Chapter 17
Reviewed accounts after supper.
Knew which mare had gone lame and which hired hand's mother was ill.
He could be difficult.
He disliked lateness.
He hated waste.
Once I watched him make a young ranch hand redo an entire gate because the hinges were set badly.
The boy's face burned with anger.
I expected Adrien to humiliate him.
Instead he picked up a hammer and helped.
"Do it right once," he said, "or wrong twice."
The boy never forgot.
Neither did I.
One afternoon, I burned my hand lifting a cheese pot.
Adrien was standing near the pantry.
He crossed the room faster than I had ever seen him move.
"Cold water."
"I'm fine."
"Your hand."
"It's a burn."
"I can see that."
He took my wrist.
The contact startled us both.
His hand was rough and warm.
For a second neither of us moved.
Then he led me to the pump and held my fingers under cold water.
Harlan watched from the stove.
I could feel his grin without looking.
I pulled away.
"That is sufficient."
Adrien released me immediately.
"Of course."
I wrapped the burn.
Nothing else happened.
Which was exactly why I thought about it that night.
I had known affection with Curtis.
Heat.
Laughter.
The wild confidence of being twenty-two and poor together.
What I had never known was carefulness.
Adrien was careful with horses.
Money.
Words.
Promises.
And, increasingly, with me.
That scared me.
One evening, the wagon was late.
Adrien offered to drive me home himself.
"You have work."
"So do horses. They still stop at night."
"I can wait for Eli."
"Eli is helping with a foaling."
"I can ride."
"On what?"
I realized I had lost.
Adrien had discovered that the fastest way around my pride was practical argument.
We rode in the ranch buckboard.
The sun lowered behind the mountains.
For several miles we said almost nothing.
The silence was not uncomfortable.
That was new too.
Then Adrien asked, "How often does Dunore come by?"
My spine stiffened.
"Often enough."
"I didn't mean to intrude."
"You did."
He nodded.
"Fair."
I looked at him.
"You can ask."
He kept his eyes on the road.
"Is he staying?"
"In Kestrel Flat."
"That wasn't what I meant."
"I know."
The wheels struck a rut.
I gripped the seat.
Adrien slowed the horses.
"Curtis wants to."
"And you?"
"I don't."
The answer came easily.