Shoving back the quilt, he sat up in the chill blackness and scratched the stubble on his jaw. The suggestion of a fragrance drifted past him again, as subtle as a memory. It faded, so quickly he wondered if he'd dreamed it. Shaking off the feeling, he groped around the big bedroom in the last few minutes of night and found his clothes.
A crimson ribbon of light edged the eastern horizon when he pulled open his bedroom door and walked out to the gallery and down to the kitchen. Intent on meeting with Joe before breakfast, he headed down the passageway toward the stairs, his thoughts on cattle and branding.
Ranching was a hard life in the best of times, but this year they really had their work cut out for them, he thought grimly. After a summer of drought and the worst winter on record, spring had brought with it one heavy rain after another. Even now, somewhere on the open range his thin, spent cattle might be drifting if the crew hadn't rounded them up yet. The ones that had survived, he added to himself
On his way out, the smell of perking coffee tempted him, and he decided to stop for a cup. The boys grumbled that they couldn't tell the difference between what the cook was giving them and what he threw to the hogs, but if he got the coffee going first thing, Tyler saw that as a saving grace. His hand was on the doorknob to the kitchen when it was yanked out of his grip, and a woman stepped into his path.
Libby had a jumbled impression of a tall, slender man with brown hair just as he crashed into her. He reached out and gripped her arms to keep her from falling. She was startled, but he looked shocked. He stared at her as though she'd dropped in through the roof.
Even without benefit of introduction, Libby knew this was Tyler Hollins. He stood glaring at her, his frame stiff. Obviously caught off guard, he was just as obviously trying to conceal that fact.
He broke the physical contact with decisive speed. Stepping back, he demanded, “Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my house?”
After the diligent politeness of Joe Channing and the other cowboys, she was stunned by his lack of manners, and by the coldness in his blue eyes. “I-I’m Liberty Ross. Mr. Channing hired me to cook. You're Mr. Hollins?” It was all she could do to look him in the face after seeing him naked, carrying his clothes and boots down the dark hall last night. She felt her cheeks grow warm again.
He ignored the question and raised his hand as if to stop any others. "Wait a minute, what do you mean Mr. Channing hired you to cook? We already have a cook.”
His indignation was palpable. She lifted her hand to rest it at the base of her throat. With that unnerving blue glare fixed on her, she began to babble. “W-well, you did but your men ran him off.”
“What the hell for?”
“It was food poisoning, they said.”
For a long moment he said nothing. Then he swore, once, the single word blunt and baldly stated. He half turned from her, looking away, his mouth tight.
Libby flinched at both the word and the low, fierce intensity with which he said it. How could her presence provoke such a response? Nothing of the sketchy information she'd heard about him prepared her for this. “I'm sorry. I’m sure it's a surprise to find a complete stranger in—”
“You can't stay.” He started to brush past her, his tone ending the matter. “I don't know why Joe thought I'd go along with this.”
“But I have experience, and letters of reference from a family in Chicago—”
“You don't have experience with ranching. The Lodestar is no place for a woman anyway, and if Joe didn't tell you that, I'm telling you.”
Libby stepped back against the wall to avoid being shouldered out of the way. She felt a bite of anger at the man's hostility. He was behaving as if he'd caught her trying to steal the silverware.
Her gaze followed him, taking in the powerful stretch of his shoulders. Watching his angry strides carry him to the front door, she thought of yesterday's optimism when she'd believed this might be a good place to work.
She didn't know what to do next. If she was going to feed the hands this morning, she'd have to start now. “There's no one to cook breakfast for your men,” she called after him. “You wouldn't want them to starve, would you?”
“It's physically impossible for a healthy human to starve to death because of one missed meal,” he threw back without turning. “You get your belongings together. I'll have someone drive you to town within a half hour.”
When he reached the front door he turned back to her abruptly. He actually saw her for the first time then, and inspected her from hair to hem in one lingering, assessing glance. The sensation that followed this scrutiny moved through her like a low vibration. It made her uncomfortably warm although she couldn't say why. But she did know the man was obnoxious.
