Cowboy Charm School

by Margaret Brownley

  Brett could almost feel Foster’s visual daggers as he steered Kate around the other couples. Foster’s pursed lips and red face suggested he was whistling up a storm, and the strange looks directed his way seemed to confirm that. Hoping Kate hadn’t noticed, Brett led her in such a way as to block Foster from view.

  “I’m surprised Frank didn’t object to me dancing with you,” she said. “He doesn’t usually like me dancing with anyone but him. He can be so jealous at times.”

  Brett gazed into her starry eyes. If she didn’t stop looking so utterly fetching, he’d give Foster plenty to be jealous about.

  Now was the time to say something positive on Foster’s behalf, but he couldn’t think much past the present moment.

  “As a young child, he was bounced from family to family,” she continued, relieving Brett of the need to jump to Foster’s defense. “He never had a real home until he came here to Haywire. And even then, he grew up without a mother. Mr. Foster didn’t remarry until Frank was in his late teens.” Her eyes softened into pools of appeal. “A background like that would make anyone feel anxious. That’s why he’s…”

  “Afraid of losing you?”

  She moistened her lips, calling attention to her pretty pink mouth. “Something like that.”

  Catching himself staring, Brett cleared his throat and gazed over her head. He forced himself to concentrate on the fiddler, the refreshment table, the other dancers. Anything to keep from drowning in the depth of her blue eyes.

  “Horehound will help,” she said. “Or perhaps you’d prefer peppermint? For your throat, I mean.”

  His gaze locked with hers. “My throat?”

  “I noticed back there that you kept clearing your throat and coughing.”

  “Oh, that. Yes, you’re right. Maybe some…hard candy would help.”

  She smiled up at him. “You can pick up a bag when you stop by the shop tomorrow for the list.”

  His mind went blank for a moment until he recalled the list of customers she’d promised him. “I’d be much obliged.” He spun her around and then pulled her back. Holding her close, he felt her stiffen in his arms.

  “Something the matter?” he asked.

  “It’s Frank,” she said. “Look! He’s all red in the face.”

  Brett followed her gaze. Foster’s overwrought whistling had turned his face as red as an overripe tomato.

  Her face lined with worry, Kate pulled away. “I better see what’s wrong.”

  Before he could stop her, she rushed to Foster, in whose arms—Brett told himself—she belonged. But knowing that didn’t stop him from wishing things were different. Wishing that the arms she had run to had been his.

  Drawing in his breath, he glanced around the dance floor and tried to act as if everything were fine. It would have been fine, if memories of holding her hadn’t kept coming to mind.

  Contrary to what Kate believed, not a thing was wrong with his throat. But he sure in blazes was worried about the condition of his heart.

  * * *

  “Psst, Kate.”

  Kate whirled around and spotted Connie beckoning from the open barn door.

  Using the first opportunity to slip away from Frank’s watchful eye, she joined Connie outside. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you inside enjoying the dance?”

  Connie looked especially pretty tonight. The bright-yellow dress showed off her small waist and ample bosom. The color complemented her dark hair, which was swept to the crown of her head and cascaded down her back in a mass of shiny curls.

  “Is Harvey here?”

  Kate took her by the arm. “He is, and it’s time to make your grand entrance.”

  Connie pulled back. “I can’t. What if he ignores me?”

  “He won’t tonight.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Trust me,” Kate said.

  Connie’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Did you…?”

  “Of course I did. Just like I said I would. He came to the shop, and I slipped a little…advice into his bag of candy.”

  “Did he read it?”

  Kate shrugged. “We’ll know soon enough.”

  Connie continued to fret. “You didn’t mention me by name, did you?”

  Kate laughed. “Of course not, silly. Don’t look so worried. The advice was simply that love comes in all colors, even yellow.” Kate gave a satisfied nod. “You’d be amazed at how a mere suggestion can turn a man’s head. Now unless there’s a run of yellow dresses, Harvey should be all yours.”

