She took it from him, being careful not to touch his fingers. The card was a pretty ivory color, with bold, fancy lettering. M. Trevor. Real Estate. Now who told him about her? “That’s correct, sir. But I have no intention of selling my property.”
He smiled, his teeth small and broken. “Now, no need to be hasty before you’ve even heard my offer, Miss Bolton. Perhaps I could come out to your ranch and look around.”
Not a chance. His voice was as oily as his hair. “I said, no thank you, Mr. Trevor. Now I really must be getting home.” She turned and pulled herself up to the wagon seat. Picking up the reins, she kept her eyes staring at the road in front of her. “Let‘s go, Satin!” She pulled away without so much as a glance at Mr. Trevor. Reba was right. Something about the man made her shiver inside. Getting away from him was the most urgent thing on her mind.
Chapter 9
With the town and Mr. Trevor a few miles behind, Hallie began to relax. “Whoa, there, Satin. It’s not a race to get home.” The beautiful horse shook her head and gave a loud neigh, as if to agree with her mistress. Satin probably knew her better than anyone, she laughed, then sobered. It wasn’t much a life if it was a horse that knew you best. But people just kept leaving her. Mama and Papa, both gone on to their reward. Her two brothers, dying for the Confederacy. And then Rob up and leaving for Chicago. Judith had put dreams of riches in his head that he couldn’t seem to resist.
She adjusted her hat and turned her face to the sun. It was hot on her cheeks, but it felt good. She smiled to think of the horror on her face and how Mama would disapprove. But a lily white face wasn’t much of an option for a rancher woman.
The house came into view and she hurried Satin along, guiding the small wagon to the back of the house and on to the barn.
“I think I have everything on the list,” she said, jumping down from the wagon before Ethan could get to her. He was the student, she the teacher, No need for him to wait hand and foot on her.
“Good,” he grinned, making his way to the back of the wagon, untying the ropes. “I’ll get this stuff unloaded and then I need to head home for a while. I’ve got some cows about to calf that I need to check on. I’ll be back later, though.”
“A lesson tonight?” she asked. Did she sound too hopeful? Too much like she was enjoying his company?
“Sure thing,” he grinned, pulling the sack from the wagon bed and heading inside the barn.
“I’ll have supper for you when you get back,” she called after him. She was beginning to regret offering to cook for him. It was too easy to get used to him being there at her table. When he was absent, it made her life seem lonely. Was it possible he felt the same?
***
“That’s not right, is it?” he laughed.
Hallie shook her head and watched his face. She enjoyed watching the way the skin crinkled around his blue eyes when he laughed. The more he came and sat in her house, the more she liked him. Was it possible she was beginning to. . .to love him?
“You see,” she said, moving her finger to the word, “in this case-”
“Wait, wait,” his hand touched hers and brushed away her fingers. “Let me try again.”
His fingers still touched her, gently messaging her palm as he concentrated on the word. She knew that he was unaware of the action. She wanted to pull her hand away, stop the sparks of fire that ran up her arm. Go sit on the other side of the table. Or maybe on the porch so her heart would stop racing like a horse running from a barn fire.
She opened her mouth to speak, when Essie’s bark sounded outside. She jerked her hand away and stood. She knew that bark. Someone was there. In another few moments a knock sounded at the door. “I’ll be right back,” she said to him, relieved to be away from his touch.
The relief deflated fast when she opened the door to the unpleasant man she‘d spoken with earlier today. Her jaw dropped. “Mr. Trevor!”
He tipped his hat and all but pushed his way inside the door before she could issue a polite invitation. “I’m so glad you’re home this evening, Miss Bolton.”
Hallie recovered her wits. “I don’t understand. What are you doing here?” Maybe he was lost, needed directions. Somehow, that didn’t seem likely.
“I’ve come to look at your ranch, Miss Bolton.” He said it as if she had invited him. “As we discussed earlier today in town.”
