Homecoming. Jill Marie Landis

down off the gate and glanced toward the house, seemingly unaware of the churned mud and muck oozing between her bare toes.

      Frustrated, he was tempted to dismount, grab her and shake the answer out of her, until he heard Hattie call out from the porch.

      “Sorry, son. I was busy.”

      From where he sat in the saddle, he gazed down at the girl standing in the mud as she stroked and nuzzled his horse’s nose and whispered softly to the animal in Comanche. Joe was arrested by the tender way her fingers trailed down the horse’s flanks, the soft caressing sound of her hushed whisper. For a heart-stopping moment he forgot who she was and why he was supposed to hate her.

      When he’d left the house that morning, his mother had been trying to fashion the girl’s hair in a topknot of sorts, but her sprint to the corral had loosened the pins. Now her chestnut locks flowed wild and free around her shoulders. Washed and brushed to a high shine, free of the braids, her tresses caught the sunlight, streaked with red and even a touch of gold.

      In a week she’d begun to fill out the hand-me-down dress and, from her sprint across the yard, there was high color in her cheeks.

      As loath as he was to admit it, no matter how he felt about her, there was no denying her beauty. Without her Comanche trappings, and because of all the care and time his mother had lavished on her over the past week, she was beginning to show the promise of the young woman she might have become had she been raised by her own kin, in her own world.

      No matter what she looked like, when push came to shove, he was certain she carried the heart of a Comanche inside her. Countless stories circulated the Texas plains, tales of captives gone savage, of kidnapped whites who rode and fought beside their captors and were every bit as vicious as the raiders that brutalized the frontier.

      There were stories of women like Cynthia Parker, a captive who married a Comanche man and bore his children. Stories of women who would rather die than become civilized again.

      He realized she was studying him every bit as closely as he was her until they heard Hattie call out again.

      “What are you dawdling for? Come on in.”

      By now he should have grown used to her silent perusal, but he had trouble breaking Deborah’s stare.

      She was driving him crazy, staring up at him that way. Sizing him up. Waiting for him to do something, expecting something from him maybe. What that was, he couldn’t fathom.

      “What?” He didn’t bother to hide his irritation.

      A slight frown marred her smooth forehead, then she pointed toward the porch and, clear as a bell, said, “Hattee-Hattee.”

      Caught completely by surprise, Joe threw back his head and laughed. It was a rusty sound and just for a heartbeat, Deborah’s expression mirrored his own shock.

      A moment later, with Worthless trailing along behind, Hattie joined them. She was smiling at Joe in a way she hadn’t in a long while.

      “I heard you laugh all the way across the yard. It’s been a long time since you’ve laughed like that.”

      Joe turned away, taking his time tying his reins to the fence post as Hattie fawned over her charge.

      “Can you believe it? She knew exactly what to do when I told her to run out and open the gate.”

      Joe had a hard time forgetting the scare they’d given him, the panic he’d experienced when he saw Deborah run out of the house on her own.

      “Where were you?” Joe demanded. His mother looked flushed and tired, and the idea that something might be wrong with her scared him. “I thought she might have hurt you.”

      “I’ll forgive your tone, seeing as how I know that your impatience stems from worry and not orneriness. I was up to my elbows in flour. What was so funny, anyway?”

      “She thinks your name is Hattee-Hattee.”

      “She spoke? Why, Joe, that’s wonderful. Isn’t it?”

      Hattie touched Deborah on the arm, then pointed to herself and waited for the girl to say her name.

      Deborah looked from Hattie to Joe and back.

      Hattie smiled and nodded encouragement. Joe crossed his arms and figured the girl was out to prove him wrong—or crazy.

      “Hattee-Hattee,” the girl whispered.

      The years seem to drop away when Hattie laughed and clapped as if it were the greatest feat ever accomplished.

      “I’m so proud of you, child!”

      “Don’t you think just one Hattie would do?” Joe leaned against the fence post, watching the exchange, afraid his mother’s joy might actually seep into him—if he let it.

      “Hattee-Hattee is close enough for now,” she said. “Close enough, that’s for certain.” She reached for Deborah, wrapped her arm around the girl’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze.

      Deborah slipped out of her grasp and gathered the hem of her dress up to her knees again.

      Joe couldn’t help but look down. It was a moment before he caught himself.

      “You’d better teach her not to do that,” he advised Hattie before turning around to focus on the cattle milling in the corral, trying to forget the sight of the girl’s well-turned calves and ankles.

      “She’s making progress, though. Isn’t she, Joe?”

      “Except for the fact that she keeps lifting up her dress. She’s doing better than I expected,” he admitted grudgingly.

      “But…?”

      “I’m taking a wait-and-see attitude, Ma.”

      “Uh-oh,” Hattie muttered.

      Joe followed her gaze. Deborah was on her way back to the house on her own.

      “If I don’t stop her, she’ll track mud right into the house.” Hattie hurried across the yard, then paused to call out, “I have a feeling she’s going to surprise you.”

      As he watched Deborah walk away holding her skirt above the mud like a barefoot queen, he couldn’t help muttering to himself.

      “That’s what I’m afraid of, Ma. That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”