She had heard of Colonel Martin and the size of his spread and was relieved but still suspicious. "How long is a 'spell'?"
There was a suggestion of a shrug beneath the straining shoulders of his faded blue work shirt. "Couple of years."
"And why did you leave there?"
Throwing the big man a look, Ralph intervened. "He was unjustly accused of killing a man. He spent some time in prison before Martin could get him out. The colonel thought it safer if he went elsewhere to avoid angry suspicions. I'll vouch for Cade's integrity. I'll hate to see him go, but you can offer him a better place than I can, if he wants it."
Lily looked up to see if there was any change of expression on the stranger’s face, but Cade continued looking at her with disinterest. For some reason, his disinterest was as tantalizing as his size and the kitten. She had learned long ago that she was no beauty, but out here men were inclined to pant over anything in skirts. Or trousers, she amended. She was young and had all the necessary female attributes. She expected at least some degree of interest, but he treated her as if she were part of the landscape.
"I don't suppose you would be interested in working for a woman, would you?" That wasn't how she had meant to ask, but now the words were said, she couldn't take them back.
"As foreman?" At her nod, he questioned, "Would I be required to sleep in the bunkhouse with the rest of the men?"
That jarred her awake. Was he married then? Hastily, Lily revised a few estimates and rethought the problem. She was more determined than ever to have this man in her employ. Having another woman on the ranch would be heaven.
"There's a small cabin one of the hands built for his bride, but they moved on a year or so ago. It may not be in good repair, but I'll see that you have what you need to fix it up if that's what you require."
He nodded and exchanged a glance with Langton. Gathering up his reins, he gave Lily a perfunctory nod. "I'll be out Sunday morning to discuss terms."
He rode away, leaving Lily to stare after him with incredulity. The man was as arrogant as his nose.
Ralph grinned. "He don't talk much, but you hear it when he does. He'll do the job for you, Lily. All you got to do is persuade your men to take orders from a half-breed."
Hell and tarnation. Lily shot Ralph a look of frustration. "Why can't anything ever be easy?"
He laughed as she rode away, but it was a laugh of confidence. Lily turned her mind to persuading a bigoted bunch of peacocks that if they wanted a man to give them orders, it was going to be a red man.
* * *
"But, Mama, we always go into town on Saturday." Tall and stringy, with an unruly lock of dark hair falling across his tanned brow, Roy propped his hands on his hips in imitation of his father and glared at his mother.
"I'm tired, Roy. I would rather just sit here and admire the sunset. Why don't you go see if there's a ripe watermelon and we'll picnic by the creek?"
"If I had a horse of my own, I could ride into town with the men," he complained, ignoring her suggestion.
Since Jim's disappearance, Roy had become more rebellious than ever. Lily sighed and stared out over the paddock. Her husband had lost a son by a previous marriage to a riding accident, and he had refused to allow Roy to ride. It had been a mistake, but Jim had interfered so little in the raising of the boy that she had allowed this one anomaly, understanding the reason for it. She supposed Jim had made a good father as these things went, but now she had to pay for that one mistake.
"I'll see what we can do when the time comes," Lily promised. "Why don't you have Luke harness up the wagon? We'll go to town for a little while."
Instead of whooping for joy, the boy looked suddenly lost and frightened. "Dad isn't coming back, is he?"
"I don't know, Roy. I just don't know." She wanted to take him in her arms and hug him, but he had made it clear some time ago that he wasn't her little boy any longer and he didn't appreciate being fussed over. She would be the first to admit that she didn't know how to deal with this stranger she had carried in her womb for nine months. No one had ever given her lessons in little boys.
Roy blinked back a tear and ran toward the barn. Big boys don't cry. How early they learned. Lily sighed and went to fetch her bonnet and call Juanita to join them.
In town, they hitched the oxen to the stable's corral fence. Laughter carried from the big barn out behind Ollie Clark's place. Drunken voices drifted out of the town's two saloons. But a few women in calico and bonnet still went in and out of the general store and lingered to exchange gossip along the street. Saturday was the only day of the week when they had the chance to visit, and they drew out the time as long as they could.
