Acclaim for the authors of Western Spring Weddings
LYNNA BANNING

‘Funny. Enjoyable. Adventurous. Banning has written another winning Western.’

—RT Book Reviews on The Lone Sheriff

‘Banning pens another delightful, quick and heartwarming read.’

—RT Book Reviews on Smoke River Bride

KATHRYN ALBRIGHT

‘[A] fast-paced, sensual and delightful read about lovers torn apart by duty and reunited by destiny.’

—RT Book Reviews on The Gunslinger and the Heiress

‘Fans of Western and marriage-of-convenience romances have it all.’

—RT Book Reviews on Texas Wedding for Their Baby’s Sake

LAURI ROBINSON

‘The Roaring Twenties come to delightful life.’

—Heroes and Heartbreakers on The Bootlegger’s Daughter

‘Robinson delivers a sexy, engaging adventure.’

—RT Book Reviews on A Fortune for the Outlaw’s Daughter

LYNNA BANNING combines her lifelong love of history and literature in a satisfying career as a writer. Born in Oregon, she graduated from Scripps College and embarked on a career as an editor and technical writer, and later as a high school English teacher. She enjoys hearing from her readers. You may write to her directly at PO Box 324, Felton, CA 95018, USA, email her at carowoolston@att.net or visit Lynna’s website at lynnabanning.net.

KATHRYN ALBRIGHT writes American-set historical romance for Harlequin Mills & Boon. From her first breath she has had a passion for stories that celebrate the goodness in people. She combines her love of history and her love of story to write novels of inspiration, endurance and hope. Visit her at kathrynalbright.com and on Facebook.

A lover of fairy tales and cowboy boots, LAURI ROBINSON can’t imagine a better profession than penning happily-ever-after stories about men (and women) who pull on a pair of boots before riding off into the sunset—or kick them off for other reasons. Lauri and her husband raised three sons in their rural Minnesota home, and are now getting their just rewards by spoiling their grandchildren. Visit: laurirobinson.blogspot.com, facebook.com/lauri.robinson1 or twitter.com/LauriR.

Western Spring

Weddings

The City Girl and the Rancher

Lynna Banning

His Springtime Bride

Kathryn Albright

When a Cowboy Says I Do

Lauri Robinson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Table of Contents

Cover

Praise

About the Authors

Title Page

The City Girl and the Rancher

Dear Reader

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

His Springtime Bride

Dedication

Dear Reader

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

When a Cowboy Says I Do

Dedication

Dear Reader

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Extract

Copyright

The City Girl and the Rancher

Lynna Banning

Dear Reader,

After winter—often a long, cold, bleak period in nature and in life—a miracle happens: Nature regenerates and lives change.

To me, spring signals the renewal of both living things and the human spirit. It’s a time when growth is resumed, when hope is renewed, when fear turns into courage and when the seeds of new life are sown.

Lynna Banning

Chapter One

April, 1873

“Hey, mister! Mister? Are you awake?”

Something lifted the battered wide-brimmed hat Gray had pulled over his face. “Who wants to know?” he grumbled.

“Me!”

He opened one eye. “Yeah? Who’s ‘me’?”

“Me! Emily!”

Gray stared into a pair of wide blue eyes framed by a mop of bright red curls. A kid. A female kid, by the look of her ruffled blue plaid dress.

“Are you sleeping?” a high-pitched voice chirped.

“He— Heck, yeah. At least I was tryin’ my da—darndest.”

“Are you hungry? My mama’s gone to get something to eat.”

“Gone where?” He surveyed the other seats in the stifling passenger car. Three silver-haired ladies with big hats, two ranchers he thought he recognized and a preacher in a shiny black suit and stiff collar.

“Gone with the conductor man. To get a sandwich for me. I hope it’s not chicken. I hate chicken!”

Gray stretched his legs across the aisle space. “What’s wrong with chicken?”

A frown wrinkled the girl’s forehead. “A chicken pecked me once. It hurt.”

“Yep, a chicken’ll do that sometimes.” He resettled his hat over his face and closed his eyes.

“Mister? Mister, aren’tcha gonna talk to me?”

“Not if I can help it,” he said. He’d just finished a four-hundred-mile cattle drive plagued by bad weather, rustlers and no sleep. He was desperate for some shut-eye.

“Emily!” The voice was stern and female. “What are you doing bothering that man?”

“I’m not botherin’ him, Mama. I’m talkin’ to him.”

“Haven’t I told you never to talk to strangers? Come away from there, honey. I’ve brought you a sandwich.”

“It isn’t chicken, is it?” the small voice inquired.

“I beg your pardon? Emily, what’s wrong with chicken?”

Something swished past him. Something that smelled good, like soap. Maybe honeysuckle, too. “She doesn’t like chicken,” Gray said. He thumbed his hat back and opened his eyes. And then he sat up straight so fast his jeans rubbed the wrong way on the velvet upholstery. Holy—! The prettiest woman he’d ever seen in his life sat opposite him, a brown paper sack in her lap. She wore a stiff dark blue traveling dress and a silly-looking hat with lots of feathers on top. Partridge feathers.

She looked up and smiled. “Oh, good morning, sir. I trust Emily was not bothering you?”

“Uh, no.”

“Would you like a sandwich? I wasn’t sure how long it would be before the train made its next stop, so I purchased an extra one.”

He shot a glance at Emily. “Is it chicken?”

“Well, yes, it is. You do not like chicken?”

“Nope.” He winked at the girl who was sprawled on the seat next to her mother. “A chicken pecked me once.”

Emily giggled.

“Oh. I also have, let’s see...roast beef and egg salad. I trust a cow has not pecked you in the past?”

Gray laughed. “Not hardly, ma’am. Fact is, I’ve seen enough cows in the past month to last me a good while, so if it’s all the same to you, I’ll take the chicken after all. And thanks.”

“You are quite welcome,” she said primly. “I suspect my daughter has interrupted your rest.” She looked straight at him with eyes so green they looked like new willow leaves and handed him something wrapped up in butcher paper. “Emily is quite skilled at interrupting.”

Emily unwrapped her sandwich. “Mister sleeps under his hat!”

“I do hope you didn’t wake—”

“Yes, I did!” Emily crowed. “And he talked to me and everything.” The girl’s bright blue eyes snapped with intelligence. He’d bet she was a real handful. He didn’t envy her mother one bit.

Suddenly he remembered what manners he’d managed to pick up over the past thirty-one years. “Name’s Graydon Harris, ma’am.”

“How do you do? I am Clarissa Seaforth, traveling from Boston. And this is Emily, my daughter.”

He tipped his Stetson. “Emily and I met earlier, Mrs. Seaforth.”

“It’s Miss Seaforth.”

That stopped him midbite. “Miss? As in not married?”

“That is correct. Emily is adopted.”

“Yes, and I’m real special!” the girl sang. “Mama said she really, really wanted me.”

Gray watched Clarissa Seaforth’s face turn white as an overcooked dumpling and then pink and then white again. Whoa, Nelly! Something about Miss Clarissa Seaforth didn’t exactly add up. He clamped his jaw shut and resolved not to ask. Not his business, anyway. He had enough on his mind getting back to the ranch after the drive to Abilene, paying Shorty and Ramon the salary he owed them, eating something besides beans and bacon, and finally getting a good night’s sleep.

“Are you a cowboy, mister?”

“Emily,” her mother admonished. “Eat your sandwich and don’t bother the gentleman.”

Jehoshaphat, nobody’d called him a gentleman since he was ten years old and helped old Mrs. DiBenedetti corral her runaway rooster. The train gave a noisy jerk and began to glide forward.

“Yeah, I’m sort of a cowboy. I just drove three hundred cows to the railhead in Kansas. Guess that makes me a cowboy.”

“What’s a railhead?”

“Emily...” the cool voice cautioned.

Gray bit into his chicken sandwich. “A railhead? Well, that’s where a train stops to pick up cattle cars.”

“You mean a train like this one? I’ve never been on a train before. It’s kinda rumbly.”

He couldn’t help chuckling. “Rumbly is a good way to describe it.”

“Doesn’t it bother the cows?”

“This is a passenger train, honey. Cows ride on different trains.”

Her red curls bobbed. “Where do they go?”

“Uh, well, they go...well, my cows are goin’ to Chicago.”

“What do they do when they get there?”

“Emily...” the woman warned. “Eat your sandwich.”

Whew. He didn’t relish explaining a slaughterhouse to little Emily. Or her mother. He devoured another mouthful of chicken sandwich.

* * *

Clarissa swallowed a morsel of roast beef down a throat so dry it felt like sandpaper. How her brother would have laughed about her discomfort. What, sis? You riding the train all the way across the country? You won’t last a single day.

He was wrong. I have lasted all the way from Boston, and I’m not finished yet!

But she was most definitely exhausted. She settled back in her seat and let her eyelids drift shut. Emily was a handful, irrepressible, full of four-year-old curiosity and questions and... Oh, she did hope her niece, now her adopted daughter, wasn’t making a pest of herself. In one ear she could hear her daughter’s high, piping queries and in the other the deeper, grumbly responses of the cowboy in the seat facing them.

“Mama?” Emily jostled her arm. “When are we gonna get there? Can I have a horse?”

“I do not know, and no, you cannot have a horse. Life is dangerous enough as it is.”

The cowboy crossed his long, jean-clad legs. “How far are you goin’, Miss Seaforth?”

“All the way to Oregon. Smoke River.”

“That’s about ten more hours,” he said from under his hat.

She blinked. “Now, how would you know that, sir?”

He sat up. “Cuz I’ve traveled this route before. That’s where I live.”

“Oh?”

He sat up. “I own a ranch near Smoke River. Just sold all my cattle in Abilene and now I’m goin’ home. You?”

Emily pressed up against her arm. “Tell him, Mama.”

“Why, I am traveling to join someone.” She paused and swallowed. “A...friend. I have agreed to be his wife.”

“Sight unseen?” He thumbed his hat back off almost black hair.

“Well, yes, actually. When my brother, Anthony, died, Caleb offered to—”

“Caleb? Caleb Arness?”

“Why, yes. Do you know him?”

Gray bit back a groan. Yeah, he knew him. Last time he’d tangled with Caleb Arness, he’d sworn he’d kill the lowlife some day. “Yeah, I know Caleb.”

“Ah. Could you tell me a little about him? Please?”

Like hell he would. But her green eyes darkened into an entreaty no man could resist. Not this man, anyway. “What do you want to know?”

She hesitated. “Well... Caleb wrote that he loves children. That he would treat Emily as if she were his own child. Does Mr. Arness have children of his own?”

