Her Wild Journey_Seeing Ranch series

by Florence Linnington

  “Since my time here?” He gave it some thought. “Right about now. Mid-October.”

  He could feel Gemma’s eyes on him. “Where do you come from, anyway, Beau Johnson?”

  Beau gave her a smile. “Far away.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Same old Beau. He always gives as little information as he can.”

  “When you talk about yourself, you give others advantage over you.”

  “That is a good thing, in my opinion.” Gemma rearranged her skirts.

  For her, he was sure it was. Gemma had a knack for making friends. She was good at opening herself up and letting others in.

  “You’re a sweet woman, Gemma Reed.”

  “Thank you for driving me into town today. I’ve just been so tired lately, what with that barn raising and working so hard to get the winter flannels made for everyone. I thought my hands were going to fall apart from all that carding. I just felt like I needed a break, if only for an hour.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  As they neared town, Beau scanned the streets. It had only been a day since he was last in Shallow Springs and he was still thinking about the blonde woman. Why had she come to Shallow Springs? Did she have family out here? And how long was she planning on staying for?

  Beau ran his tongue across his gums. They were silly thoughts. Pointless ones. The kind that would only distract him. The kind that were sure to bring him pain.

  “Beau?”

  “Mm-hmm?”

  “I’ve been wondering something. I hope you don’t mind if I ask...”

  He waited.

  “Do you mind?”

  “I don’t know what the question is.”

  “Why do you never receive any mail? Do you not have relatives back… well, wherever ‘far away’ is?”

  Beau chuckled. “You don’t let up.”

  “You do not have to answer, of course.”

  “My parents died years ago. Does that answer satisfy you?”

  “Somewhat. What about—”

  “We’re here,” he announced, taking the wagon to a grassy yard next to the new feed store.

  “What about siblings?”

  “Don’t have them.”

  Gemma frowned. “Oh. I see.”

  “What did you say you have to do in town again?”

  “Go to the general store.”

  “Right. I’ll wait for you right here.”

  Gemma wore an unsatisfied look, but he wasn’t about to take the bait. Instead, he jumped down and helped her from the wagon. With her off on her way, basket draped over her arm, he settled into the back of the wagon and pulled his hat down over his eyes. It was cold, but not so cold that he couldn’t get a few minutes of shut-eye. Once they got back to the ranch, there would be hours more of work to go before supper.

  There was a hard rock in his stomach and he knew why it had formed. He didn’t like lying to Gemma. Hard as that was, though, it was still easier than the alternative.

  Beau couldn’t much speak the truth to someone else when he could barely think about it himself.

  The fact of the matter was that he, indeed, had siblings. Two of them. A sister and a brother. They’d all been really close growing up and had gotten along fairly well into their twenties.

  But then, things changed. Beau changed. He couldn’t blame anyone for that. Sometimes, circumstances were just too much for a person to handle. By the time he’d crawled out of the hole he’d found himself in upon coming to Wyoming years ago, things were different. He’d been out of touch with his siblings for a while and didn’t quite know how to reach out. Just writing a simple letter seemed hard.

  Back then, everything was hard.

  And now, it was just too late. Years had gone by. Neither one of his siblings wrote. He figured they resented him for the way he’d up and disappeared.

  It was fine. He understood. They were probably better off not hearing from him, anyway.

  Beau stretched his legs out, trying to get comfortable. It was colder than he had figured, though, and lying still just wasn’t an option. Giving up on a nap, he climbed from the wagon and walked around the yard a bit.

  A few minutes passed. He considered going into the hotel, maybe getting a cup of coffee to warm his blood up. There was a chance he would run into the blonde, though. She had gone into the hotel. Was she staying there?

  After a few minutes of just staring at the hotel, he went back to pacing, kicking against tufts of grass with the steel toes of his boots. A good while passed and the shadows grew longer. Still, Gemma had not returned.

  Beau sighed. “Gol’ dang it.”

  He should have expected this with Gemma. She was probably leading a singing group at the church or talking the sheriff’s ear off, her shopping at the general store long forgotten.

  With a huff, he set off to find her. The one bright side of the situation was that in such a small town, it didn’t take long to locate a body.

  Gemma was at the general store, all right. But she wasn’t shopping. She was standing out front, talking to a woman.

  A few yards from them, Beau stopped in his tracks. It wasn’t just any woman standing there. It was her. The hazel-eyed blonde.

  Getting turned inside-out shouldn’t have felt so good.

  Mid-sentence, Gemma noticed him standing there. “Beau!” She waved him over.

  “How you doing?” he asked, only briefly looking at the other woman. He felt her eyes on him, though, burning a hole right into the side of his face.

