Chapter 4

The women were in the library for such a long time that Victoria began to be worried. She thought she might be needed, that these two young women might be overwhelmed by the grief they had to be sharing. Granted, the suddenness of everything for Audra had prompted Beth to want to help, and that was good for Beth, but Victoria was afraid it wouldn't stay good for long. But at the same time, she didn't want to interfere if they were dealing with this horrible time together in a way that was helping them more than she could, so she didn't go into the library. She just stood at the door listening.

She heard laughing. She wasn't expecting that at all. For a moment she was stunned.

Audra's voice said, "And whenever I would ask him if I could do something and it was even the slightest bit outrageous, he would just sit there and very firmly say, 'No.' Just like an Indian chief or something, just a firm, 'No.' Well, I got so that I would just make up crazy things I said I wanted to do – never intending to do them at all – just to make him say, 'No.' And then, finally, he understood that I was making these things up, and he would say, 'No,' very, very firmly, and then he'd laugh."

"Let me guess – at some point, what you wanted to do was so outrageous that he actually said, 'Yes,'" Beth said.

"You're right! He did!" Audra said, and the both laughed together.

In the hall, Victoria found herself laughing, too. She kept it to herself and quickly went back to the living room so they wouldn't hear her, her heart just bursting with happiness. She remembered Jarrod and his "nos" too, and she remembered Audra starting to egg him on. The memory was sweet.

They talked for a long time, and laughed, and finally, Audra began to cry, and so did Beth. They held each other. "I miss him so much, Beth," Audra said. "I don't know how we're going to get along without him."

Beth said, "I know. Maybe it isn't quite so bad for me as it should be – I did love him, Audra, and I will always love him and I miss him every moment of every day – but I've had a life without him. I know one way or another I will get along. I don't know how I'm going to do it yet, but I know he would want me to find the way. I know that's what he'd want."

"You're right," Audra said. "I remember once, when I was maybe thirteen and he was thrown from a horse and hurt very badly, I was crying and I told him I didn't want him to die, that I couldn't get along without him if he died," Audra caught a sob, but then she smiled. "He just looked at me and he touched my cheek and he said very plainly, 'Of course you can. You're a Barkley.'" Audra wiped the wetness from her face. "You're a Barkley, too, Beth. I can already tell, that's one of the reasons Jarrod fell in love with you. You're a strong woman. You will be all right." But then Audra looked at Beth with almost a frown and flatly asked, "You're not going to leave here, are you?"

Beth was taken aback, to have that question from a girl she'd just met. It was as if Audra had already decided she didn't want Beth to go. "I haven't had the time to even think about that," Beth said. "For now, no, I'm not going to leave. I'll think about the rest later."

"Please, stay here with us," Audra said. "I know you don't even know me well and I don't know you, but Jarrod loved you, and that's enough for me to know I want you to stay. Besides, I always wanted a sister."

That last little bit made Audra chuckle a little and cry more, and Beth did too. "Let me just take the time to gather myself together and for us to get to know each other," Beth said. "I know, if Jarrod had lived, I'd be part of the family for good. Maybe I still can be, but everything has happened so fast. I just need time."

Audra shifted her hands to hold her sister-in-law's hands and squeezed them. "Let's take the time, then. It's what Jarrod would have wanted."

Beth nodded. "I'm sure of that."

So Beth took the time. She stayed at the ranch – in the guest room, because she couldn't face Jarrod's bedroom again. She spent her days with Victoria and Audra, doing the mundane things like darning socks and polishing silver and cooking meals.

Then, one day, out of the blue at dinner, she asked about what it was like to tend to a herd of cattle. Nick and Heath looked at each other and shrugged a little bit. "It's kind of boring, actually," Nick said. "There's not a lot to it, unless some problem comes up and the herd gets spooked or something like that you don't want to happen."

"Why don't you come out with us tomorrow, see for yourself?" Heath asked. "You and Audra can come out and work with Old Jube at the chuck wagon and get a real feel for what working a herd is like."

Beth's eyes brightened up. "Really? You wouldn't mind a tenderhorn like me out there?"

Nick smiled. "It's either 'tenderfoot' or 'greenhorn," he said with a laugh.