For the main part, the women ignored Lily in her trousers and she ignored them. They had little in common. She couldn't discuss babies or recipes, and they couldn't talk cattle or cotton. But even though she felt as lonely as she had when her sisters talked fashions and beaux, Lily still felt sorry for women with no more intelligent interests—men didn't have the world's corner on arrogance.
Acknowledging her own faults with a smile, Lily let Roy slip away to the candy counter while she followed Juanita to the shamble of shacks behind the town. Juanita was a treasure Lily couldn't live without. Juanita was the one primarily responsible for those meals the men thought Lily had cooked. Juanita had practically raised Roy while Lily was working beside Jim in the fields. And if Juanita wished to visit a sick cousin and take her a pie, Lily would gladly tag along to see that she was unmolested. The shy cook and maid was terrified of men—and for good reason.
Lily carried her rifle in her hand as they hurried around drunken farmers stumbling from the saloon. She seldom stayed in town this late on a Saturday, and Jim had always been nearby when she did, It had been a mistake succumbing to Roy's pleading, but it was too late to change her mind now. She knew most of the upstanding citizens of this town and the territory surrounding it. No man in his right mind would harm Lily Brown in plain view of half the town.
But a drunken man was not in his right mind, as she well knew. She nodded a friendly greeting to a man who lifted his hat to her, but she hurried Juanita onward. The street they were entering now was not the most respectable. It housed squatters and ne'er-do-wells who had stumbled into the territory after all the land had been granted, and who shifted from one place to another looking for an easy situation. There were women here too, but they tended to be the kind who exchanged their favors for whiskey and trinkets. Juanita's cousin wasn't far above that state, but as far as Lily knew, the woman was the only relative Juanita had. She clung to her rifle and slowed her pace to the cook's smaller steps.
"Take your bastardo and go to hell, bestia! Yo tengo better offers than your flea-ridden cabin. I don't need a..." The words evolved into a long string of vivid Spanish that even Lily could tell was mostly obscenities. Juanita halted and flushed, glancing toward the shanty where a woman stood outside ranting and raising her fist at some unseen male. Lily hesitated, her gaze caught by child sitting on the shanty's step.
Gold curls surrounded a placid gaze fastened on a toy in her lap, oblivious of the woman's furious tirade. Lily glanced at the buxom, black-haired woman in the street and back to the child, finding no similarity in their features. And then a shadow stepped out of the shanty to fall over the child, and Lily caught her breath.
The child lifted her head and waved pudgy fists, indicating a desire to be picked up. The large man knelt and lifted her into muscular arms that could have crushed. Instead, he held her tenderly, while catching the kitten that had been in the toddler’s lap.
"I offer you a home and respectability, Maria," he said to the woman who had finally run out of curses.
Lily fully understood the very American reply. Embarrassed at such language as well as the scene she had inadvertently stumbled upon, she hurried after Juanita.
It was only later that Lily wondered how Cade would keep a child without a woman to care for her—and visions of glowing gold curls began
to dance in her head.
Chapter 3
Cade didn't arrive Sunday morning as promised. Lily set her jaw and stoically went about her chores, ignoring the grumbles of the men as she set them to their various tasks. She had promised them a foreman, and they were certain she was reneging on her promise. Hung over as they were after a Saturday night on the town, they weren't exactly willing to listen to reason. Nor were they particularly interested in listening to a woman's decisions. She read the rebelliousness in their eyes as she sent some to riding the fields and others to mending fences.
Normally, Lily didn't allow herself the pleasure of anger, but she couldn't stave it off now. She had spent well over a month worrying herself to death over Jim's disappearance, but no one seemed to care about that. Their only concern was for their own male pride. She could lose everything she had worked for these last nine years, and it would all be the fault of every infuriating male she had ever come in contact with. The whole gender was highly overrated in her opinion. She only wished she could tell them all so.
