Carole Howey - Sheik's Glory
Page 15
"And then he brought you here?" Missy felt as light as if she had no body at all.
"Well, no, not right off," Lucy explained, shifting in her seat. "He's a gentleman, but you know he's not stupid. He quick sent a wire to Pierre to check on me. He apologized for that, but said he knew I understood that he couldn't have anybody with questionable character working out here at the C-Bar-C. Wouldn't be fitting, you being a maiden lady and all. Besides, he wanted to check with Micah I mean, Mr. Watts to see if he thought it'd be all right with you, my coming out here to cook. Meanwhile, he gave me enough money for dinner and a decent room for the night while he waited for his answers. The answer was, Mir. Watts came out the next morning in a buckboard to bring me here."
The silence in the room was tranquil, not at all like the tense stillness that had preceded Lucy's revelation. Missy wanted to laugh, she felt so joyful. To discover that not only was Flynn not a shameless philanderer, but that he was actually a thoughtful and compassionate gentleman raised her spirits enormously.
"I felt it best that I come clean with you about all of this, because I guessed you'd be wondering, and I can imagine what you must have thought, coming home to a cook in the family way," Lucy was saying. Missy forced herself to concentrate on the words, and to meet the girl's gaze. She hoped her relief and her delight were not as obvious as she felt they surely must be. When Lucy said nothing else, Missy blushed, for she knew she must say something, even though the notion of forming a sensible comment seemed impossible to her.
Moreover, what could she say? That she had been thinking the worst? Worse, possibly, than even Lucy herself might have imagined? Missy felt a renewed wash of shame at her jealous assumptions. She thought of her earlier remark to the girl, about honesty being the best way to ensure a good night's sleep. Well, she'd forgo a night's sleep, she guessed ruefully, at the expense of her pride. And consider it well worth the price.
"You're a very lucky woman, Miss Cannon," Lucy ventured shyly.
"Me?" Missy was startled by the artless declaration. The truth was she didn't feel particularly lucky at the moment, just relieved. And a little ashamed. And very stupid.
"I mean . . ." Lucy hesitated, and if Missy had been forced to guess, she'd have said the girl was blushing, although of course it was impossible to tell by the light of the lamp. "You care about Mr. Muldaur a great deal. I could see that right off today, in the parlor. And that's what makes it so nice, you see, because I can tell he cares for you, too. I expect you’re that is, if you don't mind my asking, are you two engaged to be married? He never said anything about it, but then men seldom do, if you know what I mean. Take my Jed, for instance. He was"
"No, Lucy, Mr. Muldaur and I are not engaged to be married." Missy tried to sound casual with her interruption, but the sharp look of astonishment Lucy gave her convinced her she'd failed. Miserably. She had no choice but to look away. The brief silence that followed was torture as she felt Lucy's speculative gaze on her.
"Oh." The syllable was rich with layers of meaning. "I'm sorry." Lucy was kind, but testing. "Is it Mr. Boland, then?"
Missy did not know whether to be offended or amused. Lucy, after all, reminded her strikingly of another young woman in a position of service who had never known when to keep her mouth shut, either. She suspected that she and Lucy were going to become friends.
"No, not Mr. Boland either," she said, trying to keep a smile from her lips as she sent Lucy a chiding look. "Not that it's any of your business, but I expect to die an old maid, married only to my ranch and my horses. I learned a long time ago that horses are much less complicated and much easier to please than men. In any case, when you know me a bit better, you'll see that I'm far too independent for any man to find me attractive as a marriage partner, particularly one set in his ways like Bill Boland."
"What about one like Flynn Muldaur?"
Missy bit her lip to hold in a rude retort. Lucy must have noticed, for she quickly stood up, taking her lamp as she went. "I'm sorry. Jed was forever telling me my big mouth would get me in trouble someday and I should mind my own business. Looks like he was right. Bless him, but how I wish he was here to tell me so himself." She sighed and waddled to the door. "Good night, Miss Cannon. I'm pleased you let me get this off my chest and I hope you don't think the worse of me for it. I'm mighty glad to be here, and you can bet I'll do my best to make sure you have no cause to ask me to leave."
Missy guessed that meant from here out, Lucy would try to keep her speculations to herself. At least, she hoped it did.
"When is the baby due, Lucy?"
Lucy turned and patted her stomach fondly. "July," she replied with a smile, and Missy could only envy her serenity. "Good night, miss."
"Good night, Lucy." Missy followed her guest to the door and watched her waddle down the short hallway past Flynn and Gideon's room. The steps creaked under Lucy's weight and the light of her lamp soon faded down the stairs.
The house would be home to another soul in a few months, Missy reflected, quietly closing her door. And it already had at least one more than it needed. She wondered, as she climbed back into bed, how the C-Bar-C had been transformed from a hermitage to a hostel. She wasn't sure the change was for the worse.
