by Merry Farmer
Jarvis couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, she is.”
“Who’s she in mourning for?”
Jarvis paused, eyebrows raised, surprised young Franklin had picked up that one so much faster than he had. It didn’t feel right to go telling stories, especially when he knew it would give the kid ideas, but he was obliged to say, “Her husband.”
“Oh,” Franklin said, sympathetic, and then a more enthusiastic, “O-oh.”
Jarvis shook his head and led Franklin’s horse on to the fort’s stable. He supposed he’d been young and eager once too.
It turned out that Franklin was more than eager, about several things. The young man had nothing to do but follow Jarvis around for the rest of the afternoon, getting in the way and asking questions. Chief among them was, “Isn’t anyone going to do anything?”
By the time they were seated at one of the long tables in the mess hall, eating dinner—a dinner Jarvis wondered if Alice had helped to prepare, since he hadn’t seen her for the rest of the day—Jarvis had reached the end of his patience with the young man.
“What makes the situation so all-fired desperate that we need to drop everything and head out there?” he asked, doing his best not to sound as annoyed as he felt.
Franklin, who had been picking at his mess hall food with a sneer, put his fork down and said, “My father and my Aunt Ginny are important people. They’re also stubborn people and… and rash.”
Franklin’s father sounded like the exact opposite of Jarvis’s father.
“They’re brother and sister, right?” Jarvis tried to wrap his brain around the situation. “Why would a brother and sister come to blows over something like a land dispute?”
Franklin looked at him as though Jarvis only had half a brain. “Sibling rivalry is the worst kind of rivalry. I know I battle with my sister, Lucy, though she’s in Cincinnati right now with mother’s family.”
Jarvis fought not to grin at how young Franklin looked complaining about his sister. “I suppose I’ve gotten into some brawls with my sisters before, though I was the baby of the family, so mostly they were too protective.”
“Yes, well, Aunt Ginny likes to shoot things,” Franklin blustered on. “And Father isn’t opposed to shooting back. The reason I came out here is so that I don’t end up a partial orphan.” He emphasizes his point by picking up his fork and jabbing it into the dry steak on his plate.
Jarvis chewed his food in silence, mulling it all over. He doubted the problem was as bad as Franklin made it out to be. The young man was probably just jumpy because he wasn’t getting his way somehow. It didn’t sound like something that was worth diverting much-needed militia time and attention to. A trip out to a remote ranch to visit with two cantankerous wealthy people was hardly—
He stopped chewing and then swallowed as the idea struck him. A trip out to these ranches would be nothing more than a diversion. A diversion in beautiful country with people who had the dollars to make it everything it should be. Plus, a woman was involved. So a woman might be needed to smooth things over. A woman who was in desperate need of something to do to escape her sadness… and to see how promising life as the wife of a farmer could be.
“I’ll volunteer to come out and help you,” he told Franklin, speaking slowly as the idea formed itself.
Franklin had his glass of cider to his lips, and swallowed before saying, “You… you will?”
“Absolutely. Sounds like what you need is someone experienced with farms and families. I come from a big family, so I’m qualified. I’ll petition Col. Connor to see if he can spare me.”
“Thank heavens,” Franklin exclaimed, letting out a breath as though someone had finally come to their senses and supported him in his own self-importance.
“And what’s more,” Jarvis went on, “I’m going to see if Mrs. Porter will come with us.”
Franklin’s righteous indignation popped to open-mouthed surprise. “Mrs. Porter?” Each second that ticked by spread more delight across his face.
“Sounds to me like this situation could use a woman’s touch,” Jarvis said. Not to mention that Alice needed a break. A break in which he would be good and sure to prove himself to her.
“You think she’d come?” Franklin asked, cheeks pink and eyes bright, like a schoolboy with a crush.
All right, there were some calculated dangers involved in this whole expedition, but Jarvis was sure he could handle Franklin Haskell.
“The only way to find out is to ask her,” Jarvis said.
