by Merry Farmer
“Excuse me,” he asked, striding up to her. “Have you seen Olga around?”
The maid popped her head out of the closed and blinked at him. “Yes, she received a note about half an hour ago that Billy wanted to meet up with her at the mercantile.”
Travis’s frown deepened, and he scratched his head. When he’d left Paradise Ranch bright and early, Billy was hardly out of bed yet. “Thanks.”
He switched directions and hurried back through the lobby and outside. Haskell was bustling with its usual morning energy. Main Street was as busy as it got, but as hard as Travis looked, there was no sign of Olga. He stepped down from the hotel’s porch and crossed the street to Kline’s Mercantile.
“Hey, Lex,” he said without preamble as he walked into the store. “You seen Olga Rasmussen from the hotel this morning?”
Kline’s expression dropped as soon as the question was asked, leaving a sick feeling in the pit of Travis’s stomach.
“I think they took her over to Dr. Meyers’s house right away,” Kline said.
“They what? Dr. Meyers? What happened?” Travis rushed up to the counter where Kline was helping a customer.
“It was an accident.” Kline shook his head. “The poor girl wasn’t watching where she was going. She rushed out into the street just as Rex Bonneville was riding into town. The two of them collided, but Rex was on his horse and Olga was, well…”
The sick feeling in Travis’s gut expanded to dread. “What happened?”
“She was trampled,” Kline finished. “Just like that.”
“Is she hurt?” Travis was already halfway to the door as he asked the question.
“I’m sure she was. You’ll have to go to Dr. Meyers’s to find out more.”
Travis sped out the door and up the street. That was exactly what he intended to do.
Chapter Eight
Travis took the steps up to Dr. Meyers’s porch two at a time, racing along the side of the house to the entrance for the clinic. The bad feeling that had started at Kline’s Mercantile flared to anger as he pushed open the clinic door and strode through the waiting room to find Olga lying on Dr. Meyers’s examination table.
“What happened? Olga, are you all right?”
Dr. Meyers glanced up from where he was bandaging Olga’s wrist, and Olga uttered a surprised moan.
“Sorry, Travis, but I can’t have you in here while I’m treating a patient.” Dr. Meyers moved to show Travis out of the room.
“It’s all right.” Olga stopped him. She sat up, although the movement was slow and caused a pale grimace of pain to pinch Olga’s face. She cradled her right arm as she swung her legs over the side of the table.
“You shouldn’t get up.” Dr. Meyers crossed back to the table, resting a caring hand on Olga’s shoulders. “You’ve had quite a blow, and you should rest.”
“I can’t,” Olga insisted, although she didn’t hop down from the table. “I have to help Wendy. Wendy needs my help.” She turned her pleading, pained glance from Dr. Meyers to Travis.
“I’m afraid with that wrist and with the head-trauma you received, the only person you’re going to be able to help is yourself by taking it easy,” Dr. Meyers told her.
“No.” Olga heaved a mournful sigh, but her face pinched as she tried to move her wrist.
“What happened?” Travis asked again, hoping he sounded calmer this time.
“I received a letter from Billy,” Olga began, misery lining her face. “At least, I thought it was from Billy.”
Travis shook his head. “Billy is still out at Paradise Ranch, and has been all morning.”
Olga whimpered and raised her free hand to her head. “Then I was tricked. I feel so stupid.”
“You’re not stupid.” Travis took a step toward her and gingerly patted her back, not wanting to hurt her.
“I stepped out into the street,” Olga went on, “and before I’d gone two feet, a horse came charging at me.”
“Rex Bonneville’s horse,” Dr. Meyer added. He met Travis’s eyes with a look of barely contained fury. “Apparently he didn’t even slow down. In fact, Aiden was on his way to work at the time, and he swears that Bonneville waited at the end of the street until he saw her come out of the hotel, then kicked his horse into a gallop to go after her.”
“That bastard,” Travis growled. He clenched his hands to fists. “He could have killed Olga.”
Dr. Meyers remained silent, as much an admission that Travis was right as if he’d said it outright.
