Matt shrugged. “No matter where I go, folks are always set on living life on their own terms. Guess it doesn’t matter much, as long as they’ve got a roof, clothes, and food.”
Tanner yanked the barbed wire taut. “To my way of thinking, they’re missing out if that’s all they have.”
Matt hammered a staple over the wire and into the fencepost.
“Love of God and family—those are what truly make life worth living.” Tanner looked up from the wire. “Man is more than flesh. His heart and soul have needs just as keen as his body.”
“Far as I can tell, you’ve got yourself quite a family.”
Tanner chuckled. “This is only a fraction of us Chances. Five sets of adults and six youngsters will be home any day now.”
“Five? I only counted three sets of siblings. The C’s, the P’s, and the T’s.”
“Yup. Dan and Lovejoy have Polly—but she’s the doctor’s wife. They live in town. Bryce and Daisy—well, they had Jamie, but he passed on. Cute little guy. One of these years when I have a son of my own, I’m going to name him Jamie. Polly did something similar. Ginny Mae was her sister. Ginny and Jamie died at the same time—diphtheria. Polly’s baby girl is named Ginny Mae, and it sorta soothed away the lingering sorrow.”
“You just said you’re a believer. Don’t you think they’re in heaven?”
“Absolutely.” Tanner swatted at a bothersome fly. “In the depths of grief, that was our comfort. You talk like a man who’s skeptical about the Lord.”
It might actually help him make connections if he agreed, but Matt refused to. He’d never deny the Lord. He knocked on his chest. “Asked Christ into my heart when I was a schoolboy. Never once regretted it.”
A big grin creased Tanner’s sunburned face. “So you’re a brother.”
Matt chuckled. “You Chances really do claim a lot of family.”
“You bet. I expect you’ll wanna come to church.”
Matt nodded and pulled out another staple. “Thanks for the invite.”
As they continued to reinforce the stretches where the fence needed help, Matt fought with himself. He wanted to attend worship for all of the right reasons. At the back of his mind, though, he also cataloged how attending church could help his mission.
Almighty Father, You know my heart. My intent is to praise and worship You. Help me keep my priorities straight. I mean You no insult.
“You’ll meet most of the folks from Reliable at church. Nearly everyone attends.”
“You mean there are more people in this little town than all of the Chances and the MacPhersons?”
Tanned nodded. “You know about the Youngbloods. He shows up maybe once a month or so, but his wife and Lucinda are there every Sunday.”
“Folks in town come out this way?”
“Yup. Way back when, the Chances reckoned the time had come for Reliable to have a real church building. Before then, folks came and worshipped in our yard if the weather was fair. On bad days, we held church in the barn. The plot of land where the road forks between our place and the MacPhersons’ seemed logical.”
“Are there as many MacPhersons as there are Chances?”
“More.
“Most every place I’ve been, there are a few big families that run the community.” He held up one hand. “I didn’t mean that in a bad way. Communities need leaders.”
“Reliable isn’t all that big, but plenty of folks step up when things need doing. The Dorseys’ barn burned last year. Everyone pitched in, and a new one was up the next week.”
“Turning tragedy into good.”
Tanner shrugged. “Not that big of a disaster. Tragedy—well, the Walls’ wagon overturned a year back. Lost all of ’em ’cept for the father. Don’t see much of him these days.”
Matt tried to sound casual as he asked, “Anyone know what started the barn fire?”
“Never know about those things.”
Stills sometimes blew up. That could explain the fire. Feigning an absence of any real curiosity, Matt shrugged. “Dumb question. Accidents just happen—like that wagon flipping over.”
Tanner’s features tightened. “That accident shouldn’t have ever happened.”
Holding his hands up in front of himself, Matt shook his head. “Whoa. Sorry if I hit a nerve. Chance Ranch’s horses are the finest I’ve ever seen. If the horse—”
“Wasn’t the horse.” Tanner’s features twisted with disgust. “Thaddeus Walls was drunk as a skunk when it happened.”
Matt whistled under his breath.
