“It’s just us.” Dan’s face colored beneath his stubble of a beard. The poor man! He was so shy, this must be quite a trial for him. Anne stifled a giggle.
“Well, we could put the lady in the front room,” the landlady said, “but you, sir, would have to share with two of the miners.”
“Oh well…” Dan glanced around at Anne. “What do you think?”
She walked over and stood beside him. “Might there be another place with more rooms?” she asked. “We thought we liked the look of your house, but Mr. Adams would prefer privacy, I’m sure.” He hadn’t squawked about sharing with the Randall boys in Cottage Grove last night, but Anne sensed that sharing a room with a couple of prospectors alarmed him. On the other hand, a gentleman like Uncle David would probably be classified as a miner in this situation, so perhaps bedding down in the same room with them wouldn’t be too uncomfortable.
“Well, now, I’ve got a little room out back,” the woman said. “It’s not much—just a lumber room, we call it. It’s off the woodshed, and we store trunks there. My Jack put a cot in there when he came home last summer, because his room was full of argonauts. If you want to see it, sir, maybe you’d consent to sleep out there. I could make the lady nice and cozy in the front room, and we wouldn’t charge you much for the shed.”
“That sounds agreeable,” Dan said. “Thank you.”
“Let’s go take a look. If you’re not put off by the boxes and trunks, we’ll make a transaction here.”
“And do you serve meals?” Anne asked as they followed the woman out to her spotless kitchen.
She lit a spill at her cookstove and used the roll of paper to light a kerosene lantern. “I put breakfast on the table at seven. Other meals, you have to go elsewhere. But there’s a couple of places where you can get good, plain food.” She led them out the back door and through an attached room with slatted walls, piled to the rafters with split firewood. “Here we go. I’m Jenny Austin, by the by. I only let this room now and again, but it’s all made up fresh.” She opened the door and walked in, holding the lantern high.
The windowless lumber room was as clean as the kitchen. Boxes, kegs, and a couple of trunks filled half the floor space. On the other side was a narrow bed bearing a quilt patterned with bright greens, reds, and whites. Nearby were a washstand and a crate set on end, with a calico curtain hiding the shelves of the improvised bedside table.
“It’s not much, but such as it is, it could be worse.”
“I’ll take it,” Dan said.
“Very well, then. If you want to bring in your things, I’ll show the lady to her room.” They followed her back through the kitchen. A tall, thin man wearing a vest and white shirt stood near the desk in the foyer.
“There’s my husband,” Mrs. Austin said. She introduced them and left the men to settle the registry and payment.
They were halfway up the stairs before Anne realized she should have given Dan some of her dwindling cash or else stepped up and paid Mr. Austin directly. She hesitated on the landing.
“Everything all right, dearie?” Mrs. Austin asked. “My Bill will bring your things up in a jiffy—or a couple of jiffies.”
“I’m just tired, thank you.”
“Well, you’ll probably want the nearest eatery, then. Willis and Simpson’s, near the bridge. The place doesn’t look like much, but I’m told they’ve got a new cook and the pie’s worth eating.”
She led Anne into a charming room with rose trellis wallpaper and white muslin curtains. Mrs. Austin lit the lamp for her and spread back the covers. “There. If you want a fire, ask Bill when he brings your luggage. Or he can have one burning when you come back from supper. It’s likely to rain tonight, and you don’t want the damp to settle in your lungs.”
“That’s very kind of you,” Anne said. “Would you please tell Mr. Adams I shall be down in ten minutes to go for supper?”
“I’ll do that very thing.” Mrs. Austin backed out of the room with a smile and shut the six-paneled door.
Anne almost felt as though she were back in St. Louis. The plump mattress under the crocheted bedspread called to her, but she brushed off her skirt and peered into the looking glass hanging over the maple dresser. The disarray of her hair alarmed her. If only Elise were here to dress it for her.
She took off her hat and removed the hairpins. It might take more than her promised ten minutes to repair this damage.
A tap at the door alerted her to Mr. Austin’s punctuality. She opened it to him and gratefully took her satchel from him.
