Historical Cowboy Romance Two Book Box Set - Mail Order Brides (22 page)

At last, the fragments of what used to be
Violet Kilburn settled back to earth and she dragged her head up.
She sniffed and dabbed the corners of her eyes on her sleeve. “I’m
a mess,” she mumbled. “Pay no attention to me.”

He chuckled from somewhere above her. “Okay.
I won’t.”

She snorted with laughter again, and looked
up at him. But she nearly choked on her laughter when she found his
face just inches away from hers, his eyes searching hers and his
lips parted. Instead of starting away from her in astonishment, he
leaned even closer to her, his breath kindling her brain into a
dizzying shower of sparks.

His lips hung so close to hers. His hands
pressed so tightly against the small of her back. His heart thumped
against the bodice of her dress, reverberating through her being
and shaking the edifice of her nature to its foundation.

“I guess we better go in to supper,” she
breathed. “The others will be waiting for us.”

“Let ‘em wait,” Chuck murmured.

He moved forward another fraction of an inch
to close the gap between his lips and hers, but a door slammed in
another part of the house and startled both of them apart. “It’s
him!” Violet gasped. “It’s Cornell!”

Chuck dropped his hands from her body, and
they both stepped away. “How do you know it’s him?”

“That was the door by the back parlor,”
Violet whispered. “He always uses that door when he comes down from
the Bird House. He’s the only one who uses it. It’s almost his own
private entrance.”

“Quick! In here!” Chuck pulled her through
the nearest doorway.

“Not in here!” Violet whispered.

“Why not?” Chuck asked.

“This is the library,” Violet told him.

Chuck looked around. “Yeah? So what?”

“This is Cornell’s office,” Violet explained.
“That’s his desk right over there. If he’s coming to the house at
this hour, he’ll be coming here. He probably wants to do some work,
or he forgot something when he went home. We can’t stay in
here.”

“Well, where else is there to go?” Chuck
asked. “We can’t exactly go to your room, can we? We aren’t married
yet.”

“There is nowhere else to go.” Violet glanced
around the library. “The only place to go is outside.”

“Maybe if we just keep quiet, he won’t come,”
Chuck suggested.

“And if he does come?” Violet asked.

“Then I’ll introduce myself to him,” Chuck
replied. “I have to meet him sooner or later. It’s not like we’re
doing anything wrong by being alone together in the library, are
we?”

Violet stared at him. Then she dissolved in
laughter.

“What’s so funny?” Chuck asked.

“Listen to us!” Violet gasped. “Whispering in
a corner of the library and worrying about being caught! We’re like
two children sneaking into the cookie jar.”

Chuck stared back at her. Then he burst into
a grin. “You’re right. We’re adults, and we’re going to be married
in a few days. We aren’t doing anything wrong. Let him come and
find us here if he wants to.”

They waited in silence, their noses almost
touching, and panting in a cloud of anticipation. They gazed into
each other’s eyes. “It’s nice to be alone together, just for a
little while,” Violet breathed

Chuck nodded, his eyes probing into hers. “It
is nice.”

Violet breathed again. “The others are still
waiting for us.”

“They could be hiding just like we are.”
Chuck’s arm slithered around her waist. Violet sucked in her breath
as he pulled her toward him. “We’re here. We might as well make the
most of it while we have the chance.”

“What are you going to do?” she
whispered.

“Oh, nothing.” His lips hovered closer to her
mouth, quivering and tasting the air.

“Cornell…..”she began.

“Forget about Cornell,” he growled.

Something banged in the distance and Violet
jolted in shock again. This time, Chuck let her go. “Let’s get on.
We’ll have plenty of time for this when we don’t have to worry
about someone breakin’ in on us.”

Chuck took Violet by the hand and never let
her go. His hand dwarfed hers by a mile, but her little hand and
her heart took shelter in his big rough paw. Violet could face any
menace with him at her side. How had she managed all these years
without him? It must really be true that a person wasn’t complete
until they married their heart’s intended.

Violet led Chuck out of the library and down
the passage to the dining room. She slid the door open, but the
only other person inside was Rose. She lifted her head and smiled
at Violet and Chuck, but she didn’t notice—or took as wholly
natural—their joined hands.

