An Unwilling Husband (12 page)

She didn’t like the sound of taking a day off. Keeping busy made her feel as if she contributed to the good of her new home. “It was hauling feed to the cattle, and mucking out stalls, and riding so much that tore them up. I think I should be fine doing what I did today, though. Milking hurts but it doesn’t make them worse.”

The clock ticked and logs snapped in the fireplace as he studied her hands, rubbed her scars with his thumbs. Then he nodded and released them. “Keep them wrapped though?”

“Sure.”

“And we need to put Lenny’s salve on them before you go to bed tonight. It’s probably rubbing off as soon as you start doing work with your hands during the day.”

From the cupboard where Lenny stored her medicinals, she pulled the jar of greenish brown, gloppy odorous salve. She had no idea what was in it and was honestly afraid to ask. It looked like pig shite but smelled herbal, so Lenny probably wasn’t actually slathering feces on her hands following breakfast every morning.

Garret took the jar from her, surprising her, took the clean linen strips from the same cupboard and sat down in front of her. After a few minutes of diligent and confident work by him, her hands were soothed and wrapped. Afterward, as he stood, he squeezed her shoulder gently, bewildering her, and readied a fire. He was still damp from a day in the rain and though Texas summers were hot, letting the chill take one on a wet night was never a good idea.

Unable to do any sewing with her wrapped hands, she went back to reading the well-worn copy of Oliver Twist she’d started that afternoon by the fire. As on the night before, she felt Garret’s occasional glance in her direction, but was at a loss to interpret any of that undecipherable man’s thoughts.

“I’m off to bed, I think.” She smiled at him and walked down the hallway to her bedroom. She had changed into a nightdress and was taking the pins out of her hair, when someone knocked lightly. Her breath caught in her throat and she padded to the door, opened it just wide enough to peek out. Garret stood outside, leaning up against the doorframe, and looked every bit like he regretted knocking in the first place.

His gaze took in the sliver of her nightdress and the dark locks visible that tumbled over her shoulders. “I’m going to bed. Just wanted to tell you happy birthday. And good night,” he added.

“Good night, Garret.” She shut the door gently, and back pressed against it, waited for her breathing to steady. If she’d lost herself in his blue eyes any longer, she might have lost her wits.

She touched her lips and for the hundredth time, the tender kiss he’d given her on their wedding day came to her. She didn’t know how it was to be with a man, but sometimes caught herself thinking it wouldn’t be so bad if he were a man who looked and kissed like Garret Shaw.

Chapter 8

“Mornin’, Maggie,” Garret said from his seat at the kitchen table.

He had fried up some eggs and made her a plate. The stubble on his face was already starting to come in, though he’d shaved the day before. Sparse, but dark and made the angles of his face attractive. The first day after he shaved was when he was most beautiful. His blue eyes seemed even brighter when surrounded by all his dark, silky hair.

“Maggie?” Eyebrows raised, he looked at her as if she might have lost her mind.

Embarrassing heat touched her cheeks. Of course. “Good morning,” she said a little too cheerily in an attempt to break the awkward moment.

He shook his head and went back to pulling his boots on. Taking advantage of his distraction, she plopped down on a chair and started on her breakfast. Since coming to Rockdale, her appetite had increased. Probably due to the physical and emotional work life here seemed to entail.

“I’m going to be out with the cattle for the bulk of the day,” Garret said. “The rain’s let up and I need to get them fed properly and drive them closer to the smaller pond in the back. It should be nice and full now to keep ’em. The boys are still back in town so it’ll take me a while.” As he pulled on his jacket, he cast her a look that brooked no argument. “You saddle Buck and keep him that way. Tie him to the porch and stick close to Lenny today. If you see anyone coming, you head straight back to the pond and come get me, you hear?”

She nodded instead of answering lest a blob of eggs flop unbecomingly from her mouth. It wasn’t the impression she wanted him to leave with for the day.

He put his hat on and fastened a leather belt with pistols to his waist in a practiced movement. “Let me clean your hands before I go.”

He pulled up a pot and sloshed some water into it, set it on the stove and dragged a chair closer to her then unwrapped her hands. The salve was still damp but well on its way to drying. The smell and the thought of what her hands would look like when clean made her crinkle her nose. Her skin felt soggy.

Garret took the pot off the stove, tested it with a finger and put her hands in it to soften the drying salve. The warm water soothed her torn skin and his careful touches relaxed her. While he worked, he bent his head close to hers. He smelled like Garret but different. Like... sleepy Garret. Maybe this new miniscule change in his scent was only something he gave off near sleep, and she smiled at the observation. It was nice to see him as a mortal man and not some cold, unchangeable and untouchable being.

“There you go,” he said once her hands were clean.

To test how much they’d healed, she made them into fists. They certainly looked better, if one ignored the extreme prune effect each of her fingers had adopted. “Thank you. They feel better already. I’m sure I’ll be right as rain after a couple of days.”

“Good. Let ’em air out for a bit and then have Lenny rewrap them before you start working.”

Maggie leaned back in her chair. “Bossy,” she accused.

He stood and headed for the door. “For your own good, woman.”

Hopefully, calling her a woman instead of a girl meant he saw her as such.

When she left the cabin to find Lenny, the rain had indeed stopped, but just barely. Dark clouds threatened to open up on them at any time. She pulled her shawl more tightly around her shoulders and headed for the hands’ cabin. Lenny met her out front, and lifting her skirts, Maggie showed the girl she wore her new moccasins. Laughing, her friend grabbed her arm for the short jog to the barn as the first rain droplets hit their heads.

