“I’ve never played with anyone as good as you are,” she told him, absolutely delighted to find someone else who could play. It had never been easy for her to play with only people who were not as good as she was. Of course she enjoyed winning, but it was a lot more fun when it was actually a challenge.
When it was time for them to go to their separate beds, she felt that their day had been a success. Not only had they each taught the other something that was very important to them, they’d found more common ground. Now if she could only learn to cook to his expectations, everything else would be—dare she say it—gravy.
When JoAnn woke up the following morning, she was feeling more positive than she had since she'd arrived in Squirrel Ridge Junction. She was up before Kendall, and she hurried as she made the only breakfast she knew how to make.
When Kendall woke, he could smell bacon, the aromas filling the small cabin. Nothing was nicer than waking up to the smell of bacon. He stood and walked over to where his new wife was standing in front of the stove. He wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, and kissed her cheek. "That bacon smells fabulous."
JoAnn removed the bacon from the frying pan and set it onto a plate. Then she turned in his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck. "I didn't even burn it this morning!"
He laughed. "That is definitely appreciated." Leaning down, he brushed his lips against hers. "What are your plans for the day? You know I'll be out all night, right?"
JoAnn frowned at him. "No. Where will you be?"
"A few of the territories are too far to visit in just one day. We take turns with our overnight trips. Tonight is mine. If you get nervous, I'm sure Miss Hazel would be happy to come and stay with you." He hated the idea of leaving her alone overnight when she couldn't really shoot yet, but he really didn't have a choice. Besides, the other Mounties were in the area, and they would be able to watch out for her.
"I don't like it, but I guess it's part of being a Mountie’s wife. And I sure do like my Mountie." She stood on tiptoe and brushed her lips against his again. It was strange thinking that she could kiss this man whenever she wanted, but they were married, and that made it all okay. "I think I will ask Miss Hazel to stay with me. I'm sure Theodore and Jess are getting tired of having her be there all the time. So they'll probably enjoy a little alone time."
"It would honestly make me feel better if you weren't here alone. I like the idea of Miss Hazel staying with you. She'll make sure you don't get into trouble."
JoAnn laughed. "You've only seen the sweet, motherly side of Miss Hazel. That woman is absolutely crazy. Some of the things she got up to back in Ottawa, well… I'm not going to go into any details. Suffice it to say it would be enough to make you prematurely gray."
He grinned. "I see the mischief in her eyes. I think she could do some pretty crazy stuff." Hugging her close for another moment, he said, "I need to go get ready for the day. No one takes me seriously unless I'm wearing my red serge jacket."
“I’ll make the pancakes while you get you change.” When he was almost to the bedroom door, she called, “And Kendall?”
He turned and looked at her. “Yes?”
“I really like your red serge jacket.”
He went into the bedroom, smiling to himself. He was going to get sick of pancakes before too terribly long, but hopefully by then she’d have learned to cook something else.
After he’d gone for the day, JoAnn walked over to Jess’s house to ask Miss Hazel if she’d spend the night at her home. Miss Hazel looked her up and down as if seeing her for the first time. “You know I’m not going to help you work, right?”
JoAnn shrugged. “That’s fine. I just don’t want to be alone.”
“And you’re going to fix a decent supper for me? I don’t want any of that nasty stuff you’ve been feeding Kendall.”
JoAnn bit her lip. “Has he complained?”
“No, but I know you can’t cook. Maybe I’ll spend the day teaching you to make a couple of more decent meals. The man’s going to start protesting if he gets pancakes three meals a day forever.” Miss Hazel walked to the mattress that was on the floor in the main room. She picked out a few things and put them into a bag. “Jess, I’m staying with JoAnn overnight. She needs to be able to make a few more meals so that poor Kendall doesn’t revolt.”
Jess bit her lip, obviously fighting laughter. “I think that’s a great idea.”
JoAnn glared at her friend. “Where’s the loyalty?”
“You need to be able to cook. Have a nice time.” Jess seemed truly relieved to see JoAnn abscond with her mother-in-law.
