by Lisa Norato
Love is a risk only brave people take. The message from her dream resurfaced in a haunting memory.
Okay, so maybe she did shoulder her own set of insecurities, which, she admitted, did make her think twice about opening her heart in a relationship. Hey, everyone feared rejection. Wisdom and experience had taught her caution.
Sometimes she worried it was too late. She worried her body was no longer the firm, supple thing of its youth. And call her vain, but she worried about things like wrinkles, gray hairs and cellulite limiting her ability to attract a man.
But then, she never had been perfect and she knew it.
All of which contributed to her feelings of self-consciousness and anxiety around Ruckert. He intimidated her with his stately height, that lean, sinewy body and those dark, handsome looks. Not to mention his virility and youth. Oh, yeah. Especially his virility and youth. Add to that the fact Ruckert St. Cloud was an authentic cowboy from the heyday of the Old West, and she had herself a larger-than-life, awe-inspiring, he-man specimen to contend with.
His very aura warned her away. An iron fortress enclosed him, warning others not to get too close, and Shelby wondered what possible heartache that big, rugged hunk could have suffered to cause him to shut himself off.
A lost love, perhaps? Funny, but she’d never known a man to abandon speaking to humans because he’d been burned by a woman. Granted, the male ego was extremely sensitive. Men generally had a more difficult time coping with emotional trauma than women. But the natural response after a breakup was a period of bitterness and anger. And Shelby detected neither of those emotions in Ruckert.
No, his issue ran much deeper.
She didn’t know how best to conduct herself in his presence or interpret his intense stares. What did you say to someone who seemed able to look straight into your soul, but refused to respond when you reached out?
And what did she care, anyway? Why this nagging preoccupation with a man who clearly wanted to be left alone? She had more pressing worries.
Drawing on her knowledge of western history, ranch cook was no easy task. But Shelby needed to keep busy or she’d drive herself crazy trying to figure her way out of an impossible situation she was powerless to change.
She reported downstairs for instructions. A horrendous odor met her at the entrance to the kitchen that hadn’t been there earlier. It stopped her cold.
Rose stood at a worktable in the center of the room, oblivious as she measured flour into an earthenware bowl. She glanced up, and the welcoming smile that split her face was enough to brighten Shelby’s spirits. “Morning, Shelby. Did you sleep well, dear?”
Shelby stepped forward, and the rancid stench shot up her nose and down her nasal cavity, where it lodged in her throat until she wanted to gag.
Rose misunderstood. Her cheerful expression vanished. “You didn’t sleep well? Sometimes the night wind rattles the pane and a draft blows through that window in your room. Did it disturb you? I’ll have one of the boys fix it after breakf—”
“No, Rose, the window didn’t rattle. Everything was fine. The room was snug and warm. The bed was comfortable.” And in all truth, they were. Something else entirely had disrupted Shelby’s night through no fault of her gracious hostess. “I had a good night’s rest,” she lied rather than insult the woman, “and now I’m ready to report to work.”
Shelby realized she’d been holding her breath—difficult, when one was trying to speak at the same time—and glanced about the room, trying to pinpoint the source of the odor. She didn’t understand how Rose could stomach it.
An enamel coffee pot bubbled on the heavy iron cookstove. A cupboard to the right was built neatly into the wall. Tin and copper pans hung on wooden pegs alongside ladles of every sort and size. All clean and organized. No dead bodies anywhere.
Beneath the window stood a black iron sink. It was empty, the pine drain boards flanking it bare except for Ruckert’s supper dish and utensils, rinsed clean.
Then, by the back door, Shelby recognized the gray kitten she’d seen yesterday on the porch. She’d since learned the kitten’s name was Dewey. The lone survivor of a litter of five, Dewey slept on a folded blanket, nestled in a small wooden box by the stove. She lay with one white paw resting before her fluffy gray face like a baby sucking her thumb. A saucer of milk sat nearby. Shelby wondered whether perhaps the milk had soured.
Jorge growled in her arms. Dewey flashed open her eyes and stared at him. They were a beautiful china blue.
“That smell, Rose. What is it?”