“Will Olga be all right?” Travis went on, concern outweighing anger for the moment.
“She was lucky.” Dr. Meyers nodded. “The horse managed not to trample her, but she sprained her wrist trying to stop her fall.”
“I bumped my head too,” Olga added, closing her eyes. A single, mournful tear ran down her cheek. “I’m sorry. I wanted to help Wendy win the competition, but my wrist…”
She lifted her wrist, but quickly let it drop.
“It’s all right.” Travis squeezed her shoulder one last time. “You’re safe, for the most part, which is what really matters.” Although at the end of the day, Bonneville had achieved his aim. Olga wouldn’t be able to sew for a week at least. Travis blew out a breath and rubbed his face. “I’d better get back to the hotel and tell Wendy.”
He said his goodbyes to Dr. Meyers and tried to assure Olga once again that everything would be all right, but by the time he made it out to the street and jogged back to the hotel, he was fuming. Competitions were all well and good, but when innocent women were hurt simply to prove a point, things got serious.
“Did you find Olga?” Wendy asked as soon as Travis strode into the ballroom. She took one look at him and muttered, “Oh, dear. What?”
“Where’s Bonneville?” Travis nearly shouted.
At the other end of the room, Melinda and Honoria glanced up from their feverish work.
Gunn stood from the table where he was still going over books. “He was only here for a moment, checking on his daughters. He left not long after you did.”
“So, he’s a coward and a bully.” Travis veered toward Wendy’s side of the room.
Gunn left his table to meet him. “What happened?”
“Olga’s been injured,” Travis explained. “Bonneville nearly ran her over with his horse.”
Wendy gasped and clapped a hand to her chest. “Dear Lord, will she be all right?”
“Dr. Meyers says she will be. She sprained her wrist, and hit her head in her fall. She’s in good hands now.”
“Thank heavens for that,” Gunn said.
“But it means she won’t be able to continue with the competition,” Travis finished.
Wendy’s eyes snapped wide. Her shock and dismay was quickly replaced by tight indignation. “He did it deliberately.”
Much though it pained him, Travis nodded. “I believe he did.”
“That’s outrageous.” Gunn shook his head, splotches of red spreading across his face. “Olga is a sweet, innocent girl who wants nothing more than to work hard. I won’t tolerate anyone interfering with my staff this way.”
“The competition should be stopped right now,” Travis said.
“No!” Wendy reached for him, clamping onto his arm. “No, no, you can’t stop the competition. That’s exactly what Mr. Bonneville wants.”
“What?” Travis frowned. Gunn looked equally doubtful.
Wendy glanced past Travis’s shoulder at Melinda and Honoria, who were still working. Travis narrowed his eyes at the two of them. Honoria had her head down and looked as though she might be crying. Melinda’s color was high, and she wore a look of such false innocence that Travis was ready to contradict Wendy’s belief that the contest shouldn’t be stopped, just so he could chase her out of the hotel and out of Haskell.
“I have too much riding on this competition,” Wendy went on, far calmer than Travis felt. “I have over half a dozen orders for dresses from some of the most prominent women in Haskell.
I need to get them finished, need to prove that I can work under pressure and produce results.”
“But won’t you already have the orders, competition or not?” Gunn asked.
“Yes, but competitions draw a lot of attention,” Wendy went on. “From more than just the people participating. Who’s to say word of all this won’t get out to other towns? Towns within visiting distance.”
She had a point, but Travis winced and rubbed the back of his neck all the same.
“This competition is the stroke of luck I’ve needed to start my business. It has to go on.”
“But you don’t have an assistant anymore,” Gunn pointed out. “I have great admiration for your skill with a needle, Mrs. Montrose, but even you cannot finish half a dozen dresses with only four more days of work all on your own.”
Wendy bit her lip, rocking back to consider the truth of what he said. Her expression filled with such anxiety and desperation that Travis couldn’t bear it.
“I’ll be your assistant,” he said.
Wendy and Gunn both stared at him in shock.
