She noticed that Shane also centered his attention on his own plate, finishing his food without the normal courtesy of chatter.
Huh. He had been carrying on a nice enough conversation with Fatima, she grumped to herself. He wiped his plate with a biscuit and handed Fatima the plate.
“More?” Fatima asked.
“Please,” Shane said with a nod, before he plopped the biscuit in his mouth.
Her hunger assuaged somewhat, Ellie took the opportunity to ask at least one of the questions crowding for notice in her mind.
“Why are you here so early, Shane? It’s almost as though you spent the night,” she said before forking a fried potato slice in her mouth.
“We did,” a voice said from the kitchen doorway.
The bite of potato clogged Ellie’s throat when Shane’s valet, Withers, spoke from the doorway. “And might I say, Miss Ellie, you have a most charming abode here.”
Ellie choked and coughed, and Fatima hurried over to pound on her back. The potato dislodged, landing on her plate.
Able to breathe again, Ellie stared at Shane, moved her eyes to Withers, and then glanced at Fatima, the questions crowding her thoughts making her frown in warning. Fatima ignored her. Her eyes were on Withers, an apprising looked mixed with what looked like admiration on her face.
The heck with good manners! She had been faced with a fairy woman claiming to be her fairy godmother, who kept appearing and scaring her half out of her wits. Now the man who had haunted her dreams ever since the night of the circus sat across from her in these early morning hours, much as though he had moved into the same house. And his valet appeared to confirm that had indeed happened.
Ellie exploded and surged to her feet. “Just what on earth is going on around here?” she demanded.
The kitchen filled with gold dust, and when it cleared, Shane sat across from her with his fork halfway to his mouth, frozen in time. Ellie’s mouth dropped, and she fearfully stared at Withers. He stood with one leg raised in the middle of a step, unmoving also. Cutting her eyes very slowly to Fatima, she saw her—now dressed in her gold clothing—holding her magic wand and tapping it against one palm.
“Ellie, I would have told you what was going on if you’d waited a minute until we were alone. Now I—”
“What have you done?” Ellie whispered. “Turn—turn them loose.”
“In a minute,” Fatima said calmly. “You need to know something, Ellie. Your stepmother hired me when she came into town last night. I left you sleeping, and I just conveniently happened to be at the hotel when she arrived to see Shane. Of course, I had impeccable references and I wore appropriate attire when I applied for this position.”
Ellie gulped, cutting her eyes back around to Shane, then Withers. “Will—will they know what you’ve done to them?”
“Fiddle dee, of course not. So don’t worry, we can have as long as we need to talk.”
Reaching a shaky hand out for her chair, Ellie felt her way back into the seat. Pandora blinked blue eyes at her. At least the cat was still alive. But then, surely Shane and Withers were alive; they were just...just frozen.
“Yes, they’re alive,” Fatima said, making Ellie realize she voiced her fear aloud. “And I’ll release them in a moment. But you need to know—”
Ellie whirled toward Fatima. “What was my stepmother doing at the hotel, wanting to talk to Shane? And why is he staying here now?”
Fatima sighed and tapped her wand harder on her palm. A few sparkles of gold dust shook from the end of it, and Ellie stared at them in trepidation.
“Elvina has decided to look into selling the ranch,” Fatima said. “And since she knew Shane was in the area looking for investments, she decided to ask him if he was interested. Or if he knew someone who might be.”
Although she had suspected as much, Ellie’s heart twisted in agony. “The Leaning G is the only home I have! But then, Darlene insinuated the same thing yesterday morning, so I don’t guess I should be so surprised.”
“One day you’ll marry, Ellie...” Fatima began.
“Never. No man I could fall in love with would ever want an orphan who didn’t even know her own background for a wife.”
For a moment, Fatima looked as though she might say something more but shook her head. Ellie rose.
“I’m going on out on the range with the men. I assume you’ll turn Shane and Withers loose.”
