to be a plank braced up by four flat-topped trunks. Candles flickered in a silver candelabra. Bowls of fine china were set out, and he was more than certain that the kettle sitting on the dresser contained soup or stew. He was starved.
And they were still singing. For him. The table had been set for him, too, he realized. Panic began to rise in Tyler's throat. Childish voices rose in tremolo, and Tyler took a step backward. The baby grinned and broke rank, toddling in his direction. Jose reached for her, and the whole ensemble crumbled into chaos. Sweat broke out on his forehead as Tyler saw Evie approaching, a frown of confusion marring her face as she wiped her hands on the towel at her waist.
"I came to tell you I'm heading back for the ranch," Tyler announced loudly—too loudly—over the heads of the children. And before anyone could say otherwise, he backed out the door. "I'll see you next Saturday."
And he was gone.
Chapter 20
"He bolted like a wild stallion with the paddock gate left open," Evie complained the next day. She wasn't entirely certain her audience was sympathetic, but she needed an understanding ear.
Since Daniel had been there when she had discovered the children's musical talent and used it to keep them occupied instead of worrying about their mother, he didn't need to ask why Evie had greeted Tyler with a chorus of children. Ben looked at her as if she were crazed.
He scratched his black head and shook it with amazement. "You ain't got a clue, do you? That man's dead-set against having any ties at all, and you give him a room full of them all at once. I'll be lucky to find any trace of him at all after that. Sorry, Miss Evie, but you plumb picked the wrong man when you picked Tyler. He didn't used to be that way, but the war kicked it all out of him."
"I didn't pick the blasted man; he picked me." Indignantly, Evie kicked a chair leg. "He could fall off the face of the earth for all I care. I just wanted to know if he was demented or something."
"Or something might cover it," Ben agreed grimly.
"Fine, then. The children and I are going over to clean their house. Unless one of their relatives shows up soon, I'll be over there for a while. Carmen can't look after them all the time." Evie threw open the door and walked out without the usual rustle of silk. She was wearing the same dress she had worn the day before.
Ben raised his eyebrows at Daniel in unspoken question.
Daniel shrugged uncomfortably. "You never can tell with Evie. She lives in a world of her own most of the time. I wish I could get out of this bed. She needs someone with her."
"They ain't much interested in breaking mustangs when the branding is going on. I think I'll hang around awhile. Looks to me like the man at the livery could use a little help." Ben ignored the relief in the boy's eyes, put his hat on, and wandered out.
Following Ben's direction, Kyle Harding appeared at the Rodriguez house behind the livery about midday. His eyes widened as he watched a boy with a fresh snakeskin wrapped about his middle climb up on a stack of crates and sweep the uncovered rafters with a long-handled broom. He continued to stare at a young girl using a shovel to heave the mud's debris out the open back door while carrying a dark-haired toddler on her hip. But mostly his gaze followed the schoolteacher he had last seen in satins and lace and who now wore a sadly bedraggled gray gown hitched up between her legs to expose her mud-covered stockings as she scoured an iron stove on her knees.
A younger boy came barreling through the doorway, practically colliding with the back of Kyle's knees, before sliding across the wet floor with a whoop as he dropped a pitiful, yowling cat at the schoolteacher's feet. The woman Kyle knew as Mrs. Peyton looked at the poor creature and immediately began to towel it off with her makeshift apron.
It was only then that she noticed Kyle. She gave him a surprised glance and continued toweling the complaining cat. "Good afternoon, Mr. Harding. Are you looking for someone?"
"You, as a matter of fact. I had to come in for supplies, and Jace told me to look in on you, said you had a handful