Caress of Fire

by Martha Hix

  “Why don’t I sound like a Scot?” he said, eager to ship over his breach of decorum. “I left Inverness when I was a boy Grew up in Illinois, then joined the Union Army when the war broke out. I’ve been in the West since late ’65.” Lisette listened closely, leaned forward to catch his every word. “Guess I speak like a lot of the men here in Texas, this town excluded.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I’ve completely lost my Scot’s ways, though.”

  “What made you come south?”

  All this interest had a marked effect on Gil, and a smile broadened his face as he scanned the fair-complected Miss Keller. He admired her hair. It was tucked under a silly-looking bonnet, but Gil knew those locks were long and pale.

  She’d asked a question. What was it? Oh, he remembered. “I came south for the want of land. And for the want of money.”

  “Now you have both.”

  “Not quite. Land, yes–money, no. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not destitute. By money, I mean gold in the bank for the Four Aces.”

  Why was he being candid? It wasn’t in his nature to talk freely about his business, but he decided, with Lisette, he wanted matters out in the open.

  “Once my cattle drive is finished,” he went on, “my land and all on it will be on solid footing. Everything depends on getting those cows over to the feeder route and up the Chisholm Trail–safely. And I’ll do it.”

  “You’re quite a determined man,” she observed, her admiration shining. But her next statement caught him off guard: “I understand you’re not married, Mister McLoughlin.”

  Gil jacked up a brow. This was one bold lass. Very bold. He liked that in a lady Liked her manner so much he winked–boldly, to be sure–and answered, “Not at the moment.”

  Again she blushed from the roots of her blond, blond hair to the collar of her dress. Dropping her chin, she admitted, “I wanted to meet you. My brother wouldn’t introduce us.”

  “Or allow us to be introduced.”

  Her head shot up. “I don’t understand.”

  Gil had had his eye on her for all six months of his ownership of the Four Aces and had tried for an introduction a dozen times. “Matt Gruene talked to your brother.” Who’s a narrow-minded ass. “I tried to go through proper channels.”

  “I never dreamed.”

  “Yet you took introductions into your own hands.” Pride adding an extra inch of height to his six-two, he shoved a thumb behind his gunbelt. “There’ve been a couple of times I thought you were on the verge of approaching me.”

  “Das ist richtig. I mean, that’s true.”

  “If you hadn’t made the first move, I would’ve. And soon. I like your spunk, Miss Keller. Like it a lot.”

  His grin became a grimace. Would she be interested in him once she learned the truth? There was one way to find out.

  He took a swallow from his glass before speaking. “A couple of minutes ago you spoke of–you mentioned my–” This wasn’t easy, yet honesty was important to him. “I have been married, ma’am. I’m divorced.”

  She took a taste of beer, yet uttered nary a word.

  “I reckon you did hear me, Miss Keller?”

  “I did. And I’ve heard about your divorce.” She removed her hat, set it on the bench, then smoothed the edges of her coronet of braids. “There’s been gossip to that effect.”

  Breaking up with a spouse wasn’t socially acceptable, not in this enclave of German immigrants. That fool Adolf Keller . . .

  “It was your brother’s excuse to keep us apart.”

  “He’s funny that way.”

  “I run into a lot of that. Being a grass widower wasn’t acceptable back in Illinois, either.”

  Divorce had been Gil’s only choice. It had taken a long time for him to get over the hurt his former wife had inflicted, and he’d given up trying to define the meaning of what the poets called “love,” but Elizabeth Dobbs McLoughlin was the past, and he had been lonely long enough. Now he was ready to take another chance. And this time he’d be choosing a woman worthy of his respect.

  Gil looked Lisette steady in the eye before saying, “I am divorced. If that’s a problem, I’ll be on my way.”

  “Oh, I–I . . . it’s not a problem. None. None at all. Please don’t leave.”

  She licked her lips; her hand shook when she set her glass on the lawn; beer sloshed on the hem of her skirts. Gil grabbed his bandana and bent to sop up the liquid. He got a whiff of lilac water laced with hops and an ample view of a shapely ankle. Now it was his hand’s turn to shake.

