Romance Rides the River

by Reece, Colleen L.

  She got up from the bottom stair and clasped her hands behind her back. “I did a lot of things that should have gotten me expelled, but this time, I wasn’t to blame. If Miss Brookings’s nephew hadn’t come from England, I’d still be at school. He was trouble from the minute I almost knocked him out the front door and—”

  “Up to your old tricks, I see.”

  “Not this time. He just happened to be in the way.” Dori quickly related her trials and tribulations with Stancel Worthington III. “He was impossible. If you ever met him, you’d know what I mean.”

  “Spare me the lurid details.”

  “I can’t.” Dori told how she was called on the carpet, insulted by the headmistress, and ordered to leave Brookside posthaste. She ended with, “Even if I could go back, would you want me to after being called hussy and brazen? I’ll bet Miss Brookings didn’t put that in the letter on your desk.”

  A muscle twitched in Matt’s cheek. “Why don’t we see?” He grabbed the letter, opened it, and read aloud. “ ‘Mr. Sterling, your sister Dolores is no longer welcome at my school. I have been patient and long-suffering in order to abide by your wishes and keep her here. She, however, has been a disturbing element ever since she arrived. She should have been sent home long ago. In any event, her latest transgression cannot be overlooked.

  “ ‘Dolores set her cap for my dear nephew Stancel the moment he arrived. In order to attract his attention, she slid down the banister rail—which is strictly prohibited—and boldly pursued him at every opportunity. Stancel clearly showed his preference for Gretchen van Dyke, but Dolores wove an evil spell around him. She so enmeshed him in her wiles that Stancel actually considered civilizing, then marrying her.’ ”

  ❧

  A muffled snicker from Sarah, who had kept silent all through Matt and Dori’s conversation, halted Matt’s reading. Dori gaped at her. Sarah had both hands over her mouth. Her face was redder than the last embers in the fireplace. “Sorry,” she apologized, tears streaming. “It’s just that no one in real life says ‘wove an evil spell,’ or ‘enmeshed him in her wiles.’ Dori, your headmistress must have been reading dime novels on the sly.”

  Dori sent Sarah a look of approval. She turned to Matt and caught a flicker of his bride’s contagious amusement cross his face before he said, “Let’s have the rest of it. ‘I do believe Dolores actually thought Stancel’s temporary aberration would gain her an entrance into a level of society she could achieve in no other way. When she discovered I would not stand for it, Dolores called dear Stancel all kinds of barnyard names that plainly showed her lack of breeding.

  “ ‘Now that this unspeakable troublemaker is out of the way, Stancel will naturally seek someone eminently more suitable than the uncivilized sister of a keeper of gentleman cows.’ ”

  ❧

  Matt paused. The flicker of amusement grew into a blaze. A chuckle escaped. “Gentleman cows? I wonder where she got that. ‘As you know, Mr. Sterling, there is no monetary refund for those who do not complete their schooling, unless there is serious illness. I commend Dolores back into your keeping, and may God have mercy on your soul.’ ”

  ❧

  Matt threw the letter aside and looked at Sarah, then Dori. His lips broadened into a grin. “You notice I am no longer ‘dear Mr. Sterling.’ ” A belly laugh followed. “So it’s hail-and-farewell to Brookside Finishing School for Young Ladies.”

  Dori ran across the room and threw her arms around him. Was this how Christian, the hero in The Pilgrim’s Progress, felt when the heavy burdens he carried on his journey from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City finally dropped away? Dori wanted to skip, leap, and shout. If Matt could laugh like this, surely she wasn’t in too much hot water. His arms closed around her. Dori sighed with relief. Let Miss Brookings and her pompous nephew go hang. Miss Dori Sterling was home, safe, and forgiven.

  Dori’s joy was short-lived. All too soon, Matt removed her clinging arms from around his waist and dropped his hands on her shoulders. Every trace of amusement had vanished. “I can’t condone Miss Brookings’s behavior,” he said quietly, “but neither are you blameless. You’ve been taught since childhood that actions have consequences. There’s always a day of reckoning.”

  Dori shivered in spite of the warm room. “What are you going to do with me?”

  “I don’t know yet. Drastic circumstances call for drastic measures.”

