by Regina Scott
“We had a problem at the ranch,” she confided, voice low. “Lucas took out a loan from the Empire Bank in Burnet, and the bank has such little faith in me that they sent a man to see how I was running the Windy Diamond.”
Lula May bit off a thread as if she would have liked to sink her teeth into a few recalcitrant bankers. “Let me guess. They want a man to run the ranch.”
Nancy nodded. “And Mr. Cramore, the banker who came out to quiz me, says Hank doesn’t count as he will only leave me.”
Lula May tsked as she pulled out another color of floss and threaded it through her needle. “Sounds like he never met Hank. That man is devoted, Nancy.”
“Apparently so.” Nancy swallowed. “He asked me to marry him.”
Lula May’s brows, a shade darker than her strawberry blonde hair, shot up. “Well, well,” she mused, starting to stitch on the baby’s quilt. “And what did you say?”
“I told him I’d consider the matter. I see the benefits, Lula May, I surely do. But...”
Lula May regarded her out of the corners of her eyes. “But you’re not ready.”
Nancy blew out a breath. “I’m not sure I ever was. I came out here with this wide-eyed notion that two strangers could make a good marriage. Now I understand I never even knew my husband. How much do I know about Hank?”
Lula May lay down her needle and looked Nancy in the eyes. “You know he’s loyal—he stayed at the ranch when he could have moved on.”
Her words were loud enough that Nancy could see other gazes turning their way.
“My husband, Josiah, says he’s a hard worker,” Betsy put in as if she’d heard every word of their hushed conversation. “I know he’s seen him on several roundups now. He says Hank Snowden is a man you can rely on to keep his word.”
“Always nice to us when I see him in town,” Stella Fuller added. “Tips his hat like a gentleman. And he’s kind on the eyes.”
Nancy’s cheeks were heating.
“Everyone in the Lone Star Cowboy League thinks the world of him,” Lula May told her.
Nancy nodded. “We all thought the world of Lucas too, and he proved us fools.”
The others quickly returned to their sewing, but Lula May’s mouth tightened.
“Hank Snowden is no Lucas Bennett,” she insisted. “I’d stake my ranch on that.”
And that, Nancy realized, was exactly what Hank had asked her to do—trust her future and the baby’s future to him. How could she when she couldn’t even trust her own judgment?
She barely saw the dusty road as she drove the wagon home through the clumps of oak and cottonwood. She had to figure out what to do about Hank’s proposal. If only she felt comfortable trusting her own reasoning.
All her life she’d tried to make the best of circumstances. When her father had died, leaving her and her mother without support, she’d helped her mother develop a trade as a midwife. When her mother had left too soon and the townsfolk didn’t want Nancy to continue that trade, she’d answered Lucas Bennett’s ad for a mail-order bride. When Lucas’s initial interest in her had faded into disdain, she’d still tried to be the best wife she could.
Now she had a baby on the way, and the home and livelihood she had thought would sustain her and her child were being threatened. Hank’s offer could solve those problems. But would accepting his offer create other difficulties? What if he was demanding, forcing her to change things to suit his whim as Lucas had done? Could she work hard enough to satisfy him? What if his kindness turned cold? Could she make herself go through that again?
What if he was abusive? She had confided in no one the night Lucas had come home late, smelling of alcohol, and demanding dinner when she’d already banked the stove for the night. As she’d tried to explain, he’d cuffed her. Immediately he’d apologized, but he’d made sure she knew it was her fault for provoking him. How could she let someone like that back into her life, into her child’s life?
Hank Snowden is a good man.
The thought came unbidden, but firm in its conviction.
If only she could believe it.
* * *
Nancy was absent from the porch the next two nights when Hank and the others rode in. Hank might have worried she was sick, except he could see her from his post, going about her chores of washing and working in the vegetable patch. She didn’t ask him to stay behind in the mornings and teach her either.
