Western Spring Weddings

by Lynna Banning

  As she recalled, he hadn’t answered the question.

  “Tell me some more ’bout what you like,” Emily entreated.

  “Oh, let me see, what else do I like? Wildflowers—those big meadows full of yellow blooms like tiny little daisies. And those red poppies on the hillside. And the sunflowers! Heavens, they are growing taller than I am! Maria showed me how to shake out last year’s ripe seeds and toast them.”

  She also liked the sound of the ranch hands’ laughter drifting from the bunkhouse in the evening. She’d bet they were playing poker, and they were most definitely enjoying themselves. I wonder if I could learn to play poker? I bet I would be good at it since I’m learning how to hide my feelings.

  Finally Emily’s eyelids drooped shut and her breathing evened out. Clarissa tucked the blanket around her and let herself admit the one thing she’d tried and tried not to think about. She liked the way Gray had made her feel when he kissed her, all warm inside, as if sunshine had washed through her body and left tiny sparkles everywhere.

  She leaned over and brushed her lips across Emily’s temple, settled herself beside her and closed her eyes. There was absolutely no reason to think any more about Gray or his kiss. She would be leaving within the month, and that was that.

  * * *

  Two days later at noon Gray tramped through the back kitchen door and announced, “This afternoon we’re gonna make us some ice cream!”

  Emily squealed and threw her arms about his legs. “Can it be strawberry? Oh, please?”

  Gray ruffled her hair and knelt down to her level. “Strawberry, huh? Well, you know, it takes a heap of strawberries to make strawberry ice cream.”

  “Let’s go pick some right away, okay?”

  He chuckled. “Hold on a minute, Squirt. Bet you can’t guess what Nebraska’s brought back from town this morning, can you?”

  Emily’s blue eyes rounded. “Strawberries? Really?”

  “Really.” He rose and turned to Clarissa. “Got an ice-cream freezer somewhere in the pantry. It’s probably dusty inside, so you might want to wash it out. Been a while since I made ice cream.”

  Clarissa sent him a look he couldn’t decipher. Approval, he hoped. But now she’d glued her gaze to the stovetop so he couldn’t tell. Damned puzzling woman. He never knew what she was thinking. Ever since that day after the picnic when he’d kissed her, she’d been skittish as a hummingbird. He’d probably scared her to death.

  Scared himself, too, but for a different reason. In his entire life he’d never let himself care—really care deep down—about a woman. Nothing in skirts was ever going to matter more to him than his ranch. But it was sure unsettling not being able to get Clarissa out of his mind.

  “Emily,” Clarissa said, “put out the plates, please. I’m about to dish up our dinner.”

  Gray sniffed the air appreciatively. “Roast chicken?”

  She nodded.

  “I thought after the last one you didn’t ever want to roast another chicken.”

  She leveled a look at him. “I didn’t. But this morning, Maria brought me another hen. And then I read Mrs. Beeton’s cooking instructions.”

  He raised his eyebrows at her. While Emily clattered three blue-flowered plates onto the table, Gray studied the woman who disliked everything about living on his ranch, including dead chickens. So, she’d roasted one for their dinner? And, he noted as she pulled something out of the oven, she’d made biscuits. And...was that gravy in the big china bowl? And mashed potatoes? Made his head spin.

  Expertly she wielded the carving knife he kept razor sharp and cut off a drumstick for Emily. Then she hesitated. “What part would you like, Gray?”

  “Uh...” For some reason he couldn’t get himself to say the word breast in her presence. Guess he spent too much time thinking about hers under that thin muslin shirtwaist she wore. “I’ll have a drumstick.”

  She dropped it onto his plate without looking at him, then sliced off a thick piece of breast meat for herself and pushed the bowl of mashed potatoes toward him.

  All through the meal Emily chattered on about strawberries and the new pony in the barn and making ice cream, while Gray and Clarissa avoided looking at each other. He wanted to look at her, but she didn’t glance up once except to pour coffee and set another plate of hot biscuits on the table. He felt tongue-tied like a woodpecker with a string tied around its beak.

