August (Prairie Grooms, #1) (12 page)

“I think I know who you’re talking about,” August said. “Scruffy fellow, beard down to here?” He waved his hand somewhere near his belt.

“Yep, that’s the one.”

“Is he a miner?” asked Belle.

“Don’t rightly know,” Ryder said. “He’s not real good at fixin’ things, but he lends a helpin’ hand.”

“All I know is you’d better skedaddle home and get your work done,” said Belle.

“Uh, yes, ma’am.” Ryder tipped his hat, turned his horse and kicked him into a trot. “I’ll be seeing you around, August,” he called over his shoulder as he rode across the barnyard.

“That you will,” August shouted after him.

Constance sighed and fanned her face with her hand. “Oh my ...”

Eloise nodded. “He
is
quite handsome.”

“He certainly is,” Constance agreed, with emphasis.

“I’m talking about the one at the hotel,” Eloise added.

“I should hope so,” Constance said as she looked at her. “It would never do if you thought the man I am to marry is more handsome than the one you are.”

Eloise nodded as they continued to stare after Ryder’s retreating form.

“August,” Belle said as she stood smiling at the two sisters. “The man you and Ryder were talking about – I’ve never seen him.”

“He doesn’t come into town much. He just visits once every few months, then returns to the hills.”

Belle shrugged. “Oh, that doesn’t matter. What does is what Penelope thinks of the farm. Well?”

Penelope shook herself out of her contented state. She’d been holding August’s hand and reveling in the warmth and strength of it. It was all she could do to pay attention to her sisters’ conversation with Ryder Jones. “I ... I think it’s quite lovely.” She turned to August. “You’ve done a fine job – it’s a beautiful little cottage.”

He grinned ear to ear. “Why, thank you, Miss Red. Coming from you, I take that as high praise.”

She smiled and blushed. “You’re very welcome. Is there anything else you’d like to show me?”

“How about we take a stroll to the barn?” he suggested, his voice low, and gave her hand another squeeze.

She blushed. She knew what he was implying. He wanted to steal another kiss.

“I think perhaps we’d better get back to the ranch,” said Belle, pointedly. “Sadie has been there by herself with the baby a long time.”

August nodded, never taking his eyes from Penelope’s. “Whatever you say, Mrs. Cooke.”

Penelope smiled. In three days she would become Mrs. August Bennett, and be living here on this charming little farm. The thought gave her the reassurance that she
had
made the right decision to come here. It looked like she wasn’t going to spend her life as a spinster after all.

* * *

A
fter August put his new chickens in the barn, he helped everyone but Penelope into the back of the wagon for the return trip to town. She thought it odd Eloise would choose to ride in the wagon bed instead of up front on the seat, but after watching her and Constance exchange conspiratorial looks with one another, she figured out what they were doing. They wanted August to have a chance to steal another kiss, and every time she glanced over her shoulder at them, they were looking at anything but the front of the wagon where she and August sat.

August also noticed, and every few minutes would scoot a touch closer to her –
touch
being the operative word. If he could manage it, he’d “accidently” brush against her, using the excuse of a bump in the road or a mysterious rut. At one point he leaned against her as he steered around a rock – a rock about the size of a walnut. When she gave him a suspicious look, he assure her that one could never be too careful about the effect of a little rock on a wagon wheel ...

His flirtatious maneuvers gave her a case of the giggles that undermined her efforts to keep up appearances for her sisters’ sake. By the time they got back to town, it was all she could do not to reach out and brush her hand against him in return. But with people milling about the streets of Clear Creek, she quickly realized there would be no more chance to laugh at his flirting, let alone flirt in return.

He parked the wagon in front of the mercantile, set the brake, and jumped down. After helping the women out of the back, he held his hands up to Penelope. She stared at them. They were strong hands, calloused, used to the kind of work it took to run a farm. Would her hands become rough and scarred from hours upon hours of hard work as well? Would she,
could
she work at his side from sunup to sundown? She had no education in such things, had never imagined she’d ever be in a place like Clear Creek, staring into the deep blue eyes of the handsomest man she had ever met. No, never in a million years could she have imagined
any
of this.

