{Chapter 7}

Katie shook her head as Toni rode up to the chuck wagon every three hours or so to tend to Justin. The woman should have stayed home with the baby instead of bringing him along. It was just wrong to expose him to the heat this way. It was true that he was out of the sun, but Katie imagined that it got stuffy in there every now and then. Then again, Toni was the parent. Whether she was irresponsible or not remained to be seen. Her eyes sparked and shone while working with the herd, and Katie knew that she really loved working with the herd.

It was getting late when Mark decided to pick a spot to camp for the night. Katie didn’t argue with him either. She was sunburned and dusty from the trail. Other than that, she was doing pretty well. Then again, it was only the first day.

After a place to camp had been found, Katie parked the chuck wagon to start on supper while the boys and Toni bedded down the herd. She strapped little Justin to her back and went about setting up camp.

“Boss sent me to help you” she heard a voice say.

Katie turned and saw Adam standing there, his hands shoved in his pockets. He looked like he had been rode hard and put up to dry. Either Mark was teasing him by sending him to help out the Cookie, or he was just that useless.

Resisting a grin, she took joy in telling him what to do as they went about setting up camp.

The strained silence was nearly more than Katie could handle. She sent Adam off to find firewood so she could compose herself and not chew him out as she wanted to. Adjusting Justin on her back, she grabbed a mixing bowl and a few ingredients from the back of the wagon. Cornmeal, “cow grease” or butter, salt, sugar, milk, and baking powder was all she needed to mix up a big batch of corndodgers to go with the stew she was planning on making. After having a talk with Toni about good recipes to cook for the boys, Katie had ventured into her own version of chuck wagon food. She wasn’t about to cook up some “mountain oysters” as Toni put it. Katie had made the mistake of asking about that one.

Adam came back, set the wood in a pile, and went on about making a fire. Finally, he stood up and huffed.

“For corn’s sake, Katie. We’ve gotta talk this out if we’re gonna be stuck together for over a month on this thing” he said suddenly.

Katie rolled her eyes. “We don’t have anything to talk about.”

“That’s a lie and you know it.” Adam muttered. “You’ve been nothing but uncivil to me for the past four years since you moved back to Sundance.”

Katie sighed. “Fine. I’ll talk. Where should I start? At the complete and utter betrayal or the complete and utter betrayal?”

“It’s not what you think, Kate,” Adam reasoned.

“Stop calling me that” Katie said in a warning voice.

Adam didn’t even apologize this time. “If you would have given me a chance to explain…”

“You’ve had five years to explain, and now I‘m trying to understand and it‘s like nailing jelly to a tree,” Katie stirred the contents of her bowl vigorously.

Great. Now she was pulling out Rawhide language.

“Then allow me to explain” Adam said.

Katie turned to him. “Start talking.”

Adam took a deep breath. “You remember that night I told you that I couldn’t court you anymore?”

Katie sent him a look. “Does Tiny snore?”

“Point taken. Well, earlier that day I had a talk with your father…”Katie snarled. She should have known that her overprotective father had something to do with this. “… and we… we exchanged some heated words. You know that he never approved of my family. Anyway, he told me about ya’ll’s move to El Paso, and I was mighty cantankerous about it. Alright, in all probability I said some things I shouldn’t have. Your Pa told me that we were done. He said that he would have a talk with you when you arrived home from a walk or something that you had ventured off to. I… I couldn’t bear for you to have a bad relationship with your Pa over me, so I decided that I’d pretend like it was my idea that we end it all. I figured that since you were moving away anyway, our relationship couldn’t work. You would leave me behind, but you would have to move with your father. I lost so many nights of sleep over that, wondering if it was the right thing to do. Lately I’ve just been too… well, I just never had the sand enough to tell you” Adam kicked up a little dust with the toe of his boot.

Katie couldn’t even finish making the corndodgers. All this time she was blaming him for deserting her… for tiring of her. Now she found out that it wasn’t that way at all… that he was actually looking out for her. How could that be?

“We’ll have to be careful once we get to Indian Territory” A cowboy’s voice echoed to her ears, signaling the outfit‘s close return.

