Now, however, there was certainly nothing pint-sized or girlish about Maggie. She was all woman. Her firm body filled his embrace, waking something primal in him.
They released each other and stepped apart.
“What happened here?” Will asked. “Where are your folks?”
Maggie bit her lip, and for a second, she no longer looked so grown up. In that instant, she looked more like she had that time, years earlier, when she’d fallen out of the tree and busted her arm.
Rose had fetched Will, and he’d hurried over and picked up the injured girl and carried her back to her house. Maggie had lain in his arms, quivering from the pain and biting her lip, too tough to cry.
“Raiders,” she said. “A dozen of them, maybe more. Jafford Teal’s gang, riding up out of the thicket. Set fire to the house.They were shooting, too. Killed Mama and Matt and Paul. Burned them up.”
“Because of your daddy?”
She nodded. “The war’s over, but they’re still butchering. What did my mama and brothers ever do to them?”
He laid a hand on her shoulder. “Not a thing, Maggie. Not a thing. Some men are just filled with hate. I’m sorry this happened to you.”
“Thank you, Will. I wish you’d been here. You would’ve driven them off.”
Will doubted that. More likely, going up against a group like that, a dozen men bent on destruction, he’d have gotten himself killed, but he didn’t bother to say that. If his presence made Maggie feel safer, good.
“They would have killed me, too,” she said, “if I hadn’t been at your house, tending to your mama and Rose. They were sick as dogs.”
“I’m sorry, Maggie. That’s just terrible.”
He could see the conversation was painful for her, but she smiled anyway. “Your mama took me in then, treated me like family.”
“I went next door, looking for Mama, and some man over there says he bought the place.”
Maggie nodded. “That would be Mr. Braintree. Carpetbagger. Bought it for the back taxes and kicked us out the very same day.”
So it was true, then. The family homestead was gone. His daddy had made it, and Will had kept it going, kept improving on things, until the war came, and he and some other men had gone to Bonham and joined the 5th.
Now the farm was gone. Snatched up by the sort of carpetbagger who would kick out women who had no place to go.
“They’ve been staying here with me ever since. Then Rose got kidnapped.”
“Is she okay?”
“Probably? I don’t know, though, honestly. I mean, I couldn’t say for sure. I’ll let your mama tell it.”
“Do you know where Mama is?”
“She’s right out back, tending to a second garden we planted back there. Come on. She’ll be happy to see you.”
CHAPTER 6
They went around the bunkhouse, and there stood his mama, Angela Bentley, five feet, three inches of backbone in blue gingham.
“Mama,” he said.
Mama smiled. She was still a good-looking woman despite the hard times and streaks of gray now sparkling in her light brown hair. “Will. I knew you would come back to us. I knew we could count on you.”
They embraced. Then Mama stepped back, holding him by the arms, and looked him up and down. “Well, you’re ragged and filthy, but you’ve filled back in since I last saw you. You were thin as a scarecrow when you first came home.”
“War’ll do that to a man,” Will said.
“You need a bath and a change of clothes.”
