"Go back to the bunkhouse," he ordered the men.
"Thanks for the lemonade, ma'am." Subdued thanks filtered back as the men set down their cups and left.
"I didn't mean no harm," Nash said defensively to Will.
"I know," Will replied.
"I'm awful sorry, Miz McConaughy," he said.
"It's all right," she said. "I—I'm just afraid of bees. It wasn't your fault."
Nash sauntered off, glancing back over his shoulder.
Will set about picking up the tin cups and stacking them on the empty cookie plate. "Go change your clothes."
Seeing her recoil had made him feel sick. He knew now that he wasn't the only man Linnea flinched from, but that didn't make him feel any better.
She got to her feet. She hadn't met his eyes in a week, and she sure wasn't ready to now, he figured, so he ignored her, and she went inside.
When he carried the tray in, she was nowhere in sight, and neither was Aggie. He found hot water, poured it in a basin and scraped in soap shavings, then washed the cups and a few bowls and the cookie pans.
"I was going to do those." Linnea had changed dresses and carried the wet one into the kitchen. She set it aside in a wad.
"They're done now," he said.
She picked up a towel. "I didn't intend more work for you."
He pulled the towel out of her hand, and she looked up at his face. Finally. There was so much unreadable emotion behind her brown eyes that they were shiny with it.
"If I hadn't wanted to do them, I wouldn't have," he said.
He wanted to tell her that she had nothing to fear from anyone on his ranch. Especially not from him. But she wouldn't believe him. Why should she? He would have to show her. Just like he showed that whiskey-colored stallion day after day by standing in the corral and letting the animal learn that nothing bad was going to befall it while he was there.
"I'm sorry about what happened," she said.
"It's okay."
"It's just that I'm afraid of bees."
"Everybody's afraid of something."
She just looked at him, as though gauging his sincerity. She hadn't met his gaze for days and now when she did, her expression pained him so, he wished he could look away and stop it. But he didn't. He let her golden-brown gaze find the chink in his armor and slide in a knife blade.
She blinked and her lips parted. "What are you afraid of?" she asked.
Chapter Eleven
What was he afraid of.
You. The reply that had jumped into his head rocked him to the core. Her! Why would he be afraid of a mousy wisp of a girl, and why would he even think it? He wasn't afraid of her. "I don't particularly cotton to small spaces."
The admission tripped off his tongue. Why on God's green earth had he said that? He'd never even admitted the fact to himself consciously, just knew he got uncomfortable when confined. Mad at himself, he picked up the metal basin and carried it toward the back door. "Soap's about gone," he said, changing the subject. "Plannin' to make more soon?"
"I was going to do it after the laundry is finished."
He dumped the dishwater and returned. "Get some rest now. Tomorrow starts a new week."
He turned his back and left the kitchen.
Linnea glanced after him, then picked up the wet dress. She was tired, and he had taken care of the dishes. She would simply hang this dress to dry and launder it with the rest of the clothing the following morning. She would have time to practice her letters before she met Cimarron.
They had taken off the past two Saturdays, the night that most of the men went into town. But fortunately for her, her young teacher was willing to pursue her lessons on Sundays, too, and she looked forward to learning more each evening.
Her reaction to Nash raising his arm to strike at the bee had humiliated her, but Will Tucker had allowed her to explain it away and had somehow even assured her it was okay. When everything she did made him angry, his lack of reaction to that had come as a surprise.
But avoiding his wrath was a consuming task, and she had no false illusions that tonight was a onetime respite. Every hour of every day required her utmost vigilance and her best effort. A niggle of apprehension worried her now.
She hadn't the vaguest notion how to make soap.
Cimarron was waiting for her by the stream, and her lesson proceeded. They had gone through the entire alphabet now, and she was memorizing the letters and sounds with ease. She recited them to herself the following morning as she scrubbed clothes and hung them on the line to dry. Practicing made the work go faster and gave her an even greater sense of accomplishment.
