Rancher's Woman

by Sarah Christian

  “I've never had my picture taken,” she explained, voice soft as she leaned in to look.

  Miniature artwork had lost its popularity as photographs became more readily available and more affordable. It seemed silly to pay someone for hours of work when a photograph could be taken in just a few minutes. But some things weren't about money.

  “I used to paint my sisters, before I came here. Now I can only paint from memory.” He nodded to two little framed pictures on the wall of young women with dark hair and deep eyes like his own. “I paint Ipp and my horses too. You don't mind if I paint you?”

  “Not at all.” She went silent, her eyes moving over the painting. He could see her lips purse in a faint frown. “Is that how you see me?”

  He looked to the painting again. Pale skin contrasted sharply with her dark hair and eyes and her smile held innocent mischief. Her face was small and heart-shaped, sweet. Some of the details were slightly off because he hadn't been watching her while he worked, but the general sense of Esther was there. It felt like her, which was the most important part of a portrait, he believed.

  “It is, yes.”

  “Would you sell it to me, when you're done?”

  He shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

  Esther's face fell. “Oh.”

  “I would give it to you.”

  Her eyes lit up again, soft lips curving into a smile. “Really?”

  “Of course. You say you have no pictures of yourself. Everyone needs at least one, to see how the world sees them.”

  “You aren't the world,” she murmured, her fingers brushing his shoulder, sending pleasant shivers up the back of his neck. “But I like the way you see me.”

  He cleared his throat. “I'm glad you like it, then.”

  She drew away to pull a chair up next to him and settled into it. He watched her a moment, then returned to his painting while she spoke. “You're a far more interesting man than you let on right away. Why do you shove yourself into this little box running a ranch?”

  “There isn't any money in painting little pictures.” He added the softest brush of pink to her cheeks in the painting. “And while there's some money in horses, there isn't as much as there is in the government contract I have.”

  “And is that all life is for? Making money?”

  “You have been poor, yes?”

  From the corner of his eye he could see her frowning again. “Yes.”

  “Isn't having money better than being poor?”

  “Do you think you'd become destitute if you did nothing but paint pictures and raise baby horses?”

  “Perhaps not, but I wouldn't be the man I am.”

  “No,” she countered softly. “I think you'd be more the man you are.”

  With a soft swish of her skirts, she rose and left the room. Jachym turned in his seat to watch her go, his brush still in his hand. The life she described him living sounded so good, and yet obviously unrealistic. Even knowing it was nothing but fantasy, he couldn't shake the pleasure at sharing the vision with her, brief though it was.

  She wasn't one of his own people, he reminded himself. That had mattered at one time, when he'd tried courting the only potentially suitable bride around for miles. It mattered less now, but what could he do about that? If he thought for even a second of wooing his housekeeper, it would only reinforce everything Pastor Whitney had been scolding him about.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Well, good morning, Ipp.” The big dog's tail thumped happily against the floor as Esther stepped past him to bring the basket of mending beside the stove. The house felt a bit cool yet, though she'd already cooked up breakfast and done a healthy measure of the morning chores. She marveled at how quickly she'd adjusted to the dry warmth of the ranch house, as opposed to her own damp little soddie. There had been a time when she would have been happy enough to wake up without shivering.

  There were more socks in need of mending than she had ever owned in her life. She shook her head, clucking her tongue, then got to work. Either none of the men working on the ranch knew how to sew or none of them considered it important enough to repair their own clothing. She knew men on the frontier had to learn many of the arts normally restricted to women back east, because there just weren't enough women for the men to sit around, awaiting some generous gal to cook them up a supper or sew the seat of their trousers. Not all men had recognized this fact, though. She knew a number of the prospectors lived not much better than animals.

  She couldn't quite suppress a little shudder of disgust, remembering those awful men, but there were better things to focus on in the moment and she easily enough pushed the memories aside. Assuming Jack agreed to the expense, she planned to take all the ranch's laundry into town once a week for Bridget's facility to handle, but she wouldn't mind doing the mending at all. She'd often enough done that at the laundry and before that job she'd made a little extra fixing the clothes of the miners.

  The first few socks went quickly enough. With practiced ease, she pulled her needle through and drew closed small tears. The ones that had been worn thin were a little harder and she had to decide whether or not they were really worth saving. The ones that weren't worth it were unraveled and any lengths of yarn that remained usable were rolled up, saved for repairing others. Nothing went to waste. Some of the hands were going to need to buy new socks soon, she noted with a little shake of her head. She wondered if she might be able to knit them herself. Once Jack realized her whole story, she'd be out of the job, but providing socks for the ranch hands could put a little extra money in her pocket in the meantime.

  After she'd repaired half a dozen socks and sacrificed two for the good of them all, she pulled out a coat next. Far too fine to belong to any of the ranch hands, she was sure the moment she touched it that it belonged to Jachym Marek himself. The wool was soft, dyed a rich, even black. It showed hardly any wear on it except for the right sleeve. Something had caught the cuff and torn it slightly, but that was hardly the worst of the damage. Whatever had caught it had nearly pulled the sleeve clear off. The stitching where the sleeve connected to the body of the coat was torn loose all the way around the top, only barely hanging on from beneath.