  Gemma, completely oblivious, beamed. “Beau Johnson, this is Cadence Hurley. She just arrived yesterday from Baltimore. We were just talking about it. Oh, I love Baltimore! It is so raw.”

  Cadence’s expression was flat. “Our paths briefly crossed yesterday.”

  “Oh, good, so you will have no problem at all getting along.”

  Right. No problem at all.

  Beau rubbed the back of his neck. “Are you about ready to go, Gemma? It’s getting on in the afternoon.”

  Her mouth fell open. “Gosh, I just lost track of time! I apologize. Yes, I am ready. We will need to swing by the hotel on the way out, though.”

  “Why is that?”

  Her eyes absolutely danced. “Cadence is coming to stay with us.”

  Surely, he had heard wrong. “Come again?”

  “She is the new schoolteacher. She is going to stay with us. Just for six weeks. Although, who knows? Maybe more.”

  “And, uh, when did this come about?”

  He still couldn’t find it in himself to look at Cadence. Lord, that was a beautiful name. Why did she have to have such a beautiful name?

  “Just now.”

  “What happened to the old schoolteacher?” Beau asked, more aggressively than he’d meant to.

  Gemma shrugged. “She is retiring or something. I do not know.” She gave him a sharp look, silently telling him to reel himself in. With a smile, she turned to Cadence. “Why don’t you go on to the hotel? We will come and get you there.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  Watching Cadence out of the corner of his eye, Beau took note that she was still only looking at Gemma.

  Once the other woman was out of earshot, Gemma turned on him. “What on earth is the matter with you? You were being so rude!”

  Beau ducked his head, shame coursing through him. Few people’s opinions mattered to him, but Gemma’s did. She might have talked too much, not thought things through enough, but in the year or so she’d been at Winding Path Ranch, she’d become its spirit. All the hands thought highly of her.

  “She seems decent enough, Gemma, but you just invited her home without even asking Mitch.”

  “And you think my husband will turn her out?”

  She had him there. “No,” he admitted. “Of course, he won’t. But six weeks… that’s a long time.”

  “It’s the amount of time any family houses the schoolteacher for.”

  “You’re talking about families who have childre
n. Families who have an invested interest in the school.”

  “I shall probably have children one day, and so will you.”

  Unlikely.

  “And there is space at the ranch. It is not as if having her there will be a trouble. Not with the new rooms we added on this summer.”

  She’d thought of everything, apparently.

  Beau looked down the road at Cadence Hurley, walking along the side of the street. With each right step she took, she dipped down some. Even though the limp had been the first thing he noticed about her the day before, since she’d been on his mind, he’d basically forgotten about it.

  “So, she came here to be the schoolteacher,” he slowly said, still watching Cadence.

  “Well… no, not exactly.”

  “Huh? What does that mean?”

  Gemma nervously licked her lips. “She came for another reason. But it does not matter.”

  “Since when do you not share news?”

  Gemma stared him down. “Since when do you care so much?”

  “Not answering that one.”

  She lifted her chin. “Miss Hurley arrived here under what were not the best circumstances. It is not up to me to divulge what those are. I do ask, though, Beau, that you do your best to be nice to her. She could really use it.”

  It was an assertive tone she hardly ever took. Pushing her loaded basket farther up her arm, Gemma took off for the wagon.

  Beau ran his hand across his face, a raw and ragged sigh leaving his chest. Another woman at Winding Path Ranch. He liked them just fine. Loved some of them. Clara, the housekeeper, and Gemma were part of the only family he had anymore.

  But this young woman… this Cadence Hurley… she wasn’t them. She was a stranger. Any number of things could happen with her around.

  And they could happen to him.

  Chapter Five

  5. Cadence

  Chapter five

  The moment Cadence came out of the hotel with her bag, Beau stepped forward. “I have that.”

  Not letting her respond, he took the bag from her hands and easily hoisted it into the wagon bed, making it look like it weighed nothing. Cadence blushed to remember their first interaction, which had been eerily similar to this one now.

  “Come.” Gemma smiled, offering her hand.

  Cadence accepted the woman’s help getting into the wagon. Thankfully, Gemma ended up in the middle, so Cadence and Beau did not have to sit too near each other.

  What had they talked about while Cadence had gone to fetch her belongings? Did Gemma now know about the tone of Beau and Cadence’s first run-in? She hoped not. Being the unsavory person that he was, she did not put it past Beau to speak disparagingly of her.

  Cadence kept her eyes straight ahead as they rode out of town. No matter. She had other things to think about. She was an employed woman!

  What was more, being a teacher, though not the highest profession in the world, was much better than being a maid. And Cadence loved children. That additional bit truly made the job a blessing.

