by Carol Arens
She was already putting on a show. He just didn’t know it.
“I know you need some time to think this over. Even a marriage of necessity needs consideration. I won’t announce anything until you’ve had time to think it through.”
A strong gust of wind rocked the swing. William steadied it by planting a shiny black boot on the deck.
“Can I hope for your answer in three weeks? Folks will be making up their minds who to vote for soon.”
“How do you feel about mice, William?”
“You have one you need me to stomp? I’m quick.”
“Not quite, but since you’ve been honest with me, I will be with you.” To an extent. “I have a friend—she lives with me...and she’s a mouse.”
His laugh rumbled into the night.
“I like you, Ivy Magee...I like you very much.”
* * *
Three days after the barbecue Ivy was still haunted by what William had said.
“He said, I like you, Ivy Magee...I like you very much. He can’t know that for sure, since he doesn’t know who I really am. I don’t even know that anymore.”
“You are my sweet petite.” Antie tied a red bow in her hair at the nape and plumped the loops. “I will miss you.”
Ivy spun on her stool. “Miss me? Why would you? I’m only going riding.”
“You no longer need me.” Antie stroked her cheek with the backs of her fingers. “I must find another position.”
“I do need you!”
“You need to go for your ride in the countryside—forget your worries for a while.”
That was not likely to happen, no matter how far or hard she rode.
All of her life she’d been honest in her words and her actions. It ate at her that she was being deceitful to William.
And to Travis. He had to know she loved him, but gosh almighty she would never tell him so. How could she when she was about to marry someone else?
Blazin’ day! She did need that ride.
Standing, she kissed Antie’s cheek. “Don’t leave me.”
Hurrying out the door and down the stairway, she brushed moisture from her eyes.
Running through bright sunlight, she crossed the paddock and opened the barn door.
Going from bright to dim, everything was deeply shadowed. She ran smack into a man’s back.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered as the man turned. He gripped her by the shoulders to keep her from falling backward. “I didn’t mean to—”
The features of a handsome, familiar face became clear as her eyes adjusted to the light.
“Travis!”
She hadn’t seen him since the barbecue. It had seemed better to steer clear of him now that she was within weeks of making a commitment to William.
“Where are you going in such an all-fired hurry?”
Away from you, away from William, away from herself.
“Riding.”
He nodded and dropped his hands. But she felt the heat when his fingers skimmed her arms, traced the mounds of her knuckles.
“I’ll saddle your mare.”
The very idea that she had been grateful for a month ago, hit her in the gut like a fist.
Travis would be here after her marriage.
He would saddle her horse, balance her accounts, and care for her cattle and her cowboys.
“I’m not sure I can do it,” she murmured.
“You sit a horse as well as anyone on the ranch.”
Oh! She hadn’t meant to speak out loud. She would never point out the misunderstanding, tell him that she wondered if she could love one man and live with another.
She’d find out soon enough, since she would never terminate his employment. Why, she could no more ask him to leave the ranch he loved than she could abandon her sister. He belonged here more than she did.
“You and English seemed to get on well at the barbecue.” Travis’s voice sounded casual, but she noticed his jaw grow tense.
“We did.” She nodded. “You were right when you said he would not treat me unkindly.”
“I’m glad.” He turned and lifted the saddle.
It wasn’t right to yearn to touch his back where his muscles flexed under his shirt as he lifted the saddle onto the horse’s back. She had to curl her fists into balls and tuck them under her arms to keep from doing it.
He finished saddling the mare, then he offered her a hand up. “All ready to go.”
She meant to keep her eyes trained on the floor, to stare at the straw crushed under her horse’s hoof.
But she didn’t and Travis’s gaze locked on hers, held.
She felt the moisture well again.
He reached as though he would wipe it away, but instead, he tugged the bow in her hair.
Sure was a bad idea to let him touch her while he helped her into the saddle, but she did it anyway.
Some things were going to have to change. Just not at this very moment.
“Have a good ride.”
With a pat to the horse’s rump he left the barn.
The masculine scent of him lingered. So did she, breathing deeply until the last whiff of him faded.
Outside the barn one of the hands raised his hat to her. Leaving the yard she guided her horse around the hill and toward the homes of the cowboys.
Mrs. Flairty, sweeping her porch, set her broom aside and came to her front gate. She waved her hand to show Ivy that it had healed nicely.
“I’ve something for you, Miss Magee, if you’ll wait but a moment.”
When she came back out of her house Mrs. Flairty handed Ivy a bag of cookies. “Something for your ride.”
A quarter of a mile down the road six children, free of school for the summer, dashed toward her. She handed them the bag of cookies then turned toward open land.
The horse galloped for a bit then slowed when the wide, muddy Platte came into view. While it stopped to drink, Ivy watched the golden land rolling away in the distance. She breathed in the scent of dry grass twisting in the breeze.