Gray tried hard not to flinch. Caleb Arness was a liar and a cheat, and if he spent a single minute thinking about anyone other than himself, Gray would cut up his Stetson with his pocketknife and eat it. “Listen, Miss Seaforth. I gotta ask why a woman like you would even consider marrying a man she’s never laid eyes on.” A man at the rock bottom of anybody’s list of eligible men.

She cuddled Emily closer to her body. “Whatever do you mean, a woman like me?”

“A woman who—” he sucked in a breath “—is, um, attractive. Okay, pretty.” Really pretty. Hot damn, she made him crazy.

She blushed the nicest shade of raspberry he’d ever seen, and he bit the inside of his cheek. What could he say to save her from the clutches of Caleb Arness?

* * *

The train chuffed noisily into the station at Smoke River, and Emily began to bounce up and down and peer out the window. “Ooh, look, a horsie! And a funny wagon. Can I ride in it, Mama? Can I?”

Clarissa straightened her hat, then stood up and shook the wrinkles out of her bombazine travel suit. “We’ll see, honey. First we must get off the train.” They moved past the dozing cowboy, Mr. Harris, and descended from the train. The red-shirted conductor followed, set Clarissa’s single suitcase on the platform and disappeared back into the passenger car.

The sun was blinding. She raised her gloved hand to shield her eyes and squinted at the small station house.

“Oughtta get you a sun hat pretty quick,” said a masculine voice behind her. Graydon Harris stepped into her field of view.

“Yes, thank you, I will do that.”

“Dressmaker in town sells hats,” he volunteered. He strode past her and slung the saddlebag he carried over his shoulder into the wagon bed, then climbed up beside the driver.

“Uh, can we give you a lift, Miss Seaforth?”

“Yes!” Emily chirped. “I wanna ride on the horse!”

“No, you don’t, Emily,” Gray said. “Nobody rides this horse.”

“How come?”

“Well...” He jumped down and lifted her suitcase into the wagon. “Because he doesn’t have a saddle.” He gestured at the seat he’d just vacated. “You ride up here, ma’am. Emily and I’ll climb in behind you.”

Well! He gave her no chance to refuse, just grasped her around the waist and swung her up into the empty space. She heard the driver chuckle. “Don’t do no good to say no, ma’am,” he said. “Once Gray makes up his mind, that’s pretty much how things are gonna be.”

Gracious sakes, what grammar! She sneaked a look at the speaker. Why, he was nothing but a boy! An Indian boy, she gathered from his bronze skin and the strip of red calico tied around his head. He grinned and nodded at her, and she quickly averted her gaze.

Emily squealed as Mr. Harris lifted her up into the wagon bed and climbed in after her. Her daughter’s next words made her cringe. “Look, Mama, an Indian! A real live Indian!”

Both Mr. Harris and the driver laughed.

“I apologize for my daughter,” she said as the boy picked up the reins.

“No need,” he said. “You must be from back East. Everybody out here’s already seen what us Indians look like, so it’s no surprise to them.”

The wagon rattled into the rutted road, and Clarissa clutched the edge of her seat.

“Ooh!” Emily screamed. “We’re moving!”

“Sit down, honey.” Mr. Harris’s voice came from the back. “Don’t want you to fall out.”

“I wanna go fast!”

Clarissa sighed. Emily always wanted to do everything fast—she talked fast, skipped instead of walking sedately and gobbled her food. Part of Clarissa lived in perpetual amusement; the other part endured perpetual exasperation and worry.

“Miss Seaforth,” Mr. Harris called, “that’s Sammy Greywolf who’s drivin’ us.”

“H’lo, Sammy,” Emily called. “My name’s Emily.”

“How do you do, Mr. Greywolf,” Clarissa added.

“The boy let out a whoop. “Ya hear that, Gray? Mister Greywolf.”

“Yeah,” Mr. Harris said drily. “I hear. Next thing you know you’ll be wearin’ a black silk top hat.”

The boy laughed and flicked the reins. “Where to, ma’am?”

“Oh.” Mentally she counted up the precious few coins at the bottom of her reticule.

“I—”

“Take her to the Smoke River Hotel,” Mr. Harris said.

“Righto, Gray. Then I’ll drive you on over to the livery stable.”

The wagon thumped along over what must be the main street and stopped in front of a white-painted three-story hotel. The next thing she knew two strong hands gripped her around the waist and lifted her down onto the board sidewalk.

“You’re shakin’,” he said quietly. “Anything wrong?”

“N-no. Thank you.”

He released her. “Nervous about meetin’ up with Caleb, maybe? Woulda thought he’d be there to meet your train.”

“He—he didn’t know when we were arriving. Exactly.” She couldn’t look at him.

“Hey, mister, what about me?” Emily stood in the wagon, arms extended. Mr. Harris swooshed her down so fast she screeched with delight. “Again! Do it again!”

Gray obliged, swinging the girl back into the wagon and then out again, while keeping one eye on Miss Seaforth. Something was wrong. He didn’t want to lay eyes on Caleb Arness anytime soon, but she did. He didn’t for one minute believe the man hadn’t known when they were arriving. So what was going on? Where was he? Probably drunk in some bar, or maybe down at Serena’s place.

Well, shoot, it wasn’t his problem. He lifted her suitcase out of the wagon and suddenly realized how light it was. “I guess you shipped your trunk on ahead, huh? You want Sammy to deliver it from the station?”

“I shipped no trunk, Mr. Harris.”

“You mean you came all the way out West with—” All at once it hit him. She had nothing but what few things were packed in that small suitcase and the clothes on her back. And he’d bet most of the things in the suitcase were Emily’s. In fact, he’d bet Miss Seaforth didn’t have a bean to her name.

“Wait for me, Sammy.” He picked up her suitcase, grabbed Emily’s hand and escorted Miss Seaforth up the steps and into the hotel.

“Harold,” he said to the skinny desk clerk. “Miss Seaforth and her daughter need a room,” he announced loudly. “And,” he murmured, “put it on my bill.”

“Yessir, Mr. Harris,” the clerk acknowledged under his breath.

“And, Harold, tell Rita that their restaurant meals are included.”

He turned to look down at Emily, who was holding on to her mother’s skirt, then hunkered down to her level. “Miss Emily? I want you to go next door with your momma and have a dish of ice cream, okay?”

“Are you coming, too, mister?”

“Yeah, in a little while. You got a favorite flavor of ice cream?”

She sent him a grin that made him feel funny in the middle. “Yes! Strawberry.”

Miss Seaforth laid a restraining hand on the girl’s red curls. “Oh, I don’t think—”

“Right.” Gray straightened to face her. “Don’t think. Your daughter wants some ice cream, and that’s all there is to it.”

Chapter Two

“Mama, I think ice cream is the deliciousest thing in the whole world! Can I have another dish?”

Clarissa set her spoon beside her teacup. “No, honey. You’ll spoil your supper. And it’s may I have another dish.”

“But Mister Cowboy said—”

“Mister Cowboy—I mean Mr. Harris is not your father.”

“Nobody’s my father, not since Papa went away.”

She sighed. “Your papa didn’t go away, honey. Your papa was lost at sea, remember?”

Emily surveyed her with interest. “What’s lostatsea mean?”

“It means he is not able to come back, even though he wanted to more than anything in the world.” Clarissa swallowed hard over something stuck in her throat. Thank the Lord the restaurant was deserted at this hour of the day. Her nerves were badly frayed. The waitress, Rita she said her name was, said it was too late for lunch and too early for supper, but tea and ice cream would be no problem. The woman wore a crisp blue apron and had a kind face; watching her bustle back and forth made Clarissa feel a little calmer.

The restaurant next door to the hotel was cool and dim, and the red-and-gold carpeting muffled the sound of footsteps. At least the room was not swaying, like the train.

Emily scraped her spoon around and around in her bowl of ice cream. “Can I play with Sammy tomorrow?”

“No, you cannot.”

“Then what are we gonna do tomorrow, Mama?”

Clarissa pressed her lips together. She hadn’t the faintest idea what she would do tomorrow. She had expected Caleb to meet the train, and now she felt completely at sea, alone in a strange town, a small—very small—Western town, where she knew no one, in a wild, untamed state she had only recently learned was a state, with exactly two dollars to her name. What on earth would she do when that was gone?

She drew in a long, slow breath and closed her eyes. She couldn’t simply sit and wait for Caleb to realize she was here and come to find her. What if he were away on business? He could be gone for days, even weeks. If he didn’t show soon, she must look for some sort of employment, she decided. Even though she had never worked a day in her life, she had Emily to think of. She had to do something.

The waitress approached. “More tea, ma’am?”

“Oh, no thank you. Rita, may I ask you a question?”

“Why sure, miss. Fire away.”

“Well...um, does this restaurant need a...a dishwasher by any chance?”

The waitress’s dark eyebrows went up. “You don’t look like the dish-washin’ type to me, ma’am. Besides, we already got a dishwasher, Rosie Greywolf.”

“Oh. I see.”

Emily perked up. “Izzat Sammy’s mama?”

“It is,” Rita verified. “Rosie’s been washin’ dishes here for more years than I can remember.”

“What about the mercantile across the street—Ness’s, is it? Would they need a clerk?”

“Prob’ly not, miss. Carl Ness has two daughters who help out after school and on weekends.”

Clarissa bit her lip. “You see, the problem is that I am running low on funds and—”

“You need a job, right?”

“I—well, yes, I do. Someone was supposed to meet me at the train station, but he failed to show up, and now...”

Rita propped her hands on her ample hips. “Who was it?”

“Caleb Arness.”

The waitress’s face changed. “Arness, huh?” She studied Clarissa for a full minute. “He a relation of some sort?”

“Well, no. Not yet, anyway. We were to be mar—”

“Aw, honey, I’ve heard tall tales in my time, but this one takes the cake. Take my advice and clear out of town as fast as you can go.”

Clarissa stared at her. “I beg your pardon?”

At that moment Emily let out a cry of delight. “Look, Mama, it’s Mister Cowboy!”

* * *

Gray spotted them right off. Miss Seaforth was talking to Rita, and Emily was waving her ice-cream spoon at him. He took the empty chair. “Coffee, Rita. And add some brandy, would ya? Been dry for a month.”

“Sure, Gray. How was the drive?”

“Long. Miserable. Profitable, but I sure earned every penny.”

He turned his attention to Emily. “Had enough ice cream?”

The red curls bounced as she shook her head. “Nope. I’m never, never gonna have enough ice cream. It’s the bestest thing in the whole world, next to Christmas.”

