Her Western Heart_Seeing Ranch series

by Florence Linnington

  “I’m done!” John Lee nearly shouted. “Sit here, Miss Campbell.”

  “I’m done, too,” Nat smiled. “Have a seat here.”

  Beau plopped down in Nat’s offered seat. “I need you two out with the cattle anyway. First shift. I’ll be out around midnight for the second one.”

  Both men frowned, but moved to the door without any protests.

  Pulling one of the available seats out, Mitch looked to Gemma and gave her a smile.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, settling in. Mitch pushed her in slightly and took the seat on her right. It was the closest they’d been since sitting atop Lady. Mitch found his body buzzing over being so near her again.

  “How are you liking it here, Miss Gemma?” Henry asked.

  “It’s wonderful,” she sighed. “Winding Path has to be the most beautiful place on Earth.”

  Mitch turned to look at her in surprise. Going off the look on her face, she was being genuine. She really did think Winding Path was that amazing.

  “The food’s not bad, either,” someone jovially added. Mitchell didn’t see who because he couldn’t take his eyes off Gemma. Noticing, she locked eyes with him. Caught staring, he quickly dropped his face.

  “I can’t wait to see each nook and cranny of it,” she softly said, so low only he could hear her.

  Mitchell looked back up, straight into her eyes. “I’ll show you all of it.”

  She nodded silently, the promise seeming bigger than what would meet the eye. It was more than an offer for a tour of the ranch. Though small, it was the first act that was securing their future together.

  “When?”

  “Uh...” Mitch hesitated.

  “Tonight?” she eagerly asked.

  “It’s… well, it’s going to be awfully dark after supper.”

  Gemma gripped the back of her chair, ready to go. “I am not even hungry. I can skip supper. Clara had me eat some of her pie earlier.”

  A smile pulled at Mitchell’s lips, but at the same time, a weight tugged on his heart.

  “I’ll take you real soon. I promise.”

  “Tomorrow?” she hopefully asked. There was something child-like in the eager way she turned his face to his, her eyes shining with anticipation. He hated to let her down, but he just didn’t have time to show her around the ranch. Not unless she shadowed him all day long, and when it came to his endless list of tasks, there was no place for a woman.

  It near killed him to have to tell her how busy he was. He just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t face the look on her face when he told her he had to get hustling, that there was no time for fun.

  But he had to. There was just no way around it.

  “I have to get back out there myself,” he announced, putting his hat on and grabbing a plate with the slice of chicken pie he’d eat on his walk back to the barn.

  She frowned. “You just got here.”

  “It’s a busy time right now. I’ll take you around real soon.”

  Gemma nodded, but her shoulders had dropped and she wasn’t looking at him. “I understand.”

  “Real soon,” he repeated.

  She nodded again, the previous light in her eyes now nothing more than a dim flicker. Mitchell’s heart felt like it was twisting in on itself.

  “You’d get that pretty dress all dirty, anyway,” he said.

  She glanced down at it. “I don’t care about this.”

  The statement made Mitchell feel even worse for some reason. He had to get out of the house before he hated himself even more for what he was doing.

  “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “See you in the morning,” she lightly said, turning away quickly and facing the other end of the table.

  Limbs heavy, Mitchell trudged out the door. Beau wouldn’t be far behind. Though the two younger ranch hands were out guarding the cattle, Mitch needed to ride around the ranch’s perimeter to see if he could find any clues that might lead him to the rustlers.

  As he pushed down the dark hill, Gemma’s disappointed face was all he could see. She was probably wondering just why he’d ordered a wife if he had no time to spend with one. Especially considering he already had a housekeeper, so he was in no need of a woman to take care of household chores.

  What would Gemma think if she knew he’d almost written her back, telling her not to come out west? That he knew weeks ago he didn’t have the attention to give to a bride, that he’d only waited her arrival because it had been too late to cancel her trip?

  One day, he promised himself. One day, he would give Gemma everything she deserved. Until then, he’d break his back making it happen.

  15

  15. Gemma

  Chapter Fifteen

  Eyes still closed, Gemma tossed the heavy blanket from her and rolled over, embracing the coolness of her pillow.

  Light pierced her eyelids and she groggily flung an arm over her face to block it out. Why was it so bright in her room?

  Hettie or one of the other maids always came up and closed her curtains before she went to sleep. Had they forgotten?

  Rubbing her face, Gemma slowly sat up, the blurry room around her gradually becoming sharp. That wardrobe. That chair. They weren’t hers.

  “Oh,” she said simply to herself, still in shock over waking up in a new room.

  Despite nights already spent away from New York, somehow, she’d still woken up thinking she was in her old bedroom. But she wasn’t. She was in her new home, starting her new life.

