Waiting for Morning (The Brides Of Last Chance Ranch Series) (12 page)

“I think you’re making a big deal out of nothing,” her sister, Lula-Belle, said that Tuesday morning after Bessie poured out her heart around the kitchen table. She was younger than Bessie by two years, but you’d never know it by her old-fashioned thinking. The drab clothes and tight corkscrew curls Lula-Belle favored didn’t just assert prudery but a closed mind as well. The only concession Lula-Belle made to fashion was her ridiculous feathered hats.

“Nothing?” Bessie threw up her hands. She had just explained that the town’s drinking problems could ruin Kate’s and Luke’s wedding, and all her sister could say was nothing?

Lula-Belle’s mouth puckered. “I don’t see what business it is of yours what men do with their time.”

Bessie reached for the pitcher of lemonade. “Do you want Harvey Winkleman to pass out at the piano like he did at Roy Trumble’s funeral?” Mercy. With all the inebriated men at the funeral, it was a miracle the undertaker didn’t bury the wrong person.

“There’s nothing you can do about it,” Lula-Belle said.

“Nonsense. There’s plenty I can do.” Bessie filled Lula-Belle’s
glass. “I’m going to insist that every saloon close the night before the wedding. That way, not only will our singer and pianist be sober, but the guests will be too.”

Lula-Belle’s eyes opened wide. “How in heaven’s name do you plan to do that?”

“I don’t know yet, but I’ll figure out a way.”

Lula-Belle’s springy curls bounced all over her shaking head. “Every time you get a bee in your bonnet, something goes wrong.”

Bessie filled her own glass. “That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it? What about the time you decided we needed to make our husbands take notice of us? When you started getting all fancied up, Sam thought you were sweet on another man and it almost broke up your marriage.”

“This is different.” Bessie set the pitcher down. “This isn’t about me. It’s about our nephew’s wedding.”

Lula-Belle reached for her glass. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Oh butterball. You have a bad feeling about everything.”

Molly hesitated in front of Donny’s door, her heart heavy. Popping a lemon drop in her mouth to soothe her scratchy throat, she braced herself with a deep breath and knocked.

“Come in.” His muffled voice sounded a mile away.

He lay faceup on the bed where she’d left him hours earlier. He didn’t even bother to look at her when she entered the room. Instead he continued to stare at the ceiling, his face bathed in the yellow light of the kerosene lamp.

“Are you still angry with me?”

Donny said nothing and the silence was like a wall between them.

She sat on the edge of the bed and the springs squeaked beneath her weight. It hurt to stand but it even hurt to sit, and she rubbed her back. Never had she worked as hard as she had these last two weeks. She longed to collapse in bed but not before making peace with her brother.

Donny turned his head, his eyes dull as tarnished copper. “Why won’t you let the doctor help me?”

She inhaled. “Donny, you mean the world to me. If I lost you . . .” Nightmares of the fire continued to plague her. In her dreams she hadn’t been able to reach him and she continued to wake every night in a cold sweat. “Dr. Fairbanks had no right to jeopardize your safety.”

“He looks at me like a real person.”

“You
are
a real person.”

“Then stop looking at me like I’m some poor helpless child!”

She withered beneath his hostile look. “That’s not how I think of you. It’s not, Donny. Honest.”

He stared at her but said nothing, and suddenly he didn’t look like the boy she’d known so well—the boy she loved and cared for. Instead he looked like a stranger.

She’d noticed the physical changes—the chin stubble. The way his trousers barely reached midcalf. Then there was all that voicecracking as he changed from tenor to baritone. She had become an expert at averting her eyes when she dressed him, looking away at just the right moment when he bathed. But this went far beyond bodily changes. It was as if he was about to cross some invisible line and leave her behind.

“You’re smart and bright . . .” She reached for a dog-eared journal. “You have to be to understand this.” Donny enjoyed reading his science magazines aloud and explaining the technical terms to her. “Read to me.”

“I don’t want to read.”

“Then I’ll read to you.” She flipped through the pages. “’It has long been imagined that the phenomenon of comet’s tails is in some way due to a solar electrical repulsion.’” She looked up. “This makes my head want to explode.”

“It’s better than those sappy dime novels you read.” He hugged himself and made a loud kissing sound to imitate a lurid cover.

“They’re not sappy . . . Besides,” she added with more than a little regret, “I’m too busy to read.” The key to their future was the ranch. She could no longer waste time reading about true love. Such things existed only in books.

She tossed the journal on the bedside table and turned off the lamp.

“Molly.”

“Yes?”

“When Dr. Fairbanks pushed me around the courtyard, it felt like I had legs.”

She gripped the door handle and tried to breathe. The doctor had no right to interfere and had only made things worse. When she was only ten, a wealthy woman had invited her and the other miners’ children to a grand house for Christmas dinner. Molly had never known people lived in such luxury, and the experience made it harder than ever to go back to the tent she called home. Sometimes ignorance really was bliss.

“Good night,” she whispered.

Chapter 11

I
t was a hot Sunday morning but a slight breeze made the heat bearable and kept the flies away. Nearly three weeks had passed since Molly and Donny had arrived at the ranch, and it was hard
to believe it was the middle of June already. Brodie said that July was
the beginning of monsoon season, marked by high temperatures, wind, and rain, but for now the skies were clear.

Once she settled Donny on the verandah, Molly stood by his side and stretched, filling her lungs with fresh air.

