John stayed the rest of the afternoon, reading his own novel alongside Evelyn. He’d pause in his reading occasionally to ask a question about her book. Thankfully, as soon as the sun began to set, he wished her good evening and finally left. She found him surprisingly honest, even if he was vain. He seemed genuine in a way that her previous suitors hadn’t.
Still, there was only so much of him she could take. When the door closed behind him, she let out a sigh of relief. His persistence almost proved too much. She brightened up considerably, however, when her father visited later. She prodded him with endless questions about the state of the ranch until he gave her detailed answers to all of them.
The sun was long down by the time her father left the room, opening the door wide enough for Evelyn to see Jesse standing next to the door. He stepped backward when her eyes met his, as if he’d been caught in the act of something terrible.
Her father nodded abruptly at him, and then inclined his head toward her. “I’m all done here. You can go in.”
Jesse took off his hat as he entered the room. He looked back at the door as her father closed it, waiting for him to leave. He spoke when the door finally closed halfway.
“I was so worried about you, Eve.”
The sound of her nickname soothed her more than laudanum ever could. “Father told me about how you saved me from the fire.” She pursed her lips. “Not that I approve of ignoring the state of the barn.”
Jesse rolled his eyes, but his solemn features cracked into a smile. His fingers traced the brim of his hat as he spoke. “Next time I’ll be sure to leave you in the barn.”
“Do that and I will come back from the grave and fire you on the spot, Jesse Greenwood.”
“Sure would be an experience.” The hard planes of his face contrasted against the curved ease of his grin. “How’s life in bed?”
She lifted up the two tomes on her covers, each one weighing nearly five pounds. “Years of formal education finally came to use. I can now bore myself all day with the collection in my father’s library.”
“Sounds exciting.”
“A real rodeo, definitely.” She patted her bed. “Sit.”
He started, as if he’d considered it for a second, but then his shoulders squared again, and he stood up straighter. “That’s fine. I can stand. That bed’s yours. You rest on it.”
Evelyn nibbled her lower lip. “I am not going to break. You can sit down on the bed. I can handle that.”
He finally obeyed, but he still looked uncomfortable. He perched so gingerly on the quilt that her bed hardly shifted with his added weight. It was as if he’d entered some sacred Native American religious grounds and was under surveillance by the federal marshal at the same time. She wanted to laugh at the sight of her cowboy, who could walk into a burning barn without a second thought, yet seemed so wary of sitting on a girl’s bed.
“I still cannot believe you followed me into that burning barn.” She reached for his right hand and clasped it in both of hers. “Thank you.”
“I would follow you anywhere if you were in trouble.” His eyes flickered down at his hand. He didn’t move either, just sat there with a spine ramrod straight.
“What about a corral full of stampeding bulls?”
His lips quirked upward in a smile. “Even there.”
“Most people would not risk their life like that.” She squeezed his hand, but his remained motionless. She was desperate for a physical sign of his affection. If not for his replies, she wouldn’t have believed he cared about her at all.
“I’m not most people.”
Evelyn looked up into his round brown eyes. They’d always looked so warm to her; they were what first convinced her to get to know him better. His soft, kind eyes always expressed that he was more than some rough cowboy who helped out on her father’s ranch. He was different than the rest.
“You are not like anyone else,” she whispered. She let go of his hand to place her own in her lap, lacing her fingers together.
His gaze followed, as if he considered grabbing them. Instead, he stood up from her bed. She couldn’t help feeling a twinge of disappointment. Whoever wrote to her was so expressive in the letters. Maybe she was hoping for too much from the silent cowboy. He moved toward the glass window, his hands clasped behind his back. Strength rippled from his forearms and his defined upper biceps through the thin material of his shirt, and she longed to run her hands across his body.
She squeezed her hands in her lap instead. He probably thought she was a fool for appearing too eager.
• • •
Jesse felt like an idiot. When she’d let go of his hand, of course, he should have reached out. She’d practically given him permission when she grabbed his hand first.
But what if she hadn’t? What if she were just being friendly by that gesture? Isn’t that what she’d asked him a month ago—Can’t we be friends?
He wished someone taught him how to handle women the way he was taught to handle cattle. He and Evelyn started out as friends years ago, but that was before she’d rejected him. He wanted nothing more than for someone to instruct him on the right way to talk to a woman. Or convince a woman to give him a second chance.
When he turned back around, she was staring down into her lap. Her hunched shoulders pushed her breasts against the top of her dress again. The soft flesh of her neck was exposed as well, and her dress had been pulled up above her ankles so she could inspect the swelling. He glanced down at her legs, the shapely arch of her calf tempting him without as much as a movement.
He cleared his throat. He couldn’t think about satisfying the head beneath his waist if she was offering him friendship. “What books are you reading?”
She picked up one of the volumes and thumbed through the yellowed pages. “Both are absolutely boring and make me wonder how soon my ankle will heal. I’m just lonely during the day, mostly. I miss the outdoors.” She set the book down, and then hope sparkled in her eyes. “You will visit me tomorrow, will you not?”