Lenny led Roy’s mules out to the corral to stretch their legs while Maggie milked the cows with her wrapped hands. Macey seemed thoroughly unimpressed with the new texture pulling at her full udders, and let her know with dirty looks and a swishing tail in her face. The other cow didn’t seem to care as long as she had a fresh pile of hay in front of her. Lenny wouldn’t let her do anything much after that. Garret must have talked to her. Unfortunately.

Watching the tiny Indian woman do all the chores without being able to lift even one blister covered finger to help was stultifying. Eventually she went into the cabin. Since she couldn’t do much else, today she’d try to master the elusive art of pie baking. She cleared off the entire dining table to use as work space. Three hours later, by the quiet striking of the clock in the den, dusted with flour, she glared critically at a rather bedraggled strawberry pie. It looked awful but tasted like it ought. Pride warmed her and her mouth turned up at the corners in a smile. She’d try and make it a little prettier next time, is all.

Cooped up and restless, she pulled on her shawl and stepped onto the porch. Rain didn’t seem imminent, so she went out to saddle Buck. Garret’s earlier request to have him ready had gone by the wayside while she’d been baking. Now uneasiness skittered through her. Wyatt could still make good on his promise after all.

After Buck was saddled, she searched for Lenny, to no avail. “A ride it is then, my old friend,” she said, combing through Buck’s mane with her fingers. “We could use a little adventure, yeah?”

She took the horse’s snorted response as a yes and mounted him with an ease that was slowly coming to her the more she rode. This was her first outing in one of the smaller and more casual dresses and, happily, the skirts were easier to maneuver.

As an afterthought, she pulled Buck up to the porch and ran inside to grab some food. Biscuits and a hunk of cheese in the saddlebag, she pointed the old gelding in Garret’s direction. Surely he was starving by now. With any luck, he would be hungry enough, he’d tolerate her unexpected presence with some semblance of gratitude. Or maybe not. Either way, she would find out shortly.

Long before he appeared head and shoulders behind all the cattle, his loud whistles and shouts to keep the herd moving came to her. The Lazy S kept roughly two hundred head back each year to sustain the herd for the next season’s drive and keep the residents comfortably fed on beef when game grew harder to hunt in the winter months. Or so Cookie had explained to her when she’d asked if the men would get a break from their bovine duties.

Garret and the cattle were already close enough to the pond, so she waited patiently to the side. He was a man completely in control of his horse as he worked. The sight of him was both exciting and flustering. A length of rope hung from his hands, which he swung around occasionally when the stubborn cattle needed extra motivation. The motion accentuated the muscles in his trim waist and strong arms.

Maggie put her hand to her cheek and felt the warmth there. Embarrassed that she watched him while he was unaware, she urged Buck in Garret’s direction. The movement must have caught his eye, for he nodded a terse greeting but kept working.

“Keep that side over there, will ya?” he yelled, pointing to a group of cattle determined to escape from the group. She pulled the rest of the herd animals in the same direction he seemed to be working. Her work wasn’t pretty or organized, but Buck cut through the cattle like waves on a shore.

She didn’t doubt Garret could handle it on his own, but she was happy for a chore and jumped at the chance to do something new. Clucking her tongue, she steered Buck toward the ill-behaved beasts. At a loss for training, she looked often to Garret to mimic his actions. His horse lurched forward and back at his command, and he yelled indecipherable words at the herd to move them in the direction he wanted. It became easier to yell at the bawling beasts when her frustration reached the burning tips of her ears.

Again and again, a young spotted bull ran for the brush and pulled the confused group’s edge with him. She drove the beastly little leader back but he wasn’t gracious about going. “Move it, you biscuit licking son of a blooming arsehole!”

Surely, Garret couldn’t possibly hear her over the bellowing of the cattle.

From the smile on her husband’s face, though, she was most likely wrong. She was green and made a lot of mistakes, but with time and patience, perhaps, could be decent at herding them. With practice, she’d gain the instinct for predicting where the beasts would go like Garret seemed to have.

At long last, they were close enough to the pond, the cattle headed in the right direction on their own. Garret trotted up beside her on Rooney.

“You know, sometimes you have a filthy mouth.” Grinning, an amused glint in his eye, he sat with ease on his shifting, prancing mount.

“Well, I thought you couldn’t hear me, and they weren’t going where I wanted them to. Swearing seemed to work best on them, in my very limited experience.” She tried not to smile. His boorish behavior was not to be encouraged. “I brought lunch, if you are hungry.”

Garret inspected the sky as the tiny rain drops that had been sparse until then became more substantial. “I was going to head back to the house and grab the wagon so I could haul some feed out here, but I could stop for lunch. Besides,” he gave another suspicious look at the sky, “I think it’s about to open up out here, and a wise man seeks shelter in a storm.”

She followed him to a huge oak and tied Buck to a low branch alongside Rooney. Garret took a coarse, rolled blanket from his saddle and laid it out at the base of the gargantuan tree. Moisture managed to make its way through the maze of leaves and thick branches, but for the most part, she and Garret were dry. Much drier than the soaking wet herd milling in front of them.

As she pulled out the lunch, Garret fixed his gaze on the side of her face. Was she wearing her breakfast?

“What have you been doing today?” he asked, and wiped the pad of his thumb down her cheek, leaving a trail of heat where his skin touched hers. He pulled his hand away to inspect his flour-covered thumb.

As she wiped her face thoroughly with her sleeve, she said, “Making a pie. Or trying to make a pie.”

“Well, how’d it turn out?”

“It tastes good but looks like a dead animal.”

Garret barked a surprised laugh, put a hunk of cheese onto his bread then took a bite. When finished chewing, he said, “And how would you know what a dead animal looks like?”