  A darned nice feeling eased through him. The woman of his many fantasies hadn’t turned away from his tarnished name, and she didn’t want him leaving right away. She, a good and upstanding lady

  This was the beginning of a beautiful courtship.

  Cutting his eyes to the Vereinskirche, an idea came to him. The Germans would hold a dance tonight, and Matthias had told him Lisette loved to dance, so why not ask her . . .

  “There’s something I’m wanting,” she said, and beat him to the punch. A slight breeze ruffled a wisp of her hair and the sleeves of her faded calico dress when she stood. Something in her demeanor shouted determination. “I understand you’re in need of a cook for the trip to Kansas.”

  “I am.” He’d had an easy enough time hiring cowpokes, but good cooks were scarce as hen’s teeth. Cook or no cook, though, the Four Aces crew would leave in a week. “Do you know someone who might be interested in work?”

  “Me.”

  His glass dropped.

  Matthias Gruene had lied. Lisette Keller was no lady Her suggestion was the most preposterous, most improper thing Gil had heard in a long, long time.

  And what was worse, he had been a fool, believing she might be interested in him.

  Chapter Two

  Her nerves jumping like frogs around a pond, Lisette stepped over the dropped glass. “I’d be a credit to your cattle drive, Mister McLoughlin. I’m a fine cook, and–”

  “An attractive young woman in company with a bunch of love-starved cowboys?” he roared. “Absolutely not.”

  His voice cleared the courthouse lawn. A pair of mockingbirds flew from the oak tree, the county clerk slammed shut his window, and Lisette all but quailed under the tempered steel of Gil McLoughlin’s angry eyes.

  “Let me prepare a meal for you–at your ranch.” She compelled a smile. “I’d like to prove my cooking skills.”

  “You’d do that, wouldn’t you?” Disgust written all over his face, he said, “You’d sashay out to the Four Aces and be damned about what your fellow Fredericksburgers would say”

  “If you’re worried about your reputation–”

  “Gossip doesn’t bother me in the least. But you ought to think about your name. Cooking unchaperoned at a man’s house? You’d never live it down.”

  He sounded very like Anna. And if she weren’t desperate, Lisette would have adhered to social mores. After all, she’d spent four years concealing her broken engagement and fearing public ridicule. But she had to escape Adolf and Monika, and the rewards would more than compensate for the sacrifice.

  “Let me worry about my reputation.” Studying a broad shoulder instead of his face, she said, “I truly need a job, sir, and yours would answer all my prayers. You see, if I worked for you, I’d be earning my keep. As far as Kansas, anyway”

  “That so?” he said, a restrained thread to his tone.

  “It’s a mere train ride from there to Chicago.”

  “How nice. You figure I’ll be useful . . . ‘as far as Kansas, anyway.’ I’m charmed,” he added facetiously.

  Puzzled by his reaction and now-tight expression, she asked, “Why are you upset?”

  “A cattle drive isn’t a Sunday school social.”

  “I never figured it would be.”

  “Boy, was I wrong about you. You introduced yourself just to get a job, when I thought you were interested in me.”

  Her stomach dropped. Before she’d asked for the job, she’d become
aware of his interest, but all her nosy questions had been taken as flirtation. Of course she was interested in him–too interested in him!–but what a foolish, foolish Tropf she’d been, hurting his feelings.

  Her hand going to his sleeve, she said in German, “I do like you, but–”

  “I don’t understand your language. But I’ll tell you this–I’ve heard enough.” With military precision, he wheeled around. Marching across the street, he collected his hat and mount. And he didn’t look back.

  His refusal rang in her head like the noonday peals from the spire of the Lutheran Church. Going into this, she’d known the dangers, but his upbraiding hurt more than she could have expected. Once more she’d been rejected.

  But she had rejected him first. And her sympathies lay more with him. Would it help to apologize?

  If only she hadn’t encouraged his attention, he might have been more receptive. All she wanted was a chance to prove herself worthy. Liar. She’d been as interested in him as he’d been in her, but romance had no place . . . Then why did your pulse race each time you looked at him?

  She ached to chase after him, to do something–anything–to make amends. Impossible. In a cart approaching the courthouse, whipping his ox forward, Brother Adolf had found her.

