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mother was coming to get them as soon as she possibly could.
    Sadie greeted them, and they answered with shy acknowledgement, perfectly worded in soft English.
    “Would you like to help me?”
    They declined, shaking their heads from side to side. Then Marcellus spoke up. “Gustav, our gardener, says we are too small to help.”
    Sadie nodded. Our gardener? Ach, my! The children must be from a well-to-do home.
    Out of the corner of her eye, Sadie saw the tall form of Mark Peight enter the garden. He came down the brick walkway in his easy, cat-like stride. An electric jolt charged through her body, and, instantly, her hand went to her hair, leaving a dark smudge on her forehead. The children turned to face the tall stranger, keeping their eyes lowered respectfully.
    “So there you are,” Mark greeted her.
    Flustered, Sadie got to her feet. “Hello, Mark.”
    “How are you, Sadie?”
    “I’m doing well. How are you?”
    “Good, good. Happy to be back in Montana.”
    He looped his thumbs in his suspenders and looked around appreciatively. “So this is where you work?”
    Sadie laughed, “Not always.”
    “I didn’t think so.”
    “Bertie, the gardener, asked me to help him out this afternoon.”
    “These Caldwell’s kids?”
    Sadie turned to Louis and Marcellus, and then introduced them. “We don’t know their last names. They just came today. They…”
    Sadie’s voice was cut off by Dorothy’s agitated yells, asking the children to come up here right now.
    Sadie got down on her knees, eye-level with Louis, and told them to be very good. Some men were here to talk to them about coming to the ranch. She told the children that they should not be afraid. These were good men who wanted to help them.
    Tears crowded her eyes as she watched Louis take Marcellus’ hand protectively. Together they walked obediently up the brick walkway.
    “What?” Mark began.
    Sadie quietly explained the situation to him, omitting the jewels, then asked if he wanted to sit down. They seated themselves on the iron bench by the day lilies, and Sadie turned a bit sideways, tucking one foot under her leg.
    “But…” Mark was curious.
    “I know. It’s the most unusual thing. You can tell by the way they talk that they aren’t just some squatters’ or sheepherders’ children. Yet their black hair and eyes, their dark skin, all seem to…”
    “They seem foreign.”
    “Mexican. Latino of some kind. The police are here now speaking to Richard and Barbara Caldwell. You know how it is, if no one wants them, they’ll enter the foster system.”
    Mark looked unseeingly across the fishpond, the pasture in the background.
    “Yeah, well, you’re not going to let that happen, are you?”
    Sadie shrugged her shoulders.
    When she felt Mark’s big hands grasp her shoulders much too tightly and give her a little shake, she snapped her head up in alarm, her eyes weak with fright.
    “How can you sit there with that smug expression and shrug your shoulders?” he asked, his voice grating unevenly on the hard words.
    His face was inches from hers, his eyes blazing with raw fury. The force of his emotion drew the air from her lungs like a huge vacuum. She was too powerless to stop it, and her shoulders slid downward away from his grasp.
    “Don’t,” she whispered weakly.
    He released her, then abruptly turned to lower his face into his hands. She thought she heard the word “sorry” among the murmurings that followed, but she couldn’t be sure.
    He stayed in that position until a sick fear began in the pit of Sadie’s stomach. What if he was mentally deranged, violent, or dangerous? Why would he become so agitated at the slight shrugging of her shoulders?
    Just as suddenly, Mark sat up, brushed back his hair, cleared his throat, and turned to her.
    “You have no idea, Sadie. None. If you did, you wouldn’t sit there one second longer, knowing those sweet, polite children would be put in foster homes. Believe me, it’s not a good