"Aggie," she said hesitantly, approaching the old woman in her rocker. "Do you know how to make soap?"
Aggie peered up from her needlework, her faded blue eyes enlarged by the spectacles. "Yup. You want to do it over a fire outside. Smells somethin' fierce."
"I plan to attempt it tomorrow with your guidance."
"You won't be makin' soap tomorrow, girl."
"Why not?"
"Takes three or four days of soakin' the ashes to make lye. You'll need five or six bushels of 'em. I have a recipe somewhere."
"I should start right away if it takes that long. Where do I get ashes? Whenever I clean the stove or the fireplace, I set the bucket outside and someone always empties it."
"Ask Roy where the barrel of ashes is kept."
Linnea knelt in front of her chair. "Please don't tell Mr. Tucker I didn't know how."
"Honey, I don't offer that man information." Aggie patted Linnea's shoulder.
At noon, Linnea asked Roy about the ashes, and he offered to start the lye for her. She watched as he carried a barrel with holes in the bottom behind the house and placed it beneath the hang of the eave, standing it upon a small stack of bricks. He then pushed a shallow tub underneath. Into the barrel he dumped several bushel baskets of ashes and poured a bucket of water onto them.
"That'll get ya started," he said.
"Thank you, Roy."
Inside she said to Aggie, "Now what do I do?"
"Just wait a few days while the ashes set, and then you pour water through to make the lye drip out the bottom."
And so she went about the next days with her usual cooking chores, as well as a thorough cleaning of the house.
Linnea loved Will Tucker's home. The rooms were not large, but adequate and filled with sturdy furniture and thick rugs. She took pride in polishing the varnished wood floors until they gleamed and washing the windows until they sparkled. No curtains hung on the downstairs windows, but there were shades on the two in the room she used.
The room beside the kitchen held a table and chairs and a marble-topped sideboard, which Aggie said belonged to her. Meals were all taken in the enormous kitchen and Linnea had never seen the dining room used.
As a child, Linnea's home had been a crowded two-room cabin. During her marriage to Pratt, she'd stayed in cabins, tents, barns and an occasional seedy hotel, but had often slept under the stars in all types of weather. She'd never owned more than a few pieces of clothing and as many cooking utensils as would fit in a saddlebag.
Until meeting Will Tucker's sister, she had never known people who lived in homes and had nice things. This place was as fine as any place she could have dreamed for her baby. If only she could be assured of staying, then the worry that plagued her every day and night would be lessened.
"Never seen this place so clean since it was new," Aggie remarked one afternoon. Sitting in her rocker with a pan on her lap, she helped Linnea peel potatoes.
"I've never had such a nice place to take care of," Linnea replied.
"It's pretty simple," Aggie replied. "Not like my house, I assure you. My husband built a fine house and all the furnishings to go with it."
"It sounds lovely."
Aggie sighed. "It was."
Linnea let a peel drop and studied her. "Who lives in the house now?''
"Banker fella bought it for his family."
Linnea dumped all the peeled potatoes into a kettle and pumped water over them, before coming back for the scraps and the knives.
"He left it to Will, he did."
Linnea paused. "Who left what?"
"Jack left the house to Will."
She wouldn't have imagined that.
"And all his railroad stock and investments to Corinne."
That explained why the young widow and her children could afford to live as well as they did, Linnea thought. "Didn't he own a business, too?"
Aggie brushed her palms together. "He left the mill to a son nobody even knew about. Seems he had this boy while he was married to his first wife."
Linnea didn't know what to say. She could only imagine the shock that Aggie must have experienced, finding out a stepson she hadn't known about had inherited her husband's business. It must have been difficult for Will Tucker to learn the fact as well.
"What did you do?" She couldn't imagine Aggie being as poor as Linnea had been when her husband died. Aggie's man had been wealthy.
"Will signed the deed to the house over to me and went back to Texas. Didn't see hide nor hair of him for ten years."
