“Ya, me, too,” Brett answered. “My ma was da best cook. She cooked for all da men.” The man inhaled through his nose so loudly it drowned out the mayor’s speech. “I still smell her bread. So good. I want a wife like that. Good cook.”
“Good luck with that, Brett,” Steve said. “I hope you find one. I’m not here for a wife. Just a cook. Rex got hurt. I need someone to fill in for him. I’m hoping they’re on this train.”
“Ya. Dr. Graham told me. Poor little man, Rex.” For a man who could throw hundred-pound feed sacks in a wagon one in each hand, the blacksmith was a sensitive man. “You tell Brett what I can do.”
“Haul a cook out to my place,” Steve muttered while taking note of how Brett had nodded toward Nelson Graham standing on his other side. Frowning, Steve gave his head a quick, clearing shake. He hadn’t expected the doctor to be looking for a wife, either. Had every man in town gone loco? If they all thought a woman was going to make their lives easier, they needed a new line of thinking. While peering around Brett, Steve caught sight of the man standing next to the doctor and clamped his jaw tight.
“Excuse me, Brett,” Steve said, while squeezing past the man. After nodding to Dr. Graham, Steve planted himself next to the cowboy who should be rounding up spring calves. “What the hell are you doing here?”
The look in Jess Rader’s eyes said he would have run but was squeezed in too tight to move. “I told you this morning I was coming to town, Boss.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I didn’t?”
“No.”
“Well, I meant to.” Jess glanced left then right, and then must have concluded he still didn’t have an escape route. “I ponied up five bucks, Boss. I gotta be here for one of the gals to pick me or I lose my money.”
“You lose your money either way,” Steve pointed out. “And if you want one of those gals to pick you, you should have taken a bath.”
“It ain’t the first of the month yet,” Jess said. “Besides, with Rex hurt, there’s no use taking a bath. Ain’t no one to wash my clothes while I’m washing my skin.”
Steve huffed out a breath. Besides being able to cook, his new hired hand would need to know how to wash clothes.
“What are you doing here?” Jess asked. “I thought you didn’t like this idea of brides.”
“I don’t,” Steve said. “I’m here to hire a cook.”
“Good,” Jess said. “Did you know Walter put salt instead of sugar in the flapjacks this morning? They were awful.”
“Yes, I know. I tasted one.” And had tasted the eggs Walter had sprinkled with sugar. The bacon had been burned black, and the coffee had been too full of grounds to swallow.
“Aw, what? Really?” Jess stomped a foot. “If that don’t beat all.”
Steve glanced around as moans and groans filled the air from the men standing around him. “What?” he asked Jess.
“Didn’t you just hear that?”
“What?” Steve repeated.
“Someone just said there are only five. Five women instead of twelve.” Jess pointed up and down the men standing on either side of them. “Look at all these fellers; that ain’t good odds.”
Steve glanced up and down the row. Besides the blacksmith, the doctor, Jess and the saloon-owning cousins, the banker, the gunsmith, a couple of farmers, a couple of ranchers, as well as the hotel owner and few others he didn’t know were lined up next to the platform.
“All these men paid up front?” he asked Jess.
“You had to in order to be in the group the gals have to choose from.”
Lester Higgums started pounding on his drum, a signal that the train door would soon open, and suddenly Steve didn’t want to be in the front row. He didn’t want it assumed in any way he was here for one of the girls to pick from. In fact, the idea of finding a cook amongst all this hullabaloo was as far-fetched as the whole bride project.
Other instruments joined Lester’s drums; an entire band was playing. The pomp and circumstance the town was putting on for this was laughable. Or disgusting. Either way, he wasn’t impressed, and shouldered his way through the crowd.
Shouts and cheers said the conductor must be opening the door, and without a backwards glance, he headed toward the Wet Your Whistle to collect his horse.
Once mounted, he muttered a curse at how the road heading west out of town was blocked by wagons and buggies. He urged his horse eastward in order to cross the tracks behind the train and then he’d head north, back to his ranch, empty-handed.
