Courting a Cowboy Page 2

  At that time, and for some time afterward, Mama’s sadness had brought tears to Sophie’s eyes.

  As she had grown older, however, her sorrow had given way to resolution. She would not be so used. Her mother’s solution had been to reside all her hopes and expectations in a husband – one roll of the matrimonial dice, as Tad would say. That was not Sophie’s solution. She had no need of taking up dice of any sort, for her hands held the reins of her future.

  She said, “A husband of the right sort.”

  “Oh, yes,” breathed Alice. “One with whom you can share devotion.”

  “One who is responsible and a good provider,” said Louisa, who might not have found it necessary to teach at the Academy if her late husband had possessed those qualities.

  “One who is absent,” amended Sophie.

  “Absent?” they chorused, staring at her.

  “Yes,” Sophie said firmly.

  Louisa recovered first. “But if a husband is absent, how could you enjoy the—.” She colored. “–benefits of marriage.”

  Alice’s eyes widened and Sophie could see questions trembling on her lips. She turned the conversation in a more useful direction.

  “I could enjoy the benefits of marriage that are important to me. An unmarried lady–” Even one with sufficient means and of a mature age. “–is not viewed as eligible to establish her own household. Society expects her to live with other members of her family. But a wife gains many freedoms that an unmarried woman does not enjoy. And even more freedoms if she is not hampered by her husband’s presence.”

  “But you would not have your husband’s company,” protested Alice.

  “And so would not need to cook and clean for him and tend his wishes every day.”

  “That is true,” acknowledged Louisa. “But how will you find such a man, Sophie? If he is mostly absent from St. Louis, won’t it be quite difficult to find him, become acquainted sufficiently to elicit an offer, and marry before he departs again?”

  Sophie was nodding long before Louisa completed her recitation. “You are quite correct. St. Louis is not at all the place to acquire an absent husband. I have a plan.”

  “A plan? But whatever will you do, Sophie?” Alice asked.

  “I shall go to Wyoming.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  Wyoming Territory

  “Nothing from our Sophie?”

  Before Nate Abbott answered the question put to him, he consciously smoothed out a frown he could feel tightening his forehead.

  The frown plus the squeezing inside his head usually told of a storm coming. A bad one. Since he'd come west, that's the only time he'd gotten the sensations. Not like when he'd live at home, back in Ohio.

  But he'd checked the sky before he and String stepped into Kirwin’s Mercantile to pick up supplies for the OS Ranch. Clear as could be. Besides, he hadn't had any of this storm's-coming pressure in his head until they'd been inside awhile and he'd taken inventory of the mail for the OS. Still nothing from St. Louis.

  The motion of easing his frown raised his hat brim just enough for the sun’s reflection off a watering trough to slice into his eyes, so he used his free hand to adjust his hat to restore the perfect shadow.

  Only then did he say, “Nope.”

  “But her last letter said she was sending us a surprise. Why would she make us wait this a-way, with no letter a’tall?"

  "No telling.

  "It’s already been longer’n ever before since she wrote. What if something's happened to her?”

  "Nothing we can do."

  "But she could be sick or somethin'. Maybe one of us should go back East, check on her."

  “Boss isn't going to let one of his hands go off now. Maybe winter, but –”

  "Winter! Winter’s just ended!”

  “Next winter.”

  “Why that's – that's–" String worked his mouth, searching for a word. "–Months off."

  Nate had nothing to say to that acute observation.

  The door to Kirwin’s Mercantile opened, and Nate stepped clear, tugging String by the arm. String was unaware. His jaw had joined his mouth in the struggle and the toll on them made him sound half-strangled. "Next winter! Why, why there's no tellin'–”

  “I beg your pardon, gentlemen,” came a feminine voice.

  String's struggle to find words gave up the ghost, collapsing in mouth-open stupefied silence at being so addressed.

  Nate, having had broader experience and even having been raised to consider himself a gentleman, touched fingers to his hat brim and stepped back farther. “Ma’am.”