  Dori’s heart plummeted to her toes. This was not good.

  Sarah’s soft voice brought the dialogue to a standstill. “It’s late, and I’m sure we’re all tired, Matt. Suppose you and Dori continue this conversation tomorrow.”

  Dori could have hugged her. The journey from confession through hilarity to facing an unknown future had taken its toll. Her energy was at such a low ebb she wondered if she could make it up the stairs to her room. “Good night, Sarah. Good night, Matt.” She grasped the rail of the staircase and began to climb, too tired to worry over what tomorrow might bring.

  ❧

  After a restless, nightmare-filled night, Dori slept long past the usual rising hour for the Diamond S. When she came downstairs, she found Solita and Sarah at the kitchen table, steaming cups of coffee before them.

  “Did you sleep well?” Sarah asked. Concern shadowed her voice.

  “No. Do you know what Matt is going to do?”

  Sarah shook her head. “I’m not sure he knows. We didn’t discuss it last night.”

  Dori stared out the window into a sunny day. The sound of stamping hooves and a whinny from the corral chirked her up a bit. “Where’s Matt?”

  “Right here.” He stepped into the kitchen. “How about a second cup of coffee, Solita?”

  How can he look so rested and free from worry? Dori resentfully wondered. “So what’s the verdict?” She hated herself for sounding flippant but couldn’t stand one minute more of not knowing what lay in store for her.

  “Do you want Solita and me to leave?” Sarah asked.

  “Please stay,” Dori said. “You can be the jury when Judge Sterling pronounces sentence on the accused. Maybe you will plead for mercy on my behalf.”

  “That attitude won’t help you,” Matt stated. He accepted the coffee from Solita, waited until she sat down again, then seated himself in a chair beside Sarah. “You’re eighteen years old. Too old to think you can rule the roost, act as you please without regard for others, and not be held accountable.”

  Dori wilted. This was worse than she’d expected, especially when Matt’s reception of Miss Brookings’s letter had brought hope for a lesser scolding.

  “First of all, you are going to finish your last term of schooling. Just because you aren’t going back to Brookside doesn’t mean you can run wild on the ranch.”

  Stunned, Dori clenched her fingers until the nails bit into the palms of her hands. “I can’t go back to school in Madera. I’m older than everyone there. They’ll ask why I didn’t stay in Boston.” The thought of being humiliated lent Dori the courage to continue. “Please, Matt, don’t make me do that. I’ll never live down being kicked out of Brookside.”

  “You’ve lived down other things,” Matt reminded her.

  “Not like this.” Dori shook her head until her black curls flew every which way. “It will be the ruination of me. Besides, only you three and Seth know why I’m not going back. Can’t we keep it that way?”

  Matt drummed his fingers on the table. “You do have a point, but. . .”

  Sarah placed one hand over her husband’s. A glow filled her eyes. “Matt, I never had a chance for advanced schooling. Would you—could you hire a tutor to come to the ranch and teach both Dori and me? I feel so ignorant compared with you.”

  “Ignorant? You’re the smartest person I know,” Matt argued. “There’s nothing you can’t do, even teach the Mexicans to speak English.”

  “Pooh, Solita does most of the teaching,” Sarah scoffed. “Besides, I don’t mean ignorant about living, just about books and things
.”

  Humbled by Sarah’s frank admission of her shortcomings, Dori did likewise. “I know I don’t deserve it, but having a tutor and studying with Sarah would be wonderful.” She inwardly groaned at the thought of being cooped up doing lessons when Splotches and the entire great outdoors beckoned her. But it was better than having to tuck her tail between her legs and go back to school in Madera.

  “The tutor will see to it that I make up what I’ll be missing at Brookside,” Dori added. And it will not include ballroom dancing, she silently vowed, wise enough to hold her tongue. She was already skating on the thinnest of ice.

  Matt’s brows drew together in a straight line. “So where am I to get a tutor? Any teacher worth his salt will already be teaching this time of year.”

  “Pray for one.” Dori clapped her hand over her mouth. Had she really said that?

  Matt looked astonished. So did Sarah and Solita.

  “I’m serious,” Dori told them, surprised to discover it was true. “Doesn’t the Bible tell us that if we ask, we shall receive?” Laughter bubbled out. “And if we seek, we shall find? Well, you need to seek a tutor.”

