When A Cowboy Asks (A Rancher's Bride Book 2)

by Chula Stone

  “Well, if anyone did do something outlandish like break into the livery, that person would probably be clever enough to get away with it.” With a swish of her towel and a swoosh of her skirts, she was gone. He finished his meal and was just about to call for the check when he saw Mr. Branson exit the building across the street and turn to lock the door. If he wanted to return the briefcase to its owner personally before the man had time to worry about it too much, he would need to move immediately. He fished a large coin out of his vest pocket and tossed it on the table. Snatching up the briefcase, he made tracks for the door.

  The back entrance to the livery stable had been her secret since she had begun to work in Merriview four months earlier. She had discovered it quite by accident one day as she was throwing some wash water into the gutter and missed. Treli recalled that day with a grin. She had been daydreaming as usual. Her little flights of fancy helped tedious tasks go faster and kept her calm if she was nervous, but sometimes it led to difficulties, as it did that day. The noise of two of the planks falling had brought her back from her wool gathering to find that she had splashed water all over several piles of scrap wood leaning this way and that on the back wall of the alley. When she went to see if she had caused any damage to anything important, she found that the wood concealed a low door that had at one time been meant for coal delivery. No longer used every day, the door had been covered up and forgotten. That night, instead of coal, it admitted a silently stalking Treli.

  From the moment she passed through the door and out of the stall, she found the smell familiar and somehow comforting. Soon enough she realized why. Striking a match, she lit the lantern hanging from a peg on the wall and looked around. “I should have known, that numbskull Eli would see this beautiful creature as a cross between a sheep and a horse, wouldn’t he?” Treli recognized it for what it was. She had grown up in a wagon that had followed a traveling menagerie that had housed several of the gentle beasts.

  She approached cautiously and after a few minutes the nearest stall full of animals allowed her to pet them. They were on the smallish side, but healthy and well cared for. Treli knew immediately for whom they must be destined. Only her cousin’s ranch would deal in such exotic and exciting animals. Treli felt as if she had a right to be there, so she relaxed and worked her way around several stalls and even looked in a few of the crates. What memories came sluicing over her! Her parents. The circus. And who knew where these creatures had come from and what they might have seen. Far off countries. Exotic customs…

  So absorbed had she become in her inner musings that she almost didn’t notice when the large door at the front of the stable opened. And who should enter but the briefcase carrying, non-bell jangling, vase-smashing stranger from earlier that evening? What was he doing here? She dove head first under the nearest cover she could find. From the feel, the bags heaven had sent for her concealment were made of some sort of rough burlap. From the smell, they might have contained sweet feed, or perhaps apples. For her purposes, they were ideal. If there had only been a few more of them. She was able to wriggle under a single layer, but no more. She would have to lie very still or she would soon be facing a rather embarrassing situation. She had no wish for her secret entryway to be discovered by anyone but her.

  “See? They’re not a cross between a horse and anything. Well, I’ll admit they do look a bit like camels, but they’re not.”

  The next voice that spoke was easier for her to identify. It was Eli, the young man who worked at the livery stable. This in itself was good news and bad news. Treli liked Eli well enough. A hard worker, Eli had decided ideas about most things. The problems started because he took some of those ideas from the husbands of her cousin and her friend.

  Those men tended to be stricter about rules than Treli thought was good for her or for fun in general. The advantage to Eli was that he could be talked round, given enough time and a sweet enough smile. The husbands, on the other hand, weren’t so susceptible. Now, the question was, would this stranger turn out to be more like Eli or the husbands? That was anybody’s guess but Treli thought she might as well remain hidden if she could.

  “But what are they then?” Eli asked doubtfully.

  “They’re called alpacas.”

  “And what are they good for? Can you eat them?” That was Eli all over, always thinking with his stomach.

  “You can if you get hungry enough, or so I hear, but what the Sloan ladies want them for is their wool. You can spin it into a fancy yarn. And of course, circuses and menageries will pay a pretty penny for them. And nickels and dimes, too, I’ll bet.”