Dan was waiting in a velvet-covered chair near the front desk when she descended the stairs a quarter of an hour later. He wore the same trousers he’d had on all day but had put on a fresh shirt and added a ribbon tie and somehow managed to shave in the brief time she’d allotted him.
“I’m sorry I’ve kept you waiting,” she said.
“Not at all. Shall we go? A couple of other patrons came in from the restaurant and praised the new cook’s venison roast.”
“Indeed? I wonder what’s brought such a masterful chef to this wilderness.” Anne took his arm, and they walked out into the twilight. “Oh, the horses!” She glanced toward the hitching rail, where one sad-looking dun was tied.
“Mr. Austin assured me he would take good care of them.”
“Good. Oh Dan, I need to settle with you about the payment for our rooms.” She glanced up at him shyly from beneath the brim of her bonnet. This wasn’t a subject a lady liked to broach.
“You mustn’t think of that,” he said. “We’ve discussed this before. Frankly, I was glad to have a chance to help out.” He paused at the edge of the street and gazed down at her with gray eyes so compassionate that Anne almost blushed. “Anne, forgive me for asking, but perhaps it’s time I did. Are you truly all right financially?”
“Oh Dan, please don’t—”
Before she could say more, he held up a hand. “I’m sorry. I know how you dislike this type of discussion, but you’ve confided in me that the family fortune is slated for your uncle, not for you. I’m not a wealthy man, but I am able to see us through this expedition. If that would help you, just say the word.”
Her face must now be a deep shade of scarlet that would draw unwanted attention. She looked down as she tried to regain her composure.
“Daniel, I appreciate your friendship and your generosity. What you say is true, but I should feel ill-bred and tawdry if I let a man—even a gentleman such as yourself—bear my expenses.”
He grasped her hand where she’d tucked it through his arm and squeezed her fingers. “Dear Anne, I wouldn’t want that. But neither would I want you embarrassed if your funds gave out on you. From here on, I’ll keep paying my own share, and you just give me the sign if you need a bit of assistance, all right? We won’t speak of it again.”
She wanted to be cross with him, but she couldn’t. Instead, her love of words betrayed her into a tiny smile. “And what’s the sign, I wonder?”
Dan’s worry creases smoothed out. “Why, just tell them your hired man will take care of the bill.”
“Hired man? You should be a butler at least.”
“I’m afraid the people here wouldn’t know what to do with a butler. Maybe your guide?”
“How about my friend?” She returned the pressure on his fingers.
“I like that. Shall we?” He nodded toward the low building with the crudely painted sign board.
“Indeed. I’m famished.” She stepped eagerly with him toward the ramshackle restaurant. She wouldn’t consider what her British friends would think of this place, or even Elise, who had traveled across the plains with her. In truth, the place looked a bit homey in a crude way, a welcome refuge for travelers.
“Mr. Austin told me just before you came downstairs that those freighters we passed earlier brought an injured man in.” Dan guided her out of the path of a wagon.
“Really? One of their men was hurt?”
“Not one of theirs. They sa
id he’d passed them this afternoon, and then later they came upon him lying in the road. Apparently his horse had thrown him. The horse was off the road, grazing. But the fellow was out cold. They tossed cold water in his face and he woke up, but he appeared to be quite shaken, so they brought him in to town.”
“Is there a doctor here?” Anne asked.
“Mr. Austin says there is—one the steamship owners brought in for their crews. I suppose he’ll be all right.”
A drop of water splashed on Anne’s nose. “Oh dear, it’s raining.”
Dan seized her hand and pulled her the remaining few steps to the door of the restaurant.
Millie peered out the half-open kitchen door without losing a stroke in stirring her cake batter.
“You got that johnnycake ready?” Andrew Willis yelled. Her new boss seemed to have only one pitch to his voice, and it was aimed to carry over the roar of conversation in the dining room behind him.
“I just took it out of the oven.”
“When will the next batch of stew be ready?”
