Olivia’s stomach tightened at the thought of meeting Joe’s mother on her own. Nothing that she’d heard about her had been promising, or even very good. But she lived on a ranch. She’d handled rattlesnakes, for goodness sake. How bad could it be?
She took another look around the room, especially at the flowers. Someone who enjoyed and cultivated such beauty couldn’t be all bad. She squared her shoulders and turned back to Joe.
“Please, go ahead. I appreciate your concern, but I’m sure we’ll be just fine.”
Joe frowned, but stood. “All right. If you’re sure. I’ll send word about Sadie as soon as I can find out. I am just over at the shop if you need anything.”
He glanced over his shoulder at her once more as he put on his hat and headed down the porch steps. She waved and smiled bravely, closing the door only after he’d rounded the bend.
She rested her forehead on the back of the door, taking in a deep breath. She pushed herself up and turned, and stared straight into the eyes of a woman standing at the bottom of the stairs.
Her breath hitched in her throat as the woman said, “Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?”
Chapter 22
“I’ll stay out of your way if you’ll stay out of mine,” Mrs. Stanton finally said after she stared at Olivia for what seemed like an eternity. She’d introduced herself—Mrs. Stanton didn’t seem all that surprised, and Olivia knew that she’d been aware of her impending arrival, just not the timing—but she had just played along and explained.
The woman had stood stock still at the bottom of the stairs the entire time, her dark locks flecked with gray drawn back into a severe bun at the nape of her neck. Olivia thought she’d seen her once at the mercantile—she couldn’t say when—and she’d appeared just as severe then.
Now, she was dressed in black, a brooch tight at her neck. There wasn’t a hint of another color anywhere on her—she stood in stark contrast to the colorful flower patterns surrounding even the parlor.
She hadn’t gone into great detail about what had happened at the ranch. Her new mother-in-law hadn’t even feigned interest. When she’d finished, she’d made her proclamation and turned toward the kitchen, leaving Olivia alone in the foyer.
She awkwardly shifted from foot to foot. The woman clearly didn’t want her there. Honestly, she was, after all, an intruder in the woman’s home, for all intents and purposes. She glanced out the window in the direction of the blacksmith shop. Should she fetch Joe? Would that make this any easier?
No, she couldn’t bother him at work. She smoothed her skirts, grateful at least that she wasn’t standing in her dress covered in soot, and steeled her resolve.
“Mrs. Stanton, I realize that this is sudden, my arrival. It’s sudden for Joe and me, too,” she said as Mrs. Stanton poured herself a cup of tea from the pot Joe had left ready. She reached for a pastry on the plate, taking a bite and chewing slowly as she stared at Olivia.
Olivia waited for her to speak and she started to squirm. This wasn’t going the way she’d thought it would. A general, introductory conversation would have been better than this...this silence.
“Your flowers are beautiful, Mrs. Stanton. Your garden is quite impressive. I was never able to grow flowers at the ranch. Only hogs. And some vegetables. And you have so many types. It must be a challenge to keep it free of varmints. Especially rabbits. They are cute, some people think, but they can ruin a garden overnight if you aren’t vigilant. And...”
Mrs. Stanton blinked blandly at Olivia as she finished her tea and Olivia rambled. Olivia could kick herself. What was she even talking about? Rabbits? And vegetables?
“Young lady, by your own admission you’ve no business in a flower garden.”
Heat crept up her neck as her voice trailed off and silence fell heavily again. She tugged at her sleeve as she looked down at her shoes.
Mrs. Stanton placed her cup and saucer in the sink and turned toward Olivia.
“I have a suggestion. You stay out of my garden and mind yourself. I’m sure Joe will show you where things are around here. The wash basin, things of that ilk,” she said as she brushed a speck of dust off of her sleeves. “I’m sure you’re more suited to that kind of thing.”
She knew she was good at those kinds of things, but somehow it didn’t feel like a compliment coming from this woman.