  But she didn’t pass by.

  She stayed where she was, just beyond the door she'd closed behind her, regarding him steadily. And he returned the favor.

  He’d noticed her inside – hard not to. She wasn’t from anywhere around here – that was certain considering her la-di-dah clothes. But it wasn’t entirely that had made him notice her.

  She was an attractive little thing. Small, tidy figure, a tumble of dark curls that suggested they’d get wild given the least opportunity. But it wasn’t entirely that had made him notice her, either.

  “The gentleman behind the counter said that you are representatives of the OS Ranch?”

  “Ma’am?” If he didn’t name the suspicion growing in him, maybe it wouldn’t reach daylight.

  “If you are associated with the OS Ranch, then it’s my hope that you are acquainted with Jerry Vandercook?”

  “Jerry? Vandercook?” croaked String. “But he’s – “

  Nate trod on his foot. Hard.

  He hadn’t had time or space to make it subtle. And even if String hadn’t yelped a protest, it would have been obvious something had happened, because the rowel of Nate’s spur caught momentarily in the tough material of String’s work pants. It tripped them both up, leaving them hopping around the narrow wood platform like a couple of toads for a minute.

  “What the–?”

  “Quiet,” Nate ordered. String clamped his mouth shut, though he gave his foreman a baleful glare. Nate returned it with a full measure of command, and added, “No cursing in front of a lady.”

  Satisfied he’d stilled the cowhand, he faced the young lady who’d been watching with demurely clasped hands and an unsettling glint in her eyes. “Sorry, Ma’am, why would you be asking after Jerry Vandercook? You understand, we don’t just share another man’s business without cause.”

  “That does you credit, sir. But I do have cause. I am his sister.”

  “His sister!” Strong croaked. Nate only needed a look to quell him this time.

  “That so, Ma’am?” He drawled it, trying to gain time.

  It was an air of expectation around her – that’s what had made him notice her inside. Like the crackle in the air when lightning was about to strike. Plus maybe a tingle of familiarity. And it stirred in Nate Abbott the same uneasy mix of worry and awe produced by that force of nature.

  “Yes, it is so. And I have come from St. Louis to visit him.”

  “All the way from St. Louis, eh?” he repeated, thinking furiously.

  “Yes, St. Louis,” she enunciated as if he might be daft. “After my long journey, I am eager to see him. I arrived yesterday by the stagecoach, and when the gentleman inside informed me that you are about to depart for the OS Ranch, it seemed providential. I hope I may obtain transport there from you gentlemen. I understand you have a wagon you brought for supplies and I beg a seat in it and a place for my bag.”

  "Vandercook's sister!" String erupted. "Why, you're Sophie! You're our–”

  Nate swung around on him, facing the cowhand, keeping his shoulder to the observing young lady. "Miss Vandercook, String," he said sternly. "Mind your manners with Miss Vandercook."

  String wasn't the quickest, but he was well above Mulehead, who'd been kicked in the head by a mule three times that they knew of. String’s eyes widened at he met Nate's glare, and the beginning glimmers of the complications rushing around them like
a flooded creek sparked to life in his face.

  "Beggin' your pardon, Ma'am,” String mumbled. “No offense meant."

  "None taken, sir." She stepped around Nate's shoulder, to face him once more. "On the subject of my request –”

  “It’s a rough ride,” Nate said, with little hope that the determined figure before him would be deterred by that. He knew stubborn females, and this sure as shooting was one or he hadn’t grown up with seven sisters. “And we don’t take it in easy stages. We gotta get back before sundown, so there’s no stopping.”

  “Rattle your bones,” agreed String.

  She smiled at the older man. A fleeting lifting of her lips that Nate could see had sent String into as senseless a state as a gallon of the strongest Cheyenne hooch.

  “Thank you for your concern, but having come so far, I would be a poor thing to turn back now. And even if that were not so, my brother's letters of this past year have made me long to see the places he writes of with such eloquence.”

