Big Sky Rancher

by Carolyn Davidson

  Josh Tyler looked down pityingly at the man who lay in the street, his nose bleeding, his jaw already swollen and one eye turning purple. “Too bad that fella walked right into that door, ain’t it?” He looked at Lucas with a grin. “Why don’t you give me a hand with him and we’ll let him sleep it off in a cell?”

  “The pleasure’s all mine.” Luc held out his battered hand to the sheriff and the other man gripped it. “There’s a baby girl somewhere in that hotel, Joshua. I’m gonna take her home with me.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Jennifer’s niece. We can look after her for a bit.”

  “If the baby belongs to this gentleman—” Joshua pointed at Kyle “—then you have no legal right to the child.”

  “It’s a temporary measure.” Lucas felt uncomfortable telling the lie, knowing that Jennifer would not be willing to give up the child once she had her hands on her.

  “All right. I’ll know where to find her when this bird is ready to leave town.”

  The baby girl was soft and feminine, and somehow felt as though she belonged in his arms. With an angelic smile she welcomed Lucas, snuggling against him.

  She was dark-haired, petite and weighed less than a sack of groceries. Lucas carried her to his horse and settled her in the saddle, coaxing her to hold the saddle horn while he climbed on behind her. She fit on his lap and he reached for the small bundle the desk clerk handed him.

  “It’s all I found in the room that looked like baby clothes. If anything more turns up, I’ll save it for you, Luc.”

  Tilting his hat down a bit to shade his eyes from the early morning sun, Lucas smiled his thanks and turned his gelding in the direction of home. He’d grown so used to thinking of the mine and the tent he’d lived in there as his home, that it was still a novelty to consider the farmhouse as his residence.

  With Jennifer there, it had become home to him.

  SHE’D MANAGED to make the bed with fresh sheets and to sweep the kitchen floor, using a pot holder to pad the broom handle lest her hand rub too hard against the wood. Now she was learning the fine art of churning butter.

  “How will I know when it’s done?”

  Ida laughed, as if she were enjoying this series of lessons she’d undertaken to give. “You’ll know. When it gets too stiff for the dasher to move, it’s done. And it looks to me like you’re about there.”

  Jennifer halted the motion of the dasher and lifted the lid. Sure enough, a firm pile of butter lay in the bottom of the wooden barrel, looking surprisingly like the pat still on the table from three days ago.

  “Now we scrape it out into the wooden bowl and shape it with the wooden paddle. All the water has to be pressed out,” Mrs. Bronson warned her. “That’ll set it up real good and you can form half-pound rounds from it.”

  “How will I know if it’s a half pound?” This whole procedure was more complicated than she’d thought it would be, and Jennifer doubted her ability to ever run a kitchen on her own.

  “You’ll know.” With those confident words, Mrs. Bronson brought the wooden butter bowl to the table. Together they turned out the contents of the churn, Jennifer using the wooden paddle to squeeze and form the yellow substance. Fluid gathered, a watery byproduct of her churning, and she dumped it into a smaller dish.

  “We’ll mix that in with the food leftovers for the hog.” Ida Bronson certainly knew her way around the place. Jennifer hadn’t even known there was a hog.

  She winced as her right hand cramped and she switched the paddle to the other. “Is this the way to do it?” The butter was firming up nicely, she thought, but a word of encouragement would not be amiss.

  “You’re doin’ fine, girl. Luc’s gonna be proud of you. Just don’t make that hand sore or he’ll be after me with the broom.”

  Jennifer laughed, which apparently was the purpose of the woman’s gibe, and then set to work, scraping out a portion of butter and forming it in her palms into a credible imitation of Mrs. Bronson’s work of just a few days ago.

  She’d completed the task when she heard a horse, its whinny loud outside the screen door. “Lucas.” She jumped up and hastened to the doorway, looking out at the man who sat astride his gelding, a small bundle across his lap.

  “I brought you something, Jen. Come take a look.”

  “Susan.” The single word was a plea, a cry of triumph and the aching sound of a woman’s heartbreak.