Rita brought his coffee and he downed two large gulps that made his eyes water.

“Rich enough for you?” Rita asked with a grin.

He nodded, swallowed hard and gave her a thumbs-up. She chuckled all the way back to the kitchen.

“Mama won’t let me play with Sammy Wolf,” Emily complained.

“Greywolf,” Miss Seaforth corrected. “I am sure Mr. Greywolf is busy.”

Gray set his cup on the saucer. “I had the desk clerk take your suitcase up to your room, Miss Seaforth.”

“Thank you, Mr. Harris.”

“Uh, now that you’re here, maybe you should give some thought to a few things.”

“Oh? What things?”

“Well, for starters, whether you’re gonna stay or not.”

“Why, of course I am staying. Caleb—”

“Might not show up.” Gray downed another swallow of his ninety-proof coffee. “Might be he’s, uh, tied up somewhere on, um, business.”

“Perhaps. Nevertheless, I am sure he will come soon.”

He smothered a snort. She wasn’t sure of any damn thing. Clarissa Seaforth was a good bluffer, but the expression in those green eyes gave her away. Uncertainty warred with fear and something else he couldn’t pin down. Pride, maybe.

“Listen, Miss Seaforth, like I said, you might start thinkin’ what to do if Arness doesn’t show up.” Actually, if he was in her skin, he would be thinking what to do if he did show up. Run the other direction, he hoped.

“Emily,” she said suddenly. “Are you finished with your ice cream?”

The girl nodded. “Yes, Mama, but—”

“Then we must excuse ourselves and retire to our hotel room. Good afternoon, Mr. Harris.”

He watched the slim, graceful woman until she disappeared through the doorway, then chugged down the rest of his coffee just as Rita appeared at his elbow. “Want some more?”

“Want some? Yeah. Gonna have some? No. Gotta ride out to the Bar H while I can still mount a horse.”

* * *

By morning Clarissa knew she was in real trouble. Her meager funds would soon dwindle, and with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, she acknowledged that the situation called for extraordinary measures. After breakfast she left Emily in the care of the kindly waitress and began canvassing up one side of the dusty street and down the other, looking for employment.

The dressmaker smiled but shook her head. The barbershop, the sheriff’s office and the blacksmith had no use for a female. That left the bank and the Golden Partridge saloon, and she soon found that the bank wouldn’t hire a woman, either.

Very well. She straightened her spine and stepped off the sidewalk. For the first time in her life she would walk into a saloon.

Inside the Golden Partridge it was dim and smoky, and even at this hour of the morning it smelled of something pungent. Tobacco, she guessed. And spirits. She halted just inside the swinging batwing doors to get her bearings, and in that instant a pall of silence descended. Even the piano player’s music dribbled to a stop.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” the bartender called out. “Ladies aren’t allowed in here.”

She clenched her fingers around the reticule holding the last of her money—two dollars. “I...I assumed that to be the case, sir. I was wondering if you...that is, would you have any employment available?”

The bartender’s meaty hand swiped back and forth across the expanse of mahogany countertop. “Not for a lady, no.”

“For what, then?”

The man paused to size her up. “Well, I dunno. Can you sing?”

Chapter Three

Some hours later, Clarissa marched up and down in front of the big two-story brown house on lower Willow Street for a good ten minutes before she could work up the courage to open the gate. “Go on down to Serena’s place,” the bartender had instructed. “Ask her for a dress—something not too flashy but—” the man actually blushed! “—real female-lookin’.”

She had never been within a mile of such a place! Her knees felt wobbly, but she stuffed down her misgivings, walked up the steps and stood trembling on the wide front porch of Serena’s house. Before she could ring the bell, the door swung inward and a tall, gray-haired woman in a lacy black wrapper peered out at her.

“Miss Serena?”

The woman gave a short nod. “Whaddya want, honey? A job?”

“Well, yes, in a way. Tom, the bartender at the Golden Partridge, said I should ask you for an appropriate dress for—”

“Did he, now? Appropriate for what?”

“For singing. He gave me a job singing at the saloon tonight, but...I have nothing to wear. He said my travel dress wouldn’t be quite right.”

Serena eyed her travel suit. “Got a good eye, does Tom. Well, now, dearie, you just come right on in and we’ll see what we can do.”

“Thank you kindly, Miss—”

“Just Serena. Well, come on, honey! No need to be shy.” She closed the door with a soft click. “Mary?” she called over her shoulder. “Mary, come on down here. Got a dove that ain’t soiled yet, and she needs yer help.”

A slim girl with very blond ringlets appeared in the parlor. She was clad in something with fluffy pink feathers around the shoulders and a slit up one side. She smelled of something over-sweet, lily-of-the-valley, perhaps.

“Mary, take Miss—what’s yer name, dearie?”

“Seaforth. Clarissa Seaforth.”

“Tom sent her over from the saloon,” Serena explained. “Mary, take Miss Seaforth upstairs and find somethin’ with some sass to it. She’s gonna sing at the Golden Partridge.”

Clarissa followed the girl up the thickly carpeted staircase and into a pleasant bedroom with blue flowered wallpaper and white lace curtains. A narrow bed sat in one corner and a carved walnut armoire stood on the opposite wall.

“Y’all look pretty small to me,” Mary remarked. She rummaged through a welter of gowns and finally extracted a handsome crimson velvet creation. “Here. Try this one.”

While Clarissa unbuttoned her bodice and stepped out of her gored skirt, the blonde girl circled around, studying her. Before Clarissa could step into the velvet gown, Mary snatched it back. “Oh, no, that won’t be right on you, honey. Try this one instead.” She slipped a dark green moiré taffeta creation off its hanger and held it out.

“Oh, I couldn’t—”

“Yes, you could, honey. Don’t argue.”

Mary buttoned the gown up the back and stepped away with an assessing look. Then she folded back one door of the armoire and spun Clarissa around. “Hmm. Here, take a look at yourself in the mirror.”

A stranger with huge green eyes in a very pale face stared back at her. “Oh,” she breathed. “Surely that isn’t me!”

Mary laughed. “Sure is, honey. Green suits you.”

“But the neckline is so...so...”

“Low? S’posed to be low, honey. Why do you think Tom sent you to us?”

“Well, he expects me to sing tonight, and he did not care for my travel suit.”

Mary frowned. “Where y’all from, honey?”

“Boston.”

“Huh! That explains everything. Bet you’ve never been within a city block of a place like Serena’s, have ya? Didn’t think so. And y’all aren’t fixin’ to move in here, are ya?”

“Well, no. I have secured employment as a singer at the Golden—”

“So you said.” Mary reached out and tweaked the neck of the green gown lower. “Well, honey, no matter what you sound like, you’ll sure look pretty enough.”

She would? Clarissa studied her reflected image more closely. Well, maybe she would look dressed-up enough to suit the bartender. It was really a lovely gown, except for the bosom, of course. The green dress was cut way too low in front. She tried hiking it up, but the fabric wouldn’t budge.

“Stop that!” Mary pulled her hands away. “Y’all look splendid. Don’t fuss with things and spoil it. And take this shawl with you.” She folded up Clarissa’s bombazine travel suit and thrust it and a green paisley shawl into her hands. “Can’t sashay up Main Street exposed like that—Sheriff’s liable to arrest you.”

Downstairs in the front parlor again, Serena nodded approvingly at the green taffeta dress. “Perfect. You’re a real looker, dearie. If Tom don’t want you, just come on back to Serena’s and I’ll put you to work here.”

“I am grateful, Miss—Serena. I will pay you for the gown out of my wages.”

“No, you won’t, my girl. Tom sits high on my list. And besides, he’s workin’ off a debt of sorts and the cost of the loan of a dress is neither here nor there. He’ll pay for the gown.” She extended her hand. “Been a pleasure doin’ business with you, Miss Seaforth. Wrap up good in that shawl, now, and don’t talk to any men.”

Clarissa knotted the green shawl tightly around her shoulders and walked as briskly as she could back to the hotel. A cold, hard lump was settling in her stomach.

When she entered the restaurant, where Emily sat chatting with Rita, her daughter flung her arms around her. “Ooh, Mama, you look beautiful! And you’re so rustly—like lots of dry corn husks.”

It was the first time Clarissa had laughed in the past twenty-four hours. After a quick supper in the dining room—a boiled egg for Clarissa and macaroni and cheese for Emily—she tucked her daughter into bed in their hotel room, gathered up her courage and made her way to the Golden Partridge saloon.

Tom, the bartender, installed her in a back room until her scheduled appearance; she paced around and around the tiny space until her feet ached and finally sat down. At half past nine he rapped on the door.

“You’re on, Miss Seaforth. Knock ’em out of their boots!”

Very slowly she rose from the straight-backed chair, walked uncertainly to the door and, with a whispered prayer, twisted the doorknob. When she appeared, the piano player, a round black man, half rose off his stool. “Lordy, Mister Tom, what you plannin’ tonight?”

“Meet your accompanist, Miss Seaforth. Baldwin Whittaker.”

The pianist swiped off his threadbare cap and blinked up at her. “Ma’am.”

She tried to smile. “Good evening, Mr. Whittaker.”

He rolled his soft brown eyes at Tom. “You, uh, do much singing before, miss?”

“Well, mostly in church. But I know a number of songs from when I was a girl.”

“Hmm. Well, what you gonna sing, Miss Seaforth?”

“‘Greensleeves.’ Do you know it?”

“Shore do. How ’bout you stand sorta to one side, facing the bar. That way folks can see you and I can pick up on your cues.”

Clarissa took her position, steadied her erratic breathing and unknotted the shawl around her shoulders. “Like this?”

The man’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, yes, ma’am, just like that! I can hardly wait to see the reaction when the gentlemen clap their eyes on you.”

Well, she could certainly wait! Every bone in her overexposed body wanted to turn tail and run.

Mr. Whittaker turned to the piano keyboard, played a chord and looked up at her expectantly. Clarissa drew in a breath and opened her lips, but nothing came out. The pianist played the chord again, this time rippling it into an arpeggiated introduction.

Dear Lord, let me not faint dead away before I have sung a single note.

* * *

Gray pulled his tired body out of the saddle, tied the gelding up at the hitching rail and stumbled into the saloon. He wasn’t too clear about why he was back in town after a restless night and a grueling day digging a well and putting up new fencing at the ranch, but here he was, and he was plenty thirsty.

Tom reached over the bar to shake his hand. “Welcome back, Gray. I was starting to wonder if you’d got religion in Abilene and turned into a teetotaler.”