Chapter Two
Mary had never been so frazzled. Her hair had never been so dirty or her clothes so dust-covered. And she’d never been so mad at her sister in her life. They were twins. They were supposed to think alike. They were supposed to have gotten off this stupid train miles ago. Days ago.
“We have to go,” Mary hissed. “Now. It’s our last chance.”
“I want a bath,” Maggie said. “I want a decent meal. The girls say that the town is supposed to have hotel rooms for us and everything.”
“We’re not staying in this dusty cow town,” Mary insisted yet again.
“Well I want to enjoy it while I can,” Maggie spouted back. “Nothing is wrong with a little pampering.”
“Pampering!” For being twins there were times they were as different as night and day. “We need to find jobs and I need to find a place to make more tonic.”
Maggie raised her chin as if she was some high and mighty princess. “The tonic needs another week before it’s ready to bottle. What does it matter whether we are comfortable at the hotel?”
“It matters. We’ve got to show them right from the start we aren’t going to marry anyone and they can’t force us.” Mary had to draw a breath to calm her ire. “You know how it is...how it’s always been with our business. We need to be ready to leave town if necessary. That’s why you need to come with me. We have to stay together.”
“We won’t make it. That conductor has eyes like an eagle. Besides, I heard the sheriff talk to him in Bridgeport. They won’t give us a permit to sell it here anymore than they would in Ohio.”
“Then we will just have to be more careful. Anyone who tries the tonic is happy enough with the results. It will only be for a few weeks. By the time the authorities find anything out, we will be gone.”
“Where will we go after this town?”
“I don’t know,” Mary admitted. “Maybe Denver. Somewhere big enough to make a good profit. Somewhere far enough west that selling permits aren’t a problem.”
“We can talk about it at the hotel,” Maggie said before she crossed her arms and spun around.
Mary may have been angry before, now she was furious. Her entire being shook. Ever since they’d boarded the train Maggie had been too busy making friends to care about anything else. Well, maybe it was time for her to discover friends weren’t the same as sisters. It would be a rude awakening for her, but if that was what it took, so be it.
As the wheels screeched to a halt and the others, including Maggie, rushed to stare out the windows, where the music played and people shouted, Mary slid into the small latrine. Her anger continued to fester. If Maggie had kept quiet, they could have snuck out without catching the conductor’s attention more than once.
Cracking the latrine door open, Mary peered out, waiting for the chance she wouldn’t let slip by.
As a portly man stepped aboard, commanding everyone’s attention, Mary slipped out of the latrine and out the door before anyone noticed. Taking a deep breath, which caught in her throat because the air was full of smoke from the puffing smoke stack, she grabbed the railing and hoisted herself over the edge and then down the ground. Everyone else was on the other side of the train, and that was just fine with her. She traveled past another car holding animals of some sorts, and
then to the one carrying their baggage. It wasn’t as if they’d brought a lot with them from Ohio—the sheriff had limited them to a bag and trunk each.
“Pampering,” she muttered. “Fairy dust.” Mary slid the door open and easily spotted her and Maggie’s things. The ruckus on the other side of the train made it so she didn’t need to be too quiet, therefore she wasn’t. “She’s been pampered most of her life, that’s what the problem is,” Mary muttered as she climbed into the car. Tossing aside various bags and bundles, she collected her tapestry bag and tossed it out the open doorway and then pushed aside other trunks until she could grasp both of the handles on the sides of hers.
They had packed carefully back in Ohio, choosing what they would bring, and she regretted that now. Her tapestry bag only held an additional change of clothing and a few other basic necessities. Everything else was in Maggie’s trunk—the one she’d leave behind after she slipped a note inside it for her sister. Her trunk held what she needed to make some money. Fast money that would get her out of town. It held several full bottles, but more important, a brewing batch of McCary’s Finest Recipe Tonic. All she required now was a place it could brew for a bit longer and then she could bottle it up.
