Carla Kelly (7 page)

“It's a good offer, miss,” the other man said.

“Not good enough. Good day, boys. See you on the range,” Mr. Otto said in a tone so final that Julia almost rose to leave herself.

“You'll change your mind, Miss Darling,” Clements said cheerfully as he turned to leave. “The chief here has a hard time keeping women on the Double Tipi.”

Julia sucked in her breath and held it when Mr. Otto stood up. The room was so quiet now that she could hear other people breathing.

Clement's face had turned the color of putty, and Julia watched in horrified fascination as his Adam's apple moved up and down. “You know I was funning, Mr. Otto!”

“No, you weren't.”

He did nothing but stare at Clement, but it was enough. Hanrahan tugged his partner by the belt buckle and pushed him toward the door.

Mr. Otto sat down and leaned back in his chair. “Sorry about those two.”

She mumbled something in reply and could have kissed the waiter when he appeared with their food.

“You'll hear rumors,” he said when the waiter left but added nothing more, which didn't ease her doubts.

They ate in silence. When he was halfway through the steak in front of him, her employer set down his fork. “You sounded pretty knowledgeable in the bank,” he said.

She sighed. “I was
awful
in the bank, and I should apologize,” she began, grateful right down to her stockings for a safe topic.

He finished the hash browns and then leaned back again. “I don't think I ever heard a lady mention compounded interest, either,” he said.

“What about the business women at the Ecstasy?” she asked, before she thought.

“Not from them either,” he replied with a smile. “How do you know about interest?”

“I should,” she said, putting a stern cap on her urge to babble. “My father is a vice president at Zion's Bank.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Then why are you…?” He stopped and turned his attention to the rest of the steak.

That must be another rule,
she thought.
Never pry.
She busied herself buttering a roll, even though she knew she didn't want it.

When Mr. Otto finished, the waiter appeared at his elbow to whisk away the dishes and then return with apple pie weighed down with a huge slab of cheese. The rancher indicated the pie with his fork. “Want some?”

Julia shook her head.
He likes steak, hash browns, and apple pie,
she thought.
And bananas. Thank goodness I have come to the rescue with my cookbooks. Pretty soon he will know what he's been missing. I doubt he has ever eaten potted pigeons or lobster salad. I wonder how many men he has killed. I wonder what I'm doing here.

When he finished, he took the bill from the waiter, but before he could get up, another man approached the table. Julia tensed.

“Darling, let me introduce you to Cuddy,” Mr. Otto said.

“Allen Cuddy,” the man said, extending his hand to her. “I have a first name.”

I used to,
she thought, even as she smiled and shook his hand. “I'm Julia Darling.”

“We share some range, Darling. You might see him around sometime.”

“Probably more than sometime, ma'am,” he replied, and she couldn't help noticing that he had wonderful blue eyes and that his shirt was clean.

“You can't have her, Cuddy,” Mr. Otto said with a sigh that sounded weary right down to his bone marrow. “She works for me.”

“Wouldn't dream of trying to hire her, Paul,” he replied. “What do you take me for?” He grinned. “I had marriage in mind, actually.” He tipped his hat and left the restaurant.

Julia gasped.

Mr. Otto swore in irritation. “Darling, you're going to cause me no end of trouble. I hadn't even thought of that complication. Well, I did think you would be older.”

He was right, of course. She had not been truthful. “Mr. Otto, you're worrying for nothing,” she said. “I don't even know him! And I'm not so sure I…”

“Know me?” he asked softly. “You don't. No one does around here. Change your mind already?”

o, I have not changed my mind,” she said quietly, not willing to be overheard by the entire dining room. “I was going to say, ‘I don't know him, and I'm not so sure I want to,’ “ she finished, picking up her gloves from the table. “Mr. Otto, if you don't try to tell me what to do all the time, I will cook for you.” She frowned. “Oh, that sounds…”

“Honest?” he suggested. He was looking at her hand. “Bad marriage? I've been there.”

Surprised, she followed his gaze to her left hand; only the thinnest white line remained where her ring had been. “Bad engagement,” she replied as she put on her gloves.

He picked up the check and rose. “Change of scenery then?”

She nodded, too shy to say anything.

“Cook desperate, eh?” he said softly when they stood outside again.

She nodded again, walking beside him back to the wagon.
I should apologize,
she thought.
I did misrepresent myself.
”Mr. Otto, I owe you an apology,” she began. “I told a Grandpa Haney.”

He lifted her to the wagon seat and unhitched the horses. “What is a Grandpa Haney?” he asked, climbing up beside her. He spoke to the horses, and they started up a side street.

“Grandpa Haney was from England. He came west to Utah Territory when he was fourteen, walking all the way,” she said, shading her eyes with her hand and wishing her hat wasn't in ruins in the wagon bed. “He had never driven a team of horses before. When he reached the valley, someone told him that if he could drive a logging team, he could have a job.”

