“Unsuitable? Ma’am, you’re just about as unsuitable as they come for this, this…” He turned away in disgust, as if he couldn’t quite find the words.
Now she really was perplexed. She knew he was disappointed not to have his aunt, but really, how selfish. “Your aunt is very elderly, Mr. Stone. The journey would’ve been too much for her, and caring for a baby is very strenuous work. She couldn’t accede to your request for help personally, but I assure you, I can stand in her place very well.”
It was quite a reasonable speech if she did say so herself, but he still glared at her. “Ma’am, if you think I can treat you like my maiden aunt, then you must not have just come out of an orphanage. You must have come out of a lunatic’s asylum.” To which he stomped off.
* * * *
Jake slammed through the doors of the saloon and curtly ordered a whiskey at the bar. Damn. He couldn’t bring his daughter home now. All his plans were ruined. Lil hadn’t argued with him because she’d never intended to come. Fine. A letter would have sufficed, but to get his hopes up and then send this, this…girl. As if he could live in a ranch house with that walking, talking inspiration for sex. He’d last about two seconds before he let his cock lead him to disaster. He had no intention of marrying again. Ever. So if Lil thought she could trick him into it by sending that luscious little…orphan...out here, she had another think coming. He could read his aunt’s designs as clearly as he could read her handwriting. All that mush about what a fine girl this Miss Melinda was, how hardy and resilient she was, and how this was the perfect opportunity for him to exercise some Christian charity. All that was code for “I know you can’t keep it in your pants for such a gorgeous girl, so I’m sending you your second wife… unless you want to ruin this lovely little thing and send her back to me despoiled and disillusioned.” It would serve Lil right if he did just that. For just a second, he let himself imagine taking little Miss Melinda, with her wide-eyed innocence, home to the ranch and fucking her brains out, and then sending her back on the train to Aunt Lil. That’s just what he ought to do, he brooded, finishing off his whiskey and calling for another. His cock warmed to the idea as he remembered the girl’s lips and the shape of those tits, even though he couldn’t quite see them bound up in the little orphan dress.
In the midst of imagining it, he heard the saloon doors open and suddenly she was at his elbow. The bartender frowned. “Excuse me, Miss, but you shouldn’t rightly be in here.”
Melinda looked around. “Why? Is this a gentleman’s only establishment?”
“You could say that,” the bartender equivocated.
One of Sally’s girls loitered up on the upper balcony, dressed in a shift and long, ratty robe. Melinda noticed her just then and did a double take. A disapproving frown crossed her features, and for a second, damned if she didn’t just look a little like Lil. “Oh, I see. Of course. Perhaps you’d be so good as to speak with me outside then, Mr. Stone.”
Jake gestured for his third whiskey without answering and downed it, clinking the glass down on the bar. He reached in for some coins, dropped them on the bar and sauntered out, his little orphan close behind him.
He turned on his heel, and she practically rammed into him. “Look Miss, er… what did you say your name was?”
“O’Chauncey. Melinda O’Chauncey.”
“Well, Miss O’Chauncey, I’m sorry you’ve come out all this way for nothing, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to just get right back onto that train.” He gestured towards the tracks. The now-empty tracks. Shit.
“I’m afraid there won’t be another train for a week or so. So perhaps you could be reasonable about this, Mr. Stone. I’m not precisely sure what your objection to me on sight could be, and I know you’re disappointed your aunt couldn’t make it out here, but perhaps you could allow me a trial period of some sort. If after that time, you don’t think me capable of handling your daughter, I promise to get back on the next train out of here.”
“Oh, I’m sure you can handle my daughter, but I don’t quite think you can handle me.”
Her beautiful blue eyes scanned his in confusion. She really didn’t have a clue as to what was wrong with this picture. Hell, she must be as innocent as a babe herself not to know why a healthy, full-grown man might not be able to live day and night with a gorgeous young woman in his house with no one to chaperone them but a nine-month-old infant.
“Miss O’Chauncey…”
“Please, that’s quite a mouthful. Please just call me Melinda.”
