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

by Chula Stone

  “I’ll have to admit,” he replied conversationally as he brought the slick leather sole down on her rump first on one side then the other. “I never thought I’d get any use out of them. I mean, what is a man supposed to do? Lie around the house? If he doesn’t need his boots on, he should be in bed asleep… or otherwise occupied. But now I see these things can come in real handy.”

  “Oh, Vince, really!” Pinkie flopped down, letting her face nestle into the coverlet hanging off the side of the bed. “I give in. Just get it over with!”

  “So you’re not going to try to dictate how many swats I give you? You’ll let me decide after all?”

  “Yes, yes! I’m sorry I tried to tell you what to do.”

  “That’s better,” Vince noted. He let loose a volley of spanks, covering her nether cheeks over and over again. “You let your temper get the better of you. In this situation, it wasn’t dangerous, but it won’t always be so. This is just a little reminder to act like the sweet, polite, serene lady you are.” He finished up just as she started to gasp deep breaths in and out.

  The heat and pain were considerable, but as he helped her up and her skirts fell back into place, her heart began to feel lighter and her mood brightened. She hadn’t even realized how tense she had been. As Vince held her and rubbed her back, she began to think more and more enthusiastically about returning to the festival. On their way out of the bedroom, however, she snagged a pillow and hoped he would let her use it.

  Shep looked down at the little lady who was his boss’s wife and opened his mouth to speak, but as so often happened when he was around her, or any member of the fairer sex, he found that words failed him. It was like jumping in a lake to find it frozen solid beneath your feet. All the water is right there but of absolutely no use.

  “Well, are you going to talk or not? I thought you said you needed a word.” Pinkie began to polish one of the glass jars that lined the counter in the sunny little café. Bright late summer sunlight glinted off every surface that could shine and warmed all the ones that couldn’t.

  Finally, a localized thaw set in and Shep found a few words were available for use. “When you told me you had a roof that needed some repair, for some reason I got it into my head that you meant some sort of shed… or maybe a gazebo or picnic shelter.”

  “Whatever gave you that idea?” she asked in a tone that clearly let him know that he had gone down a notch or two in her opinion.

  “It’s a house.”

  “A cottage,” she corrected blithely. “More of a cabin, really.”

  “But you could live in it.”

  “I’m glad you noticed. When can you have it finished?”

  “A couple of weeks should do the trick but that’s not the point.”

  “Well, what is the point?” Pinkie spared him a quick glance before returning to her work.

  “Keeping secrets.”

  “You’re sure good at that. So good, in fact, that you’re keeping it secret from me what exactly we’re talking about,” Pinkie huffed.

  “You know what I mean. I don’t mind being discreet about a little shed or shelter or some such, but a whole house?”

  “A cabin,” she corrected automatically.

  “What are you planning to do with it?” Shep held his breath. He knew Pinkie and Vince had butted heads a few times this summer.

  “I have a few ideas,” Pinkie hedged with a shrug. Non-committal, yes. Vague, maybe. But guilty? Not really. In fact, not at all.

  “All married couples get cross-ways of each other from time to time, Miss Pinkie but if you’re thinking of leaving Vince, I can’t”

  Pinkie’s burst of laughter drowned out Shep’s voice. “Leave Vince? You’re crazier than I thought you were!”

  With a sigh of relief, Shep joined in the mirth. “Fine, then. That’s all right. I just didn’t want to do anything that somebody might think of as encouraging you to…”

  Just then, Vince walked in through the back of the café, followed by Treli. “What’s so funny?” Vince demanded with a smile as he whisked his wife into his arms for a quick kiss.

  Shep felt like a kid caught taking a library book without permission. He was doing a good thing, but some of those present might not view it that way.

  Thank goodness Pinkie came to his rescue. “You shouldn’t ask too many questions this close to Christmas.”

  “Christmas? It’s August.” Vince looked down at his wife with much less suspicion than Shep would have expected. He supposed that living with Pinkie for ten years tended to raise the bar for a man’s surprise threshold.