“I’ve got work to do on the ranch all day . . .” His voice trailed off at the droop in her shoulders. “But I’m sure I can make some time.”
“No, I cannot believe I even asked.” She gestured to the window, or what Jesse assumed was really the remains of the barn outside. “If I were up and able, I would spend all my time fixing that barn. With our ranch hands low, Father and the other boys need all the help they can get. I will be fine here on my own.” A small smile broke out at the corner of her mouth. “Let us see how many more books will put me to sleep before my ankle heals.”
He chuckled, but his heart ached at the thought of her here alone. He could probably make some time to see her during the day, he reckoned.
True to his plan, he hurried through his chores the next day. Fieldings was preoccupied with lifting a beam back into the rafters long enough for Jesse to slip away from the other cowboys and back toward the big house.
He even picked some honeysuckle from one of the pastures near the ranch. If she couldn’t go outside, he’d bring the outdoors to her.
His footsteps slowed when he heard the sound of a familiar masculine voice inside her bedroom. John Cooper. His brow furrowed. What was the judge’s son doing here? He paused near the doorway, trying to hear the conversation inside.
The voices were too faint for him to make out, though. He peered in the room instead, his body safely hidden behind the door.
John Cooper laughed at something Evelyn had said, responding in an animated way, with wide hand gestures and exaggerated expressions across his delighted face.
Whatever he’d said, it made Evelyn laugh, too. Her forgotten books laid haphazardly to the side of her bedspread, probably chucked in a hurry when John had entered the room.
Jesse glared at the scene. His only knowledge of the man was seeing him with the judge and hearing Loretta’s raving about how handsome he was. John Cooper was clean-shaven and polished. White shirt, black coat, fancy dress shoes. Uppe
r class. Good family. East Coast education. Everything Jesse wasn't.
He clenched his fists as he watched the two talk. John responded to Evelyn immediately, with smooth ease. His shoulders were relaxed, and he even patted her hand a few times during their conversation.
Jesse didn't need to torture himself anymore. John Cooper knew how to talk to a woman, and the woman he’d chosen was Evelyn. His intentions were as clear as day.
He swallowed hard. Evelyn was no fool. Surely she could tell John was sweet on her. But what did she see in him? His body was too weak to help her out on the ranch. Everyone knew he couldn’t shoot a door in a duel, though he bragged about his pistol. He wasn’t even that handsome.
Jesse walked back down the hallway, but paused before a small basin filled with water. He gazed down at his reflection. He’d never spent much time worrying about his appearance. The scruff on his chin had gone unmanaged for a while and he’d let his beard grow out longer than he had before. A smear of dirt had somehow gone unnoticed across the bridge of his nose. He swiped it away, but it didn’t change his appearance. Even with his newfound wealth in California, it didn’t change who he really was: a cowboy.
John Cooper, meanwhile, was a well-bred judge’s son. He could spend all day talking about academics with Evelyn, or reminisce about their time near the Atlantic. They were of the same class; they had blue-blooded upbringings in common.
All she wanted from Jesse was friendship. None of the letters he’d received from her were addressed to anyone in particular. She still had no idea it was him.
The honeysuckle crushed in his hand as he clenched his fist. She clearly didn’t even care about the letters. Jesse stormed out of the house and back to the ranch chores with new purpose. At the back of his mind, he knew his efforts were useless.
No amount of cattle herding or fence mending was going to get his Eve out of his mind.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Father, have you seen Jesse?” Evelyn laid her fork down next to her plate. She hadn’t seen him all day. She hadn’t seen him in the last few days, actually. “Does he not eat in the house anymore?”
“You’ve been in bed for the last two weeks, Evelyn. He’s been eating in the cookhouse with the other cowboys lately. Works himself way too hard for this ranch.”
She frowned. “Why does he eat in the cookhouse now?”
“Blend in with the boys. He’s more than fulfilled his end of the bargain by investing in the ranch, but he’s serious about not letting any of the other ranch hands know about his part in saving Breighton. Says he wants to be just another cowboy back on the ranch again while he’s here.”
She pursed her lips. That was probably why he hadn’t visited her in the last week, she reasoned with herself. He was busy with work on the ranch. She smothered worries of his waning interest. “Do we still keep his room at the big house?”
“Oh, sure. He still sleeps here. He just prefers to take his meals somewhere else.” Her father shrugged. “Whatever suits him is fine with me.”
Evelyn patted the edge of her mouth with her napkin and then placed it beside her plate. She scooted her chair out from the table and excused herself. After a nod from her father, she headed toward the porch. She opened the front door and stepped onto the porch. No ranch work for at least another two weeks, the doctor ordered, but Evelyn was just grateful to be able to go outside again.
She breathed in the fresh air like it was the first time she’d ever done so. The dry Texan heat of dusk comforted her. Being inside for too long made her feel trapped, and deprived. She had only her father and John to keep her company. She’d written to Jesse as soon as she’d been able to get out of bed, and placed the letter in the tree knothole, her heart hammering in her chest thinking of his possible reply.
Tonight her letter was gone. Someone had taken it away and read it.
Yet there was no reply.
She frowned. There was always a reply.