“Melinda, I don’t know how to put this delicately, and I’ve been out of society so long I’m not sure I even want to try, but let me just say that, if you come out to my ranch to watch my Ginny, it won’t be too long before…” He hesitated. He was going to say it won’t be too long before they’d have another babe on their hands, but hell, for all he knew, she might not even know how babies were made. They kept women so abominably ignorant out east.
He tried again. “There’s no one at the ranch but me. My hands don’t bunk with us. They just come from neighboring parts. So at night, it’d just be you and me.”
“And Ginny.”
“Right.” She didn’t seem to be getting this, looking up at him so trustingly. He finally settled on saying, “It’s not proper.”
She laughed, and damned if it didn’t tighten his groin just to hear it. “Oh, I don’t care about that, Mr. Stone. It’s not as if I have any marital prospects.”
Then the men out east were even dumber than he’d thought they were.
“Really, I don’t care about things like that, and after all, your aunt, who’s just about the sweetest woman in the world, thought it was fine, so I’m not one to be too finicky.”
She wasn’t making this easy.
“Look, I’ve got neighbors, friends, whose opinions I value. I can’t be living all alone with a girl like, well, a girl like you.”
“Oh, but I’m sure they understand the need for your daughter to be cared for. It’s just natural you’d hire a woman to do it. I’m really just a servant, more or less.”
Right. If any of the folks out by his ranch thought he was using this pretty little thing as just a nursemaid or housekeeper, he’d be mighty surprised. Even more surprised if he managed to keep his hands off her and let her just be a nursemaid and housekeeper. She was just too tempting. He wasn’t even going to risk it. He’d have to find another way.
Just then he saw Jeb Wilson’s wagon thundering into town, a cloud of dust trailing in its wake. He looked up in annoyance to see that hotheaded oldest son, Frank, at the reins, and as the wagon stopped just short of him, he saw with even more annoyance that Ginny was bundled in Frank’s little sister’s arms in the back of the wagon.
“Hell, Frank,” Jake stalked over. “Don’t you dare ever drive like that with my baby on board.”
Frank, a wiry, carrot-headed seventeen-year-old who did everything at three times the normal speed, hopped down from the front seat as Jake held out a hand to take the baby from the little girl.
“I’m sorry, Jake. But Pa said to get Ginny here to you real fast like, get the medicine, and then get on home.”
Jake looked in alarm at his baby daughter, but she seemed to be sleeping peacefully. “Medicine? What medicine? Is Ginny sick?”
“Not Ginny. Baby Scott. He’s a coughing up something horrible. Ma’s right torn up about it. She’s worried sick about him. But she says you got to take Ginny away from it. Ma, she says the little ones always get it the worst, and she don’t want Ginny sick too.”
The little Wilson girl—Jake could never keep the younger ones straight—clambered out from the wagon and tugged on her big brother’s hand. “Come on, we got to go to the doc’s. Right now and get back before nightfall.”
“Right. So I’m glad yer aunt’s here, Jake.”
Melinda moved forward to peer over at the baby and put a hand along her forehead. Frank, in the myopia of male adolescence, noticed her for the first time and, fro
m that moment, couldn’t seem to see anything but her. His mouth fell open and lust wiped his features clean. “Is this yer aunt?” he asked stupidly.
“No, of course not.”
Melinda took the baby gently from Jake’s arms, and God knows why, but he let her. Maybe because he needed his arms to ram Frank’s teeth down his throat for the lustful way he stared at Melinda.
“This is Miss O’Chauncey. My aunt was too…ah…ill to journey, and she hired Miss O’Chauncey to come instead to help me out.”
“Whew. Lucky you.”
“Frank, shut your yap.”
“Sorry, Jake.” Frank tore his gaze away from Melinda, who was rocking the baby, and turned to his little sister. “Alright, Felicity, alright.” With a hasty goodbye, the two headed down the dusty street towards Doc Holsting’s place.
Jake shook his head. Great, just great. Now he didn’t even have the Wilsons as a backup plan. He heard a coo. Melinda was smiling down at Ginny, who was now wide awake and gurgling up at the girl. It looked like his daughter was making her vote known.