“I told you that I wasn’t interested in selling my place, sir. Now, I kindly ask that you leave.” Before I go and retrieve my shotgun.
“Ah. I was hoping you might have thought over our little conversation. Maybe decided that a small woman like yourself just isn’t capable of running a ranch.”
Hallie felt her eyes widen. How dare he be so condescending to her? She could run a ranch as well as any woman. She had a lot to learn, but she was capable. Who did he think he was, arriving at her doorstep and insulting her? “I asked you to leave, Mr. Trevor.”
“Now, now, little lady. Don’t get so-”
“I distinctly heard the lady ask you to leave.” Ethan’s voice boomed across the room.
The small man jumped and turned. Shock registered on his face. He glanced at Hallie, his Adam‘s apple bobbing up and down. “I see. I wasn’t aware that you had company.”
Ethan strode a few steps closer to the man. “It doesn’t matter if she has company, or not. She asked you to leave.”
Hallie hid a smile. Mr. Trevor might not match Ethan’s height, but he had stamina. He had yet to head toward the door. Instead, he held out his hand, then dropped it as Ethan made no move to shake. “My name is Malcolm Trevor. Real estate. From up in Kansas City.”
Hallie watched as he pulled another one of his cards from his pocket and offered it to Ethan. Ethan did not reach for it. Instead, he spoke. “Am I going to have to physically remove you from this house, Trevor?”
The realtor’s face blanched and he took a step back. “N-no sir. That won’t be necessary.” He turned to Hallie. “Just keep me in mind if you want to sell, miss. I represent a lot of wealthy men interested in investing in Texas.” With those words, he hurried through the door and to his buggy.
Hallie and Ethan stood in the doorway, watching as he left.
“Good riddance,” Ethan said, shutting the door. “You let me know if he bothers you anymore.”
“Next time I’ll see him coming and have out my shotgun,” she laughed, following him back to the kitchen.
Settled at the table, Ethan finished reading the last page of the First Reader that he held. Gently shutting the cover, he looked at her. “What about writing? I need to practice more on that, too.”
“Well, of course,” she agreed. “And you’re almost ready for the Second Reader, Eth-. .” she felt cheeks warm, “I mean, Mr. Kane.”
He grinned. “Call me Ethan, please. Mr. Kane makes me feel like an old man.”
“And I’m Hallie, not Miss Bolton,” she said, returning the book to the shelf and fetching the slate and chalk from the same shelves.
“What would you like to write first,” she asked, settling herself next to him.
He fidgeted and stared at the slate. “How hard is it to write a letter?”
Hallie’s eyebrows quirked. “You mean like a legal letter? Or just a friendly letter to someone you know?”
He shook his head. “Neither. But I guess more like a friendly letter. Only to someone you don’t know.”
“I’m not sure I understand. Why would you want to write a letter to a person you don’t know?” She bit the end of her tongue before she said more. It was Ethan’s business who he did and did not write to.
He seemed to be thinking over his answer. “Finally, he looked at her. I’m going to be honest, Miss. . .Hallie. I want to write a letter to one of those mail order brides. I want to find one.”
Hallie’s breath stuck in her throat, as if an iron skillet had pounded into her chest. Ethan Kane wanted to learn to read and write so he could find a wife.
Chapter 10
&nbs
p; Ethan flicked the reins across Danby’s back. It was plain on Hallie’s face that she thought he was an idiot for wanting a mail order bride. He should never have told her the truth. It had sounded silly to his own ears when he had spoken the words aloud. And now he wasn’t sure if it was what he really wanted or not. Surely Hallie understood what it was like to be alone. Now that her brother had left, she had no one, either.
A funny stirring moved inside of his chest at the thought and he ignored it. It had been happening a lot lately. Maybe he was working too hard. Or maybe, he narrowed his eyes, he was about to allow himself to feel something foolish.