The woman brushed past her and pushed the swinging door to the parlor. The scent of starch swept past and Olivia crinkled her nose. She glanced at the woman’s black dress and noticed it was stiff as a board. She imagined there’d be a lot of starching to do in this household, something she’d never bothered with before.
Mrs. Stanton turned back just before she crossed the threshold, one of her eyebrows raised and a corner of her mouth turning up. “Oh, and I don’t cook. It’s all yours,” she said as she nodded curtly and let the door swing closed.
Chapter 23
Small spice jars clattered as Olivia placed them in neat rows in the cupboards. She’d spent the morning doing a complete inventory of the kitchen. If it was to be her purview, she was going to do a solid job of it. She certainly wasn’t going to give this sour woman anything additional to complain about.
She’d already started on supper and at the same time had prepared something for Joe for lunch. Nothing fancy—there was rarely an opportunity to make anything fancy at the ranch. Supper would be ham and potatoes with carrots. She’d found the ham in the cellar and her mood lifted when she realized it was from the Double Barrel Ranch. It was a credit to their skill that the ham was still good and had been stored in the cool root cellar for quite a while.
She stirred the potatoes that had been simmering on the stove and leaned over, inhaling spices that comforted her to her bones. This would be her first supper in her new home and she wanted it to be perfect. What great good fortune that she had one of her own hams to impress her new family with.
Slowly parting the floral curtains, she peeked out into the garden on the north side of the house. The rolling hills beyond the cactus were green from the monsoons—they’d gotten plenty of rain lately, almost too much—and she spied movement from the corner of her eye.
Mrs. Stanton, covered in a wide-brimmed hat and leather gloves, sat on an overturned bucket, pulling weeds from amongst her flowers. Piles of weeds dotted the perimeter of the wrap-around porch. She’d clearly been at it for hours, likely most of the time Olivia had been in the kitchen—her kitchen now.
The small, separate patch away from the house was rimmed with chicken wire and Mrs. Stanton reached over gingerly. She’d thought she’d been rambling, but maybe what she’d said had been accurate. They must have varmints here, too, or wouldn’t need fencing.
Olivia backed away from the window as Mrs. Stanton took off her hat and wiped sweat from her brow with a floral handkerchief. Saying hello didn’t seem appropriate—she’d made her desires clear that they keep a wide berth from one another.
Maybe there was some way she could—
She let the curtains fall as Joe approached the house, whistling happily. A package wrapped in brown paper and twine was tucked beneath his arm and he fairly jumped up the porch steps.
Olivia’s heart quickened as his whistle continued into the parlor, where he shrugged off his coat and jauntily threw his hat onto the peg by the door.
He strode through the swinging door just as Olivia set plates of meat and cheese on the table, along with a pitcher of iced tea.
“And she can cook!” Joe rubbed his hands together. “Can life get any better?”
Olivia’s heart soared as she reached for his shoulders, turning him toward the sink and handing him a kitchen towel. “Well, she thinks she can cook. Guess the proof will be in the pudding.”
“Pudding, too?” Joe’s eyebrows rose and his eyes twinkled.
“No, but maybe some for dinner if I have all I need,” she said as she sat down at the table.
Joe loaded his plate and licked his finger quickly befo
re wiping it on the napkin he’d set in his lap. “Mmm, this is delicious,” he said as he leaned back in his chair.
Olivia smiled and parted the curtains, pointing at his mother. “Should I call her in for lunch?” she asked, turning back to Joe.
“How has it gone with you two today?” he asked, leaning forward as he peered out the window.
“I wouldn’t say particularly well. We had a very brief exchange, where she told me to stay out of the garden and I could have the kitchen.” She brushed away a dark curl that had escaped from her bun, quickly pinning it back in place.
“Oh, I see,” he said, leaning forward on the table as he pushed his empty plate forward. “I imagine that would be her optimal division of labor. She doesn’t cook.”
