Perhaps with winter deepening, her father would not bother them. Travel would be difficult, sometimes impossible.
All she needed was a few months in which to establish a home and prove she could care for them on her own.
A wagon rattled by, and she rushed to the window. Perhaps even now God had sent the stagecoach. But it was only another farm wagon with two men aboard.
She turned back to her children. They scooped up the party things and carried them away without looking at Clara.
Blue shook his head.
Whether to indicate regret over the tea party or over the way she had ended it so abruptly, she couldn’t say.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, though she couldn’t have said for what and hoped he wouldn’t ask her.
“It was all pretend.”
Did he mean the party? The girls’ wishes? Or something else entirely? “What is?” She hadn’t meant to ask the question, but the words had spilled out. In truth, she wanted to know the answer.
He held her gaze, a dark emptiness in his eyes. “Family.”
“No, it’s not. Surely someone, somewhere, has real family. What about the people at the ranch?”
He stared past her. “I suppose.” He paused a beat in consideration. “Though it seems most of them have had to deal with something difficult in their lives.”
“Really?” For some reason, she’d thought they were without problems.
“Eddie’s wife, Linette, came out to Alberta expecting a marriage of convenience. She meant to get away from a marriage her father had arranged but which she found impossible. And Cassie, the woman who started the business the Mortons now run, had lost a husband and two babies. She wanted to be independent. Instead, she and Roper rescued four children and are now their parents.”
He didn’t meet her eyes as he continued. “Grace—well, Ward found her in an awful situation. Eddie’s sister, Jayne, came out to escape the memory of seeing her fiancé shot dead before her eyes. And then there’s Brand. He came from an outlaw family. And Abel was a widower with two little children to raise.” He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. “I never realized before that they all came through hard times to their present families.”
“And they’re all happy?”
“Far as I can tell.”
His words fell like warm drops of rain on her heart. Their gazes finally met. Did he see the same offer of a future full of hope and fulfillment she did?
Was it possible that at the end of this journey she might find a place of belonging?
But the thought brought no peace to her heart. Instead, it ached. Finding that place of belonging meant leaving behind the temporary pleasure she had found right here.
Chapter Eleven
Throughout the day Blue managed to let measuring and cutting fill his thoughts. Or at least he tried. But every time the girls came into sight, his heart twisted. They longed for family. Even though they’d known it and lost it, they still wanted to have it again, believing it would mean love and joy for the rest of their lives. He shook his head. Children had such faith in the impossible.
Clara, too, kept invading his thoughts. No matter how he tried, he could not forget what he’d said to her. How all the new families at the ranch had come together despite hard times in their past.
Somehow they’d found a way to move into the future.
He slid his gaze to where the girls had laid out their tea party and told him he was the father. Did they wish he could be their papa? He swallowed a large lump in his throat and forced his thoughts to go elsewhere.
The girls had made their tea set out of wood scraps. He knew they had no books. Now he realized they had no toys, either.
Nancy had had a doll she’d loved to rags.
Beau’s favorite toy had been a little wheelbarrow Blue had built for him. He smiled as he remembered Beau trying to persuade their pet cat it wanted a ride.
Clara watched him. “Something pleases you.”
He started to deny it, then decided against it. “I was thinking of my children playing.”
She squeezed his arm. “It’s nice to see you enjoying memories of them.”
Her touch made him lean a bit closer. Had he said what he did in the hopes she would reach out to him? Was he getting as bad as the girls, wanting something beyond the realm of possibility? Allowing himself to pretend?