“Let’s go pick some apples,” Miss Hazel suggested. “I know of a small cove of trees outside town, and I’ll teach you to make apple pies, because I know you weren’t paying any attention when Tilly gave her pie-baking lesson.”
“I was…”
“You were not!” Miss Hazel shook her head. “Let’s get a couple of bags to put apples in.”
JoAnn had found a couple of burlap sacks while cleaning the house. She handed one to Miss Hazel, and the two of them left town, walking away from the lake. “I’m not sure I’m quite ready for pie yet, Miss Hazel.”
“Pie is easy. I’ll show you. Tilly makes them kind of fancy, and I think you need more basic instructions. And you need to make some applesauce too. I think that would make Kendall happy.” Miss Hazel stopped at a small grove of apple trees.
JoAnn reached for the apples she could reach, but she knew there was no way she could fill both bags. She was more than a little shocked when she turned around to see Miss Hazel in a tree, straddling a branch. “Miss Hazel! Come down! You’ll get hurt!”
“I may be older than you, but I’m not elderly yet, and I’m still feisty. I can do it.” Miss Hazel carefully stood up on the branch and began picking the apples, her feet unsteady.
“I’d feel a lot better if you weren’t in that tree endangering yourself.” JoAnn looked at the distance to town and thought about running for Joel, but she didn’t know what she’d do if Miss Hazel fell while she was gone.
“Oh, don’t get your drawers in a bunch! I’ll come down when I’m good and ready!”
“Uh oh! Mickey Moose is coming. I promised Kendall I’d go straight home if I saw him, because he says meese can be dangerous.” JoAnn looked up at the older woman imploringly, hoping she’d get out of the tree so they could go back to her house.
“Meese? JoAnn Becker, you need to stop calling moose meese, and stop calling Monty Moose Mickey Moose. May I ask what your problem is?”
“My problem is that my name is now JoAnn Jameson, and I didn’t know his real name was Monty. I like Mickey!”
“Well, I named him Monty, so you can find some little mouse to name Mickey. The moose is Monty, and that’s that.” Miss Hazel looked down at JoAnn. “Come and hold your bag open under me so I can drop apples into it. It looks like it might rain, and I’m not coming down until both bags are full.”
“But what about Mickey—I mean Monty Moose? What if he hurts us?” JoAnn asked, eyeing the moose who was ambling their way.
“Teddy says he’s perfectly safe. He’d probably eat the apple right out of your hand.” Miss Hazel hit JoAnn in the head with an apple.
“Ouch! Watch where you’re throwing those things.” JoAnn rubbed her head for a moment, before opening her bag wide again. “Kendall won’t like it if I don’t listen to him and go back to the cabin with the moose on the loose.” She giggled. “I like that. Moose on the loose!”
“Just hold the bag and stop rhyming, silly girl!”
When both bags were full, Miss Hazel looked down at the ground. “I’m not sure I can get down.”
JoAnn’s eyes widened. “How can I help?”
Miss Hazel sighed. “Go see if Joel is in the office. He’ll get a ladder and help me down.”
“Will you be all right for as long as it takes me to run there and get him?” JoAnn felt like she was doing something wrong by leaving the older woman
trapped at the top of the tree.
Miss Hazel maneuvered herself until she was sitting on the branch once again. “I’ll be fine. But do hurry.”
JoAnn ran to town, and once she was there, she realized she didn’t even know where the Mountie office was. She quickly saw the sign for it—it wasn’t like there were a lot of businesses in town—and she rushed inside, finding Joel sitting at his desk, frowning down at some paperwork. “Miss Hazel’s stuck in a tree!”
Joel frowned at her. “How’d she get into a tree to begin with?”
“She climbed. We were picking apples, and she made a horrible decision to get up there, even though I begged her to come down. She said you might bring a ladder.”
He got to his feet. “I’ll run home and get a ladder. Where is she?”
“There’s a small grove of apple trees, just outside of town.”
“I know it. You go be with her, and I’ll find you.”
