Stands a Calder Man (Calder Saga 2)

“I was born and raised not thirty miles from here,” Webb reminded her. “If it’s one thing I know, it’s the land. I’m not trying to scare anyone into leaving, and neither is my father. But you drylanders won’t listen.”

“You don’t want us here. You want all this land to yourself.” She said the words, but there wasn’t a lot of strength in them. “That’s what Kreuger told Stefan.”

“Kreuger again,” he muttered.

“Everyone knows your father is trying to keep more people from coming here.”

“Yes, he is, because he doesn’t want to see the land destroyed by people who think it will grow wheat.” Webb defended his father’s position.

“But it can grow wheat. You rode through it,” she reminded him with a triumphant lilt to her voice. “Your father is wrong.”

It was hard to argue when he was faced with the evidence. He released a long breath. “I didn’t come here to debate anything with you, Lilli.”

She looked at him, meeting his gaze as fully as she had other times. “Why did you come?”

“Because—” His teeth came together and a muscle flexed in his jaw. He took a step toward her, the reins slipping out of his hands to trail the ground. “Why did you marry him, Lilli?”

Her eyes rounded in vague alarm at his bluntness “Stefan ... is a good man . . . and a good husband.” She struggled with the answer. “He’s warm and kind and—”

“And he’s old enough to be your father, if not your grandfather.” His hands closed on her shoulders as he ground out the words to finish her incomplete sentence.

Her right hand released its hold on the hoe to push at a forearm in mute protest to his touch. “He is older than I am,” she admitted.

“Old enough to be your father,” Webb persisted, determined to get that admission from her.

“Yes.” It was said with defiance. “More than that, he was my father’s best friend. They came over to this country together. I was fourteen when my parents died. If it wasn’t for Stefan, I don’t know what might have happened to me.”

“That’s why you married him?” He searched her face, trying desperately to understand—wanting desperately to understand, “Because you were alone?”

“Because I was alone. Because I cared about him. Because he was good to me. Because there wasn’t anything else I could do. No one else cared about me.” She flung out the reasons that had always been so sound.

“You didn’t have to marry him.” His fingers tightened their grip on her shoulders. Things were all twisted up inside of him. The only certainty he knew was that she didn’t belong with the man she’d married. “You could have gotten a job.”

“Doing what? The only job a girl can get is in a factory or—” She clamped her lips shut on the other alternative that didn’t need to be drawn for him. “I don’t regret marrying Stefan. I would have done it if he was a hundred years older, because I care about him. I am his wife, and I’m proud of it.”

The air rang with her declaration. Webb was left with the feeling that he’d lost a battle he hadn’t known he was fighting. His hands fell away, releasing her from his hold.

“I guess there’s nothing more to be said, is there?” He waited, but she didn’t answer.

Turning, he swept up the loose rein and sank a boot in the stirrup. The saddle groaned as it took his weight. A nudge of his spur swung the horse’s rump in a quarter-circle so Webb was looking at her. The restless, galling anger was gone, leaving a hollow feeling of loss. He touched a hand to his hat.

“I’m obliged for the water, Mrs. Reisner,” he murmured formally and clicked to his horse.

8

As Nate hauled the heavy stock saddle off his horse, he saw Webb ride up. Even as close as they’d been growing up, Webb had always struck him as being a kind of loner. This last month, he’d made himself about as scarce as hair on a gnat’s ass. The way Nate figured it, it didn’t take no genius to know that Webb hadn’t been the same since he’d had that run-in over some farmer’s wife. He’d never quite got the full scoop on that.

They nodded to each other as Nate swung his saddle onto the top rail of the corral. Walking back to the horse, Nate used his saddle blanket to begin wiping it down while he watched Webb dismount and flip the stirrup over the seat to loosen the cinch. Webb’s back was to him, nothing about him inviting conversation, but that didn’t faze Nate.

“Them honyockers are havin’ a big whoop-de-do celebration in town for the Fourth of July. Are you figurin’ on going’?” Nate inquired.

There was a momentary break in the rhythm of Webb’s movements at the question; then he was lifting the saddle off the horse’s back. His expression was closed to any probe of Nate’s eyes.

“Nope.” It was a flat and definite response.

“You’re likely to be the only one who ain’t. The rest of the boys are plannin’ to take in the doin’s,” Nate informed him, but Webb didn’t appear to be swayed.

“Hey, Webb!” Young Shorty Niles hailed him and made a detour from his planned route to the bunk-house. “The Old Man left word that you are to dine at The Homestead tonight.” He put bantering emphasis on the fancy word for eating.