After nonstop training of horses, rounding up cattle, and cleaning stables, things had finally settled down. The boss lady had left the previous day for Tombstone for a meeting about range rights and wouldn’t be back until day after tomorrow.

Molly always knew when Miss Walker was gone. The cowboys behaved more leisurely, their usual stoic faces giving way to laughter as they joked among themselves. Even the horses seemed more relaxed, grazing peacefully . . . all except the little horse Donny called Orbit. The colt continued his strange habit of stepping sideways with his hind legs, his body circling around his lowered head. She still didn’t know why he did it but she enjoyed watching him.

Laughing at Orbit’s antics, she lifted her face to the sun, her eyes closed.

If she was lucky enough to inherit the ranch, this was how she would run it. She’d want the cowboys to call her Molly, not Miss Hatfield, and no one would have to wait for
her
to leave the ranch to take a day off from all but necessary chores. She shook the thought away. What good was it to dream? If the last couple of weeks were any indication, her chances of becoming Miss Walker’s heiress were nil. Even Brodie said as much. Without the ranch she’d have nowhere to turn, no place to go
.

Her gaze roamed over the land that, in a very short time, she’d come to love. She still couldn’t get over the wide-open spaces. The vivid blue stretched from the yellows and pinks of the early morning sunrise all the way to the reds and oranges of the setting sun.

She no longer missed Dobson Creek, and that surprised her. She didn’t even miss the amazing variety of songbirds or the wild asters, lupines, and Indian paintbrushes that grew there. The desert flowers were so much more colorful and interesting. The blooms of the oddly shaped saguaros opened only after dark, and the waxy white and yellow flowers filled the night air with sweet fragrance. She especially liked the bright red ocotillo flowers.

God, this is the only real home we’ve ever known. Please don’t let me mess it up.
Whether or not God was listening or even cared, talking to Him was still a habit and brought her a measure of comfort.

Her prayer fell away with a sigh and she regarded her brother’s sullen expression. “What do you want to do today?”

“Nothing,” Donny muttered.

“We could play checkers.” That never failed to cheer him, probably because she always let him win. “Or we could read to each other.”

“I told you I don’t want to do anything.”

She chewed on her bottom lip. It seemed a pity to waste a whole day doing nothing. Earlier Ruckus had invited her to go to church with him and his wife, but she had declined. That was the last place she wanted to go.

She turned toward the house but a faint rumble made her stop.
Dr. Fairbanks
.

A strange fluttery feeling rushed through her. What was he doing here? He didn’t generally check on Miss Walker’s horse on a Sunday.

Like a protective mother, her first thought was to take Donny inside away from the doctor’s prying eyes. She would have done exactly that had her brother not brightened and waved his arms to gain the doctor’s attention.

Stunned by the sudden change in Donny, she swung her gaze to the road. Dr. Fairbanks pulled up in front of the house amid a cloud of smoke. The auto coughed and sputtered before finally falling quiet.

“Miss Hatfield. Donny,” he called, waving. He jumped to the ground and bounded through the gate and courtyard and up the verandah steps, his dog at his heels. Appearing to be in jovial spirits, he tipped his hat and ruffled Donny’s hair, making her brother grin.

Molly stooped to pet the fluffy ball greeting her with wagging tail.

“He’s adorable,” she said and laughed when the little dog tried to lick her face. It wasn’t the kind of dog she’d expect a tall masculine man like the doctor to own. “What’s his name?”

“Magic,” Dr. Fairbanks said. “And before you say anything, I didn’t name him. In fact, I didn’t even choose him. He chose me.”

“Come here, boy,” Donny called and Magic sprinted toward his chair.

Molly straightened. “He chose you?”

“Actually, I think he chose Bertha. I originally planned to drive
all the way to Cactus Patch, so I stopped to purchase gasoline. When I wasn’t looking, Magic somehow managed to climb into the car and curl up in the backseat. I didn’t discover him there until twenty miles later. I turned around and drove all the way back to find his owner.”

Molly studied the doctor with interest. Not many men would bother driving twenty miles to return a lost dog.

The doctor continued, “Unfortunately, Magic’s owner had joined the Lord a week prior.”

“So you decided to keep him.”

He regarded her with clear, observant eyes. “It was more like he decided to keep me.”

She glanced at her brother, who held Magic on his lap. “I guess that makes you a kept man.”

“I’ve been called a lot worse.” The corner of the doctor’s mouth quirked upward. “I hoped I’d find you here. I came to offer you both a ride to church.”

It was the second invitation to church that day, but coming from the doctor it was even less welcome. Not only was the man a menace, he was unpredictable.

“You put my brother in danger, not once but twice. What makes you think I would go anywhere with you?”

Certainly not church. It had been years since she stepped foot in one. Not since her father’s funeral. The elders explained that the presence of a dance hall girl would upset the delicate sensibilities of the town’s “respectable citizens.” For that reason, she was made to stand outside and peer through the open doorway with her brother. After the funeral she never went back.

“I came to apologize for my reckless behavior and am willing to be forgiven,” the doctor said.

She might have been more ready to forgive had it not been for the twinkle in his eyes.

“Your idea of apologizing leaves a lot to be desired,” she said. “And no, I will not go to church with you.” God she might trust; church she did not.

“I originally intended to invite you both for an afternoon drive.” Caleb flashed a devastating grin, teeth white next to his sun-bronzed skin. “I figured you’d say no to me, ma’am, but I didn’t think you’d say no to the Lord.”