The Cowboy's Orphan Bride

by Lauri Robinson

  He cared about what she had to say, too, always had, which made him change the subject. “Your turn.”

  She nodded. “All right.”

  He waited, and discovered he was holding his breath. Going back to Hosford couldn’t have been easy for her. When she glanced his way again, and the smile hadn’t fallen from her face, a tingle rippled over his shoulders as he questioned if she’d gone all the way to Hosford or not. There hadn’t been a chance to ask Trace or Gil about it.

  “Dr. Rodgers hadn’t told anyone I was gone.” Shifting in the saddle so she could look at him as they rode, she shrugged. “All these years I assumed they didn’t care, but they did. They do. Even Mrs. Rodgers.”

  Garth transferred the reins to his other hand in order to prop one on his knee. “Of course they did and do. You’re a likable person.”

  She laughed. “Likable?”

  He shrugged.

  Lifting her chin, she said, “They were all glad to see me and to know I was all right.”

  “I’m sure they were.”

  She bit her bottom lip as her thoughtful gaze settled on him for a moment. “He said he wasn’t surprised when I left.”

  “He figured you would eventually?” Garth asked, suspecting it had always been on her mind.

  A glimmer appeared in her eyes as she said, “He figured you’d find me. He and Mr. Fry wrote to each other regularly over the years, and that night he heard it was you in the barn at Cecil Chaney’s, he knew I’d leave.” She shook her head. “Mr. Fry didn’t lie to you. At one time Dr. Rodgers had planned on going to Wyoming, but Mrs. Rodgers didn’t want to leave Kansas, so they didn’t. He said that he asked Mr. Fry not to tell you that, because he was afraid you’d arrive before I was old enough to know what I want.”

  Garth shook his head. He’d been set on searching for her years ago, but had decided to take the advice that had been given to him. Leave her alone. Let her grow up. She’d matured. That was for sure, and he had to wonder if he had, inside, where it truly mattered. He stopped his horse, and she pulled hers up beside him. “You’ve always known what you want. A big house with trees for shade, a yard big enough for a garden and windows so you can see the sky.”

  “Don’t forget the rainbows,” she said with a teasing glint.

  The draw was there again to kiss her, and was too strong to ignore. He leaned across the open space between them. “I never have.” He kissed her. Briefly because the horses pulled them apart by stomping sideways.

  She laughed as she steered her horse straight.

  Once they were walking side by side again, she said, “Dr. Rodgers didn’t tell his wife and daughter because he didn’t want them to worry about me. And he said Rose Canton didn’t need my help. He’d been hoping another assignment might keep me from leaving. I told him it was time. Time for me to make my own life. I introduced them to Gil and Trace, said they were two of your men, and that you were busy with your cattle. I told them all about Ellen. They were more than happy to take her in, and then we all had supper together.”

  He was certain there were a lot of things she left out, yet said, “It wasn’t as hard as you thought it would be, was it?”

  “No, it wasn’t. Once again you were right.” She shrugged. “I should have told them before I left.”

  Gesturing to the Y in the road, he explained the Solstead place was to the right, little more than a mile away. As they veered with the road, the plethora of emotions dancing around inside him had him asking, “Why’d you come back?” She had everything she wanted with the Rodgerses, and he’d been prepared to let her go back to that life.

  “I told you last night. To help you. And don’t tell me you don’t need it. I know better. There are a lot of men who won’t get paid if this sale doesn’t happen.” Glancing his way, she continued, “A married man carries more clout, and as I see it, you need all the clout you can get.”

  He should have known she’d heard Nathan tell him that.

  “I’m your clout right now. I’m the one who started that rumor and I’ll be the one to finish it.”