  Finally Emily set her fork down with a click and fixed him with narrowed blue eyes. “How come you’re not talkin’ about things like you usually do?”

  “Um...well, I guess I haven’t got anything to say, Squirt.”

  “That’s not true,” she challenged. “You always talk a lot. Are you sick?”

  Gray laughed. “Not so sick I can’t churn ice cream! Think you could wash up those strawberries I left out in the pantry?”

  She was out of her chair and off like a shot before he realized his mistake. With Emily gone, the silence in the kitchen was louder than a Gatling gun, and there was nowhere to look but up at the ceiling or down at his plate. But, he reflected, it had been like this for two whole days.

  He’d had enough. He sucked in a big breath and reached over to capture her hand. “This can’t go on, Clarissa.”

  “What can’t?” she said carefully. “I am not aware of anything unusual.”

  “You and me, tiptoeing around each other, not talkin’ and not lookin’ at each other.”

  “Oh.” She kept her voice neutral.

  “I’m not gonna kiss you again, if that’s what’s botherin’ you.”

  “Oh.” Hot damn, she sounds disappointed!

  She glanced up and then instantly dropped her gaze. “Why not?”

  “Huh?” Dumbstruck, he stared at her bent head. “Well, one reason is you’re going back to Boston first chance you get.”

  “What is the other reason?” she said, staring at her plate.

  “The other reason? Guess I thought you didn’t like it.”

  “Oh.” Neutral again. But then she said something that slammed hard into his gut. And below.

  “I didn’t say I didn’t like it, Gray. As I recall, I didn’t say anything at all.”

  Before he knew what he was doing, he bolted to his feet, leaned across the table and slid his hand around the back of her neck. Then he tugged her head forward and kissed her. Hard.

  By jiminy, it happened again! His heart tumbled end over end and flopped into his belly, and all the blood in his belly went straight to his groin.

  “I’ve washed the strawberries and have found the ice-cream freezer!” Emily sang from the pantry. “It’s all dusty.”

  Gray lifted his head and stuffed his hand into his pants pocket to keep from touching Clarissa. Her face looked like something had washed her cheeks with raspberry juice. Lordy, she looked like he felt—smacked hard in the midsection.

  “That’s good, Emily,” she called. Her voice shook. “Bring the freezer to the sink, all right?”

  The girl maneuvered the wooden churn onto the dry counter, then clunked it into the sink while Gray and Clarissa stared at each other.

  “Strawberries,” he murmured, his voice hoarse. “You taste like strawberries.”

  Chapter Twelve

  That afternoon Clarissa added another item to her surprising list of things she liked at Gray’s ranch—rocking back and forth on the porch swing and watching his strong, capable hand turn the crank on the ice-cream freezer. He sat on the top step of the front porch with Emily perched beside him, effortlessly making ice cream out of nothing more than cream, strawberries and the churn-like contraption filled with ice and rock salt.

  As he moved the crank around and around, Emily peppered him with questions, which he answered in a voice so low Clarissa had a hard time hearing the words from where
she sat. How on earth could her daughter think up so many questions in a single hour? A better question might be how on earth could Gray come up with so many answers?

  She had a few questions herself, she admitted. Private ones. Embarrassing ones. Not the least of which was the one that had nagged at her all afternoon: Why did Gray lean across the dinner table and kiss me?

  He sat facing away from her, so she studied his back, watched the play of muscles under his pale gray shirt and the steady motion of his arm turning the wooden freezer handle. The fine dark hair on his wrist and forearm, exposed where he had rolled up his sleeve, held particular fascination. Seeing that felt...well, intimate somehow.

  She jerked her gaze away. Across the yard chickens clucked contentedly in Maria’s henhouse, and a lazy drift of smoke wafted from her chimney and dissolved into a sky so blue and cloudless it looked like a painting. Birds twittered in the locust tree, and the branches of the two plum trees in the yard were starting to droop with fruit that would ripen come summer. She must read Mrs. Beeton’s instructions about canning fruit. Or perhaps not. Maria said she simply cut up the plums and dried the slices in the hot sunlight, which seemed a lot easier. Mrs. Beeton will forgive me for taking the easy way out.

