Homecoming (Sweet Hearts of Sweet Creek Book 1) Read online

  She returned from parking the tractor, brushing loose bits of hay off her pants. “I guess I’m done.”

  Mark nodded, watching the play of sun and wind in her hair, wishing he had the nerve to reach over and take the braid out, to see it loose again.

  “Do you need to return the baler right away?” she asked, quirking him a questioning look.

  He pulled his thoughts together. “No,” he answered shortly. “I’ll return it when we come back.”

  “Come back?”

  “From the pack trip.”

  Sheryl nodded as comprehension dawned on her face. “I forgot about that.”

  “Aren’t you coming?”

  “No, I can’t.”

  Mark felt disappointment cut through him. He had so hoped she was coming, had hoped that once she was on a horse in the mountains she so clearly loved, she would lower her defenses, would open up...

  To what? he thought deprecatingly. Your suaveness and irresistible charm?

  “So what were you going to do?”

  She shoved her hands in her pockets, pursing her lips. “I was going to head back to Edmonton.”

  “For what?”

  “My apartment...my studies.”

  Mark nodded, dropping the rag into the empty pail beside him. “Of course. I forgot.”

  He sighed, cleaned up the tools, Sheryl helping him of course, and when they were done he drove her back to Nate’s place. The drive was quiet.

  He pulled up to Nate’s house and stopped.

  “So,” he said, turning to Sheryl, the truck still running. “Thanks again.”

  She looked down at the old felt hat she still held and nodded. “You’re welcome again.” Then she caught his eyes and smiled. “I really enjoyed it, truly.”

  “So when are you heading back?”

  She shrugged, “A bus leaves from Fernie at midnight for Calgary. I’ll switch there. I can visit Ed once more before I leave.”

  “Tomorrow night?”

  She frowned at him. “No. Tonight.”

  “What?” He couldn’t stop the exclamation of surprise. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I knew we’d be finished early today...”

  “I don’t care about the baling. I just thought you might let me know...” His voice trailed off.

  She glanced at him, her expression surprised, and as their eyes met Mark felt it again, that clutch in the pit of his stomach that hurt and made him angry at the same time. Couldn’t she see what effect she had on him? Didn’t it matter to her?

  “Mark, what’s the matter?”

  He shook his head, wondering whether she was just blind or indifferent. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me when you were going.” He shoved his hair out of his eyes with a quick movement, unable to keep the words down. “I mean, we spent the entire week working together, and I didn’t have a clue.”

  “You knew I was only going to be here awhile.”

  “Of course I knew that, I just thought you might want to stay and spend some time here without having to work like a dog.”

  “I told you already I enjoyed it.” She handed him his hat and reached for the door handle. “Anyhow I have to leave sometime.”

  Mark couldn’t stop himself and caught her arm. “I don’t want you to go. Come on the pack trip, spend some time in the mountains.

  She said nothing, only stared ahead, her face suddenly harsh.

  “Nate won’t be coming, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

  She shook her head and then turned to him, her face drawn and tight. Mark felt a chill shiver through him as he faced again the same withdrawn Sheryl he had met in the bar over a week ago.

  “It doesn’t matter, Mark. I can’t go.”

  And before he could challenge her comment, she stepped out of the truck without a backward glance.

  But as Mark watched her, he felt as if she’d taken part of him with her.

  Sheryl waited until she heard Mark’s truck reverse and tear down the driveway. Only then did she dare turn around, watching him hungrily as he left, just as she did each night he brought her home, knowing this would be her last glimpse of him. The red bandana still held down his long hair, and from his posture, Sheryl knew he was angry.

  She was fully aware of the undercurrents that flowed between them, she knew he was attracted to her, even though it seemed that to recognize it was a type of pride.

  But it was there, and to ignore it would be to encourage him. He was not for her. The very things that made him so incredibly appealing also pushed her away. He had a place, security, but more importantly, a sincere faith. His spontaneous prayer that morning had shown her more clearly than anything he could say that he had a real and solid relationship with God.