  “Exactly my point.”

  Vince tightened his grip on Pinkie. “What are you up to?” There was the suspicion Shep was expecting.

  “Can’t a wife surprise her husband every once in a while?” Pinkie demanded, snuggling back against her husband in a way that had Treli turning pink and Shep forcing himself to think about drunks and skunks in order to keep calm.

  “That depends on what kind of surprise it is,” Vince equivocated slowly. “How can I decide if it’s okay or not if I don’t know what we’re talking about?”

  “There’s a lot of that going around,” Shep put in to nobody in particular.

  “I’ve asked Shep to do something for me and he’s doing it. If it were anything bad or dangerous, do you think he’d play along?” Pinkie enquired.

  “Leave me out of this, if you please, Miss Pinkie,” Shep begged with a wave of his hands.

  “I was hoping it would be a complete surprise, but I don’t want anyone getting any crazy ideas.” Here, Pinkie raised her eyebrows and turned a significant stare on Shep, drawing everyone’s gaze toward him. “So, I’ll admit this much: there is a surprise. Will that do or do you want more details? It’s up to you.”

  Vince looked around at the group with a scowl. In stentorian tones, he declared, “As the head of this household, I make all the final decisions.” With a broad wink at Treli, he continued, “And I have decided… that Pinkie can decide. It’s fine with me. Whatever the surprise is, I’m sure I’ll love it. As long as it doesn’t involve anything crazy or dangerous, of course.” He finished his declaration in his normal even-tempered manner, giving Shep to understand that there was no need to worry.

  Pinkie turned to Vince and took his arm. “Well, if it’s going to be ready by Christmas, you need to hit the trail and let me talk to Shep alone.” Before Shep realized what was happening, she had Vince half way out the door.

  “Do I need to bring Treli with me? Or is she in on the secret?” Vince asked.

  Pinkie waved Treli out as well. “No, it’s a surprise for her too. Both of you, out! Treli, you can go by the hat shop and tell Drina I’ll be there in a minute to get her. When I get there, you can come back here and get ready for the after lunch crowd.”

  Treli gave Pinkie and Shep a puzzled look as she followed Vince out of the café, making Shep wonder what she thought of all these shenanigans. “So, now that Vince knows something’s going on, can I buy what I need at Coleman’s?”

  “No, that will give him more information than he needs. If he sees you with a load of shingles, he’ll know what I’m doing.” Pinkie set a huge slice of cake in front of him. “This is Treli’s newest creation. Try it out and tell me what you think.”

  “So he knows about the house?” Shep settled himself back at his table and took a bite of the chocolate cake Pinkie served him. Just knowing that Treli had baked it made it taste twice as good, so he took a moment to savor the intensely sweet but surprisingly light confection.

  “House? It’s a cabin at best, but yes, he knows. He would remember it if he saw it, but seeing as it’s a bit out of the way, he probably hasn’t laid eyes on it in years.”

  “A bit out of the way? The North Pole is a bit out of the way. That house… excuse me, cabin, is at the back of beyond. And then beyond that!”

  “It’s not that bad,” Pinkie countered, bringing a cup of tea to the table and sitting down to join him.<
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  “No, but I can tell it was bad and not too long ago. Who made all those repairs?”

  “Why do you ask?” When a woman answered a question with a question, Shep knew he wasn’t going to like the answer. “Was there something wrong? It was the siding, I’ll bet.”

  “The siding is fine. I could tighten it up a bit if you want, but it’s basically sound. And the windows fit pretty well and the walls are mostly plumb. And I’ll just add a touch or two here or there. Whoever he is, he did a fine job. I’d really just like to know how he got down in that hollow without leaving huge ruts in the road. The track looked practically unused.”

  “That’s because I didn’t use the track. I knew I’d be seen.” Pinkie took another bite of cake, as if she had not just dropped a bombshell big enough to choke a horse.

