The Cowboy’s Bride Collection: 9 Historical Romances Form on Old West Ranches
Page 40
Josiah Hanacker removed his hat and stepped inside. Corra took her cup to the sink and waited while Letty and Robert greeted him. Smoothing her skirt, she turned for the hallway and her new employer, holding his gaze as she approached. Bold, yes, but if he had second thoughts, she preferred to know sooner rather than later.
Letty gestured to the parlor. “Might I offer you some coffee, Mr. Hanacker?”
Addressing Letty, his eyes stuck to Corra like a broach. “Thank you, but I need to be back at the ranch as soon as possible.”
Corra stopped before the hall tree. “You must have been up before dawn to arrive so early, Mr. Hanacker.”
His hat brim curled inside his fingers. “Yes, ma’am. We start before daybreak at Hanacker Land and Cattle Company.”
“I see.” She reached for her bonnet. Quite a pretentious name for a small family ranch. Unless it was not so small as she had thought. “Do you mind? My trunk is there against the wall.”
Apparently happy to have something to do, he clapped on his hat and lifted the trunk as if it were an empty bushel basket. Alicia threw her arms around Corra’s waist and captured her with worried eyes. “Are you going to marry the cowboy and move away for good?”
Corra’s already pounding heart threatened to burst through her bodice. She knelt and cupped the sad face in her hands. “Goodness, no. I’m just helping Mr. Hanacker for the summer. He needs someone to show his little girl how to be a lovely young lady like you.”
The compliment found its mark, and Alicia’s pink mouth curved in a smile. Letty joined her daughter and embraced Corra with tears and sniffles. “Remember your promise about Sunday.”
Corra hugged her sister. “I remember. Now don’t you fret. You may have new guests arriving on the train today, and you don’t want to scare them away with weepy eyes.”
Clutching her satchel, she walked outside to the wagon where Mr. Hanacker waited to hand her up. She scooted to the far edge of the seat, set her bag in the middle, then raised a hand to Letty. Bracing herself as the wagon tipped to the cowboy’s weight, she faced forward, certain he had her in the corner of his eye. He snapped the reins and the horse jerked ahead.
In less than a quarter mile, they reached the bend in the Arkansas River. And life as Corra knew it washed away on the sandbar at Texas Creek.
A familiar scent skimmed over Josiah and his gut twisted. Corra Jameson smelled like the lilac bush Maisie planted next to the porch their first year. Why hadn’t he noticed it before—at the mercantile or in the boardinghouse parlor? He propped a foot against the board. Couldn’t very well turn around and dump her off because of the way she smelled. He clenched his jaw. This whole arrangement was for Jess’s sake. He’d just have to make do.
“Tell me of Jessica.”
He hesitated, drawing a bold stare that he answered with a straightened back. “She’s a good hand.” Confounded woman searched his face as if reading sign. What else was he supposed to say?
With a deep sigh, she addressed the rocky slope on her left. “I mean, tell me a little bit about her. What does she most like to do? Does she have a favorite story or a favorite doll?”
Remorse crawled up his shoulders. Jess didn’t even have a doll, much less a favorite. And stories? Only what he shared around their campfires on the trail. No wonder Beatrice didn’t trust him. The revelation burned like gall.
“’Fraid not.” The wagon wheels grated against the hardpack like regret on his bones.
“I see.”
He hoped so.
“What are your parameters for my training methods?”
Parameters? He twisted his head away, popped the crick out of his neck. “I want her to know how to be a lady. Wear a dress and act like a girl. Do the things her ma would have taught her had she lived.” Some he couldn’t mention. He counted on her knowing.
“It’s been two years—is that correct?”
Her voice had softened, and he squeezed the reins and nodded.
“I am so sorry.”
Silence carried them on again, and he laid out the day’s work in his head, as well as the whole week. He didn’t want to ride Joe ragged, but Jess wouldn’t be around to help as much now that he’d hired a, a—he didn’t know what to call her. A cook? A tutor? A beautiful woman who smelled like spring and made him realize how lonely he’d been?
