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Emily tugged on his sleeve. “Please, Mister Gray, tell me a story about you.”
“Listen, Squirt, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll tell you a story if your mama tells one, too.” He glanced up at Clarissa. “Well, how about it?”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t do any such thing,” she began.
“Why not? Doesn’t have to be about libraries or museums, does it?”
“Tell about when you an’ Papa were little,” Emily begged.
Gray stood up. “And to sweeten the pot,” he said, gathering up the supper platter, “I’ll wash up the dishes.”
Clarissa bit her lip. “Very well.” She settled Emily on her lap and took a sip from her coffee mug. “When your papa and I were very young, about your age, we got in trouble one afternoon. Your grandfather took us to the park to play. We took off our shoes and socks and ran over the green grass and let it tickle our toes, and then we found a little hill. Anthony, that’s your papa, decided we should lie down and roll all the way to the bottom.”
“Ooh, was it fun?”
Clarissa laughed. “It was fun until Anthony rolled over a big rock. It hurt his back, but he laughed, anyway. However, your grandfather didn’t think it was the least bit funny, so he tipped me over his knee and paddled me good.”
“Did you cry?”
“I tried not to, but I did, a little.”
“Did he buy you ice cream when you cried?”
Clarissa gave a quiet sigh. “Honey, neither Anthony nor I ever tasted ice cream until your grandfather was gone.”
“How come?”
She hesitated. “Our fath—your grandfather didn’t like ice cream. He said it was frivolous and his money would be better spent elsewhere.”
“What’s frivlus mean, Mama?”
“It means something that is silly. Not important.”
“What did grandfather like?”
“He liked money.” Her voice had gone flat.
At the sink, Gray froze. Money? Didn’t he like his son and his daughter? He plunged a plate into the soapy dishpan. Something wasn’t right there. It sounded kinda like the way he had been raised, except that his folks were dirt-poor, and they ignored him because they were too busy drinking and fighting. Clarissa’s pa just didn’t care.
Emily’s little arms stole around Clarissa’s neck. “What about your mama?”
“My mother...” Her arms tightened around her daughter. “My mother did not survive my birth.”
“Like my mama?”
“Yes, honey, like your mama.” Her voice caught.
Gray grabbed the dishtowel and dried his hands. “Okay, Emily girl,” he said quickly, “now it’s my turn for a story. You ready?”
“Yes!” She scrambled off Clarissa, who quickly averted her face. “Can I sit on your lap?”
He got comfortable on the settee and lifted Emily onto his lap. “Okay, Squirt, here we go. Once upon a time—”
“I wanna story about you,” Emily demanded. “About when you ran away.”
“I already told you about runnin’ away, and about the silver mine, didn’t I?”
“Tell me again!”
“No!” came a voice from the kitchen along with a splash of water from the sink.
“Tell about something new.”
Gray sat up with a jerk. Oh-ho, Clarissa was listening, was she? Kinda made him swell up inside to think she was interested. “Well, um, when I left the silver mine, guess what I did?”
“You married a pretty lady,” Emily announced.
Gray swallowed. “Nope.” Fat chance. He’d never wanted to tie himself to a woman, no matter how pretty. Brides turned into wives who nagged and drank and fought with their husbands, like his ma and pa. “Guess again.”
“You joined a circus and rode a big elephant?”
“Nuh-uh. Sounds like fun, though.”
“You bought a horse,” the voice called from the kitchen.
Gray chuckled. Now, how did she guess that? “Yeah, I bought a horse, a big roan mare with a white blaze on her nose. And a saddle. I hired on with a rancher in Montana and drove a herd of cattle to Kansas.”
“Didja get rich?”
“Nah. I saved up all my pay. Stuffed it all in a clean sock and bided my time.”
“Until when?” Clarissa called.
Gray let a slow smile tug at his lips. Guess he was more entertaining than he thought. “Until I had enough.”
“Enough for what?” Emily demanded.
“Enough to buy this ranch.”
Emily squirmed. “Did it cost a lot?”
“Every penny I had,” Gray said with a sigh.
“How come you wanted to buy it?”
“Because—” He stopped. He’d never said this out loud to anyone and it kinda scared him “—because I’d never owned anything in my whole life, and I just plain wanted it.”
“But why, really?” Clarissa asked. By now she stood in the kitchen doorway, wiping a plate.
Gray shot a glance at her, but she wouldn’t look at him. “Well, I figure it was because I...uh, I wanted to feel safe.”
She looked at him now, and with real interest. “Safe from what?”
He drew in a slow lungful of supper-scented air. Hell, he’d never really thought about it that deep. “Safe from hurtin’, I guess. Having a home, a place that’s mine. If you own something it can’t ever turn on you.”
He thought she might laugh, but she didn’t. She looked straight into his eyes and didn’t even smile. Oh, God, her eyes were green! He’d tried not to notice that so much these past few days, but tonight was different. Maybe it was because he’d bared his soul to her about the ranch and what it meant to him. Made him damn nervous.