  Shep almost choked himself. “The only other way down to that cabin is over the cliff.”

  “How you do exaggerate, Shep. That cabin is not a house and that hill is not a cliff. I’ll admit it’s a bit steep and I had to be careful going down.”

  “Be careful?” Shep exploded. “If Vince knew you were shinnying up and down that firepole of a trail by yourself and loaded with supplies and tools”

  “But he doesn’t know and he’s not going to find out because you’re not going to tell him, are you?” It was a statement, not a question. Pinkie waved her fork at him admonishingly. “You heard him say he was letting me decide. That means he’s supporting me in this, as well he should.”

  “He never said it was okay with him for you to break your neck on that trail. Is that why you were looking so tired and worn out when I first got here? Did you fall or something?”

  “I might have been a little overtired from slipping off from the hat shop during the day to work on things at the cabin, but after Vince… expressed his opinion on my appearance, I figured I had done enough and could slow down. After that, I paced myself a bit more slowly, but that means that I’m not ready for the cold weather. And I’ll admit, the roofing shingles were going to defeat me. I can’t get down that trail with them on my back.”

  Shep wiped a hand over his brow. “I get dizzy just thinking about it. It almost makes me want to skip my second piece of this cake. Almost, but not quite.” Shep held out his plate toward Pinkie.

  She took it, grinning like a cat in a cream shop. “Good, isn’t it?” She got up to refill his plate. “You don’t have to worry about me going up or down that trail again. My part is done.”

  “I should say so,” Shep agreed, cutting into the new chocolate mountain before him. “I won’t say anything to anybody about my part in this little plan, but if I find out you’ve been scampering up or down that trail with more than your little reticule in your hand, I’ll tell Vince faster than you can slice a cake.”

  “Do you have a plan as to how you’re going to get the shingles down there?”

  “Shouldn’t be too hard. I’ll just rent a wagon from Green’s down in Louden and drive it through the back ways to the cottage after dark. If anyone sees the tracks, I’ll just say I was clearing the fire trails to keep them passable for the winter. It’s not a bad idea anyway. Especially if somebody is going to be living there, it’s important to keep the roads from getting overgrown with brush and vines and such. Miss Pinkie, who is going to live there?”

  Pinkie got that look on her face. The one that Shep had learned to dread. The one he hoped never to see on Treli’s face. That ‘oh, you naïve man’ face chilled his gizzard. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”

  Chapter 6

  Treli knew eavesdropping was wrong, so she hadn’t done it on purpose. Could she help it if Drina sent her back to the café to get some muffins to tide them over until supper? She couldn’t leave Drina hungry, could she? And could she help it if her tread was so quiet that no one heard her? The fact that she lingered by the batwing doors long after she had gathered the required treats bothered her conscience only a little. Eavesdropping might be wrong but it was so very interesting. A cottage? A trail? And all a secret from Vince, but he didn’t seem to mind? There was nothing Treli loved more than a good mystery.

  So that night, after the boarding house was locked up, Treli sneaked out her window and climbed down the little cherry tree that had acted as her private exit stairway more than once since she had moved to town. Aunt Mina’s rules were strict, but her ears didn’t work nearly as well as they used to and what Aunt Mina didn’t hear, the girls didn’t have to pay for. For all her fluffy manner, Aunt Mina wielded a mean wooden spoon and wasn’t shy about using it on a naughty backside.

  The full moon rode high in the sky, making the path easy to travel. With only a little help from a small lantern, Treli bobbed along at a good clip, slipping only a few times on the way down. It felt like magic, that trip down into the hollow. Treli had guessed right away which path Shep had meant by his reaction to the thought of Pinkie traveling it alone and loaded down. Treli had to admit that more than once, she needed her hands to balance and help her stay on her feet.