Gideon woke up while it was still dark, but he had a feeling dawn wasn't far off. His stomach told him so. He listened to its familiar noises, remembering, as he always did of late, a time when its needs had not been so easily met. Stomachs were peskier than babies, he decided. No matter that they just had a gutful of supper the night before; they always wanted more attention come morning. Spoiled brats, that's what they were. Just like the rich kids he used to see in the streets of Louisville, riding in their carriages while he tried to dodge the wheels.
Flynn snored, he'd discovered during the night. He wondered if Missy knew that.
Damn, there'd been a time the day before when he'd thought they'd never leave off wrangling with one another! Made his head ache just to think of it. Good thing he'd faked that stomachache and kept their minds on him instead of how much they hated each other's guts.
Well, they didn't exactly hate each other's guts, Gideon amended, although he wasn't sure either of them realized that yet. Anyway, he knew for sure that he liked them both. He wasn't sure why he liked Flynn; after all, he didn't know him near as well as he knew Missy. But he'd been mighty impressed by the way Flynn had galloped into town hell-for-leather with that other fella who was sure too old for Missy anyway. And he liked the way Flynn had talked to him when he was sick, or pretended to be. He was a right enough guy.
And if Gideon was any judge at all, he was sure Missy thought so too, in spite of all her carrying on.
Funny, he mused in the darkness. In Annapolis at the Mannerses' place, he'd watched the big stallion Sheik mate with Glory. They hadn't seemed to like each other much, biting and rearing, snorting and backing off, but in the end they'd come together the way horses do. Gideon thought it was pretty mean of the handlers to stay with them while they'd done it, but Missy, who'd dragged him away as soon as she'd realized he'd hidden himself there to watch, told him it was for the horses' own good. They were expensive animals, she'd said, and high-strung. They might hurt themselves or each other if they weren't watched real close.
The cot creaked as Flynn shifted on it, and soon he was snoring again, making quiet, snuffling kinds of noises. Gideon decided he wouldn't mention that habit of Flynn's to Missy; she might not cotton to the notion of a husband who snored.
He crooked his arms beneath his head and wondered what the new day in a new place held in store for him. Missy had talked at dinner about school; he knew he didn't want that. She'd told him that most boys his age already knew how to read and that he had some catching up to do. The last thing he wanted was to sit in some dumb schoolhouse all day and make a damned fool of himself because he couldn't read and write. The other kids would sure laugh at him, and he didn't need that. No, sir. Anyway, he just wanted to hang around the ranch. Tend to Gl
ory. Get to know the place a little better. He already knew he liked the C-Bar-C, but there was still plenty about the place he didn't know, such as where the best hiding places were. Where a body could catch a smoke if he needed it or just get out of some chore or something even more unpleasant, like a bath, or going to church or to school.
Or a place where he could plot and plan how to get Flynn Muldaur and Missy Cannon together.
He wondered how close they'd have to be watched so they wouldn't end up hurting each other.
Gideon sat up in the bed and yanked his nightshirt over his head. He had plenty to do, he realized. And the day was already wasting.
Missy overslept, something she hardly ever did. It never failed to exasperate her when it happened, mostly because it happened at the most inconvenient times. She'd intended to take Gideon to the schoolhouse by nine. It was already nearly half past ten. She dashed down the stairs working the last of the buttons on her blouson. She was ravenously hungry for breakfast, but breakfast would have to wait. Where's Gideon?"
She burst into the kitchen to find Lucy in the midst of baking bread. The place smelled agreeably of yeast, and Lucy was placidly kneading a lovely white mound of dough. Three other loaves had already been set aside to rise, Missy noticed, and there were several more waiting their turn. The sight and the smell reminded Missy of how much she herself loved that task and, unfortunately, of how hungry she was.
"Oh, good morning, miss," Lucy sang out, so cheerfully that Missy, despite the fact that she'd decided she liked the girl, wanted to strangle her. "I guess it was so nice to be back in your own bed that you decided to sleep in. Everyone else is up and gone; Gideon slipped out while I was just starting the stove for breakfast. There's a bowl of oatmeal mush for you under a tea towel in the dining room, and there's a fresh pot of coffee"
"No time," Missy interrupted through her teeth. "I expect Gideon's out with Glory. I'll find him. But if he should come through here"
"I have a sweet roll and a glass of buttermilk that ought to hold him," Lucy assured airily as Missy went out the back door.
The sun was warm, but the midmorning May breeze was cool. Missy wished she'd grabbed her old coat from the peg by the door before she'd run out; her habit, with its mustard brown blouson, coffee-colored pant skirt, and matching vest, was comfortable and easy to work in, but it provided little protection against cold. She'd not need such protection when she worked, of course, but now even her energetic stride was not enough to warm her. She hunched up her shoulders and folded her arms about her to hold in what warmth she could.
Gideon was not in the stable, but then neither was Glory. Hamper was, though, raking down new hay from the loft. He paused in his labors to talk to her, resting the palm of one hand on the end of the rake handle and planting his stubbled chin on his gloved knuckles.
