A Taste of Heaven (5 page)

When he came up to his room and fell on the
big four-poster, he only had time to pull a corner of the quilt
over himself before he was asleep.

*~*~*

Libby Ross carefully closed her door and
tiptoed back to her bed. Sitting on the edge of the mattress, she
put her hands to her hot face.

Being a stranger in the house, and thus alert
to every sound, she'd heard the dog bark outside and a noise in the
kitchen. When she detected the quiet creaking on the stairs, with
her heart stuck in her throat she got up and opened her door a
crack to peek into the hallway.

She was unprepared for the sight of the
long-muscled, naked man who passed her room and went into the one
next to hers. An oblong shaft of moonlight fell across his lean
body, leaving his face in the shadows.

But she had no doubt as to his identity.

T
y rolled over
and burrowed into the feather mattress, pulling the quilt with him.
His eyes still closed, he was caught in the comfortable void
between sleep and wakefulness that is sometimes more satisfying
than sleep itself. He knew he was back in his own bed, and after
ten days of hard travel and rented rooms, it was sweet luxury he
could have wallowed in for hours. But responsibility prodded him,
forcing him to full consciousness. He trusted Joe to keep the
operation running in his absence but there was so much to be done,
and he knew human nature made the men slack off if he wasn't
around. He needed to see what had happened while he was
gone.

Shoving back the quilt, he sat up in the
chill blackness and scratched the stubble on his jaw. The
suggestion of a fragrance drifted past him again, as subtle as a
memory. It faded, so quickly he wondered if he'd dreamed it.
Shaking off the feeling, he groped around the big bedroom in the
last few minutes of night and found his clothes.

A crimson ribbon of light edged the eastern
horizon when he pulled open his bedroom door and walked out to the
gallery and down to the kitchen. Intent on meeting with Joe before
breakfast, he headed down the passageway toward the stairs, his
thoughts on cattle and branding.

Ranching was a hard life in the best of
times, but this year they really had their work cut out for them,
he thought grimly. After a summer of drought and the worst winter
on record, spring had brought with it one heavy rain after another.
Even now, somewhere on the open range his thin, spent cattle might
be drifting if the crew hadn't rounded them up yet. The ones that
had survived, he added to himself

On his way out, the smell of perking coffee
tempted him, and he decided to stop for a cup. The boys grumbled
that they couldn't tell the difference between what the cook was
giving them and what he threw to the hogs, but if he got the coffee
going first thing, Tyler saw that as a saving grace. His hand was
on the doorknob to the kitchen when it was yanked out of his grip,
and a woman stepped into his path.

Libby had a jumbled impression of a tall,
slender man with brown hair just as he crashed into her. He reached
out and gripped her arms to keep her from falling. She was
startled, but he looked shocked. He stared at her as though she'd
dropped in through the roof.

Even without benefit of introduction, Libby
knew this was Tyler Hollins. He stood glaring at her, his frame
stiff. Obviously caught off guard, he was just as obviously trying
to conceal that fact.

He broke the physical contact with decisive
speed. Stepping back, he demanded, “Who the hell are you and what
are you doing in my house?”

After the diligent politeness of Joe Channing
and the other cowboys, she was stunned by his lack of manners, and
by the coldness in his blue eyes. “I-I’m Liberty Ross. Mr. Channing
hired me to cook. You're Mr. Hollins?” It was all she could do to
look him in the face after seeing him naked, carrying his clothes
and boots down the dark hall last night. She felt her cheeks grow
warm again.

He ignored the question and raised his hand
as if to stop any others. "Wait a minute, what do you mean Mr.
Channing hired you to cook? We already have a cook.”

His indignation was palpable. She lifted her
hand to rest it at the base of her throat. With that unnerving blue
glare fixed on her, she began to babble. “W-well, you did but your
men ran him off.”

“What the hell for?”

“It was food poisoning, they said.”

For a long moment he said nothing. Then he
swore, once, the single word blunt and baldly stated. He half
turned from her, looking away, his mouth tight.