He sat straighter in the seat. For him, marriage was going to be nothing more than a business contract, a word-of-mouth deal with each other before they stood in front of the preacher. He would do his part, and she would do hers. No messing around with love. It only caused pain and heartache. And he was through with that. His life had been rife with the sting of losing those he loved. Pa had left them, and soon after, his mother died before her time. And Gilbert, a few years later, too drunk to stay on his horse, had fallen head-first into a ditch of muddy water. That death was particularly attributed to his Pa. And some day, if the man was still alive, he would be made to pay.
But for now, it was time he got on with his life, without being encumbered by grief and heartache. There wasn’t room for anymore sadness in his heart.
No doubt, if he and his new bride were to have children, he would love them, as a father should. Not that he’d had much of an example. But loving children was different than loving a woman. Not that he had much experience with the fairer sex, but the one time he had given his heart away, it had been crushed.
He drew in a breath and snorted. Asking a saloon girl to marry him would have been a better decision than the one he’d made. At least that kind of woman might have been grateful for the offer, love or not.
As it was, he had been working too many years to mend his life back together. If he was going to have a wife, the mail-order option was all he had. It would be all that his heart could handle.
***
Hallie sat up in bed, pillows propped against the headboard for comfort. She stared into the darkness. If the moon was full, at least there would be a little light shining through the curtains. But no, it was pitch black, just like her thoughts. She shook her head. There was no need to feel so gloomy.
Why had it been such a shock that Ethan was looking for a bride? He was a bachelor, a man alone, trying to run a ranch and household at the same time. She certainly understood the difficulty. She had the same problem. Except, as Mr. Trevor had pointed out, she wasn’t very capable of running the ranch.
She held her father responsible for that. Levi Bolton had insisted that his wife and only daughter live a practically pampered life. She and her mother weren’t expected to step outside the house unless it was to ride to town, or visit the small henhouse or kitchen garden. For three years, he had sent Hallie to a small, but useless school in St. Louis. But the money had soon run out and it was back to a lonely life on the ranch.
Hallie hadn’t even known how to saddle her own horse until she was almost fifteen years old. And only then because she begged Rob to teach her. Her father had meant well, but it had done her no favor, now that she was on her own.
And just why was she on her own with no husband to love her, and help care for her? She was no beauty, but no one shied away when she passed by, horrified by the sight of her face. What was it about her that drove men away? Trousers? Surely not. She had only been wearing them for the past year. And many women in the area dressed in them, so they were better able to help their fathers and husbands. No, it couldn’t be the trousers.
Her heart told her it was the school teacher image. Men were intimidated, thinking she was more educated than they were. Even Ethan had come straight to her to learn to read and write, when there were many people in the area that were qualified to teach him that skill. Maybe no man wanted an old-maid schoolmarm for a wife. Folks might talk, laugh at the fact that a man had to resort to a spinster that had spent her younger years teaching children. Not that she was old. But most people considered twenty-seven to be a hopeless age to find a husband in a world that had lost so many men to a war now almost twenty years past.
All that aside, she was more worried about her expression when Ethan had announced his intentions. It had sent her thoughts reeling in a direction that even she, sitting here in the dark, did not want to acknowledge. Was it possible that she was a little bit jealous of Ethan’s nonexistent wife? It was ridiculous. Jealousy wasn’t an emotion that she had experienced very much. She had been mostly satisfied with her life, appreciating what she had and all the blessings God had given to her.
A sigh escaped her lips. It was no use sitting on this lumpy bed if she wasn’t going to get a wink of sleep. Might as well get up and have a nice cup of mint tea. It would settle her thoughts and might encourage a little bit of drowsiness.
Lighting the lamp, she wrapped a cotton shawl around her shoulders and headed down the hallway, stopping once to listen to a sound in the parlor. She smiled. It was little Tinker playing with his string of wooden buttons. Most thought she was silly to spoil her cats as she did. But sometimes they were all the company she had for days on end.
The stove was still warm when she entered the kitchen. Taking a few pieces of kindling, she lifted the lid and stirred the ashes until she could see the bright red embers. She added the wood and closed the stove lid. In a moment or two, she would have enough heat for the kettle.
