A gunshot split the air.
Surprise loosened the meaty fingers, giving John an instant to snatch away the lottery ticket.
“That’s enough!” An authoritative shout filled the shocked silence. “Everyone who doesn’t have a claim ticket between twenty-four and thirty, out.”
Groans and cursing.
“I mean it. Out, or the next bullet is going into someone’s foot. Won’t kill ya, but it’ll hurt like the dickens.”
Whoever this guy was, John liked him.
Hat Woman struggled to pull herself up, but that didn’t keep her from pointing her finger at John and shouting. “That man stole my lottery ticket!”
“What? No!” John pointed at the real thief. “It was this man.”
For such a large fellow, the lout moved with remarkable speed. He shot to his feet and bowled through people on his way out the tent flap door while John—who had jumped up to go after him—struggled to pull free of Hat Woman without injuring her. He bent down to pry her fingers from his ankle, but the look in her eyes immobilized him.
Not the accusation or alarm on their gray-blue surface, but the anguish one level deeper. She’d lost someone dear to her—either by death or betrayal—and the grief was fresh.
John knew grief. It had been his constant companion for six years. At first, it was handcuffed to him in a dark cell where it taunted and tortured him. When thin light penetrated the prison walls he’d built with his own hands, grief was still there and still his enemy, but one he’d learned to anticipate. Over the years, he’d made peace with his nemesis, learning to embrace it every spring when bluebonnets filled the meadow or when riding past Miller’s Soda Shop. Sometimes he and grief shared a gentle memory of times past, sometimes they persevered through gut-twisting regret for a memory never made.
Yes, he knew grief.
And the woman standing before him still considered it her enemy.
Sarah snatched her lottery ticket from the thief’s slack fingers. He didn’t flinch. Or resist. Or even seem to notice. He stared down at her, a tenderness in his green eyes that irritated and mesmerized her. Was it fair to label him a thief? He didn’t look like one. And he wasn’t oafish like the man she’d wrestled with. This man looked…intrepid. And sturdy. And not at all like Eugene. But still.
He’d had her ticket.
Maybe he wasn’t a thief, but he wasn’t a gentleman either. The least he could do was offer to help her up.
“Everything okay here, ma’am?”
Sarah yanked her attention away from the—whatever he was—to address the craggy soldier holding a pistol in his hand. “I believe no permanent damage was done.”
Except to her hat, poor thing. Mrs. Robertson insisted Sarah keep it as a you’re-better-off-not-wedding-him present. It was too fancy for the plain, sturdy clothing she’d ordered from the dressmaker in lieu of a wedding trousseau, but Sarah wanted to wear it today for good luck…or to bolster her spirits. She’d been prepared for crude surroundings. She hadn’t been quite as prepared for the crude men.
“Allow me to help you up.”
She retrieved her crushed hat, looping the still-tied bow around her arm, and lifted her arms toward the soldier…who was walking away. Strong hands fit themselves under her armpits and hoisted her to her feet. As soon as she got her balance, she whirled around. It was him again. Her anti-Eugene. Tall, blond, tanned, and what Tru—
What some people might call swoonworthy.
“Ma’am.” He pinched the brim of his dusty gray cowboy hat.
“Twenty-five!”
Sarah flinched at the land agent’s shout for the next claimant.
“Are you all right?” He asked like he wanted a real answer instead of one that assured him she’d not bother him with her troubles.
Very anti-Eugene.
Embarrassed, and not entirely sure why, Sarah mumbled, “I’m fine.”
Instead of dismissing her with a shrug as Eugene would have done, Anti-Eugene tilted his head to the side as though studying her. “Please allow me to apologize. I wasn’t trying to steal your claim ticket.”
Three years of finishing school prompted an automated, “Thank you, sir.” But she still didn’t believe him. After all, he was the one holding the ticket.
“My name is John Tyler, by the way.” He took off his hat and dipped his chin in one movement. “Originally from Fort Worth, Texas.”
