Fancy Pants (Only In Gooding Book #1) (40 page)

Tim folded his arms across his chest. “You old goat!”

“Velma wrote that you’d told Sydney she couldn’t accept gentleman callers until I came home. I gave you a head start. You can thank me later.” Fuller hobbled away a few steps and turned back. “Don’t you have anything more to say?”

It took one large stride to close the distance between them. “Until last night, Sydney wasn’t a believer. I couldn’t be unequally yoked.”

Fuller grabbed Tim’s sleeve. “Until last night?”

“Yeah, Fuller. She found salvation.”

“Glory be!”

“Hey, Creighton!” Gulp hollered.

“Coming!” Tim gave his partner a mock scowl. “Velma wrote to you? Don’t think I won’t blister your ears later.”

“Ha!” Fuller waggled his brows. “You won’t. You have to ask my permission to marry Sydney.”

Sydney couldn’t wait for her uncle to come into the kitchen. She met him in the entryway. “Uncle Fuller, I would have recognized you right away. You have my mama’s eyes.”

He patted her cheek. “You’re the spittin’ image of Crystal.”

“I carried your satchel to the top of the stairs.” Leo Bradle descended the stairs.

Manners demanded she invite the parson’s eldest son to stay for lunch, but Sydney didn’t want to.

Uncle Fuller winked at her. “Bradle, lots of work goin’ on outside. Ask Tim if he can use your help.”

“Oh. Okay. Yeah, I’ll do that!”

As she and Fuller walked toward the kitchen, he murmured, “He’s a nice boy.”

“Yes, he is.”
You just got here, and you’re trying to match me up?

“Yep, a real nice boy. Fine family, too.”

Pasting on a smile she was far from feeling, Sydney said, “Had I any brothers, I imagine they’d be like him and the other Bradle boys.”

Velma shouted from the kitchen, “Sydney, drag that old rascal in here. I’ve got a sandwich ready for him.”

“Who’re you calling old?” Fuller stopped and stared at the dining table. “Velma? What’s your special tablecloth doing out?”

Velma stood in the doorway. “Now that I have Sydney to help me, I’m going to civilize you.”

“It’ll take a lot more than Irish linen to do that.” He chuckled and shuffled to the kitchen.

Sydney stood across the kitchen table and made sandwiches as he ate. Velma chattered about everything that he’d missed while gone. Fuller latched on to any man mentioned and pointed out his strengths. “Jakob Stauffer’s a good man.

Dependable. Sad, him being a widower. I’ll bet he’s mighty grateful to you for saving his daughter.”

“It was teamwork. I just happened to be at the end of the rope.”

Orville Clark, the owner of the mercantile, was pronounced “a man who’d be a steady provider,” Jim Whitsley’s “family’s been here forever—he’s well-respected,” and even Jake Eddles got painted with a generous, “another widower who’s trying to do well for his kids, and all three are boys.”

Sydney slapped the last sandwich onto a tray and bit her tongue so she wouldn’t say something she’d regret. Just because Uncle Fuller had Mama’s eyes didn’t mean he had her loving heart. He’d been honest from the start—he didn’t want a girl underfoot. And he’d just crowed about Jake Eddles having sons. Sydney felt certain if a snake oil salesman came knocking on the door, Uncle Fuller would gladly push her into the stranger’s arms just to get her off Forsaken.

Velma lifted the lid on a pot on the stove. “I’ll stir those.” Sydney grabbed a spoon and swirled the baked beans.

“Might want to add a pinch of salt.” Velma picked up a crate that held plates, silverware, and mugs. “Now that they’re almost done, it won’t toughen them. A hint of salt brings out the sweet of the molasses.”

As Velma left, Fuller mused, “So a high-society English gal’s learned her way around a kitchen?”

“Velma’s been a wonderful teacher.” Sydney couldn’t help herself. “So have the Richardson girls.”

He choked and took a gulp of coffee. “You brought them here?”

“You may as well hear it from me. Since I’ve been here, we’ve had two sewing bees for the ladies of the town, and the Richardson girls have come calling at least twice a week. Tim allowed it, but now that you’re back I understand things are bound to change.”

He pursed his lips and nodded. “Plenty’s about to change around here.”

“Okay, Sydney,” Velma called. “Let’s get the food out there.”

After the hands had been served, Uncle Fuller stayed at the kitchen table and talked as Velma and Sydney washed the lunch plates and made supper. He wanted to know everything that had happened in his absence—only since Tim would fill him in on the matters pertaining to the ranch, he asked about everything else.
Everybody
else—who was male and unmarried.

Pan after pan of cornbread went into and came out of the oven. Sydney helped Velma strip the stems and seeds from several pods of chili. Then, as Velma simmered, mashed, and strained those chilies, Sydney chopped up onions and garlic to add to the pot of meat on the stove. She’d never seen a pot half as vast as the one that covered multiple burners.

Fuller extolled Checkered Past’s Henry, who could eat a whole plate of the hottest chili peppers God ever made. Then he went on to talk about Milton Baumgartner. According to Fuller, the blacksmith’s strength would never leave a woman worrying about protection. Sydney started to measure in the cumin, oregano, paprika, and chili powder.

Uncle Fuller continued to talk faster than a gypsy horse trader. Apparently Ephraim Somebody-or-other could dowse for water with a branch from any of Jakob Stauffer’s fine peach trees. “It’s gotten hot while I was gone, Velma. How many wells did Ephraim start? Two? Five?”

Sydney paused for a second. All that talk made her almost lose count of how many spoons of chili powder she’d added.

Three. She’d only done three so far. She added more. “Three. No, wait. He went south seven or eight miles to dowse for a rancher there. I heard he found another there, too. That makes four. Tim’s decided we need to drill another well.”

