She marched through the front door and ventured toward the stairs. Dusty’s scent lingered on her nose, a combination of earth and leather. She willed herself to think of the expensive cologne Chad wore that day instead.
“Sophie.” Her father called her from the sitting room.
She reversed direction and went to her parents. Her mother reclined on the ivory settee while her father stood by the mantel. The dormant fireplace at his feet was covered with an elaborate screen.
“Yes?” Sophie folded her hands in front of her and looked serene. Her mother’s gaze shot straight to the top of her head.
“Why is your bonnet askew?”
Sophie fidgeted with it in the reflection of the glass cabinet beside the fireplace. “It fell in the hay.” That was partially true at least. “What did you need to speak to me about?”
“You already know.” Her father gestured for her to have a seat on the settee. “This cause you devoted yourself to for the town belle contest is inappropriate for a young lady of your standing. You’ll need to inform the contest committee that you’ll be changing it.”
“But, Daddy, I can’t. I stood onstage and told the town that I’d be involved with women’s voting on school elections.”
He gave a firm shake of his head. “No daughter of mine will be picketing in front of the mayor’s office and pumping her fists in the air like a rabble-rouser. You were raised to be genteel.”
“Your father is right,” her mother added. “The cause should be one that reflects who you are. A lady.”
“A lady that can’t vote,” Sophie muttered. Her parents heard.
“Where does this interest in voting come from all of a sudden?” Her father moved to sit in his favorite plush chair. “Did someone suggest it to you?”
“I thought of it when nothing else came to mind.”
Sophie’s mother clucked her tongue. “In that case, think of something else to do. Why not bake cookies for my ladies’ tea social? Or you can donate your old dresses to the less affluent girls of the town.”
“Mother, Mayor Hooper said to choose a worthy cause. Ladies would indeed like clothes and cookies, but that sounds . . . well, lighthearted.” Sophie recalled Chad’s response to her choice. “People expect me to do those things. This would come as a surprise.”
Her mother crossed a leg. “Remember when we lived in a one-room house in Louisiana? Your father has worked hard so that this family could raise its social standing. Don’t endanger that.”
Sophie winced at the displeased expressions on her parents’ faces. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. Just permit me to keep the cause.”
Her father sighed. “Why?”
“If I change my stance, people will think the task was too hard for me. I’ll be laughed at.” Sophie went to his chair. “Daddy, you even said so yourself last year that I could use more responsibility. Here’s my chance.”
“I said that when I scolded you for gossiping about the Reverend’s wife. This matter is unrelated.”
“But it is related.”
“How?” Both parents asked in unison.
She thought fast. “I could show the town that I’ve improved. I can follow after you, Daddy, and have the Charlton name be associated with progress. You helped bring the railroad and businesses here. I can convince Assurance that the women’s vote, too, is needed for advancement.”
He had a gentle laugh. “You are a persuasive talker. When you put it that way, perhaps you could play a small role in the election.”
Sophie was pleased by the turnabout.
“David, do you mean to tell me you are fine with the idea of our daughter being a politician?” Her mother’s voice shrilled. Sophie quieted so her parents could debate amongst themselves.
“Of course not, Lucretia. She wouldn’t be running for office. She’d be encouraging women to perform their civic duty and—how did you say it, Sophie?—advance our town. Apparently, she believes we’re not forward-thinking enough.”
Her mother touched the cameo brooch at her neck. “I don’t like this notion.”
“I’m not altogether fond of the idea either, but Sophie feels she can make a difference. If she agrees to undertake this cause and stay with it, she’ll have my support.”
“Thank you, Daddy.” Sophie smiled at him.
He gave her a serious face in return, but the twinkle in his blue eyes told a different tale. “Your mother and I are entrusting you to conduct yourself properly. The minute you do otherwise, you won’t be permitted to continue. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Off to bed, then. I suspect you’ll have your work cut out for you in the next few months.”
“Thank you. I promise I won’t disappoint.” Sophie kissed her mother and father goodnight.
Sophie all but skipped into her room, washed, and changed into her nightgown. As she lay in bed, she thought of what her first course of action could be to get women the right to vote. Maybe she could visit Mayor Hooper at his office on Monday and ask. No, too soon. He needed to get over his mad spell. Once Chad returned from his trip, she’d ask him to help her get into his father’s good graces again.
Sophie closed her eyes in the darkness and thought of Dusty. That kiss. Chad could never know about it. It was her fault for letting Dusty get too close. She resolved not to make the same mistake twice.
CHAPTER 5
T HREE WEEKS WENT by with no visitors to the farm. Dusty knew Sophie was bluffing about Chad coming to call upon her. If the mayor’s boy was intent on such a thing, he would have been out for a visit by now.