  “How in the world did he do a thing like that?” she marveled to the dog.

  The door rattled before it opened. She turned to see Jachym coming in from his work outside, his expression distracted. When he caught a glimpse of the coat she held up, he blinked, his eyes growing focused on the here and now. “Do you think the laundry can save it? I'm fond of that coat, but tore it in a little mishap with a misbehaving colt.”

  “I don't know if the laundry can, but I certainly can.” She shook the coat out, then laid it over her lap to get to work. Her spool of black thread matched the coat closely enough and she had the skill to keep her stitches tiny and neat, hardly noticeable at all. “I'd been the one doing most of the mending there before.”

  “Is that so?” He came to stand behind her while she worked. Too close, really. She could feel the warm presence of him there and the little hairs on the back of her neck prickled under his intent gaze. After a moment, he reached down to trace his fingers along her stitching. “Oh yes, now I see. I recognize your work.”

  She laughed, her cheeks warming. “Do you?”

  “Yes. This isn't the first time you've fixed something for me.”

  What an odd thought. She'd been repairing his clothes for him before she ever met him. Of course, it made perfect sense. No one else was equipped to mend his fine clothes here on the ranch. She shook her head and refocused on her work. “Let me adjust this other sleeve as well for you and it'll be less likely to tear next time. It's just not quite wide enough to manage your shoulders. Maybe your tailor made a mistake.”

  “No, I think I grew a little broader from all the work on the ranch.”

  Oh, she could see that. The man was busy often enough. More with his horses than any beeves, true, but he did clearly enjoy manual labor, and it suited h
im well. Those fine clothes of his were well-filled with the powerful body inside them. Not that she should be thinking such things about her employer, or anyone really.

  When she finished repairing the coat, she held it out for him to examine, which he did at some length.

  “Esther, I thought I'd have to throw this out and you've made it even better than it was before.” He gave her one of those rare, soul-tingling smiles of his. “You're full of surprises.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Is this what you used to do?”

  Esther looked up from the tiny stitches she was sewing along the side seam of a fine lawn shirt. “What? Sewing? I said I used to do mending at the laundry in town.”

  Jack leaned against the doorjamb. “I mean before you came out west, were you a seamstress?”

  She slowly shook her head, then bought time by pulling a length of white thread from the wooden spool. She wet the cut end with her tongue and fed it through the eye of the needle. “No, I was simply a daughter before I came west. I learned to sew from my mother, of course, and I made my own clothing, but I didn’t do it for others or for money.”

  “You should. You’re very good.”

  She shook out the shirt and looked it over with a practiced eye for other tears or loose seams. Finding a loose button, she quickly sewed it on. “You’re forgetting, I already have a job.” She folded the shirt and picked up the next item in the mending basket, a pair of long johns. She blushed, feeling it was unseemly for him to see her handling a man’s underwear. She returned it to the basket and pulled out another shirt. “And even if I wanted to do mending, I live so far from town now, it isn’t really practical.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment and the strength of his gaze made her skin heat. “Do you enjoy sewing?”

  She stopped and looked at him, still holding the threaded needle poised to take a bite of the fabric. “I do enjoy all sorts of sewing but what I really love to do is design and sew dresses.”She looked down at the faded skirt she wore. “Obviously I haven’t been able to make myself anything new or stylish in some time.”

  “Next time we’re in town you must choose some material to make yourself whatever it is you need, and satisfy your talent.”

  She smiled and resumed patching a tear in the shoulder of the shirt in her hands. A large piece had been torn free. She carefully cut a patch from a scrap and basted it into place. “I’m afraid I don’t have much reason to have a new dress. What I have is just fine.”

  “Then make me some new clothes. We’ve already determined my shoulders have broadened. I could use new shirts as well as another pair of trousers made of warmer fabric.”

  She squinted against the shadows and turned her chair slightly to take advantage of the thin light coming through a window nearby. “I can do that. I can use a set of your clothes as a pattern.”

  “No, my clothes don’t fit right anymore. I need these new ones to be the correct proportions. I had a tailor in my old home who measured me for my clothes. You can do that, can’t you?” He paused, her reluctance obvious. “I’ll pay you extra for this,” he added.

  “Certainly,” she said firmly, but it was clearly pure bravado. A fine tremor in her hands betrayed that she was nervous. She put the sewing aside and fished around in her sewing box until she found a cloth measuring tape.

  Jack stood in the center of the room with his arms out, perpendicular to his body. “Bend your arm,” she commanded, as she held one end of the tape at the center of his back, stretching it the length of his upper arm and around the bend of his elbow, but the fabric of his shirt bunched up making it difficult.

  “Here,” he said, quickly grasping the hem of the shirt and pulling it off over his head in one movement. The form fitting long underwear he wore left little to the imagination. At his neck, the top button was undone and dark hair peeked from that opening.

