A Groom For Gwen

by Jeanne Allan

  Prudence asked Jake Stoner a number of probing questions. His answers seemed to satisfy the lawyer. Thanking him, she asked the man to wait out in the reception area.

  “Well, Gwen,” she said as soon as the office door closed, “I’d say you found yourself a cowboy. How did you happen to stumble across him?”

  “Stumble is the right word. He was waiting for me down the street. You must have started calling people right after I left here earlier.”

  Prudence frowned. “Actually, I’ve been so busy, I haven’t had a chance to make any phone calls.” Her brow smoothed out and she shook her head. “I’ve lived here most of my life, and I still can’t believe how quickly everyone knows everything that’s going on.”

  “You really think it’s okay to hire him? You don’t think he looks kind of dangerous?”

  The lawyer laughed. “I think he’s such a hunk I wish I needed a cowhand.” She sobered. “He seems to know ranching, and you’re darned lucky to find anyone on such short notice. Try him for a few weeks, and see how things work out. If you want, I’ll keep looking for another hand for you.”

  Gwen could hardly say the man made her nervous, so she agreed to try him and stood up to leave.

  Prudence leaned back in her chair and pointed a fountain pen at Gwen. “I think what it is, you’re used to city boys. This, my dear, is a man.”

  Gwen didn’t need a lawyer to tell her that.

  Closing Prudence’s door a little more sharply than she intended, Gwen carefully slid on her sunglasses. “All right, Mr. Stoner. I’ll hire you on a trial basis. One month. If your work is satisfactory, we’ll discuss a long-term arrangement.”

  “I’ll be here as long as you need me.”

  The words were innocuous enough, but somehow he invested them with deeper meaning. As if he meant more than the fact she needed an employee. As if he knew something she didn’t know. She narrowed her eyes behind her dark lenses. “What does that mean?”

  “I’m a man who has to drift. I’m just passing through. When you don’t need me anymore, I’ll leave.”

  “I’m not interested in hiring a transient,” she said sharply. “I’ve already had one employee run out on me. He didn’t even have the courtesy—or nerve—to face me. Slipped a note under my front door last night. I found it this morning. He went to Wyoming. How do I know you won’t do the same?”

  The man met her eyes, his gaze clear and steady. “I’ll stay as long as you need me. I always do.”

  Rod Heath’s eyes had been shifty, looking everywhere but at her. Gwen wanted to believe Jake Stoner. She had no choice but to believe him. “All right,” she said slowly. “When can you start?” Please, she thought, let it be now.

  He held out his hand. “Soon as we shake on it, Ma’am.”

  She didn’t want to shake hands with him. She didn’t want to touch him. The realization disconcerted her. She’d shaken hands with thousands of men in the course of business. Shaking hands with Jake Stoner was no different. Slowly she accepted his extended hand. An electric current zipped up her arm as his work-roughened palm closed around hers. Jake Stoner was more than the hunk Prudence had labeled him. He was overwhelmingly male. Gwen retrieved her hand. If she knew one thing, it was that Jake Stoner spelled trouble. And he worked for her.

  He gave her an odd look, but said only, “I’ll get my gear.” Then he laughed softly and nodded across the room.

  Gwen followed his gaze, and her breath caught in her throat. She’d left Crissie with Prudence’s receptionist while she consulted the lawyer. Now the child lay sprawled on the floor, sound asleep, one arm curved around an enormous yellow dog.

  The dog opened his eyes. One blue eye and one brown eye stared at Gwen. She stood very still, not daring to breathe. Crissie sucked contentedly on her thumb, her head resting on the cowboy’s saddle. Gwen prayed her niece wouldn’t accidentally annoy the dog in her sleep. Quietly she asked, “Whose dog is that?”

  “Mine.” A burly man turned from his conversation with the receptionist. “Mack won’t hurt her. He loves kids. My wife took off for California with my boys. She isn’t coming back and refused to take the dog. I can’t take care of Mack, so I have to take him to the pound. Too bad, really. He’s a good dog, but almost five years old. People want puppies.”

  Gwen gave the huge dog a second look. “What is he?”

  The man shrugged. “Near as I can figure, part husky, part golden retriever, and maybe some mastiff or Great Dane. He’d make a good watchdog for your little girl. He’s housebroken,” the man added quickly.

