Autumn Lover

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Sullenly Mickey nodded.

  “Go on to the bunkhouse and sober up,” Hunter said. “Tell the other hands I’ll talk to them in the morning.”

  Mickey gave Elyssa an angry, baffled look before he turned and stalked back down the aisle.

  As soon as the sound of his footsteps faded, Elyssa turned on Hunter.

  “I don’t care if Mickey is the last hand between here and the Great Salt Lake,” Elyssa said tightly, “I won’t stand for him lording it over anyone who is smaller, kinder, or a different color than he is. If I had known what he was doing to Shorty and Gomez and Raul, I would have—”

  “Gotten somebody killed,” Hunter finished succinctly. “Or were they gun handlers?”

  “No.”

  “Mickey is.”

  Elyssa looked startled.

  “How do you know?” she asked.

  “The soldiers over at Camp Halleck were talking about it. Said your young beau was fast to draw and quicker to shoot.”

  “Mickey? My beau? Never!”

  “That’s not what they’re saying around Halleck.”

  “I’m not responsible for loose talk.”

  “Flirts have to take the talk as it comes.”

  Elyssa took a slow breath, fighting her temper. When she spoke again, her voice was cool, remote, the voice she had learned to use with good effect on her English cousins.

  “You will believe whatever you wish to believe about me,” Elyssa said evenly. “However, you will not insult me in front of others again.”

  “Or I’m fired?” Hunter asked sardonically.

  “Precisely.”

  Hunter’s black eyes narrowed. He was an excellent judge of men. It was one of the skills that had made him a good officer. If Elyssa had been a man, Hunter would have believed she meant every word.

  But Hunter wasn’t a good judge of women. He had proved it when he married Belinda.

  “You’d lose the ranch just because your nose is out of joint?” Hunter asked.

  “You have a higher opinion of yourself than I do. I’m not at all certain you can save the ranch.”

  “We’ll make a deal, Sassy.”

  “I don’t like that nickname.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “But you’ll use it anyway,” she said.

  “Probably. Are you going to fire me over it?”

  “No.”

  Hunter narrowed his eyes, surprised again.

  “I believe you mentioned a deal,” Elyssa said. “What is it?”

  “I’ll round up your cattle and horses. You stop flirting with the men. It’s death on morale.”

  “I have never flirted with Mickey or any other hand.”

  “Mickey doesn’t seem to think so.”

  “Mickey doesn’t think at all.”

  Hunter made an impatient sound. “Men don’t think when their blood is hot. Women know that, and use it against men.”

  “You have a sour view of women.”

  “I have a realistic view of the fair sex,” he said ironically.

  “Rather like my view of the unfair sex.”

  “That being?”

  “If a man wants a woman and she doesn’t want him, it’s her fault. If a woman wants a man and he doesn’t want her, it’s her fault. If a man marries the wrong woman, it’s her fault. If a woman marries the wrong man, it’s her fault. If a man beats a woman, it’s her fault. If a woman—”

  Hunter held up his hands.

  “I surrender,” he said, almost smiling.

  “I doubt it.”

  The beginning of a smile vanished from Hunter’s face as though it had never existed.

  “You’re right, Sassy. I won’t surrender again to a girl. Ever. The price is much too high.”

  The contempt in Hunter’s voice made Elyssa flinch.

  “I’m not a girl and I never asked you to sur—” she began.

  “So if you’re planning on swinging your hips to see me come crawling, don’t hold your breath,” he said over her words. “Hell will freeze solid. If I ever marry again, it will be to a woman not to a spoiled little girl who doesn’t know her own mind.”

  Hunter’s words rang in Elyssa’s mind with dizzying force.

  If I ever marry again. Ever marry. Again.

  “You’re married?” Elyssa asked, stunned.

  “Not anymore. She’s dead.”

  “In the war?”

  “Close enough.”

  Elyssa opened her mouth to ask if Hunter had any children. Then she looked at his bleak eyes and decided it was time to return to the original subject.

  “I would rather Mickey drew his pay and got off Ladder S land,” Elyssa said.

