The Cactus Creek Challenge (19 page)

She expertly cracked and separated another half dozen eggs with an ease he knew he’d never acquire and handed him the whisk once more as he calmed his temper.

“Do you like my cookies? Mama says I make the best cinnamon-sugar cookies in all of Texas and Tennessee, too.” Amanda dusted each cookie with a precise dash of spice. “That’s where we lived before. In Chattanooga. My daddy was a banker. We had a big house, and I had a nurse, and Mama had a maid. And there was a housekeeper and a cook and a valet, too. When Daddy died, Mama packed me up in the middle of the night, and we got on the train and didn’t get off until the conductor said we were in Cactus Creek. Did you know conductors have brass buttons, and the ceilings on trains fold down to make beds?”

A banker? With a big house and servants? And running away in the middle of the night?

“I’m glad we came here. Mama is happy. She likes baking things and having a pretty shop. She hardly ever cries anymore, only sometimes at night when she thinks I’m sleeping.”

Carl set the bowl aside until he could get himself better under control lest he ruin another batch of egg whites. He wanted to scoop Amanda up and assure her that nobody would ever hurt her again, The idea of Jenny crying herself to sleep at night made the muscles of his neck and shoulders knot. What kind of man would abuse a woman, especially one as small and delicate as Jenny Hart?

And why would a woman of privilege and status want to hide herself out here on the Texas prairie, having escaped from her old life in the dead of night?

Jenny finished walking and currying the sorrel and put him in the only empty loose box in the barn, opposite the pony mare and foal. None of his welts had broken open, but she bathed them with cool, clean water and applied salve anyway, apologizing the entire time for letting that horrible man rent him in the first place.

He seemed to accept her apology, nuzzling her as she trailed her hand down his face before she shut him into the stall. With a sigh, he lowered himself to his knees, then subsided into the straw, closing his eyes.

“You have yourself a nice old rest. I’ll mix you up a warm mash before I leave tonight. And tomorrow we’ll take a stroll and limber up those muscles of yours.”

Now she needed to check on Copper and the baby. Every time she thought of the way she’d ungraciously shoved Carl’s gift back into his face, shame licked at her with hot tongues of flame. Where did she draw the line between protecting Amanda and making a new and normal life for them here in this community?

The truth was, she could afford the horse. If she wanted to draw on the money in her husband’s accounts in the First Bank of Chattanooga. But if she did that, she risked her father-in-law finding out where she was and possibly making good on his threat to take Amanda from her. Though he, too, had been disgusted when his grandchild had been born a female, he had let Jenny know at the funeral that he would be stepping in and taking over Amanda’s upbringing. He’d brandished a will stating that Robert had named his father as the guardian of his child because Jenny was too weak and frail to undertake the task alone, and he’d bragged to her that he had a judge in his pocket who would sign the order within the week.

Which was all Jenny needed to bolt from the mansion in Chattanooga and vow never to return. Hart Sr. was every bit as evil and nasty as his son, and she’d die defending Amanda from him.

No, she couldn’t risk trying to withdraw the money. Her father-in-law had probably emptied the accounts the minute he found out she’d fled with Amanda. As the owner of the bank, he’d have no trouble purloining the money that was rightfully hers and Amanda’s and making it all look aboveboard. She still had a bit of the money she’d managed to take from Robert’s desk the night they’d fled, but most of it had gone toward their travel and buying the bakery. With so little left in reserve, she couldn’t spend it on the upkeep of a pony.

She entered the stall and closed the door behind her. In the shadows, the foal lay on its side, its ribcage rising and falling. For some reason, she’d been uneasy about the baby all day. Though she’d seen the filly attempt to suckle several times, she still had a pinched and hollow look to her.

Copper whickered and returned her nose to the hay in the manger, and Jenny knelt beside the baby. “Hey there, little one.” The filly raised her head for a moment, then dropped it to the straw again. Something was definitely wrong.

