Bar herd unless they had traceable brands. Hancock would make a tidy profit, and Luke would no doubt have his pick of jobs once word spread.
Why, then, was he fighting a melancholy cloud that threatened to settle over his soul?
Someone approached from behind. Clearing his expression, he turned and found Emma standing no more than an arm’s length behind him. The angry scratches on her face had settled into a spray of tiny scabs, and the welt had become a faint bruise that marred one perfectly smooth cheek. She was, if anything, more beautiful to him than ever.
Her eyes searched his, and his resolution to honor her father’s request wavered. How could he say goodbye to her when what he really wanted to do was sweep her into his arms, throw her on his horse, and ride hard for Texas before anyone could stop them?
“I brought your supper.” She thrust a plate of thick, delicious-smelling stew into his hands.
He automatically took it. “Thank you. I…” He cleared his throat. “I heard it’s really good.”
The dusty ground must have held some special fascination for her, because she studied it with rapt attention. The silence between them became electric, full of unspoken sentiment and suppressed feeling. Around them, the men’s talk swelled with praise for the food and admiration for the two cooks who had produced it, but the noise seemed to bounce off an invisible barrier that surrounded Emma and Luke.
But that same barrier stood as firm as a stone wall between them.
Her shoulders rose as she drew in a breath. “Luke, I’ve wanted to say something, but I’m afraid you’ll think I’m forward.”
The idea brought a smile to his lips. “I can’t imagine anything you could say that would make me think you forward.”
She looked up, her eyes full of an unnamed emotion that caused his insides to quiver in response. “I wanted to say—”
“Emma!”
An outside voice ripped through the fragile connection between them. A guilty flush tinged her scraped cheeks as she turned toward her sister, who approached at a trot.
“Papa says to come and help with serving the cobbler.” Rebecca dimpled as she cast a sideways grin toward the occupant of the rocking chair. “Maummi heard peach was Jesse’s favorite and made it special for him.”
Luke raised his gaze and found Jonas staring at him from across the laughing, relaxed crowd of cowboys. A look of meaning passed between them, and Luke remembered his resolve. This little Amish girl was not for him. She had a place waiting for her back in Apple Grove, far from anyplace he’d ever thought of as home.
“Go help,” he told Emma, handing her his plate. He hadn’t touched his stew. “I need to check on my herd.”
Hurt darkened her eyes, but he tore himself away from the silent plea. Like a prisoner escaping a death sentence, he strode for his horse to escape to the wide Kansas plain and the twenty-five hundred cattle that were much easier to deal with than one sad-eyed Amish woman.
TWENTY-EIGHT
The herd arrived in Hays before sunset, when the sky was still a bright yellow-orange and the breeze that blew off the prairie was still hot from the long summer day. Emma could muster no enthusiasm for the town that loomed before her. How could she enjoy the end of the trail, when it also meant the end of her hopes for a life with Luke?
They approached from the west. As Luke and the lead cattle passed the first of the long rail-lined pens that made up the stockyard, the chuck wagon veered off toward the north and drew to a halt above the curve of the trail, where the cattle veered right toward town. Maummi led the oxen in behind, and a tight line of cattle filed past, following their leaders in a parade of high-priced beef. The buildings emptied their occupants in a trickle of spectators who lined up to watch the familiar process of funneling cattle into the stockyard stalls to await counting and weighing. Above the noise of bovine hooves shuffling in the dust and anxious cattle grumbling, saloon music carried down the street on the dry afternoon heat.
Emma had received instruction from Griff on this final stage of the journey, and she kept a firm hold on the reins as she urged the cattle ahead. On the other side of the narrow column of cattle, Morris and Rebecca forced their charges to merge with their herd mates, always advancing. Griff pressed close behind