“Not hardly. Just been busy.”

Tom snorted. “Yeah? What else is new?” He splashed a shot glass full of red-eye and set the bottle on the bar.

“Nuthin’s new except I finally hit wet sand at the bottom of my new well.”

Tom leaned toward him. “Got a surprise for you tonight, Gray.”

“What is it? Nuthin’ much would interest me but a few barrels of fresh water.”

“Nah. Something better.”

Gray looked up at the stocky man and froze at what he saw reflected in the gold-framed mirror over the bar. A vision in green with long, dark wavy hair tumbling to her shoulders and an expanse of creamy bosom the like of which he hadn’t seen for a long time. Jehoshaphat, that’s Clarissa Seaforth! What the hell is she doing half dressed in Tom’s saloon?

The piano rippled out some notes and a voice like smoky silk rose in a familiar melody.

Alas, my love, you do me wrong,

To treat me so discourteously,

For I have loved you so long...

Gray slammed his shot glass down on the bar top and swiveled around to stare at her. She sang the whole verse while dusty cowboys and card-playing ranchers sat goggle-eyed and respectful. Then she started on the second verse, but suddenly the batwing doors banged open and Caleb Arness lurched in.

She didn’t recognize him. She just kept singing in that low, silky voice while Caleb stumbled to the bar. “Tom!” he yelled. “Wanna drink.”

“Shut up!” someone called from one of the tables. “Can’tcha hear the lady’s singing?”

Arness obviously didn’t recognize her, either. He kept pounding his fist on the polished mahogany surface and yelling for whiskey.

Tom leaned over the bar and said something to him.

“Singer?” Arness shouted. He swiveled around to peer at Clarissa. “A female singer? Why, hell an’ damn, that’s one helluva pretty—”

Gray’s fist stopped the word. It also stopped the song, and an uneasy silence descended.

“Whadja hit me for, ya skunk?” Arness mumbled from the floor where he lay.

“No reason,” Gray said quietly. “Just practicin’. Now, either shut up or get out.”

Arness lurched toward Clarissa. “Ain’t leavin’ without kissin’ that woman! C’mere, honey.”

Gray shot a look at her stricken face and gave her a quick, decisive shake of his head. Her eyes widened. Who? she mouthed at him.

Arness, he silently mouthed back.

She went whiter than a pail of milk.

Arness made a grab for her. “Now, come on, honey, be nice. You come on over here and I’ll show you a real good time.”

Right then Gray knew he had to get her out of there. “Tom,” he muttered to the barman. “Keep Arness busy.”

Tom rose to the occasion by knocking over a bottle of whiskey, spilling it all across Arness’s filthy trousers. While Arness mopped at the damage, Gray strode to Clarissa and bent to speak in her ear.

“Don’t scream. I’m getting’ you out of here.” He leaned toward the piano player.

“Cover for us, Whitt. Play something loud.”

Gray grabbed her around the waist. “Come on.” He hustled her into the back room, out the rear door and into the dark alley outside.

He ushered her into the hotel. “Which room?”

She turned fear-dilated eyes on him. “N-number six.”

He reached over the counter and snagged the key off its hook.

“Emily will be asleep,” she protested.

“Good.” He unlocked the door, pushed her inside and marched in behind her.

“Mama!” Emily sat up in the big double bed, rubbing her eyes. “And Mister Cowboy! It is tomorrow already?”

“No, darling. It’s still nighttime.” Clarissa sank down on the bed and wrapped her arms around her daughter.

Gray laid his hand on her shoulder and she looked up at him. Her eyes looked kinda funny. Dazed-like. “He doesn’t know what you look like,” he said in a low voice. “But Tom’ll tell him your name and that’ll let the cat out of the bag for sure.”

She nodded.

“I’m going over to the livery to get another horse.”

She blinked. “Why?”

“I’m takin’ you and Emily out to my ranch.”

“But—”

“Pack up,” he ordered. “And bolt the door while I’m gone.”

Chapter Four

In spite of the voluminous puffy green taffeta skirt, Clarissa managed to mount the animal Gray held for her and watched while he lifted Emily into his saddle, settled her on his lap and folded her tiny fingers around the saddle horn.

“Hang on real tight, Emily.”

“Okay.” She sent a happy grin up at him, and Clarissa felt a stab of unease. Children were so trusting! And so was she, she reflected. Imagine, letting a man she had met only once kidnap her and take her home with him!

Gray grabbed the reins of her sorrel and kicked his black gelding into a canter. When they reached the edge of town, he moved into a gallop, but he still kept hold of Clarissa’s reins. She couldn’t bring herself to admit she had been on a horse only once in her life, and that was on her tenth birthday.

In the dark everything looked oppressive—thick stands of towering trees, tangled brush, shadows. There was a sound of rushing water. And no light anywhere. She was used to a measured out grid of orderly streets, gaslights, houses with candles in the windows. Her skin prickled. It was like riding into hell. If she allowed herself to feel anything, it would be a wash of pure terror.

After what seemed like hours, they moved through a wide swinging gate, then trotted up a long lane. Gray still held on to her reins with one hand and kept the other firmly planted around Emily’s middle.

Clarissa was exhausted, so winded she could scarcely breathe and her backside was numb. Inside she was still shaking, but knew she was safe now, swept away from a terrible fate. Caleb Arness was a drunkard. And a liar. She was well rid of the man, but her narrow escape had left her unnerved.

But what now? Why, oh why, had she ever left Boston? She didn’t know anything about the West. She didn’t even know where she was.

Good heavens, Clarissa, pull yourself together. You must be strong for Emily. You have to protect your daughter.

They came up on a gentle rise and up ahead a light winked in the blackness. Oh, thank God, civilization! How long had she been joggled along on the animal beneath her, one hour? Two? It felt like ten years.

Mr. Harris—well, she guessed she should call him Gray, since he had rescued her and Emily from that odious man Caleb Arness. She would be grateful to Graydon Harris to her dying day. How could Caleb have lied to her like that, telling her he was an upstanding citizen of Smoke River, a friend of the sheriff and all the ranchers within fifty miles? A family man who would welcome her and her daughter into his Christian home? The man was nothing but a slovenly drunkard.

The horses slowed to a walk, and now she saw there were two lights—one inside a big white house with a wide verandah across the front and the other swinging from a shadowy man’s hand.

“Ramon,” Gray called out. “Get Maria!”

The swinging lamp disappeared into a small, dark cabin a few yards to one side of the big house, and in the next minute Gray dismounted, pried Emily’s fingers off the saddle horn and lifted her down onto the ground. Then he came toward Clarissa’s sorrel.

“Miss Seaforth, I’ll help you dismount.”

“Where are we?”

“My ranch, the Bar H.” He reached up, circled his hands around her waist and lifted her out of the saddle. The instant her feet touched the solid earth her legs collapsed under her and she cried out. Gray caught her under the arms and leaned her up against the horse.

Emily skipped to her side. “Mama, how come you can’t walk?”

“I can walk perfectly well,” she said as steadily as she could manage. “In...a minute.”

“Take your time,” Gray murmured. “You don’t have to prove it.”

It took a full ten minutes before she trusted her limbs to keep her upright, and even then Gray had to half carry her up the porch steps.

“She is ill?” the man called Ramon asked.

“Nah. Just tuckered.”

“Maria...she is inside.”

Seven steps later Clarissa stood in the doorway of the house and met the startled glance of a short, plump Mexican woman.

“Ay de mi, Señor Gray, what have you done?”

“Nothing. Maria, this is Clarissa Seaforth, and—” he glanced left and then right, but no Emily “—her daughter. Clarissa, meet Maria Rocha, my housekeeper and cook.”

“Ah, no, I am not cook anymore, remember? Not since I get my new stove in my own kitchen. Just housekeeper.”

The man with the lantern swung up on the porch with Emily’s hand in his. “I find her outside petting your horse, señor.” He relinquished her to Clarissa and set the lantern on the mantelpiece of the stone fireplace.

“Ramon’s my foreman,” Gray explained. “Ramon, this is Miss Seaforth. And Emily.”

Ramon bowed. “Señorita. I have already meet Emily,” he said with a wide smile.

Clarissa untied her shawl and lifted it off her shoulders. Maria’s sudden gasp reminded her she was still wearing the green taffeta with the too-low neckline.

The housekeeper marched up to Gray and poked her finger at his chest. “Señor Gray, I ask what you do, and you say ‘nothing’? Is obvious you do something, and now you bring her home!” She shook her head in disapproval.

“Hold on, Maria. It’s not what you’re thinking.”

“Eh? And what I am thinking?”

Clarissa took a shaky step forward. “Mrs. Rocha, Gray rescued me from a very bad man in town.”

Maria’s black eyebrows folded into a frown. “Is so?”

“Is so,” Gray said with a sigh. “Caleb Arness.”

The Mexican woman crossed herself. “Very bad man. Very bad.” She pointed to the kitchen. “Come. I make coffee.”

Gray caught her arm. “Maria, wait. Would you move the things in my bedroom to the room in the attic? Miss Seaforth’s gonna be with us for a while.”

“Maria,” Clarissa said quickly. “Please don’t move any of Mr. Harris’s things. Emily and I will sleep in the attic.”

“But is all dusty up there,” Maria protested.

“I can dust.”

“And with even cobwebs!”

Clarissa suppressed a shiver. “I can deal with...with a few spiders.”

Emily grasped her hand. “I wanna deal with spiders, too! Can I, Mama? Can I?”

* * *

The attic room was at the top of a steep staircase, and while Clarissa saw no spiders, a thick layer of dust lay over the chest of drawers and the night table. And the bed! My gracious, when she plopped the suitcase down on top of the quilt, a cloud of dust puffed up into her face.

Maria appeared in the doorway, her arms loaded with bed linens. “Señorita, I bring sheets and pillows, with feathers. And—ay-yi-yi!—the air up here is make my eyes water!”

“Me, too!” Emily chimed. “It feels real sneezy, doesn’t it, Mama?”

“So, the little one is your daughter?” Maria sent a pointed glance at Clarissa’s exposed bosom. “But you not married lady?”

“Emily is adopted,” Clarissa said quickly. “Actually, she is my brother’s child. Her mother died in childbirth.”

“Papa not want daughter?”

“He was lost in a shipwreck at sea.”

“Ah.” Maria tossed the armload of sheets onto a chair and patted Emily’s red curls. “Pobrecita!”

