Cowboy Heart (Historical Western Romance) (Longren Family series #3, Kitty and Lukes story) (7 page)

             
Then she was gone and, for a heartbeat, my delight died down.  Then I thought of his smile and my anticipation rose.  I was giddy again, and giggly, and in need of a girlfriend to share with.

             
Twilight was vastly too far away.

              As the afternoon wore on, when Sarah didn't need me and no one was around to talk to and most of everything I could do to help out I'd already done, I took a walk to pass the time, heading up the creek that had been dammed up, the same walk I'd taken with Luke, because at least that way, I couldn't get lost.             

             
When I got to the cottonwoods, I pushed on a short distance, but the trees were thick there and there wasn't much of anything to see.  I was about to turn and make my way back along the creek to the ranch house when I caught sight of a figure in the woods.  Sudden fear chilled my face and hands.  I shouldn't have gone there.  I shouldn't be out alone in countryside I didn't know.

             
The figure was a woman, coming quickly towards me, wearing a hat and carrying a blue crocheted shawl.

             
"Hello!"  She hailed me, one hand up and then wavered as she must have realized we'd never met. 

             
Now she'll turn out to be a fairy I've met by chance
, I thought, and waited for her to vanish in a puff of smoke.  When she didn't, I took a step closer and said, "I'm Kathryn Collins, Sarah Kennedy's sister."

             
She nodded.  "Cynthia Getties." 

             
That made sense, given the direction she'd been coming from.  Still, it was a surprise to meet one of the Getties family, given what I knew about them already, and, as far as I knew, we were both on Kennedy land.

             
She proffered the shawl she held.  "Your sister left this at my house one afternoon and I was bringing it back.  Could you give it to her?"

             
"I was just heading back to the ranch.  Would you care to accompany me?  You could join us for lemonade.  I'm sure Sarah would like to see you. "

              I was sure of no such thing, given how busy she was and how much of what was happening to make everyone so busy was because of a man I assumed was Cynthia Getties' husband.  Nor did I really want to make conversation with a stranger for the walk back.

             
To my relief, Cynthia Getties declined.  "Please give her my apologies.  I have my supper to get on." 

             
"It was a pleasure meeting you," I said, and tucked the blue shawl under my arm.

             
"The pleasure is mine," she said.

             
I wasn't completely certain she was sincere.

              Sarah was busy, preparing supper, finishing washing, worrying about William and drought and Mr. Getties and probably me.  When I gave her the shawl, she just looked puzzled.

             
"I never left a wrap at her house," she said, and then, quietly, "Did she mention me?"

             
That wasn't an answer I could satisfactorily give her.

              The evening was glorious.  A chorus of frogs started up around the ranch and a choir of birds saw fit to mark the end of the day with preparations of their own, filling the air with sound.  The honey scent of the new day had given way to heat midday and to the lingering smell of Sarah's rose garden
at evening.

             
Robert McLeod called for me just as the sun started a precipitous slide to the west.  He wore a starched white shirt and paisley vest with dark trousers and had shined his boots, though, in truth, they looked to be the same boots he wore during the day.  He carried a sprig of lilac he'd probably cut from under the kitchen window and that scented the evening too.

             
The trunk with my clothes had arrived three days earlier and Mike had brought it along on a trip back from Redding.  I wore a long sateen dress of midnight blue that my mother had made for me in early spring.  Pearl buttons down the front, full sleeves and a bustle; though it wasn't a fashion I cared for, it was popular.  This evening, I'd managed to control my hair, letting the curl the heat caused fall into ringlets while the rest of it I pulled up into a soft bun, leaving my neck bare.  My best black boots were shiny and ankle length and my mother's note in the trunk had read that she was sure she didn't know why I was sending for my best clothes when staying on a cattle ranch, that she'd grown up on one in Alturas, as had all the Longrens, and she didn't think I would have any need for such garments though she was pleased I liked the dress she'd made me enough to request she send it. 

             
"That's irony," Sarah diagnosed when she read the letter. 

             
"You're keeping track of my behavior, are you not?" I'd responded, which made her protest a flock of sisters wouldn't be enough for such a job.

             
At the time, there'd been no one for her to guard my behavior against.

             
"Pretty much everyone is headed into town tonight," Robert said as he helped me into the wagon.  I saw Sarah twitch away the kitchen window curtain and, just as fast, flick it back into place but I thought Robert had seen.

             
I didn't mind he knew I had people watching out for me.

              We wove through trees, along the river I'd followed when Mr. David Lord had given me a ride.  I hadn't seen much of him since arriving.  According to Sarah, he had a ranch of his own not far away, but 10,000 acres is farther away than I was used to.

             
Moving along beside the river, I could easily see now how low the water was and understand the problems Big Sky Ranch faced.  The drought was a couple years old and water rights had caused more than one court case and more than one shooting over the last few summers.

             
"Did you get the herd to a good pasture?" I asked, because I'd been silent for far too long.

             
Robert gave me a look that said clearly this wasn't the topic of conversation he would have picked.  "They're all up in the east pastures, above where the creek's blocked off."

             
"Was it blocked?" I asked.  Maybe it didn't interest him overly, at least not tonight, but I still wanted to know if someone had done it on purpose. 