“You?” Wendy gaped.
Travis shrugged, trying to smile. “I can sew buttons and patch a hole in a shirt. Not well, but I’ve used a needle before.”
Gunn pursed his lips and frowned. “Dressmaking takes far more skill than sewing on buttons does.”
“Have you got a better idea?”
Wendy shook her head. “No. No, I haven’t.” She took Travis by the arm and led him to her worktable. “Can you take directions?”
“As well as anyone else, I suppose,” Travis answered.
“That’s all that matters to me. Sit.” She pointed to the empty chair across the table from where she had been working.
Travis did as he was told and sat. Wendy dashed around the table to grab a pile of fabric. Across the room, Melinda and Honoria were peeking up from their work to watch. Wendy sped back around to Travis and handed him the fabric, kneeling by his side.
“This is the seam Olga was sewing yesterday. Do you see how she made her stitches?”
Travis squinted at the row of impossibly small sewing. “Uh, I think so?”
“Let me show you.” Wendy took the work and demonstrated how the stitches had been made. She moved far more slowly than she had been when Travis was watching her work earlier. It wasn’t a simple matter of drawing the needle in and out of the fabric either. It was almost as if Wendy looped the needle and thread around, moving back before moving forward, and creating a seam that held firm. “Like that. Do you think you can do it?”
“All I can do is try.” Travis took the work from her. Transferring the needle from her lithe, thin fingers to his rough and calloused ones felt like handing a beam of moonlight to a bull. He had to give it a go, though, for Wendy’s sake.
The first few stitches were the hardest. Wendy had made sewing look like the easiest thing in the world, but Travis felt as though he was wading through molasses. That wasn’t the worst of it.
“What is he doing?” Melinda demanded from across the room. “That’s not fair.” She jumped up from her work and marched across the room. “I demand he stop at once. This is cheating.”
Gunn strode to intercept her before she could reach Wendy’s work table. “Now, Miss Melinda, the rules clearly state that each seamstress is allowed to have one assistant.”
“But she has an assistant,” Melinda barked. “That stupid Swedish girl. Where is she anyhow?” Her teasing tone suggested she knew exactly where Olga was and exactly in what condition.
“It seems as though Olga has met with an accident,” Gunn answered with all the diplomacy of an aristocrat. “She will not be able to participate in the competition anymore.”
“Well, there you have it.” Melinda met the news with a smug grin. “Mrs. Montrose has lost her assistant. She has to work by herself now.”
“No, the rules say that each seamstress can have one assistant. Mr. Montrose has stepped in to fill that place,” Gunn explained.
Melinda’s smug grin dropped to sourness. “That’s not fair.”
“It’s perfectly fair.”
“No it isn’t. When my father hears about this—”
“Your father is banned from this room until the competition is over,” Gunn snapped with uncharacteristic anger.
It was enough to cow even Melinda. She took a step back, looking as though she had been slapped. Gunn cleared his throat and smoothed a hand over his uniform jacket.
“Forgive my outburst,” he went on with practiced calm. “But it seems as though your father was the cause of injury for one of my staff members. As such, he is excluded from setting foot in this room—or this property, if Mr. Garrett agrees with my assessment—until matters can be resolved.”
Travis continued to work, but a satisfied smile spread across his lips. For all his spit and polish, Gunn wasn’t the kind of person anyone would want to cross. Good for him for putting his foot down.
“The competition will go on with Mr. Montrose assisting his wife,” Gunn stated for good and all.
“But that’s—”
“Let it go, Melinda,” Honoria called from the other end of the room. “How much sewing do you think a ranch hand can do anyhow?”
Melinda squeaked and twisted to glare at her sister, but she didn’t say anything. Her dark expression shifted to gloating. “You’re right about that.” She tossed a dismissive look at Travis over her shoulder. “She might as well not have any extra help with a ruffian like him helping out.” With a final sniff, she marched back to her place to resume her work.
Travis let out a grunt of frustration, focusing on the uneven row of stitches he was producing. The trouble was, Melinda was probably right. He wasn’t sure how much help he would actually be.
