The Cowboy Comes Home. Linda Ford

chuckled softly, but her enjoyment ran much deeper than amusement. Linc made a mighty impressive swashbuckler.

      Robbie, holding his sword high, stepped forward, meeting Linc at the edge of the garden. Crack. Whack. The swords crashed against each other.

      Sally sat on the edge of the hole, grinning at the pair. One thing about Linc—he seemed to know how to have fun. He also knew how to talk to Robbie in such a way as to bring out the best in him. Guess she’d have to give him credit for being loyal to his family, as well. It couldn’t have been easy to bring his father back to a place where he knew he’d face censure. But he’d returned so his father could recover … die … in comfort. Her eyes stung with unshed tears.

      Linc fell to the ground, and Sally jolted to her feet. “Are you hurt?”

      He pressed his hands to his chest. “Mortally wounded, fair maiden. Mortally wounded.”

      Instinct brought her out of the hole, but Robbie waved his sword and ordered her back. “You must stay until you are rescued.”

      She shook her head as she realized it was all play acting and sat down again on the edge of the dirt hole.

      Linc groaned, rolled on his side and heaved a deep sigh. Then he was quiet. So quiet and still that Robbie tiptoed over. Linc waited until he bent over him to check if he was okay, then grabbed Robbie’s sword and held it to the boy’s chest. “You are my captive. Set the fair maiden free or prepare to die.”

      Robbie backed toward the dirt fort. He signaled Sally. “You have been rescued. Go and never bother me again.”

      Linc reached out and helped Sally from the hole in the ground. He pulled her to his side.

      All pretend, she assured herself. Her silly feelings of being protected were not real.

      Linc laid Robbie’s wooden sword on the ground and edged away, keeping Sally pressed close behind him. “We will meet again, you scoundrel. Next time you won’t be so lucky.” He turned, grabbed Sally’s hand and raced around the shed and out of sight to lean against the warm, rough wall. He laughed, long and hard.

      Sally giggled, as delighted with his merriment as she was by his sense of play.

      Finally he sobered enough to speak. “Harris and I used to play war games.”

      “Who was your fair maiden?”

      “Usually some poor unsuspecting neighbor girl.” He laughed again. “It got so the girls ran indoors when we approached.”

      She chuckled, enjoying the mental picture of girls running away screaming. Suddenly her amusement died. She doubted the girls ran from him still. Not that it mattered to her if they did or not.

      Robbie tiptoed around the edge of the building. “What are you doing?”

      “Is it safe to go back to digging the garden?” Linc asked.

      Sally sprang into action. “I have to get to work. No more play.” She hurried back to her raking. What had she been thinking? She had responsibilities.

      Behind her Linc spoke to Robbie. “She didn’t mean it. There will always be time to play.”

      Sally snorted. Showed what he knew. “Play is for children.”

      “Do you really mean that?” Linc picked up the shovel and resumed digging.

      “I guess there is a time and place for play. And people who can take the time.” She spoke the words firmly, as much to convince herself as him.

      “I gather you don’t count yourself one of them.”

      “Not when I have responsibilities.”

      He worked steadily. “There will always be responsibilities.”

      “True.”

      He reached the end of digging and stopped to wipe his brow on his shirt sleeve. “So you don’t play? Grandmama says you have two sisters. Surely you played with them.”

      “I used to. When I was young and carefree.” Why did she feel she had to defend herself? She expected him to ask why she wasn’t any longer carefree, but instead he asked, “What games did you and your sisters play?”

      “Dress up. Plays. Tea parties.” She didn’t want to mention the games she’d played with Father.

      Linc placed the stake in one end of the garden and stretched a length of twine to the far end, marking a row for Sally. As he worked, he was acutely aware of her studying his question, though her fingers sorted through a small tin bucket full of seed packets.

      She’d been a good sport joining in Robbie’s game. The boy seemed almost afraid to play. Or rather, to engage adults in his play.

      Linc tried to remember a time his father had played with him, but couldn’t. Harris, five years older, had been the one who roughhoused with Linc, threw a ball endlessly while he learned how to connect with the bat, and involved him in long complicated games of cops and robbers.

      “My father died almost five years ago,” Sally finally said. “Just before the crash. Mother says it was a mercy. That it would have broken his heart to see how his family had to struggle.”

      Linc sat back on his heels and watched her. She had forgotten about the pail of seeds and stared into the past. Her eyes darkened to a deep pine color. A splotch of dirt on her cheek made him want to reach out and brush it away, but he didn’t want to distract her. He guessed she would stop talking if he did, and he longed to hear who she was, who she had been.

      A shudder raced across her shoulders. “I can’t believe how things have changed.”

      He didn’t know if she meant from her father’s passing or the depression that followed the stock market crash. Likely both. “It’s been tough.” It was both a question and a statement. So many unemployed men, many of them in relief camps in the north. The idea behind the camps was to give the unemployed single men a place to live, food to eat and meaningful work to do. Linc thought the reason was more likely a way to get the desperate-looking men out of the way so people weren’t reminded of the suffering of others. He had seen women with pinched faces, aching from hunger and something far deeper—a pain exceeding all else—as they helplessly listened to their children cry for food. The drought and grasshopper plague took what little was left after the stockmarket crash. Things were bad all over, but he wanted to know the specifics of how her life had changed. He wanted to know how she’d survived.

      “The whole world—my whole world—went from safe to shattered in a matter of days.”

      “Losing a parent can do that to you.”

      She blinked, and her gaze returned to the present. Her eyes, holding a mixture of sorrow and sympathy, connected with his. “I guess you understand.”

      Something in the way she said it, as if finding for the first time someone who truly understood her feelings, made him ache to touch her in a physical way, to offer comfort. And keep her safe. Only the distance between them stopped him from opening his arms. “Your sisters would, too.”

      She averted her gaze, but not before he caught a glimpse of regret. “Of course they do, but they coped in their own way. Madge, she’s a year older than me, did her best to take Father’s place. She guided Mother in making decisions about the farm, and because of her efforts our house is safe and secure.” She brought her gaze back to his and smiled, as if to prove everything was well in her world. “Louisa is two years older and spent so much of her time sick and forced to rest that she lived in her books. Father’s death hit her hard.” This time she seemed to expect the shudder and stiffened to contain it to a mere shiver. She brightened.

      He discovered he’d been holding his breath and released it with a whoosh.

      “I didn’t mean to get all sentimental. I mentioned my father because you asked about games. He taught us to play softball.”

      “Ball, hmm.” He pushed