“Not for another twenty minutes or so. The carrots are still crunchy.” Millie leaned so she could see past him. If Anne Stone and Dan Adams showed up, she wanted some warning.
Andrew glowered at her, and Millie glared back. She could cook, but she couldn’t work miracles.
“You should have started it an hour ago.”
“How was I to know you’d have this many customers tonight?”
“They’ll probably want some flapjacks and sausage then.”
“You go ask them. Don’t tell me what the clientele ‘probably’ wants.”
He grimaced at her. “Oh, and one fellow wants jam for his biscuit. We got any jam?”
Millie stared at him. “How should I know?”
“You been cooking in here all day. You musta been through all the stuff.” Willis stalked to one of the shelves, opened a small crock, and peered into it. “Ha!” He looked around, found a soup bowl and a spoon, plopped two scoops of preserves into the bowl, and strode back into the dining room, letting the door shut with a thunk.
Sweat streamed down Millie’s face as she poured the cake batter into the one pan remotely the right size. She slid it into the oven, mopped her brow with the hem of her apron, and checked the fuel in the firebox. As much as she hated to increase the temperature of the room, she tossed in a couple more sticks of firewood. At the worktable, she cut several slabs of johnnycake and put them on plates.
She’d thrown open the back door ten minutes after she’d been hired, but the occasional breeze that wafted in was no competition for the heat radiated by the cookstove. For six hours she’d slaved to satisfy Willis’s burgeoning flock of customers.
She strode out to the back stoop and flapped her apron in front of her face for a minute. The air had cooled since the sun dropped, and a welcome breeze came across the Umpqua. Millie let it caress her cheeks. She didn’t mind working when that was the only option, but she hated to sweat. That made it harder to present herself as a lady.
The liveryman had frightened her for a moment, she admitted to herself. She’d feared his idea for her employment was something indecent, and Millie had her limits.
“Andrew needs a cook, over across the way,” he’d said in a conspiratorial tone.
“A cook? For how many people?” Millie had stepped back to avoid his fetid breath.
“Oh, just everyone who passes through here.” The man let out a big guffaw. “He ain’t had a decent cook since Harry up and left for the gold fields.”
“Harry?”
She wished she hadn’t asked as she got a rambling tale of Andrew’s business partner gone missing—otherwise known as Harry Simpson, formerly the best cook in Elkton. The liveryman walked over to the restaurant with her, making good on his promise to “put in a good word” for her. And when she’d earned ten dollars, he promised to trade his mare for hers.
Andrew Willis had hired her on the spot, and Millie had felt she had little choice, though the way he studied her figure made her flesh crawl. Every man in the rude café stared as well, and Millie had made one condition before she entered the cramped, untidy kitchen and donned Harry’s abandoned apron.
“I’ll not serve the customers, too. If you want me to cook, I can do that. Mister, I can cook up a cyclone for you. But I won’t carry it out to the men. Someone else will have to do that.”
“Someone else” turned out to be Andrew himself. Millie wondered that he didn’t have a wife or even some neighbor women who would like to work as waitresses, but perhaps the town was too rough and tumble for women. Whatever the reason, she soon found herself cooking ten dishes at once and trying to eke out Andrew’s supplies to fill all the orders he brought her.
The door to the dining room banged again, and she slipped back inside.
“What are you doing?” Andrew yelled. “We’ve got hungry people out there.”
“Just catching my breath. I’m like to die in here. Oh, there’s your johnnycakes.”
Andrew looked at the prepared plates and grunted. “I need two beefsteaks and some biscuits. And have you made gravy yet?”
“Beefsteaks?” Millie cried. “I haven’t seen any beef except that one bone you gave me to put in the stew when the venison ran out.”
“Hmpf. Guess I need to get out to the springhouse and bring in more meat.”
“I guess you do. Bring some more chicken, too, if you’ve got it. I’ve made three batches of fried chicken, and it’s all gone.” She placed her hands on her hips. “If this is how it is every night, how did you and Harry keep yourselves in supplies?”