“Where is everyone?” Violet asked. “I thought
you would all be in here waiting for us.”

“Jake just went out for a smoke before
supper,” Rose replied. “I don’t know where Mick and Iris are. I
haven’t seen them. But I just heard Cornell come in. I wonder if he
plans to join us. Maybe we should tell Rita to set another place
for him.”

Violet flushed. “I don’t think he’ll join us.
He told me earlier he wasn’t interested in meeting the men.”

Rose’s eyes widened. “Really? Why not?”

“He’s in a fine stew about our mail-order
marriages,” Violet told her. “He has all kinds of wild ideas about
how he’s going to convince us to call off the wedding.”

“Really?” Rose repeated. “What are his
ideas?”

“I’ll tell you when Mick and Iris get
here—oh, and Jake, of course.” Violet took a chair on the side of
the table and pulled out the one next to it for Chuck. “I don’t
want to repeat the same story more than once. We’ll talk about it
when all of us are together.”

Rose smiled. “This is almost like our first
family meeting. It’s our first council of war.”

Violet stared at her sister. “This is hardly
war, Rose. We’re talking about Cornell. He’s our uncle. I only wish
there was some way to resolve this situation without escalating
hostilities any further.”

Rose leaned back in her chair. “Cornell bears
all the responsibility for any hostility. We shouldn’t go out of
our way to lessen it for him. That will only weaken our position,
and we don’t want that.”

Violet’s mouth fell open. Was this her little
sister saying these words? Was this sweet, innocent Rose, the
flower of the family, taking such a stance against Cornell? “Rose!
I’m shocked at you!”

“Why?” Rose asked. “You’ve done everything a
person could do to make it up to Cornell. You’ve explained our
position to him about a million times, and he refuses to listen. He
refuses to be placated in any way. So you should stop trying. He
wants to be hostile, so let him be hostile. We’ll show him we can
be hostile, too, and he won’t like it one little bit.”

“Rose!” Violet gasped.

Before they could discuss the situation
further, the door opened and Jake sauntered in. He gave Chuck and
Violet a casual smile and sat down next to Rose. “Evenin’, folks.
Nice night for it.”

“It’s gonna be a blazer,” Chuck replied.
“Violet and I are takin’ a walk in the moonlight after supper. You
two oughta do the same. You gotta take advantage of nights like
this when they come around. The air is good for the soul.”

“I agree.” Jake turned to Rose. “What do ya
say, darlin’? What do ya say to a stroll out in the moonlight after
supper?”

Rose smiled at him and lowered her eyelids.
“All right.”

The door opened again and Mick and Iris came
in, but they weren’t holding hands. Maybe she and Chuck ought to
keep that sort of thing to themselves for now. Maybe the others
hadn’t gotten that far. But Chuck had almost kissed her just now.
Who knew what the others had got up to when no one else was
around?

Mick and Iris sat down side by side at one
end of the table. Mick pretended to look around the room. “What is
there to eat around here?”

“Rita will be here in a minute with the
food,” Iris told him. “She’s our cook. We’re late, so she probably
took everything back to the kitchen to keep it warm for us.”

“Does she know we’re coming?” he asked.

Iris nodded. “I told her when we came into
the house earlier. I also checked in on her before I came out to
get you.”

So Iris had gone out to bring Mick into the
house. So they’d spent some time alone, just like Chuck and Violet.
Violet stole a glance across the table and spied Jake gazing at
Rose again, but Rose kept her eyes down on the table in front of
her.

Violet opened her mouth to fill the silence
up with some nonsense or other when the cook herself came in with a
tureen of soup. She served it out to the three couples as they sat
in silence, waiting for her to leave. Violet glanced from one of
her sisters to the other, from one man to the other.

Mick and Iris stared straight ahead of them
without the slightest indication anyone else occupied the room.
Rose kept her eyes down, but Jake gazed around the room with a
slight smile on his lips, taking everything with a mixture of
amusement and curiosity. When Violet looked at Chuck, he smiled at
her. He probably would have taken her hand again if she hadn’t
turned away.

Rita left the room, and only after the door
clicked shut behind her did the six diners stir to life. Yet still
they didn’t speak. For a long time, only the slurping and sipping
of soup filled the room. In the end, Jake let his spoon clatter
into the bowl and gave a loud sigh. “That hit the spot. What’s for
dessert?”