Olivia’s hand rose to her cheek as she, too, bent forward and looked out the window. “At all?” she asked, incredulous. How could a woman—a woman with a family—not cook?
“Not since Pa died. He loved suppertime, loved her, and when he passed—well, she didn’t care much for food or for cooking.”
Joe had turned from the window and cast his eyes down on the floral plate before him.
“These dishes—everything here, really—are beautiful. She must have taken great pride in taking care of her family.”
“Yes, she did. Once.” He cleared his throat and glanced up at Olivia, meeting her eyes.
His dark eyes clouded, and she asked softly, “How old were you when your father passed?”
He blinked a few times quickly and ran his hand through his hair. “I was sixteen and Will was fourteen. Quite a few years ago, but...”
He broke their gaze and looked back out the window toward his mother.
She waited for a moment, then said, “No matter how much time has passed, the memory seems to stay fresh.”
“For some of us more than others,” he said abruptly as he pushed himself back from the table and gathered the dishes from the table.
“I’ll do that,” Olivia said quickly as she reached for the plate in his hand. He had a shop to run, after all, and if her only job was to cook—well, then she’d do it all. After the ranch, it hardly felt like enough to keep a woman busy for an entire day, after all.
“I’m making ham and potatoes for supper, if that’s all right with you and your mother,” she said as she stirred the potatoes on the stove. “I made myself at home in the kitchen after your mother—well, I hope that’s all right.”
“Of course it’s all right. I’m just pleased that there haven’t been fireworks. I suppose that’s as good as it’s going to get right now.” He moved closer to her and took her hand. “I’m sorry, Olivia. You deserve better than the silent treatment.”
Her hand tingled at his touch and she nodded in thanks. “Maybe I can dazzle her with my cooking. I could do much better if I had things from my own kitchen.”
“Do you think that anything might be salvageable?” Joe asked, leaning against the counter and folding his arms over his chest.
Olivia tapped her finger against her cheek. “I’m not exactly sure. I did gather everything as fast as I could, but the whole night is a blur in my memory.”
“Since she’s not speaking to you, I suppose it wouldn’t matter if we took a trip out to the ranch tomorrow to see. If we leave at sunrise, we could be back before dark. If that’s something that would interest you,” he said as he cocked his head and their eyes met.
She hadn’t really considered going back so soon. She peered out the window at Mrs. Stanton’s back and realized that their relationship certainly wasn’t going to change over night. And he was right. They weren’t speaking to each other, so what harm could there be in taking a look at the ranch?
“I’ll get some food ready for us. I know there’s nothing left as the kitchen was the first to go up in flames,” she said as she pulled her hand away from Joe’s warm one.
He was kind to offer. She should certainly be grateful and steel herself against what she might find. She’d never found nor heard about Percy, and she certainly didn’t want to face that adventure alone.
Chapter 24
Olivia grabbed the side of the buckboard as it lurched through the stream bed. The few inches of water in the wash from the last monsoon ambled past the palo verde trees and high reeds. She peered out from under her blue bonnet at the sky—not a cloud in sight, something she and Joe had both commented on when they’d set out from his house at sunrise.
The time since had been fairly quiet, interspersed with commentary about the terrain, the road, the people who lived on the ranches that dotted the road. Once they’d passed the town of Whetstone—which was really just a small grouping of houses west of Tombstone—she’d fallen silent again as her nerves got the best of her. So much had changed in her life in an incredibly short period of time. The ranch she’d called home was gone—or most of it, anyway—Percy was nowhere to be found and she was not only homeless but penniless.
She glanced over at Joe, his strong jaw set as he followed her directions, leading the horses with ease over the sometimes rough terrain. He stiffened, his eyes trained on a rise beyond the next outcropping. After their dip into the San Pedro Valley, where the river ran, they’d climbed steadily into low-lying hills that eventually turned into the majestic mountains that surrounded the valley.
