by J. T. Marie
The Boss’s Daughter
By J.T. Marie
Published by JMS Books LLC
Visit jms-books.com for more information.
Copyright 2014 J.T. Marie
ISBN 9781611525922
Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com
Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.
All rights reserved.
WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.
This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
* * * *
The Boss’s Daughter
By J.T. Marie
For Mary/Walter and Mr. K’s daughter,
who didn’t get their happily ever after.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 1
The sky above the arroyo has turned a deep red by the time I realize how late it is. I’ve spent most of the latter part of the afternoon fixing a broken fence out in the lower pasture, taking my turn pounding the post into the ground while Paco rides around the cattle to keep them back. When I remove my hat and wipe my forehead with one grimy sleeve, Chavez gives me his broken-toothed grin. “You look like mierda, pibe,” he says in that sing-song accent of his.
I’ve learned enough Spanish since coming west to know when I’m being put down. “Your madre,” I say, which makes him snigger. The vaqueros have told me my accent’s atrocious. When I reply, “que te jodan,” that only makes them laugh harder.
After we put the planks back into the new fence post, Paco rides over and Chavez tells him something in Spanish I don’t catch. I hear the word pibe, so I know they’re talking about me. Pibe, it means boy, and is meant to be derogatory. I’m almost thirty without a hair on my face, and when they’re joking around with me, they say my skin looks like a baby’s bottom. But I’m a hard worker, putting in more than my fair share of the work around the ranch, and they believe me when I tell them I have Cherokee blood in me. That’s why my cheeks and jaw are still smooth this late in the day, when Chavez’s jowls are already dark with stubble, and even Paco has a little bit of fuzz above his upper lip. Once he asked how often I shave. I told him once a month whether I needed it or not. That earned me more laughter, but at least it shut him up.
Now I vault easily into the saddle of my mare, tugging on the reins to get her attention. Chavez gives the fence one final kick—he’s our foreman, and if the thing breaks again, he’ll be the one Boss Daddy blames. But the post holds, and Paco hands over the reins of his horse while he climbs up. Then the three of us turn our backs to the setting sun and head for the ranch house. Halfway there, the peal of the supper bell rings out across the land.
Paco and Chavez spur their steeds on further, but I’m in no rush. I don’t eat with the other ranch hands. I don’t bunk down with them, either. I have a room in town that has its own bed and a door that locks, and I can get fresh warm water for a bath once a week as part of my rent. I take my meals at the saloon, where I’ve become a regular fixture every evening for the past year. It was the first place I stopped at when I stepped off the train at Junction, and the food’s not half bad.
Trouble is, it’s not half good, either. But it’s cheap, and edible. Can’t ask for much more this far west.
By the time I reach the stables, Paco and Chavez are nowhere to be seen. Their horses are still saddled—in their haste to eat, they left the poor steeds to fend for themselves. So after I unsaddle my mare and brush her down, I give her a bucket of feed and take care of the other two. Stubs’ slop will be waiting for me no matter how late I get there, and no one else is expecting me tonight. More importantly, Boss Daddy will know those two vaqueros were too lazy to put away their horses, and he’ll know I did it for them. Which will keep me in his good graces. Given who he is in this part of the county, that’s exactly where I want to stay.
Since he owns almost all the land around these here parts—the ranch, the town and everything in it, even the railroad spur at Junction—in his good graces is a damn good place to be.
Once I’m finished with the horses, I head around to the pump beside the bunkhouse. I push my sleeves up to my elbows and prime the pump, then wash off my hands and forearms in the cold water. It feels wonderful on my hot, dusty skin, so I take off my hat and dip my head beneath the rushing spray. Cool tendrils trickle down the back of my neck and furrow under the collar of my shirt. I feel the icy chill harden my nipples beneath the rough cloth. As the pump runs dry, I shake the excess water out of my hair, then pull up my shirt a bit to rub my face with the relatively clean undershirt beneath.
It’s when I have my shirt up, my stomach exposed, that I realize I’m not alone.
Quickly I smooth down my clothing and turn to find Boss Daddy’s only daughter standing on the bunkhouse porch above me. She looks as fresh and pretty as a plucked daisy, her gingham dress clean and starched, her crinoline petticoats a rush of lacy foam above her buckled heels. Her long hair is pinned up in a bun at the nape of her neck, the color the same pale chestnut of the sandy ground in shadow. She has piercing eyes that seem to reflect the blue sky above.
The faintest smile toys at the corners of her heart-shaped lips when I catch her watching me. “Evening, Mr. Nat.”
I touch the top of my head, searching for my hat, but it’s hanging on the handle of the pump. I quickly pull it on, tugging it down over my ears, then almost immediately whip it off again and lower my head. “Evening, Miss Lucille,” I mumble. I don’t dare look at her direct.
When I don’t say anything further, she sighs. It’s a delicate sound, and it stirs my insides in ways I won’t let myself think about. “I ‘spect you’re just about ready to head on into town,” she says.
I nod. “Yes ‘m.”