Will Tucker's generosity toward Aggie wasn't that difficult to absorb. Ever since Linnea had met him, he'd been concerned over the old woman's welfare. For all Aggie's taunting and their obvious distaste for each other, the two had come to some sort of unspoken truce in order to live in the same house.
"What happened then?" Linnea asked.
Aggie straightened in her chair, placed her bony hands on the arms, and rocked. "He came to Indiana on his way out here. He'd bought this land a few years before and was ready to start building."
Listening, Linnea wiped her hands on her apron and sat on a bench across from Aggie.
"I was there by myself," she said. "Took a bad fall a month or so before he came by."
Linnea imagined Will Tucker going into his late father's home and finding Aggie in her degenerated condition. "Did he invite you to come here?"
Aggie cackled. "He barked, 'You're comin' with me and I won't stand for any argument.' Not exactly an invitation."
Linnea could hear him saying the words and just the way he would have said them. Like an order. "But you came."
Aggie nodded sadly. "Never had any children of my own. I was on the shelf when Jack and I married, and thought I was lucky just to have him look twice, let alone marry me and set me up in a fine house."
"Too bad you and Mr. Tucker couldn't…"
"Couldn't what?"
"Get along better."
"That's on my head, but it suits us fine now," she replied with a snort. "Neither one of us would know what to do if the other got soft."
Their relationship was an odd one, but Linnea was far from knowing anything about how families should get along. At least Will Tucker hadn't left Aggie alone or pawned her off on someone else. She admired him for that.
Over the next days, Linnea's lessons progressed. She had learned most of the alphabet, except for a few she mixed up. Most evenings she joined the men around their fire for an hour or so before stealing away to meet Cimarron.
In time she returned to the soap-making task, pouring water into the barrel every hour for two days. With Aggie giving her instructions, she drew off part of the lye, mixed the lime with boiling water and poured it back through. She had never in the past appreciated a bar of soap as she would for the rest of her life, she was sure.
Finally Aggie judged the lye strong enough, so Linnea built a fire in the pit the hands used at night, set up an enormous kettle and boiled the lye with grease and a bit of quicklime. When the mixture became thick and ropy, Aggie pronounced it ready.
Dipping the hot liquid out into pails, Linnea carried it to the root cellar and poured it into a clean barrel.
Back aching and arms exhausted as she poured the last pail, she lost her grip. The bucket hit a stone on the side of the fire and the hot mixture splashed up onto her hand.
Linnea yelped and let go of the pail. It overturned, allowing an entire bucket of her hard work to pour over the flames and sizzle. The smell burned her eyes.
Pain shot up her arm.
"Let me see," Aggie said, rising from her stool with jerky movements.
Linnea showed her the mixture still burning her first finger, thumb and the back of her hand. It stung so frightfully, tears welled in her eyes.
"Stick it in the rain barrel quick-like," the old woman told her.
Linnea did as Aggie said, swishing her hand to remove the grease and lye concoction. The cold water barely eased the discomfort.
"We'll get some ointment on that and bandage it."
Her hand throbbed. "This can't stop me from working."
"Girl, you're gonna have to let that hand heal."
"It will, but I have to fix supper and do dishes."
Aggie gave her a skeptical glance over the top of the spectacles. "You're not gonna be doin' dishes with that hand."
Linnea felt frantic over the thought of being unable to perform her duties. What would Will Tucker do? Tears dropped onto the surface of the water. "Don't tell him!" she said quickly. "Promise me you won't tell him."
Aggie hobbled a step closer with her cane and took Linnea's elbow, turning Linnea to face her. "Granted, he ain't the sweetest pickle in the barrel, but the man isn't going to send you packing over this."
"He's just waiting for a reason to send me away," Linnea replied. "This is just the excuse he needs." She gave Aggie an imploring look. "Please don't let on. I'll get by, I swear I will."
"Come on. Let's get to the house and take care of that hand. I won't tell him. Just don't let me catch you doin' any harm to yerself. You let Roy handle the dishes for a time."
