Dorothy Garlock - [Wyoming Frontier] (14 page)

“Business and pleasure. Seein’ you again is the pleasure part.”

“Thank you,” she said. “And the business part?”

“How many men do you have here now, Miss McCall?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. How many men work here?”

“I wouldn’t know. You’ll have to talk to my cousin.”

“Cullen or his pa?”

“Cullen. You’ll find him at the bunkhouse if he’s not out seeing about the cattle.”

“Where is that? The south slope?”

Mara Shannon felt her face grow hot beneath his intense stare and was relieved when she heard Pack call out to Trellis, then heard his steps on the back porch. She stood, grateful for his return. Something about the marshal’s inquiries made her nervous. She was sure that he was thinking one thing while saying another.

Pack came in. He looked first at Ace January and then at Mara Shannon. A look in her eyes told him that she was glad to see him.

“Howdy, January. I thought I recognized that horse.”

“Howdy, Pack. Looks like you’re gettin’ over the roughin’ up the boys gave you.”

“You knew about that?”

Ace laughed. “It’s all the talk. Everybody in the territory knows about it.”

“You knew before it happened and you did nothing.” Pack pulled out the bench, straddled it and placed his forearms on the table.

“You made the choice, Pack. You knew what you were in for when you went against the crowd.” Ace looked Pack straight in the eyes, then drained his cup.

“So I did.” Pack stood and pushed the bench back with his foot. “Let’s talk outside.”

The marshal rose and held out his hand to Mara Shannon. She could think of no way to avoid placing her hand in his. He squeezed it tightly, let up, and squeezed again.

“Thanks for the coffee, ma’am. I’ll be back one of these days soon for that cake you promised me.”

“Good-bye, Mr. January.” Mara Shannon pulled her hand from his.

Pack had gone to the door. Mara, looking past the marshal, saw a look of impatience on his face. An imp inside her tempted her to ask the marshal to come back real soon, but her common sense told her to keep quiet and she did.

At the door Ace looked back at Mara. Her thighs were against the table as she reached for his coffee cup. She looked up into his eyes and he slowly lowered one eyelid. When it occurred to her what he had done, her face flamed. The girls at the school had told her about the flirtatious wink of an eye when a man wanted a woman to know he desired her. Somehow, instead of angering her, it made her want to laugh.

Pack walked around the house until he reached the front hitching rail where the marshal had tied his horse.

“Are you here on business, Ace?”

“Mara asked me that. I told her business and pleasure.” He saw the tightening of Pack’s facial muscles on hearing him say the woman’s name with familiarity. It amused Ace that he could make the big man angry. If Pack wanted the woman, it would make the taking of her all the more enjoyable.

“I take it you’ve had the pleasure. What’s the business?” Pack asked bluntly.

“You should know that. This place is a hangout for any outlaw with the price for room ’n board.” Ace mounted his horse. Although he was tall, Pack Gallagher topped him, and he despised looking up at a man.

“If you know that for a fact, why don’t you clean it out? You’re the marshal.”

“ ’Cause I’m not ready. That’s why.”

“There are half a dozen petty crooks down at the bunkhouse. You could take them in and collect a couple of hundred dollars in reward money.”

“I’m lookin’ for a really big fish to come floatin’ in. I’d be a fool to dam up the stream afore he gets here.”

“Little fish turn into big fish if they’re not caught,” Pack said dryly.

“Old Willy is wonderin’ when you’ll be back. He said if I saw you, to tell you to come on back and tend to the business.”

“I doubt if Willy said that. He can run that freight line as well as I can.”

Ace shrugged away the contradiction. He glanced toward the house, rolled and lit a cigarette before he spoke.

“Are you hidin’ out here, Pack?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you’re afraid you’ll get your clock cleaned again if you go back to town.”

“Yeah, Ace. That just plumb scares me to death.”

“It’ll not be a scare that’s the death of you.” Ace paused and looked steadily at Pack. “It’ll be a bullet,” he said softly, then wheeled his horse and rode back down the lane toward the road.

Pack watched him go, glad he was leaving. Ace January seemed to be a good marshal. He had not heard anything to the contrary, but something about the man made him uneasy, and he didn’t know why.