She leans down over the porch railing and smiles at me. I stare hard at the ruffle on her skirts but I can feel that smile above me, as warm as the dying sun. “Mr. Nat,” she murmurs, “you can look up at me, you know. It’s just the two of us out here at the moment.”
“Boss Daddy’ll have my hide if I’m too friendly with you,” I mutter.
“Boss Daddy doesn’t have to know.”
Her voice is even lower than before, and I hear the rustle of her petticoats as she drops down to crouch in front of me. Before I know it, I’m no longer looking at her skirts but at her face between the slats in the porch railing. Her pretty features are framed by wisps of blowsy hair that managed to escape her bun. Her nose and cheeks and forehead are slightly darker than the rest of her skin, as if kissed by the sun. She’s the most beautiful lady in Junction—hell, in all the west, I’d reckon. How something so delicate and soft is descended from a hard, brass man like Boss Daddy is beyond me.
I clutch my hat in both hands and press it hard against my stomach. “I…uh, I really should go, Miss Lucille.”
She half-closes her eyes seductively. “Don’t you want to stay a while with me, Mr. Nat?”
Truth is, yes, I do. But her daddy isn’t the only thing I’m afraid of. “I must go,” I say, more sure of myself this time. For good measure, I plop my hat onto my head and turn away.
I don’t get far before I remember my manners. Turning back to her, I remove my hat again and bow. This time I don’t let myself get drawn into the prison of her gaze. “Good night, Miss Lucille.”
She’s still squatting in a very unladylike manner, and when she sighs, she leans her forehead against the railing. “Good night, Mr. Nat. Pleasant dreams.”
Her words chase me all the way into town.
Chapter 2
The walk from Big Daddy’s BDT ranch into the clutch of weathered, board-faced buildings that make up the small town of Junction takes just under twenty minutes. It’s a little more than a mile away, and the only transportation in town are Big Daddy’s horses and the train that runs through Junction twice a week. All the ranch hands except for me live in the bunkhouse on the property. I walk the quiet road between the BDT and Junction twice a day, early in the morning before the sun’s barely peeked over the mountains and again in the evening, when the shadows lengthen around me. The other hands come into town on payday, when they head to Stubs’ to blow their hard-earned cash on cards, money, and women.
Or, well, woman. A town as small as Junction really only has room enough in it for one girl down at the saloon. Most nights Maddy doesn’t have to work; she just perches on the edge of the bar and surveys the empty room with hooded eyes. But she makes up for it when the rail rides through, and when Big Daddy pays out his boys.
With my hands shoved deep into the front pockets of my dungarees, I round the last curve in the road and Junction spreads out before me—a dozen rickety facades propped against each other on either side of the dirt road, looking for all the world like crooked, rotted teeth. The boardwalks out front are weathered and worn, and there’s an old, well-worn nag tied to the hitching post outside Miss Barbour’s boarding house. Hers is at the end of the street closest to me, and as I pass by, the horse’s tail slaps at me like I’m some sort of annoying fly. The horse is her nephew’s, which means he’s sniffing around for money again. The shiftless boozer hasn’t worked an honest day his whole life. Why a kind, old lady like Miss Barbour still lets him sweet-talk her out of her pension and rental earnings, I’ll never know.
Past the boarding house, where I rent a room upstairs, is the general store, then the post office, then the sheriff’s. Stubs’ is on the opposite side of the street, along with the stables, the smithy’s, and the whitewashed boards of the Junction church. A smattering of homes stretch out beyond where the boardwalk ends on either side of the street, a cushion between the town and the small railroad depot straddling the road at the farthest edge.
I head for Stubs’. It’s early, and as usual, I’m the only customer. When I push through the swinging doors, Maddy turns on her barstool with a hopeful gleam in her eyes that dies when she sees me. She wears a faded petticoat and not much else. One strap slips off her shoulder, and she pushes it back into place as she sort of grimaces at me. Her henna-dyed hair is piled on top of her head in a messy array of corkscrew curls, and the kohl around her eyes looks smudged.
“Hey there, Nat,” she calls. Then she turns back around, dismissing me.
“Hey yourself.” I nod at the older man behind the bar. “Stubs.”
He nods in return. With his thick, white hair slicked back and his dapper beard, he looks like a Southern gentleman. But the rolled-up sleeves and suspenders stretched over his rotund belly contradict that image. His voice is gravelly and deep in a way mine will never be. “Nat. There’s oxtail stew tonight.”
I take a seat at the bar, leaving a stool between myself and Maddy. “Great, thanks.”
As Stubs disappears through the door behind the bar leading to the kitchen, I feel Maddy watching me. I know what’s coming even before she slides across the empty stool between us. Her hand strums up my back gently, almost as if she’s afraid of spooking me away. “Nat Allen,” she sighs, suddenly so close to my ear. “What’s a girl have to do to catch your eye?”
Carefully I push my hat back a little, hoping the movement will cause her to pull away. It doesn’t. “Aww, Maddy,” I drawl, “I had a long day, and there’ll be more of the same tomorrow. I can’t tonight.”