Instead, Lily hitched the wagon, checked her rifle, and headed into town. She had a very good idea where she would find one Cade Whatever-his-name-was.
* * *
Lily drove directly to the little shanty on the back street of the now-silent town. She was too angry to know what she intended to do when she got there, but Cade saved her the problem. As she drove through the dust she could see him sprawled along the front step where the child had sat the day before. His long legs appeared to take up half the narrow side street as he leaned with elbows back in the doorway. As she watched, he lifted his arm to drink from a flask in his hand.
He was drunk. Fury flared even higher as Lily stopped near a conveniently placed public pump. Filling the pail with a few hard strokes, she stalked to where the man half-sat, half-lay, blissfully ignoring her. With a single swing of the pail, Lily drenched him from head to toe.
Before Cade had time to do more than splutter and shake his head from the force of the deluge, Lily stepped back and launched into the tirade that had been building all morning.
"You're going to cost me my ranch! Do you have any idea how long and hard I've worked and slaved on that blasted piece of dirt, and you'll throw it all to the winds feeling sorry for yourself? Hell, my husband's gone and I don't even know where he is, but I'm not sitting around moping about it. I'm keeping that ranch if I have to drown you to do it."
He was beginning to rise like some great monolithic beast, stirring massive legs and flexing arms that resembled small tree trunks. If she hadn't been so blamed mad, Lily would have felt fear. Instead, she caught sight of a small golden head peeping out the doorway, and with more courage than sense, she darted forward, grabbed the child, and headed back for the wagon.
That brought the monster to his feet with a roar.
The child laughed and clapped her hands as Lily set her on the wagon seat and her father stormed down the road with murder in his eyes.
Lily picked up her rifle and calmly aimed it at him. "I'm taking her out to the ranch. When you're sober enough to ride out, you can come claim her."
Cade stalked right past her to the oxen's heads. With a swift jerk of his bare hands, he dismantled the yoke, rendering the reins useless. Giving Lily a look of pure rage, he stalked past her again, this time in the direction of the house.
For the first time, Lily acknowledged the trickle of fear running down her spine. She had dealt with the ignorant and the stupid, she had learned how to handle violence, she knew how to demand respect from the best and worst of men, but she had never come in contact with a man quite like this before. He didn't respond in the same manner as other men. She had fully expected this one to follow sheepishly after her when he'd had enough of the drink. For all she knew, he could very well be locating his own weapon right this minute, and she was helpless to do anything but run.
She wasn't running. Lifting her rifle protectively, Lily stepped away from the wagon and the child. She wasn't letting an innocent get caught in the crossfire, if it came to that. But she sure as hell didn't mean to walk back to the ranch. He broke the yoke. He'd darned well better fix it.
She lowered the rifle again in surprise when Cade staggered out of the house carrying a doll's cradle under one arm and a child's feather mattress under another. The child squealed with delight as he dumped the load into the back of the wagon. Without giving Lily a glance, he stalked back to the house.
When he returned bearing a dresser spilling small cotton garments and glimpses of lace, Lily hurriedly began arranging the articles in the wagon bed and fastening them down so they wouldn't slide too much. The doll's cradle looked handcarved and beautifully done. The doll inside had once had a lovely china face, and her long linen nightdress was now well worn with time.
She dodged out of the way as Cade returned and flung in a bedroll and the rails for a child's bed. Without a word, he made one final trip to the house, this time carrying out a splendidly tooled Spanish saddle, a bundle that undoubtedly represented his own meager wardrobe, and saddlebags that appeared too heavy for any normal man to carry.
After dropping the last of his worldly possessions into the wagon, Cade walked past Lily and toward the stable. Unable to do anything else, Lily started to climb into the wagon seat when she noticed a small gray kitten peering around the corner of the house. Deciding that as long as she was adopting the man's family she might as well adopt his cat too, Lily went to collect the stray.
