Wild Horses (Sadie's Montana #1)(87)

“After all this time. This is amazing,” Harold kept repeating.

Finally he turned to the remaining two horses. “Butterfly and Sasha,” he said, nodding toward them.

Sadie’s heart sank. She had been foolish beyond belief. She had known this time would come. Paris was never hers. Never had been.

She felt old and weary then, and she wanted to run down the hillside without saying one more polite word to anyone. She wanted to get away where she could hold her sorrow and loss all by herself, stoic, accepting, and dry-eyed.

Reuben scuffed his foot against her boot.

“Answer, Sadie.”

She raised her head.

“I’m sorry. What?”

“I asked, had you named the horses?”

“Only one. The … the palomino.”

“Sasha?”

Sadie could only nod.

“Your riding is impeccable. I have never seen such a display of trust between a horse and a rider.”

“Thank you.”

Reuben grinned and grinned until Sadie elbowed his ribs slightly.

Richard Caldwell saw every emotion as it took control of Sadie’s features—the horrible despair upon learning these were Harold’s horses, the blaming of herself for getting too attached to Paris, the courage she had tried to muster when answering Harold, and how she failed miserably. It was every emotion he remembered feeling as he wrapped the body of his beloved dog in the pink towel and laid it gently in the cool, wet hole in the earth.

Courage was admirable, but sometimes your heart was so crumpled by pain that you couldn’t really hold all the fragments together. Sometimes a broken heart couldn’t be helped.

But not this time. Not if he could help it.

“We’ll pay a visit to your house this evening, Sadie,” he said, too tersely even to his own ears.

She nodded. There was nothing else to say, and besides, talking just didn’t work around a lump in your throat. So she turned and walked down the hillside, Reuben at her heels.





Chapter 24




SADIE STORMED INTO THE kitchen perspiring, her hair a mess, her dichly falling off her head. She flung herself down on a kitchen chair, a layer of dust and bits of grass trailing after her. Reuben went to the laundry bathroom and stayed there.

Mam looked up from the bowl where she was sifting flour.

“My goodness, whatever happened to you?” she asked.

“Oh, Mam,” Sadie wailed, then launched into the events of the afternoon, pouring out all the heartsickness that clogged every part of her being.

“And to make matters worse, they’re coming here tonight. What for? Whatever in the world would they want here?”

Mam considered the situation for a moment, slowly wiping her hands over and over on the underside of her apron. “Well, whoever that Harold Arken…”

“Ardwin.”

“… Ardwin is, he must be very wealthy. And now he is going to enter our humble dwelling. Richard Caldwell, too. If an important person arrives, we offer him the highest seat, and if a poor one enters, he always gets the lowest, but this is not good in Christ’s eyes. So we’ll not get flustered, and instead we’ll light our propane lamp and serve them these apricot cookies and coffee, same as if Jack Entan arrived.”

Sadie glanced at her mother, caught her glint of humor, and smiled wryly. Jack was the town’s junk-hauler who lived in a less than appealing environment, in spite of everyone’s best efforts to reform him.

“Mam!”

“I’m serious. They’re only human beings, wealthy and important or not.”

Sadie frowned. She straightened her legs, stared at her frayed denims and dusty boots, and stood up abruptly.

“I’m going to my room.”

“Oh, there’s a letter for you. It’s on the hutch.”

Mam returned to her baking, and Sadie went to the cupboard for the letter. She recognized the handwriting instantly.

Eva.

Oh good, she thought.

Sadie and Eva wrote constantly. Letters were their regular way of communicating. It was always a joyful day for Sadie when one of Eva’s letters arrived.

Sometimes they would plan a time to be at their phone shanties and have a long conversation, but that had its drawbacks, especially in winter. Phone shanties were cold and uncomfortable, so telephone conversations were kept to a minimum. Sadie supposed the whole idea for having that church rule about phone shanties was because women were prone to gossip, and telephones were definitely an aid to that vice. Therefore, the less convenient a phone was, the less women would be gossiping on it.

Sadie ripped open the plain white envelope, unfolded the yellow legal pad paper, and eagerly devoured every word.

Dear Sadie,

You will never guess what! My darling husband-to-be is allowing me to travel by train to spend a week with you. Are you sitting down? So I’m thinking of spending Christmas with you!!! Are there enough explanation points for that sentence?

Our wedding is not until April, and he really wants me to do this before the wedding because he knows how close we are and that we haven’t seen each other in years!

Oh, Sadie! I am so excited. I won’t be traveling alone because Dan Detweiler’s parents are coming, too. Maybe if we can get enough people to come, we’ll hire a van and won’t need the train.