  Gwen walked toward Crissie. The dog raised his head, giving her a fixed look. “You’re sure he’s friendly?”

  “Oh, sure, he won’t hurt you.”

  “Move, Mack. I need to wake up Crissie. Be a good dog, Mack.”

  The dog slid out from under Crissie’s arm and rose to his feet. He gently nudged the sleeping girl. She opened her eyes and giggled. “Mack tickles.” She stood up. “Look, Gwen, he likes me. The man said he can come home with me.”

  “He’s been fixed. I got his shot records, his bowls and most of a bag of dog food out in the pickup,” the man said hopefully. “I sure hate to think of ol’ Mack getting put down. People want puppies.”

  “So you said.” Gwen had no intention of taking the dog.

  “Mack’s my new bes’ friend.” Crissie hung on to the dog for dear life.

  Gwen eyed the dog dubiously. He seemed to like Crissie, and he might be protection for the young girl. Gwen glanced at Jake Stoner. And for her.

  His mouth twitched. “I’ll get Mack’s gear out of the truck.” As he passed Gwen, he said in a voice pitched for her ears alone, “With a dog of that size, you won’t have to worry about me attacking you in your bed.”

  So he wasn’t just a cowboy. He was a mind reader, too.

  Mack sat in the back seat with Crissie as they headed east out of Trinidad. After eating his ice-cream cone in two gulps, the dog had covetously eyed Crissie’s cone, but to Gwen’s relief he hadn’t snatched it from the little girl. Gwen decided to overlook Mack’s licking the ice cream residue off Crissie’s face. Crissie hadn’t minded. The child had wholeheartedly adopted the dog. Maybe keeping him wouldn’t be a total disaster.

  “Kids on a ranch can get lonely.” Jake Stoner read her thoughts again. “The dog’ll make a good playmate and watchdog. You didn’t make a mistake taking him, Ma’am.”

  “If the dog doesn’t work out, I’ll take him to the dog pound myself.” Out of the comer of her eye she saw the amused skepticism on his face. “I will. And don’t call me ma’am.”

  He laughed. “You’re stuck with the dog and you know it. I don’t recall you ever got around to telling me your name.”

  “Gwen Ashton.”

  “Ashton. Your family been ranching around here long?”

  “No. I inherited the ranch from a client of mine.”

  Ah.

  Gwen heard a wealth of meaning in the simple response. “There’s no ‘ah’ about it. I don’t care what you’ve heard, Bert and I were friends. Nothing more.”

  “I haven’t heard anything. Why don’t you tell me?”

  She didn’t need to explain anything to an employee. “I’m a Certified Public Accountant. I worked for a firm up in Denver, and became acquainted with Bert when I started doing his taxes.”

  Glancing at the puffy white clouds piling one on top of the other over the dark mesa to the south, Gwen thought again how the stark beauty of this countryside went a long way toward explaining how Bert Winthrop, so conscientious about caring for his livestock, could set new standards in lackadaisical when it came to the paperwork involved with running his ranch. All the tax preparers who’d washed their hands of him probably never left their sterile cubicles to breathe deeply of the country air.

  “He left you his place because you showed him how to get out of paying the government what he owed?”

  “He left me the ranch because I love it as much as he did.” Beside th
e road sunflowers turned their faces to the sun. “I love the beauty and I love the history. I loved hearing Bert talk about his family pioneering out here on the high Colorado plains. They homesteaded and survived grasshopper plagues, Indian scares, bank failures and the ‘Dust Bowl’ years when the drought was so severe most of the topsoil blew away. Generations of Bert’s family were born, lived, and died on the ranch.” Gwen smiled reminiscently. “Until I met Bert, I never thought before about history as being someone’s uncle or aunt or grandfather. Some of his family actually came out here by way of the Santa Fe trail. Some fought in a Civil War battle down in New Mexico. Did you know there’d been a Civil War fight out here? I didn’t.”

  “The battle of Glorieta Pass.”

  “That’s right. And one of his ancestors hauled freight from a foot in New Mexico to a place up north of here on the railroad.”

  “Ft. Union to Granada.”