  Connie’s mouth rounded in anticipation. “Oh, I do hope you’re right.”

  Kate gave her friend a little nudge. “Go on. Your prince is waiting.”

  Connie started forward and Kate followed, fingers crossed.

  Without warning, Connie halted just inside the barn door, and Kate almost plowed into her. “What’s wrong? Why did you stop?”

  Connie curled her hands into fists by her side. “Looks like your suggestion turned Harvey’s head just fine… In Mary-Ruth’s direction!”

  Kate followed Connie’s gaze and groaned. Harvey was dancing with Mary-Ruth Myers, who just so happened to be dressed to the nines in a bright-yellow gown.

  14

  The following morning, Aunt Letty watched Kate pour horehound mixture into the tray of the candy-making machine. “Well? How come you haven’t said a word about last night’s dance?”

  Before answering, Kate picked up a knife and spread the mixture evenly over the tray, releasing a subtle smell of licorice.

  She’d managed to avoid her aunt’s questions earlier at the house. But there was no escaping them here at the shop. “Not much to say. It was very nice and well attended.”

  It would have been perfect had Connie not had her heart broken, and Kate blamed herself for that.

  “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

  Kate sighed. “If this is about the Texas Ranger—”

  “I don’t know how you can have anything to do with that awful man. Not only did he ruin your wedding, but Hoot Owl Pete said it was the ranger who shot out our window.”

  Kate set her knife down and turned the crank. Perfect little hard candies popped out of the machine. If only what she had to tell her aunt would pop out that easily.

  She stopped turning the crank and faced her aunt. “There’s something you don’t know about him.”

  Aunt Letty frowned. “There’s nothing you can tell me that would make me change my mind. He’s trouble with a capital T.” She sniffed. “You know what happened to Cathy Spencer when she got involved with that troublemaking Jeff Parker. She ended up on her very own Wanted poster. And I’ll tell you another thing—”

  “He saved my life.” Kate hadn’t wanted to mention her near-drowning, but it was the only way she could think to keep her aunt from being rude to Brett in the future.

  Aunt Letty’s mouth dropped. “What?”

  “I almost drowned.” Choosing her words with care, she told her aunt everything—or almost everything—that had happened at the river. Some parts, like the way he’d held her in his arms, seemed best to leave out.

  Her aunt’s eyes rounded in horror. “Mercy, child. What were you thinking?”

  “All I could think about at the time was saving that poor dog.”

  “Kate, if anything had happened to you…” With her hand on her chest, Aunt Letty gasped for air. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “I knew it would only upset you. But after the way you treated Mr. Tucker last night…I thought you should know that he’s more than made up for stopping the wedding.”

  “Harrumph.” Aunt Letty folded her arms across chest. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “I know you’re still upset with him, Auntie, but saving my life counts for something, don’t you think?”
/>   Aunt Letty gave a reluctant nod. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  “All right.” Aunt Letty dropped her arms to her sides but didn’t look any less stubborn. “I’m grateful to the man, but don’t expect me to like him. And that still doesn’t let him off the hook. If it wasn’t for him, you and Frank would be husband and wife, with maybe a little one on the way.”

  Unable to have children of her own, her aunt couldn’t wait for the day Kate provided her with a little grandniece or grandnephew to spoil.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” her aunt said. “Remember what happened to Claire Nelson?”

  “Yes, I remember,” Kate said with a sigh. How could she not? At least once a week, Aunt Letty reminded her how Claire’s seven thoughtless children had failed to present her with grandchildren before the poor woman reached the pearly gates.

  “All I ask is that you not be rude to him,” Kate said and, on the chance that her aunt needed more persuasion, repeated that the ranger did save her life.

  “I’m never rude,” Aunt Letty said, her voice obstinate. She studied Kate for a long moment. “You’ve not said a word about Frank. Did the two of you make any headway?”