  “You quit flirting and he’ll straighten out.”

  “As I never encouraged Mickey’s attentions in the first place, I doubt that he will ‘straighten out.’”

  So did Hunter, but he saw no point in discussing it with Elyssa. Hunter had seen other boys like Mickey during the war, young and randy and willing to ride roughshod over everything in their path. Brawlers like Mickey had their uses in battle, if they could be controlled.

  And the Ladder S was headed toward one hell of a battle.

  “If Mickey doesn’t work out, I’ll fire him,” Hunter said. “Until then, we need every hand.”

  Unconsciously Elyssa rubbed her upper arm where Mickey had grabbed her.

  “If he touches me again,” she said, “I won’t wait for you to fire him. I’ll do it myself.”

  Hunter glanced at Elyssa’s arm.

  “Quit teasing him and he’ll quit grabbing,” Hunter said roughly.

  Elyssa felt her temper sliding away. Rather distantly, she wondered what it was about Hunter that got beneath her skin like poison ivy.

  “Go to hell, Hunter.”

  “What?” he said, shocked.

  “Go. To. Hell.”

  Each word was cool, separate, distinct.

  “If you were a man—” Hunter began.

  “Thank God I’m not,” Elyssa interrupted curtly.

  “I’m tired of being held responsible for their damned childishness.”

  “Little girl, you’re asking to have your mouth washed out with soap.”

  “If you do it, don’t ever turn your back on me afterward.”

  Hunter gave Elyssa an icy, measuring glance. It didn’t take any special insight to see that she meant every word.

  By now, Belinda would have been sniffling and stamping her little foot, beside herself with pique. Then she would sulk for hours. Days, sometimes.

  God, a girl can make life tedious for a man.

  Wonder what Elyssa does when she loses her temper. Scream and swear like a fishwife?

  “In a snit, are we?” he asked, almost smiling, curious.

  It was a look Elyssa had seen on her cousins’ faces when they thought they had her on the run. It took the fire out of her reckless temper as nothing else could have.

  “We?” she asked with false gentleness. “I think not. I’m quite calm, thank you. We can discuss what I want you to do as foreman tomorrow, over breakfast. Perhaps you’ll be over your, er, snit by then.”

  With that, Elyssa lifted her skirts to keep them clear of the barn floor and walked away from Hunter.

  Hunter watched. Blood slid hotly through his veins with each of her steps. He told himself it was anger.

  The vital hardening of his body told Hunter that he lied.

  Soft, filmy, clingy skirts should be outlawed, Hunter told himself. So should girls with swinging hips, sea colored eyes, and hair the color of a harvest moon.

  If I had the sense that God gave a gosling, I’d mount up and ride out of here.

  But I won’t. If I stay here, I’ll get the rest of those murdering Culpeppers.

  Unless she fires me first.

  The thought made Hunter frown. If Elyssa fired him, he would have no excuse to hang around the Ladder S. He needed to appear like a man interested only in cattle, not Culpeppers.
>
  Damn! I’d better go and see if I can smooth her ruffled feathers.

  But by the time Hunter secured the stall door, blew out the lantern, and hurried outside, Elyssa was gone.

  “Elyssa?” Hunter called quietly.

  Nothing came back to him but silence.

  Then there was a flickering of light near the house as a door opened. It closed with a finality that echoed back through the night to the barn.

  Any smoothing that got done would have to wait until morning.

  4

  Well before dawn of the next day, Elyssa was up and working in the kitchen, measuring flour for bread. Beneath an apron made of flour sacks, she was wearing another of her English country dresses.

  This one was a sea-green silk. Irish lace filled in the deep neckline. Once there had been a luxurious fall of lace from each wrist, but no longer. She had removed the filmy stuff the first time it dragged through the kitchen fire, threatening to burn the dress and her with it.

  Humming a waltz softly to herself, Elyssa sifted and measured. Her movements were rhythmic and graceful, as though she were dancing. Her skirt swirled lightly and then clung with each motion of her hips. The deep, gathered scallops of the skirt were marked by red silk rosettes. The color was repeated in the flounced scarlet petticoat that peeked through between the gathers.

