“I know that.”
“Come on,” Sloan urged. “Come meet my family.”
Two men had joined the woman on the porch and stood one on each side of her. These, Emily realized, must be Sloan’s brothers. She would have said that they dwarfed the woman they flanked; her head barely reached their shoulders. But their sheer size did nothing to diminish Cherokee Rose Chisholm’s presence. Delicate she may appear, but fragile she was not.
The four Chisholms had the same golden, coppery skin, dark brown eyes filled with intelligence, but Mrs. Chisholm’s nearly black hair was laced with gray. Not as much as one might expect on someone her age. Emily had caught a glimpse of Sloan’s driver’s license back at The Corner and knew he was thirty-five. That meant his grandmother had to be around seventy or older. She didn’t look it. The lines on her face were few, mostly around her eyes, and her bearing was that of a young woman.
Sloan ushered Janie and Libby up onto the porch. “Grandmother, meet Janie and Libby Nelson, and their mother,” he added, nodding for Emily to join them. “Emily, our new housekeeper.”
“Welcome to the Cherokee Rose,” his grandmother offered.
“Thank you, Mrs. Chisholm.” Emily extended her hand toward the woman.
“It’s Rose,” the woman said, shaking Emily’s hand. “And these two,” she added, indicating the two men beside her, “are my other grandsons. Caleb, and Justin, our baby.” Her lips quirked.
Justin gave a good-natured roll of his eyes.
Libby stepped up and tugged on his hand.
“Hi, there.” He squatted down to her level.
“They call me the baby, too,” she whispered loudly. “It’s okay, they don’t mean they really think you’re a baby, only that you’re the youngest.”
“Ah.” Justin grinned at her. “I guess we should let them get away with it, huh?” His whisper was no more quiet than hers. Everyone heard, everyone swallowed a chuckle.
“It makes them feel better,” Libby told him with a big smile.
“That does it.” Justin tweaked Libby’s nose. “I’m in love. I’m keepin’ her.”
“Now, hold on,” Sloan protested. “I saw her first. I saw all three of them first, so mind your manners, kid.”
Libby looked up at Sloan wide-eyed. “Does that mean you’re keeping us, Mr. Sloan?”
Emily ran her tongue across her teeth, wondering how Sloan was going to get himself out of this one. Libby could trap the most wary of creatures.
“Well, for a while, at least,” he told Libby. “And it means that this one,” he said, jabbing a thumb toward Justin, “is generally full of hot air. He likes to run off at the mouth, so don’t pay a lot of attention to him. He’s a great big flirt, that’s what he is.”
Before Justin could defend himself, Rose ushered Emily and the girls into the house. “You boys bring in the ladies’ luggage, now. No sense keeping them standing out here in the heat.”
It was a large house with airy rooms that looked comfortable and lived in. The living room was huge. Emily’s last apartment would almost fit within its spacious walls. At the near end three recliners and a sofa were arranged around a big-screen television. At the far end, in one corner, two wing chairs faced a rock fireplace, while a small office occupied the other corner. A desk, file cabinet and worktable, complete with computer, printer and fax machine, fit neatly beneath the staircase leading to the second floor.
Area rugs over a gleaming pine floor spoke of years of loving care. The room was not messy, but not intimidatingly neat, thank God, Emily thought.
Well, not messy if no one counted the pair of dirty socks beside one of the roomy recliners. Emily bit back a smile. She was going to feel comfortable here.
Rose shook her head at the socks and tsked. “Those boys.” But she made no move to pick up the socks. “Here’s your first household rule,” she said to Emily. “If a man wants his clothes washed, he has to put them in the hamper upstairs or the basket in front of the washer out on the utility porch himself. Socks left on the floor get left on the floor until someone gets tired of looking at them, or until the smell overcomes us. Then they get tossed in the trash. No warning, no second chance. Just tossed.”
Emily smiled. “Sounds like a good rule to me. Do many socks get tossed in the trash?”