Confident in his deduction, Dusty loaded the last of the dirty straw into the wheelbarrow. The barn was finally swept clean, but work on a farm was never done. Tomorrow it would be time to plow the eastern field for the wheat crop to be planted. Wiping his face on his sleeve, he walked to the water pump and filled a bucket to wash up for supper. Mr. Charlton ran a tight ship, but at least he treated his workers with decency by letting them eat in the house.
Dusty anticipated sitting across from Sophie at the table. As the cool water ran down his face, he smiled, thinking about that kiss he gave her weeks before. Nearly three years he’d been waiting to plant a kiss on those pink lips. It was worth it. He hoped it wouldn’t be another three years before he got a second chance.
“You. Worker.”
Dusty raised his head and turned. Chad Hooper rode up to him on a gray gelding, stopping within five paces of the water pump. “I remember you from the festival. Basket bidding, wasn’t it? I’ve seen you at the bank once or twice, too.”
Dusty stared at him. He went to the bank at least once a month, and the mayor’s son still didn’t know who he was.
Chad pushed his brown curving-brimmed bowler at an angle atop his head. He was dressed in a matching three-piece suit with a burgundy diamond-patterned wide necktie. The man was fit for a Sunday. Too bad it was Tuesday afternoon.
“Can I help you?” Dusty rubbed his face dry with the edge of his shirt collar.
“Yes, I’m here to see Miss Charlton. Is she in?”
“
The house, you mean? I reckon so.” So much for Sophie’s bluffing. There her gentleman caller was, looking down upon the world from his high horse.
“Would you mind taking my horse?” Chad dismounted and handed off the reins to Dusty. “Don’t give him too much water. He’s had plenty at the lake on the way here.”
Chad walked with a purpose up to the house and knocked on the front door. Dusty had half a mind to tell him to tether his own horse when the door opened and Sophie breezed out. Her red and white pinstriped dress billowed in the wind, making him think of peppermints at a confectioner’s store. Her curly blonde hair framed her face in a windswept halo.
“Chad, you’re just in time for dinner.”
“I hope you prepared something special for me.”
Dusty raised an eyebrow. No one said anything about him coming over to break bread with the family. He observed as Sophie preened like a golden bird before her guest.
“I’ve prepared a four-course dinner with egg custard for dessert,” she announced with pride.
“Then let’s not waste time standing here while the food gets cold.” Chad waved to get Dusty’s attention. “Sterling? That’s your name, isn’t it?”
Dusty was surprised he knew. He nodded to Chad. Sophie glanced at him with an indeterminable expression. He longed to know what she was thinking.
“On second thought, give my horse water. And some oats. I may be here for a few hours.” Chad disappeared into the house behind Sophie without giving him another glance.
Dusty stood alone in front of the house. The handle of the water pump creaked behind him as the wind pushed at it. The gray gelding snorted and pawed the ground.
“Come on, then.” He led the gelding into the barn and placed him in a stall beside Bess. He shut the door a little too forcefully, making both the mare and gelding turn their heads.
He returned to the water pump. David came out from the kitchen entrance of the house with a bowl in both hands covered with a checkered napkin. “Ma says to bring you this. We’re having company over tonight.”
Dusty intercepted the lukewarm bowl of beans and cornbread, leftovers from the midday meal. He imagined the fancier fare that Sophie would be serving her dinner guest. “Thanks. I guess I’ll eat it outside the bunkhouse.”
“Mind if I join you?” the sixteen-year-old asked, but was already following him across the field.
“Don’t mind if your folks don’t.”
“Nah. Ma and Pa just want Sophie to impress Mr. Hooper. They don’t care if I’m at the table or not. They don’t notice me anyway.”
“That can’t be true.”
“Sure it is. All Ma and the girls talk about is sewing dresses and going to tea parties. Pa only talks when the subject’s on farming or business.”
“I suspect that’s ’cause he enjoys what he does.” Dusty deposited himself on the stoop in front of the small bunkhouse. Sophie’s brother sat on the step below him.
“Yeah, but not everybody wants to take after him, pulling roots out the ground and breaking their backs to push a plow.”
Dusty bit off a chunk of cornbread as he considered where the conversation was heading. “You don’t wanna be like your pa?”
David looked down and twiddled his thumbs. “He works hard and all, but I guess I’m wanting to do something else.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. What made you become a cowboy?”
Dusty set the bowl of beans down. It had been a long time since anyone asked him about his way of life before he arrived at the Charltons. He didn’t have an answer prepared. “I guess I never thought of being much else. My father was a rancher. Same as his father. Been around horses and cattle all my life.”