Fuller nodded. “Yep. Hottest part of the year isn’t even close yet. Reminds me of the summer of eighty-five.”

Velma said they were tripling the recipe. That meant she needed fifteen tablespoons.

Fuller chuckled. “Ephraim’s going to boast that he’s up to seventeen now, but I reckon it’s closer to fifteen. Still, that’s nothing to sneeze at. He can make ours his sixteenth.”

Fifteen. She’d measured in fifteen. Or was it fourteen? At that point, what difference would one more spoonful make? Sydney added one last tablespoon of chili and grabbed the oregano.

The men finished branding and dehorning. After they washed up, they filed past the kitchen door and got dinner. Sydney didn’t want to be rude, but the last thing she wanted to do was sit across from her uncle. By now, he had to have run out of eligible men in the state of Texas, but given the opportunity, he’d likely start listing friends of his all across America.

The cowboys sat along the back porch. She took a bowl after everyone else had been served and slipped off to the front porch swing.

“Sydney?” Tim called to her. “Hey, Syd? Where are you?”

She took a bite. For an instant, she thought the temperature of the chili was too hot. Then, the full impact hit. She slapped her hand over her mouth, and her eyes started to tear. Her tongue and the roof of her mouth began to burn unbearably. Desperate, she swallowed.

It got worse. She hadn’t thought it possible, but it had. Fire streaked from her stomach clear to the roots of her hair.

“Sydney!” Tim shouted.

She suspected he was going to bellow at her for how she’d managed to ruin the meal. Not that she cared—at least not much, not now. Spying the pump out in the barnyard, she picked up her skirts and ran for the relief it promised. Abandoning every last shred of decorum, she grabbed the handle and stuck her mouth by the spigot.

Chapter Twenty-seven

“No!” Tim grabbed her by the waist and jerked her from the stream of cool water.

“Aaaarghhh!” She struggled against his hold.

“No. No water.”

Wiggling with all her might, she couldn’t break free. He swept her into his arms. She grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “Bur. Ha! Wa-ur!”

Ignoring her plea, he headed up the porch steps.

Even her lips felt scorched. It was impossible to tell what was worse—the heat that built up if her mouth was closed, or the searing flames that streaked across her tongue if she breathed with her mouth open.

“Velma, get some milk!” How Tim managed to open the screen door didn’t register. The minute he set foot in the house, Sydney twisted to snatch the pitcher from the washstand. If Tim tried to take it away, she decided she’d be fully justified in smacking him in the head with it—after she drank the contents.

Velma swiped the pitcher from her and pressed a glass into Sydney’s hands. “Drink that. Quick.”

Anything. Sydney would drink anything if it would lessen the burning. The first gulp didn’t help whatsoever. Desperation had her taking a second, then a third. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Keep drinking it. Milk stops the burning.”

“Ire.”

“Did she just call you a liar?” Fuller hobbled over.

“Fire. She’s saying her mouth’s on fire.” Tim sat on a chair in the dining room and kept her on his lap. “We’re going to need more milk. Or sour cream.”

“Cheese works pretty good,” Fuller said. “Don’t know why she’s having trouble. I’ve eaten hotter.”

Sydney was sure her hair was singed. It had to be. She glugged the rest of the first glass with a complete lack of restraint. Maybe after she had the ninth or tenth glass, her hair might stop smoking. It would take at least a month or more before she could breathe or talk. She figured it was God’s way of keeping her quiet, because she wanted to tell Uncle Fuller the only chili that could possibly be hotter had to be in Lucifer’s kitchen.

Fuller took another bite. “Whoo-eee! I take that back. This has a delayed kick.”

Pancake knocked and let himself in. “The men are wild about the chili. They want me to get your recipe.”

Sydney grabbed the next glass of milk and gulped it. She was afraid they’d misconstrue her answer. As a Christian, it wasn’t proper to tell someone to go to hell—even if that had to be where the recipe originated from.

Two hours later, Sydney looked out at the moonlit barnyard. After the weeks of working as a ranch hand, then working as a western woman alongside Velma, she’d come to love the land and this way of life. She knew each acre of fencing, each twist and rut in the road. At night, she knew which floorboards to avoid because they squeaked. Her heart told her she belonged here.

What would it be like to live on Forsaken, to be Tim’s wife, to rear a houseful of children who knew how to rope and ride and romp without worrying what others would think? A daughter who could go barefoot in wet grass and whistle with birds? And a son who would ride at his father’s side. . . . Best of all, they’d grow up knowing about Jesus.

She wilted onto the porch swing, wondering how to pray. At mealtimes, Tim and Velma talked to God as if He were sitting right there at the table with them.
Tim said God is with me
wherever I go. Lord, that means you are here right now. You’re supposed to
know what’s in my heart. Well, I’m scared and hurt. I have feelings for
Tim. He’s never done anything to make me think he’s interested in me. And
now Uncle Fuller is trying to fob me off on whoever will take me. I don’t
know what to do, God. Could you help me, please? Thank you. Amen
.

Sydney straightened her sleeve cuffs. As prayers went, that hadn’t been eloquent, but she felt okay, anyway. God was her Father. He wouldn’t care if she wasn’t perfect. That’s the way fathers were.

“Thought you might like this.” Tim came out with a glass of milk for her and a cup of coffee for himself. He eased himself down on the porch swing and started to move it with a bit more effort. It no longer merely swayed a few inches each direction, but rocked a good two feet forward and back. The creaking of the chains made Tim grin. “I’m going to have to oil those.”

“They do make a racket.”

“It’s going to be a pain in the neck if I don’t.” He winked. “Want me to take it down and move it back a foot or so?”