Clarissa snatched the patchwork quilt off the bed and gave it a good shake. The air filled with dust. Maria spread the clean sheets over the mattress and plumped up the pillows while Emily scrambled into a white lawn nightie and launched herself onto the bed. “Look, Mama, it bounces!”

She stepped out of the green taffeta gown and into her batiste nightrobe. “Maria, what time will Mr.—will Gray be up in the morning?

“Early,” Maria said. “Before the sun. Señor Gray likes his breakfast at six.”

Six! She was so tired she wanted to sleep until noon.

“You cook food for him?”

All at once Clarissa remembered that the smiling Mexican woman was Gray’s housekeeper, not his cook. “I—” Good heavens, what should she say? She had no skill whatsoever in the kitchen, or anywhere else. In Boston they had employed servants before... But she couldn’t think of that now. “Um, I can try.”

With a nod, Maria left a candle on the nightstand and made her way heavily down the stairs. Clarissa tumbled between the sweet-smelling sheets and tentatively ran the fingers of one hand over her derriere. She couldn’t feel a thing.

“Mama?”

“Yes, Emily?” she said with a yawn. “What is it?”

“I forgot to say my prayers. Can I say them in bed?”

“Of course.” She would say a few hundred herself.

Emily folded her little hands under her chin and closed her eyes. “Forgive us our trash baskets,” she whispered, “as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets.”

“What? Oh, honey—”

“Shh, Mama, I’m not finished yet. God bless Mama and Mister Cowboy and Ramon and Missus Maria and...and that pretty black horse I petted.”

Clarissa mentally added a special blessing for Graydon Harris and for Maria. Then she lay awake, staring up at the thick wooden beams over her head, studying the blue-painted walls and the single grimy window on the opposite wall. Every flat surface was covered in dust. Being “out West” was the farthest thing she could imagine from civilization.

But perhaps there was one bright spot—she hadn’t seen a single spider! Still, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the fix she found herself in. No money. No job. No husband to give her and Emily a home. And absolutely no idea what to do next.

With a ragged sigh she leaned over and puffed out the candle on the nightstand.

Chapter Five

Gray faced his foreman across the woodstove in the tiny cabin. “You took that woman away from Caleb Arness?” Ramon slapped the side of his head. “Señor Gray, have we not trouble enough?”

“Yeah, guess I did take her away. And, yeah, we have plenty of trouble all right. More than before, that’s for sure.”

“But, señor...”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Arness is bad news.” Real bad news. Ever since he’d outbid the rival rancher in the auction when he’d bought the Bar H, Arness had been hounding him to sell and making threats. Not idle threats, either—real ones. Not only were his cattle being rustled, but Gray had also found fences pulled down, water holes fouled and his ranch hands had been threatened.

Ramon plunked his mug of coffee onto the stovetop. “You are, how you say, playing with the devil, you know?”

“Playing with fire, you mean?”

“I mean fire. Yes.”

“Heck, Ramon, when it comes to Arness I’m not playin’. I’m fightin’ for my life.”

“Si, that I know. And I am helping, but you don’ need no lady to stir up the hornets.”

Gray clapped the slim Mexican on the back and headed to the house for breakfast. Hornets he could deal with. He could even deal with Arness when it came down to it, and he guessed it would, sooner or later.

Emily met him in the kitchen, a crust of bread in her hand. “Mama can’t walk,” she announced.

“Oh, yeah? Well, that happens sometimes after a long horseback ride.”

The girl propped her small hands at her waist. “It won’t happen to me, ever! I want to ride your horse, that shiny black one.”

“No, you don’t, Emily.” Clarissa’s voice came from the staircase. In the next instant she stood in the doorway, one hand clutching the edge. “I may be crippled, but I am still your mother.”

Gray turned from the stove where he’d set the coffeepot to see a pale imitation of the woman he’d seen last night in a dress that matched her eyes and showed way too much of her chest. “Mornin’,” he said. “You sure look different.”

“Good morning. I am different. I am dead tired and so sore I cannot bear to sit down. And I have a healthy new respect for anyone who can ride a horse for more than ten minutes.”

“Can you cook standing up?” he asked.

She looked stricken. “I cannot cook at all, standing or sitting.”

“I have a proposition for you, anyway,” he said carefully. Immediately he regretted his choice of words, but she took no notice. Probably never heard a remotely suggestive word back in Boston.

“Oh? What might that be?”

“Pretty quick I figure Arness will find out who you are and he’ll come after you.”

She flinched. “Then I must leave.”

“Don’t think so. With him sniffing around, you’re not safe anywhere in town, and now that he’s had a good look at you, he’s not gonna give up ’til he corners you.”

Her hand twitched. “That p-prospect terrifies me.”

“That’s real sensible of you, Clarissa. So, here’s my—uh, here’s one possibility. You and Emily stay out here at the ranch. You need a job and I need a cook.” A small voice in the back of his brain began yammering at him. Are you crazy? Why offer her a job doing something she can’t do? The truth was he wasn’t exactly sure, but he knew he had to do something. She was just a baby rabbit with a chicken hawk floating overhead.

“But...but I would be a terrible cook! The only time I entered the kitchen at home was to ask for a fresh pot of tea. However,” she said quickly, “I am sure I could learn. Perhaps you have a recipe book? With instructions?”

He couldn’t help laughing. She might be hurting, but she wasn’t beat yet. The woman had spirit. Sand his ranch hands would say.

“Maybe you could learn, like you said. And out here, away from town, you’d be protected. Think about it, why don’t you?”

“I am thinking about it. I am thinking about how foolish I was to trust that awful man just because he wrote nice letters that said what I needed to hear, that he would provide a home for Emily.”

“Yeah, well, it’s too late now. You’ve got a real problem on your hands, but how about thinkin’ about my offer over breakfast? Even if you can’t sit down, you’ve gotta eat. So does Emily.”

“Well...”

“How ’bout I pay you a salary, say three dollars a week, to cook for me. In a month or two you could save up enough for a train ticket back to Boston.”

“A month!”

“Yeah. Somethin’ wrong with that?”

“Could—could we stay in your attic bedroom? I feel safe there.”

“Sure.” He stood up, lifted the iron skillet off the hook on the wall and pointed to a red-checked apron hanging on a nail by the back door. “Lesson number one, comin’ up. Emily, you want to help this old cowboy fry up some bacon?”

“Can I have an apron, too?”

“Yep.” He handed her a ruffled Maria-sized yellow garment. “And here’s the one for your mama.”

Clarissa looped the apron around her neck and tied the ruffled part over the dark blue travel skirt she’d put on that morning. Other than the garish green taffeta dress and her bombazine travel suit, she had only three other garments—a striped calico skirt, a white muslin shirtwaist and her nightrobe. Because she couldn’t sit down, she stood by the stove and watched Gray fry bacon and then crack eggs into the pan, then slice bread and toast it in the oven. It didn’t look too difficult, but every step she took made her wince.

Emily managed to push three blue-flowered plates across the round wood table and plop a jumble of forks and knives at each place. Gray added a platter of scrambled eggs and bacon and Clarissa steeled herself to perch on one of the straight-backed kitchen chairs. When she emitted a little groan as she sat down, Emily brought a soft cushion from the settee in the parlor to pad the hard surface. Very gingerly Clarissa sank onto her backside and picked up a fork.

Through the window over the dry sink, she watched the sun come up, turning the sky peach, then gold, and then such an intense blue it looked painted. She prayed it was a good omen. She was frightened right down to her knickers, stranded in a strange, wild place she didn’t understand or even like and thinking about agreeing to a job she had not the remotest idea how to undertake. She imagined her brother’s laughter. Cook? Sis, you can’t even boil water!

Gray ate without talking until the platter of eggs was empty, then he poured them both a second cup of coffee and answered Emily’s endless stream of questions. “What do horses do at night? Does Missus Maria have a little girl I could play with? How far can you see at night? Do you like red flowers better than yellow ones?”

Finally Clarissa shushed her and asked a question of her own. “Why do you dislike Caleb Arness so much? I know you do, because of the way your face looks every time his name comes up.”

Gray set his coffee cup down and leaned back in the chair. “Well, for starters, last night you saw the kind of man he is. Then there’s my ranch. I busted my—worked hard for almost twelve years to buy it and build it up. It’s the most important thing in my life, and Arness wants it. My land sits between his spread and the river, so he’s hurtin’ for water.”

“Go on,” she said quietly.

“Arness has nasty ways of tryin’ to drive me off. He’s cut fences and poisoned my well so now I’m havin’ to dig another one. My hands find dead cattle on the range—poisoned, the sheriff says. And I suspect the rustlers that plagued every mile on my drive to Abilene work for Arness. Cows disappear from my herd here at the Bar H, too. I’m losin’ stock and money, and I’m getting stretched pretty thin. If I can’t stop it, I’m gonna lose my ranch. And I’ll damn well die before I lose this ranch!”

She listened in complete silence, not drinking her coffee, just looking at him, her face grave and her eyes soft with understanding. Made him feel kinda warm inside.

“So,” she said after a long silence, “I could help in a small way by being your cook.”

Gray stared at her. Yes, it would ease things a bit—maybe a lot—but mostly he was touched by her recognition of how important the Bar H was to him. Even Emily seemed to grasp what was at stake.

“I’m gonna plant a garden an’ grow ice-cream cones,” the girl announced. “That would help, wouldn’t it, Mister Gray?”

Gray’s throat was suddenly so tight he couldn’t answer.

Chapter Six

Clarissa opened the front door to find a beaming Maria standing on the porch. “Señorita, I bring gift.” She held up the headless body of a chicken.

Clarissa recoiled. “Oh, I, um, thank you, but I don’t think—”

“Is nice fat hen,” the Mexican woman explained. “Make very good dinner.”

Clarissa gasped. Dinner! Oh, heavens, she’d forgotten her agreement. If she worked as Gray’s cook, then of course she must do just that—cook! And that meant not only breakfast but midday dinner and supper each evening. And not next week or tomorrow, but now. Today.

She stared at the bird clutched in Maria’s brown hand. “Maria, wh-what do I do with it?”

“Is easy.” Maria lifted her hand and folded Clarissa’s slim fingers around the scaly yellow legs. “First chop feet off, then take off feathers. To do this, boil water and give bath, then—”

“Chop off...?”

“Feet,” Maria reiterated. “Then pull out pinfeathers and clean out insides. You know what are pinfeathers?”

“Maria, might I borrow your cookbook?”

“Que? Never have I used a book of cooking, señorita. I have learn everything from my mama—tortillas and frijoles, even flan and pan dulce. The rest—American food—I teach myself.