She raced out of the kitchen before Fatima could reply, not wanting anyone to witness the tears threatening to course down her face. They burst free as she stumbled across the rear veranda and down the steps, and she wiped the heels of her hands across her face defiantly.
“I will not cry,” she said, even though the tears gave lie to her words. Sniffling, she went on to the barn. When Shorty mentioned her stuffiness, she explained it as a lingering trait from her illness the day before, but assured him she felt fine.
Before she could mount and head out with her men, Shane appeared in the barn, looking none the worse for having been in the frozen state Ellie didn’t dare mention to him. Given that Fatima promised only Ellie saw her true appearance, the fairy woman was well aware asylum doors could close on anyone professing to see her as she was. But Fatima could use her magic wand and disappear. Ellie would spend her life inside those dark, dreary walls if she voiced what she saw. She would been imprisoned for her own good, everyone would tell her, since she was obviously having delusions.
“Can we talk for a minute, Ellie?” Shane asked, bringing her thoughts back from that scary road.
“I need to get out on the range. I missed yesterday.”
“Fatima told me you’d been ill yesterday. Are you sure you feel like riding out today?”
“It’s my job,” she told him firmly. “Now, please excuse me.”
He caught her arm before she could get in the saddle. She kept forgetting he could move so fast for such a huge man. His hand was warm and...and big on her arm, though its hugeness was in no way threatening. Instead, it gave her comfort in her distress. Those darned tears jumped back into her eyes, but she backhanded them away.
“We can talk later,” she managed in a rather calm voice.
“I thought you would be interested in why I’m here.”
“I know why.” She kept her gaze on Cinder, stroking the gelding’s dappled neck for something to do. “Darlene said yesterday morning that Elvina was thinking of selling the ranch. With the drought we had last year, few of the other ranchers around here have a lot of ready cash—or would want to expand right now, even if they did.”
“You know quite a bit about ranching.”
“I told you. That’s my job—to run this ranch.”
“Can you show me how it’s done? Running this ranch?”
Ellie chuckled wryly. “In what? A week? It took me years and years of following George around and being quite the little tomboy to know what I do. And even then, like the drought evidenced, there are unavoidable pitfalls.”
“Seems to me there should always be a financial cushion put aside in case of things like the drought.”
“Should be,” Ellie agreed abruptly. “Tell that to Elvina when she gets hold of a mail order catalog.”
He reached one of those large hands around and cupped her chin, turning her head to face him. Resistance was futile, even though her mind clamored with danger warnings. Her heart won, wanting for just a few seconds to savor the comfort flowing from his strong fingers. To enjoy the thrill of his index finger, gently, so gently, stroking her cheek, almost as though he wasn’t aware he was doing it.
A little curl of sensation twisted her belly and meandered downward.
“Have you been crying, Ellie?” he asked softly. So softly for such a huge man.
“No!” she insisted, jerking free with an effort she had to dredge from the bottom of her toes. “Now, excuse me. My men will be wondering where I am.”
She fairly leaped onto Cinder’s back, and the gelding shied in alarm and surprise
. Shane quickly stepped back, slipping his thumbs into the rear pockets of his jeans and drawing her attention once more to how nicely they fit his backside—almost as though he’d had them tailored. She snorted and pulled her hat down firmly on her head, urging Cinder forward with a only a slight touch of her heels. Given Shane Morgan’s pile of money, he probably had bought Dan the Tailor’s entire shop, just to make sure he had proper clothing to wear!
Given Shane Morgan’s pile of money, he would never be interested in a poor little orphan girl from Fort Worth, Texas. He was only being nice.
But lordy, lordy, nice felt awfully...nice from him.
Frowning, Shane wandered over to the barn door and watched Ellie ride out of the yard. Her dappled gelding’s well-curried hide shone silvery in the morning light, and he not for the first time considered the horse might have some Arabian blood. Ellie’s white-blond hair, a marked contrast to the darker shade of her horse, was covered with her hat this morning, the lovely locks tamed in a braid down her back. A back which sat as straight and as tall in the saddle as her short stature allowed.