If she were home, she’d curtsy or flutter a fan when introduced to a handsome stranger. Now, she stuck her hand out. “Sarah Maffey.” No longer from Boston.
He stared at her hand for a moment, like he wasn’t sure if he should shake it or raise it to his lips. He did neither. Returning his hat to his head, he gripped the brim and nodded. “Nice to meet you. Good luck with your pick.”
Sarah dropped her hand. How rude! She, out of good breeding, had offered an olive branch to acknowledge he might—might—be telling the truth about not stealing her ticket. And he? He snubbed her.
“Twenty-six!”
Mr. Tyler cut a glance at the land agent. “That’s me.”
What did he want? Applause?
He dipped his chin and headed for the table.
Using her ruined hat as a fan, Sarah sauntered over to the map on the wall. She was next to pick, and she needed to be calm. Rational. Not riled up over some man who may or may not have tried to steal her—
Wait. Why would he be after her land when he had a claim ticket of his own—one ahead of hers? Maybe he’d been telling the truth after all.
Doubtful. So far, all the men she’d met in Oklahoma were as greedy as the ones she’d left behind in Boston.
Sarah brushed dirt from her gray skirt as she studied the map. No one had claimed either of the plots she wanted. Although she had plenty of money to build a house and purchase supplies, one of the requirements for proving up a homestead was improving at least ten acres of land over a five-year period. That meant plowing and planting, which meant water. Both of her choices had plenty of creek frontage. Even if Mr. Tyler chose one of them, she’d take the other.
Both Grandmother Novak and the accounts she’d read about homesteading advised good relations with neighbors. Did she want John Tyler as a neighbor? Would she have a choice?
The map might not have been updated since before the limping man selected his land. What would she do if both plots were gone? There were a few places west of town with small creeks, but they were much farther away from Lawton. She might want to be forty acres away from Boston men, but it didn’t mean she wanted to live like a hermit.
Her eyes were drawn back to where East Cache Creek ran near the city boundary. Even if both her choices were gone, there were some plots where the creek ran through a corner. It wasn’t ideal, but there were over a hundred claims yet to be settled. Not all of them would have ideal creek frontage, so it must be possible to prove up even without water running through the middle of a claim.
“Twenty-seven!”
Sarah’s heart lurched. She touched a hand to her chest and started toward the land agent’s table.
Mr. Tyler rose. Whatever claim he’d taken, the smile denting his cheeks with a pair of dimples said he was pleased. “Miss Maffey.”
She returned his smile out of basic good breeding. And in case they ended up being neighbors, heaven forbid.
“Are you twenty-seven, miss?”
Recalled to her purpose—which was choosing land, not admiring how a cowboy sauntered out of a tent—Sarah hurried to the table.
“Claim ticket and birth certificate, please.” The touch of humor in the land agent’s voice might have helped settle Sarah’s nerves, but her eyes were fixed on the L-shaped outline on the map before her.
“He can’t do that.” She looked to the land agent. “Can he?”
The land agent nodded. “Rules say claims can be in several configurations. This one’s legal.”
Sarah’s face burned. John Tyler had shaped his claim to encompass all but a sliver of East
Cache Creek.
There would be no neighborly relationship with the man. He might not have stolen her claim ticket…
But he’d most certainly stolen her water.
Chapter 2
Sarah stood upwind of the man she’d hired to load and unload her supplies. Crates and barrels filled with everything her research deemed either critical or worthwhile came off the back of the mounded wooden cart. Once they were on the ground, out came the bigger items: tent, cookstove, and the tick mattress—something that, when she first read about it, almost broke her resolve to leave Boston for Oklahoma. However, further research revealed that the bedding was not stuffed with insects but straw. She could live with that for the two or three weeks it would take for the house kit to be delivered and built. Then she’d send for a real bed and a feather mattress.
“You sure you don’t want help settin’ up this here tent?” The round man who went by the name Otis lifted his perspiration-drenched shirt to wipe dribbles from his red face.