With a last look, he turned from her. His heavy footsteps took him out the door and into the gray dawn.
Found guilty of an unnamed crime, Libby was helpless to defend herself. And she had no grounds on which to build a case to make Mr. Hollins let her stay. She turned back to her room to collect her things.
She'd come to Heavenly, hoping for a new start, for a home and a family of her own, for children and a good place to raise them. A place to belong. Ben Ross had promised all that and more to her to get her to come west.
Now what, now what? she asked herself frantically as she scooped up her hairbrush and comb from the dresser top with shaking hands. After she spent what little money she had on a hotel room and food, what would she do? She could pound on every door in Heavenly and ask for a job, but if no one would hire her—
She envisioned knocking on the door of last resort, and as she did, tears threatened behind her eyelids. On that door, in her mind's eye she read the gilded letters: Big Dipper.
No, she wouldn't do it, she thought, her hand clenched in a fist at her. bosom. Not if she had to sleep in her wagon by the side of the road and steal food. No one would ever make her feel cheap again.
*~*~*
“Joe!”
From the bunkhouse, Joe Channing heard the shout and winced. At the sound, the eyes of the men around him grew wide. Mr. Hollins usually maintained an icy control and that was intimidating enough. But at those rare times when he lost his temper it seemed as though the jaws of hell opened, ready to swallow anyone with the bad luck to be nearby. Of course, he chewed them some first.
Charlie paused, one boot on, the other in his hand. He looked at Joe as though he didn't expect to see him ever again. “I reckon Mr. Hollins is home,” he said. It sounded like a farewell.
Joe nodded with a sigh. Damn, Ty was back early and by the sound of it, he'd discovered their new cook. He'd hoped to work up to the story, to get Ty used to the idea of Libby Ross, but any chance for that had just gone up in flames. He stuffed his shirttails into his jeans and went out to face the furious owner of the Lodestar.
Tyler was pacing back and forth in front of the porch, his hands jammed in his pockets, shoulders hunched, head down. The gray dawn was cold but he wore no coat, and his breath made vaporous clouds.
When Joe reached Ty the air around him nearly crackled with his wrath. “I guess you met Miss Libby.”
Tyler stopped his marching on the last turn and stood in front of his foreman. “I’d like to know why I can’t go away for a few days without coming home to find a strange woman in my house. A woman who tells me she's the new cook that Mr. Channing hired. Why is that, Joe?”
Joe remained calm and low-voiced in the face of Ty's question, then explained how Libby had come to be there.
“I don't care what the situation was. I won't have her in the house.”
“For chrissakes, Tyler, what was I supposed to do?” Joe asked. “Night was coming on, she was all alone. I couldn't very well put her out on the road. She's Ben Ross's widow and I figured you'd—”
Ty cut him off. “Damn it, Joe, I want her out of my house and on her way.”
Joe shifted his weight to his other hip. Even though this is what he'd expected from Tyler, he'd hoped for more tol
erance. But when a man got his hopes mixed up with his expectations, the usual result was disappointment. Joe missed the open, easygoing man who'd been his friend.
He shrugged. “She's got nowhere to go, Ty. No family, no job, nothing.”
“Then give her enough money to last her awhile. I'm not running a home for females in distress.” He threw out his hands to emphasize the simplicity of his wishes. “I don't want her here. I don't like depending on women. You know that.”
“Who's gonna cook for us when she's gone?”
Tyler looked at him as though he'd asked what day of the week Saturday falls on. “Well, hire another cook, Joe. I count on you to handle these things.”
Joe's patience was evaporating. “It'll be nigh on to impossible to find someone this season, Ty. After last winter, just about everybody who could went west to Oregon, and south to the spreads in Nevada and Colorado. We did the best we could to get along on our own but these men don't know anything about food except how to eat it. And if we can't give them decent meals, they'll move on, too, and you know that.”
“And am I supposed to bring her along on the trail drive, too?” Tyler inquired with obvious exasperation. “Fifteen men and one city woman out on the prairie with a thousand cattle? The first time she sees a snake she'll probably hide in the chuck wagon and refuse to come out.”