An hour later, Rena’s head came up and her ears perked. With a quickened trot, she dropped them down into the wide valley and offered a deep whinny. Corra Jameson gasped.
Her hand rested at her throat, and her mouth parted just enough so he noticed. She was either scared to death or taken by the lay of Hanacker Land and Cattle. He hoped it was the latter.
“How beautiful.” Her near whisper shot his heart through with pride and pain. Maisie’s first reaction hadn’t been much different.
“My grandfather homesteaded it when my pa was a boy. Poured his life into this valley, and I intend to do the same. I want Joe and Jess to always have a place they call home.”
She drank in the view but didn’t say another word. Just sat there, assessing the place, he figured.
“Pop had a spell a few years back that put him in a bad way. He’s bent over and doesn’t ride anymore. But he cooks for us some.” He slid her a look. “Don’t think he’ll give you any trouble, though. He’ll probably enjoy someone else’s cooking, as will the rest of us. All he fixes is biscuits and stew. Gets old, but I won’t fault him. Joe’s twelve, about as good a hand as there is, and will eat anything that’s not moving.”
She nodded, deep in thought. Was she tallying his family and their ways? “And Jessica, will she welcome a change?”
That was the rub. It’d be kinder to have Corra Jameson fixing fence, but that’s not why he’d hired her. “Not exactly.”
She looked at him again, straight on, hunting details and all the things he wasn’t saying. He hoped he could last three months with her eyeballing him like that. Made his skin itch.
Finally she turned toward the house and barn coming up on them. “I am sure we will get along just fine. But I have two requests as we set out on this task.”
His turn to stare.
“First, we must face this challenge together and support one another. If you dislike my approach with Jessica, please tell me in private, away from her hearing. It is imperative that we present a united front. Do you agree?”
He swallowed hard. “Yes, ma’am. But she doesn’t like to be called Jessica. Just so you know.”
“Next, you must call me Corra.”
Was she nothing but surprises?
“I want this arrangement to be as informal as possible, though proper, of course. But I also want Jessica to be comfortable with my presence and willing to learn the things I want to teach her. Stiff formality will only make everyone uneasy.”
“She doesn’t like to be called—”
“I understand. Does she know you are training her so she can present herself as a proper young lady to her aunt?”
Training? Didn’t sound that far off from what he did with his yearlings. “Yes, ma’am.”
She raised a brow at him. Confounded woman. “Corra.”
Her lips curved into a smile. A pretty smile. “Thank you, Josiah.”
A stone grew in his throat at the way she said his name. He stopped Rena in front of the house, and Pop pushed up from his rocker. Joe came running from the barn. Jess was nowhere.
Chapter 7
Corra’s pulse pounded in her temples. How would she endure three months of those meadow-green eyes taking her in as if the man were dying of thirst? She needed to be clearheaded for this task. Getting all flitter-flopped inside helped not one bit.
The wagon tipped as Josiah stepped down, and she gathered her bag. Gripping his strong hand, she managed to keep her wits about her in spite of the warmth of his other hand on her back.
An older, bent version of the rancher hobbled to the edge of the porch.
She hurried up the steps. “You mus
t be Josiah’s father. I am Corra Jameson and pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Bent fingers took hers with surprising strength. “Same here, Miss Jameson. Glad you could see your way clear to come spend a spell at Hanacker Land and Cattle.”
“Please, call me Corra.” She turned to the boy. “You must be Joe. Or is it Joseph?”
The next generation of Hanacker offered a sober handshake. “Just Joe. Short for Josiah, so people don’t get me and Pa mixed up.”
Corra bit the inside of her cheek. He was not yet half the size of his strapping father. “I see. Well done, Joe.”
He pulled himself straighter. “Jess ain’t here. She’s hidin’ in the barn.”
“I’ll get her.” Josiah’s heavy footsteps pounded the porch, and he disappeared through the door with her trunk. The man could carry the wagon inside if he set his mind to it.
The other two Hanackers stood looking at her, so she addressed the elder. “And what shall I call you, sir?”
A sharp laugh flew from his mouth and his eyes twinkled. “Call me Pop, missy. Been so long, I might miss supper if you called me anything else.”