  “You must be interested in history, Mr. Stoner.”

  “I’ve picked stuff up.”

  “I never realized how fascinating it could be. Some of Bert’s relatives kept journals, and I’ve been reading them. Bert had roots and family which goes back over one hundred years in this area.” She slowed the car to make a turn. “I love the journals and wouldn’t part with them for a million dollars. I offered to make copies for Gordon, but he’s not the least bit interested. Not in them.”

  “Who’s Gordon? Your ex-husband?”

  “I’ve never been married. Gordon Pease is Bert’s nephew. He’s convinced I manipulated Bert into leaving me the ranch. That I took advantage of a senile old man. If he’d spent ten minutes with Bert in the past year he’d know the last thing Bert was, was senile.”

  “What was he?”

  “Lonely, I suppose.”

  “So you were kind to him.”

  “Bert wasn’t a pathetic old man who needed befriending,” Gwen said indignantly. “He enriched my life.”

  “He left you a ranch because you listened to him?” Jake Stoner asked, skepticism filling his voice.

  “He left it to me because he knew I’d love it. Bert married late, and his wife Sara died early. Bert should have remarried, but he didn’t, and all that’s left of his family is Gordon. Gordon moved to Colorado about five years ago and moved in with Bert for a short time. According to Bert, Gordon hated the ranch and everything about it. Gordon only wants the ranch because he thinks he can sell it and make a bundle.”

  “You plan to sell it?”

  “Never. All my life I’ve dreamed of my own home. A big house with a white picket fence. My dad was in the Air Force, and my mom would no more than get unpacked and it was time to pack up again. Mom and my brother Dan loved it, but not me. I wanted to settle. Mom says I take after my Grandmother Ashton. Both my grandfathers had itchy feet. They were always quitting their jobs and moving on to where the grass was sure to be greener. Grandmother Ashton hated it. She used to show me pictures and tell me about the home she grew up in back in Missouri.”

  “With a white picket fence?”

  “The fence is symbolic,” she said impatiently. “Putting down roots, that’s what counts. A place where a person belongs. So that no matter where you go, you know home is waiting for you to come back. I want a home which records our lives. I want marks on the wall showing how tall Crissie is at five and ten and fifteen years of age. I want to know that whatever weather I’m dressing for now, I’ll be dressing for the same weather five and ten Augusts from now. I want Crissie to be able to plant a tree and watch it grow for years and years.” Gwen gave an embarrassed laugh. “Sorry. My brother used to say I was a little irrational on the subject. It probably sounds stupid to a man like you who doesn’t like to stay long in one place.”

  “There was a time when I considered settling down myself. Not too far from here. Even built myself a nice little place and...”

  Gwen pulled into the ranch yard and parked the car. Then she turned to see why Jake Stoner hadn’t finished his sentence. He was staring in astonishment at Bert’s house. Her house. “I know it looks a little strange,” she said defensively, “but I like it. The earliest part dates from the early 1880’s, and every generation of Bert’s family added on to it. This is a house with character.”

  Jake Stoner stepped out of the car and pivoted slowly on the heel of his boot, scanning the landscape. Squinting into the sun he methodically studied the various ranch buildings one by one. His gaze lit on the small stone house where Lawrence Hingle and Rod Heath, the ranch employees, had lived, then moved on to the earliest section of the main house. “I’ll be double-dog damned,” he said in quiet disbelief. He looked around again, eyed the mesa in the distance, and roared with laughter.

  CHAPTER TWO

  AFTER nine trips, Jake ought to be accustomed to being sent back equipped with the basic necessities such as a billfold with the proper driver’s license. He should have guessed Michaels would have taken care of the details.

  Jake never would have guessed Michaels had a sense of humor. Sending Jake back to his own place. Jake wondered what Gwen would have said if he’d told her he’d built the stone section of the main house and the little stone house he now slept in. He’d chiseled the stone almost square like his pa taught him. The timbers for the porches across the front of both places were freighted in from the mountains. Long hours of backbreaking work. Work he hadn’t minded because he’d thought nothing more important than having his own ranch. Being his own man.