They finished their supper in a hurry, focused on eating instead of talking. A sliver of doubt hung on at the back of Jarvis’s mind that Col. Connor wouldn’t spare him to ride out and solve the dispute, but that was balanced by the fact that things had been quiet in the last month or so. The local Indian tribes hadn’t been causing anyone trouble, and the fort had been little more than a glorified supply depot for wagon trains. Surely the colonel could spare one man for a couple of days.
As soon as their supper dishes were cleaned up, Jarvis took Franklin out of the mess hall and down the row of buildings to the barracks where Alice and her father had been staying. He was unsurprised to find the two of them together, Alice reading to her father from a month-old newspaper. A tray of used supper dishes sat discarded on one of the empty beds.
As soon as Alice saw Jarvis and Franklin, she stood. Her cheeks flushed pink when she met Jarvis’s eyes, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she bit her lip. A bolt of longing shot through him. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from her lips for a moment.
“Mrs. Porter, good evening.” Franklin spoke before Jarvis remembered where he was. “This must be your father.”
“Good evening, Mr. Haskell, Jarvis.” Her lashes fluttered for a moment as she fought not to look at Jarvis. She cleared her throat and said, “Yes, this is my father, Mr. Arthur Sutton.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Sutton,” Franklin charged on. He stepped up to the side of the bed—too close to Alice for Jarvis’s liking—and thrust out a hand to Alice’s father. “Franklin Haskell, son of Howard Haskell.”
Mr. Sutton looked Franklin up and down, sharp enough to take in his measure with the glance. He lifted a hand—still weak from his illness—and shook Franklin’s.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said with perfect city manners. “What brings you to our unexpected home away from home this evening?”
“Sir, I want to take your daughter away,” Franklin blurted before Jarvis had a chance to lay out the situation.
“What?” Alice gasped.
Her father frowned.
“Um, that is….” Franklin fumbled.
“Franklin’s father and his aunt are having a dispute over some land,” Jarvis jumped in to save the situation. “Franklin is concerned it will come to no good unless someone from the outside steps in to mediate the dispute. Have I got that right?”
“Yes.” Franklin nodded.
“So I thought I’d volunteer to go,” Jarvis went on, “and it dawned on me that Alice might make the perfect addition to this mission of mercy.”
There was a heavy silence, then Alice said, “Me?” She lifted a hand to her chest, eyes wide and startled.
“Sure.” Jarvis switched to a friendlier, more coaxing tone. “A woman is involved in the dispute, so a woman should help solve it. You’re just biding your time here, but if you came out to this ranch with me and Franklin, you might be able to do some real good. And you could see how a western farm works,” he added with a wink.
Alice opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She glanced to her father, mouth closing. Then she took a breath and smoothed her hands along the black of her skirt.
“I’m flattered that you would ask, but I couldn’t.”
Jarvis, Franklin, and Alice’s father all protested at the same time. So much that Alice blinked and stepped back.
“It would be wonderful if you could come,” Franklin argued. “Really wonderful. You’d like the ranch. I could show you our priz
e steer, the horses I’ve been training, so many things.”
“You said you liked this country,” Jarvis added, darting a teasing glance to Franklin, then to Alice as if they were in cahoots.
“Well, I….” Alice fumbled.
“Go with them, my dear.” Her father’s soft whisper spoke louder than any protest Jarvis or Franklin could mount. “You shouldn’t wile away your days looking after me when all I need is rest.”
“But Papa.” She sank to sit on the side of his bed, taking his hand in both of hers. “You’ve been sick. You need me.”
“I have been sick,” he conceded, “but Ft. Bridger has a talented doctor. What it doesn’t have is much for you to do that a hired girl couldn’t do.”
“I don’t mind working,” she told him, glancing up to Jarvis and adding, “Really, I don’t. It keeps me occupied.”
“So would riding out to this ranch with us to settle the dispute,” Jarvis said with a shrug.
Alice let out a breath. If Jarvis wasn’t mistaken, her gaze drifted down to his lips, then farther down to his chest and even lower before snapping back to her father.
