by April Hill
“Hannah told me that you were afraid I’d become, and I quote, ‘all skittish and weepy’ when I learned there were Indians in the area.”
He chuckled. “There are always Indians in the area,” he said. “Sounds to me like she was just trying to needle you.”
“I know that, Mr. Cameron, and I’m sorry your children don’t like me. I guess I shouldn’t have expected …”
“They’ll be all right, after a while. They were crazy about their Ma, and right now, they’d probably like to tie a rock around your feet and drop you down a well. Don’t worry about it. That’ll pass. You tell me if they give you any real trouble, though.”
“And exactly what are you going to tell them? About us?”
Will sighed. “Well, they’re pretty smart, so I generally make it a practice not to keep much from them. When they start worrying about the details … you know, why you and I aren’t sharing a room. Anyway, I’ll deal with that when it comes up–if it does.”
Cathy gave a short, bitter laugh. “It will, Mr. Cameron. I can guarantee it.”
“That’s another thing,” he said quickly, changing the subject. “I figure it sounds peculiar, us calling one another Mr. this and Miss that. You like to be called Cathy, not Catherine, right?”
“Cathy’s fine.”
“For the children too?”
“Of course,” she said softly–hoping it sounded sincere. “I can’t be a real mother to your children, Mr. …Will. But I’d like to be their friend, if they’ll allow it.”
* * * *
It took less than a week for Cathy to learn that an almost thirteen-year-old girl with a lot to lose can make a formidable and devious enemy.
Will and Gideon were already out repairing fences when Cathy stumbled out of bed that morning. Unable to sleep, she’d spent most of the night perusing a mail order catalog by the light of a single candle, and when she came into the kitchen, expecting to find Hannah at work, the girl was nowhere in sight. Until now, Cathy had succeeded in concealing her virtually total domestic ignorance by simply deferring to Hannah in all matters of a domestic nature, and showering the girl with constant praise. At first, Hannah had seemed willing enough to do as she’d always done, and wait patiently while her father’s new wife learned her way around an unfamiliar house and a new kitchen. This morning, though, without Hannah to help her, Cathy was lost. She had wandered around looking for things for close to twenty frustrating minutes when a small, wan voice came from the overhead loft.
“Cathy?” Hannah called weakly. “If that’s you down there, could you come up here for a minute?”
Cathy was halfway up the steep ladder when Hannah appeared in the opening to the loft. She was still in her nightshift, with her hair undone and unruly, and she seemed unsteady on her feet.
“I’m afraid I’m feeling kinda poorly this morning,” she said. “I don’t know what it is–a touch of the fever, maybe. Pa said it’ll be all right for me to stay in bed, you bein’ such real fine cook and all–with so much experience in all those fancy hotels and what all. You’ll need to get the bread started, and you’d best get that hunk of venison in the oven for supper, pretty soon. It’s hanging in the smokehouse, but watch out for that big old nest of wasps. Pa keeps tellin’ me he’ll clean ‘em out, but you know how men are. There’s potatoes and onions in the root cellar, and green beans in the box to snap. Pa and Gideon always like their beans fried up with bacon when we’re havin’ venison. There’s the chickens to feed, of course, and eggs to bring in. Them two red hens peck somethin’ awful, so watch your fingers. Caleb’s out in the barn, milking Rosie, but Pa says you’re to do Fannie and Pearl. They get kinda ornery sometimes, and Caleb got himself kicked real bad last week. We’re about out of butter. The churn’s on the back porch. Oh, and be sure you get to that big old tub of wash out back. The washboard’s in the kitchen, If it was me, I’d get the sheets done first, so you can get ‘em on the line early, but Caleb needs drawers, and Gideon’s down to his last pair of socks. “
She smiled sweetly at Cathy. “When you’re done, you might just as well get started on the canning. If they’re not put up soon, the two big boxes of peaches in the cellar are gonna go bad. And Pa says to tell you can begin Caleb’s lessons whenever you get the time, today. I think I better go lay down, again. I’m feelin’ a shade worse.”