"Well, maybe I can figure the words out," Beth said. "I'd love to come out."

"So would I!" Audra said. "I haven't worked out there in ages!"

"Then it's done," Nick decided. "Up for breakfast at five, out of here by six, and Old Jube will have you roasting beef and potatoes by ten."

Victoria had to smile and wished she had a photographer on hand to go out there and photograph these two young women as cowboys, working a cattle ranch. "Just don't let either of these girls get too close to an unhappy steer," she said.

"Don't worry," Heath said. "If they don't poison us, we won't run over them."

So, the next morning, Beth and Audra went out to be with the herd and worked at the chuck wagon. It was actually fun, even if the food they rustled up was not anything like Silas might have cooked.

"Don't worry," Nick had said as he ate. "Beef and potatoes – you can't do much to wreck them."

"We had Pennsylvania Dutch neighbors when I was growing up," Beth said. "They taught me a few things I might talk to Silas about trying."

"Silas does love to cook," Heath said. "If you can add a few recipes to his cookbook, he's gonna be one happy man."

Beth took a moment to look out over the herd of cattle, to try to understand this part of Barkley life. Watching all morning, she had found herself wondering something. What part of ranching life did Jarrod have anything to do with? In a way, she didn't want to bring Jarrod up, but in another way she longed to. It had only been weeks, and Jarrod's memory was already slipping away from her. "Did Jarrod ever help you out here?"

"Sure," Nick said. "When we were kids, before he went away to school and before the war came along, he was out here a lot. He was good at riding a cutting horse."

"A cutting horse?"

"A special kind of horse," Heath said as Nick took another mouthful of food. "It can maneuver faster than a regular horse, because when you're trying to cut one steer out of the herd, for branding or something, you need to be able to cut right and left and backwards and forwards. Those mangy beasts can get tricky when they're trying to get away from you."

"Yeah, Jarrod was good at that when he was a kid," Nick said. "But he got the brains in the family, so he was the one they sent to law school."

Beth was surprised at the way Nick put that. "Didn't he want to go to law school?"

"Yes, he did," Nick said. "It just wasn't his idea, but he liked it, so he went."

Suddenly Nick remembered that he had to go to town with some legal matters. He was going to talk to a new lawyer in town. His heart clenched up. Talking to a new lawyer – he hadn't expected the prospect of doing that was going to turn his heart over yet again.

It was reflected in his expression, and Beth could see it easily. "Jarrod was a good lawyer, wasn't he?" she asked.

Heath remembered. "He was the best."

"And he was a pretty fair drover, too," Nick admitted with a nod.

"Did you ever tell him that?" Beth asked.

Nick smiled a little. "Not a chance. I didn't want him to think he was better than me at everything."

Beth smiled and said, "I doubt that he thought he was." Then she thought about something else, and she looked out across the herd. "I can ride a horse, but I guess that doesn't qualify me to herd cattle, does it?"

Nick and Heath laughed. "Why in the world would you want to herd cattle?" Nick asked.

"Just because I've never done it," Beth said. "I've never done a lot of things I'd like to do. Do you know, I've never slept outside under the stars?"

"The ground is hard and the air gets cold," Nick said.

"Aren't you Mr. Sunshine?" Audra teased.

"But the stars in the sky must be magnificent," Beth said dreamily. She remembered stargazing with Jarrod from the train. It seemed so long ago, with a man who was becoming just a dream now, not real.

They noticed her expression had changed, and they assumed it was some private memory of Jarrod that had touched her. Nick said, "Tell you what. If you want to sleep out here on the cold hard ground sometime and watch the stars, it can be arranged. Just as long as Audra comes with you."

Beth laughed as Audra's mouth fell open. "Nick Barkley, you know good and well that I've spent cold nights on the ground watching the stars before," Audra said.

"Then you and Beth ought to have a campout some night, maybe closer to the house in case you get too cold," Heath suggested.

Audra and Beth looked at each other, and Audra started to laugh. "They don't think we can make it through a whole night."

"They know you can, but they don't think I can," Beth said, and she perked up to the challenge. "All right, gentlemen. Ten dollars says you're wrong."