  “You have work to do,” he called from his seat. “I am here to collect you.”

  Lisette trudged over to him and got in the cart.

  She spent the next six days fretting over the miserable end of her meeting with the handsome trail boss. She considered calling on Matthias Gruene to see if her old school chum would intercede on her behalf, but her brother and his wife kept a sharp eye on her. There were no more forays into town, much less another chance to try to convince Gil McLoughlin of her worth.

  Now, as she prepared for bed in the barn loft that served as her bedroom, Lisette felt her shoulders sag. Weariness from physical labor had a lot to do with it, but she was accustomed to hard work. All that toil, coupled with mental exhaustion, made her more than ready for the blessing of sleep. She felt twice her age.

  She pulled on her heavy cotton nightgown, then unfastened her braids. Picking up her sister-in-law’s handed-down hairbrush, she heard the barn door creak open. Lisette didn’t wonder about the caller’s identity This sort of thing happened all the time.

  Adolf’s wife huffed up the ladder to the hayloft.

  “The sheets on our bed are filthy.” Mean, tiny eyes skewered Lisette. “Why didn’t you wash them?”

  Lisette counted to ten. Losing patience with Monika would be more trouble than the satisfaction was worth, so there was no use pointing out that the linens had been changed yesterday. How could they be filthy?

  “Monika, it was nightfall when I finished in the fields; then I had dinner to prepare–and clean up after.” She placed the hairbrush on a crate. “I dressed the children for bed. Karl and Viktor wanted bedtime stories.”

  Lisette smiled, thinking of her elder nephews along with their younger brother. She adored them. The thought she’d tried to suppress surfaced: Would she ever have her own children?

  She wanted babies. She wanted a husband, too, despite her whistling in the dark. If a dream man were to come along, he’d be more important than freedom or obscure visions of Chicago.

  Cautioning herself not to dream impossible dreams, she inhaled. Chicago and a millinery shop of her own were in the realm of possibility . . . provided she could get to Illinois.

  “You aren’t listening to me.” Monika cupped her fingers under her protruding stomach. “If I were in good health, I could handle all your chores . . . with my hands tied behind my back.”

  Lisette scowled at the unkind comparison. Try to be tolerant. Pregnancy probably wasn’t the easiest condition to weather. She extorted a smile. “It’s awfully late. Why don’t I change your sheets in the morning, before breakfast?”

  “Do it now.”

  “But I’d have to dress.” Any excuse was worth something, she reasoned, then added a valid one. “And it would disturb the children, my getting fresh linen out of their room.”

  “Laggard.” Monika dropped down on the bed and curled her lip. “I assume you’re wanting to turn in so you’ll be plenty rested tomorrow. Perhaps for ducking into town. Again.”

  “Monika, please . . .”

  “You were seen speaking with that Yankee McLoughlin. You aren’t planning another–”

  “We’ve been over this before. Yes, I spoke with him. He offered me a refreshment, that’s all,” Lisette lied.

  “Is that what your Confederate soldier in San Antonio offered you? Refreshment?”

  It was as if a blast of winter wind hit Lisette, but her chill melted to the heat of anger. “Adolf told you not to speak of him again!”

  She might as well have saved her breath.

  “We certainly won’t allow you the liberties you enjoyed during the war, when you were living in that wicked San Antonio with Onkel August and that English wife of his, and–”

  “God rest their souls,” Lisette interrupted. “Leave them out of this.”

  Monika sniffed. “When it comes to propriety, we must be careful what could be said about those in our family. And this time, if you’re jilted, we won’t be able to keep it quiet.”

  May the devil take you. And may he take Adolf, too.

  She had been foolish to confide in her brother upon his return from the Civil War. And he’d been heartless, going straight to his vengeful wife and betraying his own flesh and blood. Thom Childress was best forgotten, but no way would Adolf’s Frau allow it.

  Was there a chance some miracle would set her free from Adolf and this wife of his? If only she had a job and the funds it would provide, she could make her own miracles.

  Lisette started down the ladder. “I’ll get those sheets changed now.”

  She took care not to awaken her nephews while gathering linen. Within ten minutes she had Monika and Adolf’s bed changed. Her brother, yawning and tugging on his yellow beard, offered a curt “Good night” before he limped over to settle on the clean sheets.