Cathy sat in the kitchen for a while, debating what to do first, and how to do any of it. She had milked cows and fed chickens as a girl, and she could only hope that she hadn’t lost the ability. Aunt Marta had never trusted her with the baking and churning of butter, and the three dozen jars of tomatoes she had put up without help had exploded two weeks later, with disastrous effects on the kitchen, and an odor she could still remember. She hadn’t laundered a tub of dirty clothing since the age of sixteen, but assumed the process hadn’t changed much.
The real problem would be getting supper. Cathy knew even less about the workings of a kitchen than she knew about children, and she wasn’t enthusiastic about learning any more than she already knew about either subject.
Her second problem would be one of self-control. At this moment, she wanted more than anything else in the world to drag Hannah Elizabeth Cameron out of her so-called “sick bed” and put the brat’s rotten, conniving little ass on the first stagecoach headed anywhere.
* * * *
Cathy’s first day as a housewife, cook, and laundress didn’t go well. And as she struggled to finish the same endless round of chores that many women performed every day of their lives, her own miserable day was made immeasurably more miserable by the frequent bursts of delighted giggles that emanated from the loft.
If Hannah was bent on revenge, though, Caleb turned out to be Cathy’s savior. Wary of her friendly overtures at first, the boy was solidly in her camp by mid-afternoon. She had won him over by offering him the last of Hannah’s molasses cookies, and by showing an interest in the newly acquired bullfrog he was keeping in a big Mason jar. Cathy smiled to herself when Caleb gallantly insisted on carrying her half-filled buckets of milk to the springhouse, in addition to his own well-filled buckets. The few ounces of milk she had finally managed to coax from Fannie and Pearl had bits of hay and other foreign matter floating in it, but her young champion pretended not to notice, and when she turned her head for a moment, she saw him skim the objectionable material off with his fingers, and wipe the evidence of her failure onto his trousers. He rushed through his own chores in order to feed the chickens and gather eggs for her, and risked being repeatedly stung to climb up an a tall box to pull down the venison roast for their supper.
The wash didn’t get done at all, nor did the canning, nor the everyday cleaning. The bread she mixed and kneaded with young Caleb’s bewildering directions never rose, and when baked, looked and tasted much as it had before it went into the oven. When the two loaves had been summarily discarded, Cathy turned her attentions to getting supper.
And as expected, the actual roasting of the roast and its accompanying vegetables proved to be her downfall.
When a pan of potatoes, several dishcloths, and the apron she was wearing caught fire, Cathy realized that she was in over her head, and in deep trouble. The old cast-iron stove that Hannah cooked on every day had been a relic twenty years earlier, and its temperament hadn’t improved with age. Without Hannah to advise her how to deal with the stove’s multiple eccentricities, Cathy, who had never cooked a full meal in her life, approached the stove cautiously–but not cautiously enough. No one had ever explained to her that pouring coal oil down an open burner hole and tossing a match in after it was not the best way to ignite a pile of kindling.
By the time she realized her mistake, the stove was ablaze, with flames leaping from the opened burner hole, and licking out around the round iron covers on the other three. Desperate to rescue the pan of potatoes and the venison roast already in the oven, Cathy snatched up a dishcloth and flung open the oven door, then leapt back as flames shot out and seared the he
m of her apron. She slammed the door closed again, and tried to extinguish the apron with several additional towels–setting them ablaze, as well.
By this time, the smoke had drifted up the ladder to the loft, where Hannah had apparently begun to rethink her plan for revenge. She flew down the ladder into the kitchen to help put out the fire. Had she made the decision just a few moments earlier, her help might have arrived in time, but before Hannah arrive on the scene, Cathy had taken the only action she could think of–and hurled two buckets of water onto the fully engulfed stove.
The fire eventually went out–drowned by the several additional buckets of water that Caleb pumped while his sister and his father’s new bride smothered the flames with whatever they could find, and beat down the remaining hot spots with a broom and a wet mop.
“Pa’s gonna have himself a real conniption when he gets home,” Hannah remarked, smirking with pleasure as she strolled around the sooty kitchen, opening windows to let out the clouds of black smoke. She smirked. “Of course, he most likely won’t take the strap to your butt, you bein’ a grown-up, and married to him, and all. But I reckon a person never can tell what another person’ll do when they get hot under the collar, you know what I mean?”
