the three men are vaqueros who came up with the herd last summer, it’s a little late to be getting upset over an oversight. At the time, you were busy taking care of little Arthur and Webb. It hardly seemed important.”
“What about that new Hereford bull you bought last September? Barnie was by today and said you’re keeping it at Mary and Ely’s.” Lorna fought to hold the squirming child on her lap as Arthur tried to wiggle free. Her glance swept Benteen with an impatient look. “Can’t you at least take your hat off at the table?”
“Sorry.” He removed his hat and hooked it on a chair back.
“I thought you were going to turn that bull out with the cows,” Lorna returned to the subject.
“That bull’s too valuable to have one of those range-wild Longhorns kill him in a fight.” Benteen explained his reasons for isolating the purebred. “Ely’s going to select a small herd of Western stock to breed to the bull this spring. That way he won’t have to compete to have his own private harem.”
“Webb, use your spoon,” Lorna warned when she caught him eating with his hands.
“Don’t want to!” He hid his hands behind his back.
“What’s gotten into these boys?” Benteen frowned at the pair of defiant youngsters. “Can’t you make them behave?”
It was the final spark to set off her temper. Lorna pushed away from the table and shoved a startled Arthur onto Benteen’s lap. “Here. You can do everything else by yourself. You might as well raise your own sons!”
While Benteen was still trying to recover from the shock of her unexpected action and hold on to a squealing boy as well, Lorna grabbed her shawl and went storming out of the cabin. Webb started to slide off his chair, crying with alarm, “Mommy!”
“Stay right where you are,” Benteen ordered in a harsh tone that stopped the tears instantly. He sat Arthur on Lorna’s chair and stuck a spoon in his hand. “You’re old enough to feed yourself.” Then he stood up and pointed a warning finger at the two shocked and silent youngsters, staring at him with rounded brown eyes. “Eat your supper and neither of you move.”
Long, angry strides carried him to the door Lorna had so recently slammed. Before he stepped outside, he sent one last look at his silent and unmoving sons, then closed the door behind him. Almost immediately he saw Lorna huddled against the corner of the cabin, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. The rage that had filled him when she had walked out the door faded. She hadn’t really left him and the boys. He came up behind her, his hands closing on her shoulders with a kind of fierceness.
“My God, what was the idea of walking out like that?” Benteen muttered thickly with relief. “Where did you think you were going?”
“It hardly matters, since I didn’t go very far.” Her voice quavered.
“You’d better come back inside. It’s cool out here,” he said.
“No. I don’t want to go back in there yet.” Lorna resisted his mild attempt to turn her around.
“I think you have a bad case of cabin fever,” Benteen guessed.
She whirled around at the faint smile in his tone and faced him, all angry defiance and trembling resentment again. “That shouldn’t come as a surprise. What else do I see but those four walls? I don’t have anyone to talk to all day long but two little boys who can’t even talk well. Every day it’s the same thing. I cook, clean, and sew, haul water, wash clothes, and keep the boys out of mischief.” Her chin was quivering. “I swore I wouldn’t let this land get to me. I swore I wouldn’t end up like that woman in Kansas. I was going to work and help us build a future here.”
“That’s what your doing,” Benteen assured her when she turned away and sank her teeth into her lower lip.
But his reply angered her instead. “How?” Lorna challenged. “By cooking your meals, taking care of your sons, and sleeping in the same bed with you! You can hire people to do that. It’s obvious that’s all you want from a wife.”
His gaze narrowed in bewilderment. “I don’t understand you.”
“I think that’s the problem. You don’t,” she agreed. “You leave in the morning and never tell me where you’re going. You come back at night and never tell me where you’ve been or what you’ve been doing.”
“I suppose I have Mary to thank for this, because Ely talks everything over with her.” Impatience rippled through him. “I make the decisions in this family.”
“Without talking it over with me. I have absolutely no say in what happens. I don’t even know what’s happening.”
“Why are you bringing this up now?” he demanded. “Why has it become so important all of a sudden?”
“Maybe because I was too busy when the babies were small to realize how little I knew about what was going on,” Lorna suggested. “In case you haven’t noticed, this happens to be the first winter I haven’t been pregnant.”
“If it’s going to keep you from becoming a nagging wife, maybe we ought to change that,” he snapped.
“I’ll bet you’d like it if I calved every spring like one of your cows. Or do you want to keep me pregnant so I can’t leave you?” The bitter accusation was a cruel one. Lorna instantly wanted to bite back the words. “I’m sorry, Benteen. I didn’t mean that.” She tried to retract them, but he stood rigidly in front of her, no expression showing on his hard features. “Benteen, you have to believe me. I love you too much to ever leave you. I am not like your mother.”
“I left the boys alone,” he said. “We’d better go inside and finish our supper.”
“No.” Lorna stood her ground, searching his unrelenting features. “All I want is for you to share your life with me. And I’m not taking one step until you tell me you believe that.”