  Folding his arms behind his head, Jake stared sightlessly at the ceiling. He’d been sixteen when Charlie Goodnight hired him on after the Civil War. Old enough and strong enough to do a man’s work. You had to be a man to trail cows up the Goodnight Trail from Texas. He’d never told Charlie he’d run away from home so he wouldn’t kill Frank the next time he laid into Jake with the bullwhip. Ma had turned a blind eye to his step-pa’s doings. Jake guessed she was scared of living alone. He tried not to think about her much.

  He lay on an old iron bed, a sheet and an old faded quilt pulled up to his waist. The bed pushed up against the rock exterior wall. He’d left open the shutters, and shadows from a nearby scraggly pine flickered across the whitewashed lumber which paneled the other three walls. Someone else had put up the interior walls in what he’d built as the bunkhouse.

  The main house he’d been building like the one Pa built near the banks of the Guadalupe River. If Jake shut his eyes he could see the Guadalupe making its way past gnarled and knotted bald cypress trees, their limbs covered with moss. Green, soft moss. Like the pillow on his mother’s best parlor chair.

  Or his boss lady’s eyes.

  Jake laughed softly. He’d seen the horrified look on her face when Mack’s previous owner talked of Mack being put down and knew instantly the dog had found a new home. Gwen Ashton tried to talk tough, but she was soft.

  A soft heart wasn’t necessarily good. Not if it kept a person from making the tough decisions. Women could feel sorry for the damnedest creatures. He wondered about the old man. And where the little girl had come from if Gwen had never had a husband.

  Never having a husband didn’t mean she’d never partaken of the pleasures of the marital bed. He’d never married, thanks to Marian, but he’d pleasured his share of women in his time.

  Jake wondered if Gwen’s skin was as soft as her hear He moved restlessly in the bed. He shouldn’t be thinking those kinds of thoughts. Michaels didn’t act without a purpose. And one thing Jake was pretty sure about, Michaels hadn’t sent Jake here to sleep with a woman.

  Soon enough Jake would figure out exactly why he’d been sent here. Until then, he had no intention of doing anything to annoy Michaels. Jake’s last trip, Michaels had said. Jake punched down his pillow. No mossy green eyes were going to keep him from finding the peace which had eluded him for over a hundred years.

  Gwen stood on the porch fronting the oldest section of the main house and surveyed her domain. Home. How she’d envied Bert the steadfast pioneer genes runni
ng through his blood. No rootless wandering and always pulling up stakes for the Winthrop family. Bless Bert for giving her his home and his family history. She hugged herself. Her own home. A place to raise Crissie, a place where they could put down roots. Dynamite couldn’t blast her from her home.

  From the other side of the screen door behind her she could hear Mrs. Kent, Doris, rattling pans in the kitchen. When Gwen counted her blessings, she put Bert’s housekeeper first. Nothing disturbed the forty-six-year-old widow, and Doris cooked like a dream. Crissie adored her. So did Gwen. Typically, Doris had taken Mack in her stride.

  Down the road some horses grazed in the pasture. The cows were pastured further from the house. Gwen knew less than nothing of cows and horses, but she could learn. Like any other business, the most important thing was to hire good employees.

  Employees like Jakob Stoner.

  Her gaze sharpened as the ranch pickup came into view down the road. Jake. He’d think she was watching for him. She wasn’t. She’d almost forgotten he’d left hours earlier to check fences and stock. She had a lot more on her mind than the cowboy who’d come so fortuitously into her life yesterday.

  He’d told her last night over dinner what he’d planned for today. This morning Doris had found his breakfast dishes rinsed and stacked neatly beside the sink. Jake Stoner started the day early.

  Gwen squinted into the sun. Two people sat in the pickup. Jake had a passenger. Someone to see her?

  Or to see Jake? A friend, maybe. A girlfriend. Gwen narrowed her eyes in speculation. Or a wife. Jake hadn’t volunteered much about himself, and for some reason, she’d hesitated to ask. Hesitated to ask questions she wouldn’t have had a second thought about asking up in Denver. Getting-to-know-you questions. Somehow, here, they seemed prying questions. Or maybe, it wasn’t here. Maybe it was Jake. A self-contained aura surrounded him, making him complete within himself. As if he needed no one. Wanted no one.

  In any case, she wasn’t interested in his personal life. Only in his ranching skills.