The Widows of Wichita County

October 29

North of the Montano Ranch

On Larson land

Zack Larson wasted his time trying to sleep. By dawn he felt as though he had personally wrestled the storm and lost. About the time his coffee was ready, Bella had showed up in her broken-down Ford pickup.

"Morning, kid," Bella grunted as she dragged her aging Hoover through the side door of his kitchen. "You sleep last night with all that racket the Irish were making?"

Zack grinned and poured a cup of coffee into her old pink mug she kept on his windowsill. Bella had been his mother's housekeeper and friend since before he was born. He might be thirty-four, but she still called him kid. And she still defined thunder as the dearly departed Irish throwing potatoes in heaven.

When his mother died, Zack kept Bella on even though his place was hardly big enough to demand much care. Folks told him she once had a drinking problem and had no steady job, so he figured she needed the work.

Regular as clockwork, once a week, she cleaned. Of course, her eyesight was fading and her joints were stiff. Nothing got dusted above her head or below her knees. It didn't matter that he'd bought a new lightweight vacuum; she only trusted her Hoover. She cleaned the old-fashioned way with ammonia and water, vinegar for spots and bleach settling in the sinks long after she left. For days after the spring cleaning, Zack's eyes would water every time he entered the house. Luckily, she only felt the need to spring clean every third year or so.

He handed her the cup as she made herself comfortable at the tiny dining table crammed into a small kitchen. The yellow linoleum tabletop was covered with Zack's efforts at bookkeeping.

Bella showed no sign of being in a hurry. After all, she worked by the hour. Zack's house took her all day, no matter what she cleaned or how long they talked.

"Storm kept me up," he finally answered. "How's the road from town?"

"A little muddy, but not bad." Bella's chubby finger gripped the mug. "Why?"

"I thought I'd go in after a few supplies. You need any thing?"

She shook her head. Hair that had never known a style wiggled around her wrinkled face. "I learned a long time ago, kid, to bring what I need when I come all the way out here. No sense driving into town for something you should have remembered. When I was young, we only went to town once a month and that was plenty. Folks nowadays think the Farm-to-Market Road is the interstate."

"Now, don't give me a hard time-" Zack fought down a grin "-or I'll get married again on you."

Bella snorted. "Oh, please, not that."

Zack remembered the hell his wife had put Bella through. From the moment they married, Bella could do nothing right. The only time his wife stopped complaining about the housekeeper was when she started picking on him. It took Zack only a few months to discover he did everything wrong, then a few more months to decide not to change. By the time he got around to telling his wife the bad news, she was packing.

He smiled at Bella, the only woman he needed in his life. "You want me to bring back some of that Chinese food for lunch while I'm running my needless errands?"

Bella acted like she pondered the question. "It's hardly fit to eat." She scratched her chin. "'Course, I'll be mighty busy today. Don't know if I'll have time to stop and eat, much less cook anything."

Zack cut her brainstorming short before she did any damage. "Extra egg rolls and extra sauce, right?"

"You talked me into it. But I'll still make you a batch of brownies for dessert. Them Chinese places never have fit desserts."

He nodded as if they'd struck a bargain. "I'll be back in a few hours, and we'll eat. Then, if the ground's not too wet, I'll work on the fence that borders the Montano spread."

Bella sipped her coffee slowly. "Sad about the accident. That poor beautiful woman left all alone. She's not stuckup like some folks claim. I go over now and again to help her clean."

Standing slowly, Bella reached into the canister on the counter and pulled out two cookies from her stash. "Not that her place needs cleaning. You could eat pudding off the floor and not get a flea's-weight of dirt."

She dipped a cookie into her coffee.

Zack knew better than to interrupt. He scooted the canister closer to her.

She munched as she continued, "Her husband would call me and insist I come. She didn't say a word when I'd show up. He'd tell me to clean the place, and she'd just stand there. Then he'd leave, and I'd sweep spotless floors and mop like I was doing some good."

"Odd," Zack mumbled. He stood and put his cup in the sink. He had no intention of gossiping about Anna. But shutting Bella up once she got started was harder than delaying birthing after a heifer took to ground.

Bella shook her head. "Not so strange. He was wanna-be rich. Thinking he needed a housekeeper, too proud to consider his wife was one. He'd brag about my work and ignore hers. I felt sorry for her. She's a real lady, better than Davis Montano deserved. And she can paint, too, real good. Pictures that make your heart sad to look at them. In a movie I heard a man once describe a painting that brought out feelings like hers do. He said the artist's tears must have blended with the colors. Her work's like that."

Zack stared out the window toward Anna Montana'. place. He could imagine her painting. But he also remembered the slap she gave him the last time they met. A slap that should remind him she was not interested in even speaking to him.

She was a proud, now rich, rancher. He had to fight to keep the loans paid when they came due. She came from Europe, a place he would spend his life only dreaming about. He had never been farther away than Oklahoma City_ Enough people in town remembered the trouble he got into the year his folks died that they probably told Anna Montano she would be better off if she never spoke to her neighbor for the rest of her life.

He grabbed his hat and nodded toward Bella. "Wash that old quilt on the porch swing, would you?"

"The one your grandma Larson made?"

"Yeah, and put it back beside the swing."

Without waiting for the questions, he headed out, telling himself he was crazy for losing sleep over what he thought he saw standing in the rain last night.

Three hours later, he stood knee-deep in mud, trying to install a stile over the barbed wire fence between his ranch and Anna's when he sensed her again, just as he had last night.

Zack looked up. She was riding full-out from the west. Her body moved in long, fluid movements, a part of the horse. Zack watched her as she spotted him and reined her mount.

He lifted one gloved hand to the brim of his hat and tipped his Stetson slightly in greeting.

Her only response was to turn and ride away.

Zack smiled as he tugged off his glove and reached in his pocket for the scrap of material he had found in the very spot where he was now installing a walkover. She might never set foot on his land again. But if she did, she would have a place to get over the fence without ripping her clothes-a place well hidden by thick brush and the roll of the land from anyone who might be watching from the Montana buildings.