Waiting for Spring (14 page)

“He'd be perfect for you.” Gwen was nothing if not tenacious. “Barrett Landry is one of Cheyenne's most eligible bachelors.”

“I know.” This was an absurd conversation. Just because Gwen fancied herself in love didn't mean she needed to play matchmaker for Charlotte. “If I were considering marrying again—which I am not,” Charlotte was quick to add, “Barrett would not be the man for me.”

“Why not?”

“Any number of reasons.” Some of which Charlotte would not reveal. “Let's start with the most important one. He's going to marry Miriam.”

“But he doesn't love her.”

Charlotte dried another plate. “Why do you say that?”

“Because he doesn't look at her the way Warren does when he's looking at me.”

Though Charlotte had thought Warren's expression reflected avarice more than love, she had no intention of saying that.

“Be that as it may, they're practically engaged.”

“But if they weren't, wouldn't you want to marry Barrett?”

Charlotte sighed as she looked at the stack of pots and pans still to be washed. This ridiculous conversation was going to be a long one.

“No,” she said firmly. “He deserves better.” Though his apology had been sincere and she believed he was beginning to recognize David as the boy he was, Barrett's future constituents might not be so accepting of a child they considered less than perfect. And then there was the baron. If he was still in Wyoming and if she were being courted by Barrett, he would have a good chance of seeing her and David while Barrett was campaigning. Charlotte couldn't let that happen. She couldn't risk the baron finding her. She seized on a subject that Gwen ought to understand. “I'm not meant to be a senator's wife.”

“Nonsense.” Waving her soapy hand in the air, Gwen dismissed Charlotte's concerns. “You'd be wonderful. I can picture you at Barrett's side while he's campaigning.”

Perhaps. The image wasn't as foreign as Charlotte might
have thought. She pictured Mama serving alongside Papa. Theirs had been a partnership as well as a marriage. Perhaps that was what Barrett sought from his marriage. And that brought Charlotte back to her first reason: Miriam, her friend Miriam. She was the future Mrs. Landry.

“He's going to marry Miriam.”

Gwen waved her hand again, this time sending soap bubbles floating through the air. “Can you honestly say you're happy about that?”

“Of course I am.” Even to Charlotte's ears, the words rang false.

Gwen let out a triumphant crow. “You care for him. I thought you did.”

Charlotte shook her head slowly. “He's a friend. Just a friend.”

“And cows fly.”

 9 

H
ow do you know if you're in love?”

As Charlotte's hand moved involuntarily, she almost stabbed Miriam with a pin. A minute ago, Miriam had been speaking of the fire that had consumed the Depot Hotel and her father's disapproval of President Cleveland's newly appointed territorial governor, who was alleged to have engaged in illegal fencing of range lands. Now she wanted to talk about love. That meant Barrett, the man Miriam had described as honorable, contrasting him to Governor Baxter.

Charlotte had agreed. Barrett was honorable. He was also surprisingly humble for a man of his wealth and social standing. Only a humble man would have apologized the way he had, and only a caring man would have taken the time to try to teach David to roll his ball. Charlotte's heart warmed whenever she remembered the tall, handsome cattle rancher who might become a senator sitting on the floor, playing with her son. He'd been more than considerate. She could almost
believe he'd been loving. Of course, there were many kinds of love. The one Miriam wanted to discuss was different.

“I'm hardly an expert.”

Miriam smiled as she admired her reflection. “You are an expert, and not only at making the most beautiful gowns in Cheyenne. Just now, your eyes softened and your cheeks turned pink, so I know you were remembering a special moment you shared with your husband.”

It was cowardly, but Charlotte lowered her head, pretending that Miriam's train needed adjusting. She couldn't let her too perceptive friend guess that the man who had brought about that blush was the same man Miriam planned to marry. “You really should discuss this with your mother.”

“There are no discussions with Mama.” Miriam let out a sound that in anyone less well bred would have been called a snort. “She gives lectures. In this case, I have no need to ask her, because I know what she'll say.” Miriam pursed her lips as she imitated her mother. “Love is for books. What's important is a man's social standing.”