JoAnn ran as fast as she could back to the tree, looking up at Miss Hazel. “He’ll be here as soon as he gets a ladder. How are you doing?”
Miss Hazel shrugged. “I’m a pleasantly plump old woman stuck at the top of a tree. How do you think I’m doing?”
“At least you have snacks up there if it takes us a while to get you down.” JoAnn wasn’t sure if she should be laughing or crying. She was just thankful Theodore wasn’t in town to see that she’d gotten his mother stuck up a tree.
“Well, let’s pray I won’t be up here long enough to need a snack.”
Joel came along then with a ladder, standing beneath the tree and looking up. “Looks like you’ve gotten yourself into a fine predicament, Miss Hazel. Why did you decide to climb a tree today?”
“We were picking apples, and there were lots of apples we never would have been able to reach from the ground, so I decided I should climb the tree. Anyone looking at JoAnn would be able to tell she’d never figure out how to climb a tree.” Miss Hazel frowned down at Joel. “Are you going to get me down or not?”
“Of course I am. As a Mountie, it’s my job to help people in need. Whether I’m helping catch bank robbers or helping women who are old enough to know better out of trees they never should have climbed.”
“Don’t rub it in now, Mountie!” Miss Hazel sat impatiently waiting for Joel to get the ladder into place.
JoAnn stood to one side, wringing her hands together. “How can I help?”
“Stay out of the way,” Joel told her, climbing the first few rungs of the ladder. “Won’t you join me, Miss Hazel?” He offered her a hand to help her feel steady, and she was able to turn around and back down the ladder with him always one step beneath her.
When they reached the ground, Miss Hazel hugged Joel tightly. “Don’t you ever tell Teddy I did that!”
Joel laughed. “I’m happy to have something to blackmail you with, Miss Hazel.”
The older woman laughed and reached up to kiss his cheek. “You’re a good boy, Joel.” She turned to JoAnn. “And you weren’t much help at all. Never mind. Let’s head back to the cabin. It’s time for me to teach you to make apple pies.”
Joel’s ears perked up. “Did someone say apple pie?”
Miss Hazel rounded on him, her hands on her hips. “I’ll bake you your very own apple pie if you’ll promise never to tell Teddy about this little incident.”
Joel grinned. “You have yourself a deal, Miss Hazel. I’ll expect payment while the pie is still hot.”
“You’ll get it!”
JoAnn shook her head, trailing along behind Miss Hazel, carrying the two bags of apples. Life had been a whole lot easier back in Ottawa. Of course, Kendall was here.
7
By the time Kendall got home the following evening, JoAnn had three new meals she could cook, and there was an apple pie waiting on the table. Kendall walked in, looking out of sorts, and JoAnn went to him, hugging him tightly. “I missed you.” She hadn’t realized it was true until she said it, but she had missed all of his little habits. No one had played music for her, and without him, there hadn’t been much desire to sing. It was strange how quickly she’d grown used to having a husband around.
Kendall smiled, pressing his face into her hair. It had been a rough couple of days, and he was so happy to be home. “I missed you, too. I’ve grown accustomed to having you here with me.”
“How was your trip?” she asked, not sure what all she was even allowed to ask about what had happened. Was there a Mountie code of honor where they couldn’t mention things that had occurred?
“It was long. There was a land dispute. There are two farmers about a day’s ride from here who argue about six feet of land. Each of them have over fifty acres, and there’s six square feet that they’ve been fighting over since I came here a few months ago. Theodore says it’s gone on a lot longer than that.” He shook his head, sitting in one of the chairs at the table and rubbing the back of his neck. “When I arrived, the two of them were standing there with rifles drawn. I’ve caught them that way at least three different times. They just can’t seem to give in about this tiny little piece of land.”
JoAnn served the stew she’d made into a bowl and put it in front of him, along with a glass of water. “Who owns it?”
“That’s the thing. No one is really sure. There was a tree marking the line between their land, but that tree was chopped down for firewood years ago, and the stump burned. They’ve been fighting ever since.”
