by Ana Seymour
Smokey walked over and gave her cheek a little pat. “You go down and get something warm into your gullet, missy. Let me worry about him.”
“Do you think he’ll be all right?”
Smokey shrugged. “He looks pretty froze. But we’ll do the best we can for him.”
“I’ll come back up in a little bit and sit with him, so you can have your supper.”
“Take your time. He’s not going anywhere.”
But Molly found she could not rest easy downstairs without knowing about the stranger’s progress. After gulping a few bites of stew, she said, “Mary Beth, you do the washing up tonight so Smokey can help out upstairs. And Susannah, bring some more firewood up to his room. We’ll need to keep it warm in there all night long.”
Susannah’s lower lip came out slightly. “I can hardly move, Molly.”
Molly felt much the same way herself. The struggle at the canyon and then battling the fury of the storm all the way home had taken its toll. But she pushed herself up from the table and said, “You can haul the wood or wash the dishes. You two work it out between yourselves, just so it gets done.” She stalked across the dining room to the front entryway and the graceful curved stairway that had been her papa’s pride and joy. No other ranch house in the territory had one like it.
“You have to help, too,” Susannah retorted.
“I’ll be up with the cowboy.”
“I’m not sure that he’s a cowboy,” Mary Beth corrected shyly. “Parker, he said his name was. Parker Prescott.”
“Kind of a gentlemanly sounding name, don’t you think?” Susannah added.
“Gentleman or not, he won’t be anything but a corpse unless we keep him warm,” Molly said.
Susannah’s smile dimmed. “I’ll bring up the wood,” she said.
And Mary Beth added, “I’ll bring some, too.”
By midnight the man’s skin had turned red. He still hadn’t regained consciousness. Molly had sent Smokey to bed, but she was determined to sit by their patient’s side through the night. She didn’t know whether Mr. Parker Prescott was a gentleman, but he was a human being. And if he was going to die, she wasn’t about to let him do it alone.
She’d sat with her father through two weeks of restless nights before the pneumonia had taken him last year. And she’d had her share of sleepless nights ever since. Sometimes, usually at times like this in the darkest early-morning hours, the responsibility of it all would overwhelm her. Everything depended on her— the ranch, her sisters, even Smokey and poor Beatrice, both of whom were too old to find a place at any other spread. And now this stranger’s fate had ended up in her hands, as well.
She-sighed and walked over to the bed to examine him. Against the snowy white of the pillow his hair was a dark chestnut color—thick and wavy. He had the chiseled features of an Eastern blue blood, but the upper part of his body, which was not covered by the blanket, was as strong and well muscled as the loggers who came through town on their way to the north woods. She watched the gentle rise and fall of his chest for a few moments. His breathing appeared normal once again. And his skin tone was looking better. She reached out to lift one of his hands. Fingers were often the hardest hit by frostbite. But he’d been wearing thick leather gloves, and she could see no sign of the deadly white spots that would indicate frozen skin.
She held his hand for a long moment, wondering at her own fascination. She’d certainly bandaged enough banged-up knuckles and sprains among the cowpokes. But this stranger’s hand didn’t look like those of the cowboys she’d nursed. His skin was clean and soft, the fingers long. There were, however, calluses on his palm. He’d not been entirely idle, this gentleman of theirs.
With a little grimace she put his hand back. She reckoned the rest of the household was asleep by now, but she wasn’t about to have someone come in and see her musing over some stranger’s hand. She went back and sat in the rocking chair next to the fire. The important thing was that it appeared Mr. Prescott was going to recover. Which meant that soon he could ride on out of here and things would be back to normal.
“Oh, my!” Mary Beth’s voice from the doorway woke Molly from her doze. Through the shutter slats she could see that it was daylight, though the storm still raged. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, then glanced over at the bed.
She saw at once the cause of Mary Beth’s exclamation. During the night the man had twisted the blanket around himself in such a way that only the barest portion of his naked body was concealed from view. Fortunately that portion included his most private parts, but it was still a shocking sight. One long, hairy leg was exposed to view clear up to his backside. Molly felt a bit queer in her midsection. She jumped up and walked over to the bed, intent on protecting her sister from seeing anything more.