  She let her gaze drift past Maria and Ramon’s tidy cabin to the spacious red-sided barn where Gray kept the horses, along with a new pony, the milk cow, the barn cat that prowled for mice and the nest of baby kittens Emily had not yet discovered. Perhaps she should learn to milk the cow. Gray rose at dawn to do the milking, and each morning Clarissa found a brimming pail of warm, foamy milk just inside the back door. She had learned to let the thick cream rise to the top of the milk pans, and yesterday she had even churned her own butter! Maria had smiled and smiled when she showed her.

  Maria was always smiling. Was it because she was happy being married to Ramon? Sixteen years, Maria had told her proudly. Imagine, living with a man for sixteen years! She could not envision that, unless it were with—

  With a man like Gray. At this moment his head was bent, listening to Emily’s chatter, but his turning arm never slowed. He cranked the ice-cream freezer and talked with Emily, occasionally laughing at something she said, but she noticed that his arm never stopped moving. The business of making ice cream took precedence over even Emily’s conversation.

  Clarissa closed her eyes, let her head rest against the back of the swing and listened to the burr of the crank and her daughter’s happy laughter. The air was soft, the sound of the freezer crank lulling. The pink rose rambling over Maria’s cabin smelled spicy-sweet, and suddenly she remembered the scent of Gray’s skin.

  “Mama,” Emily called out. “How old are you?”

  Clarissa didn’t open her lids. “I am twenty-four, honey.”

  “Gray says he’s thirty-one. Is that more than twenty-four?”

  “Yes, Emily. It’s seven years more.”

  “Emily also wants to know if she can marry me,” Gray said with a chuckle.

  “Certainly,” Clarissa answered. “But you have to promise to make strawberry ice cream every day.”

  “Deal.” His rich laughter rolled over her, sending a shiver up her spine. He stopped cranking and said something to Emily.

  “It’s ready!” she shouted. “My ice cream is ready!”

  Gray rose in one easy motion. “Your ice cream, Squirt? Don’t I get some? And your mama?”

  “Yes! And Maria and Ramon, too,” the girl sang.

  He moved toward Clarissa. “You want a big bowl or a small one?”

  “For me or for Emily?”

  “For you. Emily can take care of herself.” He stood looking down at her, his eyes twinkling. He had laugh lines in the corners, she noted. While she gazed up at him, his smile gradually faded. “How about it, Clarissa? Big or small?”

  “Well...”

  “It’s not too hard a question. It’s a little bit like life.” He sent her a challenging look. “You can nibble away at it, or you can take it in big bites.”

  “Gray,” Emily called suddenly, “what do you love better’n ice cream?”

  “My ranch,” he said slowly. “There’s nothing in this world I love more than my ranch.”

  * * *

  After supper that night, Gray and Emily volunteered to wash up the dishes and Clarissa stepped out onto the front porch, then decided to go for a short walk to clear her head. All through the meal Gray’s eyes had sought and held hers; it made her so nervous she could scarcely eat.

  She circled once around the ranch house, then walked all the way around Maria’s cabin, where delicious smells drifted from the open window. Then she circled the bunkhouse. She could tell by the raucous laughter that the ranch hands were again playing poker. She moved to the barn. The animals had been fed, so all was quiet. How peaceful it was! She drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes. Tonight she didn’t miss Boston so acutely; it was never this quiet in the city.

  A twig snapped nearby. She turned toward the sound and all at once something soft and dark dropped over her head and a sickly sweet-smelling cloth pressed against her nose and mouth. She fought to breathe.

  The last thing she remembered was a rough voice in her ear. “Got you now, pretty lady. What I want is gonna be mine!”

  * * *

  Emily threw herself at Gray where he stood at the kitchen sink drying the supper dishes. “Mama didn’t come back,” she wept.

  “What?” He almost dropped the platter he was wiping. “Where did she go?”

