She’d grown to like Wyatt. And he seemed to like her. But she had to be careful. She couldn’t let things move too quickly between them. She might have been hesitant at first about his three-month trial, but now that she’d had time to think on it, she realized that if Astrid didn’t get better, she’d need to find a new way to help her sister, even if that meant leaving.

Chapter 13

Maybe the good Lord was smiling down on him after all.

Wyatt raised his arm and wiped the sweat from his brow against his sleeve. He peered back over the rows of gathered hay and then at the western sky before he released a breath. The scattered showers from earlier had moved on without drenching the earth. And he could almost allow himself to believe he’d finished the haying without any setbacks.

Roper Brawley had been madder than a hornet over losing more cattle sales and had threatened to burn the alfalfa field in retaliation. All the more reason Wyatt was relieved to get the haying done.

Not far behind him in the final row, Greta knelt next to a bundle, wrapping a piece of twine around the center, moving expertly as she had all week. Nearby, Astrid had abandoned her work and was cupping a caterpillar in her hand, jawing nonstop.

Somehow Greta managed to answer the girl’s endless questions without breaking her concentration. With her head bent over the twine, he could watch her for a few seconds without her realizing he’d been staring. Why did she have to be so doggone pretty?

Despite the strain of the long days of late, she had a freshness and energy that was contagious. Not only had she worked with him in the alfalfa field from dawn till dusk since he’d started the haying, but once they finished for the day, she returned to the cabin and spent hours baking hand pies and making jam. He didn’t know how late she stayed up, but every time he closed the barn door before bedding down, the light was still burning in the cabin.

Astrid helped her pick chokecherries in the mornings, and Judd had taken to bringing her huckleberries most nights after he returned from herding the cattle. Judd must’ve gone into the higher elevations to find the berries since the supply in the foothills was next to nothing.

Of course, Judd saw the value in Greta’s hand pies and jams. It had been hard not to, after he and Greta had arrived home that first time with the two new cattle. After a second trip to town a week later, they’d both recognized Greta was earning more with her fixings than they’d panned in gold in a year.