The kitten had other ideas. Scratching and spitting, it leapt from Lily's grasp and darted to the safety of the wagon wheels. Lily was on her hands and knees under the wagon bed trying to remove the animal when Cade returned, leading his horse.
If he had anything to say about his employer's unladylike position, he had the sense to leave it unsaid as he hitched his horse to the back of the wagon and leaned over to scoop up the snarling kitten in one mighty fist. While Lily hastily backed away from his too-close proximity and stood up to dust herself off, Cade dumped the kitten in the child's lap and went around to the front of the wagon to mend the yoke with wire he had brought with him.
Lily climbed to the seat and waited uneasily for Cade to finish. With his horse tied to the back of the wagon, it was quite apparent that he didn't mean to ride. The idea of having the man beside her on this narrow seat didn't sit at all well. If he was drunk, he gave little sign of it as he worked steadily at repairing the damage. She didn't know how she would react when he claimed the remaining portion of the bench. She fully meant to keep the reins to herself, but what chance had she against his obvious strength if he decided otherwise?
Before Lily could thoroughly panic, Cade finished his mending, walked around to the back of the wagon, and throwing himself in, collapsed against the bedroll. He passed out cold before Lily could urge the oxen out of town.
* * *
"Esta un monstruo, senora," Juanita whispered fearfully, peeking out the window curtains at the man unloading his possessions into the small cabin in the side yard.
"A monster?" Lily glanced out to see the child dancing happily between the wagon and the cabin. "I don't think so. A giant, maybe, but I think he's gentle." She tried to say the words convincingly to calm Juanita's fears, but the memory of the rage in Cade's eyes and the ease with which he had dismantled the wagon was troubling. If she remembered the fairy tales correctly, sleeping giants should be left undisturbed.
Not wishing to think about that, Lily checked the baking bread. The men would be in for dinner shortly, and she would have to introduce Cade to them, but she had not yet had any kind of talk with him. He had not even formally agreed to take the job. This was no way to manage a business. Somehow she had to regain control of this situation.
Juanita gave her an odd look and went back to her cooking. Petite and slender, her black hair drawn stiffly into a bun that didn't disguise her fragile beauty, she was everything that Lily was not, but they had worked so long together that Lily no longer felt any awkwa
rdness over their differences. Lily's life had been an easy one compared to Juanita's. She could never resent the other woman's more feminine beauty, knowing the high price it had cost her. It was doubtful that Juanita would ever overcome her fears to enjoy the gift of beauty she had been given.
"Men!" Lily thought with disgust. She wouldn't go so far as to say they were all alike, for she knew her husband had been different, but she had seen enough variation on the same theme to doubt that there were many differences. With that thought in mind, she shrugged, set aside her potholder, and went out to confront the beast.
Lily walked out to discover that her son had confronted the new foreman first. His bronzed face completely devoid of expression beneath an irregular fringe of black hair, Cade stood with arms crossed over his massive chest, waiting for Roy to finish what seemed to be a long and involved tale. As she approached, the half-breed looked up and his features formed into a formidable scowl. She returned a scowl for a scowl, and by the time she had reached the pair, her arms were crossed just as intractably across her chest.
"A man needs to know how to ride," he said, with thorough disapproval in his tone.
"I agree." Lily watched disbelief appear in his eyes before she continued, "And girls need a mother to guide them."
A flicker of understanding crossed Cade's face. So, he was not unintelligent. Lily waited.
"You have women here who will look after Serena?"
"Juanita and I will look after Serena. In return, when there is time, you will teach Roy to ride."
He frowned, looked down at the rebellious boy with hands on hips, and nodded agreement. "We begin today. I will get Serena."
He found it blamed awful easy to dump his kid in her hands, Lily decided, but he undoubtedly thought she had nothing better to do but sit around the house like other women. It was time she made it understood who was boss.
"The men will be in for dinner shortly. I will introduce you, but you needn't give them any orders until tomorrow, when we've had time to discuss what needs to be done."
Tin-Stars and Troublemakers Box Set (Four Complete Historical Western Romance Novels in One) Page 3