  The smile now gone, she turned back to Nate. He stifled all urge to wince at her comments.

  She looked up at him, and he looked down at her. He couldn’t read anything more than the request she was making in her expression, and he wagered she couldn’t see anything at all in his, yet he had the notion that they were involved in some sort of showdown.

  If so, he lost.

  He couldn't see any way around it. Not without casting away all hopes of bringing this around.

  But with an avalanche of luck and some time to think, maybe he'd see a way. Some way.

  “String, get the lady’s bag.”

  * * * *

  From the hollow of the saddle that had come to conform to his body better than seat, Nate twitched a rein, and Sago changed course slightly. Just enough that Nate didn’t need to turn his head to watch the upright little figure, which contrasted sharply with String’s boneless slouch, sway as the wagon jounced over fresh ruts cut into the road by the spring runoff.

  The pitch and rattle had near unseated her a couple times early on, before she’d gotten the feel of it. Still, she’d be better off if she didn’t sit like she was in somebody’s parlor. If String had any sense, he’d tell her –

  Nate bit off the thought.

  Even if String did have any sense, he wouldn’t be telling Miss Sophie Vandercook anything. The man was dumbstruck, acting like a cross between a saint and that fancy dancer they’d seen last fall in Cheyenne had landed beside him.

  The snatches of conversation Nate had picked up had been ‘most all her. Telling about her journey from St. Louis.

  Give her credit – she hadn’t complained. Not a lick. Not about the journey, not about this wagon ride.

  But what a lady like her thought she was doing traveling from St. Louis to way out here on her own, he couldn’t begin to figure. If he were her brother, he’d’ve told her straight out –

  Another thought bit in two.

  He wasn’t her brother. And he wasn’t telling her anything.

  Especially not since, even after more than six hours of thinking on it, he hadn’t come to a firm line of action for when they got to the home ranch.

  “String! We’ll get water at Bear Creek.”

  “Bear Creek? That’s almost –”

  “We’re stoppin’.”

  They’d made two stops already. Resting the horses, he’d said. Which was true, though it was twice as many stops as usual coming back, even when it was a sight hotter than today.

  So, now it was three times as many. And this last stop was only an hour or so from the main ranch, even at the pace they’d been keeping.

  He had his reasons.

  At the creek, he waited for String to position the wagon so the horses could drink, then before the cowhand could climb down, Nate rode up beside him.

  “I’m going to ride on ahead,” he announced.

  “What?” String’s head snapped up, full-blown panic in his eyes. “You can’t leave me with –” He tipped his head to the side, indicating Sophie Vandercook. As if she couldn’t see the gesture and didn’t know exactly whom he meant anyway. “Nate, you can’t.”

  “It’s not far now.” He wasn’t sure if he was reassuring her or String. “I’ll be waiting when you get there. Got to check some things with Mr. Bracken.”

  String’s mouth opened, then closed.

  “Mr. Bracken,” Sophie repeated.

  At least Nate thought that’s what she said. She seemed to be having some trouble getting words out between lips that had picked up a coating of dust. She was lucky the ride hadn’t been during a dry spell, when the dust could get thick as a blizzard.

  “Yeah. Mr. Bracken, he’s –”

  “My brother’s employer.” Sophie said, coming on stronger at the end.

  String swallowed audibly.

  “He’s owner of the OS, all right,” Nate said.

  “Please do give him my regards, and beg his pardon for imposing on his hospitality.”

  “No imposing. Out here, anybody comes by’s entitled to a bed and a meal. You’ll be welcomed. No fear there. I just gotta go over some things with him –” He shot a warning look at String. “– and some of the hands. So rest here a bit. Get some water yourselves, and take it easy coming in.”

  The final was an order to String. Hope to God, he understood it.

  Nate needed time to set things up at the home ranch.

  The fact that he didn’t know what he’d be setting up meant he needed all the time he could get.