“You mean my yeast.” With a chuckle, Rose cupped her hands around the yellow bowl. “It’s been fermenting overnight. A little cornmeal, dash of sugar, pinch of salt and some new milk. A trifle strong on the sniffer, I agree, but you just wait. This evening we’ll enjoy a delicious loaf of fresh bread with the faint taste of cheese.”
Sourdough. Shelby affected a smile as a wave of homesickness washed over her. Caitlin made homemade bread, too. Buttermilk honey bread. But Caitlin made her bread in a machine and it never smelled like this.
Rose wiped her hands on her apron and removed a porcelain mug from the cupboard. She moved to the stove and, gripping the handle of the coffee pot with a quilted square, poured.
Shelby accepted the mug with a grateful smile. “Thanks. Just what I need.”
“Careful. It’s hot.” Rose slid a small pitcher across the worktable. Shelby peered inside. The contents were yellow, the thick yellow of cream straight from the cow.
As Shelby sipped her black coffee, Rose turned to gaze out the window.
“I warned Charley when I first married him, I wouldn’t live anywhere I couldn’t have fresh milk, butter and eggs. I never was one to ask for much in the way of luxuries, but I make the exception when it comes to chickens and milch cows. Most ranchers raise their families on sowbelly, beans and coffee. Not me. I wasn’t about to let my boys go through life without a taste of my omelets and custards.”
Shelby joined her at the window. Rose’s garden glistened with dew, and in the small farmyard, a hen house lay quiet under dawn’s first light. Posts of unshaved cottonwood branches supported a crude wire fence. Here was Rose St. Cloud’s pride and joy, and to think, all Shelby had ever had to do was visit the supermarket.
Rose pointed the way to the cookhouse. It had been well stocked, she explained. A big kettle of peeled potatoes had been left soaking on the stove, and her husband Charley would follow shortly with a slab of sowbelly. First order of business was always to put on the coffee. Rose handed Shelby a basket of eggs, gently, and with the pride of a farmer marketing her crops at a fair. She instructed her to fry them up with the potatoes and some onions, then let Shelby know where to find ingredients to prepare biscuits.
As a rule, the hands got fed before the cook. The Flying Eagle presently had twenty-three men on its payroll, twenty-three hungry men for Shelby to feed. Anyway, once the punchers had been served, she was to return to the house where Rose would have Shelby’s own breakfast waiting for her.
Braced with her eggs and a clearer purpose than when she’d first walked down the stairs moments ago, Shelby carried Jorge into the parlor on her way out. There against the front wall, by an open window with the potted geranium on its sill, stood a beautiful upright piano.
Her heart gave a joyful flutter. Shelby lowered her basket to the floor and ventured closer until her reflection shone in the polished wood.
She trailed her fingertips across a piano scarf of deep wine silk adorned with tassels of the same shade. The scarf had been embroidered with black thread, and on its surface, among half a dozen knickknacks, sat two tintypes.
Yet it was the piano itself that so thoroughly captured Shelby’s attention. She hadn’t appreciated its presence last evening when the shock of traveling through time was still new to her system. But now she took great comfort in it.
Longingly, she traced one of the carved panels in front. The piano was her outlet, her stress relief, her choice of cre
ative expression. Music lifted her spirits, brought hope, chased away despair. She could think of no better way to forget her troubles.
Last evening, Shelby hadn’t been in the mood to even think about playing. This morning, however, she laid her jacket on the leather seat of an armless rocker, positioned herself on the piano’s plush stool with Jorge in her lap, and lifted the lid. A set of ivory keys gleamed up at her.
Go on. You won’t disturb anyone. The entire household was awake and about.
She positioned her fingers over the keys and played middle C, running up the scale. Each note reverberated back in turn, clear in their tone, and the peace that came upon her then made her believe, for the moment at least, that she would get through this.
Yes, even this.
* * *
It reached him in the barn—a soft whisper of musical sound, as small and imperceptible as the dust motes floating up toward the pine beams of the peaked roof. He thought he’d imagined it, but Chongo’d heard something, too. The gelding raised his head and pricked his ears.