The back-and-forth motion of the oak rocker she rested against gave her some semblance of peace on the porch. She placed her elbow on one of the wooden chair arms and rested her cheek in her palm. Her head tilted slightly, eyes fixed the tree knothole where her letter had been laid. Maybe one of the other ranch hands had picked it up. Her heart hammered in her chest. Who else could have the letter?
A pair of familiar, newfangled leather chaps and iron spurs entered her line of vision. Her gaze followed up the line of high-stitched scalloped cowboy boots and into Jesse’s gaze. She smiled.
“Hello, Jesse.”
He didn’t smile in return.
“Hello, Evelyn.”
Her gut tightened when she heard the formal address of her name once more. Why did he seem so solemn all of a sudden?
“What happened to ‘Eve’, hmm?”
Her hand brushed past his. He recoiled at the touch, as if her hand would burn him. She suppressed the urge to sigh. Lately she’d been nothing but walking on eggshells around him. Was she being too forward again?
“Seems like your ankle healed.”
Evelyn looked down at the bandage, and then turned a sharp look back up to him. Did he really not want to see her while she was recovering? She curled the hand he’d scorned around the end of one of the chair arms. Even John had visited her, several times. She bit her lip.
“Why did you not visit me the past two weeks?”
His shoulders straightened. He stared directly ahead instead of at her. When he finally spoke, his tone sounded indifferent. “I had work to do.”
Her lips parted. She could see the tensed muscles corded up in Jesse’s forearm. His fists weren’t clenched, but he was hardly at ease. “You could have visited, at least once. I have not seen you at all—”
“Surely you understand all the work required on the ranch.”
“I wanted you to visit. I was worried something happened to you.” Her brow furrowed. “Are you ignoring me?”
He swallowed, but looked at her. His brown eyes, which had once gazed so warmly in her direction, seemed cold as ice now. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I feel like we are just running in circles. I offer my friendship to you, and you shut me out.” She swallowed to prevent herself from mentioning the letters. It seemed impossible that all the tender words of love expressed so eloquently could come from the same man whose tone was now as icy as an East Coast blizzard. Clearly he possessed no feelings of emotional attachment toward her. “I know we cannot help but think about what happened between us in the past, but we can put that behind us.”
She could see the hairs bristle on the back of his neck. He nodded curtly. “I’ve never let the past get in the way of working the ranch.”
Lies, Evelyn wanted to reply. His perfect indifference infuriated her. “Are you playing games with me? You are nice to me one minute, and then you ignore me the next.”
She saw him flex his right hand, as if exercising self-restraint. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
Say something! She wanted to yell it so loudly that all the neighboring ranches of Texas would hear her and telegram to tell her to be quiet. She wanted to exclaim the words until Jesse finally communicated with her.
“Good night,” he muttered. His boots clipped against the wooden floorboards as he swung open the porch door and stepped inside the house.
• • •
Evelyn wasn’t able to sleep that night. She tossed and turned, burying her hands beneath her pillow. Her mind filled with possible solutions for his silence. He wouldn’t express his feelings to her in person, but there had to be a way to reach out to him.
The only communication she seemed to have with him anymore was through the letters. Better than nothing.
Hours after midnight, she took out a pen and paper to confess her confusion and detail her disappointment. She stuffed the letter into an envelope and placed it in the knothole. Hopefully he’d see it in the morning before he went to work on the ranch. The sooner he saw the letter, the
sooner they’d be back to normal.
It was midday when Evelyn dared to venture out to the tree knothole again. If Jesse really had received her letter, it would be gone by now. She put on her best dress and tied her hair up neatly. Her mouth pursed at her reflection and her hands smoothed over the front ruffles of her green dress with white piping. Maybe he would be waiting on her porch again, ready to finally admit his feelings toward her.
But what if she’d made up all of their moments in her head? She twirled a lock of hair around her finger as she stepped off the porch and into her front yard. Maybe Jesse didn’t write those letters after all—
Her train of thought was interrupted by the sight before her.
Standing there, holding an envelope with a broken seal in one hand and reading her long letter from the other, was John Cooper.
He scanned her words of love like a bear drooling over a stash of honey without a hive guarding it. His blue eyes were as wide as saucers. Disbelief, joy, and appreciation passed over his expression in alternating cycles.
“John Cooper?” At her interruption, his gaze darted from her to the letter in his hand. She gulped. There had to be a logical explanation. She stepped forward with caution, as if coming too close would only confirm her nightmare. “Why are you holding that letter?”
“Who did you write this letter for?” John smiled at her, his features lighting up. He shook the paper as if he’d found some great prize. “You write here that you give the addressee full permission to court you—to whom is this addressed to?”
“The man who leaves me letters.” Evelyn felt her palms gather perspiration. The way John held the letter frightened her, as if he owned the envelope and the letter and her. “I found the first note addressed to me, and I have kept a correspondence with the person who writes them.”
John glanced back at the letter. He seemed to be considering something, his forehead creased with concentration as he read over her words again. Her cheeks burned. She wanted nothing more than to snatch the letter right out of his grasp. Those words weren’t meant for him!
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