“Oh, my!” Susannah’s exclamation came like an echo behind Mary Beth. Both girls stepped into the room and stood staring at the bed.
“You two can go on downstairs,” Molly snapped. “It’s not decent for you to be seeing him like this.”
“It’s not decent for you, either,” Susannah said, sounding more intrigued than shocked. She walked across the room, then made a slow tour around the end of the bed. “He’s surely a pretty thing, isn’t he?” she said with a low laugh.
“Has he woken up yet?” Mary Beth asked cautiously. She stayed put over by the door.
Molly grasped one end of the blanket, but it was so twisted around him that she couldn’t pull it free. “I must have dozed myself,” she answered. “But I don’t think he has. His color looks good, though.”
“More than his color looks good, if you ask me,” Susannah said with a little giggle.
“Susannah!” Mary Beth chided.
Molly grabbed a coverlet from its stand and flung it out over the entire bed, burying the patient. “You two ought to be down fixing breakfast,” she said again, facing her sisters with her hands on her hips.
“Smokey’s fixing it. He said we should come up and help you.”
“I don’t need any help.”
“We’ll just watch, then,” Susannah said with a wicked grin.
Molly gave a huff and went back to trying to free the twisted blanket, working underneath the coverlet. In exasperation she gave a forceful tug. The patient rolled, causing the blanket to come free in her hands and knocking her off balance. She ended up in a heap on the bed, not two feet from Parker Prescott’s wide open brown eyes.
“Hello,” he said mildly.
Molly pushed the hair out of her face and scrambled backward, making sure that the coverlet stayed over most of his body.
“Ah…hello,” she said.
Susannah gave one of her musical laughs. “You’re awake!” she said.
Parker turned his head toward the tall blonde standing next to the bed. He blinked a couple of times. “If this is heaven,” he said, “then dying was worth the price.”
Molly felt an odd mixture of relief, irritation and panic. She was pleased that the stranger had recovered his senses and was not going to die in their midst. But she was not pleased at the way he was eyeing her sister. Charlie Hanks had guarded his three daughters like a shepherd guarding a flock of sheep surrounded by slavering wolves, a comparison that, he always said, was being overly complimentary to the cowboys of Canyon City. When he’d died, Molly had simply taken over the guarding duty, as she had all the others. Now all at once she had one of those very wolves lying naked in her father’s bed. What was worse, Susannah’s eyes were sparkling with interest as she returned his gaze.
“La, sir,” Susannah said, her voice flirtatious, “we simple prairie girls aren’t used to such pretty talk.”
Parker looked from Susannah over to Mary Beth at the door, then more briefly at Molly, who had hastily pushed herself off the bed and was standing over him with a glower. Finally he turned back to Susannah and shook his head. “I can’t believe you girls don’t have every eligible cowboy in the territory swarming over this place trying to talk pretty.”
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br /> “A few have tried,” Molly said curtly. “We aren’t interested.” She glared at him as she folded the freed blanket.
“Speak for yourself, Molly,” Susannah retorted. “Mr. Prescott can talk to me all day long if he’s a mind.”
Parker looked from one woman to the other. It was almost impossible to believe that they were sisters. Susannah was regarding him with that special kind of male-female look that he’d forgotten how much he missed. Her older sister, on the other hand, was watching him as if he were some kind of poisonous lizard.
Making sure that he was decently covered by the quilt, he sat up. He closed his eyes briefly as a wave of dizziness hit him. When it passed, he said, “Perhaps before we go any further one of you would be kind enough to tell me how I came to be here in the first place.”
“We rescued you!” Susannah said, beaming. “You were near frozen to death.”
“We dragged you out of Copper Canyon in time to save you from that,” Molly added, pointing at the window where the snow still whipped against the glass. “What in tarnation were you doing out there in weather like that?”
