A Gentleman for Dry Creek. Janet Tronstad

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      “Mmm-hmm,” Glory said, lifting her hand to sweep back her hair.

      “A diamond!” Sylvia saw what her friend was flaunting. “You’re engaged!”

      Glory laughed with glee and nodded.

      “Oh, my!” Sylvia reached up and hugged her friend. “Congratulations!”

      “Finally,” Garth muttered. “Glad to see he had the nerve.”

      “Nerve?” Glory looked over at Garth, puzzled. “Why would he need nerve?”

      Garth snorted. That’s how much women knew about the whole business.

      Chapter Four

      The leather work gloves on Garth’s hands were stiff from the cold. He was twisting a strand of barbed wire to see exactly where the cut had been made. Not that it made much difference. This time the rustlers had succeeded. His crew counted twenty cows missing.

      “Might be they’ll show up on the other side of the Big Sheep,” Jess, one of his new hands, offered. Jess was nearing sixty, too old to be out riding the range in most outfits, but Garth had hired him five months ago, after all the other big outfits had turned the man down. In Garth’s eyes, every man deserved the right to prove himself, and Garth assigned him to light duty in the calving barn. Jess had been pointedly grateful ever since.

      “They must have hit last night and it’s already late afternoon. I should have been paying more attention,” Garth muttered as he pulled his Stetson down farther. The air around him was so cold it hung like smoke. A wet frost had hit last night and the barbed wire had stayed iced all day. Garth had thought he was safe from the rustlers in weather like this. The thieves must be desperate to get back into operation if they’d work in this cold.

      “You can’t check all your fences every day,” Jess protested loyally. “Not with the land you have. No, you couldn’t have known.”

      Garth grunted. He’d never know if he could have known or not. He wasn’t concentrating like normal on business at hand. For the past two days he’d thought of little else but the camp he had promised to Sylvia. The bubble of euphoria—that Sylvia was coming to his ranch—had slowly deflated as he drove back to Montana.

      No, he’d given almost no thought to his cattle. He had bigger worries. He had a three-day head start. What was he going to do with thirty teenagers? And, worse yet, what was he going to do with Sylvia?

      He’d assigned every hand on his place something to clean and he’d put his sister Francis in charge of the inspections. He missed his son, but the boy had gone to Chicago to visit an old friend. Garth wished his son were here to help keep the men happy. Except for Jess, the men had all threatened to quit. They said they’d hired on to ride herd on cattle, not scrub walls. Even after Garth promised them a bonus, they still muttered. But they cleaned—cowboy-style—using a broom like a shovel and a rag like a whip.

      Francis insisted they use ammonia and now the whole ranch smelled of it. Garth took a cautious whiff of his hand. Even through the glove he could still smell the stuff. The one good thing about it all was that Francis brightened considerably as she took to her task. She’d still not told Garth what was troubling her and he knew better than to push. But it was good to have his sister smiling again, and she’d promised to extend her visit until summer.

      Sound traveled clearly on a crisp cold afternoon and Garth heard the rumble of a load-pulling engine before he saw the bus crawl over the hill that led to the main house.

      “We best get back,” Garth said as he walked over to the horses. Garth put his leg into the stirrup and lifted himself up. “We’ve got company.”

      Sylvia stood in the long wood-frame building. So this was the bunkhouse. Late-afternoon shadows filled the corners but she didn’t turn on the overhead light. She could see what she needed to see. The plank floor was unpolished and smooth from years of wear. The small row of windows were half covered with frost and they lacked curtains. Eight cots were lined against each of the long sides of the building.

      Puffs of heat came toward her, fighting the cold air. Metal grates along the wall indicated gas heating, but most of the heat seemed to be coming from a potbelly stove near the door. The stove door was closed but the bright glow of a steady fire shone through the door cracks. But as cozy as the inside of the bunkhouse was, the view out the windows of the afternoon sun reflecting off the snow-capped mountains was breathtaking. The girls would like it. They might not admit to it, but they would like it. She could hear the girls now, chattering as they walked to the ranch house from the rented bus.

      Above the voices of the teenagers, she could hear Mrs. Buckwalter’s deep laugh. Sylvia had to give the older woman credit. She hadn’t just written a check. She’d spent hours shopping and packing for their camp. Finally, she had confidently asked if she could ride with them to camp. Sylvia would have refused, but she could use an extra adult on the trip, especially since Mrs. Buckwalter had a quelling influence on the rowdy teenagers. No one misbehaved around Mrs. Buckwalter; whether it was the promise of new skis or the fact that the older woman formally called each of the kids by their full name, Sylvia did not know.

      Sylvia, herself, kept watching the woman cautiously, half expecting something to happen that would cause Mrs. Buckwalter’s generous enthusiasm to disappear. Surely one of the woman’s relatives would step up and say Mrs. Buckwalter wasn’t competent to donate large sums of money. That was one reason Sylvia was glad to be away from Seattle. She doubted any of the accountants would bother with them when they were so far away.

      Mrs. Buckwalter had made all the arrangements. The bus had been rented for a month even though the driver would fly back to Seattle once the suitcases were unloaded. The driver would return and drive them back when they were ready to go.

      Sylvia looked around the bunkhouse again, reassuring herself that she had made the right decision. She had excused herself from the others, saying she needed to change her blouse. She had spilled coffee on it this morning, but the small spot wouldn’t ordinarily stop her. No, she wanted a few minutes alone to gather her thoughts before she faced Garth again.

      She remembered being in Garth’s house that morning when he’d found her half-frozen and had brought her to his ranch. She could almost picture where he must be sitting now. He’d have his boots off and his feet propped up in front of the fireplace. Garth hadn’t come to the door when the bus pulled up. It had been Francis who stood on the porch and called out, asking everyone to come up to the ranch house for a cup of hot cocoa and some cookies.

      Sylvia had asked Mrs. Buckwalter to tell Francis that she’d be up soon. She had thought a five-hundred-mile bus ride would prepare her to meet anyone again. But it hadn’t.

      Now here she was—hiding out in the bunkhouse like a coward. She shook her head ruefully as she set her suitcase on one of the chairs near the stove. Even with the stove’s heat, it was still a little chilly in the room. Sylvia took off her coat and opened her suitcase. She’d be quick. Maybe she’d put on her red blouse for courage.

      Garth swore as he rode over the hill and looked down at his house. The bus was parked in the driveway and he could hear the sounds of voices coming from the living room. Knowing Francis, she had everyone inside thawing while she fed them cookies. Garth hoped she kept everyone there for a few minutes. He wasn’t ready to meet Sylvia. She was a city woman and he didn’t think she’d appreciate being greeted by a man whose hands smelled of ammonia and whose feet smelled of cattle. Fortunately he could СКАЧАТЬ