“Actually I’m not,” he said. Reaching out, he tweaked Callie’s nose, making her giggle. “I’d like to see your pictures.”
“It’s time for her to go to bed,” Faith said patiently.
“How long can it take?” he asked.
“Please, Mama,” Callie pleaded, clasping her tiny hands together and holding them as though in prayer. “Please.”
Damn it. She’d yet to learn how to deny her child anything. But she didn’t want Rawley coming inside her cabin, what had once been his cabin. She didn’t want to remember the last time she’d been with him—inside those walls.
Did those memories mean nothing to him? Maybe if they were rekindled she’d find out the true reason for his leaving.
“I guess a few more minutes won’t hurt. Come on in.”
He didn’t know why he’d pushed it. The last thing he wanted was to dredge up memories of the last time he’d been with Faith, but it was hard to let go of the habit of wanting time with her.
Stepping over the threshold, he inhaled the fragrance of wildflowers, a mixture of scents, no bloom in particular standing out. It was the scent of Faith. She’d always smelled of things wild and untamed. Against his will, his gaze jumped to the doorway that led into the bedroom. He could see the same quilt draped over the bed, fought against remembering how peaceful and right Faith had looked stretched out over it when he’d leaned against the doorjamb and absorbed the sight of her, every inch from her bare feet to her messed hair, before he’d strode out of the cabin for the last time.
He jerked his attention away from places it shouldn’t roam and took in the remainder of the cabin. Another door, one that hadn’t been there before, indicated they’d added a room. No doubt for Callie. The furniture in the main room remained the same, but a rocker had been added, and his chest tightened with the image of Faith rocking her daughter. She’d added frilly yellow curtains to the windows and paintings of cowboys rustling steers to the walls. That was Faith: a combination of femininity and masculinity. She’d never shied away from the tough jobs.
“Uncle Rawley, sit here.”
Glancing over, he watched as Callie patted the cushion beside her on the sofa. A small book rested in her lap. Damn, if she didn’t have the biggest, brownest eyes he’d ever seen. He looked over at Faith, knowing she wanted to be rid of him, that he was making a nuisance of himself.
She gave a quick bob of her head as she settled into the rocker. “Go on.”
Dropping on to the sofa, he laid his arm along its back. Even sitting, he towered over the little girl. She gingerly folded back the leather cover as though it was deserving of her reverence, and his breath caught as she placed her index finger in the middle of a postcard.
“That’s the Grand Canyon,” she announced with authority. “I’m gonna go see it someday.”
He’d sent the postcard to Ma to relieve her worries and so she could appreciate one of the wonders he was seeing, had expected she’d share the postcards with others, but hadn’t considered that they’d be kept.
Another page turned, another postcard. “A hotel in Santa Fe,” she said as though she knew where Santa Fe was. “I’m gonna go there.”
Another page turned, another postcard. “A dining room in Ar’zona. Goin’ there, too.”
A dining room in a Fred Harvey hotel. Many of the postcards came from the hotels where he stayed for a night. He had sent them in particular so his ma could see that all the lodgings paled in comparison to the Grand Hotel she’d built in Leighton. He lifted his gaze to Faith. “You kept them?”
“I was fascinated by them,” she admitted. “I imagined you walking those streets, eating at those tables, sleeping in those beds.”
“More often than not, I slept beneath the stars.”
“I imagined that, too. I figured a lot of those were sent to make Ma believe you were living better than you were.”
“A train station in Cal’forn’a,” Callie announced as though his attention hadn’t detoured away from her. “We have trains here. I’m gonna ride it when I’m bigger.”
“Are you?” he asked.
She bobbed her head, even as she turned another page. “They’re faster ‘n horses.”
“But they’re not very good company,” he said.
She twisted around to look up at him, a question in those brown eyes that were so much like her mother’s.
“I talk to my horse all the time,” he told her.
“’Bout what?”
“My dreams.” He leaned in and whispered, “I can tell it my secrets. It won’t tell anyone.”