“Now and then,” Rose said with a deadpan look. “But not lately. They may be planning to test you. Don’t fall for their tricks or they’ll have you waiting on them hand and foot. They’re not spoiled, but they’d like to be.”
“I see.” Emily smiled. “In other words, typical men.”
“Typical Chisholms, at least.”
Rose led her past the staircase that led to the second floor and said they would get to that later. “Tomorrow is soon enough. You’ll want to get settled in and freshened up.”
“Oh, but I don’t mind starting to work right away.”
“We’ll see,” was all Rose said. She led Emily and the girls through a huge kitchen with a long dining table surrounded by eight chairs. Off the kitchen, through the back door, was the utility porch. The washer and dryer sat to one side, a large chest-style freezer hugged one wall, with pegs and hooks for hats and jackets and such on the other, and at the far end there was a bathroom, complete with a large shower stall. There was a closet next to the bathroom and a long row of cabinets.
“This is where we wash up when we come in from working outdoors. That way we don’t have to traipse
dirt all over the house.”
“That should make my job easier,” Emily said.
“That was the idea when we built it, but I don’t know how much easier it makes things. Here,” she added pulling open a drawer, “you’ll find any tools you might need, although I doubt you’ll need any. And in the cabinet we keep things like lightbulbs, washers for faucets, entire faucets, light switches, that sort of thing.”
“You believe in being prepared,” Emily said.
Rose closed the drawer and said, “We’re more than a half hour from town. Sometimes it’s not convenient to drive that far to fix a leaky faucet.”
Back in the kitchen, Rose ushered Emily and the girls down a short hallway to a bedroom and bath. “Here’s where you’ll sleep. I hope you find everything you need.”
The room was just large enough to accommodate a double bed on one wall, a set of bunk beds opposite, with a chest of drawers between and a small closet across from it. Nothing fancy, but clean and neat and welcoming, with the nice surprise of a small television on top of the chest.
“Oh, yes, ma’am.” Emily’s smile stretched wide. “I’m sure we will. It looks perfect. Thank you.”
Rose hoped that smile meant well for the next week or two, or however long her eldest grandson meant for Emily and her daughters to stay. Sloan had never brought a woman to stay in the house before—not even under the guise of housekeeper.
Housekeeper, ha! That boy…
She wondered what he was up to. According to Justin, Emily Nelson had gotten herself into some kind of trouble and, by bringing her here to work until her car was fixed, Sloan was merely helping her out. But was there more to it than that? Her Sloan had a huge heart that was as soft as whipped cream. And no racehorse on the track ever wore a thicker set of blinders than did Sloan when it came to women.
But Rose would reserve judgment on this Emily Nelson. It was possible that the young woman was as sweet and sincere as she appeared to be. It would be a first for Sloan, to find a woman like that, even by accident. But it was possible.
And if Emily wasn’t what she seemed… well, Rose would hold her judgment and see what there was to see. Maybe the wariness she felt was uncalled for. Maybe this was the woman meant to ease her eldest grandson’s lonely heart.
Time, and a discreet eye, would tell.
It didn’t take long for Emily and the girls to settle into their new room after Sloan and his brothers brought their luggage. Afterward, Sloan took them on a tour of the area around the house. There was
so much to see, the girls were wide-eyed and practically dancing with excitement.
The backyard was small and fenced, with a pair of oak trees near the house. Beside the yard a large fenced garden stretched out in neat rows including tomatoes, okra, squash, green beans, corn and watermelon.
“Have you ever grown vegetables?” Sloan asked her.
“For years, until Michael got sick. I miss it.”
“Well, miss it no more,” he said. “Grandmother will appreciate any help you can give her. Like I said, she’d rather be on horseback, and it’s kinda hard to pick beans from the saddle.”
“Yes, I think it would be,” Emily said, her tongue planted firmly in her cheek.