He didn’t understand her distress over the possibility of Elvina selling the ranch. What on earth could there be for a woman with her potential here in this dreary, dry, desolate country? In this...Texas?
He could offer her so much more—
“Whoa!” he cautioned himself, blurting the word out so loud he startled a pigeon from the barn rafters. The bird swooped toward the door, and Shane ducked instinctively.
I’m only here to figure out whether she’s really Cynthia Spencer instead of Ellie Parker, he reminded himself silently. If she does turn out to be Cynthia, she can buy this ranch herself twenty times over if that’s what she wants to do. And my time here won’t be wasted. Mother will want me to advise Ellie/Cynthia on any investments she decides to make, so I might as well see whether or not this ranch has any potential.
And I might possibly see more potential for a good investment with Rockford’s company than I do now. So even if Ellie’s not Cynthia, this trip could be worth some money to me. And if not, examining Rockford’s business to see if it’s worthy of expansion has served its purpose—to give me an in to get to know Ellie.
“And I’m not looking for a wife, Ellie,” he mused quietly. “Even if I do admire the hell out of how much strength and ability you’ve built in yourself inside that tiny body. Even if that tiny body does have every curve in every right place and make you about the loveliest thing I’ve seen since I visited the Louvre in Paris and saw an exhibit of Delacroix’s paintings. Even if I can’t stop thinking about how well you fit up against my back that night the lion stalked us and wishing I could find out if you’d fit in my arms in another just-right manner.”
Shane pulled his arms to the front and stared at his right hand. Reaching over with his left, he unbuttoned his shirt cuff and rolled it upward. The skin was even more mottled and distasteful on his arm than on his hand, and although he refused to look in the mirror when he was naked any longer, he knew what his right side and back looked like. It was a nightmare. A nightmare which had turned Anastasia’s stomach the first time she saw him back in New York City following the steamboat accident. And which had her delivering his ring to him by messenger within an hour after she left.
Oh, her note had been polite. Overly polite.
I’m sorry, Shane, but it just wouldn’t be fair to you. You deserve someone who can share your life completely. He snorted to himself. What she meant was share both the days and nights completely. I am going to give you your freedom so you can find someone. You are far too wonderful a man to have to marry someone as shallow as me.
Within a month, Anastasia was betrothed to one of the Vandergoods, the oldest son even. The heir apparent, though she would have to wait for the old man to die, which hadn’t been the case with Shane, whose father had passed on years earlier.
Ellie could find someone like that, also, if that’s what she wanted. Or stay here in...Texas. Lord, he still found that word distasteful. She could stay here in Texas and find herself a rough and tough cowboy if that tickled her fancy after the life she had been raised in. Someone who could ride the range with her and take her to circuses and barn dances, instead of operas and museums.
Damn, it had twisted his gut when he saw the tear tracks down her cheeks.
Damn, the idea of her marrying a cowboy—any other man, for that matter—twisted the knot in his belly tighter. But it was best for all concerned.
He went back into the barn. Ellie apparently hadn’t seen the stallion Shane had put in the far stall last night. He needed a large horse to carry himself around if he planned on spending entire days on the range. Blackjack fit the bill. Shane had found him at a Fort Worth stable yesterday afternoon and decided immediately after riding the horse to take him back to New York with him when he went.
For such a huge, wild-looking beast, the stallion was incredibly tame. Shane offered him a couple sugar cubes, and the horse slurped them from his palm and nickered its thanks. Shane curried him briefly, then tacked him up and headed out.
“Yoo hoo!” Fatima called from the porch as soon as Shane got out of the barn.
He reined Blackjack over to the porch and leaned down toward the woman. “What can I do for you, you wonderful cook?” he asked.