If she had to spend one more minute surrounded by the smell of the unwashed, she’d lose the greasy lunch rolling around in her belly. Despite the fresh air surrounding the delivery cart, Sarah had held a lilac-scented handkerchief over her nose the entire ride from the train depot to her land. She wasn’t sure which smelled worse: Otis or the hind end of his horse. “No, thank you. I can handle the rest of this myself.”
Otis gave her a suit yourself shrug.
Sarah dug the agreed-upon payment from her reticule, adding a small tip to be neighborly. “Again, thank you. When the supplies for my house arrive, I will be sure to let you know.”
Unless she could find a worker who occasionally bathed.
Otis inspected the coins. “This is too much.”
“I added that to thank you for your excellent service.”
He squinted one eye, drawing his top lip into a crooked line. Had he never heard of a tip, or did his vocabulary not include the word “excellent”? He picked out a couple of coins and offered them back to her with an open palm. “Don’t hold with takin’ more than what’s fair.”
The saying, “Honor among thieves,” came to mind—which only reminded her of John Tyler and all the things she wished she’d said to him this morning. Sarah retrieved the coins. “Once again, thank you.”
“Ma’am.” He doffed his fraying straw hat and climbed into his cart. With two clicks of his tongue, the draft horse started forward.
Sarah waved good-bye, even though he didn’t turn around to see the gesture. Outside of John Tyler—her nearest neighbor and the man she most hoped to avoid—Otis and his horse were the only people she knew in all of Oklahoma.
Not that the horse was a person, but Otis talked to him like he was. In this vast expanse of land, with no one to witness your comings and goings, it actually made sense that an animal could become a friend.
She marched toward her pile of belongings, rolling back the cuffs of her cotton blouse. The white fabric was already tinted rusty brown from the drive. “Next time, plain brown fabric.”
Normally, she didn’t talk to herself aloud, but the silence was unnerving. She’d lived her entire life surrounded by the sounds of city life. And people. Lots of people having lots of conversations. Solitude was going to be a challenge—one she could alleviate by creating her own conversations. That was her theory, anyhow.
“All right, then, enough dawdling. It’s time to get to work. Tent first.”
That’s what the book on homesteading said was most important, because “protecting yourself and supplies from rain is paramount.”
Sarah shook her head. Rain was the least of her problems. There wasn’t a single cloud in the endless blue sky to offer a patch of shade. Only her wide-brimmed hat offered relief, the poor thing. It had been so pretty before it got trampled. “You, Mr. John Tyler, are a thief and a destroyer of hats.”
Yes, talking aloud helped.
But grumbling never made work easier, so Sarah straightened her shoulders and marched toward the large square of canvas. It took two seconds to realize that, with all the bending and lifting she was going to be doing, her corset needed to be loosened. Maybe removed.
The mere thought of unbuttoning her blouse without the protection of four walls and shaded windows made her heart beat faster. She checked on Otis’s progress. Not far enough. And the only thing between her and his back were her household goods.
After a deep breath to fortify her nerves, Sarah ducked behind the largest crate. Her fingers shook as she unbuttoned from the neck down. She kept checking to make sure she wasn’t putting on a burlesque show, so it took longer than necessary to wriggle out of the corset and button back up again. Since she was already being daring, she left the top four buttons of her blouse open to allow the faint breeze to cool her skin.
She stood up and brushed grass from her skirt. “All right, Sarah Allison Maffey, where are you going to pitch your tent?”
It took five minutes of wandering along the edge of the creek to find a spot that met most of the suggested criterion. But how was she to haul the tent that far? All the parts were bundled inside the canvas fabric and tied with thick cording. She’d never be able to lift it. She tried dragging it. After four attempts, she’d managed a mere eight inches. Wiping her sweaty hands on her skirt, she gave it one more try, tugging and yanking with all her might. Her hands slipped, and she landed on her backside in the red dirt.