  Elyssa’s English cousins would have been shocked that she wore only a single scarlet petticoat beneath her full skirt instead of the customary crinoline. Like filmy Irish lace, the hoops and stiff fabric of a crinoline simply got in the way of the ranch work.

  But then, everything about me horrified my high nosed cousins, Elyssa remembered wryly. Mary Elizabeth nearly fainted when she found me in the estate’s herb garden.

  When her cousin had discovered that Elyssa was picking herbs rather than flowers and—horror of horrors—actually planning to use them in a bread of her own making, the outcry was intense.

  They would have made less fuss if they had found me naked in the hayloft with a stable boy.

  A sound from the lower bedroom next to the kitchen made Elyssa glance up. Moments later Penny hurried into the kitchen. Her gingham dress was faded and stained with age, but like Penny herself, the cloth was as clean as a new coin.

  Hastily Penny reached for an apron and tied it around herself.

  “Sorry, I overslept,” she said.

  “It’s all right. You’ve been under the weather lately. Make the coffee, would you? I never can bring myself to add enough beans to turn it into Missouri mud.”

  Smiling, Penny reached for the tin that held coffee beans. She poured a handful into the coffee mill and turned the crank. The harsh yet companionable sound of coffee being ground soon filled the ranch kitchen.

  As always, a pot of beans simmered at the back of the stove, basic rations for men who worked cattle. But the Ladder S had a tradition of feeding its hands better than most ranches, so there was bacon sizzling in a pan, dried fruit stewing in a pot, fresh biscuits baking, and fresh bread in the making.

  Because Elyssa kept a kitchen and herb garden that would have been the envy of many a small estate, the Ladder S food had more savor than was common. Some of the cowhands might not have appreciated the difference, but Elyssa did.

  Humming beneath the sound of the grinder, she snipped up a final sprig of rosemary, added it to the bread dough, mixed well, and turned the dough out of the bowl onto the flour-dusted counter to knead.

  “Such a pretty tune you’re humming,” Penny said as she paused in the noisy grinding. “What is it?”

  “Just a waltz I heard before I left England. I don’t even remember the name, but I woke up this morning humming it.”

  “Don’t you wish sometimes that you were still in London with all those teas and fancy balls?”

  “No,” Elyssa said. “I didn’t belong there.”

  “Sometimes I think Gloria missed it.”

  “My mother was born there. I was born here.”

  “But you look just like she did.”

  “Not really.” Elyssa kneaded bread energetically. “In any case, it’s only skin-deep.”

  “That’s more than enough to draw every man’s eye,” Penny said with faint envy.

  “Not every man,” Elyssa said, thinking of Hunter. “Not the men who are worth having.”

  The line of Penny’s mouth said that she disagreed, but she spoke no more about it. She emptied out the small drawer of the coffee grinder into a pot, added more beans, and went to work again.

  Elyssa sifted a bit more flour onto the counter and returned to kneading with quick, smooth motions.

  By the time the dough was ready to divide into individual loaves, Penny had ground up a third batch of beans and was putting the coffee on to boil. Occasionally she gave sideways looks at Elyssa, as though waiting for her to speak. Finally Penny couldn’t wait any longer.

  “I thought I heard someone ride in after dark last night,” Penny said, her voice subtly strained. “Was it Bill?”

  “No. It was a man called Hunter. Our new foreman.”

  As Elyssa spoke, she cut the dough into four loaves.

  “Truly?” Penny asked. “Will he be able to help us?”

  “Unless I kill him first.”

  Penny looked up from the stove. Her brown eyes were wide.

  “I beg your pardon?” Penny asked.

  “The man is rude.”

  “Oh. Then why did you hire him?”

  “Why do you think?” Elyssa said, shaping loaves vigorously. “We need him.”

  “If only Bill…”

  Penny’s mouth flattened and her voice faded into silence.

  “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” Elyssa said succinctly.

  Penny looked down at the stove and said nothing.

  “Ruddy hell,” Elyssa said under her breath. Then, gently, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it as harshly as it sounded.”