Libby flinched at both the word and the low,
fierce intensity with which he said it. How could her presence
provoke such a response? Nothing of the sketchy information she'd
heard about him prepared her for this. “I'm sorry. I’m sure it's a
surprise to find a complete stranger in—”

“You can't stay.” He started to brush past
her, his tone ending the matter. “I don't know why Joe thought I'd
go along with this.”

“But I have experience, and letters of
reference from a family in Chicago—”

“You don't have experience with ranching. The
Lodestar is no place for a woman anyway, and if Joe didn't tell you
that, I'm telling you.”

Libby stepped back against the wall to avoid
being shouldered out of the way. She felt a bite of anger at the
man's hostility. He was behaving as if he'd caught her trying to
steal the silverware.

Her gaze followed him, taking in the powerful
stretch of his shoulders. Watching his angry strides carry him to
the front door, she thought of yesterday's optimism when she'd
believed this might be a good place to work.

She didn't know what to do next. If she was
going to feed the hands this morning, she'd have to start now.
“There's no one to cook breakfast for your men,” she called after
him. “You wouldn't want them to starve, would you?”

“It's physically impossible for a healthy
human to starve to death because of one missed meal,” he threw back
without turning. “You get your belongings together. I'll have
someone drive you to town within a half hour.”

When he reached the front door he turned back
to her abruptly. He actually saw her for the first time then, and
inspected her from hair to hem in one lingering, assessing glance.
The sensation that followed this scrutiny moved through her like a
low vibration. It made her uncomfortably warm although she couldn't
say why. But she did know the man was obnoxious.

With a last look, he turned from her. His
heavy footsteps took him out the door and into the gray dawn.

Found guilty of an unnamed crime, Libby was
helpless to defend herself. And she had no grounds on which to
build a case to make Mr. Hollins let her stay. She turned back to
her room to collect her things.

She'd come to Heavenly, hoping for a
new start, for a home and a family of her own, for children and a
good place to raise them. A place to
belong
. Ben Ross had promised all that and more
to her to get her to come west.

Now what,
now
what
? she asked herself frantically as she scooped up
her hairbrush and comb from the dresser top with shaking hands.
After she spent what little money she had on a hotel room and food,
what would she do? She could pound on every door in Heavenly and
ask for a job, but if no one would hire her—

She envisioned knocking on the door of
last resort, and as she did, tears threatened behind her eyelids.
On that door, in her mind's eye she read the gilded letters:
Big Dipper
.

No, she wouldn't do it, she thought, her hand
clenched in a fist at her. bosom. Not if she had to sleep in her
wagon by the side of the road and steal food. No one would ever
make her feel cheap again.

*~*~*

“Joe!”

From the bunkhouse, Joe Channing heard the
shout and winced. At the sound, the eyes of the men around him grew
wide. Mr. Hollins usually maintained an icy control and that was
intimidating enough. But at those rare times when he lost his
temper it seemed as though the jaws of hell opened, ready to
swallow anyone with the bad luck to be nearby. Of course, he chewed
them some first.

Charlie paused, one boot on, the other in his
hand. He looked at Joe as though he didn't expect to see him ever
again. “I reckon Mr. Hollins is home,” he said. It sounded like a
farewell.

Joe nodded with a sigh. Damn, Ty was back
early and by the sound of it, he'd discovered their new cook. He'd
hoped to work up to the story, to get Ty used to the idea of Libby
Ross, but any chance for that had just gone up in flames. He
stuffed his shirttails into his jeans and went out to face the
furious owner of the Lodestar.

Tyler was pacing back and forth in front of
the porch, his hands jammed in his pockets, shoulders hunched, head
down. The gray dawn was cold but he wore no coat, and his breath
made vaporous clouds.

When Joe reached Ty the air around him nearly
crackled with his wrath. “I guess you met Miss Libby.”

Tyler stopped his marching on the last turn
and stood in front of his foreman. “I’d like to know why I can’t go
away for a few days without coming home to find a strange woman in
my house. A woman who tells me she's the new cook that Mr. Channing
hired. Why is that, Joe?”