  “Outside.”

  “Outside? Outside where?” He was already untying the apron around his waist.

  “On the porch.”

  “Stay here,” he ordered. He grabbed the kerosene lamp and burst through the front door.

  She wasn’t on the porch. Maybe she’d gone for a stroll, but where? Quickly he inspected the bunkhouse, then banged on the heavy wood door of Maria’s cabin. Maybe she was visiting his housekeeper?

  Ramon answered and shook his head. Gray sent a white-faced Maria to stay with Emily, and his foreman lit a lantern and joined him. At Gray’s shout, the bunkhouse emptied.

  “Nebraska, search the barn! Shorty, Erasmus, look down by the river.”

  He and Ramon moved around the barn in ever-widening circles until Ramon gave a yell.

  “Señor, look!” His foreman bent over a scuffed-up patch of ground. “Small footprints...and big ones! And horse tracks.”

  Gray went down on one knee and lifted the lantern to study them. The horse had a broken shoe. None of his animals ever wore broken shoes. A cold fist punched into his chest, and with a shout he ran for the barn and saddled Rowdy.

  Ramon caught at his bridle. “Que pasa?”

  “Arness took her. Nebraska, Shorty,” he yelled. “Saddle up! Ramon, get my revolver.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Clarissa opened her eyes and tried to move, but found her wrists were tied down. Where was she? She peered around the dim interior of what looked like a rough cabin. Cobwebs hung in the corner near the cot she was bound to, and in the flickering light she saw a hulking male form sprawled on a wooden chair near the only window.

  Her blood turned to ice water. God help her, it was Caleb Arness! She lay perfectly still, hoping he wouldn’t notice she was awake.

  An hour passed. At least she thought it was an hour; actually, it seemed like days. Suddenly she heard hoofbeats, and Arness stiffened.

  “Smart man,” he grated. “Sure didn’t take him long to figure it out.” He doused the kerosene lamp and banged through the cabin door.

  “Arness!” It was Gray’s voice. She strained to hear.

  “I’ve got somethin’ you want,” Arness yelled. “When you give me the deed to the Bar H, you can have her back.”

  Clarissa held her breath. The Bar H mean
t everything to Gray. He’d worked hard all his life to buy it and hold on to it. He could never give it up for her sake. Besides, he knew how eager she was to leave and return to Boston. Despite the fact that he had kissed her and awakened feelings she had never dreamed of, she knew nothing meant more to Gray than his ranch. He’d worked long years to build up his thousand acres. He’d known Clarissa for only a few short weeks.

  “I hear you, Arness,” Gray shouted. “Not sure we can bargain over this.”

  “That so? You sayin’ you don’t want her?”

  “You figure it out,” Gray shouted.

  Clarissa tried to shut her mind off. Gray didn’t want her? Of course. She remembered all too clearly the day he’d said he never wanted a wife. Why should she be surprised? Still, a hard ball of pain lodged in her chest. It wasn’t that she wanted to marry Gray—not exactly, anyway. But it would have been nice if she could have made the decision.

  She clamped her jaws tight. She must think about escaping Arness on her own. She had to get back to Emily. But surely Gray would want to help? And he knew she could not possibly stomach staying with this awful man.

  You simple-minded goose, he is stalling for time!

  Arness paced back and forth on the dusty cabin floor, alternately watching out the single window and swearing. “If he don’t want her, what’s he waiting for?” he muttered. “Harris? You hear me? Bring me the deed to your ranch and you can have her.”

  A long silence stretched, and then Gray’s voice rose. “I hear you. Keep your shirt on.”

  “I’ll give you two hours. Ride out of here and come back with the deed.”

  She heard hoofbeats recede into silence and knew that Gray and, she supposed, whoever was with him—Ramon? Shorty?—were riding away. But he would not just give up and leave her here for Arness, would he? She had to think.

  She pulled hard against the ropes that tied her wrists to the cot. Her skin burned where the bonds chafed, but she pulled, anyway.

  Arness chuckled in satisfaction and tipped back in his chair, watching out the window.