Iris’s eyes flew open, and then she laughed.
“That’s just the soup course, silly. Rita will bring the main
course next.”

“What is the main course?” Chuck asked.

Iris flashed him a winning smile. “Beef, of
course.”

The three men exchanged a quick look and
erupted in laughter. “Excuse me,” Chuck exclaimed. “I should have
assumed.”

Rita brought the roast in, a dish of
potatoes, and another of greens and cabbage. The three couples
waited in silence until the cook placed the plates on the table and
left the room.

“This looks capital,” Jake remarked. “Thank
you for arranging all this. This beats the pants off train station
food any day of the week. I can’t think of the last time I had a
home cooked meal.”

“It was all Violet’s doing,” Rose told him.
“She planned the whole thing, and Rita even uses Violet’s
recipes.”

Jake and Mick raised their eyebrows at
Violet. She moved her cabbage around in her dish to stop them
seeing her cheeks burning.

“That’s pretty good goin’,” Chuck put in.
“This roast smells delicious. And it falls apart perfectly. You
don’t even have to cut it with a knife.” He put a piece in his
mouth. “Outstanding. I’m impressed.”

Violet smiled at him and lowered her eyes to
her plate.

“And she grew the greens in the garden, too,”
Rose added. “Did she tell you that? Just about everything on this
table came from Violet’s garden—except for the beef, of course.
That came from Iris.”

“Just wait until you taste the plum cake,”
Iris told them. “If you think the meat is good, Chuck, the cake is
divine. And it’s all hers. She came up with the recipe herself. And
she cooked it, too. Don’t ever let her tell you that she didn’t.
Rita runs the kitchen, but when it comes to her plum cake, Violet
does everything herself.”

“She does?” Chuck asked. “What does she
do?”

Iris marked off the steps on her fingers.
“She mixes the batter, she controls the fire in the stove, she
checks it in the oven, and she takes it out when she decides it’s
done. She doesn’t leave anything to anyone else.”

“You ladies sure are something
extraordinary,” Jake exclaimed. “It’s not many women can claim to
put on a meal like this, all with the fruits of their own
labors.”

“Nonsense!” Violet murmured. “Women all over
the country do this sort of thing all the time.”

“But didn’t you tell us,” Mick replied. “That
you were raised to be high-brow society women, and that Cornell
doesn’t want you doing this sort of thing? Didn’t you tell me you
were doing all of this behind his back, to make up for his bad
management? Now, that’s sayin’ something. There’s probably not a
woman in a thousand who would do that, and there’s probably not a
woman in a million who could pull it off. And here you sit, the
three of you at one table.”

“I didn’t do it,” Rose corrected him. “I’m
not doing anything behind Cornell’s back. It’s Violet and Iris
doing everything.”

“You’re here with us now,” Violet reminded
her. “You’re getting married against his wishes. None of us could
get away with this if we weren’t all doing it together. I’m
grateful to you for that.”

“And you’ve kept our secrets, too,” Iris
added. “We couldn’t do what we do if you weren’t helping us pull
the wool over Cornell’s eyes.”

Jake patted her hand on the white tablecloth.
“I don’t mind. To me, you’re just as good as they are.” They shared
a heartfelt smile.

“Rita must be keeping your secret, too,”
Chuck pointed out. “You couldn’t be doing any of this with the
servants running to the master with tales of your exploits.”

“Oh, she
is
keeping it,” Violet
replied. “She does a marvelous job of helping me make up the fake
accounts to show him what we didn’t spend on food and
supplies.”

“It’s the same with Pete Kershaw and Wade
Jackson,” Iris added. “They help me convince Cornell the ranch is
running the way he wants it to run. They don’t tell him about the
decisions I make, and they help cover up the results so he doesn’t
find out.”

“Not that you have much to worry about with
him finding out,” Rose remarked. “He barely sets foot outside the
house, much less ride out onto the range to see for himself. He
takes Pete’s word for what’s going on, how many head are in which
pastures, how many calves the cows gave birth to, and everything
else. You don’t have anywhere near as hard a time as Violet has,
covering her tracks around the house.”