  “Here you go, Jen.” Lucas bent from the saddle and handed her the small form, a doll-like creature dressed in white batiste, dark hair curling, almost in imitation of the woman who held her. He watched as the child lifted a tiny hand to pat Jennifer’s cheek, and then the small voice spoke a single word.

  It was enough to wring tears from an old reprobate, and since Lucas had no aspirations to that position, his vision blurred, his throat tightening with emotion as he coughed, as if to belay the tears that begged to fall from his eyes.

  Two small arms crept around Jennifer’s neck and she laid her head atop that of the child she held. “Thank you, Lucas.” It was a simple phrase, yet the import was enormous, holding a wealth of meaning, all of it directed at Lucas.

  Jennifer turned, seeking a seat on the edge of the porch, and still the child clung. Jennifer stifled the cry of pain that tore at her heart. If only she could be mother to this child. If only Kyle would disappear from the face of the earth. She bit her lip, holding Susan close. And then she looked up at Lucas.

  “Where is he?” There was no need to be more specific.

  “Hopefully he’ll be on the evening train back East. Right now he’s resting in a cell in Joshua’s jailhouse.”

  “The sheriff arrested him?”

  “Not exactly.” Lucas seemed uncomfortable with his own answer and Jennifer watched him as he dismounted in a graceful movement. He approached and she frowned, her sharp gaze taking note of his hands, both of them grazed and scuffed, with traces of dried blood marring the surface of his knuckles.

  “What did you do to him?” Her heart beat rapidly, fearful that Lucas might have gotten into a fix because of her. “You didn’t break the law, did you?”

  Lucas shook his head and grinned. “I don’t know of any law that says a man can’t defend his wife’s reputation and guarantee her personal safety. I just did both.”

  “You did?” And just what had he done? Her gaze flew again to his hands and she motioned him forward until he stood almost knee to knee with her dangling legs. She touched his right hand, then the left, running her fingertips over the scratches and traces of dried blood.

  “You hit him, didn’t you?” And more than once, it looked like.

  “Yeah, I hit him, Jen. Off the sidewalk and into the street. He won’t be messing with you again. I’ll guarantee it, sweetheart.”

  “I don’t see any bruises on you, Lucas.” Her keen eyes scanned his face, seeking any trace of another man’s fists.

  “I don’t have any. He didn’t have a chance to throw a punch. And the sheriff watched the whole thing. Took Kyle off to a cell and sent me home. I went in to the hotel first and picked up the baby for you.”

  “Thank you.” She repeated the phrase and again knew that it was not sufficient. Not for the overwhelming blessing he’d granted her, the safe delivery of her sister’s child. Susan. A child she yearned to keep for her very own.

  “Got any food in that kitchen?” Lucas asked. “I’m ready for something to eat, as soon as I do a few chores.”

  “Of course. Come back as soon as you’re done.” She scooted from the edge of the porch and climbed the steps to the back door. “Ida, come see what Lucas brought home to us.”

  A smiling face greeted the newcomer as Ida took the child into her arms. “Aren’t you just the cutest little chick to ever hatch from an egg?” The words were soft, whispered into a tiny, shell-like ear, and Susan cuddled closer to the ample bosom.

  “I’m not so well equipped as you, I fear. She seems to like her resting place.” Jennifer subdued a pang of
envy as she watched Ida charm the child with a few phrases and a series of pats on her back and kisses on her forehead.

  “She’ll like you just fine,” Ida said soothingly, and as if to prove her point, Susan reached for Jennifer, almost lunging as she sought the shelter of her aunt’s arms. “See. What did I tell you? I don’t know how you could leave her behind with that brute of a father, though.” Ida frowned.

  Jennifer sat and held the baby against her breast. “I didn’t have a lot of choice then. I suppose I thought if Lucas were really well-to-do, I’d be able to send for Susan, and Kyle might be satisfied with sending her to me if I paid him well enough.” She stood. “Now, where shall we put her? And how do we go about getting her cleaned up a little? Kyle must not have known what to do with a baby girl.”