Home.
A sense of belonging settled over her soul. For the first time, she recognized that as much as the River Queen was home, so was the Lucky Clover.
If protecting the ranch meant being who she was not, so be it. When the day came that she became Mrs. William English, she would give him no reason to regret the marriage.
So far, she had not crossed any forbidden boundaries with Travis from which she could not retreat. There was no reason they could not remain dear friends, just as they had started out.
After riding another couple of miles, with the sun shining warmly on her back and listening to the comforting sounds of cattle bawling in the distance, she was certain it was possible.
She could have both her home and her friend.
A movement caught her eye. She watched a man top the rise of a distant hill, leading a horse behind him.
Poor critter must have come up lame.
“Better go see if there’s trouble.”
She patted her mare’s neck then urged her to a trot.
“Whoa!” She pulled the horse up short.
There was something familiar about the fellow. It was in the way his left side listed slightly forward when he walked.
It could not possibly be...but...she strained her eyes.
“Uncle Patrick!”
Within a minute she was upon him, bounding from the horse before it fully stopped.
“Ivy? That you?”
With a leap she was in his arms, hugging for all she was worth.
“Who else would it be?” She held him at arm’s length. “Don’t you recognize me?”
“Where’s your braid? Your pants and boots?”
“Why this here’s a riding skirt! And I like to wear my hair looser now that I’m not working the Queen.”
Well, that was something. There was a thing about her new way of dressing she did like better.
“You look like a fine lady, honey.” His bushy brows nearly met when they arched. “I hardly know you.”
“You might see some strange things, but don’t you be fooled none. I’m still me on the inside.” She hugged him again, making sure his appearance was not a dream that she was about to wake from. “What are you doing here?”
“I needed to see that my girl was safe and happy.”
“I’m safe.”
“How about happy? I know what I did seemed harsh, but I only wanted what was best for you.”
“I’m happy enough.” There would be time to tell him about her conflicted emotions later. “Say, did your horse pull up lame?”
“Cantankerous critter. I can’t get used to the feel of being on his back and I think he knows it. It’s been him against me all the way from the Missouri to here.”
Ivy slapped her knee. “You can pilot a big ole riverboat but not a little bitty horse?”
“Nothing little bitty about this beast.”
“I sure did miss you.” She flung her arms about his middle again, gave him a solid squeeze. “You fixin’ to become a landlubber and stay? Could be you’ll meet some sweet woman. We’ve got a few widow ladies working for the Lucky Clover.”
“She’d have to be some mighty special gal to care for this crusty old shipmaster. But I would like to stay, if your husband will allow it.”
“I’m not married yet—but I’m the one who would do the allowing.”
“He’s a good man? You care for him? I’ve been worried I might have sent you away wrongly.”
“You weren’t wrong, Uncle Patrick. Sometimes change is good, for all that it’s hard. Just wait until you meet your other niece! And as far as William English goes, I’ve only met him one time, but I reckon he’s a sight more honest than I am.”
“I’ve never known you to tell a lie in your life.”
“Did you know I kept a pet mouse on the Queen, in my hat sometimes?”
“Lucky thing I did not, young lady!”
“You’re going to see some things about me that might be confusing—but I’m still me under it all.”
“I’m mighty glad to hear that.”
* * *
Travis spread a blanket under the shade of the trees near the house then set a circle of chairs about the perimeter. It was noon, time for Agatha’s daily excursion out of doors.
In a few moments Ivy would bring her out, walk her in the sunshine for a bit then bring her to the chairs where she, Agatha, Antie, and today Patrick Malone would have lunch.
Travis used to have lunch with the ladies on occasion. Now it seemed better not to.
Dry leaves crunched, the sound coming from behind. Travis turned to find Ivy’s uncle steaming across the yard, hands clasped behind his back and a frown on his face.
Two days ago, Travis had been stunned to see the captain walking beside Ivy when she returned from her ride in the pasture.
Stunned, but at the same time pleased. It would do Ivy good to have him here.
“I’m worried about my girl,” Patrick announced.
“Which one?”
Patrick’s mustache twitched in a sudden smile.
It was clear as morning that the captain had become devoted to Agatha the moment he spotted her gazing down from her balcony.
He had claimed that his heart had swelled near out of his chest at the first sight of his sister’s other child, a young woman whose red hair and green eyes were a reflection of her mother’s.
“Both of them and for the same reason.”
“Hilda Brunne?” He guessed.
“There’s something not right about the woman.” He rocked back on his heels, drew one arm from behind his back and pointed at Travis with the pipe that he clutched in his fingers. “She looks at my Ivy with an evil eye. She’s up to something, that one.”