She was hiding in the house the same way she’d done when her husband had first brought her home as a bride. He didn’t think that boded well for her acceptance of his proposal, but he wasn’t about to badger her over the matter. That surely wouldn’t make her any more amenable to the idea.
Given her retreat, he was surprised to find a note waiting for him in the barn when he, Upkins and Jenks returned from working the next day. The Windy Diamond had bunks for a small contingent of hands. More workers were generally hired during branding in the spring and roundup in the fall. The barn had a stall for a milk cow and a coop for chickens plus a wide room at the back with bunks, a long table and a cook stove, counter and storage.
Over the past year, Hank had grown accustomed to the room, which always smelled like beans, leather and saddle soap. Jenks never made his bunk, and the narrow bed was crowded with a wad of colorful blankets and bits of leather, horse hair and string the youth intended to make use of. Upkins was always complaining about how the sixteen-year-old made room for every barn cat that wanted a place to hunker down for the night.
The veteran was more fastidious—blankets tucked in at right angles and smoothed down flat, hat hung on a peg above his head and belongings stowed in a trunk that slid under the bed. Hank slept on the top bunk above him and tried to keep things neat, if only to prevent them from falling on Upkins below.
He didn’t much care about his belongings, except for the quilt. He’d won it in a raffle to raise money for the new church that was being built in Little Horn. In truth, he wasn’t even sure why he’d bought all the tickets to win the thing. It was pretty and warm and sweet. All the local ladies had stitched at it, and he knew some of the carefully placed threads had been put there by Nancy. She’d been so determined to help raise the money. What man could resist those big hazel eyes?
Still, the folded pink paper sitting on the table was at odds with the mostly masculine setting. Hank could only hope it wasn’t a note dismissing him from his post for his bold suggestion.
“What’s that you got there?” Upkins demanded as he came into the room.
“Looks like a love letter,” Jenks teased, flopping down on his bunk and setting the lariat he was braiding to sliding off the blankets.
Hank ignored them, reading the politely worded note before tucking it in his shirt pocket. “Mrs. Bennett wants to see me.”
Upkins scrunched up his lined face. “She wants a report, most like. You can tell her the herd is hale and hearty.”
Jenks nodded. “Good water, good grazing, no sign of trouble.”
Hank nodded too, though he thought trouble was likely waiting for him, at the ranch house.
He cleaned himself up before answering her summons, and if he tarried over the task neither Upkins nor Jenks berated him for it. It wasn’t often a respectable lady requested a cowboy’s company. His friends no doubt thought he was slicking down his hair, shaving off a day’s worth of stubble and changing into his best blue-and-gray plaid shirt and clean Levi’s to make himself more presentable. He knew he was just delaying the inevitable.
His steps sounded heavy without the chink of spurs as he climbed the steps to the porch. Shaking a drop of water off his hair, he rapped at the front door and heard her call for him to come in. With a swallow, he opened the door and stepped inside.
It was the second time he’d been invited into the ranch house, and he still thought it didn’t look like N
ancy Bennett lived there. Oh, it was neat as a pin, the wood walls painted a prim white and the dark wood floor scrubbed clean. But the entryway had only a mirror and a brass hat hook to brighten it, and the parlor leading off it, with its dual chairs flanking a limestone fireplace, looked as if no one stayed long enough to muss it up. Surely a house that Nancy lived in would have more charm and warmth.
“Back here,” she called, and he followed the sound of her gentle voice down a hallway that led toward the rear door. Three closed doors lined the left wall, and, near the back of the house, a doorway opened onto a wide kitchen.
And Nancy Bennett glowed in her kingdom. He could see her reflection in the silver doors on the massive black cast-iron stove on the back wall, smell the savory results of her efforts from one of the two ovens. How she must take pride in her own hand pump so she didn’t have to go outside to fetch water, and the big pantry lined with shelves where preserves glittered in the lamplight.