Sloan laughed. The more he was around Emily, the more he liked her. As long as it didn’t go beyond that, everything would be fine. After all, she was on her way to Fort Smith. She was only here until she could pay for repairs to her car.
He showed her and her daughters the old wooden swing hung from a cottonwood branch down by the creek fifty yards behind the house and got a kick out of the girls’ excitement.
While Sloan enjoyed the girls’ excitement, Emily did not. She eyed the steep banks of the creek, the five-foot drop to six inches of rock-strewn water, and firmed her mouth.
“You’re not to come down here without me,” she told her daughters.
“But, Mother,” Janie protested. “Why not?”
Sloan raised his eyebrows but refrained from speaking.
Smart man, Emily thought. “Because it’s dangerous,” she said to Janie. “You don’t come here without me. Either of you. Do you understand?”
“Can we play now?” Libby asked, looking longingly at the old swing.
“Maybe later this evening. But first we have to see what else Mr. Sloan has to show us, okay?”
“Will you show us the kittens?” Libby asked Sloan.
“Sure.” He pointed up in the cottonwood. “There’s two of them right there.”
Libby and Janie looked up and gasped. Two gangly, half-grown kittens, one calico, one tabby, peered down from their shared branch ten feet in the air.
“Oh,” the girls said in unison.
Libby jumped up and down and pointed. “Look at them! Look, Mommy, kitties!”
“Will they come down?” Janie craned her neck to watch the cats. “Here kitty, kitty.”
Her daughters’ excitement nearly broke Emily’s heart. She so wanted them to have pets, but since Michael’s death they’d been living in a small apartment, and she hadn’t thought it fair to a dog or cat to keep it cooped up indoors all the time, and she simply hadn’t had the heart or energy to care for even so much as a goldfish.
When they got settled in Fort Smith, she vowed, each of her daughters would have a pet.
“They’re a little skittish,” Sloan said in answer to Janie’s question. “They’re not really pets, they’re working cats.”
Libby scrunched up her face. “Huh?”
“What kind of work can kittens do?” Janie asked.
“They catch mice. That’s their job. Out here in the country like we are, we’d be overrun with mice and rats if it wasn’t for the cats.”
Emily was grateful that he didn’t give the girls too much time to think about the subject of mice and rats before he led them away from the kittens, the tree with its swing, and the creek that made Emily nervous.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you the barn, where they live.”
On the way to the barn they passed a chicken house and three tool-and-equipment sheds. One shed, about the size of a two-car garage, had its double doors wide open. Her car sat inside, its grill facing out.
“Caleb will take a good look at it this evening after supper,” Sloan told her.
“Oh. I didn’t expect such quick service.”
“It won’t be that quick,” he warned. “He’ll only be able to work on it in the evenings.”
“You won’t hear me complain,” Emily said.
They turned away from the shed and headed for the huge barn, which appeared to be the center of things, with all the other buildings, including the house, spread out in a semicircle around it. Corrals angled out from either side. A handful of horses milled around in one, a half-dozen cows in the other. Janie and Libby stared wide-eyed at the huge animals. They were city girls and had never been up close and personal with anything larger than a big dog.
“Wow,” Janie whispered as they stopped at the fence holding the horses. “They’re so pretty.”
“They’re so big,” Libby said.
Sloan chuckled. “They sure are. You see this fence?” He propped one boot on the bottom rail of the corral fence.
“Yes, sir,” the girls said in unison.
“This fence works two ways. It keeps the horses in, and it keeps people out. You two have to promise me that you won’t even put your hand through the fence, not to mention any other part of your body.”
“He means we can’t go in there,” Janie said to Libby.
Libby made a face at her sister. “I know that.”
“That’s exactly what I mean. You can’t even climb onto the fence to get a closer look. Janie’s right, those are some of the prettiest horses you’ll ever see. But Libby’s right, too. They’re big. They could hurt you real, real bad without even meaning to. So you have to promise.”
“Yes, sir,” they said again.
