Homespun Bride

She’d once dreamed of raising her own horses—mustangs, native to this rugged country. It was a dream they’d shared long ago.
    “I’d just finished a drive on the Northern Trail and was on my own, heading from Baker City in Oregon to my next job. It was a long haul following the Yellowstone River and there wasn’t a town in sight, so I chose a spot near water to camp. Something woke me up around midnight. My horse was nervous, so I got up with my Winchester thinking there was a hungry wolf or mountain lion nearby, but it was an injured colt.”
    “Was he still a foal or was he more grown-up?” the littlest sister asked, wide-eyed.
    “He was probably six months old, I reckon. When I got up to him, he tried to run, but couldn’t get up. He’d been shot.”
    “Shot?” Noelle gasped.
    “On purpose?” Angelina burst out.
    “Hard to tell but I don’t think so. Likely as not he caught a stray bullet from a hunter, since we were far up in the high country. I searched for his mother, too, after I’d patched him up, but there was no telling how far he’d wandered hurt like that. I found out later there was a wild horse roundup a few days before that.” He picked up his fork and knife with a slight clink. “I always figured that’s how he got separated from his ma.”
    “It’s lucky you found him.” She could see the image in her mind, the dark night, the campfire, the caring man and the fragile colt.
    “I always figured I was the lucky one.” Thad cleared his throat for all the good it did. There was no hiding the fondness in his voice. “I wasn’t sure he’d last the night, but he had spirit and surprised me. I named him Sunny because he was a palomino pinto. His coat is as bright as a summer day.”
    “He took to you like a best friend.” Noelle could see that, too.
    “Did you break him like a bronco?” Angelina asked again, her voice resonating with excitement. “He was a wild horse, so did it take longer than a tame horse?”
    Noelle took a bite of her dinner roll, but her attention remained on Thad and his answer. She suspected she wasn’t the only one since the clink of silver slowed around the table. In her heart, she already knew Thad’s answer.
    “Sunny was and is my best buddy. He’s no more wild than I am, and when it comes down to it, breaking a best friend isn’t my way of doing things.”
    “That’s how the last horseman Papa hired did it.” Angelina ignored her mother’s throat clearing. “He got up on the horse’s back and stayed on while the stallion kicked and bucked like a bronco. It was exciting.”
    “Probably not for the horse,” Thad pointed out.
    How was it that she knew Thad so well, after all? Noelle searched for her glass of water with careful fingers, listening to more questions fired from around the table, including one from Uncle Robert.
    The meal progressed as Thad told of how he taught his colt to trust him. He painted a vivid picture of working with the mustang on the journey to his next job, introducing him to kindness and campfire bread and friendship. How he’d worked with Sunny in the fresh, green, wild grasses.
    She could see Thad, gentle and patient and dendable, never giving the colt a reason to doubt his kindness. She could picture man and colt together in the rugged mountain wilderness, surrounded by yellow, red and purple wildflowers and crowned by majestic mountains. The honey-gold colt and the dark-haired man painted an image she wanted to believe in.
    * * *
    The lightning storm had passed by the time the maid cleared the dinner plates, and Thad had helped Robert back upstairs, so he’d taken his escape. The mercury had dropped well below freezing as he said his goodbyes and left Noelle with her family. But the way she’d smiled at him, and the hope in his heart stayed with him through the frigid ride home.
    As the wind-driven snow battered him, memories of her kept him cozily warm. He couldn’t seem to forget how she’d bitten her lower lip in worry as he’d told of Sunny’s first cattle drive two weeks later, and how he’d got swept away in a stampede. Likely as not come to a sad end, but the little guy had made it. Thad kept him on a shorter lead rope from then on.
    The sigh she’d made of delight wasn’t something he could forget, either, when he’d told of the evening, a year later, when he’d been trying to spark a campfire with a flint and looked up at the sound of thunder. It was a herd of wild horses streaking