But nowhere was her touch more evident than on the long oval table that stood in the center of the room. The expanse was covered with a lacy white tablecloth dotted with shiny brass trivets, a pair of rose porcelain candlesticks dripping crystal and a china vase full of daisies. The entire affair was surrounded by a dozen high, carved-back black walnut chairs. Lucas Bennett must have been expecting company or hoping for a passel of children, because he’d never invited his hands to sit at that table.
Nancy was standing at the head now, wearing a blue dress with green trim, reminding Hank of a clear summer sky and good grass.
“I thought you might join me for dinner,” she said, “so we could discuss your proposal.”
He had a feeling his nerves would make the delicious-smelling food taste like straw, but he nodded. “I’d be honored.”
She smiled, making his legs feel all the more unsteady. “Go on,” she urged, nodding to the foot of the table, where a place had been set with silver cutlery and a crystal glass of lemonade. “I’ll just set out the food.”
His mother had taught him never to sit in the presence of a lady unless the lady sat first. So he stood awkwardly while she carried a tureen of stew smelling of garlic, a basket of biscuits piping hot from the oven and a pot of apple-and-plum preserves to the table and laid them all out on the trivets. Then she gathered her skirts and sat, and Hank sank onto the chair and gazed at her through the steam.
“Shall I say the blessing or would you like to?” she asked.
He could barely swallow much less recite a prayer. “You go ahead.”
She closed her eyes and clasped her hands. “Be present at our table, Lord, be here and everywhere adored. These mercies bless and grant that we may live in fellowship with Thee. Amen.”
“Amen,” Hank managed.
She served him, filling a plate and then rising as if to bring it to him. He leaped to his feet and rushed around the table to take it from her. Her brows went up, but she didn’t speak again until he’d returned to his seat and taken a few bites.
All the while thinking it was a crying shame he couldn’t enjoy the food more, because it was good.
“I’ve been considering your proposal,” she finally said, fork mixing the stew about on her plate. “And I have one question.”
“Only one?” he asked, smile hitching up. “I must have been more persuasive than I thought. Not that I was trying to pressure you,” he hastened to add. Why was it he could never say the right thing with her?
“You have been very kind,” she assured him. “What I want to know is why.”
His mouth suddenly felt as if he’d eaten sand for the last week, and he reached for the glass of lemonade and gulped it down. He knew why his nerves were dancing. Here was his opportunity to tell her the truth. Yet if he told her, would she allow him to make amends? The need to right the wrong he’d done was like a burning mass in his gut.
“I suppose I feel guilty,” he allowed, setting down his glass. “By reporting on the business of the league, I aided Mr. Bennett with his thieving. Seems only right to help his widow and child.”
Her gaze dropped to her still-full plate. “Not everyone would think that way. Lucas always said you and Mr. Upkins and Billy would ride on when you tired of the place. You marry me, Hank, and you stay here. This would be our home.”
He realized his knee was bouncing and forced it to stop. Staying put might not be so bad. He’d been a tumbleweed for too long. He couldn’t have faced a future in Waco, not with all the bad memories of his father and Mary Ellen, but maybe Little Horn could be home.
“I can settle,” he told her.
She didn’t look as if she believed him, fork once more rearranging the food on her plate.
“I must ask one more thing of you,” she murmured, gaze following the movement of the silver. “If we marry, we would put this ranch in trust for the baby. You and I would have to agree to any changes in that trust.”
He nodded. “That’s as it should be. A man wants his children to inherit what he built.” If that man could believe in his children. His father never had.
She drew in a deep breath. “Very well, then, Hank. We can talk to the lawyer in town, set up the papers to be signed the day of our marriage.”
Hank stared at her, feeling as if the stew had multiplied in his stomach. “Our marriage?”
She nodded, laying down her fork at last. “Yes, Hank. I am agreeing to your proposal. I will marry you.”
Chapter Five
Hank wandered back to the barn after dinner, steps still decidedly wobbly. Nancy had agreed to marry him. He was going to be a husband and a father. He wasn’t sure what to do, what to think.