The trunk was heavy, and the only way to maneuver it to the opening of the rail car was to walk backwards, pulling it across the rough floor. As she gave the trunk a solid tug with each step, Mary’s irritation at Maggie continued. Talking about finding a job had been useless. Maggie hadn’t worked a day in her life. She’d always had something more important to do than washing or cooking or—
Her step had found nothing but air.
Startled, she let go of the trunk handle and grabbed for it again, but it was too late.
Her fall ended almost as quickly as it started, but her moment of gratitude disappeared almost as soon as it started. She had fallen out of the train car, but hadn’t landed on the ground. It had been years since she’d sat on Da’s lap, but would never forget what it felt like.
Scrambling and with her heart racing, she tried to get off whoever’s lap she was on.
“Hold still.”
The unfamiliar male voice had her struggling harder. “Let go of me!”
“I will. Just let me back my horse up otherwise you’ll break the neck I just saved you from breaking.”
His actions were as quick as her fall had been. Almost before she could blink, he’d backed the horse up, lowered her to the ground, and jumped off himself. Leaving her to look up into a set of eyes so dark brown they could have been black if not for the specks of gold. Horse feathers. If all the men in Kansas looked like this one, she could almost understand why the girls on the train had been so giddy.
“What were you doing?” he asked. “The depot agent will see the baggage car is unloaded.”
Snapped out of her stupor, Mary said, “I—I don’t want anyone touching my things.” Or her person. Sitting on his lap had caused nerve endings to tingle in places she didn’t know she had nerve endings.
“You one of the brides?”
“Me? Not on your life.” Praying for some kind of believable reason to be unloading her belongings, she glanced at the baggage car. “I—I’m heading west as soon as the train is unloaded. To Denver, and I don’t want my belongings mixed up with the ones that will be unloaded here.”
His expression—a dark scowl—didn’t change. Flustered by the way her heart wouldn’t stop trying to beat its way out of her chest, she said, “I’m meeting my husband in Denver and don’t want my china broken before I get there.” Pointing toward her trunk, she asked, “Would you mind?”
His gaze wandered left and right and then over her from head to toe before he swung around and lifted her trunk out of the car.
“Right there is fine,” she said. “I’ll wait with it until everything else is unloaded. Thank you for your assistance.”
Her heart was still pounding, perhaps because of her lies, but more likely because of him. He was tall and muscular, and could very easily thwart her plan before she ever put it in place. “Good day, sir.”
His dark glare once again went from her head to her toes, leaving her quivering, but then he grasped the saddle horn, swung onto his big gray horse with one easy movement, and touched the brim of his black hat with one hand as he turned the horse about.
Relief oozed out of every pore of her body as she watched him ride away. She sighed. Heavily. She’d just seen a true-to-life cowboy. Maggie said this country was full of them. That was what the other girls had said. Mary didn’t believe a cowboy was any better than any other man and was glad to see this one riding further and further away from her. A man had never made her entire being tremble before, and she certainly didn’t want that to happen again.
As he became little more than a speck on the horizon, she frowned. She had no idea what she’d hoped to see, but this wasn’t it.
Town was on the other side of the tracks, but other than a couple houses, this side was barren. “Good Lord, the harder I look, the less I see.” Twisting her neck, she scanned the area from her left shoulder to her right. “There’s nothing. Not a tree or bush. Nothing.”
Well, there was a building. A feed store by the name on the front. There was also a closed sign hanging on the door.
Fearing someone else may round the train at any moment, she picked up her bag and grabbed one trunk handle. Careful to not jostle the trunk too much and fighting the wind the entire way, she dragged the trunk around the backside of the feed store. Spying a lean-to on the side, she dragged the trunk inside it and then sat down on top of it to catch her breath.