“Well then, Pop, might I help with preparations for dinner?”
“How ’bout if I help you. We could sure use some new fixin’s around here.”
“I’ll be at the corral.” Joe gave her a quick nod and bounded off the porch, followed by the red dog she’d seen in town with the cattle.
She switched her satchel to the other hand and stepped inside. Roomier than she’d anticipated, the interior wore an encouraging hominess. A large braided rug lay before the hearth at the opposite wall, and curtains hung at the windows on either side of the stone fireplace. Four doors led off the main room—bedrooms, she supposed. A third window fronted the building next to the door she’d just entered. Dusty and dingy, it’d been some time since vinegar water had touched its glass. But the house spoke to the affection of the builder. Suddenly she felt ill prepared to enter another woman’s home. What had she been thinking? This was a real family with real problems and real emotions—not a novel written on the whim of a dreamy-eyed author.
Josiah stood in the doorway of a bedroom, watching her. Beyond him, a logcabin quilt covered a bed. Chilling beneath his gaze, she loosened the ribbon holding her hat. Did he want to send her back?
“This will be your room while you’re here.” He remained like a sentinel barring her entry.
“Thank you for bringing in my trunk.”
He lifted his hat and forked back his long hair. She curled the fingers of her empty hand.
“There’s a basin and pitcher in the room, and we have water here in the kitchen.” He indicated a cookstove and table. Sideboards and cabinets formed an L against two walls, and a smaller window she’d not noticed before opened above the sink. A view.
“I see.”
“You see a lot, don’t you?”
She stiffened at his brusqueness. “Is that a problem?”
He looked clear through her, into her soul, and no doubt saw that it trembled in spite of her bravado. Then he left the doorway and in four long strides was out the front door.
Corra deflated like an emptied balloon. This endeavor may be much harder than she had anticipated. Josiah Hanacker seemed nothing like the man she’d met at the mercantile or in Letty’s parlor. But how could one get to know a man from two brief meetings?
She took her satchel to the bedroom and immediately welcomed the gentler impression. Another braided rug lay on the floor beside the brass bed. A washstand posed by the window, and angled into the near corner, an ornate dresser with a framed picture to one side. It captured a young Josiah Hanacker and a fair woman on what must have been their wedding day. Corra’s eyes rose to the beveled mirror framing her own plain face. With stiff fingers, she repinned the knot at her neck. Then she angled the gilded frame toward the outside wall, away from the door.
Heavy footsteps entered the house followed by others much lighter. Corra returned to the main room to find Jessica Hanacker standing as close to the opened front door as possible, two braids hanging like lariats beneath a wide-brimmed hat. She was no baby girl. Nearly as tall as her brother, she had as determined a set to her jaw as Corra had ever seen. Eyes as sharp as a winter sky left no doubt that the next three summer months might be long, hard, and cold.
Josiah had seen that look before—in the eye of a two-year-old colt at the snubbing post. Now it was his daughter with her neck stiff and legs planted.
“Jess, this is Corra Jameson. She’s here to help us out this summer, like I explained.”
Corra came forward and held out a steady hand. “I’m happy to meet you, Jess. Please, call me Corra.”
A warm spot flared in Josiah’s gut when Corra didn’t say Jessica, but his daughter’s face betrayed no emotion at all. Hard as steel. “I’ve got chores, so I’ll let you two get acquainted.”
Jess turned to leave and he laid a firm hand on her shoulder. “You’re stayin’, Jess.” He dropped his voice. “You can make this easy or you can make it hard.”
She looked up at him, her blue eyes puddling, and he thought he might break in two. “I’m counting on you, girl. I need you to do this, and you know why.”
Jess swiped her arm across her face and gave him a tight nod. He moved past her and closed the door behind him. Holding his breath, he listened for a storm to cut lose. Nothing. He strode for the barn.
Joe was waiting for him, perched on a stall railing like a skinny crow, whittling a willow branch. “How’d she do?”
Josiah grabbed his tools. “She didn’t pitch a fit, if that’s what you mean.”