Cathy knew exactly what she meant.
The venison roast was the only item on that evening’s supper menu that survived, badly charred on the outside, but still raw on the inside. With Will and Gideon still out on the range, Cathy put the roast away for tomorrow’s supper. She and the children shared a silent evening meal of cold bacon and beans.
After supper, Cathy sat in the rocking chair by the fireplace and waited for the men to return. Hannah had been determined to stay up–to gloat, presumably–but Cathy had finally exercised what little authority she had, and ordered the girl up to bed, buying herself time to think, and to get her thoughts before discussing the day’s events with Will.
She knew that Hannah was right. Will Cameron wouldn’t be pleased with what had happened, but he seemed like a fair man, and not the sort to blame her, or to become unreasonably angry over what had been an accident–even an accident of these proportions. Certainly not angry enough to spank her the way he had on their ill-fated wedding day. Cathy sighed. One day soon, of course, he was going to figure out what his daughter already knew–that the wife he’d brought here as a housekeeper and cook had been less than honest about her qualifications. And knowing how Will Cameron felt about lying, Cathy knew that on that day, her proverbial goose would be cooked, and her backside would be thoroughly roasted.
But even that wasn’t her biggest worry. Jack was out there somewhere, searching for her, and getting more enraged with every day that he failed to find her. That was something not just to worry about, but to fear.
Chapter Six
The children were both upstairs in bed when Will finally arrived home. Still on her hands and knees, scrubbing soot from the floor, Cathy didn’t hear him come in–possibly because she was punctuating the task with a steady stream of profanities.
He paused in the doorway, surveying the disordered kitchen.
“I’m guessing it was your turn to get supper.”
Cathy dropped her scrub-brush and stumbled to her feet. “There was a sort of a fire,” she said, although the comment hardly seemed necessary.
Cameron’s face went white. “Are Hannah and Caleb all right?” he demanded.
“Yes,” she said sullenly. “They’re fine. And, so am I–not that you bothered to ask.” She flopped into a chair and hurled the dripping scrub-brush across the room, where it thudded into the wall, splattering filthy water. A second later, a small, framed picture slipped off its hook and fell to the floor, shattering the glass.
“Feeling better, now?” he inquired wearily.
Without answering, Cathy got up and went to the sink for a bucket of fresh water, shoving aside a greasy tangle of charred dishtowels to reach the pump. With two fingers, she lifted the burned roasting pan from the mess and held it for a long moment before dropping it on the freshly mopped planks–intentionally.
“I’m going to clean up and go to bed,” she said coldly. “I’ve had my fill of being Mrs. Cameron, for today. What happened here was an accident, and if you don’t believe me, and want to add the damages to what I owe you, go ahead. I don’t give a damn, one way or the other.”
“All right,” Will ordered grimly, “outside.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Outside. You can clean that up later. Right now, we need to talk, and I don’t want the children hearing it.”
“They’re asleep,” she said sullenly.
He shook his head. “No, they’re not. They’re upstairs, with their ears to the wall, listening to every word we’re saying. That’s what kids do. Have a couple of your own and you’ll know that.”
She laughed bitterly. “No, thank you. I’ve also had enough of children. Your daughter, in particular.”
“I told you Hannah be difficult,” he said wearily.
“Difficult?” Cathy fumed, her voice rising. “She’s a goddamned little … little bitch!”
This time, Will didn’t merely suggest that she go outside. He pushed her across the room to the door, out onto the porch, and down the steps. When she tried to turn and go back to the house, he picked her up bodily, strode across the yard, and set her down hard on the scarred tree stump they used to chop firewood.
“If you ever say something like that about my daughter, again,” he whispered, leaning close to her ear. “I’m going to make you wish you’d never laid eyes on me! I know what happened in there was an accident, and I’ve got a pretty good hunch that Hannah had something to do with it, but that doesn’t give you leave to call my daughter that.”