The boy’s eyes lit up. “I don’t remember you saying your family owned a ranch. Guess I wasn’t payin’ attention. Where is it? Down in San Antonio?”
A wistful feeling settled over him and he wished he had something else to occupy his thoughts with. Thinking about Sophie wouldn’t help. She was in that house cooking for someone else. “We had to sell it after the war. Didn’t have the money to keep it running.” Dusty studied the white clouds rolling across the sky above the wheat field.
“Where are your folks now?”
“Still in San Antonio. They live in a nice house in the city. My youngest sister’s fixing to get married this summer.”
“How come you didn’t stay?”
How could he put it in words a sixteen-year-old would understand? “Ranching’s in my family’s blood, but I guess the Lord put a little bit more in mine than he did the rest of my folks. After we sold the ranch, I wanted to see if I could strike out on my own, so I took jobs as a hired hand on other folks’ ranges.”
“I bet you liked that.”
He groaned inwardly as he considered the number of odd jobs he held in the past five years since he left home: ranch hand, wrangler, livery worker, farmhand. If his family’s ranch hadn’t gone under, he would have had his own ranch by now, or at least be in line to inherit one, but the closest he ever got to it was being trail boss for a man whose longhorns had to be turned away at the station for having Texas fever.
If he owned a ranch, it would be him in that house dining with Sophie, not outside playing stable boy to some silver spoon’s horse.
He picked up the bowl of beans and forced a cold, mushy spoonful in his mouth. Thinking about the past and wondering about Sophie’s dinner with Chad took away his appetite.
David picked up pebbles in front of the steps and threw them into the field. “Will you teach me how to tie a lasso sometime?”
“Maybe, if I can find a good enough rope around here.”
“I’ll look for some.” David leaped up and disappeared into the barn.
Dusty dumped the remaining portion of beans into the hog trough and made for the direction of the house. He saw lights from two of the windows in the kitchen and a flurry of movement in front of the stove. The fact that Sophie was working hard to impress that spoiled banker made him clench his jaw. The evening wind gathered enough force to push at his back.
You shouldn’t have let Chad talk to you like that. He’s not your boss.
He agreed with the inaudible voice, though there was little he could do about it. As a hired hand on the farm, he was expected to tend to his work and anyone on the property that needed assistance, whether they asked nicely or not.
Laughter carried from the dining room. He heard silverware clink against porcelain dishes as he stepped inside the kitchen. Sophie appeared in the doorway as he put the bowl in the copper sink. She rested her hands on her slender hips.
“What are you doing in here?”
Sophie didn’t wait for an explanation from Dusty as he stood by the wash basin, dirty as a dung beetle. He seemed to prefer walking around in that fashion as of late. Likely it was to embarrass her in front of Chad. As her mother said, the condition of a woman’s household is known by the appearance of the help. “You need to leave. Immediately.”
“I was returning the dish your brother took outside for me.”
Sophie looked over her shoulder at t
he dining room table. Chad carried on a discussion with her parents about the railroad while two of her siblings ate their meals in silence. No one heard Dusty come into the kitchen, thankfully. She ventured to the cabinet for an extra serving spoon, her original intent. “You know I don’t want you embarrassing me while Chad is here.”
Dusty still didn’t move. He was quiet for a long moment. When she looked into his eyes, they were angry. She had never seen him like that before. He was always so unassuming and good-natured. In that moment she assumed Dusty could bite the head off a bear, fangs and all.
Without a word, he exited the kitchen, letting the door bang shut behind him. The sound reverberated through the cupboards and along the walls.
Sophie cringed as the dining room became quiet.
“Sophie, are you alright in there?” Her father was the first to speak. “Do you need help?”
“No, I’m coming.” She took the serving spoon and returned to the dining table. All five faces expressed bewilderment.
“What was that I just heard?” asked her mother.
Sophie allowed Chad to seat her. “It was just Dusty returning a dish to the wash basin to be cleaned.”
Chad scoffed as he sat down and pushed his chair closer to the table. “How rude of him. He knows you have company this evening.”
Sophie didn’t remark upon that being the very reason why he slammed the door. “You were saying, about your railroad capping investment.”
“You mean capitalist. Yes, I think it is staging to become a very lucrative venture, especially within the next decade. You might be interested, Mr. Charlton. I could show you some figures I put together at the bank.”
Sophie picked at her plate of veal and roast vegetables. Chad certainly had grown more business-minded over the past year. She let her mind wander from the conversation at the table to the one she had with Dusty before she’d gone and made him mad.
A Windswept Promise Page 4
