Second-Chance Bride (Dakota Brides Book 3)(5)

Should she have told Ward about the incident? Somehow, she didn’t think so. The children had enough to deal with without incurring their father’s anger.

She glanced over her shoulder at the sound of approaching steps. “Hello, Mr. Rollins. I’m sorry, but my horses prefer your place to mine.”

“Fine. Take them home.” He rushed by her. “Milo, Kit, where are you?”

“You have lost your sons?” Freyda’s heart stalled midbeat. She again glanced up at the loft. No little boys.

“Not lost. Just don’t know where they are.” He stood, arms akimbo, looking about.

“I will help you find them. You look in the barn. I will look in the house.” She didn’t wait for him to say yes or no but trotted to the house. She searched every room, pushing aside the sense of trespassing. She opened closet doors, looked under beds, and peeked into cupboards. Then she went back outside.

Ward came from the barn. “I did not find them.”

“Nor did I.” She looked about, trying to think where she would have hidden, or where her little cousins liked to hide. “Sometimes the most fun in hiding is when a person can see those looking for them. Like in those bushes over there.” She nodded the direction she meant. “In fact, I think I see something dark amidst the leaves.”

Ward dashed across the yard and plucked his two sons out by the collar. “Enough of this nonsense. I need to get the plowing done. You must stay where I can see you.”

“Yes, Papa,” Kit said.

“We could see you.” Milo was not ready to make things easy for his father.

“Come along now and no more running off.” Ward guided the boys ahead of him toward the field where his horses, hitched to the plow, waited. He realized Freyda was still there and stopped. “Do you need something?”

The boys ran ahead to the edge of the field and began to play in the dirt.

“My mor always said a naughty child is an unhappy child. Fix the unhappy and the naughty will disappear.” Ignoring the warning in Ward’s dark eyes, she hurried on. “I think Milo and Kit have many reasons to be unhappy. They will not be content having to stay at the side of your field day after day.”

“I will do what I must. There’s no other way to take care of my farm and look after the boys.”

An idea sprang full grown to Freyda’s mind and she spoke before she could think better of it. “Maybe there is another way.”

He scrubbed at his neck. “None that I know of.”

She pushed on, ignoring his impatience. “I need to get farm work done.” She would prove she could run her farm, but she wasn’t above asking for help.

He kept his attention on the boys and didn’t respond.

She would have to spell it out. “You need someone to help with your boys. I need help with my farm.”

He looked at her with no flicker of understanding.

“Mr. Rollins, we could help each other. I will look after your boys. In return, you will do my farming.”

He stared at her long enough to make her squirm. Would he agree to her suggestion? Would it solve her problem and his or make them worse?





2





Ward objected to her suggestion. It was the sensible thing to do, but her accusation that his children were unhappy left him feeling disagreeable. “My children are not bad.”

Her gaze darted to the barn and then back to him. “I did not say they were, nor do I think it.”

“I do my best to make them happy.” Why was he defending himself before this woman? He didn’t care what she thought of him.

“No doubt you do, but I think my suggestion would be good for all of us. Your boys too.”

Why did she stare at the barn? He followed her gaze to the loft. The block and tackle hung at the loft door. Strange. He had left it chained inside the loft and the door closed. “I use it to lift hay,” he said, thinking she wondered what it was for.

“I know the use of a block and tackle.”

If she knew what it was used for, why did she continue to stare at it? “Do you see something wrong?” Baruk hadn’t found any fault with it, so Ward couldn’t imagine that his widow would.

Mrs. Haevre shook her head and turned away from looking at the barn. “Do you agree to my suggestion?”

Ward rubbed his chin. He pressed fingers to the tense muscles of his neck. He looked across the yard to where the boys played. If they would stay there while he worked, he didn’t need help. But could he expect they would? Mrs. Haevre’s offer seemed logical but still, he hesitated. Tried to remember what Baruk had said about her apart from her being stubborn, which was not a factor in her favor. “I don’t—”

“Mr. Rollins, I did not plan to tell you what happened while you were gone to town but I feel I must for the safety of your children.”

He would not have thought his neck could get tighter but it spasmed enough to make him flinch.

Mrs. Haevre continued, her words coming slowly whether because she had to search for the English words or was indeed reluctant to say what she meant to say.

“The boys disappeared while I made sandwiches.”

And she thought he should trust her to take care of them? She had managed to give him all the reason he needed to say no to her offer.