“How old are they? Sounds like too old to be acting like children.”
“Definitely.” Kendall took a bite of his stew, ready to spit it back out if he needed to, but it was good. “They’ve got to be in their sixties. I talked to their wives, who are close friends by the way, and they both said to let them shoot each other because it’ll save them a lot of grief.”
JoAnn shook her head. “Sounds like a ridiculous kind of situation to me.”
“It is. I’m not sure what to do, but I’ll be talking to Joel about it tomorrow.” He looked around the cabin, noting a few more subtle changes she’d made. “Anything exciting happen while I was gone?”
“Miss Hazel taught me to make apple pie, and I have one ready for you to try. I made it all by myself, but she watched, so I’m sure it won’t poison you.” She related the story of apple picking. “I wasn’t sure what to do. Monty Moose was running around, and you told me to go inside if I saw him, but Miss Hazel was stuck up that tree. What should I have done?”
“Sounds like you did the right thing.” He shook his head. “What did Theodore say about that whole thing?”
“That’s the thing! She bribed Joel into not telling him with an apple pie, and she made it very clear to me that if I told him I would never be forgiven. So I didn’t say anything.”
Kendall laughed. “Sounds like Miss Hazel. I love that crazy old woman, but she does the darnedest things sometimes.” He took another bite of stew. “This is really good. Did you make it yourself?”
She nodded. “I did! Miss Hazel watched, and I think it turned out pretty well.” She served herself a bowl and refilled his before taking her seat opposite him. “It was strange having her here instead of you.”
He smiled, reaching over and taking her hand in his. “I would have been here if I could. I’m glad we have a place where you won’t be the only woman around. Some Mounties are the only white person in the whole area, because they’re assigned to areas where they’re surrounded by natives. You’ll have it easier than most.”
“What if you get reassigned?”
He shrugged. “I guess we cross that bridge when we come to it. Do you like it here?”
She nodded emphatically. “I like the other women I came out here with, but my special friendship with Jess makes it a good place for me.”
“We should have the others over and play music for them. Let them dance.”
“Really? Would you do that?”
He nodded. “I did it all the time before. Now that you’re here, we can play together.”
/> “I’d like that.” She smiled. “Talk to the others and see what day is good. It would be nice to get to know the other Mounties, and see how the other women are with them. I have to wonder if Miss Hazel did as well with the other matches as she did with ours.”
Kendall grinned, taking another bite of his stew. She thought they were a good match. It warmed him from the inside out hearing her say that.
It was time for Miss Hazel to leave on Thursday, and all of the ladies were gathered at the train platform to see her off. When it was JoAnn’s turn to say goodbye, she hugged the older woman tightly. “I’m going to miss you so much.”
“Oh, pshaw. You’re not going to miss me at all. You have Jess here, and you have a new husband who is going to demand your time. You won’t have the time or inclination to miss me,” Miss Hazel whispered softly to JoAnn. “Learn three new dishes a week. Soon you’ll be cooking as well as all of the rest of the ladies.”
“Except Rose. No one wants to cook like Rose.”
Miss Hazel just winked at her, moving on to hug Jess one last time.
As they walked back from the train station, JoAnn linked her arm with Jess’s. “What are you fixing for supper tonight?”
“Fried chicken. Teddy loves my chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy. Why?”
“Because I need to learn to cook something new. Poor Kendall is sick of pancakes for every meal.”
“All right. I’ll show you. It’s easy.”
JoAnn groaned. “Every time you tell me it’s easy to make something, I know it’s going to be hard.”
Jess patted her arm. “You’re exaggerating as usual.”
“I’m really good at two things. Music and exaggerating. Everything else positively befuddles me.” JoAnn followed Jess into her cabin, noting that the extra mattress that had been placed there for Miss Hazel was already tucked neatly away. Jess seemed to actually enjoy doing housework, though JoAnn had no idea how any woman on earth could. It was boring, and a drudgery in her eyes.
RNWMP: Kendall (Mail Order Mounties Book 1) Page 6