  Matt tilted back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. “It never ceases to amaze me how you can quote scripture when it’s to your benefit, sister dear. I have to admit, though, it’s a good idea.” He stretched. “Now if this discussion is over, I have work to do.” He stood, leaned down and kissed Sarah, and strode out.

  “Dios will surely help Señor Mateo find the right person,” Solita observed. She smiled at Dori. “I will make your breakfast now.”

  “Can I help?”

  “No. You sit and talk with Señora Sarah.” The housekeeper disappeared into the pantry.

  The postponement of Dori’s day of reckoning released her mischievous spirit. While Solita was out of the kitchen, Dori whispered to Sarah, “I wonder what kind of tutor God will send?”

  Sarah laughed and patted her hand. “Who knows? God has such a sense of humor He will probably surprise us. Maybe even shock us.”

  “I just hope the tutor has a sense of humor,” Dori flashed back. “If he’s anything like ‘dear Stancel,’ we’re sunk.”

  For several days, it appeared there were no unemployed tutors anywhere near Madera. Dori conscientiously made it a matter of prayer, but when time went by with no success, despair set in. If no tutor could be found, she was doomed to return to school in Madera. She intensified her prayers.

  Two full weeks after her return to the Diamond S, the tutor arrived. When the sound of buggy wheels halted in front of the wide front porch, Dori and Sarah rushed out. Sarah giggled. She pinched Dori’s arm and said, “I told you God might shock us. Now we’ll see if He has.”

  Matt helped someone from the buggy. “Sarah, Dori, meet Miss Katie O’Riley, your new tutor.”

  “I’m actually for bein’ a teacher and a governess,” Katie said.

  Dori’s jaw dropped. Her new “tutor” had the reddest hair, the greenest eyes, and the most freckles on her tip-tilted nose that Dori had ever seen. She looked to be only a few years older than Dori and her accent was pure, lilting Irish when she said, “So you’re for bein’ Mrs. Sarah and Miss Dolores. Mercy me, but you’re two fine colleens.” A trill of laughter set Katie’s eyes asparkle. And as Dori’s grandmother used to say, “It warmed the very cockles of a body’s heart.”

  Thank You, God, Dori breathed—and stepped forward to welcome Katie O’Riley.

  Thirteen

  “Whoa, Copper.”

  Late one Saturday afternoon, Seth Anderson reined in his sorrel gelding just outside the corral and wearily slid from the saddle. He’d been riding the range, looking for a small bunch of cattle that were either lost, strayed, or stolen—most likely stolen—without success. He glanced toward the ranch house. An assortment of riderless horses and a couple of buggies littered the front yard.

  Seth scowled. His earlier predictions about life on the Diamond S never being the same once Dori Sterling turned up had been fulfilled. The coming of Katie O’Riley had added to the problem. With two attractive, unmarried females on hand, single and widowed men for miles around flocked to the ranch like honeybees to a clover field.

  Seth snorted. “A bunch of lovesick pups, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve never seen so many duded-up visitors or smelled so much hair tonic. I can’t tell yet how Katie feels about all this masculine attention, but anyone who isn’t blind can see that Dori glories in it. She holds court as if every male age eighteen and over is her private property.”

  Seth unsaddled Copper and continued to grumble while he rubbed the sorrel down. “You’re the best listener on the ranch,” he said. Copper whinnied and nudged his soft nose against Seth’s shoulder as if to agree. His master went on with his complaints.

  “Curly, Bud, Slim, and most of the outfit are just as bad. In all my born days I never heard such a passel of excuses for laying off work. Curly’s had more bellyaches lately than in all the time I’ve been here. Bud can’t ride ’cause his ‘rheumatics’—whatever that is—are acting up.”

  Seth groomed Copper until he shone brighter than his name. “Slim takes the cake. I heard him tell Brett this morning that he reckoned he was just ‘too tuckered out to chase rustlers or cow-type critters today.’ Matt’s gotta do something and do it pronto, or we may as well kiss the rest of the herd good-bye.”

  Disgusted and discouraged, Seth turned Copper loose in the pasture, got himself slicked up, and went to find Sarah. Maybe she could do something with Dori. To his amazement, he got little sympathy.