Joe gestured toward the house. “I think Miss Libby is a lot tougher than that, Ty. Anyway, she cooked for us last night and even on short notice it was the best supper I've had in a long time. At least let her stay while we try to find someone to do the job.”
The muscles along Tyler's jaw tightened and Joe knew he was battling with his urge to be rid of Libby Ross right now, no matter what. In the end, practicality won out.
“All right, damn it! She, can stay till the drive starts in two or three weeks, but after that I want her gone whether you find someone else or not.” Ty turned on his heel and stalked back into the house, leaving Joe feeling like he'd just spent a whole day being pummeled by an especially stubborn bronco.
Upstairs, Libby pushed her trunk to the gallery and closed the bedroom door softly behind her. Adjusting her jacket, she tried to formulate a plan as she reviewed her assets. But she came up with mostly liabilities. She was a lone woman in a vast, wild country where man or nature could harm her, or destroy her, with a swift, uncaring stroke. Tyler Hollins might be an ogre but she'd been relieved just to hope that she had a place here. She was pulling on her dusty gloves when she heard her name.
“You, there—Mrs. Ross,” he called brusquely.
Libby peered over the railing and saw him standing in the parlor below. He was looking up at her, his face still a mask of frustration.
“Those men need to eat and I don't have any choice but to keep you here for the time being. So get some breakfast going.” He stormed away, his boots thundering as he went out the front door again.
The heel! The lowdown cad! Libby nearly strangled on her indignation. She raised her skirts and swiftly descended the stairs. Her feet were carrying her to the door to search for him, to tell him what he could do with his graceless demand, when the cold hand of reason stopped her. He had no choice? She had less than no choice. At this moment in her life she was without options, money, or friends. And as rude and unpleasant as he was, having shelter and food was better than sleeping in her wagon.
“Tyler's bark is worse than his bite.”
She jumped and saw Joe Channing standing in the doorway. The rawboned foreman walked in and pulled his hat off, giving her a quiet smile. His politeness was a comforting contrast, but his eyes revealed him to be a poor liar.
“I think you're fibbing, Mr. Channing. I would guess that Mr. Hollins's bark is only a sample of his bite,” she retorted.
He smiled again, looking sheepish. “Well, ma'am, not every time,” he demurred in his low, rumbling voice. “At least it didn't used to be that way.”
Libby was still too busy smarting from Hollins's sharp tongue to wonder what that meant.
“Tyler said you have a job here until we leave for the trail drive to Miles City. The boys'll sure be glad about it. After that, we'll have to play it by ear. He wants me to find someone else to do the cookin', but I know I won't be able to.”
Libby wasn't sure if that was good news or not.
“Do you think you could cook out of a chuck wagon, if you had to?”
“Well, I don't—I've never—” Cook in a wagon?
He tipped a look at her that was almost a smile. “The job pays the same as a top hand makes: room and board, and twenty-five dollars a month. The crew draws their wages at the end of the season.”
She gaped at him. Twenty-five dollars! Mrs. Brandauer had paid her only room and board, and two dollars a month. At Christmas, she'd received a bar of perfumed soap, or maybe a linen handkerchief.
She had expected Tyler Hollins to be aloof. She hadn't expected to find him so unlikable. But for that kind of money, she'd figure out a way to manage.
“I've never worked outside of a kitchen, Mr. Channing, but I can certainly learn.”
*~*~*
Libby hurriedly flattened out more biscuit dough with a rolling pin while keeping her eye on the simmering gravy she'd concocted from the last of the bacon drippings. Her confrontation with Mr. Hollins had left her badly shaken, but right now, she was too busy to give it much thought.
Though she'd been exhausted, the night passed fitfully for her. Thinking about what she'd seen in the moonlit hall had churned in her brain. After that, apprehension about today, the strange surroundings, and her memories would not let her sleep. Her apprehension, it appeared, had not been unfounded.