Ruckert set down his currying comb to wipe the sweat from his brow and listen. Slow piano movements began to fill the cool, dark interior the way the body heat of the animals warmed the barn on a winter’s morning. The incredible tenderness of the melody touched him, and in it, he heard many moods—sadness and longing, hope and wonder.
He listened a while longer, lost in the music’s tranquil charm, amazed at its beauty, then shook his head as though waking from a dream. He wondered where the music was coming from. Since no one in his family played other than himself, he reckoned it had to be Miss McCoy playing that piano.
Memory slapped him cold in the face. Anger seized him. The piano represented one of his most bitter disappointments in his lifelong struggle with stuttering.
Bad enough she had haunted his dreams last night, but she had intruded on him here, in his haven of peace, where the smells of sweet hay, old wood and earthen floor lingered fresh in his nostrils. The barn was his refuge. He had been coming here since he was a small child, stealing away from the family he could not effectively communicate with to talk to the animals.
He recalled the hours he’d spent practicing at the piano, the hope he’d invested, only to have it backfire in his face. Again, Shelby McCoy’s presence at the ranch had reminded him of all he wanted but couldn’t have.
* * *
Rose had come from the kitchen to hear Shelby play. She slipped her hands inside her apron pockets and rested her head against one of the great support beams that formed the entrance to the parlor. Dewey sat on the sill by the piano, eyes closed and soft gray face raised to the music in an expression of total rapture. Jorge had long since jumped off Shelby’s lap to lie on the floor beside the piano and stare at Dewey. Shelby was so lost in her playing, she noticed none of it. She didn’t even hear the Dutch door swing open.
“Wh-wh-what d’you think you’re doing?”
Shelby gasped at the anger in the recognizable voice and missed her next note.
Ruckert stood in the dark foyer to her left, fists clenched by his sides.
“I-I-I,” she stammered, too shocked to feel frightened of the anguish and rage on his face. He blew towards her with the force of a tornado, heels clacking on the wooden floor, spurs jingling.
“I-I was only playing the piano,” she said defensively, as if the fact weren’t obvious.
But Ruckert had reached her side and the next thing she knew—bang! He slammed the piano lid shut.
“Hey!” Shelby had barely had enough time to move her fingers out the way.
Rose gasped. Jorge barked. The kitten screeched and knocked over the potted geranium. Ruckert leaned down. The brim of his black Stetson hovered just above Shelby’s eyebrows as his piercing green eyes locked onto hers. “Ddd—”
He stared with single-minded determination, trying to communicate, his body quaking with suppressed emotion. He heaved for breath as though struggling to form words, and to Shelby it looked as laborious as trying to bank a dying fire.
“What?” she asked, dumbfounded, unnerved. What had she done to upset him?
“Don’t,” he finished in a deep, husky whisper, and Shelby could see he was trembling.
Don’t play the piano? It didn’t sound so much like an order as a plea. Though she couldn’t be certain because in the next instant Ruckert turned on his booted heels and stomped off. Jorge chased him on four dainty feet, barking frantically, only to be brought up short when the door slammed in his face.
In the wake of Ruckert’s exit, Shelby noticed Rose standing nearby. The woman had witnessed the whole scene, and by her expression, Shelby could tell she felt deeply embarrassed by her son’s actions. She approached Shelby at the piano bench and laid one hand on each of Shelby’s shoulders.
“This is still my home,” she said, “and you are welcome to play the piano whenever you like. I’ll see Ruckert doesn’t disturb you again.”
The words afforded Shelby no comfort. At last, Ruckert had spoken to her. No, st-stuttered at her. That’s how much of a hardship it had been for him to address her. And she had stammered back, fool that she was. Fool for ever thinking he felt some bit of tenderness for her.
Besides Jorge, playing the piano was the only comfort left her in this crazy, mixed-up time slip, and Ruckert had wanted to snatch it away the moment she’d found it.
He was determined to make her life at the Flying Eagle as miserable as possible, but the question remained: why?
