“We won’t be long,” he said to Evangeline.

“Go fast,” Abigail said to him.

He laughed and reined the gelding away, and Evangeline stood watching until they had disappeared from sight.

She did her best to keep busy while they were gone, cutting scraps of fabric from her frenzy of sewing to save for a quilt top, sweeping and feeding the chickens and peeling turnips to boil up for dinner. For all of that, when she heard the nicker of a horse in the dooryard, she raced across the floor and flung open the door.

Abigail’s little face was glowing with fresh air and excitement. “We went fast,” she said, with such joy that tears stung behind Evangeline’s eyes.

All the same, Evangeline gave Scully a look when he bent, with a creaking of saddle leather and a stir of pine-scented air, to hand over the child. “All in one piece,” he said, and had the audacity to grin.

“You were gone a good deal longer than half an hour,” she accused, but mildly.

“So we were,” Scully agreed cheerfully, touching the brim of his hat. “I’ll be back in plenty of time to do the chores.”

“We saw mustangs,” Abigail said, in a breathless voice. “They were far away, but we saw them!”

“I’d like to rope in one or two,” Scully said. He already had a pair of mares in the corral, as yet untrained, but Evangeline knew he hoped for at least eight, all told, and maybe a stallion, too. She supposed he wanted the money he’d eventually get from the sale of the horses for his new start, in that new place. With some new woman.

She didn’t like to think about any of those realities. It would be upon them soon enough, the time for Scully’s going away; no sense suffering through it all ahead of time. “I’ll light a lamp and keep supper warm,” she said, because there was nothing else to say. For all practical intents and purposes, Scully was just an illusion, like the winter weather, wearing its fleeting disguise of sunshine and warm breezes. Best keep that in mind.

He made that peculiarly western hat-tipping motion, just a tug at the brim, and wheeled around to ride off.

“Good-bye, Scully!” Abigail called after him.

Good-bye, Scully . . .

The words echoed in Evangeline’s mind long after she’d carried her child back into the cabin and closed the door behind them.

* * *

He returned at midafternoon, leading three mares, a pinto, a dun and a sorrel, on different lengths of rope. Still a little irritated by the way he’d disregarded her wishes and kept Abigail out beyond the stated time limit that morning, she was glad to see him all the same. She’d baked bread while he was gone, and worked on the pair of stockings she was knitting for him in secret.

Abigail, much improved, was sitting up in bed, playing with the kitten and a ball of red yarn. Scully had been right to insist on taking her riding, but Evangeline wasn’t ready to admit that. Not out loud, anyway.