Chapter 30Life returned to a false normal. That is, I took to my fields despite the pain of my beating. Yet, I dared not receive the cattle I’d contracted from the Hagstone brothers. A monstrous shadow hovered over my shoulder, and I knew not if it would eventually go away or swoop down to consume me. Ethan persisted in trying to do productive work, but the bullet wound in his side was not yet healed sufficiently to permit such exertion. After the wound where the projectile had exited broke and leaked blood twice, I insisted he confine himself to household chores.
He fought me on the matter until Gideon brought Rachel Ann back from a quick visit home to fetch the orphaned baby who’d been left with one of the other officer’s wives when she raced to care for Ethan. Once my obstreperous mate
