Montana Wife (Historical) by Jillian Hart Page B

thanked you.”
    â€œIt’s been a difficult time, I know.” Daniel swallowed hard, but the tangle in his chest seemed to sharpen and cut like knives at the insides of his ribs. He hated this feeling. Knew, that if he struck a deal to take over the mortgage, that he’d be taking everything from Kol’s widow and children. That wasn’t what he wanted.
    â€œI have a good relationship with Wright at the bank. I’ll see what I can do for you.”
    She layered salt pork on the two plates she was making, breakfast to be kept warm in the oven for when herchildren woke, no doubt. What fortunate boys they were, to have a mother like her.
    It took only one look around to see the home she’d made for them, clean and comfortable and caring. The sharp feelings sliced into his chest and he turned away to grab his hat. To get as far away from this woman as he could before he remembered too much of his childhood. Or the boy that had never had a kindly woman worrying if he was hungry. Making sure he had a heaping plate of good food to start the day with.
    He couldn’t spare Rayna Ludgrin one more look as he strode out the door and into the cool morning that warned of a hard winter to come.
    It didn’t feel as if it were only the weather.
    Daniel yanked the ends of the reins loose from the hitching post in the front yard and swung up onto his gelding’s back. With the odd feeling that Rayna Ludgrin was watching him go, he rode east and into the rising sun.

Chapter Five
    R ayna leaned the four envelopes, ready to post, against her reticule on the stand by the door. She felt brittle and as wrung out as a washrag on cleaning day, but that was one hard chore done and over with.
    She’d written to Kol’s brother, sister and cousin and asked to move in with her boys. Please God, may one of them have room for us. She refused to think what would happen if no one did.
    The parlor clock chimed the hour. Nine o’clock. The boys were still asleep. Poor Kirk had worked himself into sheer exhaustion and she hated to wake him, but she would have to if he didn’t roust in the next half hour. She had to get those letters on today’s train. She dared not risk waiting until tomorrow.
    Daniel would be back from the bank with bad news. There was no way it could be anything but. As long as I can get enough cash to get us settled somewhere else… Then she would have a roof over her sons’ heads.
    And as for a job—she wasn’t too proud to clean houses or to wash strangers’ clothes, as her friend Betsy did for a living. From where she stood on the threshold of so much change, the future looked horribly uncertain.
    Somehow, the Good Lord willing, she’d make do. She needed a little tiny bit of providence to come her way. Just a little. And she wasn’t asking for herself, but for her boys.
    The muffled clop-clop of a team of horses coming up her drive had her opening the door before she realized it couldn’t have been Daniel. He’d ridden a dappled mustang rather than driven a vehicle to town. The jangle of the harness drew her gaze to the black buggy bouncing through the mud puddles in the road.
    The matching bays, so sleek and fine, pranced to a halt at the post, and there was Betsy, her ringlets springing around her face from beneath the brim of her wide-rimmed sunbonnet.
    Dressed for work, in a light calico and matching apron, she hopped to the ground, careful of the puddles that had yet to evaporate, and, arms outstretched, said nothing as she rushed up the steps.
    Rayna’s vision blurred and suddenly she was enveloped in her friend’s arms. Held tight in comfort and friendship. She and Betsy had been best friends since the first day of school when they were both six. They’d shared desks, books, laughter, hard times and grief.
    Rayna held on while she could, fighting tears that were nothing but a weakness. When she pulled away, she was glad the