  She turned, her feet dragging, knowing if she had given him any encouragement at all, things might have been different. But then what? She knew that the most basic ingredient of any relationship was the ability to open up to each other.

  And she knew she couldn’t give any man any kind of power over her.

  She pushed open the door of her cabin, surprised to see Marla and Crystal sitting on her bed, crying.

  “Auntie Sheryl,” they called out when she entered the cabin, launching themselves at her.

  She took the full brunt of two small but compact bodies catching her around the waist, almost causing her to stagger.

  “What’s wrong?” She disentangled herself from their arms, suddenly worried. “What happened, tell me quick.” “Daddy says you’re going away tonight,” Marla wailed, clutching Sheryl’s hand, her tear-streaked face turned up to hers. “And that you’re not coming on the pack trip with us.”

  “Why do you have to go?” Crystal complained, stamping her foot. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Come and sit on the bed with me, before you push your foot through the floor like Rumplestiltskin,” said Sheryl, trying to make this very angry bundle of girl laugh.

  Crystal managed a faint smile, then frowned again and dropped onto Sheryl’s bed so hard the springs sang.

  Sheryl sat beside her and pulled Marla onto her lap.

  “We asked Daddy to ask you to stay longer, but he said you had to leave,” Marla sniffed.

  “Mommy said you were leaving tonight,” Crystal said, suddenly turning on Sheryl. “You can’t go. We didn’t even see much of you. Uncle Mark had you to himself all the time.”

  “I had to help with the baling. Your daddy had a broken leg, and Uncle Mark couldn’t afford to hire anyone else.”

  “But now you have to go right away.”

  “Please,” added Marla. “We didn’t see you at all.”

  Any further entreaty was broken off by the opening of the door.

  “Here you are, you two urchins.” Elise scolded, her hands on her hips. “Sorry about this, Sheryl. I couldn’t find them and finally clued in to where they went.” She turned to the girls and stepped aside, pointing out the door. “Now off to the house and the bathtub, on the double.”

  Crystal glanced at Marla who sniffed again. Sheryl gave her a quick hug and then let her slide off her lap. They walked to the door, making each step seem like a monumental effort At the door Crystal hesitated and turned back to Sheryl.

  “If you stay one more day, we can get to know each other better.” Crystal added. “Maybe you can even come on the pack trip with us. Daddy says we can’t go this year because he has a broken leg and Mommy has to cook.”

  “Don’t bother Auntie Sheryl with all of your troubles, Crystal. She has had a busy day and a long night ahead of her.” Elise admonished.

  “Don’t you like us at all, Auntie Sheryl?”

  A stab of pain pierced her heart at the innocent question. The only time she saw them was a brief glimpse of their heads each evening against the light of their bedroom window when Mark drove away.

  She thought of what waited for her in Edmonton. A dingy apartment and studies she was way ahead of.

  And no job.

 
“I suppose I could leave tomorrow.” She hesitated then looked over at Elise. “That is if it’s not too much trouble”

  “Of course not,” Elise said warmly. “I’d love to have you around.”

  Crystal and Marla looked at each other, mouths open, then whirled around and ran back to Sheryl. Again she was engulfed by arms and surrounded by cries, this time of happiness. She caught her balance and, reaching out, stroked their heads, missing Elise’s smirk.

  “I think you’d better go, girls. Your mom is waiting,” she said, squatting down to look them in the eye.

  Marla smiled at her and hugged her again.

  “We can go riding tomorrow if you want,” Crystal said. “Or we can go for a walk.”

  “Whatever you want,” Sheryl replied with a smile.

  Crystal nodded and turned.

  “Let’s go, Marla,” she said with a grin.

  “I’m sorry about that, Sheryl,” Elise said as the girls ran down the walk, their whoops of delight drifting behind them on the night air. “They have been wanting to spend time with you all week, and when they found out you were going away tonight they were desolate.”

  “I just didn’t want to impose on you.”

