Hill Country Courtship (Brides of Simpson Creek Book 8)

by Laurie Kingery

  “He says there’s a hope of heaven even for an evil woman like me, can you believe it? Even after I told him everything. ’Tis a marvel, truly. But I don’t mind sayin’ he’s given me a lot to think about.”

  “Of course I believe it, Mrs. MacLaren. And if you’d ever like to talk about it some more, I’m always willing.”

  “Perhaps we’ll do that one day soon,” Coira said. “But just now, why don’t ye go below and find my son? After hearing that laugh, I have a feeling he’ll be wanting to see you.”

  Her announcement left Maude feeling giddy with anticipation as she left the room, and had her stopping in her room to check in the mirror that her hair was not askew and pinching her cheeks to make sure her face was full of fresh color.

  She found him sitting at the bottom of the stairs, whistling a tune. At the sound of her footsteps, he looked up.

  “Ah, there ye are,” he said as if he’d been waiting for her appearance.

  “I thought you’d be hard at work with the horse you’ve been gentling, now that Renz is gone,” she said.

  “Aye, I would be, but after a chat with Senora Morales I realized we have another problem.”

  “Another problem?” Was the housekeeper threatening to leave again?

  “Aye, for she reminded me that Thanksgiving comes in two days and we’re woefully unprepared, thanks to the distraction of our recent visitor.”

  “We are?” she asked, confused because Jonas didn’t look very distressed, though his lip had curled as he’d said “visitor.”

  “We are, though she assures me the pumpkins are ready to be made into pies. Hector and a couple of the hands are going out in the morning to try and bag a turkey or two, but that leaves us without cranberries and a number of other ingredients that I’m told are essential for a proper American feast, aye?” His golden-hazel eyes danced as he informed her of these things.

  “And what can I do to assist you in this matter?” she said, not at all sure where this was leading.

  “I was hoping you’d agree to accompany me on a jaunt into town to purchase some supplies in the morning. I’m not sure I’d get the right things, otherwise. We’d have to leave early and wouldn’t be able to stay long, with Thanksgiving being the next day, unfortunately, and I’m planning to rent a fresh team of horses at the livery to bring us home, but I imagine we’d have time for a decent meal at your friend’s café before we head back to the ranch. Are ye game for it, lass? And do you think the mercantile would have what we need?”

  She could hardly believe her ears. Jonas MacLaren was asking to spend an entire day with her, and was willing to go into town and purchase food for a special American feast when he could have deemed whatever they had on hand to be sufficient. She wanted to pinch herself to prove she wasn’t dreaming.

  Evidently he took her goggling as hesitation, for then he said, “Now don’t be worrying about who’s to take care of Hannah and my mother. Juana’s already agreed to double duty watching over both.”

  “Yes! And yes!” she cried joyously, amazed that Juana had been able to keep from blurting out the news to her. Then she remembered their recent unwelcome visitor. “But what about Renz? You don’t think—”

  He’d been grinning at her joyous acceptance, but now he sobered. “No, I don’t think that craven poltroon would dare to come back and go near little Hannah. Don’t even think about it. Thanks to the preacher’s strategy, that mollycoddle got a thorough lesson about why he’s not prepared to be a father. He knows now that it’s not all a matter of a holding a cooing, adoring cherub and looking forward to the day she calls him Papa. But just to set your mind at ease, Hector will spend as much time in the ranch house as he can, and I’m sure he thinks he’s got the best end of the deal, getting to be inside with bonny Juana all day instead of getting his hands dirty.”

  Now Maude was grinning, too. “It will be such fun.” Already she could imagine seeing the familiar buildings of Simpson Creek and getting to spend time with Ella at her friend’s café. She’d call on Mrs. Meyer and assure the woman that she was happy at the ranch, and perhaps she’d see other friends while they were in town, too.

  With any luck, some friends might be available to come to the café and eat with them, too. She’d get to hear about the wedding and, while she was in the mercantile, hear all the local news and gossip from Mrs. Patterson—that woman was the source of all information in Simpson Creek, even more so than the newspaper. She hoped Mrs. Patterson would still have some dried cranberries by the time they got there!

