Something Blue

Chapter 29

Katherine

Ten days.

Katherine sat on a rocking chair on the porch, staring at the sloping hill up to the house she shared with her daughter and Melissa. A cool, damp breeze toyed with her hair, and a lumpy gray haze blotted the clean line of the horizon. Rain was coming. Cold rain, but it would nonetheless leave pockmarks in the layer of crusty snow that covered the earth. It would gather and pool and dig murky trenches through the white expanse as it ran down the hills toward the rivers.

An early spring and a muddy one.

Her fingers clenched involuntarily around the ceramic mug in her hands, and she stared down into the pale, doctored coffee.

Ten days since one of Josh's men had witnessed a murder in the street outside the bank. Ten days since that man had hightailed it back to the ranch and Josh had subsequently hightailed it out to this house. Ten days since she'd let the Tuckers convince her not to go to him.

It's not safe.

Think of Isobel.

The last thing he needs right now is to worry about your safety.

She shouldn't have let them change her mind, because now ten days had passed and she had neither seen nor heard from him. Josh had gone to town to pay his respects, but he brought no worthwhile news home.

"He's getting by. The girls need him right now, Katherine. They're afraid."

Of course they were afraid! And he must be too. Afraid and grieving, and all she could do was sit here on this rocking chair, staring at the hill and waiting for him to come to her. She was worse than useless. She was a burden. An errand for him to run when he was already overwhelmed with responsibility.

Ten days had passed since she had convinced herself not to bother him with anything more than a perfunctory note. A silly, trite little gesture with none of the depth of feeling she truly wished to convey. She hadn't even dared to sign her name or add the I love you she so desperately wanted to convey, for fear the note would fall into the wrong hands. She hadn't asked him to visit, for fear he would feel some obligation and go out of his way at a time when he should be focusing on himself and the girls. She hadn't shared her own genuine sadness over the loss of such a strong woman, for fear that she was misappropriating his grief and the grief of the girls Vivian had rescued. 

Gabe,

I'm so incredibly sorry for your loss. You and the girls are on all of our minds.

That was it.

...Worthless.

She nibbled her lip and took a small sip of coffee, wishing the sky would just open up and unleash. Her mood was not suited to clear skies, but those clouds in the distance were still building and slow moving, and the dome overhead was still the dark, troubled blue of early spring.

Movement caught the corner of her eye, and she was on her feet before her mind had truly processed the advancing rider. Lukewarm coffee sloshed over the rim of her cup and she abandoned the dripping mug on the porch rail, dashing down the stairs and across the yard. Her boots sank deep into the slush, and the minor exertion created a prickly heat along her spine in the uncommon warmth.

She slowed as Gabe drew his stomping horse to a stop, and for a second she merely stood at the horse's side, staring up at the rider just as he stared down at her. He wasn't wearing a hat, and his hair was wind-swept, his face a touch ruddy from the chill. She saw the shadow of a grayish-green bruise beneath the skin beside his eye, and an ugly scab marred his eyebrow, half-healed but still grisly to look at.