  Elise walked over to Sheryl’s side and gave her a quick hug. “You’re not imposing at all. Like the girls were complaining, we’ve hardly seen you at all. Mark had you to himself, and all he did was make you work. I’d like you to have at least some time to go riding. It’s the least we can do after you helped us out.”

  “Well I suppose one more day wouldn’t matter much.”

  “No, probably not.” Elise smiled, then turning, left.

  “The next bus doesn’t leave until five Tuesday afternoon?” Sheryl frowned, winding the telephone cord around her finger. She and the girls had spent the morning going for a walk and making daisy chains. It had reminded Sheryl of a more carefree time in her young life. When her mother was alive. But she had forgotten to call about the schedule.

  And now she had just discovered that she was potentially stuck in Sweet Creek over the weekend.

  “Is there any other connection I can make before that?” She sighed, grimacing at Elise who lifted her eyebrows in sympathy. “Okay. Thanks a lot.”

  Sheryl hung up the phone and turned to Elise, wondering if she knew all of this when she’d convinced her to stay another day. “Well, unless I hitchhike, it looks like you’re stuck with me until Tuesday.” She bit her lip, planning. Her rent was paid until the end of next month. All she needed was a job, badly.

  Elise shook her head. “Don’t even think about hitchhiking. Mark would have a fit if he found out you were even considering it, and he’d end up driving you himself.”

  “So what must I do the next few days?”

  “You can come on the pack trip with me and Crystal,” Marla said, looking up from her coloring. “Daddy says we can’t go if he isn’t coming, because Mommy has too much work to do.”

  Sheryl looked at Marla’s innocent blue eyes, then at Elise’s gray ones, so like Mark’s, and wondered if this hadn’t been the plan all along.

  “Catch Roany and F5 and get them ready to be rigged up.” Mark handed two halters to Conrad. “Tie them to the south hitching rail. I don’t want F5 to get too close to Tia. She’s ornery today.”

  Conrad took the halters and headed off. Mark watched to make sure he shut the gate properly behind him and then shouldered himself between Two Bits and Tia. He began buckling up the rigging on Tia who pranced around. A warning thwack on her haunches made her settle down.

  “Where should I put these?” Elaine stood beside him holding a pannier. Mark glanced up from the latigo he was tightening and almost ground his teeth in frustration.

  “Just set them against the tack shed for now,” he answered shortly, “and make sure you put them where they won’t get kicked over.”

  He turned back to Tia, giving her a shove, wondering for the thousandth time how he’d managed to let Allen and Elise talk him into moving the trip up a couple of days.

  “Hey, Mark," Brad called from the other side of Two Bits. “The buckles on this rigging are wrecked.”

  “I thought you were farther along than that.” Mark called over his shoulder, snugging up the latigo. Tia jerked back, and her rope flew loose. Mark grabbed for it, but she trod on the end, grinding it into the mud from the rain last night.

  “Move over you ornery critter.” Mark shouldered the horse aside, but she wouldn’t budge. Two Bits sidestepped and almost crushed him between the two horses. Mark elbowed Two Bits in the ribs and, with one final heave, managed to move Tia and tied her snug to the rail.

  “Just stay put you miserable creature,” he warned, hoping he had used up his catastrophe quota.

  He ducked under Two Bits’ head, trying without success to quell his rising frustration.

  “The breeching is too tight,” he said shortly, running a practiced eye over the rigging. “You shouldn’t snug it up till you’re ready to pack the horse.”

  “Now you’re going to be ticked,” sighed Brad, resting a hand on Two Bits’ haunches. “Which one is the breeching?”

  “Breast collar goes across the chest of the horse, breeching across the rear end.. .like britches?” Mark loosened the buckles, wishing, almost praying for one person who knew what they were doing, instead of these weekend cowboys who made up his family.

  “Well I’m glad enough I got it on the right way,” Brad huffed, picking up on Mark’s mood. “Anyhow, the buckles on the breast collar—" he put emphasis on the word “—are the ones that are broken.”