Oak Grove sure didn’t have any groves. Could there be a more barren land in all of the world? The grass wasn’t even real grass. It was barely summer and it was already brown and had crunched beneath her feet as she’d walked. Good thing she had made a batch of tonic mixture before leaving Ohio. Finding a way to burp the crock along the way hadn’t been easy, but she’d managed, and soon could bottle it up.
The music had stopped, but she could still hear people talking. Mainly one person. The conductor had said the mayor would provide a welcoming speech, and from how he went on and on, it appeared the mayor liked hearing himself talk.
Oh, well, the mayor wasn’t any of her concern—neither was the image of that dark-haired cowboy that kept flashing in the back of her mind. Finding a place for her tonic to finish brewing was what she needed to focus on. She’d been hoping to find a grove of trees on the edge of town to hide it in, but that obviously wasn’t going to happen.
A loud cheer echoed against the building behind her, as did the whistle of the train, and a couple of loud blasts that made her nearly jump out of her skin. Gun shots! Good heavens, what kind of place was this?
The cheering that sounded again gave her a touch of relief. She’d heard men did that, fired guns for just the heck of it. Cowboys. Uncouth beings!
The idea of Maggie encountering a man much like the one who’d ridden away on his big gray horse rattled Mary slightly. She couldn’t remember being this upset with her sister, at least not for a long time, but she wasn’t going to give in. Being the older sister, if only by a few minutes, she was always the one to give in. Not this time.
Perhaps by the time she’d bottled up the tonic and sold it, Maggie would come to her senses and be ready to head out with her. She’d tried to tell herself she couldn’t care less if Maggie stayed here and married some uncouth man or not, but that wasn’t true. She did care, but Maggie had to learn sometime. And this appeared to be the time. Until that happened—when Maggie discovered the older and wiser sister was always right, Mary figured she’d stay well-hidden. Teach Maggie a lesson she’d never forget.
No longer winded, Mary stood and then crouched down beside the trunk to carefully lift the lid. Happy to see everything still safely packed amongst the straw, she eased the cork toward the t
op of the crock—just enough to let air out, but none in. When the hissing stopped, she pushed the cork down tight and closed the trunk lid before the bitter scent of fermentation could fill the air.
Now to find a place to hide. Her and the tonic.
Focused on surveying the lean-to, she jumped to her feet when an elongated shadow covered the ground near the wide opening. Fearing the cowboy had returned, she tried to come up with yet another excuse.
As a man appeared, she concluded the shadow hadn’t been elongated. He was that tall, and big, and clearly following the marks she’d left in the dirt by dragging her trunk.
Dang it. Why hadn’t she thought of that?
A tinge of relief that this wasn’t the cowboy had her drawing in a deep breath. She didn’t have an excuse for being in the lean-to but did have her wits.
Hurrying forward, she held out her hand. “Hello. I’m Mary, Mary McCary. Goodness, it is so hot I had to find some shade.” That wasn’t a lie. Sweat trickled down the back of her neck, making her wish she’d pinned her hair up. However the weight of it pinned up often gave her a headache. The same was true for Maggie. “I hope you don’t mind,” she continued when the man didn’t shake her hand. “I’ll be on my way shortly. I just needed to rest a moment.”
“Vhere you come from?”
“Where did I come from? The train. I just arrived.”
“The train? You a bride?”
The cowboy had been tall, but this one was a giant, making her half wish it was the cowboy again. “No, no, I’m—I’m a...” She pointed toward her trunk and said the first thing she could think of. “A cook.” That was true. She’d need a place to cook up the syrup to thicken the tonic. “I have all my supplies right there. The trunk is heavy so I dragged it in here, out of the sun.” Her insides quivered slightly. She’d never told so many lies in her life. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave now.”
“No. You stay.”
“I can’t stay,” she shouted over the train whistle. “I—I—I’m looking for—” Her brain wasn’t working as fast as she wished it would. Furthermore, the ground was shaking, which said the train was pulling out of the station.
Mail-Order Brides of Oak Grove Page 2