She followed his line of sight and caught some movement—riders, who turned their horses back down the ridge and disappeared.
Joe’s grip on the reins had tightened and he squinted in the direction of the disappearing riders.
“Looked like Indians,” he said slowly, his eyes not leaving the ridge. “Are they a problem for you out here?”
“We had some trouble a few years ago, a couple of different tribes angling for land out here. But lately, no. They’ve been peaceful—even trading with a few of us.”
“Trading?”
Olivia held her hand over her bonnet, searching the horizon. “Yes. Believe it or not, they like ham and bacon, and they have some very interesting things to trade.”
“They do, do they?” Joe said. “I’ve not worked with them much in the shop. In the beginning, they came in and asked us to fix their guns but—well, since we don’t work on guns, they took their business elsewhere.”
Joe’s unease when she’d lifted her shotgun from her buggy had perplexed her. She didn’t know him all that well, and from the pained expression on his face she wasn’t sure she should ask.
“Why is it that you don’t?”
Joe took a sidelong glance at her from the corner of his eye. He looked up at the ridge once more, hesitating before he answered.
“Guess you might as well know as you’re my wife now.”
She waited a bit longer, her mind racing with things that could have caused his aversion. Where she had grown up, they were a necessity. You never knew when a coyote might venture too close to the smokehouse.
Joe squirmed on the seat of the buckboard. “When pa died, we were pretty young, as I told you. But we’d apprenticed in the shop for many years and knew what we were doing. Will, in fact, is a genius when it comes to fixing things.”
Olivia had liked Will when she’d met him—easy-going and his wife had been charming. Not at all bitter that she was confined to a chair with wheels. She imagined that he and Joe worked well together.
“You seem to have made a great success of it,” she said as she rested her hand on his forearm, hoping to encourage him to continue.
“We have. But we wouldn’t have gotten the chance if my grandmother hadn’t stepped in,” he said as he pulled his hat further down his forehead. “Ma wanted to sell it, but Grandma said we needed a future. With what happened to Pa, Ma—well, she really suffered. Didn’t speak for months.”
“As now,” Olivia said under her breath, not wanting him to stop.
Joe rested his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward, encouraging the horses through the gates Olivia pointed toward, the entrance to the Double Barrel Ranch.
“Y
es. When things aren’t going well for her, she gets very quiet. But I suppose we’ve grown accustomed to it. I hadn’t noticed much until Will left. She talks quite a bit when she has a mind to—just not about anything of substance.”
“What made her change her mind?” Olivia asked after a bit, gazing up at the cottonwood trees that lined the drive to what used to be her home.
Joe glanced quickly at her before craning his neck to peer around the small hill that the road curved around. He cleared his throat and straightened in his seat.
“We had to agree not to work on guns. Of any kind.”
Olivia was startled away from gazing at the trees and turned to look at Joe.
“What? Why? There are so many guns here on the frontier, it would be a good sight of business to lose, I would imagine.”
Joe nodded slowly. “It was. But with how things turned out with Pa, Ma was adamant. Sell the shop or agree.”
Olivia’s grip tightened on his arm as they rounded the bend. She sucked in a sharp breath as she spied the remains of her ranch. Blackened wooden boards fell askew around what had been the smokehouse and the fence surrounding it lay in heaps of ash around the perimeter.
She tore her gaze from the smokehouse to the barn next to it—or what was left of the barn that Percy had lived in. She’d had her two horses with her when she’d arrived, and the other two working horses were nowhere to be found at the time. Soft whinnies sounded from the small grove to the right of the ranch and her heart calmed as she turned, smiling as the two horses drank from the water trough she’d filled before she left in case they returned. At least she wouldn’t be looking for their bodies here shortly. Only Percy’s.
“My goodness. You tackled this all alone?” Joe asked. He whistled and sat up straight in the buckboard, pushing his black hat back up his forehead.
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