“Here.” She handed him a cloth sack, bulging with whatever she had inside it. “I want you to make sure that Ellie stops and eats at noon today. No matter what she says this morning, she was extremely ill yesterday. There’s also a canteen of lemonade in there, and I’ve wrapped it well so perhaps it will stay cool until noon.”
“I doubt that.” Shane glanced up at the sky, already turning white-hot this early in the morning.
“We’ll see about that.” Fatima waved a nonchalant hand. “Just make sure she eats, will you, please?”
“I will.” He reined the stallion away, his pleasure at his assignment filling his thoughts a hell of a lot more than it should have. It wasn’t until he was a mile from the ranch, pulling Blackjack up and scanning the horizon for signs of dust to see which way the men had gone, that he wondered about what Fatima had said.
He thought that Fatima had only met Elvina yesterday, when she applied for the job. It had seemed that way on their trip back to the ranch, when Fatima and her cat rode in the buggy alongside Elvina and Darlene, with Shane and Withers escorting them.
Maybe he hadn’t heard right. Or maybe Elvina had told Fatima about Ellie’s illness. He doubted Elvina Parker would have hired a woman she had just met without checking out her references first. A woman who was going to be living in her house, unlike Elvina had said the housekeeper who quit on her had done.
Huh. Fatima had also known exactly Ellie’s favorite foods for breakfast. Seemed strange, since logically, they had only met this morning. Now that he thought of it, they hadn’t even introduced themselves.
But it wasn’t his business. His business was finding out if Ellie Parker was indeed Cynthia Spencer.
Chapter 10
Gosh darn almighty! Shane and that overgrown elephant of a horse silhouetted the skyline every which way Ellie turned all morning. There was as much chance of ignoring the man as tuning out the Forth Worth High School marching band during the Fourth of July parade every year. And he was every bit as brassy as the horn section—in his quiet way.
He asked questions, and if she didn’t answer, he rode over and asked one of the men. Shorty especially preened like a proud bandy rooster who had just made sure every one of his hens would lay a nice spotted egg that day when Shane deferred to his knowledge of the range and ranching.
Yeah, Shane, she mentally mocked the comment Shorty had just made. A doggy’s a maverick calf. Usually his mama’s been et by somethin’. Maybe a coyote, but they kin only ketch the old cows. We git pumas around here, tho’, and iffen they start makin’ too many kills, we gits a bunch of hands together and go lookin’ for the cat.
“So what do you do with an orphaned ca
lf? A doggy?” Shane asked now.
“We hope another cow’ll take it on,” Shorty said. “But iffen it won’t, we take it back and let Cookie raise it. Only problem with that is, Cookie, he don’t like us to eat none of the ones he raises. Or sell them for meat, neither. So he uses his wages to buy them offen the ranch, and he’s got a smart little herd goin’ down in the south pasture.”
“You suppose he plans on starting his own ranch some day?”
“Of course he does,” Ellie put in. “Lots of the big ranches now were once small, one drover spreads. With careful management, a ranch can grow.”
“Without someone draining profits that should go back into the herd, I assume,” Shane said, keeping his gaze fixed on her as though glad he finally had her attention.
Shorty took the opportunity to ride over and check a nearby cow and calf. With a measure of privacy now, Ellie told Shane what he wanted to know, but grudgingly.
“George could handle Elvina. But the ranch belongs to her now, and her word outweighs mine. Sometimes it’s just too much effort to try to argue with her. I’m just the orphan who was given a home with the Parkers. A doggy calf taken in by them. Part of the time, Elvina will listen and put off what she wants. Other times, come heck or high water, she wants what she wants.”
“Heck or high water?” Shane said with a chuckle. “Ellie, for a woman who spends her days with a bunch of cowboys, you do avoid picking up their language, don’t you?”
Ellie glanced down at her dusty split riding skirt. Thought about the other five skirts exactly like it hanging in her closet, among her two lonely church dresses.
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