  “Might as well stick her in the bedroom Lucas occupied for part of the night once. That’ll keep him where he belongs. As to washing that little one, we can wash up her clothes, too. What there are of them. We’ll get her clean in a jiffy and then keep her that way.”

  In the bedroom Lucas occupied for part of the night once. Jennifer felt a blush cover her cheeks as she picked a phrase from Ida’s words, and she buried her face in Susan’s dark hair. “In the room Lucas slept in? I didn’t know you heard him.”

  “I don’t miss much.” Ida’s eyes held a wealth of mirth as she took cheesecloth from a drawer and wrapped the rounds of butter in square pieces of the loosely woven fabric. “You want to sell some of this in town? They’re always in the market for some at the general store. Using a churn is a thing of the past for those women in town. I think they forgot how to use a dasher, about the same time most of them lost their knack of milking a cow.”

  “You mean, I could actually get paid for working? For making butter and whatever else I can do to earn money?” Somehow the duties of cooking and cleaning assumed new meaning to her as Jennifer thought of using her newfound talents to her own advantage.

  “Lots of ladies do pretty well with butter and egg money.”

  “And they get to keep it? For themselves?”

  “Why not?” Ida asked. “They’re the ones who’ve earned it. Just like Sally Jo at the barbershop. She runs a good business there, and does pretty well at it. Women are starting to fend for themselves more and more these days.”

  “Don’t the people in town have farm animals of their own? Or isn’t there room in the lots thereabouts for cows to be kept? I’d have thought some of those pieces of property are big enough for animals to be penned in.”

  “Lots of folks have chickens, and a few of them raise a young bullock every year for butchering, but most of the ladies buy their milk and butter at the store. A couple of farmers take big five gallon containers of milk to town every couple of days. Some of them even sell it from the backs of their wagons.”

  “Well, if I lived in town, I’d have a cow and chickens, too,” Jennifer said. “It’s too expensive to buy everything you need at the store. Makes sense to me to provide your own.”

  From the porch, she heard a hoot of laughter and then Lucas was in the door. “You’ll make a farmer’s wife yet, sweetheart. Next thing I know, you’ll be doing all the chores.”

  “Not on your life, Lucas O’Reilly. If I ever do all the chores, it’ll be for myself. Not for some man’s benefit.”

  His hands went to his hips and he faced her with a frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “If I lived in town, I’d be sure I was still self-sufficient. I wouldn’t be dependent on a man to provide for me.”

  “Like you are now?” His smile was taunting.

  “You don’t think I could do it?” Her hair flew as she tossed her head.

  “I think you’d give it a good shot. But a woman on her own doesn’t stand much of a chance.” He sounded a bit arrogant, she thought, more than a little pompous, and anger began to seize her.

  “We’ll just see about that.” Recalling her conversation with Ida, she stated a fact that was fast becoming foremost in her mind. “I happen to know that Sally Jo runs her own establishment and has made a success of it.”

  “She provides a service to the men of this area,” Lucas said, as if explaining facts to a child. “Hers is the only barbershop around, and the men need a place to go where they can clean up and get presentable after a hard week of working their claims.”

  “And you don’t think I’m capable of making a success of anything, do you?” She felt a pang of disappointment as he grinned at her.

  “You’re just beginning to make a success of being a wife, Jen. Don’t push yourself beyond that.”

  She bent her head, the flare of anger growing instead of abating. She’d thought to simmer down and call it a draw, but his words tugged at her, challenged her, and she began to ponder on an idea that had lain dormant for several weeks.

  If she could run this house, then a larger establishment would not be beyond her capabilities. Maybe a boardinghouse with paying tenants. And if she had help, someone like Mrs. Bronson to lend a hand and direct things, it might be a positive way to show Lucas that his wife was a capable woman, not a child to be scolded and talked down to.

  They ate silently, Lucas apparently in a fit of pique, with Jennifer as its target. She was no better, having difficulty in keeping the pout from her lips, as she considered his high-handedness. The man needed taking down a bit. He was haughty, arrogant and several other things she couldn’t put a name to right off.

