Titans by Leila Meacham

Author:Leila Meacham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2016-04-12T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Forty-Five

Holy smokes! Leon thought, walking back across the pasture. Could the girl who’d stopped by the fence last April be Millicent’s daughter—Nathan’s twin!—and the rancher her father, or rather, the man who’d adopted her? Five miles from Fort Worth, he’d said his ranch was—information close enough to the tidbit Leon had gleaned from Dr. Tolman and never forgotten. That fact and the color of the girl’s hair were too much to be a coincidence. Why had the man really come? If the reason was as Leon expected, how had Neal Gordon gotten hold of the information that had led him here? From Bridget Mahoney? Dr. Tolman? And why was he showing up twenty years later?

Leon sent the threshing crew back to work, then climbed on his buckboard to cut across the pasture toward his old home. His horse and wagon sent up clouds of dust and wheat residue that obscured his vision, but he thought he could make out the ghostly crown of a Stetson skimming along the tops of the hedgerows in the direction of his house. The hat got there before he did. The rancher had dismounted and was watering his horse at the trough when the buckboard pulled up.

Leon went immediately to the well and drew up a bucket of water. He filled a tin dipper and handed it to Neal. “We’ve got a pump but no running water in the house,” Leon explained. “When we sold the place, my wife bought a house in Gainesville, and she’s happier’n a pig in mud now we’ve got inside plumbing.”

“That stuff from a tap can’t beat this,” Neal said, taking a long drink of the cold, pure-tasting water.

“How about a peach?”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

“Have a seat on the porch, and I’ll cut us a couple of Elbertas.” Leon walked a few yards to the orchard fence and clipped off two large, plump peaches from branches drooping with fruit. Carrying them up to the porch, he said, “The peach is a member of the rose family, did you know that?”

“No, I didn’t,” Neal said.

“Yep. Cousin to apricots, plums, and almonds.”

“That so?”

“Who would have ever thought any of them were related?”

“Hard to imagine,” Neal agreed. He studied the farmer as he pulled up a rickety porch chair. Was there some hidden meaning behind this little lesson in horticulture? He glanced toward the orchard. “A shame for all those peaches to go to waste. Will the new owner take possession of your place before they rot?”

Leon held up the pocketknife questioningly in offer to Neal, who shook his head and withdrew his own. “Not likely. My family used to pick those trees clean. Wife could make the best peach pies you ever put in your mouth. We made ice cream out of ’em, canned a pantry full, gave the rest to neighbors. Every one of our Elbertas ended up in its proper place.” Leon sliced off a piece of the peach and popped it into his mouth. “Always good for everything and everybody to end up in their proper place.

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