*  *  *

“Why in the hell did you let that man into the house?”

Mara Shannon would have forgotten Ace January’s visit if not for those angry words Pack spat at her. He had stomped back into the house and told her in no uncertain terms that she was not to invite the man into the house again. When she demanded the reason, he sputtered and told her it wasn’t
decent
for her to be in the house alone with a strange man. At that she laughed, making him even more angry. She wondered what Pack would say if she told him Ace January had winked at her.

Several days passed, and Pack’s words still made her angry when she recalled them. She pushed thoughts of him and the marshal from her mind, broke the shell of an egg and carefully spilled the contents into a bowl. She added another and beat the eggs until they were a light yellow.

“What next, Brita?” she called.

“A teacup of sweet milk.” Mara and Trellis had moved Brita’s bed so that she could look into the kitchen. “Then ye be addin’ a lump a butter the size of an egg.”

Mara hummed while she worked. She liked to cook, and Brita was teaching her to make what she called everyday cake. The tired look on Brita’s face worried Mara. Brita hadn’t wanted to get out of bed since the day Pack was brought home. For most of the day she lay and stared out the window after Mara had washed and straightened her bed.

“It looks like a wet mess, Brita.”

“Put in a teacup a sugar ’n grate up part of a nutmeg.”

“These nutmegs look as old as I am.”

“They be all right, darlin’.”

“Brita, I wish we had a cat. Do you think Trell could get us one when he goes to town?”

“Emily Rivers promised one to me. Charlie took her big tabby to town . . . at just the right time. Be ye ready . . . fer the flour?”

Brita was getting breathless again. Each time it brought back memories of her own mother’s breathless whispers and caused a hard lump of dread to settle around Mara’s heart. She called out to Brita cheerfully in spite of her fear.

“I’ve sifted it twice. Did you say two teacups?”

“Aye. ’Fore ye put it in, fill the hollow a yer hand with bakin’ powder. Not too much, now.”

When Mara scooped the powder, she went to the door so that Brita could see how much she had in her hand. “How’s this?”

“ ’Tis only half enough, darlin’. Ye don’t be wantin’ yer cake flat as a pancake.”

Mara finished mixing the cake, poured it in a flat pan, and put it in the oven. In about half an hour she would stick a straw from the broom in the middle. If it came out clean, it was time to take the cake out of the oven.

When Trellis came into the kitchen half an hour later she was sifting sugar over the top of the cake. Mara’s mind flashed back to the time Pack had come to the school with her father. Trellis was not as big or as quiet as his half brother, but he had the same black curls and dark blue eyes. He was going to be a handsome man.

“Is that for the company?” Trellis wet his finger in his mouth and swiped it through the sugar.

“What company?”

“Charlie Rivers and Miss Emily.” He spoke as if company were an everyday occurrence, but his eyes shone with mischief. “Trav come down off the big hill and said he saw them comin’. I’ll go tell Ma.”

Mara followed him to the bedroom and smoothed the bed-clothes over Brita’s slight body.

“Would you like to get up and sit in a chair to meet Miss Rivers? Trell will help us.”

“No, darlin’. This be fine. Ye’ll like Emily.”

Coming through the parlor and into the kitchen, Pack stood in the doorway of his mother’s room.

“Did I hear you say the Rivers were coming, Trell?”

“Yup. They’ve got your gray tied on behind the wagon. They ought to be comin’ ’round the hill ’bout now.”

As Mara turned to go back to the kitchen, Pack’s big body filled the doorway. Their eyes met. A sincere yearning shone in the depths of his dark blue eyes. Did the thought of seeing Emily Rivers put that look there? Sam said his horse was headed toward the Rivers place when Charlie Rivers found him. Pack had been there many times if the trail was so familiar to the animal. An unexplainable uneasiness began to confuse Mara’s thoughts.

“Excuse me,” she said when Pack didn’t move from the doorway. He stood for a few seconds longer, then moved. Mara brushed past him, her head down, embarrassed because she had been staring at him.