  “Circuses and menageries would pay more for tigers and lions,” Eli put in skeptically. “There can’t be that much money in these hairy horses.”

  “Hey, I’m just the delivery man. I didn’t buy them nor did I convince the Sloan ladies to go into the alpaca business. I don’t see how they’re worth the trouble either.”

  “Then why don’t the Sloan brothers put their foot down and rein in their wives?”

  “You’re not a married man, are you, Eli?”

  Eli gave a caustic laugh. “Not hardly.”

  “It shows. Saying no to a wife isn’t as easy as all that. And the Sloans might just figure that if the alpacas serve to keep their wives happy and out of mischief, they’re worth it.”

  “I know how I’d keep a wife out of mischief,” Eli asserted confidently. “A trip to the woodshed does wonders for a girl’s disposition, or so I’ve been told.”

  Both men chuckled at that, but Treli couldn’t keep her hands from clenching at their laughter. Had the stranger heard her slight movement? He must have ears like a cat! He was coming her way. Could he tell where she was hidden? She’d know soon enough. Treli held her breath, expecting any moment to have the burlap sacks snatched away. Oh, how he would fuss. Treli knew how men hated to be ignored and their warnings disregarded.

  “Did you hear something?” Eli asked.

  “I think it was a mouse,” the stranger replied. Suddenly, she felt a hard round edge like a broom handle poking lightly through the sacking. “In here maybe.”

  Treli held perfectly still, the heat rising in her cheeks till she knew they would see steam rising from them. How embarrassed she would be to be found in such a position. The stick poked here and there, first on one side of her, then the other, as if drawing an outline in polka dots. Despite this prelude, what happened next still surprised her, almost making her cry out.

  Whomp went the broom, landing right on her derriere. It was as if he could tell where she was underneath all the empty burlap sacks. Whomp went the broom again, whomp, whomp. “Do you think you got it?” asked Eli.

  “Better make sure,” replied the stranger. “I’ll give it a few more hearty whacks for good measure.”

  And he did, whacking away at her backside. Even through her skirts and the sacks, the sting built quickly. It was all she could do to keep from squirming, but she knew she would rather take a hundred swats than admit to Eli what was going on. This stranger might know, but he obviously wouldn’t tell. If he meant to expose her, he would have already. If she could just endure in silence, she might get out of this with her dignity relatively intact. The stranger wouldn’t be anyone she would see again. She might have to serve him in the café, but then again, he might be only visiting. So she held her tongue and took what he doled out without complaint.

  “There, that ought to do it. That lesson should have gotten through to even the most stubborn mouse. These animals aren’t normally dangerous, but they’re out of their territory, so they’re skittish and unpredictable. You’ve got to show them proper respect.”

  “So you plan to stay here all night and beat the mice away?” Eli asked. “If so, I’ll be moseying on home.”

  “I’ll go with you,” the stranger said in a loud voice. “And then come back pretty soon to check on things. Hopefully, the mice will have cleared out by then.”

  Treli, being smarter than a mouse
, didn’t have to be told twice. As soon as the barn door shut, she slithered out from under the sacks and back through her little concealed hatchway, rubbing her backside as she went.

  Chapter 2

  The next morning, a large crowd was on hand as the alpacas were led out. The weather had changed for the better and a sky bluer than a new enameled washbasin smiled down on the crowd. Treli kept well back, not quite hiding behind her cousin Drina and her boss Pinkie, but not putting herself in clear view either.

  Drina, in her turn, wasn’t making a spectacle of herself, either. With a large bonnet pulled over her mouse brown hair and a copious shawl hiding her generous curves, she blended into the scenery with several other ladies. “We could have waited at the ranch, you know,” she complained.

  “Of course we could have, but where would be the fun in that? I haven’t been to town in ages,” Pinkie replied quietly. “Especially not without the children. I wish we could have brought them.”