“The Good Book tells us not to judge. But it would be a far sight easier for me to pity Thad if I didn’t remember his wife’s weeping. Since our place was closest, they brought Etta here. Doc, Polly, and Aunt Lovejoy did their best. It wasn’t enough. I’ve always reckoned Etta didn’t want to live anymore—not without her children.” Tanner looked away. “We’ve got this section done.”
Understanding the topic had closed, Matt grinned. “Good. I’m hankering after those sandwiches Kate sent with us.”
“Me, too. Sis is a fair cook.”
“Fair? I’ve relished everything she’s made.”
Tanner smacked him on the back. “That’s ’cuz you’ve been eating your own food too long.”
“Anything beats my cooking.” Matt opened the small knapsack and drew out a stack of sandwiches wrapped in a dishcloth. “But I know good cooking when I taste it.”
❧
“This is a disaster!” Kate slammed the lid back down on the roasting pan and resisted the urge to kick the stove. She wanted to impress Matthew Salter with her cooking; one look at this burned roast, and he was liable to hop on his horse and head for the hills.
“No, it’s not.” April motioned to her to lift the lid. “Plunk the roast down over here, then put on some rice to cook.”
“Why?”
“Because,” April smiled, “no one’s going to know it got burnt. While the rice is boiling, you’ll trim off the crispy edges of the roast, then chop the good meat into bite-sized pieces. We’ll use the drippings to make gravy and—”
Kate stood stock-still in the middle of the kitchen, holding the roast precariously aloft with a big carving knife. “You mean the times you make beef and rice. . .it’s because you. . .”
Her cousin winked. “Now let’s get busy. I’ll put the evidence in the slop bucket and cover it with a splash of milk.”
“I can’t believe it,” Kate crowed about half an hour later. “Dinner’s going to turn out fine.”
Laughing, April nodded. “Plenty can go wrong in the kitchen. If the fire in the stove burns too hot or too cool, even the best recipe fails. The trick is learning how to recover from a disaster. Often what you make out of the mess is just as good, if not better, than what you started with.”
“I haven’t decided what to take for dessert to the picnic tomorrow.” Kate set two bowls heaping with snap beans on the table. April promptly dabbed butter on them.
“What about taking—”
“Hey, sis!” Tobias hollered from outside. “I’m half-starved. Is supper ready?”
Normally, Kate would have yelled back her answer, but now that seemed. . .well, not very ladylike. She walked to the doorway, pushed open the screen, and stepped out onto the porch. “If you’re only half-starved, you must’ve had a snack thirty minutes ago.”
The Chance men all chuckled. Even so, Kate heard a deep, rumbling laugh that didn’t belong to her brothers or cousins. She turned and spied Matthew Salter. Glee sparkled in his brown eyes. She smiled back at him. “Supper’s ready. T’s grab the dishes. P’s, take the food.”
“Miss Chance, I’m an M.” Matthew drew closer. “What’s my chore?”
“Mr. Salter—”
“Looks like a mighty capable dishwasher to me!” Paxton declared, slapping the ranch hand on the back.
The opportunity to shuffle around the sink and cupboard with Mr. Salter sounded heavenly. Still, saddling a man with that chore didn�
��t often happen around Chance Ranch. Kate opened her mouth, but Matt spoke first.
“On one condition. You call me Matt, not Mr. Salter.”
Someone whooped in the kitchen, then bellowed, “Beef and rice!”
Kate shifted to the side to avoid being trampled.
Caleb started through the doorway. Tobias and Tanner pushed past him, exiting the cabin with heaping plates. Tanner yelled, “It’s every man for himself!”
Matt shouldered through the line and grabbed their plates. “Ladies first, of course. Thanks for thinking of the gals. Miss Kate and Miss April, I’ll set this food on the table for you.”
Tanner and Tobias exchanged outraged looks, then plowed back toward the kitchen.
April came around the cabin holding a plate with a modest helping of supper and a pitcher full of gravy. “It’s worse than a stampede in there. The men are so food-crazed, they’ve plumb forgotten the cabin has a back door they can use to exit!”
Looking at the two plates in Matt’s hands, Kate’s heart did a funny little flip. “Well, Mr.—I mean, Matt—it looks as if you’ve avoided the throng and still ended up with supper.”