Sadly, Charlotte could imagine Mrs. Taggert saying exactly that. “I don't want to contradict your mother, so I'll answer your question with one of my own. How do you feel when you're with him?”

While she waited for Miriam's response, Charlotte draped a length of lace around the neckline of the gown, then shook her head. As she had thought, the dress was more striking without it.

“Alive.” Miriam's lips curved into a sweet smile. “That sounds odd, doesn't it? But when I'm with him, I see things I've never seen before. I think I hear birds singing, though I know they've all flown south. Even ordinary food tastes better
when he's at the table. If I told Mama that, she'd either laugh or call Dr. Worland, but it's not just my imagination. That's how I feel. Alive.”

Charlotte nodded slowly. “You've answered your own question. You're in love.”

Heedless of the pins that held her gown together, Miriam twirled around. “Isn't it wonderful?”

It was. For Miriam.

“We'll be back by Thanksgiving Day.” Barrett watched as Harrison shivered. With clouds obscuring the sun, the wind penetrated even the heaviest of woven fabrics, finding its way between the fibers, eventually turning the underlying skin red and then dangerously white. That was, Barrett suspected, the reason the Indians wore leather garments. Certainly, it was the reason he had brought two buffalo robes with him. Animal skins were virtually impervious to the weather, making them an essential part of winter in Wyoming.

If he hadn't needed to transport another load of hay, Barrett would not have subjected his brother to a ride in the wagon. Even being on horseback was warmer than sitting virtually motionless in a buggy or carriage. An open wagon was worse, but since the hay was the primary reason for this trip, it was necessary.

“I wouldn't want you to miss Mrs. Melnor's meal,” Barrett continued. Perhaps thoughts of hot food would trick them into feeling warmer. “She's planning a feast.” There would be four at the table that day. When he'd remembered that neither Richard nor Warren had family in Cheyenne, Barrett had invited them to join him and Harrison. Perhaps he
should have included Miriam and her family, but Harrison had mentioned that he planned to return to Pennsylvania before Christmas. Since this might be his only holiday with his brother for some time, Barrett wanted it to be a quiet, relaxing day. He did not want to discuss politics, nor did he want to hear Mrs. Taggert boast that her gowns came from Paris. It spoke volumes about Miriam's determination that she had been able to overrule her mother on at least one subject and continued to frequent Charlotte's shop.

While his thoughts strayed to Cheyenne's most beautiful dressmaker and the child who bore only a slight resemblance to her, Barrett's eyes scanned the horizon, looking for signs of lost or dying cattle. Though it was still early in the season, there was always the danger of losing animals to predators or the weather. The spring calves weren't yet old enough to be left on their own, but sometimes inexperienced cows didn't know that and wandered away. Barrett's lips curved in a smile. Thinking of mothers and babies, even of the bovine variety, led his mind back to Charlotte and her son. Admittedly, it didn't take much to make him think of her. Those thoughts intruded all too often. But, he reflected, intruded was the wrong word. An intrusion was unwelcome. Thoughts of Charlotte were not. Barrett settled back on the wagon seat as he wondered how she planned to celebrate the holiday.

“Too bad you invited Richard and Warren to dinner. I wouldn't mind spending Thanksgiving on the range.” Harrison stretched his legs in front of him, flexing his feet within his boots. “That dugout you call a ranch house isn't much, and Dustin could use a lesson or two on cooking, but there's something intriguing about the idea of my little brother with cows. Sorry,” he said with an unrepentant grin, “cattle.”
Harrison rubbed his hands together. “Do you want me to drive the wagon?”

“Sure. You always were good with horses.” And though it didn't involve much exertion, the effort of driving might help warm his brother. Days like this, with no sun to warm the thin air, were brutal. Barrett handed the reins to Harrison before sliding to the other side of the wagon.

As he threaded the reins through his fingers, Harrison grinned. “When I was a boy, I thought I'd become a horse breeder.”