  “I think someone would have been bound to notice us if we were surrounded by ten little hooligans running around,” Drina replied caustically. “And they would have told their fathers. We’re taking enough of a chance just coming here ourselves.”

  “With these old-fashioned bonnets hiding our faces, no one will bother looking at us, much less recognize us. Treli, tie yours tighter. That crow-black hair of yours catches the light.”

  Treli complied, tucking a stray lock of hair back into the grey bonnet she wouldn’t have wanted to wash, much less wear under normal circumstances. It was the ugliest thing she had seen since she left the caravan six months earlier. There had been plenty of ridiculous clothing in the clown parade, but at least it had been colorful. This thing was horrible, but it did the job of making her invisible. “Look, here they come! Aren’t they adorable? Pinkie, they’re up there, not back that way.” Her boss wasn’t even watching her new animals.

  “She’s watching the crowd,” Drina informed her cousin sourly. “She wants to see the reaction, to know what kind of interest there might be.”

  “Interest?” Treli stared at Pinkie, amazed and slightly bemused. “Are you looking to sell these creatures locally?”

  “You never know,” Pinkie countered optimistically. “They’re easy to keep and produce great wool. And they’re pretty friendly so they do well in menageries.”

  Eli had finished stringing out the alpacas behind the wagon. Treli watched as he and the stranger consulted for a moment before Eli went back into the barn and began bringing out large crates. “Here come my peafowl,” Drina said breathlessly. “Aren’t they beauties? I can see the glow of the green even through the bars of the crate.”

  Treli had seen the birds the night before, but hadn’t paid much attention to them. “More peacocks? How many of those feathers do you need?”

  “We’ve got to replace King Solomon,” Pinkie explained.

  “He seemed fine to me this morning when he woke me up,” Treli recalled.

  “That’s just the problem. He won’t stay put. He won’t come home at night and has taken to wandering all over the valley. This isn’t the first time he’s wound up here in town.” Pinkie gave a quick grimace. “I can’t rely on him for breeding if he won’t stay around the house long enough to get the job done. So we brought in some new birds to enhance the bloodline.”

  The young bird demonstrated the eerie call his species was noted for and drew from the rowdy crowd at least one demonstration of disapproval. A tomato smashed into the crate and caused a few raucous laughs. Treli hadn’t heard the stranger before, but his reply to this rudeness was loud enough to be heard even back where she stood.

  “Hey, you! Pick on somebody your own size, why don’t you?” He strode over to the offender and took him by the collar. It was a young cowboy, plenty old enough to know better. Treli recalled meeting him now and again at dances and being less than impressed. She thought his name was Maston. Something Maston. She had never bothered to find out his first name.

  “Get off me,” Maston complained.

  The stranger let him go, much to the amusement of several onlookers. Maston looked around, his offended dignity spurring him to turn his snarl on the nearest vulnerable object. One of the boys gaping at the confrontation seemed to catch his eye and Treli gasped, knowing what would happen next. Maston casually backhanded the youngster, who fell to the ground, deserted by his playmates who scattered like dandelion fluff in the wind.

  Suddenly, the stranger was towering over Maston. “Try that again and you’ll answer to me.”

  Treli was impressed with the man’s courage. For a lawyer, he seemed comfortable with physical altercation. He was standing up for the animals and the children, which was commendable, but Maston had several pounds on him and Treli had heard rumors that he fought like a coyote, no trick too dirty. “This isn’t going to be pretty,” she commented drily. She made a move to leave their hiding place and intervene, but Pinkie stopped her.

  “You can’t go up there to the front of the crowd. You’ll just get us all caught and for what? You can’t get between two grown men? What’s he to you, anyway?”

  “Nothing,” Treli replied. “I just don’t like to see anybody get pounded, especially not by that sidewinder, Maston.”

  “I can’t watch,” moaned Drina, who was turning away.

  Apparently, Maston wasn’t the only one who hadn’t read his Marquis de Queensbury recently. The rules of fair fighting had nothing to do with what Treli witnessed in the next sixty seconds, but by the time it was over, Maston was on the ground and causing no more trouble.

