Blake found Mason waiting in the buggy. He’d lost track of his half brother while the fire was raging, but the dust that coated Mason’s clothes, and his dirt-streaked face suggested that he’d been helping to shovel a firebreak.
Mason grinned. “Good thing you showed up. I was just about to drive off and leave you.”
“You know better than to do that, little brother.” Blake hauled his tired body onto the buggy seat. “But I’ll tell you what. When we get back to the saloon, I’ll buy you a drink.”
“Done. I’ve got a powerful thirst. I may need more than one.” Mason swung the team in an arc and headed the buggy back toward town. The homesteaders’ wagons departed in the opposite direction, leaving men behind to make sure the fire didn’t flare up again. Blake found himself scanning the crowd for the girl in white, but he didn’t see her. Not that it mattered. Why should it? He didn’t even know her name.
Driving back toward the road, they passed the Calder buggy. Webb was driving the matched bays, with Ruth beside him on the front seat. Benteen, looking pale and drawn, sat in the back with his wife.
Mason slapped the reins to get ahead, leaving the Calders in a cloud of dust—something Blake wouldn’t have done, but he’d long since learned that Mason had his own way about him.
“Webb was quite the hero boy today,” Mason said as he slowed the team down. “He was strutting around like the biggest rooster in the coop.”
“He did all right.” Blake didn’t much care for Webb either, but, unlike Mason, he kept his opinions to himself. The Dollarhides didn’t need enemies—especially enemies as powerful as the Calders.
“Hell, it’s not like we don’t know how to fight a fire,” Mason said. “We all knew what to do. We didn’t need Webb to boss us around. I think he was mostly doing it to impress that sodbuster’s redheaded wife.”
“The one he was dancing with.” It wasn’t a question.
“That’s right. The pretty one. Webb was all over her at the dance, and with her husband right there. If Webb had got his teeth kicked in, it would’ve served him right.” Mason maneuvered the buggy back onto the dusty, rutted road. “And poor Ruth, having to stand there and watch. Her face said it all. A classy girl like that deserves better than Webb.”
“If I could convince her of that, she could have me.”
Mason chuckled. “You and half the other single men around here. But did you see the goings-on back at the fire?”
Blake shook his head. “I guess I was in the wrong place. Or maybe I was too busy fighting the fire to notice.”
“You’d have noticed if you’d been there. It happened when the fire was almost out. As the wind changed, the fire started toward the wagons. The redhead—the wife—tried to stomp it out, and her skirt caught on fire. Webb tackled her and rolled her on the ground to put it out.”
“Was she hurt?”
“It didn’t look all that bad. But then Webb scooped her up in his arms and started for his buggy. That old man she’s married to stepped right in front of him and snatched her away. He looked mad enough to kill. And of course Ruth saw it all.”
“Ruth needs to show Webb the door and give the rest of us a chance,” Blake said.
“But she won’t. She wants to be a Calder. And she’s got Webb’s mother backing her. Hey, brother, there are other good-looking ladies out there—like that little angel with the golden braids. She’s the one I’ve got my eye on. I just need to find a way around her father.”
“Good luck with that.” Remembering those innocent eyes, Blake felt a stab of something he didn’t fully understand. The thought of Mason with that girl, winning her with his usual charm, then most likely breaking her heart, made him want to grind his teeth.
“How’s your mother?” Blake asked, changing the subject.
“Fine. Spinning her little webs as usual.” Amelia Hollister Dollarhide, Joe’s first wife, had inherited her father’s ranch and expanded it into her own empire. Blake, the son of Joe and his second wife, Sarah, was a year older than Mason. There was a story behind that incongruity. But most people either understood or knew better than to ask questions.
“And how’s Dad doing?” Mason asked. “I’ve been meaning to come up to the house and see him.”
“He’s slowed down since that stallion broke his leg this spring. But otherwise he’s doing all right. And Sarah’s the same. They miss you. You know you’d be welcome anytime.”
“Sarah was like a second mother to me. You can tell her I said so. But I didn’t see our little sister at the dance. I was looking forward to watching the cowboys battle to lead her to the floor.”
“Kristin isn’t much for socializing—or cowboys. She’s got her own way of thinking, whatever that is. But she misses you, too. We got used to having you around in the old days. Now it seems everything’s changed.”
“I know.” Mason pulled the buggy up alongside the saloon, where Blake’s buckskin horse was still tied to the rail. “Mother’s grooming me to take over the ranch—a waste of time if you ask me. She’ll probably live to be a hundred, and she won’t let go of the reins as long as she’s got breath in her body. Her only ambition for me is that I marry a rich woman. Do you know any of those around here?”
Blake chuckled. “Only your mother. Now what do you say we get that drink I promised you?”
* * *
The Andersons’ nearest neighbor, Stefan Reisner, paused his wagon outside the shack that was Hanna’s family home. His wife, Lillian, lay in the wagon bed with wet cloths on her blistered legs. The burns would heal, but she was in pain. Stefan was anxious to get her home. He was stopping only to drop off Hanna and her father.
Hanna had ridden in the wagon bed next to Lillian, cradling her friend’s head and giving her sips of water. “I could stay with her the rest of the way,” she said. “It’s not that far to walk home.”
“I can take care of her.” Stefan sounded almost angry. “Just get out so we can go.”
Big Lars had already climbed off the rear of the wagon. As Hanna moved back to join him, he turned and held out his huge hands to help her to the ground.
“I’ll come to see you, Lillian,” Hanna called as the wagon rolled away. Stefan didn’t look back. She hoped he wasn’t angry at Lillian. It wasn’t Lillian’s fault that her skirt had caught fire or that Webb Calder had been there to save her.
As Hanna walked toward the house with her father, she could smell the rabbit stew cooking in the kitchen. Her mother came rushing outside, wiping her hands on her apron. “We saw the smoke. Are you all right?” Inga Anderson had been a pretty girl in her youth, but twenty years of work, worry, and childbearing had aged her before her time. Her blond hair was streaked with gray, her face creased, her body shapeless beneath her worn gingham dress.
“We’re fine. I’ll wash up.” Big Lars was a man of few words. Walking to the barrel, he filled a tin dipper with enough water to splash the soot off his face and out of his sparse, light brown hair.
“And you.” She looked Hanna up and down, shaking her head. “I was hoping that pinafore could be passed down to Britta, at least. But it’ll never come clean. We might as well tear it up for rags. Why can’t you be more careful, Hanna? We don’t have money for nice clothes. We need to make them last.”