“How about it, Miss Red? Are you going to let me help you down?” he asked gently.

“Of course,” she whispered, fighting the urge to lick her lips.

His whole body shuddered in response as he took her waist in his hands, lifted her from the wagon and set her on her feet. “Talk like that will get you kissed, Miss Red,” he whispered back as he looked into her eyes.

She swallowed. “I ... I apologize then.”

He lowered his face to her ear. “Don’t apologize for it at all, Miss Red. I like it when your voice is soft and pretty.”

His hot breath in her ear sent a delicious chill up her spine, and she closed her eyes against it lest she do something silly, like faint. She managed to nod in return.

He chuckled low in his throat, took her hand, and led her up the steps and into the mercantile.

“There you are,” Logan said to August as they entered. “Wilfred said you’d gone out to your farm.”

“Yes, sir – I had to show my bride her new home, and drop off my chickens.”

“I heard about that. Chase down at the livery told me you bought Mr. Turner’s rooster.”

“I didn’t buy him, actually. He gave him to me.”

Logan chuckled. “Sounds like a better deal. Not sure for who, but free’s free.”

August pulled Penelope closer, and she had to fight from sighing against him. The warmth of his body, the size and strength of him so close, was like being surrounded by Heaven. Why did he affect her like this?

His voice drew her back to reality. “What is it about that rooster? You make it sound like Old Man Turner couldn’t wait to get rid of him.”

Logan shrugged as he turned back to the front counter of the store. “Heard he’s different, is all.”

“He’s got an attitude, that’s for certain,” August agreed.

“Well, don’t turn your back on him, from what I’ve heard,” Logan chuckled as Wilfred came out from behind a curtained doorway and went behind the counter. “How about a peppermint candy?” Logan asked of him.

“Sure thing,” Wilfred said and reached for a jar on the shelf. “Peppermint sticks for ever’body! I hear we’re gonna have us some weddins?” He turned and looked at August and Penelope. “Ladies’ sewin’ circle meets here tomorrow. Let the weddin’ dresses commence!” He winked and held out the jar.

Penelope took a candy as Constance and Eloise whispered their excitement to each other. She sighed in contentment, and before she realized what she was doing, leaned against August.

He put a hand on her shoulder, snapping her to attention. “No,” he whispered in her ear. “Don’t move, stay right where you are.”

“But Mr. Bennett,” she managed, her knees feeling as though they would buckle at any moment. “This is highly ...”

“Normal,” he finished for her. “After all, we’re going to be husband and wife in a few days – and if I had my way, Miss Red, we would already.”

He put his hand to the small of her back as he reached out to the jar and took a candy. “I hope you’ll like being a farmer’s wife,” he said before popping one end of the treat into his mouth. “Because I am very sure I will like having one.”

She started crunching the candy in her mouth to distract herself from his heated gaze. If the look on his face was any sort of an indicator, he wasn’t just referring to working alongside him. He was hinting at other things a wife and husband did ...

She smiled at the thought, feeling almost wicked, and continued to munch.

* * *

T
hackeray Cuthbert Holmes had once been a fastidious man. His taste in clothes had always been impeccable, his hair styled in the latest fashion. Men revered him in London as one of the dandiest dandies there ever was. He smelled and looked of money, even though he hadn’t a penny to his name. But back then, he appeared the part, and none were ever the wiser, until his bank account ran dry due to an unfortunate gambling decision on his part.

As one would imagine, this left him with a rather large problem. If he didn’t come up with some cash fast, he could lose it all. Not money or property, which he didn’t have much of to begin with, but the one currency he did hold: his reputation.

The key piece was the townhouse in London, which his father had left him – he couldn’t bear the thought of selling it. Not that the building itself was special, but if he lost it, his friends would be quick to find out he was poor, and Heaven forbid he should let that happen. His relations had money, but they’d already bailed him out in secret at least a half-dozen times, so asking them was out of the question. And as he was loath to let his friends find out, he couldn’t ask them for help either.