  “See there,” Pinkie commented. “I could have told you there was nothing to worry about. That man can hold his own.”

  “How could you tell?” Treli demanded, relief making her a bit edgy.

  “I can just see it in the way he carries himself. I can hear it in his voice,” Pinkie replied.

  “Oh, what malarkey, Pinkie,” Drina said, more at ease now that the crowd was dispersing and the wagon was pulling away from the barn on its way out of town. “You know as well as I do that Barty Shepard could always hold his own in a fight, even when he was a lad.”

  “That wasn’t Barty Shepard,” Pinkie countered. Without need for consultation, the girls slipped back down the alley and over to the café.

  Drina laughed softly. “It certainly was. Did you think he would drop the animals off in Merriview without saying hello to us? Slingo says he’s going to stay with us on the Frogleg for a while before he goes back to Bumchuck. And who did you think was delivering our livestock? Vince told us how it was all arranged.”

  “I knew Barty was bringing the animals, but I thought he’d just gotten help to handle them,” Pinkie replied. “Are you sure it was him? He didn’t look like that ten years ago.”

  “Of course he didn’t.” Drina paused at the back door of the shop. “He was hardly more than a boy when we knew him. I’d say the Army made a man out of him. Treli, can you open up the shop for us by yourself today? We need to get back to the Frogleg before that little parade arrives.”

  “I left Aunt Mina’s house this morning with the idea that I would come straight here after the great alpaca revelation,” Treli grinned. “I’ll be fine. And you think that was the Barty Shepard you told me about?”

  “I’m sure it was,” Drina answered decisively. “Why are you looking like that?”

  “He… uh… we’ve met.” The heat rose to Treli’s cheeks as she remembered his covert spanking. She tried to keep her voice neutral but she could hear the resentment rising with each syllable she uttered.

  “Oh, really?” Pinkie gave her an intrigued look. “Do tell.”

  “Yeah, what did he do to you? Why are you so upset?” Drina demanded.

  “That’s not upset,” Pinkie corrected her. “That’s interest. What did he do?”

  “Interest? Not at all! He’s very boring in fact. Just like your two husbands, he’s bossy and high-handed. He showed that fact before the café door had swu
ng closed on him. I wish he’d never opened it.”

  Drina and Pinkie exchanged delighted smiles. “Oh, she’s really interested,” they chorused.

  “I am not! Maybe I’m a little embarrassed,” she admitted. “I didn’t know you knew him. He had a briefcase with him so I thought he was some kind of lawyer.”

  “Barty? Hardly. He could barely read when I knew him.” Pinkie went through to the front of the store and began checking the shelves.

  Drina followed her and started making notes on slate they kept for the purpose. “We need some more sticky buns, Pinkie. And double the rum cakes. There’s a cattle auction this weekend and that always brings in the cowboys. And I don’t see why Barty would have had a briefcase, but not because he can’t read. Of course he can read. Slingo’s been getting letters from him regularly for the past three years.”

  “I guess he learned in the Army.” Pinkie moved around the café. “And maybe he has other business here in Merriview. I know he’s staying a while. Long enough for you to meet him again if you want to, Treli.”

  “No thanks,” she retorted in a voice that would take dried mud off a boot. “I don’t care a thing in the world about ever seeing him again!”

  Pinkie, nodding at the room around her as if satisfied with the result of their quick ministrations, headed toward the front door. “She really is interested! I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Out the front? Why not the back? Somebody’s sure to see us,” Drina objected, following her friend with obvious reluctance and peering through the windows.

  “And why shouldn’t they?” Pinkie shot back.

  Treli enjoyed their banter but wished they would make up their minds and leave her in peace. Their comments were making her squirm. How could they think she wanted to have anything to do with somebody like Barty? Of course, she didn’t! She was keeping an eye out for Mr. Right, but he certainly wasn’t the one.