Joe remained calm and low-voiced in the face
of Ty's question, then explained how Libby had come to be
there.

“I don't care what the situation was. I won't
have her in the house.”

“For chrissakes, Tyler, what was I supposed
to do?” Joe asked. “Night was coming on, she was all alone. I
couldn't very well put her out on the road. She's Ben Ross's widow
and I figured you'd—”

Ty cut him off. “Damn it, Joe, I want her out
of my house and on her way.”

Joe shifted his weight to his other hip. Even
though this is what he'd expected from Tyler, he'd hoped for more
tolerance. But when a man got his hopes mixed up with his
expectations, the usual result was disappointment. Joe missed the
open, easygoing man who'd been his friend.

He shrugged. “She's got nowhere to go, Ty. No
family, no job, nothing.”

“Then give her enough money to last her
awhile. I'm not running a home for females in distress.” He threw
out his hands to emphasize the simplicity of his wishes. “I don't
want her here. I don't like depending on women. You know that.”

“Who's gonna cook for us when she's
gone?”

Tyler looked at him as though he'd asked what
day of the week Saturday falls on. “Well, hire another cook, Joe. I
count on you to handle these things.”

Joe's patience was evaporating. “It'll be
nigh on to impossible to find someone this season, Ty. After last
winter, just about everybody who could went west to Oregon, and
south to the spreads in Nevada and Colorado. We did the best we
could to get along on our own but these men don't know anything
about food except how to eat it. And if we can't give them decent
meals, they'll move on, too, and you know that.”

“And am I supposed to bring her along on the
trail drive, too?” Tyler inquired with obvious exasperation.
“Fifteen men and one city woman out on the prairie with a thousand
cattle? The first time she sees a snake she'll probably hide in the
chuck wagon and refuse to come out.”

Joe gestured toward the house. “I think Miss
Libby is a lot tougher than that, Ty. Anyway, she cooked for us
last night and even on short notice it was the best supper I've had
in a long time. At least let her stay while we try to find someone
to do the job.”

The muscles along Tyler's jaw tightened and
Joe knew he was battling with his urge to be rid of Libby Ross
right now, no matter what. In the end, practicality won out.

“All right, damn it! She, can stay till the
drive starts in two or three weeks, but after that I want her gone
whether you find someone else or not.” Ty turned on his heel and
stalked back into the house, leaving Joe feeling like he'd just
spent a whole day being pummeled by an especially stubborn
bronco.

Upstairs, Libby pushed her trunk to the
gallery and closed the bedroom door softly behind her. Adjusting
her jacket, she tried to formulate a plan as she reviewed her
assets. But she came up with mostly liabilities. She was a lone
woman in a vast, wild country where man or nature could harm her,
or destroy her, with a swift, uncaring stroke. Tyler Hollins might
be an ogre but she'd been relieved just to hope that she had a
place here. She was pulling on her dusty gloves when she heard her
name.

“You, there—Mrs. Ross,” he called
brusquely.

Libby peered over the railing and saw him
standing in the parlor below. He was looking up at her, his face
still a mask of frustration.

“Those men need to eat and I don't have any
choice but to keep you here for the time being. So get some
breakfast going.” He stormed away, his boots thundering as he went
out the front door again.

The heel! The lowdown cad! Libby nearly
strangled on her indignation. She raised her skirts and swiftly
descended the stairs. Her feet were carrying her to the door to
search for him, to tell him what he could do with his graceless
demand, when the cold hand of reason stopped her. He had no choice?
She had less than no choice. At this moment in her life she was
without options, money, or friends. And as rude and unpleasant as
he was, having shelter and food was better than sleeping in her
wagon.

“Tyler's bark is worse than his bite.”

She jumped and saw Joe Channing standing in
the doorway. The rawboned foreman walked in and pulled his hat off,
giving her a quiet smile. His politeness was a comforting contrast,
but his eyes revealed him to be a poor liar.