Parker looked sheepish. “I…ah…didn’t know it was going to storm.”
“Haven’t you got eyes in your head, man?” Molly asked. “It was building up in the western sky since daybreak yesterday.”
“Maybe he’s not used to Wyoming weather, Molly,” Susannah told her sister in a tone of reproach. Then she turned to Parker. “Anyway, Mr. Prescott, the important thing is that we found you, and you’re going to be all right.”
“I reckon if you saved my life you better call me Parker, Miss Hanks,” he said with another of his justfor-the-ladies smiles.
“And I’m Susannah,” she said with a nod.
Suddenly Molly felt invisible. Parker and her sister were looking at each other as if the rest of the room had faded from view. That panicky feeling came back. Susannah was too darn pretty for her own good. And even Molly had to admit that the stranger was the handsomest male who’d come their way in quite some time. His eyes, gleaming now as they locked with Susannah’s, were nearly the same rich chestnut color of his hair.
Molly couldn’t blame Susannah for her interest. She’d have to act quickly to scare the man off before problems could develop. “The storm should lift by noon, Mr. Prescott,” she said loudly. “If you’re feeling all right, you can be on your way.”
Both Parker and Susannah looked over at her as if surprised to find her still standing there.
“Don’t be churlish, Molly,” Susannah chided. “We need to give Mr., ah, Parker—” she paused to flash him a smile “—time to recover.”
Molly’s frown deepened. “He’s looking pretty darn healthy to me,” she said. The coverlet had slipped down again, revealing their guest’s well-sculpted chest with its sprinkling of chestnut-colored hair.
“Actually,” Parker said slowly, “I was on my way out here to your place when I got lost in the canyon.”
“Out here?” Susannah and Mary Beth chimed in unison. Mary Beth had not moved away from the door.
“What for?” Molly asked curtly at the same time.
“I heard you might be hiring.” Parker turned to address Molly with his answer. Though he would prefer to continue looking at Susannah’s dazzling smile, it was obvious that the oldest sister was the one he would have to deal with on matters of business. Her sisters might talk sweetly and smile at him, but if he wanted work he’d have to convince the unsociable Miss Molly.
Molly looked down at him in disbelief. “Hiring what?”
“Hands. Cowboys,” Parker said, meeting her eyes with a steady man-to-man gaze.
“You’re a wrangler?” she asked with a scornful laugh.
Damn, but the woman had an abrasive way about her. He kept his voice even. “No, ma’am, I don’t reckon I am. But I can ride and I can shoot. When I’m not lying in bed after being half-frozen, I’ve got a strong back and two strong arms and I’m not afraid to work. I guess that qualifies me just about as well as any of the other men you got working here.”
Molly suspected that Parker Prescott already knew that there were no other men working at the Lucky Stars. As he looked up at her with just a hint of challenge in those velvety eyes of his, she suspected he knew exactly how badly she needed an extra rider and an extra pair of strong arms. But she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of telling him so. And she wasn’t about to let him think that just because they needed a man around the place, he was free to come in here and seduce her sister right under her nose.
“Susannah, Mary Beth,” she said in a tone that brooked no argument, “you two go downstairs. Mr. Prescott has obviously recovered, and I don’t want to see either of you back in this room until he’s left it.”
“Are you going to let him work for us, Molly?” Susannah asked, ignoring her sister’s threatening expression.
“When Mr. Prescott feels well enough to get up and… put some clothes on, he and I will discuss the matter. Now go on, get out of here.”
“Your sisters are lovely,” Parker observed, watching them leave. He knew at once that he’d said the wrong thing. Molly Hanks had probably had that thrown in her face more than once over the years—the contrast between the younger girls’ grace and beauty and her own rather plain appearance and masculine ways. He could try to rectify his error by making up a compliment about Molly herself. But he had the feeling that she would detect the falsehood immediately and scorn him for it. He decided that frankness and honesty were the best approaches to the eldest Hanks sister.