Joe’s shoulders bounced in a silent laugh. Josiah had no idea what his son was thinking, but he did have a corral to mend.
By midday, sweat trickled down Josiah’s back, and new cedar poles replaced those weakened or broken. Three rounds of Pop’s triangle sounded, and Joe trotted off toward the house, the dog at his heels. Josiah grabbed his canteen from a post, pulled off his hat, and poured cool water over his neck. Then he shook his head and fingered his hair back, dreading the heat that might be waiting in the house. It all depended on how well Corra Jameson could handle his youngest child.
Rusty lay across the threshold of the open door, and Josiah brushed off and stepped over the dog. He hung his hat on a peg by the door then washed up at the sink. Drying his hands, he turned and stopped short. Pop had come to the table, shaved and shorn. Joe gawked as well, and Josiah elbowed him and shook his head in warning. After everyone took a seat, Josiah offered grace, and Pop tucked into his meal like a man half his age. All cleaned up, he looked half his age.
“So, ya like what ya see?” Pop’s eyes twinkled like two stars. “Miss Corra here knows how to spruce a fella up.” He took a break from shoveling in his food and jerked his chin at Josiah. “Wouldn’t hurt none to let her have a go at you.”
Joe and Jess both snorted like colts, and Josiah felt the heat crawl up his neck. No telling what she’d do if he let her at him.
“If you’d like, Josiah, I can trim your hair, but not until tomorrow. Jess and I have some projects, and I’d like to get them finished so she’ll have time to ride before dark.”
He slid a look at his daughter, who ignored Corra’s comment and continued eating like an outlaw. He’d never noticed that before.
“I’m sure you’re not surprised by this here pot o’ stew.” Pop reached for a biscuit, his cheeks fresh red from the razor. “But Miss Corra doctored it up some.”
Corra’s mouth turned up in that pretty smile.
Joe gulped. “Gosh, Miss Corra, this is great.”
“Thank you, Joe. Jess was quite helpful getting dinner ready.”
His daughter snorted again. Sounded like Rena.
Pop drizzled honey on his biscuit. “Reckon I’ll bunk out in the barn with you boys tonight.”
Corra’s gaze flitted around the table, then she set her spoon aside. “Not on account of me, I hope. I’ve been l
iving in a boardinghouse with complete strangers coming and going. You don’t have to give up your bed just because I’m temporarily on the other side of the house.”
Josiah opened his mouth, but Pop was faster. “Thank you, kindly, Miss Corra. My old bones appreciate my feather tick almost as much as my belly appreciates your cookin’.”
Joe snickered, Jess rolled her eyes, and Pop grinned like a cat. Corra went back to her stew, and Rusty whined from the doorway. If Josiah didn’t know better, he’d think his family was almost acting like a family again.
Chapter 8
By mid-June, Corra had settled into the rhythm of the ranch, not unlike that of a boardinghouse with meals to cook, milk to skim, breads and pies to bake, cleaning and laundry to keep up. Inventory of the Hanacker’s root cellar revealed precious little. But they had beef in the smokehouse and coffee, beans, and flour aplenty in the kitchen. A man’s larder.
Making progress with Jessica was much like cooking a good pot of beans: slow and dependent upon just the right seasoning in just the right amount. She involved the girl in everything that was done, surprised that she took most naturally to baking pies. Vinegar pies, since not one filled fruit jar was to be found on the place.
And Corra took naturally to easing into a rocker by the hearth each evening with her Bible. At Pop’s conspiratorial bidding, she had been reading aloud the story of Joseph—his struggles and victories as a young man. But Corra’s private reading fell by the wayside, for she was too busy by daylight and too weary at night, exhausted in both body and mind.
One morning, a faint rumble raised her head from a dress she was sizing down for Jessica. Distant, but growing, the sound drew her outside to the porch.
A dust cloud hovered beyond the far pasture, and a sharp whistle cut the air. Squinting, she searched the line where mountain and meadow joined. And then she saw them.
Magnificent. Manes and tails flying, surging out of a canyon and onto the flats in waves of brown and black and red. Josiah’s mares.