Barrett stared at the brother he'd thought he'd known. Not once in his thirty years had he heard Harrison mention anything about raising horses. “Why didn't you?”

Keeping his eyes fixed on the road, Harrison shrugged. “It should be obvious. Pa expected me to take over the store. I couldn't disappoint him.”

Just as, no matter how restless he'd been, Barrett had not felt free to leave his hometown while his father was alive. All three Landry boys had done their best to meet their parents' expectations. “That's why I stayed in Northwick as long as I did,” Barrett admitted. He had remained for the year of mourning, in part because he'd wanted to be certain his brothers didn't need him, but once he was convinced that he wasn't essential to the Landry Mercantile, he'd headed West. “The Bible tells us to honor our parents. I tried.”

Unbidden, Barrett found himself thinking about Charlotte, wondering what her parents had been like. They must have been unusually strong people, for they had raised at least two independent women. Most widows would have moved into a sibling's house, but Charlotte had not. Instead, she'd established a successful business in a new town. He didn't know
too much about her middle sister, but the youngest one was studying to be a doctor, even though she had to know that being a lady doctor would not be easy. They were definitely not an ordinary family.

“You succeeded.” For a second, Barrett wondered what Harrison meant. Then he realized that his brother was responding to Barrett's statement about honoring their parents. “Ma and Pa were proud of all of us. Even though it's not what Pa planned for you, I think he'd approve of what you're doing here.” Harrison grinned as he gestured toward the gently rolling hills. “The snow sure is pretty.”

“The cattle don't think so. Snow stands between them and food.” Barrett wondered how much his brother wanted to hear. It wasn't as if he had any aspirations of becoming a stock grower, and yet perhaps he'd be interested in understanding another part of Barrett's life. “The dry climate is one of the reasons why cattle ranching is so profitable here. The grass may look like it's dead.” He pointed toward a patch of golden brown turf that the herd had uncovered. “It's not. It's cured by the dry air.” When Harrison looked skeptical, Barrett continued. “Like meat in a smokehouse. Cured prairie grass doesn't lose nutrients the way grass does back East. That's why it can sustain a herd all winter. The problem is, this past summer was unusually dry, so the grass didn't grow as much as normal.”

“Maybe it won't be as much of a problem as you think.”

Barrett smiled at Harrison's optimism, but he was not smiling when they reached the ranch house. He'd known something was wrong when Dustin, his foreman, was mending a wagon wheel when they arrived instead of being out on the range. The broken spoke was only the first piece of bad
news. Dustin had run a hand through his curly blond hair, leaving a streak of grease on his forehead as he explained that while he'd been riding the range, he'd found ten head of cattle lying on the ground, either dead or so close to it that there had been nothing to do but put them out of their misery.

“The critters were starving.” Dustin shoveled beans and corn bread into his mouth as if he feared he would be the next.

For his part, Barrett had lost his appetite. “It's too early,” he said, as much to himself as to Harrison and Dustin. “We always have some losses over the winter, but we don't usually see them until late January or into February. Finding them now when it's not even the end of November . . .” He bit off his words.

“What will you do if the deaths continue?” Harrison asked when they'd finished dinner and were sitting by the stove, their boots off and drying, their sock-clad feet as close to the heat as they could manage without burning them.

“You mean if I lose the whole herd?” The thought had been whirling through Barrett's brain faster than snow in a January blizzard. Though it would be an exaggeration to say that all his plans depended on a successful cattle season, the loss of too many cows would mean a poor calf crop. And a poor calf crop . . . That was another sentence Barrett did not want to complete.

Harrison looked as if the possibility surprised him. “I wasn't thinking that many. Could that happen?”

Barrett turned to Dustin, who simply shrugged. Both men knew it was impossible to predict the weather, particularly here.

“It could happen, I suppose.” Though Barrett wouldn't lie, he didn't want to alarm Harrison needlessly. “We haven't had
a really bad winter since I've been in Wyoming, but the old-timers talk about some rough ones. That's why we brought the hay. I want my cattle going into this winter as healthy as possible.”