  It would be a wonderful day, but she understood why their visit to town couldn’t be long—Senora Morales would be up all night cooking as it was. She’d have to offer to help, once Hannah had gone to sleep.

  Perhaps since Jonas had been willing to go back to town once, though, he might agree to a next time, when they could stay longer? But she must not think that way, she told herself—she was being greedy.

  “Plan to wear something warm, if the day’s anything like this one,” Jonas was saying. He reached out and cupped her cheek with his hand for a brief moment.

  “’Tis good to see you happy, lass,” he said, the warm look in his eyes making her feel good inside. His touch made her feel all tingly and her heartbeat quickened.

  “And now I’d better get outside and do a bit of honest ranch work myself today, since I won’t be here tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll see ye at supper, Maude.”

  * * *

  “Ah, Senor MacLaren is courting you now for sure,” Juana said that night, when she and Maude were finally alone together in their room and Hannah was asleep in the little cradle beside the bed. “How exciting!”

  “Now, we mustn’t read too much into a trip into town,” Maude cautioned, though she knew that her own anticipation of the day to come would render sleep difficult, if not impossible, tonight. “It’s probably just a simple matter of a man wanting to make sure he gets all the right ingredients at the mercantile so we aren’t eating oatcakes and haggis for Thanksgiving!”

  Juana groaned in mock horror, and the two women shared a giggle. “The MacLarens couldn’t be so cruel,” Juana insisted. “But really, why would a Scotsman care about making sure he has a proper American Thanksgiving? I’m sure he’s doing all of this for you. I know what I saw in his eyes as he gazed at you across the table tonight.”

  Maude was sure, too, despite the skepticism she’d felt obligated to voice. There had been such an intent look in those golden eyes when he’d cupped her cheek—not like an eagle spotting his prey, but like an eagle spotting his aerie after a long, wearying flight away from the nest. He’d looked like a man nearing home.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The day dawned crisp and cold, and there was frost on the grass when they set out, but dressed in her heaviest clothes, draped in a buffalo-hide robe and sitting by Jonas, Maude was warm enough to be comfortable and content, and the miles sped by as they headed toward Simpson Creek. The world seemed full of possibilities today, including the possibility that she could convince Jonas to end his constant isolation out at Five Mile Hill Ranch and purchase a Sunday house in town.

  It would be so lovely to have a place to stay when coming in to attend church services. There was still the matter of him not yet sharing her faith, but if he cared about her, surely he would see that it was important? If his mother, of all people, was beginning to realize her need of faith, surely he would, too, before long?

  Jonas seemed in a merry mood, whistling a tune from time to time as the team trotted along. He seemed to shed a heavy weight as the buckboard neared Simpson Creek, and Maude realized it wasn’t often he left his responsibilities to the ranch and those who depended on him behind, even for a day.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” he said at one point, when they stopped to water the horses at a little creek that ran past the road.

  “I
was just thinking of the cloth I hope to buy at the mercantile,” she told him.

  “Making a new dress for yourself, are you?”

  “No, I have clothes enough. I was thinking of making some more things for Hannah. She’s growing like the proverbial weed, you know—”

  “Aye, that she is,” he said with a fond smile. “The wee bairn’s not so wee anymore. The next thing we know she’ll be walking, I reckon.”

  She chuckled. “That’ll be awhile yet, but soon none of her clothes are going to fit her if I don’t get busy and make some more.”

  “Your hands are always busy,” he murmured, and there was a glow of approval in his eyes that sent warmth flooding through her.

  “Perhaps the mercantile would have some little toy we could get for her,” he said. “I know she has quite a selection, what with all the carved animals and pull toys Hector fashions for her, but perhaps there’d be something she doesn’t have. Perhaps a wee dolly?”

  His thought of buying Hannah a toy, and his frequent use of “we,” especially in relation to the baby, made Maude feel good. It was becoming hard to remember the imperious, cynical, off-putting manner Jonas had displayed when she had first met him at the barbecue.