“They’re lovely, but I can assure you, I’m not here to corrupt them in any way. I’m just looking for somewhere to work through the winter, then I’ll be on my way to California.”
Molly had backed up several steps from the bed. Without looking at him, she said reluctantly, “Spring’s when we need help the most. Roundup time.”
She looked as if she would rather be eating a keg of nails than talking with him, but he sensed that she couldn’t afford to let an able-bodied man go. “I’ll stay through the spring if you need me,” he said. “I have no particular schedule.”
“Do you know anything about cattle?” she asked. Her voice took on a slightly wistful note. If her expression hadn’t been so forbidding, he would have felt a touch of compassion. As Max McClanahan had said, Molly had had quite a burden thrust on her. She couldn’t be more than early twenties, though it was hard to tell for sure behind that stern face and those oversize clothes.
He answered honestly with a shake of his head. “I’m willing to learn.”
Molly sighed. “I reckon you already know that we need the help, Mr. Prescott.” She turned to leave the room. “You can sleep here through the rest of the storm, then you’re to move on out to the bunkhouse.”
“Much obliged,” he said. “And thank you for saving my hide yesterday.”
As she reached the door, she spun around to face him. “Just don’t make me regret it, mister. If I find you with your hands on my sisters, I’ll personally toss you right back down that canyon and leave you there for buzzard meat.”
Parker looked across the room at the girl who stood glaring at him from the doorway. He was tempted for a moment to make some kind of joking reply, as he would have with his own sister. When Amelia had been riled up about one of his childhood antics she had scolded him with the same brave scowl he now saw on Molly Hanks’s face. But Amelia had never run a cattle ranch, and she had never cradled a buffalo rifle in her arms the way Molly had back in Canyon City. No, Molly Hanks was not Amelia. And he didn’t think she would be teased into a good humor.
“I’ll remember that, ma’am,” he said, keeping his face serious.
“See that you do,” she snapped, then disappeared down the hall.
Chapter Three
For the rest of the day Molly avoided the room where their visitor still rested. At the noon meal Smokey had reported that Prescott had been weak and dizzy when he’d gotten up that morning. S
mokey had told him to get a few more hours of sleep. Molly busied herself in her father’s office going over the ranch ledgers, hoping that the numbers would somehow have changed from the last time she had looked at them.
Every few minutes she found herself walking over to the window and staring outside. The snow had finally stopped, leaving a rolling landscape of white, dotted here and there by dark green firs. She usually found the first thick snow cover exhilarating, but today it just looked frozen and desolate. She didn’t know if her restlessness and her strange mood were due to the bleak financial picture or to the knowledge that a strange man was sleeping in her father’s bed.
After losing her place in a column of numbers for the fourth time, she slammed shut her father’s big leather account book and let loose with one of his favorite expletives. “Hell’s bells!”
“Are you all right, Miss Molly?” Smokey’s head peeked cautiously around the office door.
Molly ducked her chin in embarrassment. “Ah…of course. I’ve just finished up with the books.”
Smokey looked reproachful as he entered the room, but made no comment.
“Did you want something, Smokey?”
The old cook nodded. “It’s your friend upstairs.”
“He’s not my friend…” Molly began indignantly, but she stopped as she saw concern on Smokey’s face. “What’s the matter?”
“I reckon it’s the chilblains, settling into his ears. They’ve swelled up something fierce and turned a color I ain’t never seen before.”
Molly got up quickly. Frostbite was not a light matter on the prairie. Frozen areas could get putrid within hours. People died of it. Damnation. She’d checked the man’s hands. But she hadn’t thought about the ears, hadn’t noticed them under all that curly hair.
She followed Smokey up the stairs. There was no doctor in Canyon City, and even if there had been, it would have been hard work slogging through the drifts to get word to him. Most of the cowboys hereabouts did their own doctoring. They stitched their gashes with the same needles they used on their saddle leather. Molly had wanted to send for a doctor when her father had taken sick, but he’d refused. He’d lived fine without one, and he vowed he could die just as fine without one.