Damn…he was a fool.
Chapter Two
Melinda put the baby down in the cradle. Ginny was sleeping now from the long tiresome ride back to the ranch. She was a darling. Her father, though, was another matter. He’d stomped into the charming little ranch house, just remembering to hold the front door open for her at the last minute, and grunted in the general direction of this lovely room he had apparently prepared for his aunt. Then he disappeared somewhere out into that vast expanse beyond the window. She looked around at the homey touches of her new abode—a blue and green patchwork quilt on the homemade bed, a plaster vase of some wild purple flowers on the dresser, and even a round mirror over the stand with a basin of water for washing waiting for her. Well, not for her precisely, for his aunt of course. But it was thoughtful nonetheless. It was hard to reconcile those little touches with the brooding giant who hadn’t spared a smile this whole long trip back to the house for either her or his own baby.
Stubbornly, at the thought, she resolved to stick it out for the sake of this lovely, little black-haired angel who snuggled so contentedly in her cradle. Poor motherless thing probably hadn’t been shown an ounce of affection from that hard man out there. Well, she was here now. After all, if there was one thing she’d learned from the orphanage, it was that children, no matter how little or big they were, needed lots of love and security. She’d give that to little Ginny, as long as her brute of a papa would let her.
* * * *
Jake had grabbed one of the horses from the barn and ridden out into, well, not into anywhere really. He just had to get away and think this new development out. No use just wishing his aunt wasn’t such a diabolical meddler or that the girl was a touch plainer or really plain at all. Wishing wouldn’t make it so. He had his baby girl to think of, and he had to think like a father, not a sex-starved cowboy. Besides which, he wasn’t even sex starved. He’d been to Sally’s while he was in town, the night before as a matter of fact, and had been ably tended to by a pert little redhead. She was nothing compared to the blond beauty waiting for him in his own house, of course, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that Miss Whatever-her-last-name-was, Melinda, that is, could probably be a right fine nurse for his baby girl. He’d be one selfish ass if he couldn’t try to overlook her lovely shape and sweet face and just let her care for his daughter.
Hell, that’d be revenge enough on Aunt Lil if he just treated Melinda no different than he would Annie Wilson or any other respectable lady he couldn’t even think about touching. If he could do that, he might just survive the next year or two. Once he was out of the danger zone, he could ship Miss Melinda back to Boston or marry her off to one of the countless heartsick cowboy admirers she’d no doubt garner in her time here. A lot of them were still stupid enough to believe in love and marriage and all that. The thought made him remember how much he’d longed to make love to his virgin bride on their wedding night, how sweet he’d thought it would be, and how he’d even somehow convinced himself that it would be forever. And it was sweet, that first time and the months thereafter. Victoria had been shy and fragile, and he’d just about been afraid to touch her at first, but she’d warmed up and even welcomed him after a while. She was happy just as long as he paid for all the dressmaker bills and took her on a big, fancy European honeymoon and bought her anything she set her heart on. And her heart was pretty fickle. It set on one thing after another. As soon as he gave something to her, she moved on to something else she wanted. It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford it. If there was one thing his long dead parents had done for him, other than naming Lil as his guardian that is, it was leave him with piles of money. It was more than enough so he couldn’t spend it in two lifetimes, not that Victoria hadn’t given it a try.
But he hadn’t begrudged her. He hadn’t. It was just he was right surprised when she didn’t reciprocate the favor. He still remembered the look of horror on her features, how she had blanched even paler than usual, when he told her about his plan for moving to a ranch in Colorado. He might as well have said Timbuktu. She didn’t even know where Colorado was on a map, and after a few knockdown screaming fights, it became clear she didn’t want to know. Even when they got here, it didn’t get any better, as he’d thought it would. Victoria’s delicate constitution, just as Aunt Lil had warned him, made just about every day she spent here a misery for her until she died. Even on the happiest day of his life, when Doc Holsting had handed him that bawling black-haired baby and told him he had a daughter, all Victoria had said was, “Take her and get out.” As if Ginny weren’t a part of her too.