If Wendy had had her choice of assistants to replace Olga, she wouldn’t have jumped to pick her rancher husband. But by the afternoon of the next day, Travis had fallen into a rhythm and was actually making himself useful.
“That’s not bad,” she commented as she peeked over his shoulder on her way to the rack that had been set up to hang dresses that were nearing completion.
“It’s not good,” Travis grumbled. He held up the voluminous skirt for the church dress Estelle had ordered, squinting at the slightly uneven seams. “Why can’t I get it to lay flat like yours do?”
“Because you’ve only been sewing for a day as opposed to nearly twenty years?” Wendy delivered the comment with laughter in her voice. There was a spring in her step too. Her work area was scattered with half a dozen dresses in various stages of completion, time was running out, and she had barely begun the embellishments that would mark the quality of her work, but she couldn’t remember ever being happier.
Travis snorted a laugh, shook his head, and returned to sewing the seam. “I never knew this much work goes into ladies’ dresses. No wonder you all sit around talking about them and admiring them all the time.”
Wendy laughed out loud at that. She returned the bodice she’d been working on to its hanger on the rack and removed another one to work on the pleating and details of the sleeves. Her eyes kept drifting across to Travis, though. She’d thought he was handsome when she went to visit him on the ranch. Silly though it sounded, dirt became him. But watching him now—so intent on sewing, brow knit in concentration, his tongue poking out from between his lips—a flutter filled her that went far beyond appearance alone. He was a fish out of water, but he was doing it for her.
Her heart seized up at the image. He was the fish, she was the bird, and they still hadn’t figured out where to build their nest, but oh, how she wanted to snuggle up in that nest and be settled.
She had to say something. They’d become so close in the past week, the past day in particular. She couldn’t bear to have the question hanging between them anymore. Returning with her work to the table, she cleared her throat and began, “Travis, don’t you think it’s time we…had a talk?”
His eyes jerked up to meet her
s so fast that she was concerned he would hurt his neck, and his cheeks reddened. “A talk?”
Wendy glanced behind her. Elizabeth Haskell was monitoring the competition that afternoon while Mr. Gunn dealt with hotel business. She sat in a chair in the middle of the room, reading a book. Beyond her, Melinda was hard at work, her expression peevish. Honoria wasn’t there. She must have stepped out to use the facilities or grab a snack.
Satisfied she wouldn’t be overheard, Wendy said, “We need to decide if this is real.”
“Real?” Travis nearly choked on the word.
Her temperature seemed to rise by a hundred degrees, but Wendy nodded. “Us. You and I. This marriage. I…I can’t go on like this, living at the hotel while you live at the ranch. I need to know what our future holds and I…I need to get on with it, whatever we decide.”
Travis’s shoulders tensed. He lowered his work, though he continued to stare at it. His lips stayed pressed together as he took a breath. “Here I thought I was giving you some space to figure things out.” He glanced across to her. “I didn’t want to rush you.”
“I think I…I think we need to be rushed.” A surprise grin tugged at the corner of her mouth. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last few days, it’s that we’re both the sort to be so polite that nothing ever gets done.”
Travis softened to a smile as well. “Yeah, except when it comes to sewing.” He lifted his work. “We’re aces at getting sewing done.
His teasing tone sent ripples of longing through Wendy. She studied him, studied the emotion in his eyes. Everything she’d ever wanted was right there, within arm’s reach, if she would just reach for it.
She did reach her hand across the table, inviting Travis to take it. “What I want is—”
A loud crash cut Wendy off as the ballroom door smacked open. Wendy yanked her hand back and turned to see Honoria stumbling into the room, Vivian and Bebe right behind her. Honoria was pale and her eyes were wide.
“Well? What are you just standing there for? Go on.” Vivian pushed her in the back.
Honoria took a stumbling step forward, then another. She darted a quick, panicked glance to Wendy before walking, as carefully as if she was treading on hot coals, toward a smiling Melinda.