  Swinging her feet to the floor, she ran to the window and looked out it. The large vegetable patch was just visible from the corner, and some horses could be seen not too far away. A smile enveloped Gemma’s face.

  Yes. Her new home.

  Quickly, she shucked her nightgown and pulled on her dress, grateful that she’d thought to bring such a simple frock. Even though Clara wore a full skirt, Gemma didn’t want one to get in her way on the farm. Not when she had creeks to wade in and horses to ride bareback.

  “Good morning,” she sang out as she entered the dining room. But no one answered. It was empty.

  And so was the kitchen.

  Frowning, Gemma went back down the hall and out the back door. On the way, she passed not one person. Winding Path, it seemed, had turned into a ghost ranch.

  In the backyard, she finally caught sight of someone. Bent over in the garden, Clara busily pulled weeds.

  “Good morning,” Gemma said politely once she was close enough.

  Clara shielded her eyes with her hand as she stood up. “Good—ooh!”

  “What’s wrong?” Gemma quickly stepped forward, being careful to not squash any plants.

  Clara smiled and pressed her hand to the small of her back. “I’m just old, that’s all. Once you get to be my age, your body creaks and groans every time you make a move.”

  “You are not old,” Gemma insisted.

  Clara chuckled. “That’s what you’re supposed to say. Did you sleep well?”

  “Yes. Very.” She looked around the surrounding area, spotting trees, a few pigs lazing around in the shade of a barn, and some cattle in the distance. Near the cattle, several men rode on horseback. She wondered if Mitchell was one of them.

  “I was surprised to find no one in the house,” she continued.

  Clara laughed again. “It’s hours past the time to get up. The men have been out working since before dawn.”

  “Before dawn?” she repeated, just to make sure she had heard right.

  “That’s ranch life. Breakfast in the dark, out before the first light.”

  Gemma must have looked disconcerted because Clara patted her on the shoulder. “You’ll get used to it.”

  She didn’t know what to say. In New York, she’d risen at the same time as all her friends—between eight and ten o’clock, unless there was an early morning appointment to be at. Here at Winding Path, she probably came across as extraordinary lazy for daring to sleep a minute past dawn.

  “Ther
e are some biscuits on the stove,” Clara said, turning over a melon and inspecting it. “Go get yourself some breakfast and then we can get to work on the laundry.”

  “The...” Gemma stopped herself just in time. She’d already made herself look like a fool once in the last few minutes. “Yes,” she agreed. “I will hurry.”

  Ten minutes later, her cold breakfast quickly swallowed down, Gemma found herself in the yard with Clara once more, her sleeves rolled up.

  “You rub the cloth along the ribbing like this,” Clara instructed, her hands moving fast in the soapy water as she scrubbed a shirt against the washboard.

  When Gemma had confessed she’d never done laundry before, Clara had looked surprised, but not said anything. Instead, she’d gotten out the washboard and proceeded to show Gemma how it was done.

  “Go ahead,” Clara encouraged. “Have a try.”

  Gemma nodded, her fingers fumbling as she tied the apron Clara had fetched her. Gingerly, she got to her knees in the grass and took one of the shirts from the dirty pile and dunked it into the warm water. Just as Clara had done, she rubbed it up and down across the washboard.

  “This isn’t so hard,” she found herself saying with a smile. In fact, it was quite pleasant. There was a slight breeze in the air, the birds were singing, the far-off cattle were calling, and the water was soft against Gemma’s hands.

  “Good to hear that.” Clara clapped her hands together and stood. “You wash, then, and I’ll hang.”

  They worked in silence, nothing but the sounds of the farm and the clothes on the washboard to fill the air. It wasn’t long before Gemma’s shoulders began to ache and her fingers to wrinkle. Sitting up straight, she rolled her neck around, attempting to dislodge the soreness there.

  It turned out that it did not take long for laundry to turn from fun to painful. She glanced at the pile of clothes that lay next to her on the grass. She was over halfway through, but doing so much as one more article was a painful thought.

  “One day, you’ll be doing all this on your own,” Clara suddenly said.

  Gemma’s hands stilled in the water. “Where are you going?”

  Clara’s round face peeked around a sheet hanging on the line. “Nowhere. Not that I have planned, that is. But I’m not a spring chicken. One day, you’ll be the woman running things here.” She got back to work, taking a soaking pair of pants from Gemma and wringing them out. “Unless you have daughters or hire out.” Her face glowed. “Oh, I can’t even think of little feet running around here right now! That’s just going to excite me too much.”

  The soapy water stared up at Gemma, taunting her. This is your life now, it seemed to say. Chores, day in and out.

  Gemma felt hot all over, her clothes too tight. Why hadn’t she thought about housework before? Her mother had never so much as lifted a finger to get herself tea or change her bedspread, but apparently, things were different in Wyoming.