  “Dori is still young, even though she’s eighteen,” Sarah told him over coffee in the kitchen. “Of course she has the bit in her teeth. She’s been penned up at school for two years. Although she won’t admit it, I suspect she hated every minute there but was too proud to come home. Don’t let her get under your skin, Seth. She’ll settle down.” Sarah smiled at him. “Katie is good for her. Even in the short time she’s been with us, she’s been rubbing off on Dori.”

  A merry laugh floated through the open hall door and into the kitchen. “From what I can see, it’s the other way around,” Seth growled. “Sounds like Dori has Katie wrapped around her little finger.”

  Sarah shook her head. “Don’t you believe it. Our Irish colleen is full of fun, but she’s a strict disciplinarian in the classroom. If Dori or I don’t have our lessons prepared to her satisfaction, she looks at us with those big emerald eyes and says, ‘You’ll be for doin’ this over—as many times as it takes for it to be done right and proper.’ ”

  Sarah’s imitation of the new teacher brought a grin to Seth’s face. “I’m glad to see there’s someone on this ranch who Dori can’t push around. I would have thought she’d pitch a fit at having to be taught.”

  “I’m sure she’d like to, but the alternative is spending spring term at school in Madera.” His sister raised one eyebrow and smirked. “By the way, I’d say there are two someone’s here on the ranch who Dori can’t push around.” Before Seth could answer, Sarah changed the subject. “Matt says there’s going to be a barn raising soon, followed by a barn dance. Are you taking anyone?”

  Feeling he had been bested concerning Dori, Seth was in no mood for frolicking. “Probably not.”

  “How about Abby?” Mischief lurked in Sarah’s blue eyes.

  Seth stood and glared down at her. “As Katie would say, ‘Don’t you be for matchmaking.’ It beats all that when folks get married, all they can think of is getting everyone else hitched up.”

  “So do you plan on spending your life in single blessedness?” Sarah teased.

  “Better single blessedness than double cursedness,” Seth retorted. He got up and stalked toward the kitchen door, pursued by his sister’s mocking laughter. A moment later, her soft voice halted him.

  “I’m sorry, Seth. Matt and I are so happy. I want you to be, too.” Her voice trembled.

  Repentant for acting so cussed, Seth spun around. “I know. It’s j
ust that I won’t marry until God sends the right girl and lets me know she is the right one. Stepping into double harness any other way is asking for a heap of trouble.”

  Sarah flew to his side and hugged him. “Maybe He has already sent the right one.”

  Seth blinked. Why should her remark set a vision of a dark-haired young woman in a velvet cloak as blue as her eyes dancing in his mind? His heartbeat quickened. “What do you mean?”

  Sarah looked innocent. “You’ve paid attention to Abby, and she’s a good Christian girl. You like her, don’t you?”

  Seth felt his muscles relax. “Sure. She’s pretty and fun.” He bent a stern gaze on Sarah. “Just don’t get ideas in that head of yours. Save the room for ‘book-larnin,’ as Curly calls it.” He tweaked the red-gold braid wrapped around Sarah’s head. But she had the last word.

  “Why don’t you invite Dori to the barn raising and the dance?”

  With a mumbled protest against females, matchmaking sisters in particular, Seth fled. But the suggestion Sarah had planted in his mind took root. Half the countryside would be on hand to help replace the barn on the Rocking R that had caught fire and burned to the ground a few weeks earlier. Seth would be the envy of Madera if he took Dori to the raising.

  How ridiculous to even consider such an idea. “Escorting a young lady in order to show off is not fit behavior, God,” he prayed. “Help me stay true to Your teachings and ‘do unto others.’ I sure wouldn’t want anyone to show up at a barn raising with me just to make other folks sit up and take notice.” Yet a feeling of regret nagged at him. If Dori were as innocent and good as she appeared, what a wife she would make. Seth sighed. Since she wasn’t, he would continue to keep his distance and not subject himself to her charm.

  Fate and Matt Sterling tossed Seth’s carefully laid plans to the four winds. After Dori sneaked away from her studies for the second time and took off on Splotches, Matt sought out Seth. “Ride with me, will you?”