"I will, I promise."
Aggie applied salve and wrapped Linnea's hand and finger in clean soft cloth. Linnea hid it in the folds of her skirts and sought help for the cleanup near the bunkhouse. Nash took care of the kettle and supplies, while she doused the fire.
She prepared supper, biting her lip and holding back a groan each time she used the wrapped hand. When the men came in, she hid her bandage with a towel, using it as a hot pad as she served food and coffee.
She ate with her left hand, and no one seemed to notice. Will cast her a glance from time to time, and she cringed under each look, no matter how scarce.
Finally the meal ended. Will strode out with the rest of the hands and Roy stayed behind, stacking plates.
"Linnea'll let you do those tonight, won't you, girl?" Aggie said.
"Yes," she replied. "Thank you, Roy."
With his shirtsleeves pushed to his elbows, he poured water, scraped soap and washed the dishes efficiently, whistling all the while. "I'm pleased to help, but I am a wonderin' if you're feelin' poorly, Miz McConaughy," he said while drying a pan.
"Just a little tired," she replied, which was true. The soap making combined with the pain had left her exhausted. "In fact, I won't be joining the men tonight. Mention it to Cimarron for me, will you, please?"
"Surely." He finished the task and wiped the table. "You ring the dinner bell if you need anything later."
She thanked him, praying she wouldn't need anything and that her hand would feel better the next day.
She slept in starts and fits for two nights, waking to the throbbing pain and trying uselessly to find a comfortable place to lay her hand. On the third day, she got up earlier than usual because she couldn't sleep, started the fire, heated water and prepared biscuits and gravy ahead of time.
As had become her habit, she carried a pail of hot water up the stairs and set it on the floor outside her boss's door.
As she straightened, the door opened, catching her by surprise.
Chapter Twelve
"Something wrong?" he asked. He wore only a pair of trousers, which left his broad chest and wide shoulders bare to her startled gaze. The night she'd helped him tend the injured colt, she hadn't allowed herself to look, but her s
elf-restraint had fled between then and now, and she stared.
Tanned skin sculpted his muscled upper body. Curly black hair matted the area in the shape of a T and narrowed into the waistband of his pants. The lantern she carried created shadows on each ridge and hollow and gave his body a warm golden glow. If she reached out and touched him, she knew his skin would be warm and smooth. Her fingertips tingled at the thought, and the sensation made her remember her burns and feel them afresh.
"Nothing's wrong," she managed to say. "Just up a little early today." She had the presence of mind to keep her injured hand at her side.
She'd seen only a few men without their shirts, and this one looked nothing like any of those. Her husband had been spare and lean. Will Tucker would have made two of him.
He glanced down. "You don't have to bring me water every morning. I have cold from the night before."
"Hot is better for shaving," she said.
His gaze wandered, taking in her hair and face, his expression softer with his hair tousled and the hint of sleep still on his face. His equanimity was almost more frightening than his anger, and a tremor rippled through her body.
"Yes, it is," he agreed. "Thank you."
Breathing had become more difficult, which was surprising because the stairs had never winded her before. Her heart was racing and she fought the urge to reach up and make sure her hair was not straggling around her face, but she held the lantern in her good hand and kept the other hidden.
"You sure something's not wrong?" he asked.
"I—I'm sure." Quickly, she turned away.
Behind her the door closed with a soft click.
Shortly she had breakfast on the table and coffee poured. Will Tucker came into the kitchen, his face freshly shaven, and tossed water out the back door. The men entered and the meal was underway. She avoided her employer's gaze and saw to Aggie's food as well as her own.
By noon, she didn't feel well. Her skin felt feverish and her head hurt, but she stoically pretended nothing was amiss and went about her chores.
Only half the men were there to eat; the others were riding fences and had packed a cold meal. Her employer had been studying her with a critical eye, and Linnea did her best to avoid him. She stood with her back to the table, slicing a loaf of bread.
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