  And of course they were. Had she ever read about maids or butlers in dime westerns?

  Tears pushed their way into her eyes and she got busy scrubbing the last of the laundry. She wasn’t going to cry over such a silly thing. It was merely a shock, that was all. A life spent cleaning and laundering would be better than a life spent trapped in William Picoult’s house.

  At least she had the ranch, as well as Clara and Mitchell.

  Maybe Mitchell.

  She gazed longingly out toward where she’d seen the figures on horseback earlier. She hadn’t seen Mitchell since he’d left at the start of supper the night before. Most of the time they had spent together had taken place atop his horse. They hadn’t even yet talked about a wedding.

  Reaching for the next piece of laundry, she found her hand closing over grass.

  “That’s the last of it!” Clara announced.

  “Thank goodness.” Gemma rose and stretched her arms up high. Finally, she could rest. Perhaps she could even lie down before the midday meal.

  “I’ll get you a basket so you can go and collect eggs.”

  Gemma turned away so Clara wouldn’t be able to see the disappointment on her face. “Lovely.”

  Basket in hand, Gemma followed the clucking across the yard, away from the garden, and between two barns. The coop was wedged in tight between two trees, its doors open and chickens running around it.

  “Hello,” Gemma cooed to the little animals. She reached out to touch one, but the hen scurried away. “We can be friends from a distance,” she called after it. “That’s quite all right with me.”

  Inside the coop, several shelves were full of hay. A white hen sat in the middle one, her beady black eyes staring Gemma down. Edging around her, Gemma explored the exposed parts of the hay, coming upon six eggs.

  With each egg she settled into her basket, Gemma reached another level of joy. Doing laundry may have been difficult, but collecting eggs was no great feat at all. Why, it was even fun!

  “Are you sitting on any?” Gemma asked the hen, who still only gave her a petulant look. “Go on! Shoo!” She nudged the chicken, but it only clucked.

  Sighing, she backed out of the coop. “Fine, then. Have it your way, but I will be back at another time, and you had better turn over any eggs you have, young hen. I’m the woman of the house now, and I must be treated as such.”

  The hen clucked again. Satisfied that they’d reached an agreement, Gemma skipped back onto the grass. After a few steps, though, she stopped and looked back down at her eggs. Six wasn’t near enough for a ranch with over a dozen people on it. Even if there were more eggs that afternoon, they’d still only be enough for one breakfast.

  Whirling around, she marched right back into the coop. “I apologize greatly for this, but it turns out you will have to move after all.”

  Not willing to waste any more time with prodding, Gemma picked the hen right up and deposited her on the nearby roost. Her frantic clucks ripped through the air and she waved her wings wildly.

  “Aha!” Grabbing the egg the chicken had been sitting on, Gemma neatly deposited it in her basket. “Thank you very much.”

  She went to leave the coop once more, but this time, it was blocked by a rather larger rooster. “Shoo,” Gemma ordered.

  The rooster only advanced on her, the feathers around its neck ruffled and its wings slightly raised. The hen continued shrieking and other chickens outside of the coop joined in.

  “Shoo!” Gemma commanded, louder this time.

  Not only did it not depart, but another rooster joined the first. Gemma’s heartbeat increased. She edged along the coop’s wall as the roosters followed her every movement.

  “Go away,” she gasped, her voice hardly a whisper.

  She was almost to the door… Just a few more shuffles… The roosters followed her in a circle, looking ready to jump her without any notice.

  One step away from the door, Gemma flung herself toward it, bursting into the daylight and onto the grass. She felt the brush of wings and the tugging of talons in the back of her dress. A scream ripped from her throat and she ran faster, stretching her legs farther than she knew they could go. At the pig pen, she glanced back. The roosters were still behind her, but they’d stopped chasing and were instead just standing and leering after her.

  A pounding filled her ears as she struggled to catch her breath. She’d seen roosters before, but never had one chase her. And all because she’d wanted an egg!

  “They almost got you there,” someone laughed from nearby.

  Gemma turned around to find two grinning ranch hands on the other side of the pig pen.

  “Watch out for those talons,” the other hand said. “They’re sharp.”

  If it was intended to be well-meaning advice, it didn’t come across as such. Most of the men still smiled from ear-to-ear and one of them was practically red from laughter. Shame flooded Gemma.

  “I have it under control here, gentlemen,” she answered. “But thank you for your concern.”

  “That don’t look under control to m
e, Miss Campbell.” He nodded at the ground near her feet… where bright yellow yolk bled from out of broken eggs.

  Broken eggs?

  Appalled, Gemma looked at the basket in her hand and found it completely empty. When had she dropped the eggs? Had it been when she collapsed against the fence?

  For the second time that morning, tears filled her eyes. Clutching the basket tight, she turned around and rushed away from the fence.