  His spine tingled as he wondered what she meant by that. With the cattle sale held up, he hadn’t thought much beyond it, but should have. The ride all the way to Texas wasn’t so bad. For a man. It sure would be for a woman. She could travel in the wagon with JoJo, but that would be a long and rough ride. And once they got to Texas, it wouldn’t be any easier. He had no place for her to stay. No place to live. He hadn’t needed one other than Malcolm’s bunkhouse now and again, but she couldn’t stay there. What the hell was he thinking? He had no intention of taking her back to Texas. No intentions whatsoever when it came to her.

  “Go left!”

  Caught not paying attention, Garth snapped his head up in time to see a steer barreling up the road. Two cowboys on foot chased after it. Bridgette had already spun her horse around and was veering far to the right of the steer.

  “Go left!” she shouted again.

  Garth spun his horse around and went left to cut the cow off and turn it about. The steer turned, but then attempted to cut out again. It bawled and bounded back the other way as Bridgette bore down on it from the right. Caught between his horse and hers, the steer had no choice but to head back up the road toward the ranch.

  The entire episode had lasted no more than a couple of minutes. About the same amount of time it would have taken him and one of his men to cut a stray back into the herd.

  Winded from its escape, the steer slowed, and both he and Bridgette slowed their mounts to keep the critter corralled between them.

  “Where’d you learn to ride like that?” he asked.

  “I stayed with a lot of families over the years,” she answered. “And learned something from each one of them.”

  “I guess you did,” he replied, more in awe than he cared to admit. By the way the two cowboys who’d given up the chase stared at Bridgette, he’d say they were in awe, too. “Get the gate,” Garth told them.

  As they ran ahead, sending gaping stares over their shoulders, Bridgette said, “In truth, all I had to do was hold on. The horse did most of the work.”

  She was riding an excellent cutting horse, yet simply knowing how to let the horse work took skill. “Maybe,” he said. “But you held your seat like a seasoned rider.”

  “Thank you,” she said with a nod that made him laugh.

  Her face was glowing, almost as brightly as his insides. She had a right to be proud of herself, and he had a right to proud of her. Life was good today, and that made him remember life had always been good with her. Even while living at the orphanage, being with her had made it all tolerable, and not nearly as bad as it could have been.

  The steer entered the pen like that had been its plan all along, and both cowboys waved their thanks.

  “Look at this place,” Bridgette said as they steered the horses toward a hitching post. “It’s beautiful.”

  Besides numerous pens, there was a barn, hay shed, bunkhouse, and a single-level but long sprawling house. It resembled several ranches he’d seen, but he had to admit, it was a nice-looking spread. And that made a ball form in the pit of Garth’s stomach.

  “That was some mighty fine riding there, Mrs. McCain,” Nathan Solstead said as he walked toward the hitching post. Looking at Garth, he added, “Two of my best men couldn’t have rounded up a steer that fast.”

  Bridgette was about to express her thanks for the compliment when she noticed the shine had left Garth’s eyes. A chill zipped her spine. Maybe she’d said too much. Garth wasn’t one to want help whether he needed it or not. She couldn’t let that hamper her plan. Giving Mr. Solstead a nod, she climbed off her horse.

  “Glad you got my message so fast, Garth,” Mr. Solstead said while taking the reins of her horse.

  “I didn’t get a message,” Garth said.r />
  “I sent a man to town about an hour ago to ask you to ride out. Tom Osborne will be here shortly.” Turning to her, Mr. Solstead said, “Virginia was hoping you’d ride along. She ran into the kitchen to brew a pot of tea as soon as she saw you on the road. Go on in—we’ll put the horses up.”

  Bridgette turned to Garth. He certainly had left out a lot of information while telling her about what was happening. Tom Osborne was the previous governor of Kansas. He’d lost the seat to George Anthony last fall. Osborne had also been a US marshal, and was a director of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad. She knew all this because she’d delivered Marybelle Crane’s baby last year, and Marybelle was one of Osborn’s cousins,

  “Go on in the house,” Garth said to her as he led his horse around her to follow Mr. Solstead toward the barn.