             
"Mr. Getties
has a tendency to block up the stream at his place," Robert said.  "Not the first time.  William's taking him to court, but old Getties, he's never happy, even after California passed the no-fence law that means ranchers have to keep their animals off farmer's land and not the other way around.  He's still insisting our cattle are in his garden and demanding recompense."

             
Mr. Getties had a bit more than a garden.  He owned nearly as many acres as Big Sky and he grew grains, but I understood what Robert meant.  It wasn't the most romantic conversation, he was right there, but I wasn't blushing for a change, or stammering or completely unable to talk, and this was my sister's and her husband's concern we were discussing, so I followed my line of thought.

             
"The day I arrived, there was a fire in one of the south pastures.  Mr. Lord and I drove right into it."  I bit my lip and watched the river briefly before asking, "Do you think that might have been Mr. Getties' doing?"

             
He took a breath, as if uninterested, then said, "Ayah. No way to tell for sure.  Look there, do you see that robin?"

             
I didn't, actually, wasn't even sure there was a robin in the expanse of willow he was pointing at, but I took the obvious suggestion to change the subject and, after that, we talked about him.

             
Which I really didn't mind a bit.

              "San Francisco?" I asked as we drew close to Redding.  I'd only been to San Francisco once and the idea that Robert had been born there made him seem mysterious and elegant, even if he was currently living on a cattle ranch.

             
"Went to school there, to university briefly.  I thought"—he cleared his throat—"I was going to study law, but the more I watched my father's business dealings—he was a gold miner, in the rush of '49—the less I wanted that side of human nature."

             
I sat back in the wagon, waiting for Redding to draw us in.  I could hear fiddles playing now and see the gas lights flickering against the oncoming dusk.  The hotel stood tallest of the structures in town, at two stories, and that was our destination. 

             
"So you chose animal nature?" I ventured.  If I'd been born a boy, instead of my brother, Jacob, being the boy, I'd have studied veterinary medicine.  Jacob wasted being a boy on engineering that would see him down in the ground when even my uncles had chosen to leave that life behind."

             
He smiled at me, holding the reins loosely and letting the horses choose their own speed.  "Left school, actually.  Headed to Nevada briefly, didn't like that much, apologies, ma'am, but it was too dry."

             
I laughed.  "And this isn't?" I asked, waving a hand at the drought-ridden land around us.

             
"Not supposed to be."

             
He'd worked a couple ranches before finding Big Sky and said he liked the trail, being outside, working with cattle and the dogs, and being on horseback as often as not.

             
We drew into town then, into laughter and loud voices, singing from the saloons and music from the hotel where we were headed.  It seemed every person on the street knew Robert and greeted him, and I saw a lot of the ranch hands moving in and out of bars and restaurants, dancing in the street with women whose dress seemed a bit scandalous to me, showing too much skin and not covering quite enough. 

             
Robert escorted me in quickly and it wasn't until we were inside, finding a table and looking to see what was on offer for the evening, that I realized he hadn't asked anything about me.

             
The hotel didn't hold a candle to The Faro Queen, but it's possible I'm prejudiced, given it's the Longren's hotel.  The food was simple and hot and I didn't have to cook any of it, all of which I enjoyed. 

             
During the meal, Robert more than made up for any inattentiveness that had preceded the meal.  He asked me about Nevada and about my parents, listened with sympathy about the loss of my father, and I wisely didn't tell him a thing about Mr. Overton's plans to marry me off.

             
Having a man listen to every word should have caused me no end of fretting but, for once, I didn't trip over my words or forget my sentences halfway through.  I made him laugh a few times, telling him about my adventures and Sarah's, which probably wouldn't make it any easier for Sarah to tell the ranch hands what to do, but I liked the way his eyes shined when he laughed.

             
When the dishes were collected and the dancing started to the fiddles and the guitar player and one lone and somewhat lost looking girl with a flute, who everyone else instantly drowned out, I tried to resist.  I'm light on my feet running a race or climbing a foothill or scaling a cottonwood, but I'm heavy on everyone else's dancing.

             
Robert didn't take no for an answer, he simply stood, took my hand in the most courtly manner that set my heart spinning and my breath short, and took me out to the dance floor.

             
Where I spun like moonlight and swept into footwork I couldn't possibly have known; light as a feather and light on my own feet, never on his.  For the first time I could remember, since the days I'd been small enough to dance with my stocking-clad feet on my father's shoes, I enjoyed dancing and left the hotel breathless and flushed rather than tongue-tied and blushing.

             
Robert McLeod was handsome and charming and I had daydreamed about this night since the moment I'd first seen him, when I had no way of knowing such a night was even possible.

             
I didn't want that, though.  Did I?  So soon after Johnny, it truly felt like the path to another broken heart and I didn't have the spirit for it, or any more sisters to run to.

             
My steps off the dance floor as we left the hotel were far more cautious.

              Redding's main street boasted grocers and a telegraph office, a feed store that was also the other grocer's, the hotel where we had dined and where people sometimes staged plays.  There was a laundry and another hotel that had a rather less savory reputation.  There wasn't much more to it.  We walked the length of it, looking at the houses spread in a grid off the main street, and talked about the ranch.  After Robert had abandoned the idea of university schooling and made his way north, he'd worked on a series of cattle drives, heading as far east as Idaho and, once, as far south as Texas.