“It’s been powerful busy today,” Andrew admitted. “Guess people heard about you. Harry’s been gone a week, and I’ve been dishing up pretty poor fare. Thought I’d lost all my customers. But when I put the word out this afternoon that I had a new cook and she was making a dozen apple pies, that’s when they started lining up at the door.”
“Well, there’s not much pie left.” Millie glanced over at the pie and a half on the sideboard. “You got any more apples?”
“Oh sure. I got a lot of those from the orchard over where the Hudson’s Bay Company used to have its fort. I’ll bring some in. You’ve got plenty of coffee, right?”
“Two pots full.”
“Well, can you serve that up while I go out and get the stuff you need?”
“I told you, I’m not serving the clientele.”
“Aw, come on, Charlotte.” She’d told him her name was Charlotte when he’d hired her, as a precaution in case Miss Stone or Mr. Adams or even Sam came in and heard her name. Now she was glad she’d had the presence of mind to do that, since the new cook seemed to be the talk of the town.
“All right, I’ll do one round of coffee and pie, and I’ll tell folks who haven’t had their main meal yet that we’re working on it.”
Willis grinned. “You’re a capital girl, Charlotte. And I wouldn’t say it in front of Harry, but you’re a really good cook, too.” He dove for the back door.
Millie looked at all her pots to make sure nothing would boil over in her absence and checked the progress of the cake. She grabbed two pot holders, took a steaming coffeepot in each hand, and pushed her way through the doorway to the dining room, shoving the door with her backside.
Freighters and miners erupted in cheering and whistling as she turned.
“Hey, you’re better-lookin’ than Harry!”
“Are you Charlotte? Bring some of that coffee over here!”
“No, darlin’, pour mine first. I’m parched.”
Millie stared at the room full of rowdy men and sucked in a deep breath. “All right, gentlemen. I’ve got ten pieces of apple pie left in the kitchen. If you want to get a slice, put fifty cents on the table, and I’ll pick it up as I come around.”
The men didn’t disappoint her, but anted up as she made the rounds, filling their chipped mugs.
“Hey, sweetheart, how much do you charge for kisses?” one mine
r asked her.
“More than you’ve got in your pocket.”
When she’d picked up five dollars, she called, “Sorry, fellows, the pie just sold out, but if you come back tomorrow, we’ll likely have more.”
A loud wail drowned her last few words.
Quickly she filled all the cups pushed toward her, dodging a few straying hands and tossing off retorts to their comments. Soon both pots were empty.
“Okay, folks, I need to go make more coffee and take the applesauce cake out of the oven. Those of you who didn’t get pie, may I suggest cake or gingerbread? Andrew will be back any second to take your orders.”
“Aw, Charlotte, whyn’t you take ’em?”
“Because Andrew can’t cook, and you all know that. So while I cook, he’ll take orders.”
As she pulled open the kitchen door, the street door opened and a cold draft swept through the room. She looked toward it and nearly dropped both coffeepots.
Coming through the doorway, clad in a stunning green-and-gold satin dress and a darling velvet cape and bonnet, smiling up at her handsome escort, was Anne Stone.
CHAPTER 9
Millie ducked through the kitchen door and set down the empty coffeepots. She tore off her apron and tossed it on the worktable. Her pocket was heavy with the pie coins. She hugged it close to her thigh as she ran to the corner where she’d left her coat and sack of clothes. Her saddle and other gear were at the livery with her lame mare, but she hadn’t wanted to take a chance of losing the dress she’d extracted from Anne Stone’s trunk, so she’d brought it along to Andrew’s place.
She almost laughed at the thought of elegant Miss Stone sitting down to eat dinner amid the boisterous crowd of miners in the other room. If she weren’t in such a hurry, she’d stick around to see whether she actually ate at Andrew’s or went someplace else.
She pulled on her coat, hefted the sack, and dashed for the back door.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Andrew was coming up the back steps. He shot out an arm to stop her from piling into him and dropped a plucked chicken and a basket of apples. The apples thudded down the steps and rolled hither and yon.
THE Prairie DREAMS Trilogy Page 42