  He’d be a good father to little Hannah...if he could just see his need of the Lord to guide him...

  To her relief, Mrs. Patterson did have bags of dried cranberries in stock. “Shipped all the way from Massachusetts,” she informed Maude proudly. “Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just wade out into the bog where they grow and gather them for yourself?”

  “I don’t know,” Maude said, picturing the cold, squishy mud she’d have to walk upon in a bog. “They don’t have cottonmouth snakes up north, do they?”

  “Land sakes, I don’t know,” Mrs. Patterson answered with a shudder. “Are y’all going to be in town for a while, or do you have to head back directly? Kate will be sorry she missed you,” she said, referring to the niece who lived with her and helped mind the store. “Did you know she and Gabe got married, and are living over on Travis Street near the Bishops?”

  “No I didn’t—please give her my congratulations,” Maude murmured. “Unfortunately we can’t stay long today—we have to get the supplies back to the ranch in time to prepare everything for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving meal. But we’ll be having dinner at Ella’s café after we finish here. If you see any of the Spinsters’ Club members, please let them know they can find me there, if they have a minute to stop by and catch up. I was hoping to spot some of them on the street, but I didn’t. Oh, may I see that bolt of cloth with the blue flowers?” she added, pointing to it behind the counter. It would be perfect for Hannah’s clothes. Soon the cloth joined the growing pile of their purchases on the counter.

  A few minutes later, their purchases loaded onto the wagon bed, they descended from the buckboard once again at Ella’s café.

  Ella came running out to greet them. “I thought I saw you drive past coming into town!” Maude’s friend cried, sweeping Maude into a hug. “I was hoping you’d stop in.”

  “Yes, we had to go to the mercantile first—for a few things for Thanksgiving tomorrow,” she explained. “It’s not too late to have a bite to eat here, is it?”

  “Of course not. Though the cowboys from the Sawyer ranch were just here—you’re lucky that locust horde left anything behind,” Ella said ruefully. “Come on inside. Nate’s here having his own dinner, and I know he’ll be glad to see you—and make your acquaintance, Mr. MacLaren,” she said, smiling up at Jonas.

  Marriage seemed to agree with Ella, Maude thought, admiring the easy, confident way Ella led them into her establishment and saw them seated, then brought over her new husband to meet Jonas. She envied the loving way Nate Bohannan, who’d arrived in Simpson Creek earlier this year as part of a medicine show, draped his arm around Ella’s shoulder as he and Jonas talked.

  Having put in their orders for today’s special of chicken and dumplings and black-eyed peas, with peach pie for dessert, Maude followed Ella over to the kitchen area while Ella got busy at the stove.

  “Business is good?” Maude asked, seeing that most of the tables were occupied with folks finishing up their dinners.

  “Indeed it is. I sure miss having your help here as I did when we first opened the place,” Ella admitted. “And I miss you at church, and the Spinsters’ Club meetings...though I’m guessing you’d be graduating from the Spinsters soon, if the look in yon Scotsman’s eye is anything to go by,” she said with a laugh, nodding toward where Jonas sat. “Am I right?”

  “Maybe...” Maude admitted with a smile, feeling the color rise into her cheeks once again. “Though it’s too soon to say for sure. There’s a lot of things that need to be settled...”

  “All right, then, I won’t tease you about it,” Ella said, darting another look at Jonas, who was still deep in conversation with her husband. “It’ll work out, in time. Remember how reluctant you were to go out there and take the job? Aren’t you glad you went ahead and did it? And little Hannah? How’s that little sweetie doing? I imagine she’s grown so much I wouldn’t recognize her,” Ella said.

  Maude detailed how big Hannah was getting, then went on to tell her friend about Renz’s visit.

  Ella lost her glad smile. “That scalawag,” Ella growled. “Mrs. Meyer told me he’d been back to stay a few nights at the boardinghouse, full of himself as always. I was afraid she’d feel obligated to tell him where his daughter was, but had hoped he’d have the sense to leave well enough alone. It’s a good thing you were able to show him how ill-equipped he was to take care of her.”

