Western Spring Weddings: The City Girl and the Rancher / His Springtime Bride / When a Cowboy Says I Do. Kathryn Albright
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“It’s not fresh, I reheated this morning’s.”
“Still smells good.” He dropped into a chair. She poured him a large mug and slid the plate of cake toward him.
“You havin’ some, too?”
“Yes.”
He took a bite, and Clarissa watched avidly as he chewed and swallowed.
“Tastes kinda...um...flat.”
“Flat?” She took a tentative bite. The cake was nicely browned on top, and it had a fine texture. But he was right—it had no flavor at all. What had she done wrong? She grabbed Mrs. Beeton’s book and thumbed through the pages until she found the recipe. Flour. Sugar. Eggs. Saleratus. And salt. Salt! Good heavens, she’d forgotten to add salt. No wonder it tasted flat!
She snatched Gray’s plate away.
“Hold on a minute, it’s not that bad, honest!”
“Don’t lie to me, Gray. Don’t ever, ever lie to me.”
He blinked and his fork clattered onto the table. “Clarissa, I never lie. I’ve never lied to anyone in my entire life, not even—” He broke off.
Her breath stopped. “Not even who?”
“Not even my pa when I left home, uh, I mean ran away. I wanted to, though. God, I wanted nothin’ more than to tell him the truth, but...well, I couldn’t. But I couldn’t lie, either. So I didn’t say anything at all, I just up and left.”
Clarissa stared at him. “You hate my cake, don’t you? You just don’t want to tell me.”
Gray chuckled. “No, I don’t hate it. It’s true, it’s not a very tasty cake, but maybe you can pour something over the top, like a frosting or something. Maybe Mrs. Beeton can suggest something to rescue it.”
She began idly riffling through the pages.
Gray sipped his coffee and watched her. “You know, there’s lots more important things in life than one flat-tastin’ cake.”
She said nothing, but he could tell by her face that she wasn’t convinced. She’d probably been raised so starchy and proper in her rich brother’s house in Boston that she expected everything she put her hand to to be perfect. Well, he had news for her. Nobody’s life went like that.
For a brief minute he thought about telling her so, but the wary expression in her eyes made him hesitate. There were other emotions in her face, too—some he could read, like tiredness and disappointment and discouragement; other things were a mystery, especially an odd, hungry look she tried to hide that made his breath catch.
“I’m going for a walk,” he announced. He escaped out the back door and again made his way down the path to the barn where he plopped down on a hay bale to think things over. The warm air smelled like straw and horse dung. There was nothing in particular he had to do out here, so after a while he found himself talking to Rowdy.
“Had to get out of the kitchen, fella. Felt kinda closed in, hard to breathe, you know? Don’t understand why, exactly, just felt surrounded. Clarissa feels things, see. Me, I try not to feel things. That’s what’s kept me safe all these years.”
He stood up and nuzzled the gelding’s black nose. “We’ll talk again soon, boy. Next time I’ll bring you an apple.”
Some days later, Clarissa finished wiping the last of the supper plates and paused for her nightly stocktaking meditation. She had saved a few dollars already. Precious dollars. But she needed many more for the train ticket back to Boston. Emily was adapting, almost effortlessly, to life on the ranch but Clarissa grew more and more dispirited with every passing day. Or rather every passing breakfast, dinner and supper. It was a wonder Gray had not complained. It was an even greater miracle he had not fired her! Maybe that was what he’d wanted to talk to her about that night.
With a sigh, she hung the damp dish towel on the hook by the stove and drifted out the open front door to the porch where everyone had gathered—the ranch hands, Shorty and Nebraska, and even Erasmus, the old man who took care of the horses and swept out the barn. Maria and Ramon sat on the top step, holding hands.
The day had been scorching right up until the sun sank behind the far-off purplish mountains to the north with a last wash of flaming crimson and orange. Out here in the country night fell with a finality she still found unnerving. She gazed out at the unrelieved blackness, then stepped off the porch and looked up at the sky. Back in Boston the stars had never seemed this close, like tiny blobs of silvery dough scattered across the velvet sky.
She remounted the steps, settled herself in the porch swing and breathed in the scent of roses and the honeysuckle vine that twined over the trellis. Nebraska was tuning up his fiddle and soon launched into “Red River Valley.” After one verse Erasmus pulled a battered harmonica from his overalls pocket and joined in. It wasn’t a symphony orchestra or a chamber ensemble, as she had enjoyed back in Boston, but the music sounded lovely, anyway.
Maria brought out a big pitcher of lemonade and a bowl of ripe strawberries, and Clarissa nibbled and let her thoughts drift. What would her life have been like if Anthony and Roseanne had lived? Emily would have had a real mother and a father, and she herself...well, perhaps she would have walked out with an admirer, maybe even married and had a child of her own. As it was, she’d been too absorbed in caring for Emily to entertain many callers, and outside of an occasional concert or visit to the library, she’d spent all her time learning to be a mother. She wouldn’t trade Emily for anything on earth, but sometimes she did wonder about what she had missed in life.
* * *
Emily was quiet this evening. Perched on the porch between Gray’s long legs she wasn’t even clamoring for a story. The music rose and fell, and soon Emily’s head began to droop onto Gray’s knee. After a while, Ramon stood and beckoned Maria into his arms and they began to dance around and around on the porch.
Emily seemed to wake up at this, and jiggled Gray’s knee. “You gonna dance with me?”
“Well, now,” he said in a low voice, “I don’t know. I’m not real good at dancin’.”
The girl jumped to her feet. “I bet I could teach you!” She tugged on his hand. “Come on. You’re not scared, are ya, Gray?”
“Scared?” Gray got to his feet and took both the girl’s hands in his. “I’m not scared of a four-year-old girl with a thousand questions, no.” But he had to admit he was plenty scared about other things, like losing more of his cattle to rustlers or finding more bad water. Or losing his ranch. And he was definitely uneasy about Caleb Arness. He’d expected the man to show up before now, and he couldn’t help but wonder why he hadn’t. Probably he was in jail. Again. Next time he went into town he’d ask around and stop by the sheriff’s office and inquire.
He had to bend down a bit to dance with Emily, but the ecstatic look on her freckled face made the effort worthwhile. He liked making her smile. She had to take two or three steps to every one of his, so their progress around the porch was slow, but Emily didn’t seem to care. Her red curls bobbed in time with the СКАЧАТЬ