Second-Chance Bride (Dakota Brides Book 3)
Linda Ford
1
Dakota Territory, Spring 1886
They were gone again.
Twenty-two-year-old Freyda Haevre stared at the empty corrals. The gate had somehow come unlatched and was pushed open to allow her two plow horses to escape. She jerked about and fixed her gaze on the low house not more than a five-minute walk from where she stood depending on whether she was going for a neighborly visit or chasing after a team of difficult horses. The home of Ward Rollins. A widower with two little boys. She’d met him three times. The day she’d moved here and gone to claim her horses that he had been keeping for her, and twice since, when her horses were missing.
They’d gone back to the place where they’d spent the four months since her husband had died. Freyda understood the animals were used to getting fed over there, but she needed them to stay home. Just as she needed to learn how to hitch them to the farm implements so she could break new land, plant a crop, and meet the requirements of the Homestead Act.
“Then I shall own this bit of land.” She squeezed the words past her tight lips. She would prove to everyone, herself included, that she could manage on her own.
There was only one thing to do. She hitched up her skirts and strode along the path that connected the two homesteads. It was a well-beaten track, as if Baruk had gone back and forth a number of times before his death. As if Ward Rollins perhaps had come over a few times to help Baruk and maybe care for the animals while Baruk was ill. And now the path was trampled by the hooves of two draft animals that refused to stay home.
As she neared the Rollins’ place, shrieking rent the air and sent her nerves into a frenzied dance. She broke into a run, praying her petticoat wouldn’t trip her.
The sound led her to the far side of the house. A woman had the oldest boy by one arm and laid a willow switch on his back again and again. The liten gutt clamped his lips together and endured the whipping as the heavy-set woman struck him again and again. But the younger boy screamed, “Papa, Papa, Papa!”
Freyda didn’t care if it was any of her business. Didn’t care if she was rebuked for interfering. She strode forward and was about to stop the beating when footsteps pounded past her and a big hand grabbed the woman’s arm.
“Enough.” Ward Rollins had come to the rescue of his small son.
Freyda stepped back, shivering before the fury making Ward’s voice as hard as last winter’s ice and his face dark with rage. He reached for the crying younger boy and lifted him into his arms, at the same time drawing the older child, with his silent tears, to his side.
“Mrs. Wright, you are done here. Pack your bags. I will take you back to town.”
The woman sniffed and looked down her nose. “Your children are wild and unmanageable. Mark my words, they are going to turn into good-for-nothing riffraff.”
“That’s enough. Get your things ready.”
The woman marched away, her head high.
Ward shot Freyda a look that forbade her to say anything or interfere. Not that she had a mind to. But if he hadn’t shown up, she would have given Mrs. Wright a piece of her mind. Her business or not.
Ignoring Freyda, perhaps expecting she would leave, Ward bent to the older boy. With his fingertip, he wiped away the tears. “You don’t deserve that kind of treatment. No one does.”
“Yes, Papa.”
Freyda’s throat tightened at the way the boy’s voice quivered. “Poor little lamb,” she murmured, more to herself than anyone.
Ward straightened. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Haevre?”
“I’ve come for my horses.” She nodded toward the patch of grass by the barn where they grazed placidly.
Ward’s attention went the same direction. “Help yourself.”
If only it was that easy. She had tried, and failed, to have any control over the big animals. With a pinch of spice, she thought it wasn’t unlike him trying to control his boys. In the few days she’d been at her farm she’d twice witnessed Mrs. Wright trying to shepherd the boys back to the house. It was like trying to corral wild cats.
“I’m ready to go,” Mrs. Wright called from the step.
“Come along, boys. We have to take her to town.”
“Papa,” the younger one cried. “I don’t want to ride with her. Please, don’t make me.”
The older boy pressed to Ward’s side and shivered.
Ward looked from his boys to the waiting woman who tapped her foot. One hand held her belongings, the other opened and closed at her side.
Freyda watched that hand and put her own to her neck as if she needed to protect herself. Without thinking, she took a step closer to Ward and his children. She couldn’t say if she wanted his protection or if she wanted to protect the boys.
“Why don’t you leave them with me?” The words surprised her. Wasn’t she supposed to be learning to handle her horses so she could get a crop in the ground? But she understood how frightened the little boys were. “I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten their names.” Everything was so hard to remember in English.
“This is Milo.” Ward indicated the boy quivering at his side. “He’s six. And this is Kit. He’s four.”
“Pleased to meet you both.” Freyda extended her hand toward the pair but withdrew it when she saw how they both jerked back. Her thoughts blackened. How many times had they endured whippings from that woman that they shrank from an ordinary gesture? “They will be safe with me.” She spoke to Ward.