Adam went to help with the horses and left her alone to prepare supper, though her mind couldn’t focus on her work at all. She felt like the past five years were a lie, and that she had treated Adam dreadfully wrong. She tried to think of ways to make up for that, yet no ideas came to her mind.

**********

Toni poured herself another cup of coffee in the quiet camp. Everyone was careful to make as little noise as possible in order to keep the herd from getting startled and sent into a stampede. It was amazing how easy the animals could get startled, so a thunderstorm was a tragedy waiting to happen. She sat down on her saddle in the bog circle around the fire, enjoying the peacefulness of the night. The fire crackled and sent a warm wave of contentment over her. She loved being out in the middle of nowhere when nothing but Texas surrounded her. It hit her that she already missed Sandy. Well, she might as well admit that she missed the little thing before the drive had even started.

Looking across the camp at her husband, she watched as he stared into the fire and his face told her that he was in deep thought. There were only a few circumstances that would cause Erik to have that face. He was angry, confused, or had a big decision to think about. Toni knew which circumstance brought that look to his face. Erik’s eyes moved up to focus on her, and his jaw visibly hardened. Yes siree, he was angry with her. Toni looked away. She knew that coming along was disobedient to her husband, but he didn’t understand the emotional attachment she had to a cattle drive… to the feeling of accomplishment at the end of it. How she loved the feel of dirt in her nails and a rope in her hands.

Downing the rest of her coffee, she stood and walked to the chuck wagon where Justin was laying in his pillow fortress. Katie was scrubbing the dishes in limited water, the perks of making a dry camp, and Toni knew something was wrong by the expression on her face. After ranching for so long, she had become able to read facial expressions pretty well.

“What’s up, Katie?” Toni asked, sitting on the wagon tongue.

“Nothin’” Katie mumbled, placing another tin plate on the drying rack.

Toni nodded. Katie obviously didn’t want to tell her what was troubling her. Then, just before turning away, Toni saw Katie sneak a glance toward the circle of cowboys… one of them in particular.

Adam Sterling.

Toni narrowed her eyes and looked at the man, who was staring at the fire with a faraway look in his eyes. Something had happened that she hadn’t saw between them. Adam was obviously avoiding Katie and she looked as nervous as a cat. Toni might not be able to get anything out of a woman like Katie, but she knew how to get to the bottom of something with one of her cowboys… especially ones like Adam.

Once she had finished feeding Justin in the privacy of the chuck wagon and awkwardly rocking him to sleep to the sound of Erik‘s gentle guitar playing over at the fire, it was time for everyone else to sleep, too.

“Slick, you take first watch. Come wake up Wade in two hours” Mark told one of the cowboys.

Slick nodded, a lock of greasy hair falling in his face. Apparently, the man had got his name from the way he slicked his hair straight back away from his face.

Everyone quietly went about laying out their bedrolls and laying down around the fire. Toni took her bedroll to sleep inside the chuck wagon with her baby, and Katie lay out under the chuck wagon.

**********

Aubrey couldn’t sleep, she couldn’t get up, she could hardly even think about anything other than Wade. Did he miss her right now? Was he fast asleep without giving her a second thought? Was he even alive? What if he got trampled by a stampede? No, they were so close to home that if there were a stampede, surely she would have heard about it. He was just fine. He was working hard and thinking about her all the time, like he promised. Wade never went back on a promise.

Sitting up in bed, Aubrey looked out of the window where the moon shone through it. She heard his deep, reassuring voice inside her head.

“See that moon? Look at it every night and know that I’m looking at the exact same one at that moment, okay? I’ll think of you every second.”

Aubrey sighed. He was thinking about her now, she knew it.

Wade smiled up at the moon, so big and bright like a guardian over the earth shining light into the darkness of night, thinking of his wife miles away. This was the first time he had been gone from her for more than a few days in their short marriage. It was going to be hard on the both of them. Jay and Sandy would drive Aubrey crazy, and Wade would be too tired to think most nights.

But God would keep them both safe and return them to eachother. Wade was sure of that.

Hey guys! Thanks for reading! You guys are all awesome! I was just thinking about how I never expected so much when I joined Wattpad. Now "The Cowboy's Love" has over 25,000 reads! Thank you guys so much for this!

Happy reading and as always, God Bless!