“Are you sure you could spare me, Papa?” she asked.
Mr. Sutton smiled and raised his hand to pat Alice’s cheek. “I wish I could say no and keep you—and Emma and your mother—by my side always, but you’re a grown woman with your own mind. I know Harry’s death was a blow to you, but it’s time you made new friends and saw more of the world.”
Those words hit Jarvis right in the heart. He hoped he could be half as good a father someday. Mr. Sutton could teach his father a thing or two.
Alice lowered her head, nodding, then forced a smile. “All right, Papa. If you think I should go, then I’ll go.”
“Perfect,” Franklin exclaimed, popping the stuffing right out of Jarvis’s tender mood. “I couldn’t be happier.”
The grin that tweaked the corner of Jarvis’s mouth wasn’t completely amused.
“Right,” he said. “In that case, I’ll go talk to Col. Connor at once, and if he agrees, we can head out in the morning. How long will it take us to ride out to the ranch anyhow?” he asked Franklin.
“A day and a half,” Franklin replied, looking at Alice as long as he could before dragging his eyes to meet Jarvis’s. “We’ll only have to sleep out one night. You’ll enjoy it though, Mrs. Porter—or can I call you Alice?”
Jarvis’s brow rose. The young man had some nerve.
Alice hesitated only a second before saying. “That’s fine.”
Jarvis thought Mr. Sutton chuckled for a moment before the sound turned into a coughing fit. It was the smartest reaction the man could have to Franklin’s uppity comment, all things considered.
“All right.” Jarvis pushed out a breath, already planning in his mind. “We head out after breakfast tomorrow.”
Chapter Six
It took Alice until they were about an hour out into the Wyoming wilderness the next morning to realize the first major flaw in Jarvis and Franklin’s plan. She was more than happy to help with the dispute, even though she knew nothing about farms and land and property law. She’d lend her wisdom where she could. No, the problem in the plan was a practical one. She didn’t know the first thing about horses.
“Don’t let it worry you,” Jarvis insisted as he rode his horse like a man who had been born in the saddle alongside the worn-out cart that they’d scrambled to find for her. The Conestoga and oxen would have been too slow for this trip. “We needed some way to bring along supplies anyhow.”
Alice arched an eyebrow in reply. The cart held her hastily-packed valise and a small crate of foodstuffs for their supper and breakfast. Their ‘supplies’ could have been carried in someone’s saddlebags.
She’d almost used her complete lack of horse knowledge as an excuse to stay behind. As exciting as the adventure was, and as curious as she was about what an established ranch in the wilderness might look like, she couldn’t shake the feeling that being alone with Jarvis—or as close to alone as she could be with Franklin flanking the other side of the cart—was a bad idea.
He’d kissed her. She’d done her best to avoid thinking about it, but when the memory of the heat and pressure of his lips refused to leave her own, when the comfort of his arms around her had shadowed her through the night, it was hard to forget.
She shook her head as though she’d whispered her thoughts aloud and forced herself to think of something else. Her father was doing better. That was something positive she could focus on. He’d been well enough to get out of bed and walk her to the door of the barracks and kiss her goodbye.
“Enjoy yourself,” he’d charged her. “Explore. Try those new things we talked about.”
Jarvis had been standing within earshot when her father had said that, and it did not help the situation that he grinned with curiosity.
“Don’t worry about me,” her father had gone on. “I’ll concentrate on feeling better and waiting for your mother and Emma. Why, by the time you return to the fort, I’m sure they’ll have caught up to us and we’ll be together as a family again.”
That was something else Alice could focus on as she drove the old cart on across the virgin landscape. Her family would be together again. She wanted to hug her little sister and kiss her mother so desperately she could feel it in her chest. And she wanted to introduce them to Jarvis too. Emma was wise beyond her years. She would know what to make of the kind, handsome militiaman from California. And Jarvis? She was certain he would—
She stopped herself with a huff. So much for thinking of something else to take her mind off of what it shouldn’t be dwelling on to begin with.