  There had been a time when she’d known all there was to know about Garth. His hopes and dreams and promises. He was no longer that boy, and it was a good thing she realized she was no longer that girl, either.

  “Bridgette, it’s so nice to see you again.”

  She turned to where Virginia Solstead waved from the front door.

  “Come in. I have tea brewing.”

  Bridgette walked around the hitching post. “It’s good to see you, too.”

  While they waited for the tea to brew and then cool—cold tea was far more refreshing in the heat of the summer than hot tea—Virginia introduced her daughters, both Lydia and the older one, Rayanne. The girls were pleasant and polite, but hurried off to occupy themselves when Virginia gave them permission to do so.

  “I’ve so looked forward to talking to you again,” Virginia said. “I’m just tickled to have you here. I was afraid you’d be staying in Hosford.”

  “I just had to take some supplies there,” Bridgette answered, hoping that would be enough of an explanation. “Your home is beautiful.” The spacious kitchen not only held all the necessities, there was a pump at the sink, a rarity for most farm homes, and of course there were windows and real wood floors.

  “It’s come a long way since Nathan and I first moved out here,” Virginia said. “The thriving cattle business has made all the improvements possible. I do hope they get all this hullabaloo with the slaughter houses taken care of soon. It’s keeping Nathan up at night. And Lord knows, when a man can’t sleep, no one else gets any either.”

  Bridgette laughed along with Virginia, but her smile froze when Virginia spoke again.

  “I’m just dying to know how you convinced Garth to let you work at the Crystal Palace.”

  “I didn’t work there,” Bridgette declared. “I was providing medical services.”

  “Oh, honey, I know that!” Virginia fluttered a hand. “I most certainly never thought elsewise. But do tell, did he know you were there? It didn’t sound like it from what Martha Long told Gladys Adams. Martha is Deputy Long’s wife. We all belong to the same recipe exchange group, but sometimes we don’t get around to exchanging a single recipe.”

  Bridgette’s first instinct was to clamp her lips tight. She hadn’t known the deputy was married, but had a good idea of what he’d told his wife about Garth finding her at the Crystal Palace, and could imagine the amount of gossip that sent through all sorts of groups.

  “You can tell me,” Virginia said. “We wives have to stick together, and if we can’t talk to each other, who can we talk to? No matter how kind and loving our husbands may be, men just don’t understand some things.”

  The excitement, rather than contempt, in Virginia’s eyes dissolved Bridgette’s fears and the way the other woman grasped her hand and gave it a squeeze told her she’d met a friend.

  “That’s true,” Bridgette answered.

  “Oh, dear me, I’ve been married long enough to know it certainly is. And to know that men aren’t always the smartest grape in the bunch.” Fluttering her hand again, Virginia went on, “Now my Nathan, he is a smart and a wonderful man, I love him with my very bones, but sometimes, he’s not very wise. Take this whole cattle fiasco. I tried to talk to him about it. He thinks he can handle it all by going to the governor, when in truth, things get settled a whole lot faster when we take them into our own hands. We know what we need far more than any governor. Oh, but listen to me, I’m getting off subject, and I’m just dying to know what the inside of the Crystal Palace looks like.”

  It took a minute for Bridgette’s mind to switch subjects, but then she said, “Well, there’s not any crystal in it.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” Virginia said with a laugh.

  Bridgette then told Virginia how Ellen had begged her to help Michelle shortly after she’d gotten off the stage. Although she left several things out, she also told Virginia about taking Ellen to Dr. Rodgers, merely explaining she’d known the doctor for years. After that subject, they moved on to many others, like the best places to shop in Dodge—those where the wives actually ran the business, but the husbands thought they did—ways to keep dirt from seeping in around window frames and a plethora of other things important to women that men never take notice of. Their visiting never slowed, and Bridgette gladly assisted Virginia with preparing a lunch through most of their conversations and laughter.

  Bridgette followed the other woman’s lead and didn’t participate in the conversation the men brought with them to the table when the lunch was served. But she wanted to. She could tell Virginia wanted to, too.