Rising, she dusted her hands. Though it galled her to ask for help, her pride wasn’t worth the life of this baby. She’d have to tell Carl. Quickly latching the gate behind her, she headed for the bakery.

She almost laughed at the urge she had to knock at her own back door rather than intrude on his immaculate kitchen. Grasping the handle on the screen door, she stepped inside. The most amazing smell greeted her. Warm cinnamon and a tang of lemon? Certainly not sourdough biscuits.

Carl turned from the oven, a sheet of cookies held in a dish towel-protected hand. She blinked. “You made cookies?”

He stopped, letting the hot pan come to rest on the tin-topped worktable. “And cake. You want some? I promise it has the right amount of vanilla in it this time.” He pointed to where two sponge cakes sat, dripping with a golden glaze.

“Maybe later.” The cakes looked quite appetizing. He appeared to be doing better at her job than she was at his, which made having to ask for his help even harder. “Actually, I came to ask you about the foal. She doesn’t appear to be doing too well. It’s strange, because I’ve seen her nurse several times, but she looks hungry to me. Now she’s listless and lying in the straw.”

He tugged at the strings holding the flour sack around his middle. Her lips twitched. He’d abandoned wearing her aprons at least.

“Maybe the mare’s milk hasn’t come in yet or she’s not producing much. Do you have any cans of evaporated milk?”

She rummaged in a cupboard and produced three tins.

“Open them up and put them into a saucepan with about three tablespoons of molasses and a can of water. We’ll warm it up and see if we can get it into the little gal.” He slid the cookies off the hot baking sheet onto the countertop to cool.

As she stirred the milk in the pan, she studied the cookies, each with a precise dash of cinnamon in the center.

“Was Amanda here today?”

He paused in the washing up. “Why do you ask?”

“Those look like her work. Some of the school kids were out and about this morning on an assignment from Ben, and I wondered if Amanda had come into the bakery.”

Splashing resumed, and he kept his back to her at the washtub. “She and one of the older girls were in.”

Baking cookies, and probably the cakes, too. She shook her head. Her own daughter working for the enemy. No, that wasn’t right. Though Carl was her opponent in the Challenge, and a worthy adversary at that, he wasn’t her enemy. There was something that appealed to her about him. Somewhere under all that beard and the muscles and the bluster beat a kind and generous heart. No, he wasn’t an enemy. He was a friend. Just a friend.

She tested the milk. “I think it’s ready. How are we going to get it into her?”

“Do you have any leather gloves? Like kid leather? And a clean glass bottle?”

Retrieving her church gloves from her bureau upstairs took only a minute.

He paused before taking them. “I’ll get you a new pair.”

“Don’t worry about that.” She opened a utensil drawer and took out a pair of shears and a roll of cotton twine. “We can empty out a bottle of vanilla. Oh, wait, we already have an empty one.” She forced down a giggle as he harrumphed and snipped off one of the fingers of the glove.

Using a funnel, she poured the warm milk into the bottle, then held it while he tied the makeshift nipple on and poked a hole in it with her ice pick.

“There, one baby bottle. That should do for now. If the mare’s milk doesn’t come in soon, maybe I can order a real baby bottle from the catalog over at the mercantile.” His hand dwarfed the vanilla bottle.

“I’ll bring the rest of the milk. Just let me put the C
LOSED
sign in the front window and lock the door.”

“Bring the funnel, too.” He held the door for her, and they headed back to the livery.

The foal lay exactly as Jenny had left her, flat out and uncaring. Carl gently pushed the mare to the side of the stall, pinning her there with his hip as he bent to first look at and then palpate her udder.

“There’s milk there, but she isn’t letting it down.” He frowned. “We’ll deal with that in a bit. First, let’s take a look at the little lady.” Squatting, he ran his hand along the foal’s side and picked her little head up off the straw to look at her eyes.