Clarissa knew in the pit of her stomach why Gray’s ranch was so important to him. It was the same hunger she felt for finding a home for Emily and herself. Every single night with her daughter cuddled next to her in the attic bedroom, she had to acknowledge how misguided her acceptance of Caleb Arness’s proposal had been. After Anthony’s death and the eventual loss of the home they had grown up in, her longing for a place where she belonged was like a toothache that shot pain through her entire body.
But she would not find it out here in the West. And definitely not here in Smoke River on a ranch she didn’t like or understand. She could hardly wait to return to Boston, where she had friends, where she knew how to fit in. She could even find employment. Out here in this hot, dry country she felt like a delicate petunia in the desert. Never before had she so clearly understood the phrase fish out of water, but that is exactly what she was.
The only bright spot in her dismal situation was how much Emily had reveled in life out here for the past few weeks. The girl adored Maria and Ramon, who made toys and dolls for her and spent hours teaching her Spanish words. She even adored Gray, who owned this little corner of hell. The ranch hands—tall, gangly Shorty and the young boy they called Nebraska—treated Emily with gentle forbearance, even though she was underfoot most of the time. Emily loved the horses, the garden Maria had helped her plant, even the horse trough, where she watched in fascination when the ranch animals drank and happily sailed willow-bark boats on the surface.
Gray set Emily on her feet, stood up and moved toward Clarissa. “The picnic is tomorrow in the center of town. You’ll come, won’t you?”
“N-no.”
“Like hell you’re not. Emily’s all excited. You can’t disappoint her.”
She went white as buttermilk. “Oh, but—I might run into Caleb Arness.”
“No, you won’t. Shorty says Arness is in jail for bein’ drunk and disorderly at the Golden Partridge.”
“But—”
“No buts, Clarissa. Arness is out of the way. I checked on it. There’ll just be a lot of town folks and ranchers and their families. And lots of children... Emily will like it.”
“I—I know.”
“You’re still afraid of Arness? He won’t bother you.”
“How do you know?”
Gray surveyed her pale face for a full minute. “Because he’s in jail, like I said.”
“Are you sure?”
“Heck, yes, I’m sure. The man’s always drunk too much. He spends most of his time in jail.”
Chapter Ten
In the end, in spite of her trepidation, Clarissa packed up the potato salad she’d made, dressed in her clean white shirtwaist and her blue-striped calico skirt, and borrowed one of Maria’s sun hats. All the way into town, riding beside Gray on the wagon bench, she found herself admiring the drifts of spring wildflowers covering the meadows—yellow desert parsley and red Indian paintbrush and fluffy white Queen Anne’s lace. Swaths of pink-headed wild buckwheat rippled in the wind and big yellow daisy bushes dotted the fields of new green grass.
This part of the day was quite pleasant, she admitted. The part she dreaded was making conversation with the townspeople. Strangers.
“Do you think Miss Serena will attend?”
“Serena?” Gray shook his head. “Nah. She’s got better things to do.”
Emily piped up from the wagon bed. “What’s better’n a picnic?”
“Makin’ money, I guess.”
“How can she do that on Sunday?”
Clarissa tipped her head away from him, but Gray saw that her cheeks had turned bright red. All he could see under her wide-brimmed sun hat was the tip of her nose and a bit of her chin. She didn’t say anything for so long he wondered if she’d gone to sleep.
“Mama?” Emily persisted, “how can she make money on a Sunday?”
Gray cleared his throat. “Let’s just say Miss Serena works, uh, long hours every day of the week, Sunday included.”
“Like you did when you saved your money in a sock?”
He had to work to keep from laughing. “Well, kinda.” He guided the wagon into town and straight down the main street until they reached the leafy, green town square. Ramon and Maria were just dismounting at the hitching rail, but the rest of his ranch hands were nowhere to be seen. He’d left Erasmus, the grizzled old stable hand, in charge, with his picnic supper on a plate and Gray’s shotgun. The man would probably enjoy the peace and quiet with all of them spending the day in town.
Gray braked, climbed down and reached up for Clarissa. Holy smokestacks, her waist was so tiny he didn’t see how she could eat much. And he could sure tell she wasn’t all laced up tight in a corset. Sensible woman.
The minute Emily’s feet touched the ground she raced away toward Maria. “Bet she can’t wait to take off her shoes and wriggle her toes in the grass,” Gray remarked.
“Or roll down a hill,” Clarissa added. “There aren’t any hills, are there?”
He lifted out the wicker picnic basket and grabbed an old quilt to sit on. “No hills,” he said. “But you can wriggle your toes in the grass if you want, Clarissa.”
“Certainly not!”
“I’ll spread out the blanket far enough away from the center of things that you won’t hear any of the long-winded speeches the mayor’s gonna make.”
“For that I am grateful, Gray. Why is it that the minute a man gets elected to an office he has to make speeches?”
“Dunno. Smoke River’s judge, Jericho Silver, doesn’t, and neither does the new sheriff. Two more close-mouthed men you’ll never meet.”
Clarissa settled onto the quilt next to the picnic basket, and after a moment Emily and Maria joined her. Gray wandered off for a game of horseshoes with Ramon and Nebraska, leaving Shorty with the women.
“Miss Clarissa sure is pretty,” Nebraska murmured to Gray. He let fly with a metal shoe that fell far short of the steel pole embedded in the ground.