“The same goes for the cattle in the other corral, only they’re not nearly as polite as the horses. They’re not pets, just big, ornery animals. You want to stay away from them, too. In fact, I want your word that you won’t climb the fences or go into the corrals even if they’re empty.”
“How come?”
Leave it to Libby, Emily thought. She would stay away from the animals because Sloan told her to; she was a good girl. But exploring an empty corral would seem like a perfectly logical thing to do in her adventurous little mind.
“Because he said so,” Emily told her.
“Oh.”
Sloan chuckled. “Actually, I have a good reason for saying so. You see those doors in the side of the barn?” He pointed to the row of openings that allowed the animals to come and go between the barn and the corral. “The corral might look empty, but if there are horses inside the barn where you can’t see them, they could come out and surprise you. It would surprise them, too, and you could get hurt before you could get back on the outside of the fence. So I’ll take your word, all right?”
“Yes, sir,” Libby said with as much enthusiasm as she might have if he’d told her she had to scrub the floor with the tip of her nose.
“Janie?” Emily prodded.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “I promise. We won’t go in the corrals, not ever, unless you say we can.”
“Good enough.”
Rose had said that the next day would be soon enough for Emily to start her duties, but Emily could not stand back and do nothing while the older woman put a meal on the table. She sent the girls to their room to watch television and pitched in to help in the kitchen.
“There’s no need to make them stay in their room,” Rose said. “They would probably much rather watch the big screen in the living room.”
“Oh, no,” Emily protested. “That’s for your family. They’re fine in the bedroom.”
“Nonsense. While they’re on this ranch, they’re family, too. Besides, the big-screen is hooked up to the satellite dish. The little one in the bedroom isn’t.”
Emily had not expected such generosity from an employer. It made her feel a little less of an outsider, and she appreciated it. The girls would get a real kick out of watching a big screen TV, and they would be more likely to find something appropriate to watch on satellite than regular television, particularly at this time of evening. “Thank you,” she said to Rose.
The girls took the news with excitement. Even steady, sober Janie grew animated when their favorite cartoon characters appeared before them in huge, brilliant color.
The two women made a good team as they put together a huge pan of lasagna and got it in the oven. While it baked Rose pulled a bowl of green beans, which she said she had snapped earlier in the day, from the refrigerator. Emily took out the ingredients for a tossed salad.
“Oh, these are beautiful.” She palmed two large, ruby-red tomatoes. “Are they from your garden?”
“Yes.”
“And the green beans?”
“They’re ours. We’ve had a good year. Do you garden?”
“I used to. I miss it. I hope you won’t turn down my help out there.”
“Ha! You do as much out there as you want to and I won’t shed a tear. There’s a small garden shed behind the house. You’ll find everything you need there.”
Emily smiled. “Maybe after dinner I’ll go take a look, in the shed and the garden.”
Rose turned on the water at the sink and washed her hands. “If you’re half as eager to do housework as you are to garden, I’m going to like having you around.”
“Oh, I love to take care of a home. You tell me what you want done, and I’ll do it. If something’s not the way you like it, just say so and I’ll do my best to fix it.”
“Fair enough,” Rose said. “We’ll go over everything after we get the boys fed up.”
As if on cue, the outside door to the utility porch banged open and heavy boot steps thudded on the porch floor. A moment later the kitchen door swung open.
Emily turned and saw all three Chisholm brothers peering in from the porch. She had a smile for each of them, but her gaze lingered on Sloan. Perhaps because his seemed to linger on her.
“Wash up,” Rose told them. “Supper will be on the table in ten minutes.”
Sloan was used to seeing his grandmother in the kitchen at the end of the day. If he came in early enough, Earline would be there, too. Seeing two women doing the dance required to put food on the table shouldn’t surprise him.
But Earline was sixty-one and, Lord love her, looked like she’d been rode hard and put up wet a few times too many. She’d had a hard life, and it showed in the deep lines on her face.
The Chisholm Brothers:Friends, Lovers... Husbands? Page 5