  She had thought to get sight of the house secretly, just to find out for herself what Shep was doing. She only wanted a little look, so she paused while she was still a little way up the trail and watched as Shep climbed up and down the ladder, carrying a handful or two of shingles on each trip. “You could help me, you know, if you’d come down here and hand me these,” Shep called up to her. His voice startled her so, she fell on her rump and slid several feet down the path. “Here! Careful now! Are you all right?” He was at her side before she could get herself untangled from the blackberry bush that had arrested her uncontrolled descent.

  “Yes, I’m fine. You just startled me, is all.”

  “You’d watched me long enough that I figured it was only polite to let you know I saw you.” Shep cut the briars off her skirt and a vine out of her hair.

  “I wouldn’t mind helping,” she replied.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be in bed? I thought Aunt Mina had strict rules about her boarders being in by eight o’clock.”

  “I was in by eight. I just didn’t stay in.”

  Shep cocked an eye at her. “I don’t think Aunt Mina would appreciate your logic.”

  “Good thing she won’t ever hear it. Will she… hear it from you, I mean?”

  “Not if you help me out.” They had reached the worksite. Shep handed her a small bundle of shingles. “When I let down the basket, you put more shingles in and I’ll pull them up. It’ll save me no end of trips up and down that ladder.”

  “You’ll let me help?” This surprised Treli. She thought he would be angry, but he seemed more pleased than anything. Maybe he wasn’t quite as unreasonable and high-handed as she thought.

  “If I’m going to get in trouble with Pinkie for letting you in on the secret, I might as well get some good out of it.” Shep mounted the ladder with the agility of a monkey. Only monkeys didn’t look that good on ladders or anywhere else. Shep certainly was a handsome devil. She had to give him that.

  “You won’t get in trouble. It’s not like you told me or anything.”

  “But will Pinkie see it that way?”

  “I could go back now and pretend I never came here,” Treli suggested.

  Shep leaned over the side of the cottage. “Don’t go. Not yet. Having you here is worth any kind of grief Pinkie could give me.”

  “It is?” In her surprise, Treli couldn’t think of anything else to say. It just slipped out.

  “Sure it is.”

  “Because I can help you?”

  Shep straightened up so she couldn’t see his face from where she was standing on the ground by the cottage, but she could hear his voice without any trouble. “I wouldn’t care if you sat on your pretty little behind and sang campfire tunes all night. Just having you here makes the work feel like dancing.”

  “Dancing?”

  “Special. New. Fun. Like I feel at a dance.” Shep came back to the edge of the roof and let the little wic
ker basket down on its rope. She put in the next bundle and held it up until he drew the rope taut. “Don’t you ever feel that way about work? I know you enjoy what you do at the café.”

  “Sure, I do, but I never thought about it like a dance.” He was a good dancer. It didn’t surprise her that he would think of dancing as something enjoyable, but having him claim that her presence reminded him of something that pleasurable took a bit of getting used to.

  “You look like you’re dancing sometimes. When things are busy at the café and you’re here, there and everywhere all at once. Or at a picnic. Or like that day at the festival. Watching you was like watching a swarm of bees pollinate a corn field. Or a rose garden. Lots of activity and all of it lovely.”

  He sounded so matter of fact as he said these astonishing things. Before that night, he had hardly said two nice words to her. At least, not that she could recall.

  “Sounds like you make a habit of watching girls,” she teased.

  “Not girls. Just one girl. Just you.” He reappeared over the edge of the roof and they repeated the shingle supply routine while she thought about this claim.

  Perhaps it was true and she had never noticed because she had been too busy being resentful of his being right. “That night in the barn… you knew I was there, didn’t you?”

  “I knew,” he answered simply. “And don’t ask me to apologize for scaring away those mice. You shouldn’t have been in that barn. Those animals, like all animals, need respect. If you look down on them, you tend to forget that they can hurt you without meaning to.”

  “You’re right, of course. Not about the… mice, but about respect. I’ve always thought we don’t need to be afraid of animals if we understand their natures and treat them accordingly… and carefully.”