Upkins caught his shoulder as Hank stepped into the bunk room.
“Whoa there, son,” he said, frowning into Hank’s face. “What happened?”
Jenks shifted away from his belongings. “Did Widder Bennett toss you out?”
Hank shook his head, more to clear it than to answer their questions. “She’s going to marry me.”
Upkins released him so fast, Hank nearly fell.
“What!” the veteran demanded, stepping back.
Jenks scrambled off his bunk, sending a cat dashing out the door beside Hank. “Why’d you go and do something so low-down?”
“Low-down?” Hank frowned at him. “I offered her my name, my protection. You know she can’t run this place by herself.”
“We can.” Upkins widened his stance, though his six-guns were safely in their holsters by his bunk. “And I thought we were doing a good job of it too. No reason for you to push yourself forward.”
“Taking advantage of a lady in her time of need,” Jenks agreed, coming to join the older cowhand.
“It’s not like that,” Hank told them. “I’ll be her husband in name only.”
Jenks looked from him to Upkins. “What’s that mean?”
Upkins shrugged, clearly as puzzled.
“It means I’m bunking with you and riding out like always,” Hank explained. “But as far as the Empire Bank is concerned, Mrs. Bennett has a man running the ranch.”
Jenks scratched his ear as if he couldn’t have heard right. “So what’s she calling you? Mr. Bennett number two?”
Not while he lived. “She’ll be Mrs. Snowden now.”
Upkins shook his grizzled head. “Makes no sense. Wives rely on husbands for more than the change of name, as far as I can see.”
Jenks nodded. “Spiritual leadership and genteel companionship as the years go by.”
Hank started laughing. “Well, guess I won’t make much of a husband, then. Seriously, boys, nothing’s going to change.”
Upkins still didn’t look convinced. “You really going to settle for my cooking when you have the right to sit at her table?”
Dinner hadn’t been all that comfortable tonight, but
the food had been far tastier than the cowboy’s. Hank could imagine sitting next to Nancy after a long day, sharing stories, planning for the future. She’d smile, and he’d know that all was right with the world. He wouldn’t have been surprised if he wasn’t smiling just thinking about it. He put on a somber face.
“We didn’t agree on specifics,” he admitted.
“Then I reckon you ought to,” Upkins told him. “Are you obliged to drive her to services every Sunday? Is she going to expect you to take on chores around the house? Who’s giving the orders to ride, you or her?”
Hank shook his head. “Maybe you should have offered to marry her. Seems you have it all figured out.”
“I’ve got the questions, son,” Upkins retorted. “That don’t mean I got the answers.”
“Neither do I,” Hank said. “But there’s something you should know. She’s carrying Bennett’s child.”
Jenks’s brows rose so high they disappeared under his thatch of red hair. Upkins let out a low whistle, then narrowed his eyes at Hank.
“You aim to be its pa?”
“Yes,” Hank said. “You have a problem with that, best you ride on now.”
For a moment, Upkins held his gaze, and Jenks seemed to be holding his breath. Then Upkins nodded.
“We’ll all help,” he declared with a look to Jenks, who nodded so fast Hank thought the boy’s head might rattle.
“You’ll make the babe a good pa,” Jenks agreed.
Hank didn’t know how Jenks could be so sure. He wasn’t. He didn’t even have a good example to follow, unless it was to do what his father hadn’t.
“I intend to try,” he told them both.
Once more Jenks glanced between Hank and Upkins. “So, we’re going to have a wedding.”
Hank laughed. “I reckon we are, and as soon as possible. I guess I better talk to Pastor Stillwater.”
* * *
As it turned out, the local minister wasn’t the only one Hank had to talk to about his and Nancy’s wedding. Hoping for a word with the pastor, Hank took Nancy into Little Horn that Sunday for services in the old revival tent the town used while the first church building and parsonage were being constructed nearby.