Clarissa swallowed hard. Could she do that? She must have frowned because the Mexican woman suddenly reached out and patted her hand. “Do not worry, señorita. You will learn.”

“Th-thank you, Maria. I will try.”

Chop off the feet? A shudder went up her spine. She retreated to the kitchen, plopped the bird in the sink, and stared at it. I haven’t the faintest idea how to do this.

On the back porch she found a small hand ax, laid the chicken on the back step, closed her eyes tight and whacked off the legs. Then, recalling Maria’s instructions about the bath, she filled the teakettle and set it on the still-warm stove. Finally she shoved more wood into the firebox. At least from watching Gray she knew how to make a fire and heat water!

When the teakettle sang, she dumped the boiling water over the bird and discovered she could strip off the wet feathers quite easily. But the smell made her gag, and she tried not to breathe. When the naked bird sat looking at her, she thought about Maria’s next direction—clean out the insides.

Oh, God, how did one do that? She paced around and around the kitchen, steeling her nerves. Then she grasped a butcher knife and made a tentative incision at the thickest point of the chest, between the two wings. No entrails. Then she poked the tip of the knife between the drumsticks, and voila! She slashed in under the skin and—oh, Lordy—she couldn’t bear to look. All kinds of awful, ropey-looking things tumbled out. Hurriedly she looked away and gulped in air, then sucked in a deep breath and steeled herself to pull out all the innards and plop them in a bucket.

She would never be able to do this again. Whatever had she been thinking to agree to employment as a cook? Tears rose in her eyes. She had made another impulsive, ill-advised decision, like traveling out West to marry Caleb Arness, and now she was paying the price. She hated the West and everything in it—especially chickens!

She studied the eviscerated chicken on the counter. She’d already done the hard part—hadn’t she?—cutting off the legs and stripping off the smelly feathers. And pulling out the—she shuddered again—guts. How much more difficult could it be to shove it in the oven and bake it?

She rinsed the bird out, sprinkled salt and pepper over the skin, and laid it in a deep-sided pan. After an hour, the kitchen began to smell surprisingly good—so good, in fact, that her stomach rumbled. And by eleven o’clock, Emily was alternately dancing about the kitchen and complaining about being hungry.

“Just a few more minutes, Emily. Why don’t you set plates on the table, and then we’ll have dinner?” In the pantry off the kitchen she found a mason jar of green beans and the remains of a stale loaf of bread in the bread box. Tomorrow she must think about learning how to bake bread, even though she could not imagine herself in the kitchen with floury hands. Still, it could not possibly be worse than cleaning a chicken, could it? She gave an involuntary shudder.

Promptly at noon, Gray tramped through the back kitchen door and sniffed the air. “Mmm, somethin’ sure smells good!”

“It’s a chicken!” Emily shouted. “All baked ’n’ everything. Maria showed me chickens are nice.”

Clarissa set the platter holding the roasted bird on the table next to his elbow and handed him a sharp knife. “Would you please carve it?” she pleaded. “This chicken and I are not exactly friends.”

“Oh, yeah?” It did look kinda odd, the skin over-brown and stiff as parchment. When he stuck in the knife, he heard a crackling sound. Still, roast chicken was roast chicken, and he was plenty hungry. When he slid the knife in to slice off a drumstick, it was so dry it was like sawing through wood.

He set the knife down and shot a look at Clarissa’s tense face. “What happened to it?”

She worried her bottom lip between her teeth in a way that made him uneasy in an unexpected way. “Maria brought it over this morning. I did everything she said, but...” Her voice choked off and she swiped a sheen of tears off her cheek.

Emily stared at her mother with round blue eyes. “Mama, are you crying?”

“Of course not,” she said quickly. “It’s quite warm in here.”

Gray studied her face, then looked down at the platter. “Looks pretty well overdone,” he said. “But heck, it’s only a chicken, Clarissa. Nothin’ to cry about.”

“Oh, y-yes it is. You hired me to be your c-cook, and I can’t!”

“Can’t what?”

“Can’t cook.”

“At all?”

“No,” she sobbed. She looked so heartbroken, he wanted to laugh, but he figured that would just make it worse, so he clamped his jaws together. “Listen, there’s worse things than overcooking one chicken.”

“Oh?” Her lips were still quivery, which made him feel downright funny inside.

“Yeah. You could be overcooking a chicken in Caleb Arness’s kitchen.”

She gave a strangled cry and buried her face in her hands. Emily scrambled out of her chair and smoothed her small hand over Clarissa’s dark hair. “You could learn, Mama. You learned lots of things before we got on the train, remember? How to iron my dresses and pack up all our stuff in one suitcase. Lots of things.”

Gray wanted to hug the little girl. “Listen, I have to ride into town this afternoon. How about I bring you back a cookbook from the mercantile?”

Clarissa’s face lit up like Christmas. “Oh, c-could you? You can deduct it from my earnings.”

Gray studied the woman across the table. “What did you do before you learned to iron?”

“We— My brother had servants. He was gone at sea for months at a time, so his wife and I always had servants and plenty of—”

“Money,” he supplied. “Maria told me about your sister-in-law dying. And then your brother didn’t come home, and you lost it all.”

“Yes, I lost everything—the house, the bank account, even the furniture. The lawyer said we had nothing left and we had to move.”

“Didn’t your brother have a will? Some way to provide for you and Emily?”

“Apparently not. At least they could never find one.”

He spooned some green beans out of the blue ceramic bowl, but he was fast losing his appetite. How could a man just forget about something as important as providing for his sister and his child?

“That why you agreed to come out to Oregon and marry Arness? You had no money and no home?”

She was quiet for a long minute. “Emily, why don’t you go upstairs and bring me my shawl.”

When the girl’s footsteps faded, Clarissa leaned toward him. “Part of being, well, overprotected all one’s life is that it makes one naive. I realize now how foolish I was to accept Mr. Arness’s offer of marriage. All I could think about was making a home for Emily.”

“Even if it meant marrying someone you’d never met? Clarissa, seems to me that’s more than foolish—that’s downright stupid.”

Her face changed. “But thousands of women travel out West every year as mail-order brides. Surely you are not saying that all of them are—”

“Stupid. Yeah, I am sayin’ that. Marryin’ anybody, even someone you’ve known all your life, is—”

Her eyes got big. “Stupid?”

“Yeah. Why tie yourself down to someone whose guts you’re gonna hate in a few years?”

She bit her lip. “Did that happen to you?”

At that moment Emily clattered down the stairs. “Here’s your shawl, Mama. Are we havin’ any dessert?”

Clarissa looked blank. “Oh. Dessert. How about we have, uh, some cookies with our tea later? After I consult a cookbook,” she added under her breath.

“Okay. Can I go play with Maria? She has a dolly.”

“That’s news to me,” Gray said when Emily had streaked out the front door. “Well, it’s turning out to be a real interesting day, wouldn’t you say?”

He rose, gave Clarissa a grin and strode out the back door.

* * *

“Señor!” Ramon waylaid him on his way to the barn. “Where you go?”

“Town.”

“Why because? We need to fix all that fence that was broke last night.”

“Later,” Gray said.

Ramon caught his reins. “But, boss, cows will get out.”

“Yeah, I know. We’ll chase ’em in the morning.”

Ramon shook his dark head. “You do things your way, always. Not always best way, señor.”

Gray chuckled. Ramon was right most of the time, but he’d always done things his own way, and Ramon or no Ramon, Clarissa needed that cookbook. He started to rein away.

“Señor, why you not listen to Ramon?”

“Because I like to do things my way.”

“I think you are wrong.” Ramon doggedly pursued him.

Gray leaned over the saddle horn and stared down at him. His foreman had a point. Over the years of struggle to keep this ranch going, maybe he’d become too convinced he was the only person who knew best. Or maybe he was just stubborn. But he wasn’t wrong about riding into town. He hadn’t been able to stomach the chicken Clarissa had roasted to within an inch of its life, but he’d liked even less the bereft expression on her face. A woman in tears made his belly hurt.

He spurred Rowdy forward and trotted over the cattle guard and through the Bar H gate.

Chapter Seven

Now, Clarissa reflected some days later, how difficult could it be to bake a cake? Some flour, a little sugar, an egg or two and...what? She could ask Maria, but after her roast chicken disaster she was hesitant to admit to an even greater lack of knowledge about what she’d been hired to do.

She studied the woodstove in the kitchen and let out a deep sigh. She prayed that Emily was right—she could learn to cook, couldn’t she? And she must do it as quickly as possible.

She flipped over the page of Mrs. Beeton’s Household Hints. Aha! A recipe for something called Plain Yellow Cake. “Take two good handfuls of flour...” What, exactly, was a handful? Would it be a large hand, like Gray’s? Or a small one, like hers? What if Emily wanted to bake a cake with her tiny little hands?

She gazed out the window over the kitchen sink into the grove of willow trees behind the house. In the clear spring sunshine the new leaves looked like green glass, but now the light was fading. Face it, Clarissa, you don’t belong out here on a ranch in the West. She felt inept. Foolish. Out of place in this godforsaken land, and what was even worse, she felt a kinship with no one. At least she didn’t feel at odds with the man who had rescued her from Caleb Arness, or with down-to-earth, understanding Maria. But everything else out here was like being on a different planet.

With a groan she tried to focus again on Mrs. Beeton’s book. She simply must stop feeling sorry for herself. She’d gotten herself into this pickle, and she would have to get herself out of it. Besides, thousands of women were surviving—even thriving—out here in this rough, untamed country. A month ago she’d even thought she might become one of them, but one look at Caleb Arness had told her how wrong she had been. Now she realized how foolish and misguided it would be to be any man’s wife, mail-order or not.

Back in Boston she’d been an acknowledged spinster at twenty-four. “On the shelf,” everyone said. But even so, she had a life in Boston. She had fit in. There were concerts, afternoon teas, even happy hours spent in the library. On fine days people walked along the streets and in the lush, green parks, stopping for a soda at the candy store or the creamery. She missed it all.

She marveled that Emily was not lamenting the lack of ice-cream sodas. But her daughter seemed to revel in every new and exciting thing she found in the West—horses to pet, Maria’s cornhusk dolls to play with, spring wildflowers to pick, even the nightly tall tales Gray spun to lull her to sleep. Even now she could hear his low, gravelly voice coming from the parlor where he sat with her daughter cradled on his lap.

“And then,” he continued, “I left home. Well, to tell the truth, I ran away from home.”

“Why’d you do that?” Emily queried. “I’d never run away from my mama.”

