at first light. It was agreed that it was better if Fiona found out after the fact. Ellie filled a sack with cold ham, wedges of sharp cheese, hard-boiled eggs, and a thick heel of bread. It fit snugly into Remington’s saddlebags. Phoebe filled two canteens with cool fresh water.

Only Thaddeus knew their destination. Ellie asked once, but when neither of them was forthcoming, she let it drop. None of the ranch hands showed any particular interest when they headed out except for Arnie Wilver, who commented good-naturedly that from where he stood, Remington’s saddle looked a lot more like the catbird seat, and Johnny Sutton, who leaned against his shovel, wistfully envious that Remington was getting out of real work for the day.

“Did you see Johnny’s face?” asked Phoebe when the ranch was finally at their backs. “I thought he might cry. He doesn’t realize how hard you’re going to have to work to keep me on this horse.”

Remington looked over at her. She was sitting tall and not fighting the mare’s rhythm, although the look of fierce concentration on her face told him she was still thinking about every aspect of what she was doing. There was nothing natural about her riding yet. “You’re doing all right. The stirrups feel a good length for you?”

She nodded.

“You think you want to take the reins up yourself?”

She glanced at him doubtfully. “Um, maybe in a little while.”

“Sure. Have you named her yet?”

“Named her? Oh, you mean the horse. Doesn’t she already have a name? I don’t want to confuse her.”

Remington grinned. “I think she can get used to a new name. And maybe Mr. Shoulders never thought enough of her to call her anything. She’s a gentle animal.” He caught Phoebe’s skeptical expression, and remembered the wild ride, at least from Phoebe’s perspective, when the mare bolted. He amended his last statement. “Gentle, that is, when she hasn’t been startled.”

Phoebe dared to lean forward and lightly rub the mare’s neck. “That does not exactly inspire confidence, Remington.”

“Sit up,” he said. “What are you doing?”

“Soothing her.”

“More like confusing her. Just keep your hands where they are.”

“Yes, sir. I’d salute you, but I’m keeping my hands where they are.”

“That’s sass, isn’t it? You’re full of sass this morning.” She shrugged, but her superior smile told him all he needed to know. “Yeah. Full of sass.”

“Truth?” she asked. “I am so happy to be out that I don’t even mind that you didn’t ask me if I wanted to go to Thunder Point.”

“Oh, you noticed that.”

“I always notice when someone tells me what I’m going to be doing. I just didn’t care.”

“Huh.”

She laughed. “Something to think about, isn’t it?”

“What I’m thinking about is that we need to stop talking.” When she didn’t reply, he looked over and realized the tight-lipped placement of her mouth meant she had already started. She spared him a look that was just long enough for him to see her green eyes sparkle and dance. She really was full of sass.

She was also beautiful. It crossed his mind to tell her, but he could imagine her animated features going perfectly still and the light in her eyes disappearing. She would think of Fiona, make comparisons that she did not like anyone else to make, and find herself wanting. How had that come to pass when in his mind she was so clearly wanting for nothing? Remington could only imagine the answer lay somewhere in her complicated relationship with Fiona.

When it came to verbal sparring, he knew firsthand that Phoebe could hold her own. She had driven him to the corner more than once and he had seen her do the same with Fiona, and yet he had also observed that the matches with Fiona left her bruised. She wouldn’t back down, but she did not walk away unscathed.

He judged Phoebe to have a fairly realistic grasp of Fiona’s character in that she acknowledged Fiona’s considerable talent but was not unaware of her flaws. It was in her nature to protect Fiona but not defend her.

Remington wondered if Phoebe was able to see herself as he did when she stood outside Fiona’s shadow. She was certainly outside it this morning. He had no doubt that Fiona would have taken one look at Phoebe’s manner of dress and pronounced it vulgar. Phoebe would not have changed her clothes, or left her hat behind, but she would not be as comfortable in her boots as she was now.