“She’s jealous.” But up to something? “I’ve known Mrs. Brunne for most of my life. I don’t believe she is a threat to Ivy.”
“And Agatha?”
“Agatha wants her here, needs her in an unhealthy way. Ivy is doing her best to make her independent, but I’m afraid it will take time. As soon as Agatha can handle it, Ivy will let Mrs. Brunne go.”
“Just the same, I—” All of a sudden Patrick’s expression went soft. “Why isn’t that a picture to warm an old uncle’s heart?”
Travis glanced up to see Ivy leading her sister down the front stairs. It was a slow and careful process, coming down but Agatha did show slight improvement from the day before.
Ivy was dressed in a sunshine-yellow skirt, while Agatha resembled a delicate rose petal in her pink one.
An old uncle’s heart was not the only one warming up.
Travis’s heart was melting right through his ribs watching Ivy urge Agatha to walk toward the blanket unaided.
Sunshine gilded her hair, made it shimmer. He thought it made her lips shimmer, too, but that might have been in his mind’s eye since he was pretty sure he tasted lavender on his tongue, too.
“You all right, boy?” The captain peered hard at him. “You look like your barge has been run aground.”
Travis shook his head, taking his emotions in hand. “It’s a touching thing to see Ivy bringing her sister back to life—kind of chokes a fellow up.”
Nothing could be truer. Every day, seeing it—Well, he loved Ivy all the more.
“You know, son, I need to thank you for all you’ve done for my girls. Coming to get Ivy, fixing her up with that English fellow—I’m downright grateful. I understand from Ivy that he is a decent fellow. That he’s even accepting of her rodent.”
“He is? I didn’t know she told him about her.”
Odd how he felt betrayed by that when he had no right to feel betrayed by anything.
“That woman coming down the steps, Ivy’s teacher, sure is a pretty little thing.”
Patrick’s eyes seemed to glaze over as he stared at Madame du Mer through a haze of pipe smoke.
“You all right, Captain? You look like your barge has been run aground.”
“I’ll tell you, son. I’m mighty glad I came, even if I did have to pull that devil of a horse the whole way.”
* * *
“Your sister spends too much time napping, it seems to me.”
Standing beside Ivy at the corral fence, Uncle Patrick took a long draw on his pipe then blew the smoke into the cloudy afternoon.
“I told you about the laudanum. Once the poison is out of her body she’ll get stronger. She’s a mile better than she was when I got here. You’ll see how she improves day by day.”
Colts and fillies in the paddock stomped and whinnied when Travis and a pair of adolescent cowboys entered the pen. Their nervous prancing whirled up a dust cloud.
It wasn’t so dense to keep her from seeing Travis slowly approach a colt, extending his palm in an effort to sooth the animal.
She sighed, wished—No, she did not, could not. William was coming tomorrow for his answer. His formal answer, at least. They both knew that she would say yes.
But tomorrow was not today. Today she was going to let herself look at Travis, watch the way he moved, let the gentle drone of his voice sink into her heart.
Today she was going to silently love him.
“Your mother grieved over leaving Agatha behind.”
“I reckon she did what she thought she had to, and my father too, I reckon.”
Ivy was coming to understand all too well how a person could want one thing but do another.
“You ar
e the spit of your mother, you know—not in looks, mind you. You must take after your father in appearance, but your bright spirit is just like your mother’s.”
Ivy touched the chain of her necklace, followed the links until she felt the scratch of the engraved letters. That was all she had of her mama, a charm and according to Uncle Patrick, a bright spirit.
“Now Agatha, looking at her is like looking at your mother.”
“She will look like her.” Ivy thought so every morning when she studied the dining room portrait. “Once I get her healthy.”
“I don’t like to think of what would have become of her if you hadn’t left the Queen. You are saving her life, Ivy, nothing less.” Uncle Patrick took another draw on his pipe. “I only wonder about the cost to you, my little love. Do you still dream of being a river pilot?”
“I think about it, but I like it here. There’s nothing I would change even if I could.”
That was a gull-durned lie. She would change her last name to Murphy if it were in her power to do it.
Since it was not, she looked away from Travis’s work-roughened hands lightly stroking the colt’s neck and concentrated on the smoke curling out of her uncle’s pipe.
In her mind she replaced Travis’s face with William’s. Gosh almighty, he was a handsome one, but somehow that didn’t make her heart beat any faster, didn’t warm her insides like when she looked at—
“I wonder if you’re telling me the truth, girl?”
She swung her gaze toward her uncle but he was watching Travis spread a blanket across the colt’s back.
The young cowpokes watched and did the same with other colts.
“There’s truth you tell and truth you live, I reckon,” she murmured.
He grunted, nodded.
The only thing she’d ever been able to hide from her uncle was the existence of Little Mouse.
“I got a fair amount of money for the Queen.”