  “He’s not still at the boardinghouse, is he?” Maude had no wish for Renz to know that she and Jonas weren’t at the ranch house right now.

  Ella blew out a breath. “No, Mrs. Meyer said he took off again—apparently right after he was out to see Hannah—leaving no word of where he was going. Same old Felix—he’ll never change.”

  Maude sighed, feeling her tension at the mention of Hannah’s father ease a bit with the knowledge that he was gone from Simpson Creek. The man was like a tumbleweed, always blowing wherever the wind sent him. Why couldn’t April Mae have made a wiser choice of a father for Hannah?

  But she shouldn’t think that way, she told herself. If April Mae truly had made a wiser choice, Maude wouldn’t have little Hannah now. And if it weren’t for Hannah, she’d never have agreed to take the job at Five Mile Hill Ranch, and what a shame that would have been.

  She went back to sit with Jonas just as Nate was rising. “I need to get back to the shop,” he said.

  “Your carpentry business is going well, too?” she asked, recalling how Nate had revealed himself as a skilled carpenter and craftsman when he’d first come to town. His fine work was on display all over Ella’s café, for he had made the tables, chairs, shelves and counter himself.

  “I’ve been busier than a barefoot boy on a red ant hill,” he informed her with a wink. “Good to see you, Miss Maude. Jonas here was just tellin’ me how you’ve changed life out at Five Mile Hill Ranch for the better.”

  “Oh, he was, was he?” The idea that Jonas had been praising her to Ella’s husband made her stand taller and feel like she could accomplish almost anything.

  “He sure enough was. Like I was telling Jonas, we hope you’ll come back to town when you can stay longer. Don’t be a stranger.”

  She thought about asking Nate if he’d heard of any houses coming available in town that they could rent for a Sunday house, but she thought she’d better not. She didn’t want to try to push Jonas into a commitment he might not yet be ready to assume, especially in front of someone else.

  Nate left then, and Ella soon brought their meal.

  “Don’t tell Senora Morales I said this, but ’tis good to eat someone else’s cooking for a change,” Jonas said, after finishing off his chi
cken and dumplings.

  Maude had to agree. The housekeeper-cook’s meals were spicy and flavorful, but relied heavily on chili peppers.

  “Are ye having a good time today, Maude?” he asked her then. “Is the outing everything you’d hoped for? It’s been good to spend some time with you away from all our other responsibilities. I’m sorry you didn’t get to see more of your friends.”

  “It’s all right,” she said. “There’ll be other times.” She savored the idea that he cared about whether she was enjoying the day. She was loath to start the journey back, though she missed Hannah. “We’ve gotten everything we came for, so I suppose we’d better get on the road so Senora Morales has time to turn the ingredients we bought into a feast.”

  He sighed. “I suppose you’re right.”

  They made their farewells and made their way back outside to the wagon. It had gotten colder while they dined, but that would give her an excuse to sit closer to him on the buckboard seat and share his warmth. He helped her climb back up to the driver’s seat and arranged the buffalo hide blanket around her.

  “I wish ’twas summer, so it wouldn’t be dark so soon. We could have had a picnic at the creek, just the two of us. And when we’d eaten our food, I’d find a way to steal a kiss or two.”

  The casually uttered words made her gaze fly up to lock with his. Her pulse quickened.

  “Is that too bold? Ye know I love you, Maude,” he said. “There just hasn’t been an easy way to show you, out at the ranch, with everybody there...” He clucked to the horses, and they headed slowly out onto the road that led east out of Simpson Creek toward the ranch.

  “No, it’s not too bold,” she said, wondering if she dared be a little bold, too. Everything was not settled between them—his rocky relationship with God was still an issue, as was the possibility of his mother’s disapproval. But she could at least let him know that she looked forward to a future for them, too. “In fact, I’m hoping you won’t wait until next summer,” she said, and raised her face to his in a clear invitation. If he kissed her now, he wouldn’t be stealing it.