“Brings that saying to mind. ‘All good things come to those who wait.’ ” He set a plate on the picnic table, then looked at her and said in a low voice, “Some things are especially worth waiting for.”
All through supper, Kate told herself he’d been referring to the meal. Maybe he meant me, too. How am I to know? Laurel would have known. She had suitors fighting over her.
“Kate, what’s wrong?” Packard frowned at her. “Are you sick?”
“No. Why?”
“You just poured gravy on your beans.”
“It’s my fault!” April half shouted.
All of the men stopped staring at Kate and turned toward her cousin. Blushing, April muttered, “I didn’t put enough butter on them.” She jerked her chin upward. “As a matter of fact, I’d like to put gravy on my beans, too.”
Matt cleared his throat. “Best gravy I ever tasted. If there’s any left, I wouldn’t mind trying it on my beans, too.”
Kate appreciated how her cousin spoke out. Bless her heart, April knew exactly how to divert the men’s attention so they wouldn’t figure out Kate was so enamored of the new ranch hand that she’d lost track of what she was doing. But Matt? Why had he chimed in? Men. I’ve been surrounded by them all my life—outnumbered by them—but I don’t understand them. Especially this new hand. . .but I’d like to figure him out!
“Hey, sis.” Tanner passed the gravy boat to Matt. “Barbed wire sprang back today. Ripped Matt’s work glove. Think you can stitch it up?”
“I’d be happy to take a look at it.”
Caleb leaned forward and demanded, “Neither of you got cut, did you?”
“Nah,” Tanner said. “Woulda sliced my chest something awful if Matt didn’t have such fast reflexes, though.”
“You would have done the same for me,” Matt said. He then looked at Kate. “It’s kind of you to offer to take a look at my glove, but your sewing needles won’t begin to pierce leather.”
Packard burst out cackling.
Tanner grinned. “Kate does all of the leatherwork for Chance Ranch.”
Matt’s brow furrowed.
Kate’s heart dropped. Tobias told me it’s not a ladylike pursuit. What is Matt going to think?
Nine
“Your parents named you Tanner, but you don’t work leather?”
Tanner chuckled. “Never thought about it before.”
Kate fought the urge to put down her fork and bury her stained hands in her lap.
“And you,” Matt turned his gaze on her, “you made the belts your brothers and cousins wear?”
She nodded stiffly.
“Saddles, too,” Caleb chimed in.
April giggled. “You don’t wear saddles!”
“Some days, I think they ought to.” Kate bit her lip once she’d blurted out that statement.
Tobias bumped her with his arm as he shrugged. “At least she didn’t say muzzles.”
While everyone else at the table chuckled, Matt didn’t. He continued to stare at her. Kate couldn’t read the look in his deep brown eyes. The rest of the meal, Matt didn’t say much. Kate took a few more bites and set down her fork.
“Whats’a matter?” Tobias focused on her plate.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Sure you’re not turning sick?”
Lovesick. “I’m fine.”
“We both tasted the food while cooking.” April pushed her plate away. “I’ve had all I’m going to eat, too.”
While their brothers swooped over and swiped the rest of their food, Kate gave April a smile of gratitude. April knows I’m fond of Matt, and twice tonight she’s kept me from making a fool of myself. Beef and rice is one of her favorites, and she’s going hungry just to help me.
A short while later, with bubbles surrounding his muscular forearms, Matt grinned at Kate as she dried a plate. “Not much to wash, really. Supper tasted so good, I fought the temptation to lick my plate. Your brothers and cousins scraped every last grain of rice off theirs, too.”
“I’m glad you liked it.” Kate shot April a look. “It’s April’s recipe. Compared to how she cooks, what I make is only fit for slopping the hogs.”
“I haven’t tasted Miss April’s cooking, but I’m still going to disagree.” He felt around in the bottom of the water and pulled out one last spoon. “Speaking of hog slop, do you add the dishwater to it?”
“I’ll do it!” Kate set down the plate so fast, it almost cracked.