  Mark ignored him, praying as he felt the all-too-familiar tightening of his chest as he struggled with a mixture of impatience and frustration. He wished again he’d had four days instead of two to get everything ready.

  “You have to ream out the hole on the strap,” he told his brother. As he ducked under Two Bits’ head, he knew that his underlying problem wasn’t horses and inept wranglers, it was Sheryl.

  She had dropped the news of her leaving on him without any preparation. They’d spent four days working together, talking in the evening each time he’d dropped her off, but never a hint of her departure until four hours before she left.

  Mark tugged on a strap on Tia’s rigging a bit too hard, netting him an antsy horse, and he took a deep breath, stifling the rising clutch of panic. He didn’t know if he would ever see her again. She doubted she would expend a lot of energy on familial visits in the future. He paused a moment, looking past the horses, past his house to the hills beyond that so captured her fancy. He wished he could take her riding through them. He wished he could bring her to the very place where he instinctively knew she might drop her guard and show him the girl he had only caught tantalizing glimpses of. He knew there was a hungering within her for love, for God, for security, but she covered that need with a hard shell of independence because much as she yearned for these things, she feared them more.

  “Yo, Mark.” Rob’s loud yell pulled him back to reality and the work at hand. Biting back a sigh, he vaulted over the hitching rail to handle yet another crisis.

  “Oh, no," Brad yelled out. “Someone catch that horse!”

  Mark looked up just as Tia thundered past, ropes trailing, loose rigging flopping around, kicking up great clods of mud. Three horses were right on her heels as Conrad let out a mighty yowl.

  “I told you to watch that gate, Conrad,” Mark cried out, running to the gate that Conrad was desperately trying to push shut.

  Conrad eyed him warily, and Mark stifled his anger. He’d been owly the past couple of days. He knew it, and try as he might, he couldn’t seem to keep from sniping at everyone. He dug in his pockets and tossed Conrad a set of keys.

  “Take my truck and head them off before they hit Sweet Creek.”

  Conrad was over the fence and hit the ground running.

  “And don’t pump the gas,” Mark called out after his retreating figure.

  Everyone had stopped what
they were doing, watching the latest drama unfold. Conrad got in, leaned over to turn the key, his head bobbing. It wouldn’t start.

  Mark groaned and dragged his hands over his face. Flooded. “What are you trying to teach me. Lord?” he sighed, drawing in a steadying breath and counting to ten.

  “Hey, Mark,” Brad called out.

  Mark looked up in time to see a set of car keys arcing toward him. He caught them against his chest.

  “Just remember it’s a car, not a farm truck,” Brad yelled as Mark ran toward the gleaming white vehicle.

  Mark got in, pushed the key into the ignition and was about to turn it when he looked up and saw the three runaway horses galloping back down the drive toward the corrals.

  “What in the world...” he muttered, jumping out of the car. What miracle had occurred to make the horses turn around? He jumped out of the car and snapped out orders. “Someone get in the corral and keep the other horses away from the gate. Brad, Allen, funnel the loose horses down. Don’t let them get on the wrong side of the hitching posts. Elaine you open the gate.”

  Conrad came at a dead run, vaulted over the corral fence and herded the horses into a corner. As the gate swung open the three free horses paused a moment, as if pondering their next move. Then a whinny sounded from behind them, and there was Tia being urged on by Sheryl riding Nate’s gelding.

  Mark stopped, shock and surprise coursing through him as Sheryl easily herded the horses through the gate. Tia stopped.

  “Shut the gate,” Sheryl called out as she swooped down and caught Tia’s halter rope, preventing her from escaping one more time. Elaine pushed the gate closed, and all was under control.

  Except Mark’s heart. It lifted and ran at the sight of Sheryl’s long blond hair, flushed cheeks and soft green eyes, unable to believe that she was actually here. Questions stumbled through his mind, all eager to be voiced.

  Why hadn’t she left on Thursday like she said she would? Why had she changed her mind?

  Then she looked down at him. He sensed hesitation and indecision. Whatever her reasons were for coming he wouldn’t find out directly.