“Is something wrong?” Jarvis asked as he rode easily by her side.
“Something wrong?” Franklin echoed on her other side with a frown, as if frustrated he hadn’t noticed first. His expression quickly flashed to a charming smile. “Whatever it is, Alice, I can take care of it for you.”
“It’s nothing,” Alice said, glancing from Franklin to Jarvis, and then staring straight ahead at the back of the horse pulling her cart. “Nothing at all.”
“Because it sounded like something,” Franklin pushed.
Jarvis only smiled and brushed a hand across his mouth as if stifling a laugh. It would have been funny if she wasn’t the one on the receiving end of Franklin’s attention.
“I was just thinking about my sister,” Alice said, scrambling for a half-truth that would take the men’s attention off of her. “I hope her ankle has healed and she and mother are close to catching up to us.”
“Huh. What happened to your sister’s ankle?” Franklin asked. His mannish bravado slipped into boyish curiosity.
Alice peeked at Jarvis, who flickered an eyebrow, then took in a breath and turned to Franklin.
“We were about halfway across Nebraska when a terrible storm hit our wagon train, a storm and a tornado,” she said.
She spent the next hour and more regaling Franklin with stories of the storm, the journey across the prairie, and the colorful characters who had accompanied them. He couldn’t seem to get enough of the bad behavior of the rowdy miners, or the startling revelation that the man who had been pretending to be a reverend was actually a would-be claim-jumper and a thief. She told story after story until her throat was raw. Franklin may have lived in the heart of the frontier, but he listened as though he was a closeted city boy who had never set foot outside of his family’s garden.
Jarvis, on the other hand, listened with appreciation, nodding sagely at the conclusions she drew about why men would make the perilous journey west or why they would turn criminal. She didn’t mind talking on and on as long as he was listening. In fact, she was certain that she talked more during those couple of hours than she had during the entire year since Harry’s death.
They stopped just after midday, when they reached a small stream with fresh water.
“Park the cart right over there and I’ll unhitch Blossom so she can get a drink,�
�� Jarvis said, dismounting and leading his own horse to water. “We’ll get that cart across the stream after lunch.”
“I can make a fire for you if you’d like,” Franklin was quick to offer as he let his horse wander toward the stream on its own. He was too busy rushing to the side of the cart to help Alice down to make sure his mount had what it needed. “So you can cook lunch, you see,” he added.
“Thank you, but it’s so hot that I didn’t want to bring any food that would spoil on our trip,” Alice said with a polite smile. “I asked the fort’s cook for bread and hard cheese for lunch, and when we stop tonight, I’ll try to make bean stew with bacon.”
“Try?” Franklin asked, his enthusiasm fading.
“I’ve only just learned to cook on the trail,” she confided. “Sometimes I succeed, and sometimes I don’t.”
Down by the stream, Jarvis laughed. Rather than making her feel self-conscious, the sound filled her with warmth. They were in this together.
“I’ve had more than my fair share of practice cooking beans,” he said, leaving the horses, continuing to wander farther downstream instead of joining her and Franklin. “I’ll help if you need it.”
“Thanks.” Alice smiled and stretched her back. She searched for the best spot of shade to set up lunch, but after riding for hours in a rickety cart, she wanted to move around instead of sitting again. That and her black dress had made the sunlight oppressively hot.
“I suppose you’ll be looking forward to taking your clothes off,” Franklin said, as if guessing her thoughts. A beat later, he turned bright purple and stammered, “I… I didn’t mean taking your clothes off in the… in the improper way. I just meant that, since they’re mourning black, it’ll be a relief not to wear them.” He winced. “I mean, to wear something cooler.” He swore under his breath.
It took all of Alice’s willpower not to giggle at the young man’s slip, or at his rush to make things right. It was hard to fault Franklin for impropriety when he clearly had no idea what he was saying.
“Yes,” she answered. It was best to leave it at that.