  Elyssa came quickly to the stove and hugged Penny.

  “All I meant was that Bill can’t help anyone right now, even himself,” Elyssa said softly. “I know how hard it is on you to see your very old friend being such a ruddy stupid bas—er, so stubborn.”

  Penny nodded and made a stifled sound. Tendrils of shiny brown hair slid out from beneath her gingham cap and clung to her cheeks. Her eyes brimmed with sudden tears.

  Elyssa felt an overwhelming tenderness toward the older woman. Normally Penny was as steady emotionally as a rock. But the longer Bill’s drinking went on, the more tightly strung Penny had become. Then had come the ague that Penny couldn’t shake off.

  And on top of it all were the Culpeppers, gathering like vultures around the dying Ladder S.

  Don’t think about it, Elyssa told herself. I can’t fix the Culpeppers now. But I can comfort Penny, who has lost as much of her childhood as I have in the past two years.

  “Hush now,” Elyssa said gently. “It will be all right. Just because Bill hasn’t been by here for a while doesn’t mean he has been dead drunk in his cabin all that time.”

  Penny nodded but said nothing.

  Carefully Elyssa blotted Penny’s eyes with the corner of her apron.

  “Oh, dear,” Elyssa said. “I’m leaving little flour tracks all over your face.”

  For a moment Penny closed her eyes. Then she took a shaky breath and hugged Elyssa.

  “Maybe the flour will blot out the freckles,” Penny said.

  “Then I’ll wipe off every speck of white. I love your freckles.”

  “Only because you don’t have them. Even though you go outside in the sun without your hat.”

  “Not very often,” Elyssa said. “Too much sun makes me look like one of Lord Harry’s boiled lobsters.”

  “Such beautiful skin you have.”

  Penny looked at the younger woman enviously.

  “All cream and pink,” Penny continued. “Like your mother’s. Hair like spun flax and eyes like blue-green gems. Just like hers.”

  “So y
ou say. Personally, I think you’re quite wrong. Mother was an unusually beautiful woman. I’m not.”

  “That’s not what all the men think.”

  “Tell it to the English lords. They thought I was about as comely as a wart.”

  Penny shook her head in disagreement.

  “I know the kind of woman who attracts men,” Penny said emphatically. Then she added sadly, “And I know the kind who doesn’t.”

  The tone of Penny’s voice said that she considered herself one of the unattractive women.

  Frowning, Elyssa turned to kneading a second batch of dough. While she worked, she thought of what it must have been like for Penny to grow up in the shade cast by Gloria Sutton’s sun.

  “A man who looks only at the outside of a woman isn’t worth having,” Elyssa said after a time.

  “That’s the only kind of men there are.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Penny. You’ve turned down half the hands who ever worked on the Ladder S!”

  “They only looked at me after they gave up mooning over your mother. If they gave up.”

  Tight-lipped, Penny ground harder on the coffee beans. The combination of sadness and acceptance in her expression told Elyssa more than words.

  “Who was he?” Elyssa asked.

  “What?”

  “Who was the man who couldn’t see past Mother to you?”

  Penny went very still for an instant. Then she poured the last measure of ground coffee into the pot on top of the stove and added more wood to the firebox. Soon the water went from simmering to a hearty boil.

  “What was it about this new ramrod—what is his name again?” Penny asked.

  The crisp, no-nonsense voice was the old Penny.

  Elyssa let out a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding. If Penny came apart under the strain of outlaws and an old friend who drank too much…

  It didn’t bear thinking of.

  We’ve lost too much to lose each other, too, Elyssa thought. Father. Mother. Mac. Uncle Bill, in all the ways that matter.

  I can’t lose Penny.

  “Hunter,” Elyssa said quickly, accepting the change of subject. “No mister. No last name. Or maybe no first name. He didn’t make it clear.”

  “Is that why he struck you as rude? You know it’s the western way to be informal.”

  Elyssa’s cheeks pinked with more than the heat of the stove. She could hardly explain about the snagged skirt and Hunter’s forearm under her breasts and his eyes watching her nipples stand so hard against the soft cloth.