Lady Outlaw by Stacy Henrie Page B

you go get some drinking water from the creek?”
    Nodding, Will transferred the calf into Caleb’s arms and headed off into the brush with one of the buckets.
    As Caleb wrestled to keep the calf still, Jennie crouched beside the fire and pulled out the white-hot branding iron. When they were finished, Caleb let the calf go and stood to stretch his sore back. “You’re good with that iron.”
    “I should be.” She dropped the branding iron into a nearby bucket. The hot metal sizzled against the water inside. “My mother hated this part of ranching, but I found it fascinating. I was always getting in the way during branding season until my father finally agreed to teach me what to do. I’ve been branding cattle since I was twelve.”
    “Where’s your mother now?”
    Jennie eyed him with suspicion. “Why do you want to know?”
    Caleb shrugged, unsure why the simple question had struck a wrong chord in her. “Just wondered, since she’s not around.”
    Frowning, Jennie picked up a cloth and wiped off her knife. “My mother passed away two years before my father did. She wasn’t living with us, though. She went to live with her sister when I was thirteen and Will was six.”
    The casualness of her words didn’t disguise the pain Caleb heard behind them. He sat down on the ground and stretched out his legs, thinking of how to redeem himself. He hadn’t meant to dredge up hurtful memories. Sometimes they were best left buried in the past.
    “I’m sorry.”
    She stared off into the distance, the knife and cloth motionless in her hands. “You didn’t know.”
    “That must’ve been tough.”
    “The next few years were difficult.” She finished cleaning her knife and set it aside. “This is the point when you tell me it was all for the best. She couldn’t care for us. She was obviously ill in mind and body. We were better off without her.”
    “Why would I say that?”
    “Because that’s what people said after she left.” Jennie sat on the bare ground and wrapped her arms around her knees like a frightened child. Her vulnerability made Caleb want to put his arm along her stiff shoulders, but he didn’t. She was his boss, after all.
    “Maybe that’s why my father stopped going to church,” she said. “He couldn’t stand people’s feigned sympathy.” Her eyes, dark with anguish, met his. “I couldn’t stand it, either.”
    The urge to comfort her grew stronger, so he busied himself with opening the saddlebag that held their supper things. He unloaded the jerky, bread and dried fruit that Grandma Jones had packed for them. They’d stay tonight on the open range and return to the ranch tomorrow, once they’d doctored the few cows that needed it.
    “I felt like that before,” he finally said.
    “What?” She spun her head around and blinked at him as if she’d forgotten his presence.
    “There was a time I felt alone and angry, and couldn’t stand it when people tried to sympathize.”
    “Why?”
    Caleb took a long breath, steeling himself against the rush of memories. “It was right after my fiancée, Liza, died.”
    “Your fiancée?” Jennie brought her hand to her mouth. “What happened?”
    “She...um...came down this way on the stage to visit her aunt, about a month before our wedding.” He regarded a group of trees in the distance, embarrassed to see the pity he imagined he’d find on Jennie’s face. It had been more than a year since he’d last recounted the story, but the pain felt as fresh as ever as the words spilled from him. “There was...an accident with the stage, and she was killed instantly.”
    “I’m so sorry.” She set her hand on his sleeve for a moment. “That must have been devastating.”
    “We attended the same church congregation with our families. I tried going a few times after Liza’s death, but I couldn’t take the pity I saw reflected in everyone’s eyes, how they’d stop their whispered conversations when I came close. I quit going to any kind