  Gemma turned to her. “The ranch is called Winding Path. I have only lived there for a year and some months. I do think you will like it, though. Everyone just loves it.”

  “I am sure I will.”

  Cadence smiled back, happiness filling her. If the teaching job had been a blessing, running into Gemma Reed had been a miracle. Gemma had waved her down in front of the store, for no reason other than that Cadence was a new face. Once they got to talking, it did not take long for Cadence to reveal her whole story.

  Though she would be hesitant to share it with everyone, there was an ease and familiarity about Gemma. Even within the first few minutes of meeting, Cadence had felt Gemma was the kind of woman a person would wish for as a sister.

  What was even more eerie—but in a grand way—was the fact that Gemma herself had been a mail-order bride. She’d come to Shallow Springs from New York to marry her husband, whom she was, as Gemma put it, “horrendously in love with.”

  So, here Cadence was, riding home with a new job and a new friend who understood her travails. The luck was so much, it could not be believed.

  ...Except for the dark-haired, surly cowboy part.

  If Cadence had known Beau lived at Gemma’s ranch, she would have thought twice about accepting Gemma’s offer to spend the first six weeks there.

  “Do you like animals?” Gemma asked. “We have three dogs that were brought in last spring. All from the same litter.”

  “I must admit, I am more inclined toward cats.” Cadence had her eyes on Gemma, but she also surreptitiously watched the man driving the team. His jaw was set hard, his back tense.

  “There are a few barn cats,” Gemma responded. “But they all live outside. It would be nice to have at least one inside, though, wouldn’t it? A little critter to warm your feet on the cold days. Speaking of which…” She wrapped her arms around herself. “It is freezing out here! Beau, how cold do you think it is?”

  So much time passed, Cadence thought he wouldn’t answer.

  Finally: “Don’t know,” he grunted.

  “It must be ten degrees.”

  He smiled the slightest bit. “Right, Mrs. Reed. Ten degrees in mid-October.”

  “Stop acting formal,” Gemma chastised. “Cadence is good company. She is already our friend.”

  The tension returned to Beau’s face. He still had not looked at them once since getting in the wagon.

  Gemma turned fully sideways, putting her back to him. “I do think you will like the school,” she told Cadence. “You taught at one in Baltimore?”

  “No,” Cadence slowly answered. “I taught children in a household.”

  She held her breath, hoping Gemma wouldn’t mention the mail-order bride situation. Coming out west to marry a man was nothing to be ashamed of, but being turned down by that man—albeit for financial reasons—was a situation that was still too painfully fresh. She did not need more people than necessary knowing about it.

  Correction. She did not need Scowling Cowboy knowing about it.

  Gemma shared more information about the ranch as they continued, rolling out an impressive list of cattle numbers. The first hint of dark had just appeared across the land when they turned off the main road and took a drive that went up a slight hill.

  Gemma had not been exaggerating. The ranch truly was a beauty. The house was gigantic, the biggest log cabin Cadence had ever seen, and multiple barns took up the area to the right of it. Down another hill, two rows of what looked like one-room cabins stretched out. Beyond everything, to the west, south, and east, were fields and cattle.

  And then, of course, there were the Rocky Mountains. Cadence had observed them upon riding into Shallow Springs the other day, but there was something different about seeing them as the backdrop to a picturesque farm. They were just better that way.

  As the wagon rolled into the yard, Cadence’s heart beat its way up her throat. Would Beau try to help her down from the wagon? She did not want him to. Then again, if he did not at least try to perform his chivalrous duty, she would dislike him even more.

  Goodness, what was wrong with her?

  Before the wagon fully halted, though, a young blond man had emerged from the nearest barn. Coming closer, he removed his hat.

  “Is this what they’re selling at the general store now?” he asked. “Pretty ladies?”

  “Oh, Nat,” Gemma chastised. “Come, now.”

  Not apologetic in the slightest, he winked at Cadence and offered her his hand. She gladly accepted the help to the ground. Though she could not be sure, she felt Beau was watching her the entire time.

  Gemma cleared her throat. “Miss Cadence Hurley, Nathaniel is a hand here.”

  “It is a pleasure to meet you,” Cadence told him.

  “You as well.”

  Before she could say anything else, Beau stepped right between the two of them. “Nat, get the team in.”

  Nat nodded and went to unhitch the horses. Ca
dence tried to get a look at Beau’s face, but he had already turned and begun walking away. Plus, she was being pulled across the yard by Gemma.

  “We just added the back rooms on this summer,” Gemma was saying. “And the eastern one is all set up for guests. It has a quilt I stitched myself. My very first one.”