“Of course he said he could,” Mr. Otto said, amusement in his voice. “I almost hate to ask where this is leading. Are you telling me that you really
can't
cook?”

“Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “I can do things to food that you never dreamed of, Mr. Otto.”

“I suppose I'm relieved,” he murmured.

She made an effort to overlook the doubt in his voice. “Grandpa Haney said he could drive a team because he needed the job so desperately. The day before he was to start, he went to the mouth of the canyon and watched the teamsters.”

“Studying?”

She nodded. “The next morning, he got in the wagon seat and became a teamster. He did it, even though he told a monstrous whopper.” She was silent, thinking of her grandfather. “He did it,” she repeated softly. She turned to him. “Mr. Otto, I suspect that I'm not precisely what you had in mind when you wrote that ad.”

“Far from it.”

“That's why it's a Grandpa Haney,” she said, and took a deep breath. “I suppose I knew all along that what you meant by mature wouldn't be me.”

“That's honest enough. I think I can live with your particular Grandpa Haney,” he said as he looked back at the town. “You've certainly noticed by now that I didn't stick you back on the train. I want a cook, Darling. That's all.”

He turned his attention to his horses, and they continued in silence. She wanted to ask him if he had employed a cook earlier who hadn't worked out. She also wanted him to tell her about the others she would be cooking for. He seemed inclined to keep his own counsel, and she was not inclined to bother him.

They traveled in silence for what seemed like hours to Julia, but which couldn't have been more than one, when he turned the team west, away from the town and toward the bluffs. The wind blew uncomfortably warm from the west, the dust rising and falling in fitful puffs until she tasted the grit in her mouth.

They traveled on a gradual incline, hardly noticeable. Every now and then, she heard the song of the western meadowlark. All around them, the grass whispered and hissed with every wind change.

“Buffalo grass,” Mr. Otto said. “Best thing there is for bison and cattle.” He pointed toward a distant windmill that towered over a shack. “And there's the worst thing.”

She squinted against the sun. Nothing moved around the house. She looked at her employer, a question in her eyes.

“Homesteaders,” he said with a frown. “They busted out. Get away from the irrigation ditches, and you can't homestead enough land in Wyoming to make agriculture pay. I think congressmen should be forced to homestead in a tar paper shanty out here. Sure would spare us some silly laws.”

To Julia, this sounded like a favorite topic of his. “What happens to the homesteaders?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes stockmen burn them out and cut the barbed wire. Other nesters just get hungry. I don't know where they go.”

“That's hard.” She looked back at the shack as they passed. In the middle of a sea of grass, a shredded towel or diaper still clung to the clothesline, the loneliest thing she had ever seen.

“It's a hard land. That's why when I said I was a longtime, veteran rancher, it was no Grandpa Haney.” He sighed. “I've ranched a long time, and I've seen a lot of stuff you probably wouldn't approve of.” He paused, as if gauging her reaction. “Mostly I feel sorry for them. There's a family of Germans in our pass, and I think they must be living on air. Sometimes I…” He stopped, obviously changing his mind. “It's hard on the women and children.”

As time passed, the sun became more uncomfortable on the back of her neck. Julia wanted to ask how far it was to the Double Tipi but said nothing. She would only be whining.

Her nose was starting to hurt when Mr. Otto suddenly took off his hat and settled it on the ruin of her coiffure, tipping it back a little so she could see out from under the brim.

“You need your hat,” she protested.

“Not as bad as you do,” he said. “Malloy has some zinc oxide that he'll share when we get to the Double Tipi. He has ginger-colored hair, and he always burns.”

That was all the conversation he offered for another lengthy time. They were definitely climbing now, and there was a pass, narrow to be sure, but well-traveled. The sandstone cliffs they passed between were pockmarked with small caves. She thought at first that she saw bats flying in and out, but they turned out to be swallows. Always there was the fragrance of sage and the sound of grass.

To the relief of her parched and burning skin, the sky darkened. She waited for the air to cool, but the heat became more oppressive. She noticed that Mr. Otto glanced more and more often at the sky.

“Sorry about Clements and Hanrahan,” he said finally.

She had been expecting a comment about the weather. “Who?” she asked, surprised.

“Those lumps of chickensh—those two in the restaurant.” He was silent for another long moment, but she was grateful that he was concentrating on her now and not staring at the sky. “Do you often get stupid questions about your religion?” he asked.

“Not often,” she replied. “Except for my year in Boston, I've hardly ever been out of Utah.”

“I'll bet you were a nine-day wonder in Boston.”

“I suppose I was,” she said. “When one of the students found out I was from Utah, she asked me if my father had a harem.”

“Like the Grand Turk, eh?”

“I think she was almost disappointed when I told her that Mama was his only wife. The rest of the students were quite nice, however.”

The air suddenly blew cooler. Relieved, she raised her face to the sky just as the heavens opened up and poured water down.