  “Before you go back to the barn, fix mein Mann and me a cup of chocolate,” Monika ordered. “And don’t make it so hot this time. You nearly boiled our tongues last night!”

  “Leave her alone,” Adolf bellowed; he didn’t object to the hot drink.

  A few minutes later, Lisette again entered the bedroom.

  Propped up in bed, her brother reached for the cup. “Otto Kapp spoke with me this afternoon. I’ve given my permission for your marriage. You will wed him as soon as arrangements can–”

  “I will not.”

  “Oh yes, you will.” Monika crossed her arms under her bosom, and her marble-like scrutiny went to Lisette. “And you’d better be thinking of an excuse for your wedding night. I’ve been told chicken blood works well. You may take one of our hens as a wedding gift.”

  “Monika, you’ve no right to imply my sister isn’t chaste.” Bending a skeptical eye at his sister, Adolf said, “If you are in need of the hen–”

  “Ruhig! I have heard enough.” Lisette whirled around, ran from their bedroom, and slammed the door.

  Unfortunately, the noise awakened her eldest nephew.

  Karl howled, and Lisette appeased him with a promise of cocoa. But his cries roused his brothers, so Lisette took baby Ludolf to his mother for nursing, then comforted the older boys with a song about the spring fires that turned nearby Cross Mountain into a kettle for “boiling Easter eggs.” Her melody made no mention of the true sources of those blazes: the Comanche. Afterward, she warmed more chocolate for Karl and Viktor.

  Somewhere between the lullaby and the cookstove, Lisette made a decision. Gil McLoughlin would hire her as his cook. And that was all there was to it.

  The Four Aces outfit left Fredericksburg a day early, Gil McLoughlin being itchy to get on the trail. Unfortunately they left without a cook. Gil had hired one a couple of days after Lisette Keller’s preposterous offer, but the fellow hadn’
t shown up the morning they’d set out. And Gil saw no value in tarrying.

  Oscar Yates, a grizzled and cantankerous cowpoke, got conscripted to the chuck wagon. Trouble was, Yates’s chow didn’t even suit Gil’s collie cowdog, Sadie Lou.

  Two days into the trip, the men threatened mutiny.

  By the third morning, six of his crew of eighteen saddled up and headed south. The remaining dozen refused to speak to their trail boss. It bothered him, as the sun set and Yates toiled at the cookfire, that his second-in-charge for the drive still sided with the others. A strawboss ought to be loyal to the man paying his salary.

  Of course he ought to be furious with Matthias Gruene for lying, for saying Lisette Keller was a lady. Matt probably didn’t know any better, for he was as green as his name when it came to females. Besides, even life-seasoned men had been fooled by women since Adam took a bite of that apple, so Gil didn’t fault him.

  Anyway, quit thinking about that Keller woman.

  Gil grabbed a cup of coffee and downed the watery brew He glanced around the camp. Not so much as a single cowpoke lounged around the fire, which, outside of a saloon or a whorehouse, was a cowboy’s favorite gathering place at day’s end. Even Sadie Lou had abandoned her favorite spot under the worktable that opened by hinges from the top of the chuck box.

  The collie had seen fit to follow Matthias, the duo nowhere to be seen in the fading light.

  “Damn ’em,” Gil muttered under his breath.

  The cook, a smoke dangling from the corner of his whiskered mouth, reached for a Dutch oven. “Ye got a burr under yer saddle, cap’n?”

  “Tend to your cooking, Yates.”

  “I’d rather be tendin’ cows, I would. And that’s what ye hired me to do. It ain’t right, I say. It just ain’t right, yer makin’ me cook. Why, ye’re makin’ a steer outta me. Did I ever tell you about the time my Susie–”

  “Oh, please,” Gil broke in, thoroughly versed in Yates’s revered departed wife.

  He’d tried to do Yates a favor, putting him in charge of the cook fire. The cowpuncher was getting too far along in years for the rigors of herding, and it was the natural course for older men to take over chuck wagons. It was also natural for cookies to be grumpy. “Never mess with a mule, a skunk, or a cook” was a widely used expression in the West–so Gil tried to be patient.