  Nathan Solstead and Tom Osborne were doing most of the talking, and though he hadn’t said much, she could tell Garth wasn’t completely agreeing with all they were saying. As much as he said she was the impulsive one, he wasn’t one for talking things through. Actions were what he went for, but he also had a knack for knowing which action was the right one. That, at times, she lacked.

  The conversation so far had explained far more than Garth had offered previously. It appeared that besides the slaughter houses attempting to rule the sale of cattle, the government was talking about quarantining all of the cattle coming out of Texas.

  “The legislature has suggested pushing the quarantine line all the way to the Colorado border,” Tom said. “Nebraska is all for that. They’ve already established a good-sized stockyard at Ogallala. Ran over fifty thousand head through there last year alone.”

  “Dodge has surpassed seventy-five thousand head shipped out every year,” Nathan said. “This quarantine talk is a farce.”

  Tom shook his head. “Texas fever is real, and those cattle are infecting others.”

  “Not every cow leaving Texas is sick,” Garth said. “Every measure is taken to make sure of that. There’s not a single longhorn in my herd.”

  Bridgette bit her lips together, but did lay a hand on Garth’s knee beneath the table.

  The former governor held up his hand. “I’m on your side, Garth. Cattle are what’s building Kansas from the ground up, and I want to see that continue. That’s why, as governor, I offered a compromise, a quarantine line down the center of the state, let the eastern farmers have their crop land, and the west have their cattle ranches. I couldn’t get it passed though, and now Anthony is leading the crusade. But he’s on the farmers’ side. He’s planting rats in communities all across the state, getting farmers worked up and protesting against the ranchers. Dodge is the most important city on this side of the state. The men you spoke of starting those stampedes are all part of Anthony’s plan, and it’s only just the beginning.”

  “You think he’s behind the slaughter houses and their standoff?” Nathan asked.

  “I can’t say yay or nay,” Tom said. “But, if they drive down the prices so the cattle drives go elsewhere and then they come back and offer the local ranches top dollar, it’s a win-win for Kansas. The farmers no longer have their fields trampled, and local ranchers have far less competition in selling their cattle. Anthony’s smart—he doesn’t want to comp
letely rid the state of the cattle trade—there’s too much money behind it.”

  “The slaughter houses haven’t said anything about giving locals a higher price,” Nathan said. “And we depend on the cattle drives to replenish our herds.”

  “The slaughter houses aren’t going to play all their cards at once,” Tom said. “This isn’t all going to play out overnight. But mark my words, gentlemen, I’ve been in enough closed-door meetings to know something along those lines is bound to happen.”

  Bridgette was watching Garth and the tick in his cheek. Her own frustration was growing, but it was all for him. He’d worked so hard driving cattle north for others, and just as his dream of doing it for himself was about to come true, it was being taken away.

  Therefore, she couldn’t stop herself from pointing out the one thing that hadn’t been mentioned. “What about the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad? It seems to me that they shouldn’t allow any one slaughter house to option all the railroad cars.”

  The silence that instantly overtook the room pressed heavily on her shoulders. The only person looking slightly pleased that she’d spoken was Virginia.

  Clearing his throat, Tom Osborn said, “The A.T. & S.F. has many railcars, Mrs. McCain. No one company could option them all.”

  She knew that as well as she knew he hadn’t answered her question. “I’m sure they couldn’t,” she said, never pulling her eyes off him. “But they could option a select number. Say those running in and out of Dodge specifically.”

  “I’m not aware of any such transaction, but have already assured your husband and Nathan that I will check into it.”

  “That’s good to hear.” She used her napkin to wipe her mouth before adding, “Considering you’re on the cattlemen’s side.”

  The scraping of chair legs echoed in the silence that once again filled the room. Garth laid his napkin on the table. “Gentlemen, I don’t mean to cut this fine lunch short, but Bridgette and I need to get back to town.”