“Ow!”
If everything about homesteading was going to be this difficult, she might as well go back—
“No. You are not giving up this quickly. Besides, what are you going to do in Boston? Watch Eugene and Trudy get married? Listen to Daddy gloat about how he told you running off to Oklahoma was ridiculous?”
She rolled onto her side and pushed herself to her feet.
“Besides, you’ve already paid for your house kit and sent word where to have it delivered. In two or three weeks, all this will be behind you. It’s only a tent. You are smarter than a piece of fabric.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the offending canvas square.
If she couldn’t drag the entire tent to her chosen site, she’d take it there a piece at a time. After finding the pocketknife in the bottom of the largest crate, Sarah sliced the cord around her tent kit and spread out the canvas. An instruction sheet was tucked inside.
Item number one: Lay out all pieces on the ground to be sure you have everything at hand.
Sarah planted her hands on her hips. “You might have told me that before I tried to drag the entire kit in one try.”
Five sweaty minutes later, the wooden posts, ropes, and stakes lay on the ground near her chosen site. Dragging the canvas when it was just one layer proved almost as difficult as when it had been wrapped around the rest of the parts, but she managed.
After reading through the rest of the instructions, Sarah trekked back for a shovel and hammer, lecturing the tentmaker the entire way. “You promised this was easy to assemble. Well, let me tell you something, it hasn’t been so far. And if I have any more trouble I will be writing you a sharply worded letter about false advertising.”
An hour later, Sarah’s complaints against the tentmaker were as long as a Tolstoy novel.
John squinted against the afternoon glare. Off in the distance was the strangest sight he’d ever seen. It looked like prairie dogs popping up and down under a bedsheet. He slapped the reins, telling the borrowed team of horses to step up their pace. His supplies bumped around in the wagon bed, but he’d packed carefully. A little jostling wouldn’t hurt them.
Detouring off the path that would take him to his new homestead, he rode closer to the bedsheet. About the time he realized the white fabric was too large for any bed, he heard a high-pitched voice. Her words weren’t yet distinguishable, but her situation was clear.
He shouldn’t laugh. He shouldn’t, but…whoops of laughter bounced inside his chest. Someone—and he had a very good idea who—was trapped under
a tent tarp. By the time he was close enough to hear Miss Maffey’s monologue, his sides ached with mirth. He pulled the horses to a standstill and set the brake. She didn’t stop her tirade, but he wasn’t surprised. Not only was she buried under thick canvas, she was yelling loud enough to be heard all the way back in Lawton.
“How do you expect me to hold up two poles while stretching the canvas over the top? Who even thinks such a thing is possible? Have you ever tried to follow your instructions? Because, if you had, you would never have advertised yourself as easy to assemble!”
“Miss Maffey?”
“By the time I’m through with you, there won’t be a soul in the entire United States of America who will ever purchase—”
“Miss Maffey!”
A scream split the air. Tirade and movement ceased.
He approached the edge of the cone-shaped canvas. “Do you need some help?” Silence.
“Miss Maffey?”
“Yes.”
He leaned over, pressing his palms against his thighs, his mirth reignited. Several shallow breaths and a deep inhale later, he recovered his ability to speak. “Is that, ‘Yes, I need help,’ or ‘Yes, this is Sarah Maffey’?”
Another pause. Longer this time. Then, “Yes.”
He lifted the edge of the canvas above his head. “Come on out.”
The woman who emerged was a far cry from the one in the land claim office earlier. Where Hat Woman had been buttoned up and proper, this woman had dark hair in her face, dirt on her chin, stains on her blouse, and sweat glistening in the hollow of her neck.
He liked this one better. “I take it you’re having trouble putting up a five-person tent all by yourself.”
She smoothed hair away from her face. “The advertisement said it was easy to assemble.”
“So I gathered.” He battled against more laughter. “Would you like some help?”
The Secret Admirer Romance Collection Page 40