A long silence fell. Instead of measuring out flour for the cake she was determined to bake, Clarissa found herself listening intently.

“Well, it’s like this, honey,” Gray continued. “My ma and my pa didn’t like each other much. They yelled and screamed at each other every day for fourteen years, and finally I’d had enough.”

“What’d you do?”

Another silence. “Not sure I should tell you, Squirt.”

“Yes, you should tell me!” she persisted. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

Clarissa heard a low chuckle and then his voice continued. “Well, let’s see, what did I do? What do you think I did?”

“I bet you found a horse and a lot of money and you ate lots and lots of strawberry ice cream.”

“You like strawberry ice cream, huh?”

“Uh-huh. I like it better than anything.”

“Better than...scrambled eggs and bacon?”

“Yes!”

“Better than...roast chicken?”

“Way better! Especially when Mama bakes it.”

Clarissa’s lips tightened.

“Better than...Maria’s molasses cookies?”

“Yeah!”

“Guess that settles it, then. Gotta churn some ice cream one of these days.”

“Strawberry!” she shouted. “But first you have to finish my story.”

Clarissa laughed out loud as she mixed the listed ingredients together. Once Emily set her mind to something, she never gave up.

“Ah. Well, let’s see...where were we?”

“Your mama and your papa were screaming and you got a horse.”

“Yeah. Well, I lit out. Uh, you know what that means?”

“It means you...bought a big lamp?”

“That’s right in one way, Emily. I got myself a job and then I bought a lamp. I went to work in a silver mine, way down deep underground.”

“Was it dark?”

“Plenty dark. And cold.”

Clarissa dropped her mixing spoon. At only fourteen years of age he went to work in a silver mine?

“What’dja do?”

“I worked my a—worked really hard. And pretty soon, guess what?”

“You bought some ice cream!”

Gray’s rich laughter washed over Clarissa, but his tale was sending chills up her spine. How awful that must have been, working in a mine. What happened then? she wanted to ask. She slid the cake into the oven, still listening intently.

“No, I didn’t buy ice cream. I bought something else. Something a lot bigger.”

“What was it?”

“I’ll tell you tomorrow night, okay?”

“No! Tell me now. Please? Puleeze?

Clarissa snapped Mrs. Beeton’s cookbook shut. “Emily...” she warned. “Time for bed.”

In the next moment her daughter’s light footsteps pattered up the stairs, and Gray appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Hope you don’t mind me tellin’ her these stories.”

She looked up. “They are certainly...educational,” she said carefully.

“Never thought of it that way, but yeah, I guess it was educational. For me, anyway.”

“It would seem you learned a great deal, at a very young age.”

When he didn’t answer, she shot a look at his face. He had a hard time keeping his unruly dark hair out of his eyes, which, she admitted, were quite nice—an odd gray-blue, like the barrel of the revolver he kept in a holster hanging over the front door. She liked his mouth, too, except when it narrowed in disapproval at something one of the ranch hands did. Mostly his lips were firm and usually curved in a smile, especially around Emily.

But tonight it was his eyes that caught at her—steel hard and unblinking. “I guess I shouldn’t be telling her those things,” he said slowly.

“You mean about working in a silver mine?” At his startled look, she added, “I was listening as I made the cake.”

“No. Other things I guess maybe I shouldn’t be telling her, about my ma and pa and why I left home. Bet you never met anybody who ran away from home before.”

Something in his voice changed, and all at once she didn’t know what to say. He pushed past her toward the back door. “Gotta check the barn before I turn in.”

“Gray?”

He stopped and stood unmoving, his back to her. “Yeah?”

“My cake will be done when you get back. I’ll cut a piece for you and leave it on the table.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Clarissa.” He grasped the doorknob, then spoke over his shoulder. “Cut a piece for yourself, too. Maybe heat up the coffee. There’s something I want to say to you.”

When he disappeared through the doorway she found her mouth had gone dry. He wanted to say something to her? What was it? Was it about Emily? About Ramon spending his valuable time showing her daughter how to plant seeds for a kitchen garden?

All at once she was certain she knew what it was. He’s going to fire me.

She untied the apron and paced back and forth across the kitchen floor, waiting for the cake to finish baking and the cold coffee to heat up. Where would she go? What would she do?

She couldn’t think about it. At last she peeked in the oven, tested the cake with a straw from the broom on the back porch, and lifted out the cake pan using her bunched-up apron as a pot holder.

She was learning to cook! But perhaps not well enough to warrant her weekly three-dollar salary. Perhaps he expected his fried eggs not to be too hard or so runny they slid off his fork and the biscuits to be light and fluffy, like Maria’s, not hard enough to bounce, as her first batch had been. She couldn’t even think about attempting another roast chicken; she had to work up her courage for that.

The more she mulled it over, the more unsettled her stomach grew. She picked up a knife, sawed two squares from the cake and set them on two small plates. Before she could find forks, the back door banged open.

“Coffee smells good,” he remarked.

“It’s not fresh, I reheated this morning’s.”

“Still smells good.” He dropped into a chair. She poured him a large mug and slid the plate of cake toward him.

“You havin’ some, too?”

“Yes.”

He took a bite, and Clarissa watched avidly as he chewed and swallowed.

“Tastes kinda...um...flat.”

“Flat?” She took a tentative bite. The cake was nicely browned on top, and it had a fine texture. But he was right—it had no flavor at all. What had she done wrong? She grabbed Mrs. Beeton’s book and thumbed through the pages until she found the recipe. Flour. Sugar. Eggs. Saleratus. And salt. Salt! Good heavens, she’d forgotten to add salt. No wonder it tasted flat!

She snatched Gray’s plate away.

“Hold on a minute, it’s not that bad, honest!”

“Don’t lie to me, Gray. Don’t ever, ever lie to me.”

He blinked and his fork clattered onto the table. “Clarissa, I never lie. I’ve never lied to anyone in my entire life, not even—” He broke off.

Her breath stopped. “Not even who?”

“Not even my pa when I left home, uh, I mean ran away. I wanted to, though. God, I wanted nothin’ more than to tell him the truth, but...well, I couldn’t. But I couldn’t lie, either. So I didn’t say anything at all, I just up and left.”

Clarissa stared at him. “You hate my cake, don’t you? You just don’t want to tell me.”

Gray chuckled. “No, I don’t hate it. It’s true, it’s not a very tasty cake, but maybe you can pour something over the top, like a frosting or something. Maybe Mrs. Beeton can suggest something to rescue it.”

She began idly riffling through the pages.

Gray sipped his coffee and watched her. “You know, there’s lots more important things in life than one flat-tastin’ cake.”

She said nothing, but he could tell by her face that she wasn’t convinced. She’d probably been raised so starchy and proper in her rich brother’s house in Boston that she expected everything she put her hand to to be perfect. Well, he had news for her. Nobody’s life went like that.

For a brief minute he thought about telling her so, but the wary expression in her eyes made him hesitate. There were other emotions in her face, too—some he could read, like tiredness and disappointment and discouragement; other things were a mystery, especially an odd, hungry look she tried to hide that made his breath catch.

“I’m going for a walk,” he announced. He escaped out the back door and again made his way down the path to the barn where he plopped down on a hay bale to think things over. The warm air smelled like straw and horse dung. There was nothing in particular he had to do out here, so after a while he found himself talking to Rowdy.

“Had to get out of the kitchen, fella. Felt kinda closed in, hard to breathe, you know? Don’t understand why, exactly, just felt surrounded. Clarissa feels things, see. Me, I try not to feel things. That’s what’s kept me safe all these years.”

He stood up and nuzzled the gelding’s black nose. “We’ll talk again soon, boy. Next time I’ll bring you an apple.”

Chapter Eight

Some days later, Clarissa finished wiping the last of the supper plates and paused for her nightly stocktaking meditation. She had saved a few dollars already. Precious dollars. But she needed many more for the train ticket back to Boston. Emily was adapting, almost effortlessly, to life on the ranch but Clarissa grew more and more dispirited with every passing day. Or rather every passing breakfast, dinner and supper. It was a wonder Gray had not complained. It was an even greater miracle he had not fired her! Maybe that was what he’d wanted to talk to her about that night.

With a sigh, she hung the damp dish towel on the hook by the stove and drifted out the open front door to the porch where everyone had gathered—the ranch hands, Shorty and Nebraska, and even Erasmus, the old man who took care of the horses and swept out the barn. Maria and Ramon sat on the top step, holding hands.

The day had been scorching right up until the sun sank behind the far-off purplish mountains to the north with a last wash of flaming crimson and orange. Out here in the country night fell with a finality she still found unnerving. She gazed out at the unrelieved blackness, then stepped off the porch and looked up at the sky. Back in Boston the stars had never seemed this close, like tiny blobs of silvery dough scattered across the velvet sky.

She remounted the steps, settled herself in the porch swing and breathed in the scent of roses and the honeysuckle vine that twined over the trellis. Nebraska was tuning up his fiddle and soon launched into “Red River Valley.” After one verse Erasmus pulled a battered harmonica from his overalls pocket and joined in. It wasn’t a symphony orchestra or a chamber ensemble, as she had enjoyed back in Boston, but the music sounded lovely, anyway.

Maria brought out a big pitcher of lemonade and a bowl of ripe strawberries, and Clarissa nibbled and let her thoughts drift. What would her life have been like if Anthony and Roseanne had lived? Emily would have had a real mother and a father, and she herself...well, perhaps she would have walked out with an admirer, maybe even married and had a child of her own. As it was, she’d been too absorbed in caring for Emily to entertain many callers, and outside of an occasional concert or visit to the library, she’d spent all her time learning to be a mother. She wouldn’t trade Emily for anything on earth, but sometimes she did wonder about what she had missed in life.

* * *

Emily was quiet this evening. Perched on the porch between Gray’s long legs she wasn’t even clamoring for a story. The music rose and fell, and soon Emily’s head began to droop onto Gray’s knee. After a while, Ramon stood and beckoned Maria into his arms and they began to dance around and around on the porch.

Emily seemed to wake up at this, and jiggled Gray’s knee. “You gonna dance with me?”

“Well, now,” he said in a low voice, “I don’t know. I’m not real good at dancin’.”

The girl jumped to her feet. “I bet I could teach you!” She tugged on his hand. “Come on. You’re not scared, are ya, Gray?”

“Scared?” Gray got to his feet and took both the girl’s hands in his. “I’m not scared of a four-year-old girl with a thousand questions, no.” But he had to admit he was plenty scared about other things, like losing more of his cattle to rustlers or finding more bad water. Or losing his ranch. And he was definitely uneasy about Caleb Arness. He’d expected the man to show up before now, and he couldn’t help but wonder why he hadn’t. Probably he was in jail. Again. Next time he went into town he’d ask around and stop by the sheriff’s office and inquire.