She wore the unfamiliar clothes, not as a costume, but as someone born to them, and perhaps she had been since he could detect some of the fine alterations she had done in private to make the fit her own. The trousers were not tight, but they hugged her slim hips and long legs when she saddled up, and the blue chambray shirt, a common enough garment for anyone at Twin Star, looked decidedly uncommon when it was taken in to suit her tapered figure. The brown leather vest fit her tolerably well when she buttoned it. Today she wore her hair in a single braid that fell halfway down her spine, and the pearl gray Stetson sat squarely on her head without slipping over her brow. Her trousers disappeared into her boots, and he had noticed earlier when he helped her mount that the tops and sides of the boots were gently scuffed and the soles showed signs of wear. It made him smile to think that she had been breaking them in from the first, probably hiding them under her skirts and petticoats while she walked around very pleased with her deception.

In many ways, Phoebe was a pared version of Fiona, and while Phoebe had come to accept the notion that it made her less, in Remington’s eyes, it was a case of less being more. Considerably more.

Phoebe and Fiona were of equal height, able to look most men in the eye, but it was Fiona who so often commanded the high ground and Phoebe who stepped to one side. Had Fiona ever recognized how gracefully Phoebe did it?

Phoebe’s splendid hair was a deep shade of cocoa brown, thick and lustrous, often with unruly strands framing her face in spite of the anchoring combs. In the sun, the wayward threads became a halo of light that paradoxically complemented her dangerous, devilish smile. The irony intrigued him.

Fiona knew nothing of irony. She coifed and groomed her auburn hair into twists and curls that never once danced in the wind or stepped out of line. The effect was as haughty as the cool and considered placement of her lips.

While the amethyst color of Fiona’s eyes was unusual and therefore likely to be remarked upon, it was Phoebe’s gold-flecked green gaze that settled levelly and calmly on her surroundings and invariably drew his attention. Fiona was watchful, but rarely curious, marking her territory with the same regard a predator has for prey. In contrast, Phoebe observed people, their activity, her surroundings, and all of it was grist for the mill. She asked more questions than any three people and listened with real interest to the answers. She wanted to engage conversation. It seemed to Remington that Fiona still preferred soliloquies.

Remington held out the mare’s reins for Phoebe to take. “You have to take them sometime. It’s not much of a riding lesson if you don’t.”

“Then we are talking again?” she asked, staring at the reins, undecided.

“We are.”

“Very well. But stay close.”

“Like butter on bread.”

She took the reins. The mare kept on walking. “She doesn’t seem to notice.”

“Give her time. She’ll come to know you’re in charge.”

“I don’t think I am.”

“Give yourself time. Relax. You don’t have to hold your hands up like a puppy begging for a treat.”

Phoebe lowered her hands but not before giving him a reproving look.

“Better. Find your balance.” He looked over the alignment of her body. Without any instruction from him, the willow-slim length of her was set perfectly: ear, shoulder, point of hip, and heel perpendicular to the horizon. “Unlock your lower back,” he told her. “You’re too stiff again.”

“Because you gave me the reins.”

He ignored that, showing her instead how to use her center of gravity to achieve balance and how to follow the movement of the horse’s back. “We’ll go through the gaits when we’re closer to the ranch. No trotting. No cantering. No galloping. For now it’s all walking.”

“What if she has other ideas?”

“Butter on bread,” he said. “Remember? I’m here.”

Her eyes shifted sideways. “Yes.”

“Use your legs to control her. Your hands to guide her.” He demonstrated bringing Bullet to a halt and starting up again and then helped Phoebe do the same by applying the right pressure of heels and knees and using the reins with authority. He was not surprised that she showed relative competence from the first, but he kept that observation to himself. There were plenty of nuances that would require hours in the saddle for her to master, and overconfidence would be her enemy.

They rode five miles before he judged he could safely encourage her. “Not bad,” he said.

“Don’t dress it up. You wouldn’t want to turn my head.”

“Precisely.”

She sighed. “It will take a long time to learn to do this well, won’t it?”

“Define ‘long.’”

“The remainder of my life.”

He considered that. “If you learn to enjoy riding, the remainder of your life will seem too short.”

Phoebe nodded, thoughtful. “You’re something of a philosopher, aren’t you? Have you ever had a sweetheart or maybe a fiancée?”