  He touched the front of his hat to Miss Sophie Vandercook of St. Louis, gave Sago a tap on the side, and trotted away, breathing only slightly easier for the first time since he’d spotted her across Kirwin’s Mercantile.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Hey, Nate!” Edith Bracken leaned over the railing on the front porch of the OS Ranch main house, her pale braids swinging out in front of her. “What’re you doing getting in so late? Thought for sure you’d stayed over to tomorrow.”

  “Something came up.” And to make matters worse, Sago had picked up a stone. Nate had stopped to get it out, then walked the horse a good mile before he was sure the hoof was going to be okay. That had cost a lot of his lead time on the wagon. “Where’s your pa?”

  The fact that Edith was on the porch meant Frederick Bracken was away from the home ranch. It was the ironclad rule of the OS owner that his young daughter stay in the house when both he and Nate were gone. It was Edith’s interpretation of the rule that made the furthest possible inch she could stretch over the porch’s railing still count as the house.

  Nate couldn’t decide if it was good news or bad that Bracken was gone.

  “What? What came up? Something wrong with the wagon? Or did –?”

  “Will you quit jabbering, girl, and tell me where’s your pa?” It was said with affectionate exasperation.

  “Over to Shrieves’ place. Rider came in not an hour after you and String left, and said they were meeting there about the spring roundup. Pa went right off. Remember, you said I could come this year. Not just to visit, but for the whole thing.”

  “Never said the whole thing,” he responded absently, working out how this might just work.

  “You did! You said the whole thing. And I can rope the whole time, too.”

  He lifted his head to meet her gaze.

  “Some,” she amended.

  He kept looking at her.

  “At least one, Nate. You gotta let me rope at least one. You know I can. Why, you taught me, and there’s nobody better at teaching roping than you, so you gotta let me.”

  He’d admit that for a scrap of a girl she was more than half decent with a rope, and well above that on horseback. He relented. “We’ll see. But roundup’s a ways off still. Right now we got another matter to talk about.”

  “We do?”

  “We do. You’re the lady of this house, Edith Bracken, and you’ve got a guest coming to stay.”

  Her eyes had rounded at being called
the lady of the house, but that was forgotten in the excitement of a guest. “You mean a real guest? Like somebody who’ll stay in the house? Who? Who’s coming?”

  “Nobody you know. She’s a young lady from –”

  “A lady,” Edith breathed, as if he’d announced Queen Victoria herself were about to ride up to the porch steps. “From England?”

  It wasn’t entirely outlandish, since some titled folks had had ranches back in the early days. But most had sold up as time went on, and he hadn’t heard tell of any remaining around here after the winter before last.

  “Not from England. From St. Louis.”

  “St. Louis,” she repeated in exactly the same tone.

  He needed to hurry this along. “The fact is, she’s Jerry Vandercook’s sister.”

  That brought her back to ground. “But Vandercook –”

  “I know. But she doesn’t.”

  Edith recoiled. “I’m not tellin’ her. I don’t know her. I don’t know about things like that. I’m not–”

  “No, you’re not telling her. Will you be quiet for a shake and let me get a word out?”

  Damned if the girl didn’t shut up and stare at him with the expectancy of hearing golden words flow from one of those oracles that old book of Ma’s had said they had around where the Pyramids were.

  And damned if he could think of a word to say.

  That state of affairs might have continued, if Edith hadn’t looked over his shoulder and let out a whoop. “There’s the wagon! There they are! I see her, I see her.”

  He twisted around to see the wagon closing in on them at a pace that should have been impossible for that old team. Although he had to admit there was just the possibility that it was a trick of his mind, like a sun-sick cowpoke thinking he saw water in a field of dust.

  He sidestepped Sago right up to the side of the porch, reached out to catch Edith by the shoulder, and leaned in to speak directly into her ear.

  “Here’s what I’m saying to you: Don’t talk about Vandercook. Not a word. You leave it to me, Edith. You hear? You leave it all to me.”