Rose's Mail Order Husband - A Historical Mail Order Bride Story (Montana Brides) by Kate Whitsby Page B

way you do, even if it is Jake’s horse. He’s the only link we have to the men. I want to stay with him until the men come back.”
    Iris led the horse into the barn, tied him to a post, and removed his saddle. She started brushing his neck while the sweat-soaked square of hair on his back dried.
    “Do we really have to tell the Sheriff the horse came back?” Rose asked. “Couldn’t we just keep that to ourselves?” Rose caught Iris’s eye. “Wouldn’t you do that, just for me?”
    Iris pressed her lips together. “I wouldn’t do that, if I was you. The Sheriff already thinks you helped Jake plan to kill Cornell. You don’t want to go casting even more suspicion on yourself if you can avoid it. And Violet and I wouldn’t want to conspire to obstruct justice by helping keep it hidden.”
    Rose sighed. “I suppose you’re right.”
    ”Besides,” Iris pointed out, “knowing the horse is here, that he came back without Jake, won’t help the Sheriff find him. If anything, it will only make his job harder. A horse is a lot easier to find than a man on foot. A man can hide just about anywhere up in those mountains. You can spot a horse’s tracks a mile off.”
    Rose brightened up. “Really?”
    Iris smiled and nodded. “Without the horse, Jake could hide up there forever and never get caught. He may have sent the horse back for that very reason.”
    Rose blinked. “I didn’t know that.”
    “Don’t give up hope just yet,” Iris told her. “You never know what could happen.”
    Iris finished brushing the horse and took a hoof pick from the nail on the wall. She bent down, lifted one of the horse’s feet, and scraped the mud and stones out of the hoof with the point of the pick.
    She cleaned one forefoot and then moved to the back legs, working her way around the horse in a circle. She slid her hand down the horse’s rear leg and the animal raised its foot into her hand. Iris propped the hoof between her knees while she worked, but after one swipe with the hoof pick, she paused.
    “Huh. That’s funny,” she muttered.
    “What is?” Rose asked.
    Iris hesitated. Then she continued cleaning out the horse’s foot. “Nothing.” She completed her circuit of the horse’s legs and put the hoof pick away. “That’s done. Let’s put him up and go inside.”
    Iris led the animal into a stall, scooped him a measure of grain into his feed trough, and tossed him a flake of hay from the crib. She gave him one last pat on the neck, and she and Rose went out into the fading light of late afternoon.
    They stopped on the front porch to gaze toward the range again. Rose sniffed. Iris rested a hand on her arm. “They’ll be back soon.”
    “That’s easy for you to say,” Rose returned. “Your fiancé isn’t under suspicion of murder.”
    “I just mean they’ll bring him back safely,” Iris corrected herself. “Everything will be all right. You’ve been saying so yourself for days. You should listen to yourself.”
    Rose blinked back her tears. “That was before Jake ran off. That was when I knew he wanted to marry me. I wish I could believe it now.”
    Iris gave her arm a squeeze. “Everything will be all right. Now come inside. You’ll drive yourself crazy, staring that way.”
    Rose followed her inside, into the oppressive darkness of the house. The light coming through the windows faded to the pale purple of dusk. The three sisters moved though the rooms with the quiet reverence of church mice, hardly daring to speak above a whisper.
    And still the men did not return. Rose sat at the window in the front parlor, unable to tear her eyes away from the western horizon. Her sisters exhorted her to lie down and rest or tried to engage her in conversation about anything unrelated to the disaster of Jake’s disappearance. Nothing worked. Nothing could take her mind off of it. Nothing could mitigate the disaster of losing him.
    She gave up and turned away from the window when full dark set in. There was