But then Heaven (or somebody) had smiled upon him, when he received word his dear Uncle Anthony, the Duke of Stantham himself, had fallen terribly ill, could pass at any time in fact, and if Thackeray wanted to see him, he’d better come quick.

He did, and just as quickly got a list of all the other relatives in line to inherit, so that he could figure out a way to climb to the top of said list in a hurry. Suffice to say, Thackeray was not without friends in the London underworld, as was the case with a small percentage of the
ton
. There was no profit in getting his own hands dirty – not when he could just as easily pay someone else to soil theirs.

Unfortunately, things don’t go as planned, and here he was four years later, alone, half-starved, dirty, wearing nothing but rags, and with more hair on his face than he knew what to do with. And still without a penny to his name, except ...

Yes, except. Except what he had managed to scrounge up doing odd jobs for a kindly young man who had set up residence at the base of the Oregon hills, where the prairie met the tree line. He was an affable fellow who’d pay Thackeray a few coins to help around his place whenever he came down to sniff up news of the Cooke family and buy supplies. It was easier to steal from the wagon trains that came through, but there hadn’t been as many lately due to some sort of upset happening on the other side of the country, (at least that’s what he gleaned from eavesdropping on the settlers he robbed). So he found himself needing supplies again sooner than he liked.

Well, nothing for it, then. He grabbed his top hat – what was left of it, anyway – stuck it on his head, and headed down the mountainside to see about earning a few coins, gain some company, and find out if those no-good, stinking Cookes had sent the new Duke of Stantham off to London yet to claim his inheritance. For if they had, it was thus time for Thackeray to begin exacting his revenge.

A
fter breakfast the next day, the three sisters made ready to depart for their first official meeting with the ladies sewing circle of Clear Creek. “Who else will be there?” asked Eloise.

“Every woman in the area,” Sadie answered. “This is a sewing emergency. We thought you’d have dresses, but as none of you do ...”

“It was most unfortunate, losing them the way we did,” Constance remarked. “But there was no help for it at the time.”

“Dismissing Mr. Thompson would have been the only viable option,” Penelope said. “But as it was, he ... quit of his own accord.”

“That’s one way of putting it, sister,” said Eloise. “Bravo.”

Penelope smiled at her. The loss of Mr. Thompson had been great and tragic, but there was nothing any of them could do about it. If he hadn’t met with his untimely demise, then who knows what else he might have tried to gamble away. One of them, perhaps? She shuddered at the thought and looked to the baskets on the kitchen worktable. “Whatever is in those?”

“Lunch,” Belle replied as she pulled back the checkered napkin covering the contents and added a few hard-boiled eggs. “This is going to be an all-day project.”

Sadie bounced Honoria on her hip. “Are we ready?”

Belle glanced around the kitchen. “I believe so. I left sandwiches for Colin and Harrison and the other men. They’ll have to fend for themselves today.”

“Where does the ladies’ sewing circle meet?” Constance asked.

“At my aunt and uncle’s mercantile,” said Belle. “But if we get more women into town, and our group grows, we’ll have to see about holding our meetings at the church.”

“Grows?” Eloise asked. “Are you expecting more women to come to town to marry?”

Sadie and Belle exchanged a quick look. “Of course,” said Sadie. “Your other relatives for one. They’re probably already on their way.”

“What?” asked Penelope in shock. “Are you talking about our Uncle Leonard?”

“Our cousins from Kent?” Eloise muttered to herself.

“Yes, they’re on their way now and should be here by harvest time,” Sadie informed them.

“How wonderful! I so miss them!” Constance said happily.

“And we’re going to miss the start of the meeting if we don’t hurry,” said Belle as she picked up the baskets. “Let’s go.”

Jefferson drove them to town and let them off before taking the wagon to the livery for a few repairs. Besides, he liked helping Chase the blacksmith out now and then, as his father used to smith, and he himself had filled in at the forge for a short time a few years before. Sadie told him to pick them up later that afternoon, and, with Honoria on her hip, she led the rest of the women inside.

“Good morning, Sadie!” a woman cried from across the mercantile. Penelope recognized her from the day of their arrival. As she recalled, her name was – of all things – Fanny Fig.