“Actually, I need to add a little cornmeal first.” April bustled over and grabbed a scoop. “Especially since we didn’t add any dinner scraps, the hogs’ll need this. Kate, why don’t you pour in that last bit of milk, then let Mr. Salter use the pitcher to dip out the dishwater?”
“Good idea.”
Matt cleared his throat. “I mean no familiarity, but I’d rather be called Matt. It was part of the deal Miss Kate and I made when I offered to wash the dishes.”
“It doesn’t seem equitable for us to call you Matt and have you use ‘Miss’ in front of our given names.” April kept stirring cornmeal into the slop and tacked on, “Don’t you agree, Kate?”
“Absolutely.”
Matt shook his head. “My mama drilled a few things into my thick head, and she’d be spinning in her grave if I lost my manners at all, especially around ladies. I’d be making a false promise if I said I’d address either of you in such a way. I reckon the only woman I’ll ever call simply by her first name is the gal I’ll wed.”
Oh. He’s just as much as said he’s not interested in me. And why would he be? Tobias was right—men don’t want women who are boisterous and disheveled.
“You can add in the milk and dishwater now.” April stepped back. “By the way, Kate, Peter needs laces for his boots. Do you think you could make him a pair?”
Kate nodded.
Once Matt added the dishwater to the slop, he lifted the heavy bucket. “I spied the pigpen on the far side of the barn.”
“I’ll take this.” Kate tried to pull on the handle.
“No, you won’t. No reason for a woman to tote when a man’s willing to help her out. Besides. . .” He paused, and a smile tugged at the right side of his mouth. “I’m trying to come up with an excuse to talk you into showing me your workshop.”
“I already said I’d repair the tear in your glove.”
“And I’d be much obliged. Now you turn loose of this slop bucket, Miss Kate.”
“Kate isn’t sure she ought to let you near Frenzy.” April looked down at her hands and frowned at the blisters. “I’d be happy to do the chore, myself, but—”
“You wouldn’t dare. Doc and Polly would have a fit!”
Matt chortled. “They’d have to stand in line behind Peter.”
“But Frenzy,” April said woefully. “She’s been in a wicked temper for days now. She’s
our meanest sow. Kate, you’d better go along. Make sure the gate to the pen isn’t loose. You know how the lock’s slipped the last few days.”
“You ladies oughtn’t fret over such a thing. I’ll be sure to repair that at once.”
“Thank you.” April looked entirely too pleased with herself. “Kate’s workbench is in the stable, and the men keep all of the woodworking tools just to the right of her place.”
Thousands of times, Kate had walked beside a man—her father, uncles, brothers, and cousins. But walking through the barnyard with Matt felt different. His loose-hipped gait testified to years spent in the saddle, and the square set of his shoulders showed confidence that he could handle whatever life threw his way. He switched the slop bucket to his left hand, away from her. Kate couldn’t tell whether he’d done so to put the smelly thing farther away from her or if it was so Matt could walk a little closer.
He looked down at her, and his brows rose in silent query.
Kate didn’t want to tell him what she’d been wondering, so she blurted out, “How did you know about giving the hogs dishwater?”
Matt hitched his shoulder. “I thought most everybody knew the lye in the water cured hogs of worms. Now that I think it over, I’m not sure when I learned about that fact. Growing up around animals, those bits of wisdom are passed on.”
Whew. So he didn’t think I’m crass for asking such a dumb question. “So you grew up around animals—farm or ranch?”
“A little horse ranch. Nothing near as splendid as this spread.”
“Where?” She winced. “Sorry. I’m prying.”
“Nothing wrong with asking simple questions. Wyoming. My dad was the foreman. Worked solid, made the place turn a profit for the widow-woman who owned the spread.”
“Why leave a place like that?”
“The widow up and married. Her husband didn’t want someone else giving orders.” He stopped at the pen. “You’d best step back, Miss Kate. No use risking you getting splattered when I pour this into the trough.”
“I’m already a wreck.”
Matt looked her from neckline to hem and back again. Shaking his head, he murmured, “I disagree. You look like a woman who’s not afraid to work hard for her family.”
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