He had to bend down a bit to dance with Emily, but the ecstatic look on her freckled face made the effort worthwhile. He liked making her smile. She had to take two or three steps to every one of his, so their progress around the porch was slow, but Emily didn’t seem to care. Her red curls bobbed in time with the fiddle music, and she alternately grinned up at him and grinned at her mother where she rocked in the porch swing. It was kinda fun steering the girl around the floor. Maria smile broadly at him, and Ramon sent him a wink.

When they two-stepped in front of the swing, Emily suddenly dropped his hand and darted forward. “Mama, look at me—we’re dancing!” She grabbed Clarissa’s skirt. “Come and dance with us!”

“Oh, no, honey, I couldn’t do that.”

But Emily wasn’t about to be put off. She seized Clarissa’s skirt with both fists and yanked on it until her mother gave up and got to her feet. Emily entwined one of her hands with Gray’s and with the other she glommed onto Clarissa’s. Before he knew it, they had all joined hands to form a threesome.

Clarissa sent him a look that made him chuckle—half apology, half amusement, but her warm hand fit nicely in his, and he had to admit he liked that. The three of them began to circle around the porch in time to “Down in the Valley.” Emily swooped and giggled with such uninhibited verve that Gray laughed out loud, and then he caught Clarissa’s gaze. Suddenly the sounds around him faded until nothing remained but a faint humming in his brain.

What the hell?

In the next instant Emily dropped his hand, gave a happy chirp and twirled off by herself, leaving Gray and Clarissa facing each other.

“Well,” Clarissa said with obvious embarrassment, “I suppose we should—”

“Dance,” he finished.

Without another word Gray pulled her into his arms and began to move in a slow, steady pattern.

Clarissa blinked. Where on earth had he learned to waltz? Certainly not in a silver mine! Perhaps at some place like Serena’s on Willow Street; after all, he was young and virile and...

She missed a step. He held her gently, his hand at her back pressing just close enough that her breasts brushed the front of his chambray shirt. Heavens, could he feel that? The contact made them tingle in a decidedly pleasant way.

Emily settled herself near Ramon and Maria and snuggled her head against the woman’s arm. Ramon began singing along with “Clementine,” and Maria was sitting with her head on his shoulder. They looked so happy together her throat ached.

Gray danced her to the edge of the porch, then to the far end where the honeysuckle twined up to the rooftop. What an odd sensation, being this close him. She hadn’t danced with anyone since she was ten years old, but this was decidedly different. She felt light and floaty inside. Never in her life had she been so intensely aware of another human being, not even when she had first held baby Emily in her arms.

* * *

Gray forgot everything but the feel of the woman he held in his arms. Something smelled real sweet, maybe her hair. It was dark and shiny, and she wore it gathered in a loose bun at the nape of her neck. Kinda old-maidish, but she sure didn’t seem like one. Clarissa Seaforth might be an overly proper Boston lady, but in his arms she just felt like a woman—soft and alive.

Surprisingly alive. Surprisingly arousing, if he were honest with himself. He’d never felt such an undercurrent of can’t-ignore-it desire. He decided to ignore it anyway and hope it would go away.

But it didn’t go away. It just kept building and building like a summer storm. He tried to keep his mind on the fiddle music, the painted boards of the porch under his boots, the look on Ramon’s face as he sat beside his wife. That didn’t help much. Kinda made him feel hungry and lonely at the same time.

He closed his eyes and tried to think. He didn’t have time for a woman—any woman, and especially not a proper lady. He only had time to brand cattle and mend fences and dig wells and keep his ranch together.

All he had to do was pay Clarissa the three dollars she earned each week as his cook and pretty soon she would climb on the eastbound train and be gone. Then he could stop tossing and turning half the night thinking about her sleeping just one floor above him.

The top of Clarissa’s head brushed against his chin. Hot damn, her hair was soft! It took a lot to get his mind off his struggling ranch, but the fleeting touch of any part of her could sure do it in a hurry. Hell and damn, anyway. I don’t need this. He needed to focus on his ranch and forget that Clarissa Seaforth smelled good and felt so good in his arms it made him crazy.

* * *

The next night after supper, while Gray lounged in the parlor with Emily, he was surprised to hear Caleb Arness’s voice.

“Harris?” the man bawled. Sounded as though he was just outside on the porch. Quickly he set Emily on her feet.

“Go into the kitchen, Squirt. Tell your mama to take you to the pantry and stay there.”

When the girl scampered off, he puffed out the lantern and retrieved his revolver from over the door. “You’re trespassing, Arness. Whaddya want?”

“My fiancée, Clarissa Seaforth. Come to take her back to town.”

“You’re wasting your time, Arness. She’s not your fiancée. She works for me.”

“Huh! Doin’ what?”

“She’s my cook.”

“An’ what else?” Arness boomed. “You got no claim on her. I do.”

“No, you don’t. Now get off my land.”

“Oh, yeah? What if I don’t?”

Gray put a bullet through the screen door that kicked up the dust at Arness’s feet. “Don’t tempt me, Arness.”

The stocky man jumped back, then shook his fist at Gray. “You ain’t heard the last of this, Harris. That girl belongs to me!”

Arness shuffled off, and a few moments later Gray heard the sound of receding hoofbeats. He shut the front door, locked it and moved into the kitchen. Halfway across the floor to the pantry he stumbled into Clarissa, with a heavy iron skillet gripped in one hand.

“Where’s Emily?” he barked.

“In—in the pantry.”

“How come you aren’t?”

“Well, I—I thought...”

He lifted the skillet out of her hand. “You thought I might need some help, is that it?”

“I th-thought you might want—”

He was trying hard to be angry at her, but the truth was he was touched. Darn fool woman. “Get Emily and go upstairs,” he said more brusquely than he intended.

She snapped to attention. “Yes, sir, Mister Harris, sir. I was only trying to—”

“Get yourself kidnapped or killed,” he grumbled. She said nothing, but he could hear her ragged breathing in the dark.

“Sorry, Clarissa. Go on to bed now. You know you’re safe here.”

“Yes,” she murmured. “I know. Thank you.”

Chapter Nine

Gray reined Rowdy around to face the tall, skinny ranch hand they all called Shorty. “Shorty, grab that roll of barbwire, will ya?”

“Sure, boss. Done rounded up all those cows that got out yesterday. Any idea what happened?”

“Same as last month. Arness and his crew of rustlers is what happened.”

“They cut the fence and try to take cows,” Ramon said. “But we see them.”

“We run ’em off,” Gray’s newest hand, Nebraska, chimed in. “And then we took out after the cattle.”

“Thanks, fellas,” Gray said. The new kid might be wet behind the ears, but he could sure ride. “Glad you work for me and not Arness.”

“I’m glad, too, boss. Don’t like cheaters or people who steal. Back in Nebraska we string ’em up.”

Shorty scratched his head. “Boss, how come Arness keeps doin’ us dirt? What’s he got against you?”

Gray spit off to one side. “He wants my ranch to fail. Wants me to go under.”

“Some reason?” the tall man queried.

“Guess maybe because I beat him out of buyin’ the place for himself when it came up for auction some years ago. Arness wanted it, but I’d saved up more money.”

“And now,” Ramon interjected, “he wants the señorita who lives here.”

Nebraska pricked up his big ears. “Might be that women are more important than cows, huh?”

“Way more important,” Shorty answered.

“Knock it off!” Gray snapped. “Got fences to mend.”

All four riders spurred their mounts and moved off into the meadow. Shaking his head, Nebraska followed with the wagonload of barbwire. Gray rode on ahead. Losing the number of cows he had this past year was making him plenty nervous. On the drive to Abilene, rustlers had made off with close to seventy head; he couldn’t afford to lose any more.

* * *

That evening the hands were lounging around the bunkhouse after the chores were done when Maria accosted Gray on the front porch.

“Señor Gray, Sunday is May first. We go to picnic, no?”

“No.” Ranch work was more important than picnics.

Maria peered at him. “The girl, Emily, she would like it.”

“Yeah, she probably would, Maria, but we’ve got calves to brand and—”

Maria propped her hands on her hips.

“Señor, is no work on Sunday. Is May Day.”

“Yeah, I know. So what? A ranch doesn’t care what day it is.”

“Señor, you think too much about ranch work. Think of Emily! She knows nothing of ranch work. She is a small child only. She deserves to have fun, is true?”

Gray sighed. In the five years he’d owned the Bar H, he’d never won a single argument with Maria. You’d think he’d have learned that by now. He threw up his hands. “Okay, okay. Make that chocolate cake you’re so famous for, huh?”

“Oh, si, Señor Gray. Gracias.”

* * *

“A picnic!” Emily squealed. “A real picnic with potato salad and everything?”

Gray set his coffee mug down on the supper table. “Yeah, ‘and everything.’ Would you like that?”

“And ice cream?”

Gray had to laugh. “Maybe.”

Clarissa sent him a pensive look. “I don’t have a recipe for potato salad.”

“Nobody has a recipe for potato salad,” he said. “You just boil up some eggs and some potatoes and mix ’em up together with some onion and a chopped pickle or two. And some salt,” he added. He was relieved when she laughed.

Emily patted his arm. “Are you gonna tell me a story tonight?”

“Maybe. Have you been a good girl today?”

“Not ’xactly, but I want a story, anyway.”

“How ’bout if your mama tells you a story tonight?”

“No!” the girl sang. “Mama’s stories aren’t exciting, like yours.”

That caught his interest. “Not exciting?” He caught Clarissa’s gaze. “Living in a big city like Boston isn’t exciting?”

“Not exciting the way things are out here in Smoke River,” Clarissa said. “Life in Boston is more...well, civilized. You know, with libraries and concerts and museums.”

“Man, I never thought of libraries and museums as bein’ exciting!”

Clarissa’s voice rose. “But they are!”

“Can’t wait to get back there, huh?”

Clarissa opened her mouth to reply, but Emily cut her off. “I can wait! I like it out here lots better.”

Gray stuffed down a chuckle. “Clarissa, looks like you’ve been outvoted.”

“About the picnic, yes. About going home to Boston—never. All I need is enough money for a train ticket.”

Gray said nothing. It wasn’t surprising that she wanted to go back to Boston; what was surprising was his reaction. He didn’t want to think about the stab of disappointment that knifed through his chest.

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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