She was crushed, so much so that she felt tears welling in her eyes. Obviously she couldn’t keep it or have its mother killed.
“Come on, we need to put it back exactly where you found it, and douse it in water to remove your scent. Go dunk it, I’ll get a sack to put it in.”
She knew he was right, she just didn’t like it at all, and promised herself that as soon as she got back to England she was buying a dog, though she supposed she ought to discuss it with Elliott first. Maybe he already had lots of dogs. Maybe he didn’t like dogs. If he didn’t, she might have to reconsider him as her primary choice of husband.
Morgan took Caesar for the short journey, pulling Violet up behind him. He didn’t waste time saddling the horse. Thanks to Carla, she was already used to riding without one. Reaching the hole, he dismounted and carefully rolled the pup out of the sack onto the ground. It immediately pounced on his boot, but Morgan didn’t notice, had already glanced up at her to warn, “You’ll need to stay away from here.”
“But I haven’t finished searching this area. I thought I had gotten lucky when I saw this hole, but I got distracted by the puppy and forgot to look.”
He glanced inside it for her. “It’s not deep, looks freshly dug out, too, probably for the birthing. The female could already have been in the process of moving her litter if she noticed you around here in the last day or so. That could be why there was only one pup here, when she-wolves tend to birth four or five. If this one is gone later today”—he paused to shake the pup off his boot—“then she’s likely moved on with the lot of them. They tend to avoid people. I’ll check again before dinner.”
Back at camp, he lifted her down from Caesar, but didn’t remove his hands from her waist once her feet were on the ground. She glanced up to see why and found his blue eyes studying her.
She waited with bated breath, only to hear him say, “You’ll feel better after lunch. You can eat while you’re fishing.”
She stared at him as he headed inside the cabin. What the deuce had just happened? Fishing?!
She followed him to demand, “When did I decide to go fishing?”
“You need a distraction from the pup you had to part with. You can get it fishing. Charley fished twice a week for us to contribute to our store of food, so I don’t see why you shouldn’t as well. I would advise you to hold a pole in one hand and a revolver in the other, but I’ll make it easier for you and go with you instead. Your father’s pole is on the other side of the house, along with his box of lures. He fashioned a bunch from the smaller slag stones and tied a few around his hook, since slag turns shiny in water. I suppose you need me to teach you how to fish first?”
“No, Papa taught my brothers and me when we were children. He would take us fishing at least once a month during spring and summer.”
“If you tell me you dug for worms, too, I won’t believe it.”
She smiled at him. “I did actually join my brothers at night for the worm hunts and turned over my share of stones looking for them, but I always called one of my brothers over to gather them up. And they didn’t need to be asked to attach them to the hook for me the next day. There are some things a girl just isn’t meant to do, touching worms being one of them,” she ended primly.
He chuckled. She went out to find the pole. His improved mood was promising. Had he forgiven her for threatening to kill him? If so, it was going to make asking for that loan and partnership a little easier. Maybe she wouldn’t wait until tonight.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“D’YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED to my father’s pocket watch? Did he break it or lose it? I checked his valise, but it wasn’t there.”
Violet was sitting on the riverbank a few miles from Morgan’s mountain; he was lying back next to her in the grass, his hat mostly covering his face. She had a pole in one hand and her parasol in the other, and a good thing she’d brought it, since there were no trees in either direction along this section of the river to offer shade. But she was having trouble keeping her eyes off of that long stretch of body. At least he was wearing a shirt, and had started doing so whenever he wasn’t in his mine.
When he didn’t answer, she wondered if he’d fallen asleep, so she added a little louder, “I meant to mention it sooner, but I kept forgetting. It has sentimental value, or I wouldn’t ask. My mother gave it to him and there was an inscription on it: So you don’t forget to come home. Papa said it was a joke between them because he was often late getting home for dinner.”
“I saw him use it only a couple days before he had the heart attack and fell, so he didn’t lose it. If you didn’t find it among his belongings, then he probably had it on him when I took him to town—and he would’ve been buried in what he was wearing.”
“That’s—that’s actually comforting. He would have liked that.”
He sat up. “You aren’t going to cry again, are you?”
She glanced aside and gave him a weak smile, but his hat was still tilted so low that all she could really see was that ridiculous beard. Which had her blurt out, “Why don’t you shave? You have the tools for it at your camp.”
“Waste of time,” he said, and lay back down to completely cover his face again with the hat.
“D’you even have a mirror here to see how—how shaggy you look?”
“So my shaving would be for you, not me?”
She blushed. “I was just curious. Did you herd cattle with that beard, or did it scare the cows into running away?”
“Hell, no, my ma would skin me alive if I came in the house looking like this.” She started to chuckle, but he added, “And I have shaved here—twice, I think.”
She laughed this time, and guessed, “One of your disguises for town? Mountain man, hermit, cowboy, just never miner?”
“Something like that.”
An hour later, with still no bites, she stood up to recast the line farther out. Sitting again, she complained, “You can’t protect me if you’re sleeping.”
“Was I snoring?”
“No.”
“Then figure I’m not sleeping.” He sat up to open the basket between them. “Eat up, just don’t let go of that pole. It’s the only one we’ve got.”
She took the sandwich he handed her. “Are you sure there are fish in this river?”
“Pike and trout. Charley always came back with a basketful.”
She groaned. They’d be there all day if he expected that many fish. But he didn’t seem impatient to get back to work, and she couldn’t get back to the south slope until that wolf and her pups were gone. But more importantly, they were talking, without rancor, without accusations. She was surprised by how nice it felt.
She wondered aloud, “If my father fished here often, might he have hidden his money here?”
“Yeah, but I doubt he did. People passing through this area follow this river north and south, and Charley knew that. Seems to me he would’ve looked for a more private spot where it would be less likely someone would stumble upon his money.” And then, as he dug out a handful of cherries from the basket for her, he asked, “Why’d you get shipped off to England?”
“You make it sound like I was sent away as a punishment. I assure you I wasn’t. Aunt Elizabeth is my mother’s sister and is married to an English lord. When she came to visit us in Philadelphia, she was appalled to find me running wild—her words. I merely liked the outdoors, but I admit I had been skipping some of my studies. But she also upbraided Papa for allowing me to act like an adult when I wasn’t even ten yet. She was concerned that I was missing my childhood. I think Papa was a bit cowed by her. She can be quite formidable. He didn’t argue with her about taking me to England, where I would have a woman’s guidance and be raised properly.”
“You don’t think it’s odd that Charley didn’t tell me about you?”
“Odd for you, but maybe not for him. He probably didn’t think losing his inheritance would affect me, since I was still in England in the care of my aunt and uncle. Or maybe he just didn’t think it appropriate to mention his daughter to a shaggy bear.”