He considered stopping Bullet so he could get a good look at Phoebe’s face. From his present angle, her smile, if there was one, eluded him. “Are those two things somehow connected in your mind?”

“What? Oh. No, they’re not. The first was more of an observation. It’s the second thing I’ve been wondering about for a while now. I thought I might as well blurt it out as keep it in.”

“Hmm. I’m surprised you didn’t ask someone.”

“Why? It’s about you, but if you sidestep it again, I will probably change my mind.”

Remington took her at her word. “Yes,” he said. “Several sweethearts beginning with Miss Addie Packer. She was the schoolteacher in Frost Falls for three years before she married Jackson Brewer. He wasn’t sheriff then. Even now I think about not voting for him come election time.”

Phoebe laughed softly. “So she broke your heart.”

“Mine and just about every other boy’s in the classroom.” The memory made him smile. “Then there was Mary Ellen Farnsworth. She was first girl I asked to dance, and we were sweet on each other for a time, but mostly we liked kissing under the stairs at the back of the hotel.”

“I think I should stop you now if the sweetheart list is more than seven.” When he didn’t say anything, she said, “I see. All right. Maybe you could jump to the fiancée. Were there many of those?”

“Just the one. Alexandra Kingery. I met her when I was in law school. Her father was one of my professors. I proposed to her after I finished my first year. We were going to be married when I graduated. The engagement had her father’s blessing. Thaddeus met her twice, making the trip east both times. Alexandra charmed him because she was charming. She did not know how to be any other way, or if she did, she never showed it. In hindsight, I think Thaddeus had reservations that he wasn’t able to put into words.

“I’m not sure when I understood that she and I had very different expectations about our lives after the wedding. I always knew I was returning to Twin Star. I never hid that from her. The problem was she didn’t believe me. She was planning our life around remaining close to the university so she could be near her family. There was to be a law practice for me, something modest in the beginning, but she envisioned that changing over time so I could run for elected office. At the very least, she thought I would secure a teaching position at the university as her father had and make my mark there. These were not plans that she shared with me. I learned them from her father when he mentioned that a friend of his, also a lawyer, had been making inquiries about me joining his firm.

“I spoke to Alexandra later, and for all intents and purposes, our engagement ended that night. It merely required three painful weeks for us to realize it.”

Phoebe nodded slowly, saying nothing for several long moments, then, “I’m sorry.”

Remington was struck by her sincerity. “It’s been years, Phoebe, and it was better that it ended before it began. We were both fortunate there.”

“Yes, you’re right. Of course you’re right, but . . .”

When she did not finish her thought, he said, “Are you sad for me?” Her rueful smile was answer enough. “Why, you’re a romantic, aren’t you?”

“You sound surprised.”

“I thought you were a realist.”

A shade defensively, she said, “Sometimes I am. Mostly I want to be.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “It’s safer, isn’t it?”

He thought she might explain, but she didn’t, and he did not pursue it. A heavy raindrop had just hit his sleeve. He looked up at the sky and felt another splatter his shoulder. He reached over and took the reins from Phoebe’s hands before she startled. “Do you feel that? I think we’re in for a soaker. We are not far from the cabin, but we need to pick up the pace.”

They did, but it didn’t matter. By the time they reached the old prospector’s abandoned lodging, the dark clouds had all rolled in and opened up. They were wet through and through and wretchedly cold.

Remington stamped his feet as he entered the cabin while Phoebe stood in one place, hugging herself as she shivered. “I’m sorry, Phoebe. If I’d had any hint this storm was coming, we would not have set out.” He thought she nodded, but it could have been she was only shaking with cold. “Look, there’s a lean-to around the back where I can shelter the horses, and an old smokehouse where I might find some wood for the stove. If there’s nothing inside, the smokehouse is so close to collapse I’ll knock it down, and we’ll use that wood to start a fire.”

“All right.”

“I won’t be long. You should walk around some, maybe take off your shirt and wring it out.” He was out the door without waiting to see what she thought of this last suggestion, but he was a romantic as well, and he lived in hope.