“What about your job at the wood shop? Won’t Joseph need you?” Ben queried.
Aaron recalled the orders they had waiting to be filled. “I’ll talk with him. See what we can work out. He’s been getting along so well on his own.”
“That’s good to hear. But he’ll still need you, won’t he?” Ben was protective of Joseph. Since Joseph had lost his sight in a shop accident about a month before Ellie had died, he’d been making great strides, but Ben was always watchful.
“I’m sure he will, but apart from lunch I’ll be working my usual hours.”
“Well, I’ll do what I can to help.” Ben clasped his hands between his legs.
“Me, too, but with calving season here, I’ll be hard-pressed to get away from the ranch much.” Zach stuck his legs out in front of him, draping one foot over the other.
“Speaking of seasons…planting season is breathing down our necks. There won’t be time to try and find a hired man.” Ben peered into the fire as if looking for some answer there. “Besides, Paul said that any man she’d hire had to first go through you.” He pinned Aaron with an intense gaze.
“You can be sure that there’d be men clambering for the job, but I wouldn’t hire someone unless I could trust them up one side and down another.” When he thought about how delicate Hope was, how vulnerable she’d seemed on the depot platform, the need to protect her rose up like some distant call. “In fact, at least for the first week or so I’m sleeping out in the barn. That way if she runs into any problems I’ll be close by. I’m not taking any chances with her being here all by herself. Not when she’s so—”
“Beautiful?” Zach finished for him.
Aaron slanted a challenge-laced glance his brother’s way. “If she’s so beautiful, I’m surprised you’re not stuttering around her.”
“So am I.” Zach’s gaze shuttered as though he was remembering the difficulty he’d had some years ago. At eleven years of age, an embarrassing case of stuttering had set in after he’d been trapped in a cave alone for two days. He hadn’t talked about the incident much and had worked hard the past few years to overcome his stutter. But once in a while he’d have a relapse—especially whenever he was around a pretty woman.
“Frankly, I’m not even sure she’ll consent to hiring someone. She seemed downright determined to get her hands dirty.” Aaron shook his head as he imagined Hope up to her elbows in garden dirt. “I can’t picture her dirtying those perfectly manicured fingers of hers, though. Can you? And did you see the way her skin looks like it’s never seen the light of day? Or the way she walks all straight and tall like some princess?”
His brothers exchanged a goading look that set Aaron’s hackles standing on end.
“Don’t give me that,” he warned, feeling oddly defensive. But he had nothing to defend. Or did he? “I couldn’t help but notice. She stands out like a sore thumb.”
“I wouldn’t exactly say a sore thumb,” Ben corrected.
“Well, she’s not who I would’ve expected Paul to marry, that’s for sure.” Aaron shoved his gaze to the pine floor, downright irritated by their provoking.
“Why? Because she’s such a fine-looking lady?” Zach prodded.
Aaron scowled. “Paul didn’t exactly look like the underside of a plow. I guess I thought he’d marry someone a little heartier. Like himself.”
“She might be heartier than you think.” Ben pointed out the front window. “Look.”
Aaron wrenched around in his seat to see Hope standing in the middle of the herd of cattle, her arms stuck straight up in the air as she shimmied through the livestock. When she suddenly dipped down, disappearing into the mass of beasts as they closed in on her, his heart came to a complete stop.
“Oh, for the love of—” He catapulted off the sofa, through the room and out the front door to rescue her. Already.
As he raced out to the corral, he wondered how in the world he’d be able to keep track of her from his home, two miles away. But as she sprang up with a yellow tabby kitten in her hands then bravely edged toward the gate, gentling the cattle in spite of her obvious discomfort, he wondered if the barn or even two miles away would be far enough.
Chapter Four
“I’m coming, Hope. Whatever you do, don’t make any quick moves,” Aaron warned. He slowed his pace, resisting the urge to throw open the gate since doing so could spook the cattle. His pulse pounded through his veins. The situation could turn disastrous in a mere fraction of a second if she panicked…if he panicked.
She hurled a cursory glance his way and then yanked the hem of her dress, tearing it free from beneath the hoof of a black Hereford bull—a bull, that minutes ago, had been corralled in a solitary confinement of sorts. With an irritated huff, she turned and gave the bull’s wet nose a single swat, eyeing the massive creature as though he’d purposely ruined her garment—her wedding dress.
“What in the world!” Ignoring his own trepidation, Aaron wedged himself between this woman and the cattle that had closed in on her like a giant litter of two-thousand-pound, menacing puppies. She either had a death wish or was completely naive to the unpredictability of ranch cattle—especially that of an aggressive bull. Wrapping his arms around Hope, he couldn’t miss the way her entire body trembled or her indignant look as he steered her through the small opening to safety.
Once he’d latched the sturdy wood gate and gathered one gigantic steadying breath, he turned and clamped a scolding gaze on her and folded his arms at his chest as he attempted to calm his raging pulse. “What were you doing entering the corral like that? You could’ve been injured or worse.”
“This poor little guy…” Hope nuzzled her cheek against the yellow tabby. Her hands quivered as she pulled the bedraggled kitten close. “He was about to get trampled beneath all of those enormous feet. This sweet little kitten’s life could’ve tragically ended right there.”
The kitten gave the smallest, most pitiful meow as it strained to climb higher, right into the crook of Hope’s slender neck.
“Shh. It’s all right,” she whispered, placing a kiss on top of the kitten’s head, its long hair fraying every which way.
“So you not only entered the corral, but you opened the bull’s pen and went in after the kitten?” he prodded, dreading the thought of having to coax the bull back to his own pen.
If Aaron hadn’t been seeing this with his own eyes, he might not have believed she could be so oblivious to the danger she’d put herself in just seconds ago.
“What else was I to do? He wandered in there.”
“You could’ve called for help,” he answered, remembering how enormously afraid Ellie had been of cattle—all cattle. He’d always wanted a milking cow and a few beef cattle, but Ellie had been outright terrified, and he refused to put her through the stress it would’ve caused. “We would’ve been out here in no time.”
“There was not a second to waste.” Her incensed gaze drifted up to Aaron and then shot over to the cattle as though to wound them straight through. “Badly done, cows. Shame on all of you.”
Amazed by her complete naivety, Aaron made no attempt to hide his dismay as he stared, slack-jawed, at Hope.
Her perfectly arched eyebrows furrowed for a brief moment as she took him in. Then she glanced down at her sullied dress and tattered hem. “I can barely believe the nerve of that cow,” she whispered, her words obviously meant for the kitten she cradled like some baby. She glared straight into the eyes of the bull at fault, her audacity making Aaron question whether the sturdy gate could withstand a sudden charge.