“I think you nailed it. She’s hungry.” When he held out his hand, Jenny was right there to give him the prepared bottle. “Come here, sweetheart. This will make you feel better.”

Plopping down into the bedding and leaning back against the partition, he turned the foal to lie between his outstretched legs. Jenny helped arrange the foal’s long legs and knobby knees while Carl held the bottle to the filly’s lips, easing her mouth open and squeezing the improvised nipple to allow a few drops of milk to land on her tongue.

Her head jerked, and her ears flopped. Blinking, the baby’s tongue moved convulsively. Her lips clamped around the teat, and she sucked. Her bottle-brush tail stirred the straw, and her eyes closed as she took long pulls. Carl kept his fingers tight around the neck of the bottle to keep her from swallowing the glove tip.

“That’s a good girl. Nothing wrong with you that a square meal won’t fix, eh?” Carl’s enormous hand caressed the dark brown baby, and a smile softened his face.

Jenny sat back on her heels, wrapping her arms around her knees, watching how gentle he was with this animal that he had no real use for, that wouldn’t earn her keep in a livery stable. Nothing like her former husband, who counted every decision, made every action based on how it would impact his power. Financial power, community power, domestic power. She couldn’t imagine him wearing a flour-sack apron and washing dishes or sitting in the straw bottle-feeding a pony foal.

“You were right.”

His voice jarred her from her thoughts. “What?”

“Amanda made those cookies. And the other girl made the cakes. I just watched and wrote down what they did and followed orders.” He stroked the foal’s neck, twining his fingers in the curly little stand-up mane. For an instant, Jenny wondered what it might feel like if he stroked her neck and curled his fingers into her hair. It had been so long since she’d been touched, and even longer since that touch was gentle or affectionate. An ache opened up in her chest.

“Since we’re making confessions of getting help, I have something to tell you.” She gripped her knees tighter, bracing herself. “I rented the sorrel gelding to a man, and he brought him back in terrible shape. Sweating and trembling and covered in welts.” Forcing down the lump in her throat, she continued, “I didn’t have the first clue what to do for the poor animal, but Ben Wilder was here, and he told me how to care for him.”

Heat invaded Carl’s eyes, and his fist tightened around the bottle. “Who was it?” The razor-edge in his voice sent a shiver up Jenny’s spine.

“I didn’t know him. You can be assured I won’t rent him a horse ever again.”

“What did he look like?”

“Not tall, dark hair, scruffy beard. Small eyes.” Heat swirled into her cheeks. “He was impertinent.”

“That’s two strikes against him.” He held up the bottle and peered at the scant few drops left. “She polished it off. We’ll let her rest for a bit and allow that to settle before we give her more.” He eased himself up after handing her the bottle. “Let’s take a look at the gelding.”

He still had that hard edge to his voice, as if he was barely maintaining a grip on his temper, and Jenny stood well back.

“Where is he?”

She pointed across the aisle to the other loose box. “Ben said to let him have plenty of room to lie down or move if he wanted to.”

He opened the door. The gelding stood in the corner, his head down, one hind leg tucked under. As gentle as Carl had been with the foal, he was even gentler with the gelding.

“Easy there, boy.” The horse raised his head and shoved his nose into Carl’s chest, as if to say, “It was terrible. I’m so glad you’re here now.”

“What did Ben tell you to do for him?” Carl’s voice rumbled low in his chest.

She quickly outlined the treatment and breathed a sigh when the livery man nodded, fondling the animal’s ears.

“You did right. It’s a fact of life that when you rent animals to strangers, you run the risk that they won’t be treated well. Though I haven’t had much trouble with that.”

“Probably because anyone who rented one of your horses would think twice about returning it in poor condition. You’re big enough to exact justice.”

“Yet another reason this Challenge is a load of hooey. If I had been here, either the man would’ve thought twice about beating this horse, or he’d have paid in kind if he had. I knew this barn was no place for a woman, especially not a little thing like you.” He edged out of the stall, and she noted his fisted hands.