A soft, furry head pushed against her bare ankle. She looked down and smiled. “I suppose you might like a dish of milk, Mr. Tinker.” She reached for a small bowl and took the bottle of milk from the bucket of cool water on the counter. The rest of the milk was stored in a bucket down the well. It kept nicely for a day or so, that way. Usually, it would be replaced by fresh in the morning, the old fed to the chickens.
Restless, she made her way to the door window and pulled aside the thin curtain. Staring a half-mile up the hill, she could see Ethan’s house. The small light, shining in the window told her that he was still up at this late hour. Did he sit up, mentally composing the letters to this make believe bride of his?
She smiled. Exactly what sort of woman was Ethan Kane looking for? Young? Pretty? Probably. No man would ask for a plain wife. Able-bodied? Well, the last went without saying. A rancher needed a wife that could pull her own weight around the place. Life was hard enough as it was. Pampered women, save she and her mother, were rare out in these Texas hills. He would need someone strong and courageous enough to tackle what life handed them . “Please send him the wife he needs, Lord. He’s an honest man, a good man. He deserves to be happy.” she whispered aloud as she turned to check the kettle.
Chapter 11
Hallie sat on the old oak stump, throwing the apple peels to the chickens, one by one, staring at the funny shapes the curly peels made as they hit the ground. The sun peeked above the horizon, just enough for her to make sure there were no snakes lurking around the yard. Sitting beside her was Rob’s famous red hound, Essie. She seemed fascinated with watching the poultry as they devoured the scraps of fruit.
“I don’t know what to do, Essie.”
The dog pulled her eyes away from the birds and stared into Hallie’s face. That was the good thing about Essie. She was sweet and silent, always there to support anything that Hallie might say. In some ways, Rob had left his most valuable asset behind. Not only was Essie the prize hunter of the county, she was a good listener.
“I mean, if Ethan wants a wife. . .any wife, well, I would be willing.” Essie licked her lips and glanced at the chickens, then turned her eyes back to Hallie. “I’m right here for the asking, Essie, but it’s as if I don’t exist. As if I’m not a woman.” It was impossible to believe that he might think she liked running a ranch on her own. He knew she couldn’t do it. Just yet, anyway. And she would always have to have hired help for the
heavy work. “I’m afraid that I’m in the same situation he is.”
Essie looked concerned, then wagged her tail. Hallie smiled and threw the last bit of apple to the ground. “C’mon girl, I’ve got a nice treat for you in the kitchen.”
Ethan’s wagon came rolling around the side of the house, just as she stepped outside with the strip of bacon. Essie took it and waddled over to her favorite spot under a nearby elm tree.
Ethan waved and pulled the wagon to a halt. “Good morning.”
The smile on his face sent her heart racing in a wild, solitary contest with itself. She grit her teeth for a moment and resisted the huge grin that tried to possess her lips. Under control, she greeted him with a prim smile “Good morning to you.”
“Your dog’s looking mighty round, these days. When are her pups due?”
Hallie’s jaw dropped and she turned to look at Essie. “I. . .I don’t know.” It had never occurred to her that that might be the reason Essie was getting heavier. She’d spent way too much time at Miss Millie’s School for Young Women, back in St. Louis. Papa should have let her stay home and learn about the real world. And what was she going to do with pups?
As if reading her mind, he answered, “Well, you shouldn’t have any trouble giving them away, or maybe trading them,” he laughed, watching her face. “Essie’s got a good reputation for hunting. Her pups will be sought after.”
Hallie blushed, knowing he had guessed her ignorance. “That’s good to know.” How could she be so dense that she hadn’t noticed the dog’s bulging belly?
He glanced toward the barn. “I’m just going to get a few rolls of that barbed wire you’ve got stored in the shed out back. Thought I’d get started on your back line today.”
Ethan's Wild Rose Bride (Texas Frontier Brides Book 2) Page 6