“Oughtta keep your mind on the game, son.” Gray tossed a perfect ringer.
“You mean to tell me you never noticed?”
“Never,” Gray lied.
Ramon’s snort of laughter was loud enough to carry back to the picnic blanket. “Is a sin to lie, señor!” his foreman chided. He dropped his horseshoe on top of Gray’s.
“Loser has to deliver a package to Serena’s, a dress Clarissa is...donating,” Gray said to change the subject.
“You mean winner, don’tcha?” Nebraska quipped.
Gray shook his head. “Only if you’re young and green and new in town, kid.”
“Heck, boss, I am young and green.” He sent Gray a hopeful look.
“Si,” Ramon intoned, spitting on his second horseshow for luck. “But you not new in town.”
Gray slanted a look at Clarissa, sitting on the quilt with Maria. Looked like they were having a serious talk about something; Maria was leaning her head close to Clarissa, and Clarissa’s face looked like a cloud had settled over it. He’d give a fistful of silver dollars to know what was going on.
Emily sat between the two women, looking bored to death.
Late in the afternoon they devoured all of Clarissa’s potato salad, which tasted really good, and most of Maria’s fried chicken and Mexican chocolate cake, then lounged on the grass playing mumblety-peg and hide the nickel to keep Emily entertained. Maria leaned back against Ramon’s bent knees and they talked quietly in Spanish.
Clarissa gazed off in the distance, thinking about Anthony’s death and his child, who now called her Mama. The afternoon was “soft,” she decided. The warm air smelled of pine trees and the spring sunshine felt gentle on her face. A moment ago Maria had said that in time she would get used to life out here in the West, but she knew she wouldn’t. She began to think about her return to Boston. Funny that it didn’t bring the jolt of happiness it usually did.
Shorty and Nebraska started up a poker game, and after a few hands Gray joined in. “Playin’ for matches or pennies?”
“Playin’ for who’s gonna get breakfast duty at the bunkhouse tomorrow morning,” Shorty answered. “Ain’t gonna be me.” He grinned and dealt Gray in.
“Can I play?” Emily asked, her blue eyes sparkling with curiosity.
“Not unless you can count, Squirt.”
“Well, I can count! Mama taught me.”
“Okay, you can play on my side. See this card? That’s a jack. There’s three more like it somewhere in the deck, and I’ll pay you my winnings to keep track of them.”
Suddenly Clarissa emerged from her reverie and focused on what was happening right in front of her. “Surely you are not teaching my daughter to play cards?”
“Yeah, I am,” Gray said with a sly smile. “How else is she gonna learn?”
“Gray, I am not at all sure I want Emily to learn such a game. Playing cards is not something a proper young girl should do.”
“It’s proper out here in Oregon, Clarissa. Things are different in the West.”
“I do not intend to stay in the West,” she said, her voice cool.
Gray shrugged. “Deal me two cards, Shorty.”
“Mama,” Emily said suddenly. “Who is that man? He keeps staring at us.”
“What man? Where?”
“Over there, in those trees. See him?”
No, she didn’t see him. All she saw was a tangle of brush and maple trees at the far edge of the park. And then a shadow moved and she went cold all over. Caleb Arness.
Gray sent her a sharp look. “Somethin’ wrong?”
She leaned close to him and intoned, “I thought I saw Caleb Arness over behind those trees.”
“I don’t think so, Clarissa. Like I said, he’s in jail.”
“Oh.” But she couldn’t stop staring at the trees. Gray’s eyes followed her gaze.
“Do you think he could recognize me?” she whispered.
“No. He was drunk when he saw you at the saloon that one time, remember?”
“Yes, very drunk. Disgustingly drunk.”
Clarissa tipped her head down to hide her face. Surely Caleb wouldn’t remember her; he hadn’t known who she was that night she sang at the saloon. He had known that she would be arriving in Smoke River, but maybe he had been too drunk even to remember that.
After a long minute Gray brought his head close to hers. “It’s not Arness, Clarissa, but if you’re uncomfortable I’ll take you home. Maria and Ramon can watch over Emily.”
She nodded, and without another word he spoke to Ramon and went to fetch the wagon. “I’m takin’ Clarissa back to the ranch,” he announced when he returned. “Too much potato salad.”
The ranch hands grinned but didn’t stop their card game. Ramon took over Gray’s hand, and Emily was so engrossed she scarcely looked up.
Gray walked Clarissa across the grass to the wagon and lifted her up onto the bench. “You’re shaking.”
“I know. I’m frightened.”
“Some reason, other than Arness?”
“N-no. I just feel safer at the ranch house.”
He said nothing as he climbed up beside her and lifted the reins. All the way out to the Bar H, she didn’t say a word, and when a roadrunner blundered into the wagon wheel, she didn’t even look up.
It bothered him that she was frightened. All of a sudden he wanted to protect her, keep her safe. Aw, hell, he wanted to make her smile at him, like she had an hour ago when he taught her to flip a jackknife into the ground and she beat him at mumblety-peg. The look she’d sent him still made his stomach flip over like a drunken kite.
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