She wasn't unaccustomed, though, to getting up in the dark, long before the rest of the household was awake. The chief difference in the Brandauer home was that the family had rarely stirred before eight o'clock. At the Lodestar everyone rose just shortly after she did and worked until she called them to eat.
Considering the fact that twelve men sat in the kitchen behind her, except for the steady clink of silver on the tin plates, she found it surprisingly quiet. If they'd eaten quickly last night, this morning they practically inhaled their food. The first shift had had their breakfast just twenty minutes before and were already hard at work on the western range.
Though she was kept busy pulling hot biscuits from the big oven, stirring gravy and pouring coffee, she was very aware of the absence of one man.
“Doesn't Mr. Hollins eat breakfast?” Libby asked when she stopped at Rory's place to fill his coffee cap. The boy turned bright red, and she felt sorry for so embarrassing him. In his haste to answer he gulped down a mouthful of biscuit nearly whole. She swore she could see the big unchewed lump as it went down his throat.
“Oh, yes, ma'am, Miss Libby,” he said, tipping his face up to look at her. “But he always takes his meals in the dining room.” Rory inclined his head toward the closed door that separated the kitchen from the rest of the house. Her eyes followed the direction he indicated.
Did that mean she was supposed to serve his food to him in there? She imagined him sitting at the table on the other side of this door, waiting impatiently for her to bring him a plate.
“Oh, dear,” she murmured, feeling no enthusiasm. “I'd better get him something—”
Rory shook his russet head emphatically. “No, ma'am, no need to do that. Tyler doesn't like to be fussed over. He'll be along when he's ready.”
“Oh, but are you sure?” He was already unhappy with her presence. If she didn't perform as he expected, or wanted, it was plain that he'd have her delivered to Heavenly on a moment's notice.
She glanced around at the other men sitting nearby, who'd paused for a moment at the mention of Hollins, their forks and their jaws stilled. It certainly wasn't fear she saw in their faces, but a kind of respectful wariness.
“Mr. Hollins ain't usually much for socializin', Mrs. Ross,” one of the men added.
She noted that only Joe and
Rory referred to their boss by his first name.
“I saw him out in the barn, lookin' after a new filly that come while he was gone,” Charlie put in. “Most likely, he's still out there. Or maybe in his office.” He mopped up gravy with a tender biscuit half and swallowed it almost as quickly as Rory had.
She stood back in amazement, gripping the coffeepot. It couldn't be good for a body's digestion to gobble food that fast. But they were all doing it. And it seemed that no sooner had the men sat down than Joe Channing was in the doorway, hurrying them out again.
“Let's go, boys. We got work to do around here. That trail drive is comin' soon,” Joe said in his low voice. He turned to his top hand. “Charlie, you and Kansas Bob are taking the Cooper boys to the north range to finish cutting out our brand, right?” Kansas Bob Wegner was a slim, rosy-faced young man with wheat-colored hair and, as with most of the others, Libby guessed him to be around twenty. The Cooper brothers had already eaten during the first shift, and were outside saddling their horses.
Charlie stood and drank the rest of his coffee in one swallow, looking morose. “I wish I could send someone in my place, and that's the truth of it. I swear I never seen so many dead cattle in my life as I did on the southern roundups.”
“On your way back, you boys might as well bring in the last of those mustangs we turned loose last fall. Rory, you know what you're doing today,” the foreman continued.
With a long-suffering sigh, the youth nodded and got to his feet. “Yeah, I know. How long am I gonna have to chase down bogged strays, Joe? That's a greenhorn's job. I'd rather go north with Charlie and Kansas Bob.”
“No, you wouldn't, Sass. This ain't a basket social we're goin' on,” Charlie advised him. “Those-rotting carcasses stink to heaven on high, and on that last roundup we only found six head of our own. The rest was dead or belonged to the other outfits. And they didn't find much neither. Anyways, most of the cows are so puny, they can't make the walk back. It's a good thing we rounded up our brand early so they could fatten up for the drive to Miles City.”
A Taste of Heaven Page 4