Her hand hooks over my shoulder and she hangs against my side. “You can’t any night. I told you, the first one’s free. My treat. After that…”
I scoot over a little, trying to put some much-needed distance between us. “After that, I know you’d spoil me for anyone else,” I joke. “What if I fall for you? I can’t take that chance.”
With a breathy laugh, Maddy runs her hand down my side, tickling my ribs through my shirt. I pull away more, until only her fingertips brush over me. “Give me a chance,” she purrs. “I know a big, strong man like you has to need a woman’s touch now and then.”
I’m neither big nor strong, at least not for a man, but before I can correct her, Stubs pushes through the kitchen door, a bowl of dark, greasy soup in one hand. “Get off him, woman!” he shouts, plopping down the bowl in front of me. Then he waves his bar towel at her, as if that will scare her off. “Let a man eat in peace, will you?”
Maddy huffs as she returns to her original stool. “I’m bored here,” she declares, raking the empty saloon with her gaze. “Train’s not coming for another two days, and none of you cowboys will have any money until the end of the week. What am I supposed to do?”
“Mop the floors like I hired you for back in the day,” Stubs counters. He pours me a mug of cheap beer and sets it with a thud beside my bowl. Suds slosh down the side to puddle on the weathered bar. “Wash the damn dishes. Beat the rugs—I rolled them all up for you yesterday and you said they’d get done soon.”
“They will,” Maddy grouses. She gives me a pleading look I try to ignore as I eat. The soup isn’t tasty, but it’s hot and filling, and goes down well after the day I’ve had. “Nat, please. I’m begging here. One night. We can even go back to Miss Barbour’s, if you want.”
I shake my head. Then, as if it’s the reason why I can’t, I say, “Her nephew’s in town. I saw his horse.”
Maddy’s eyes widen with interest. “Really? What’s his name again?”
“Charles,” I say.
From behind the bar, Stubs grunts, which is what passes for laughter from him. “Cheap Charlie, a no-good, broke-ass, lazy son of a bitch if I ever saw one. If you’re looking to strike it rich, woman, just keep looking. He’s probably here to beg money from Miss Barbour, the lousy cad.”
“Broke or not, at least he’s something different,” Maddy points out. She lays a hand on my arm. “Nat, introduce us.”
I sort of shrug. “I don’t rightly know him.”
“Invite me up, then,” she says, brightening to the idea. “We’ll bump into him on the way and I’ll introduce myself.”
Though spending the evening with Maddy is the last thing I want to do, having Charles Barbour “steal” her away from me is a close second. Stubs is right—the guy’s bad reputation precedes him, and I might not be a ladies’ man, but the thought of being cuckolded, even in jest, rankles. “I really c
an’t,” I say, shooting Stubs a look of mute appeal.
“You got work to do here,” Stubs reminds her. “If he comes in, fine. But I won’t have you go looking for him. Bastard probably don’t have a red cent to pay you with, anyway.”
I smirk. “Ah, but the first time’s free, ain’t it, Maddy?”
She gives me a dark look. “Price just went up. Tell him to stop in for a drink, can you do that, at least?”
“If I see him,” I promise, hoping I don’t.
Chapter 3
I never stay long at Stubs’. By the time I leave, a few regulars have arrived, and Maddy drifts away from the bar to hang around their card table as if hoping they’ll deal her in. I manage to duck out without her seeing me, so she doesn’t get a chance to remind me to send Charlie down for a drink. Even from down the street, I notice his horse is gone, but I don’t know if it’s stabled or if he left town. I don’t care much, either.
The sun has set completely by the time I drift across the dirt road toward Miss Barbour’s. The night is quiet, the only sounds faint laughter from the saloon behind me and a lonesome cry of a train far off in the distance. My thoughts circle back to Miss Lucille, even though I’ve tried not to think about her since I left the ranch. I’ve never seen her alone before. On payday, she sits at a desk in the main house, an open ledger in front of her, and records the wages as Boss Daddy hands out our pay. I’ve tipped my hat at her a time or two, smiled back when she smiled at me, and maybe nodded if I caught sight of her on the porch while I was riding by. But our exchange this evening is the most I’ve said to her, ever. I know of her, of course—everyone does, she’s Boss Daddy’s little girl, though from the way she filled out her dress, I’d hazard to say she isn’t quite so little any more.
But I don’t really know her. Why did she bother to speak to me earlier? It’s just the two of us at the moment, she’d said. What did she mean by that?
Thankfully I slip into Miss Barbour’s boarding house without running into anyone, and when I lock the door to my room behind me, I let out a sigh of relief. I jiggle the door knob to check the lock, the way I always do, then cross the room to pull the curtains shut. In the near darkness, I strike a match and let the flame guide me to the lantern on my dresser, which sits among my effects. The razor I never use. The pipe I like to smoke in the evening. The book of poetry I borrowed from Miss Barbour’s study, a piece of flannel between the pages marking my place. A battered harmonica, a comb with a dozen missing or broken teeth, a handful of change that will be just enough to by me a few meals at Stubs’ before I get paid again.