  Esther pushed his arms down to his sides and felt for the top of his shoulder, finding the spot where a seam would go, and measured down to his wrist. But instead of becoming more comfortable with the task, she was getting more flustered. Her skin seemed to be excessively sensitive to the texture of the fabric covering his flesh. She dreaded measuring him for his trousers. “I think I’ll just do the shirts for now.” She pushed his arms out from his sides. “Just one last size I need.” Standing in front of him she passed the tape around his back and grasped it with the other hand, in a parody of a hug, her arms capturing him on either side.

  “Should I take a deep breath?” he murmured.

  “Why?” she gasped.

  “So that you can get the size of my chest at its largest.”

  “Oh, yes, of course.” she brought the tape together in front at the center of his chest, over his heart. He drew in a large draught of air and held it briefly and she made note of the number. As he blew it out she looked up at him. He was gazing down at her at the same moment, his exhalation brushing her face with his breath.

  It was as though time stopped. Esther could see nothing but his face, his shadowed jaw, full lips slightly open, and hazel eyes gazing without guile or artifice. Her body, against her own volition, strained forward, as he tilted his head closer.

  “That’s good enough for now,” she said, twisting away from him.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  After Jack had gone out to work, Esther stood there for a moment, uncertain. The last time she'd fallen for a man and wanted him to kiss her, she'd ended up in the Dakota Territory, ruined and alone. She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, putting a hand over her heart to will it to slow down. There was no changing the past and wiping those mistakes from the world, but the least she could do was try not to make the same mistakes.

  When she was sure Jack was no longer nearby, she drew back from the wall and stepped out onto the porch. The men were all out by the fence line and he was doing his best to make them listen to him, but half of them looked like they'd rather be taking naps than working for their living. She shook her head and settled onto the top step of the porch, beside Ipp, who was napping in the warm afternoon sunshine.

  “You wouldn't think I'd still be so stupid,” she murmured as she scratched around the dog's ears. He gave no response to her self-deprecation other than an appreciative grumble and a few twitches of his eyebrows.

  She kept petting the dog, watching the ranch hands and Jack work from her peripheral vision rather than turning to stare at them. There wasn't much for her to do but watch, but it felt overly intimate at the moment, as though she had some stake in all of this.

  A wagon rolling up the trail to the ranch caught her attention after a bit. She saw Jack's head go up and his eyes narrow slightly as well, before he turned back to his work, dismissing the visitors as unimportant for the moment. She recognized the carpenter from town, Mack Coffman, and his young apprentice from the orphanage, David. In the back of the wagon, in a little spot cleared of equipment, sat two women with two youngsters. One of the women was visibly pregnant and held a toddler, while the other was narrow and tall, a smaller baby in her arms.

  “I'll bring you ladies back to town once we're done here. Have a nice visit,” Mr. Coffman said with a smile and a tip of his hat. David jumped out to help the women down from the wagon, then immediately clambered up alongside his employer.

  Though she'd certainly grown close to Bridget O'Cuinn and Mika Ritchie through association, Esther had never had much reason to interact with Emma Leonetti or Beulah Whitney, the pastor's wife. Esther rose to her feet slowly, her hands gripping the sides of her skirt in nervousness.

  “Mrs. Whitney, Mrs. Leonetti. How may I help you today?”

  Emma came directly toward her and stated breezily, “We had some concerns about the moral well being of the town.”

  Her husband, Esther recalled, was a city councilman, but their orphanage had begun with donations and was primarily supported by a goat dairy. Comfortable enough, but Emma acted a bit like she was a queen surveying her kingdom, instead of simp
ly another woman in town. Esther looked uncomfortably toward the pastor's wife. She had set her toddler down and was allowing him to explore a little in the yard, one of her fists in the small of her back. She didn't look quite so uncomfortable as Bridget had been looking these past few months, but she also likely had half the number of babes growing in her belly.

  “At church, my husband only really spoke to Mr. Marek,” Beulah noted. “What's your relationship with him?”

  “He's my employer.” No one needed to know about that kiss that nearly was. Nothing had happened and nothing would happen. She'd make sure of that, particularly if people were now coming to ensure she wasn't spreading sin and vice everywhere!

  “And is that all he is?” Emma asked with a smile that Esther didn't quite trust.

  “Everything is perfectly proper here. Mrs. O'Cuinn hired a girl from the north side of town as a housemaid and no one ever had any trouble over it.”

  “Well, I can't imagine anyone ever had any high moral standards for Lorcan O'Cuinn anyway,” Emma muttered under her breath. “But a wife changes things in a house, dear. You have to understand the difference between working for the lady of the house versus working for a single man, don't you?”

  Esther frowned. She'd heard enough stories of married men going after the help that it hardly seemed an important distinction to her. Either a man was decent or he wasn't. What did having a wife have to do with it? She pointed at Beulah. “You lived with your husband before you were married.”

  Beulah's brows rose and she seemed to grow a few inches with the gesture, her spine straightening. “That was entirely different from your situation and we were married within days, besides.”