Chapter Nine
The aroma of yellow pine and deep meadow grass rose up from the hills behind the two-story log building that housed the cowhands. Twenty-year-old Fred Russell and his best friend Rudy Hirsig sat on one of the wooden benches stationed outside.
Fred rolled a cigarette, then dug into the breast pocket of his gray-checked hickory shirt for a light. When he came up empty-handed, Rudy pulled a match from the horsehair band of his felt hat. He struck it on his boot heel, then offered the flame to Fred who nodded his appreciation as he lit up.
Fred sucked the tobacco deep into his lungs. Through a haze of cigarette smoke, he spied a tall, slim figure with a wire basket of eggs hot-footing it for the cookhouse. He nudged his friend, who immediately straightened in his seat.
Must be Cookie’s niece, Fred thought queerly, drawing his brows together. Now as how he’d gotten a good glimpse of her, he wasn’t quite sure what to make of the gal. She didn’t look like no he-man type. Didn’t walk like one neither. Yet that was a man’s jacket and a pair of denim trousers she wore with a boy’s work shirt. And doggone, she hadn’t even bothered to tuck it in.
He found it mighty strange a woman with hair the color of a summer sunset would clip it off to a length that just sort of swayed around her face with no place to go.
Fred would have thought any woman would be plumb ashamed to have folks see her tramping about in such a state, but not her. Cookie’s niece carried herself just as proud as if she were wearing her best hoedown dress.
From behind her boots appeared a little black cloud of dust no bigger than one hand at the withers. Fred reckoned it for a cross between a dog and a skunk with no stripe. And dang, if his eyes hadn’t gone to playing tricks on him. Was that a red sweater it wore?
He ruminated on which was the more curious, the woman or the animal, then turned to Rudy, who gaped back, flabbergasted. They stared at each other a moment before they remembered their manners. As she strode past, they rose to their feet, but just as they reached up to tip their hats and bid her good morning, that black elf-like creature barked at them and they jumped. She shooed it inside the cookhouse and slammed the door without a word.
* * *
Shelby noticed the two young cowboys standing outside the bunkhouse, but she was anxious to be alone. She took a quick look around the dark dining hall and saw that she was, thank goodness. Only then did she set her eggs down on the long, narrow dining table in the center of the room and swipe at the tears that had welled to the
rim of her eyes.
Helplessness engulfed her, but rather than give in to despair, she focused on her anger, fueled by that crazy ogre, Ruckert St. Cloud. She couldn’t allow him to drain her like this, ping-ponging her emotions until she couldn’t tell if she were coming or going. Why, she’d like to hurl these eggs at his smug face just to watch their gooey yolks drip off his mustache. She’d do it, if it would get her out of this nineteenth-century nightmare.
She’d been separated from the family she loved, stranded with none of the comforts of her own age, forced to wear borrowed clothing. Her sports utility vehicle was lost in the twilight zone. And now she wasn’t allowed to play the piano?
She inhaled deeply. If she’d ever felt lonely before . . . well, she hadn’t understood how lonely lonely could be, until now.
She’d been taking life for granted, focusing on the husband she didn’t have instead of being grateful for what she did have—her music, a job that gave her the opportunity to use her teaching and musical talents, a loving family, supportive friends, a comfortable place to live, nice clothes, food on the table.
She’d never complain again. If only she could go home.
If only . . . if only . . . if only. . . .
A tear landed on the red-and-white checked oilcloth. She glanced up and saw that the tabletop was scattered with half a dozen oil lamps in the same green-painted, iron brackets as the lamps in Rose’s kitchen. Two long benches and half a dozen wooden chairs surrounded the table.
She shrugged out of her jacket and strode past them to the front of the cookhouse, where the stove loomed like a big iron monster. Somewhere on this black beast was a fire chamber Shelby would need to fuel in order to light the stove, the hows of which she had neglected to ask Rose.
The kettle of peeled, boiled potatoes sat on one of the cold cooking lids. A gallon-sized coffee pot rested on another. Shelby lifted the lid and peered inside. Yuck. Whoever had used it last had not thrown out the grounds. They filled the lower third of the pot like a pile of sludge.