She looked around to make sure things were tidy, then raced up the stairs to her room. Her heart began to thump. She felt as if new life had been suddenly pumped into her body. It’s the company, she thought. This was the first time she’d had guests for dinner in her home. She would use the tablecloth with the scalloped edge, make tea for herself and Miss Rivers, coffee for the men. While her mind was busy with plans for dinner, she took off her brown work dress and slipped a blue sprigged cotton dress over her head. With sure swift fingers she fastened the front buttons, whipped a clean white apron from the drawer, and tied it about her waist.

She looked at her face in her ivory-backed hand mirror, one of her most prized possessions, and grimaced. Freckles she had kept at bay with lemon juice had popped out on her nose. She loosened the ribbon that held her hair at the nape of her neck, bent over and brushed it to the top of her head, and coiled it. After fastening it with her silver hair pins, she set a comb in the back to hold the loose hair off her nape.

Each Christmas for the last five years a package had been beneath the tree for her. The year she was sixteen it had been the comb and brush, the next year the mirror and the curved comb for her hair, and the next year the hair-saver and a beautiful Mexican shawl. The fox cape was the gift at Christmas the year she graduated, and at graduation she had received a beautiful cameo brooch. These things were Mara’s dearest possessions. She had fantasized that they were from a secret admirer, and that someday he would present himself at the door of the school. He would be handsome and charming and madly in love with her. He would sweep her up into his arms, carry her away to his castle, and love her to distraction.

When she questioned Miss Fillamore, the woman told her that she had bought the gifts with the funds she collected from the parents of girls Mara had tutored privately.

Mara carefully placed the mirror glass down on the dresser scarf. She remembered how desolate she had felt when she discovered that Miss Fillamore had not given her the presents because she was fond of her. Oh, well, it did not matter now that the gifts were payments for services rendered. That part of her life was over. She had no time to spend on schoolgirl sentimentalities. She was a grown woman, responsible for a house.

And company was coming.

SEVEN

Mara went out onto the porch and stood beside Pack. The large green eyes she lifted to his were as full of pleasure as a child’s with a new toy. Their gazes met, warmed and played within the depths of each other’s eyes. The harsh lines that usually furrowed his brow were gone. There was no hostility between them now. Pack felt his heart jump out of rhythm, felt his blood pound and drain away. He chuckled to hide his confusion.

“What did you get all dressed up for?”

“I didn’t. This isn’t a
good
dress.”

“It looks good to me.”

Her breath was insufficient. She drew in a deep, long one. Her eyes lingered on his smiling mouth and the creases on each side of it.

“Thank you,” she murmured breathlessly.

“You’ll like Emily.”

“Brita said that.”

“She’s almost blind—”

“Trell told me. Are they our nearest neighbors?”

“There are a couple more homesteaders east of here.”

He wanted to keep talking to her, but he couldn’t think of anything safe to say. An almost domestic tranquility existed between them. Sharing this sweet intimacy with her made Pack almost light-headed with pleasure.

The wagon stopped in front of the house. A man with a neat beard and a wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his eyes wound the reins around the brake handle and climbed down. Mara was surprised that no one had mentioned Charlie Rivers had only one leg. Pack went down the steps to the wagon just as Charlie reached up to help his sister down.

“You don’t look too beat up to me,” Charlie said to Pack. “I bet you’ve been playing possum, letting a pretty woman take care of you.”

“Something like that.” Pack laughed and held his uninjured hand out to Charlie.

“I expected to find you flat on your back, being waited on hand and foot.”

“I’ll not be running any footraces for awhile, but I’m out of the woods.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Are you sure you’re all right, Pack?” Emily placed her hand on his arm and lifted her face toward him. “Let me see your face. Is your nose still there?”

“I think so, but it might not be in the right place.” Pack laughed, bent down and put his face near hers. “One nose, two eyes, and all my teeth.” He snapped them at her.

“Your poor nose. I expected to see it smeared all over your face . . . again.” Emily reached up to grasp his nose with her thumb and forefinger and wiggle it. “Pack Gallagher, I swan to goodness you can get into more trouble than a drunk hoot owl.”

Watching from the porch, Mara saw a new side to Pack. The brother and sister were genuinely fond of him and he evidently returned their affection. He handled Emily as gently as if she were a prized possession, taking her arm and leading her toward the porch. The thought came back to her that Pack might be in love with the blind girl and she with him.