  “Headway?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Frank was very…sweet.”

  “Sweet?” Aunt Letty reached for an empty candy jar and began filling it with the newly pressed horehound candy. “Babies are sweet. Puppies are sweet. That’s hardly the way to describe a future husband.”

  Kate brushed her hair away from her face. “Well, he was sweet. And he didn’t even get jealous when Brett asked me to dance.”

  “Oh? So now it’s Brett.”

  Kate bit her lip. His first name had slipped out without conscious thought. Even more surprising, she liked the way her lips parted as she released it, as if she were to throw a kiss. Startled by the thought, she quickly banished it from her head.

  “I know you don’t want to hear this, but Mr. Tucker and I are friends,” she said. Or at least she’d thought they were. Now she didn’t know what to think. He had been so attentive at the start of the evening and had made her feel like a queen. But as the evening had progressed, he’d become more and more withdrawn until he’d hardly said a word while driving her home.

  Aunt Letty shook her head. “I don’t know how you can be his friend. Not after what he’s done. If it wasn’t for him, you’d be…”

  “I know, I know. Mrs. Frank Foster.” Kate sighed. “Auntie, please. We’ve been all through this. Brett made a mistake and has tried his best to make up for it ever since.”

  “All right, all right.” Her aunt capped the full jar of candy. “So, did you dance? You and Frank?”

  “Yes. Yes, we did.” If it could be called that. Dancing with Frank was like dancing with a lamppost. His feet hardly moved. While dancing with Brett was like floating on air. He was at least six inches taller than Frank, which meant she only came up to his shoulders. Yet they’d glided around the barn floor as if only one.

  Oh no, not Brett again. Jolted by the way he commanded her thoughts—he’d been all she’d been able to think about since the dance—Kate slid a second tray into the candy-making machine and turned the crank more vigorously than necessary. The brass rollers pressed the sugary sheet into dozens of perfectly shaped little candies but did nothing to soften her mood or stop her obsessive thoughts.

  “Frank even said I looked pretty,” she said, knowing that would please her aunt.

  “Of course you looked pretty.” Her aunt’s face softened into a gentle smile. Kate recognized the faraway look in her aunt’s eyes and knew it had nothing to do with the present. “I remember when your uncle and I first laid eyes on you.”

  Kate knew the oft-repeated tale by heart but never tired of hearing it. Her adoptive aunt and uncle had traveled to Missouri to visit Uncle Joe’s sick father. While they were there, a train carrying orphans from New York had arrived. It had been the first such train to Missouri, and no one really knew what to expect, least of all the young, frightened passengers, including Kate.

  “And there you were,” Aunt Letty said. “You were so tiny…”

  “I think the word is ‘scrawny,’” Kate said.

  “And cute as a button.”

  Kate stopped turning the crank and rolled her eyes. “Homely as a blank wall, more like it. That’s why no one wanted to adopt me.”

  Her aunt began filling a second jar. “No one else wanted to adopt you for fear you wouldn’t be strong enough to do your share of work.”

  Kate smiled. That was her aunt’s version of the story, but Kate suspected that the real reason no one had wanted her was because of her gawky, thin appearance and ginger-red hair.

  “Your uncle took one look at you and said, ‘She’s coming home with us.’”

  “I remember,” Kate said, her mind traveling back to a memory that in many ways she wished she could forget. She still had nightmares of that awful, smelly orphan train.

  Though she had been but six at the time, Kate remembered that long-ago day as if it were only yesterday. When she was two, her father had been killed in the war. Four years later, her mother succumbed to consumption, leaving Kate orphaned. She then became a ward of the Children’s Aid Society and was taken to a house with stern caretakers and overrun with vermin.

  Not long afterward, Kate and three dozen other children had been transported to Missouri by cattle car. They’d arrived at the station in the middle of the night. She recalled huddling on the platform until a kindly minister arrived to take charge. The minister’s wife did her best to make the orphans look more respectable with the aid of a wet sponge and a hairbrush, but not much could be done about the rank smell of cattle.