"That boy must asked me about a thousand questions, I guess, from how cold is the water in the cistern to do I know how to read and write," Hamper told her wearily, pushing his hat back with the other hand. "I swan, Miss, he'd like to drive me loco. He's real good with that Glory you brung home, though. Jim had a hell of a time last night with her, but this mornin' Gideon was right here takin' care of her like he was her mama. She was right good-natured about it, too, which is more'n I’d’ a been with that boy yakkin' my ears off."
Missy smiled. Rich Hamper was no slouch when it came to talking, himself.
"Did he take her out to pasture?"
"Sure did." Hamper applied his back to his work once again. "Wouldn't surprise me if he means to be a daddy to her foal. That'd be all right with me; the biI mean, she took a nip outta my arm last night." Missy noticed that Hamper softened the word he'd started to use. She didn't mind a few hells and damns, in fact she often used those expressions herself, but there were worse ones she avoided, and the hands seemed to try not to use them in her presence. She hoped the men would extend their prudence to Gideon now that he was here, and she was sure she did not have to school them in their behavior around Lucy. Flynn said they liked her. Come to think of it, where was he this morning?
"She looks real peaceful-like," Hamper was continuing, referring, she knew, to Glory. "But then she turns on you all mean for no reason."
"Just like a foaling mare," Missy reminded him with a chuckle. She debated her next question. "Has Flynn been about?"
Hamper shrugged, but otherwise did not break the rhythm of his work. "Not as I've seen. Saw him at breakfast, a'course. But not since. You'll be workin' with them yearlings today, I expect? Micah said to take 'em to the paddock near the ring."
"That's fine," she told him, realizing that she was not as interested currently in her prized yearlings as she was in the whereabouts of her partner. "I'll look in on them when I can, but I may not get to them for a few days."
Hamper nodded his acknowledgment, and Missy started to go.
"Oh, Rich?"
"Miss?"
"Do you know how to read and write?"
Hamper grinned his gap-toothed smile. "Hell, no! Why?"
Missy smiled ruefully. "Just wondering. Thank you."
Gideon had certainly filled out since she'd first seen him in Louisville, Missy realized, watching the boy tempt Glory in the pasture with a wild barley stalk. But he still looked small and wiry beside the mare. She didn't know any other 12-year-old-boys although Gideon still professed to be 14 so she had no way of knowing whether or not he was undersize for his age. She did know, however, that while she still had a long way to go before she could claim to understand him, she had already begun to love him. She only wished she knew better how to show him that she did.
"You were supposed to go to school today, young man!"
Gideon, still 20 or more yards from her on the other side of the fence, looked up. His relaxed, playful expression was immediately guarded.
"Ain't goin' to no school."
"You most certainly are."
"Am not." Gideon ambled through the new grass to the fence where Missy waited. Glory followed for a few steps, then discovered something interesting to nibble on. Gideon concentrated on an old termite tunnel, poking at it with his fingernail.
''Rich can't read or write," he told her, as if that settled the matter. "Neither can Jim. Don't guess they need to, workin' a place like this."
"Working a place like this for me." Missy corrected him, resting her arms on the fence rail that came to his forehead. He sent her a glance.
"For you and Flynn, you mean."
"The point is, Gideon, they work for the C-Bar-C. If they had more education, they might be running a place of their own, or they might have a different sort of job altogether, using their brains instead of their backs. Here, they work under Mi. Mi's the foreman; he makes more money than the others. One reason is because he can read and write. I can entrust him with other responsibilities because of it."
"Yeah? Like what?" Gideon was skeptical. He picked a winged termite out of the splintered top rail and held it up to the sunlight with two fingers, examining it. Not fond of insects, Missy mastered a shudder.
"Lots of things."
"Name one."
"Oh, Gideon, really!"
Gideon flicked the termite away on a breeze and climbed up on the middle rail, giving her a speculative look.
"Can you read?"
"Of course."
"Can Flynn?"
Missy felt obliged to look away from Gideon's too probing gaze.
"You always get red in the face when I talk about him, you know that?" Gideon chuckled.
"I do not!" Missy was mortified.
"Yeah, you do," Gideon assured her, rocking back, catching himself on the top rail with his hands each time. "Well, can he?"
"Can he what?"
"Read!" Gideon laughed once more. "See, you're all red again!"
"I am not!" She pressed her fingers to her face. Her cheeks were warm.
"Are too!"
"Am not!" She reached over and tried to knock the cap from his head.
Missy ducked between the fence rails and was after him.
He was quick and cunning, no doubt from experience dodging policemen and such, but he was also laughing, which made one weaker and less cautious than usual. Besides, he didn't seem to be trying very hard to elude her. She tackled him by midfield, and they both fell, giggling, to the new grass. Inspired, Missy started tickling his side. Gideon tried to roll away from her but she held him fast, and in moments he was laughing so hard she thought he might suffocate.
"Leave off! Leave off!" he gasped to the sky. "I give!"
Missy collapsed beside him, but she did not take her arms from about him. To her delight, he did not try to pull away from her. She moistened her parched lips with her tongue and listened to the sounds of their panting breaths as they recovered from the run. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched an inchworm measure a short blade of grass.