“Let me tell you something, you self-righteous bastard!” Cathy shot back. “I started wishing I’d never laid eyes on you the first day I did lay eyes on you! I wish I’d never met you, or your daughter, or set foot in that miserable hovel you call a cabin! And for all I care, you can take your hunches and your threats and shove them up your … ”
Before she could finish, Will interrupted the insult by taking her by her upper arms and lifting her clear of the stump, and then dumping her back over it, facedown. Shaking with fury, Cathy struggled frantically to get up, again, but found herself unable to move. Will Cameron’s strong left hand was pressing down firmly on her lower back, and she realized with a sinking heart that now, his right hand was working at removing his belt.
Cathy wasn’t exactly afraid of what was coming, but she was remembering the excellent advice she’d given herself the first time he did something like this–something he was obviously about to do again. That first spanking had been painful and humiliating, and at the time, she’d had no doubt at all what he was trying to do. That first spanking had been a warning–an unpleasant demonstration for her benefit–to show her how he intended to deal with any future defiance.
And, as if he was reading her mind, the next words out of his mouth echoed exactly what she’d been thinking.
“I was hoping you’d taken that first whipping to heart,” he said quietly. “But it seems I was just a little optimistic.” A moment later, her dress was over her head, and her drawers were untied and hanging around her ankles. Without waiting for the first blow, Cathy threw her hands back to defend the endangered area, and was rewarded for her folly with a solid whack across the nearest half of her bared backside. At which point, she forgot to whisper, and howled.
“Ow! God damn you to hell, you …! Oh, shit! Stop it!”
Will pushed her hands away. “Keep your hands down, and your damned voice, too!” He ordered, emphasizing the order with a blistering, open-handed smack to the other cheek. “Next time you reach back like that, or make another sound, you’ll get two extra licks. You’ve already earned yourself four, so I’d advise keeping your mouth shut.”
The next “lick” arrived quickly, leaving her rear end feeling like it had earlier that day, when she accide
ntally backed into the hot stove.
The hail of blows that followed came faster than she expected, and much, much harder, and midway through, Cathy permitted herself a long, low moan. Not low enough, though, and she paid for the moan with two scalding penalty strokes to the backs of her thighs. Furious, Cathy kicked at Will’s leg with both feet, and twisted sideways until he momentarily lost his hold on her. She scrambled off the stump, grabbed up her skirt, and headed for the barn, stumbling over her sagging drawers as she ran. Cameron was right behind her, though, and Cathy could tell from the sound of footsteps that he was in no hurry. There was no place to hide, and they both knew they were farther from the house, though, and from the two pairs of listening ears. And now, he was free to administer the kind of spanking she knew he really wanted to. Cathy swore at her stupidity, but pulled up her drawers, and kept running.
She was just inside the barn door when she felt his hand on her elbow, and groaned when she realized that he was looking around for a good place to finish what he’d started. The search didn’t take long, and just seconds later, Cathy found herself facedown over a crude wooden sawhorse, with her feet dangling, her skirts over her head, and her bare rump in the air–again. She lay in the dark, swearing and protesting, while behind her, she could hear, but not see, Will Cameron, slapping his broad leather belt against his own thigh.
“Coming in here was what I’d call a real bad error in judgment,” he said, and even without seeing his face, Cathy knew he was smiling. Silently admitting defeat, she gritted her teeth and gripped the legs of the sawhorse for support. She was in for her second husbandly ‘licking,’ and unless she was misjudging the husband’s mood, this licking was going to be one she’d remember for a very long time.
* * * *
Cathy remained in bed until almost eight o’clock the next morning, hoping that Will would be out of the cabin by the time she made an appearance. There was still a noticeable and very disagreeable soreness in her backside from last night’s encounter with his belt, and she knew that her nose was probably still red. Facing him was going to be profoundly embarrassing, particularly if the children were around. She had no way of knowing how much either Hannah or Caleb had heard of last night’s quarrel–or of what followed the quarrel–and even thinking of what they might have heard was mortifying. Fortunately, Gideon had chosen to stay the previous night in the tiny line cabin, and Will had come home alone to the catastrophe in his kitchen. Oddly, though, the idea of Gideon knowing that Will Cameron had walloped the blazes out of his new bride wasn’t that upsetting. Gideon had impressed her as a man who’d seen and done just about everything men and women could do with and to one another, and taken most of in his stride.