  The dishes were washed, dried and put away, Jennifer tending to the chore while Ida rocked Susan in a chair brought from the parlor for the purpose. She’d put it in front of the window and had been searching her memory for old hymns. Jennifer realized she’d missed being in church on Sundays, and vowed to rectify that situation forthwith.

  Her hand was stinging from the hot dishwater, but she refused to pamper herself and so ignored the twinges of pain. Until Lucas came in the door, his chores finished, the animals brought in from pasture to the barn. He frowned, watching her as she stacked the plates in the kitchen dresser.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Taking my goldfish for a walk.” Her lips pressed together as he glared at her. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “Let me see your hand.” As a request, it left a bit to be desired, she thought. And she was in no mood to take orders.

  “My hand is fine. I’m busy right now, Lucas. Go tend to your horses, or something.”

  “My chores are finished. Now I want to see how your hand is healing.”

  “It’s my hand. I’ll see to it.”

  He looked at Mrs. Bronson and found no help there. The lady ignored him, singing beneath her breath to the child she held.

  A large kettle of water boiled on the stove and he shifted his attention there. “What are you going to do with the hot water?”

  “Wash diapers. Susan uses a lot of them.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Actually, they should have been washed earlier, but since we didn’t get to it, tonight will have to do, Lucas.”

  “You can’t do that. You’ll open the sores on your hand.”

  She narrowed her gaze as she looked daggers in his direction. “Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do, or you’ll be in for a big surprise.”

  He laughed harshly. “Not much you can do would surprise me, Jennifer.”

  She dropped her eyes and placed the silverware in the drawer. “We’ll see.”

  The simple statement seemed to wave a red flag in front of him, and Jennifer likened him to a bull, raging and ready to attack. She wasn’t too far off.

  He stood behind her and his fingers clutched her shoulders. Her hands ceased their movement, her breath seemed captured in her lungs and she felt a resurgence of the panic that had gripped her when Kyle had seized her in much the same way.

  “Don’t.” The single word was whispered, the message clear, for it was accompanied by a shuddering chill that ran the length of her spine and then manifeste
d itself in a series of shivers.

  His hands fell to his sides and he inhaled. “I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “You didn’t. But not because there was no intent on your part,” she said. “You meant to frighten me, intimidate me, perhaps. It won’t work, Lucas.” She went to Ida and took Susan from her. The baby’s eyes were almost closed as she neared slumber.

  The stairs were long as she climbed them, and the room she carried Susan into was barren of anything smacking of femininity, with no fripperies or frills to be seen.

  “This will do for now,” she whispered to the baby, settling her on the bed. She sat beside her, stripped off her clothing and sorted through the small bundle Lucas had brought from town. “I’ll get you some clothes tomorrow,” she said, soothing the child with soft tones and gentle touches as she changed a wet diaper and then bundled her up in a gown that hung well below her feet.

  Padding the sheet so as not to allow a wet diaper to stain the mattress, she covered the little girl and lay down beside her. “Time to sleep, sweetie,” she murmured, waiting till Susan turned on to her stomach and began to relax. With one hand Jennifer patted gently at the narrow back, and she sang a song of nonsense beneath her breath.

  THE MAN AT THE DOOR watched silently, his mind focused on the woman in front of him. Would she stay the night with the baby or would she come to their bed later? Maybe she’d be going back downstairs to wash the diapers before bedtime, as she’d planned. Either way, she didn’t stand a chance of getting out of his sight.

  He retraced his steps to the kitchen, just in time to catch Ida lifting the heavy kettle of water from the stove. “I’ll get that,” he told her. “Where do you want it?”

  “Pour about half into this tub,” she instructed him. Using a saucepan, she added cold water from the pump and then gathered together the soiled diapers and clothing the child had worn throughout the day. Soap was added and Ida bent over the tub, sloshing the items in the hot water, and then lifting them, one piece at a time, to scrub them out on a small board she’d found in the pantry.