  Soon, the station had been packed with people. Kate and the other orphans were exposed to all manner of probing. Legs and arms squeezed, teeth examined, hair checked for lice. Some orphans were asked to lift heavy boxes. The oldest, strongest, and—in Kate’s mind—best-looking children went first. She had been the last one standing.

  Just when she’d thought she’d have to go back to that awful house in New York, a tall man with a bushy mustache stepped forward to claim her. His sheer size frightened her at first, but it wasn’t long before he’d won her over with his kindness.

  “You’ll be safe with us,” he’d said. Safe.

  Her aunt said something, breaking into Kate’s thoughts. “I’m sorry, Aunt Letty,” Kate said, wiping away the tears such memories never failed to produce. “What did you say?”

  “I was just saying what a dear, sweet thing you were. You looked like a wounded bird. When we got back to town, we told everyone you were our niece and, strangely enough, no one ever questioned it.”

  “That’s because you treated me as your own,” Kate said. Years later, she’d found out that some of the orphans arriving on that same train hadn’t been as lucky with their new families as she had been with hers. Some had even been treated like slaves.

  Aunt Letty’s face melted into a smile. “Since we weren’t lucky enough to have a child of our own, we were convinced that you were a gift from heaven.”

  “You and Uncle Joe were the real gifts,” Kate said.

  Her aunt finished filling another jar and set it aside. “Lordy, aren’t we a fine couple? This is supposed to be a happy place, and here we are, looking like we just lost a best friend.”

  Kate laughed and glanced at the clock. “Oh my, look at the time.” Customers would soon arrive, and she had yet to write out the list Brett had asked for. That thought brought another, whisking her back to how it felt to dance in the arms of the tall and handsome ranger.

  15

  Brett left the boardinghouse as soon as he’d finished breakfast. After saddling his horse, he rode through the tangled streets of Haywire to the telegraph office.

  Last night’s dance had
gone well, and considering Foster’s inept wooing skills, that was saying something. Insisting that Foster ask Connie to dance had been brilliant on his part. Kate hadn’t appeared jealous, but she did notice, and that was a start. It also helped that later Connie had sung Frank’s praises. Kate had seemed impressed that even her best friend had noticed the change in Frank.

  It was hard to know what had been more difficult—steering Foster through the intricacies of courtship or containing his own traitorous heart.

  His attraction to Kate had almost gotten out of hand, and that had better stop. He had no right, no right at all, to act on his feelings—none! But last night, he’d come mighty close—dangerously close—to doing just that.

  If only her lips hadn’t looked so tempting. If only holding her in his arms on the dance floor hadn’t made him recall holding her by the river.

  Lonely. That’s what he was. It was the only way he could explain the intensity of his attraction.

  Then too, it had been a long time since he’d been with a woman. For the last three years, he’d spent endless long hours in the saddle with little more than his horse and the bleak Texas landscape to keep him company. He loved his job and couldn’t imagine doing anything else, but it did get lonely at times.

  No wonder Kate had tangled his spurs and tied his insides in a knot. The very thought made his heart pound, and he shifted his weight in the saddle. The lack of female companionship would drive any man crazy.

  A woman. That’s what he needed. Someone to love and to cherish. Someone to welcome him home with open arms following a hard day’s work. Someone who would get his mind off Kate.

  Startled by the unexpected path his thoughts had taken, Brett shook his head. Just because he was lonely was no reason to imagine himself domesticated. He wanted the company of a woman; he didn’t want to marry her. He liked his job too much. Liked the freedom.

  Knowing that his obsessive thoughts were simply the stirrings of a lonely heart, he felt somewhat better. The annoying affliction had a cure; all he had to do was find a woman. Spend some time with her, and his problems would be solved. Easy as that!