Jake sighed and patted his horse munching contentedly in this field a few miles from home. No, no more marriage for him. His daughter was enough. She could marry a fine boy someday and have a passel of kids, and he would leave the ranch in their capable, Western-bred hands. But in the meantime, fact was he had to raise her. For now, that meant he needed some help.
He glanced up at the molten red sun, acknowledging that he should get on home now. He would make this work. He would. Leaving Melinda to face the first night home alone, however, wasn’t the way to start. He mounted his horse and turned back to the ranch.
By the time he made it back, cooled the horse off, and put him down in the barn, it was pitch-black out. Night fell like that here. Just that fast. When he entered the house, the smell of fresh baked bread and stew filled his nostrils. Melinda stood at the stove. Victoria’s red checkered apron, practically like new since his wife had never done much cooking or cleaning, was wrapped around her little waist. He felt a twinge of resistance again to this new arrangement, imagining how easy it’d be to wrap his own hands around that waist… but then he heard a gurgle. Ginny was a few feet away, toddling around on the rug-covered hardwood floor. She gave her toothless, or rather two- or three-toothed, smile up at him, and he reached down to pick her up.
“Hello, gorgeous. How’s my baby girl?”
Ginny cooed a baby hello, flopping her head down on his shoulder as he gripped her tightly. Lord, the connection he felt to this little part of him was a powerful thing.
Melinda turned from the stove, smiling hesitantly. “I hope you don’t mind, Mr. Stone. I made myself at home here.”
“You cook, too?”
“Nothing fancy. I just scrounged up what was around and put it together. I thought you might be hungry.”
“I am. Thanks. It smells wonderful.”
Jake put Ginny down on the special baby seat he had constructed, and Melinda dished the stew and bread out onto two plates. For Ginny, she gave her a wooden spoon to play with.
“I fed the baby earlier.”
Jake dug in. It was good. He smiled at her, but she just looked thoughtfully back. He guessed a little apologizing was in order. “I’m sorry for getting all riled up when you first got here. I was just a little surprised is all. I’ve thought it over, and I realize we should just make the best of this arrangemen
t.”
“I really can take care of the baby and the house just fine, Mr. Stone.”
The “Mr. Stone” rankled him. “How old are you anyways?”
She hesitated, like it might be some kind of a trap. “Nineteen, but…”
“Well, I’m twenty-eight. Not exactly ancient. So no more Mr. Stone please. It’s Jake.”
“Jake. I really will do a fine job here. I promise. Your aunt knew what she was doing.”
“I’m sure,” he said mildly. Fact was Lil knew exactly what she was doing, but he wasn’t going to fall for it.
* * * *
Melinda jolted awake from a sound sleep. The room was completely dark. No moonlight shone in from the window to illuminate it, and she’d blown the candle out before she’d climbed into bed. She listened carefully. Was it the baby? Is that what had woken her up? She fumbled through the darkness to the nearby cradle, but there was only silence. She knew from her days in the orphanage that silence from a cradle was not always welcome. Sometimes death could steal into a cradle in the night and carry a baby away. A baby that had been right as rain when she was put to bed could be cold as stone the next morning for no reason at all that any doctor could figure out. The thought terrified her, and she reached a hand into the cradle, her eyes becoming a bit accustomed to the dark, and placed a light hand on Ginny’s back. Immediately, she felt that most welcome of motions, the in and out of a slumbering child.
So it wasn’t the baby. But something had woken her. Every tale she’d ever heard of savage Indians and coyotes and whatever other bogeymen they had in the wild west came back to haunt her in the silent darkness. Ridiculously, she felt scared. So much for proving to Mr. Stone—Jake—that she was hearty enough for this job and could take care of herself. She heard a sound that she could swear was coming from the front of the little ranch house. She crept in that direction, but then stopped, paralyzed. What if someone or something was coming right through that solid wooden front door? It was barred; she knew from hearing Jake slide the heavy wood across the latch last thing before he retired to his room just a footstep or two away from where she stood now. But she had heard something.
Claire, Angela - Heart of Stone (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 2