Janette let out another sigh as she started to unbutton her jacket. She now understood just how stubborn Gabe was, and how staunch. The closest thing to a smile she’d seen him make was when he’d asked Ruby if she wanted a cookie.
Still, stubborn or not, Anna and Max should have been honest about their love for one another and not run away knowing Gabe expected Anna to marry him.
That could make a man be unwilling to forgive, but it had been five years.
Anna had claimed both she and Max agreed they shouldn’t have run off like they had and were sorrowful for the rift they’d caused but held steadfast that not only had their love been first and foremost on their minds, Gabe would never have listened to what they had to say.
They may have been right. He certainly hadn’t been willing to listen to anything she’d had to say. He’d interrupted her so many times her mind had felt as if it was filled with grasshoppers going in all directions at once. It hadn’t been until she’d pointed out that Ruby had been hungry that he’d paused long enough for her to collect her thoughts.
Gabe certainly was different from Max. She’d traveled to Texas to be with Anna during Ruby’s birth. Max had been very welcoming and grateful that she’d come—so very unlike his brother’s welcome a short time ago.
Her heart constricted. It saddened her all over again, knowing Anna and Max were gone. There wasn’t anything that she could do about it, and could only hope that someday Gabe might appreciate the fact that she’d given him the chance to meet his niece. It was what his brother had wanted. What her sister had wanted. And they had truly been in love with each other. She’d seen that when she made that trip to Texas. Seeing Max and Anna together, so proud and happy about the birth of Ruby, had made her realize something else. Father had never really loved Mother—or them. Not in a way a man should love his family. Max had barely let Anna out of his sight, whereas her father had never been home.
“You aren’t undressed yet?” Rosalie asked, opening the door.
Forced to concentrate on the facts at hand, Janette jumped to her feet and shrugged out of her jacket. “You’ll keep an eye on Ruby for me?”
“Of course, just get undressed and get in this tub. You have to wash the oil off your skin before you spread it from tip to tail.” Rosalie dumped two buckets of water into the tub. “I’ll be in with more hot water in a minute, and you better be undressed.”
Gabe found Dusty Martin at the hayshed, forking the last remnants of hay out of the wagon and on top of the growing pile. Poison ivy didn’t bother the animals, but it was a nuisance to people who were sensitive to it. Luckily, that had never been him, but Max had broken out from it more times than he could count.
A dark and ugly pain shot across Gabe’s chest and settled in his stomach. The same spot a similar pain had laid down roots five years ago. Over time, that pain had made itself invisible, shrank down to nothing but a nagging lump every once in a while.
Until today.
“Couple more days and we’ll be done with that field,” Dusty said, taking his hat off to wipe aside the sweat dripping into his eyes.
Gabe nodded. Most of the hands, including Dusty, had been around the Triple C for years and knew what needed to be done and when, without a word of direction.
Replacing his tattered hat over his crop of graying curls, Dusty said, “We’ll head up to the north fields after that.” He gestured past the barns and up the slight hill, where the house sat. “You met your company?”
Gabe nodded again. “Yes.”
“She said the little girl is Max’s daughter.”
The ranch was too close-knit to keep any secrets. “That she is,” Gabe replied.
“Didn’t know he had a daughter.”
“I didn’t either.” Gabe wasn’t certain what he’d do about that either. He may have pointed out to Janette that he should be the one to inherit all of Max’s possessions, but he didn’t want a single one. Not a single one.
“Walter must have seen us haying, knew they could catch a ride to the ranch,” Dusty said.
Walter Thorsten had been driving the stage that crossed the southern part of the ranch for years, and on occasion had delivered people to the house, but it was several miles out of the way. “May have,” Gabe answered. “Or she may have said they’d walk.”
“In this heat?” Dusty asked, shaking his head. “Walter wouldn’t have advised that.”
Gabe shrugged. “She may have insisted. From what I’ve seen, she’s a mite pigheaded.”
“Well, she was mighty glad to accept a ride from me,” Dusty said, knowing better than to argue. “How long they staying?”
Gabe shrugged again. “Don’t know. Overnight for sure.”
“Your father must be smiling today,” Dusty said. “Knowing there’s a new generation of Callaways on the Triple C. That was his only regret.”
Despite the heat, a shiver had the hairs on Gabe’s arms standing up. Dusty was right. Ruby was the next generation of Callaways. Whether he wanted to inherit anything or not, he had. And the Triple C is where Ruby belonged.
“Well, I better head back out.” Dusty walked around the wagon. “Looks like Jake’s coming up the road with another wagonload. Suspect they’ll be ready to load me up again as soon as I arrive. Having two mowers keeps everyone busy.”
Gabe considered mentioning the poison ivy, but there was no reason to. The hands knew to cut around it whenever possible, and none of them had ever been affected by the plant one way or the other.
No one had broken out from poison ivy since Max left. Until now.
“You need more men out there?” Gabe asked.
“No.” Dusty wrapped the reins around his hands. “Just stating a fact.”
“Good enough, then,” Gabe said as Dusty drove off. The other wagon was still a distance away, no more than a cloud of dust on the road. Huffing out a breath, Gabe turned to glance toward the house as his mind went back to his company. So this was the sister. The one Anna had talked about. There had been plenty of time for him to think about Anna over the years. She’d been young and impulsive and...lively. So full of life he’d stumbled over his own feet the first time he’d heard her laugh. That had never happened before or since. Nor would it ever happen again.
Anna had been pretty, too, and appealing. A circle of men had gathered around her in the passenger car. Men Gabe didn’t think a girl as young and innocent as she’d appeared to be should be associating with. That’s why he’d stepped in, and later, she’d thanked him for that.
Still gazing up at the house, Gabe let out another sigh. Marriage, as well as the idea of having a wife and family, hadn’t appealed to him for a long time. Still didn’t, but now, thanks to Max, the reason he might have to eventually marry was no longer relevant. Because of Ruby there was now another generation of Callaways to continue on the Triple C.
His father had started the Callaway Cattle Company when Kansas had been a violent battleground. On the east border, the fighting was over Kansas being a free or slave state; on the west, the battles were caused by the removal of Indian tribes. Always his own man, his father hadn’t entered any of the battles. Instead, he started a cattle company that fed the army, the abolitionists and vigilantes and the proslavery and anti-Indian government heads who traveled the state, urging citizens to side with them. Long before the cattle drives brought herds to Kansas to ship eastward, Triple C beef had been feeding folks in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado,