Widow Woman (3 page)

At the open door, he paused.

"Don't call me Mr. Dusaq."

It was an order.

"If your mama was still alive, having you out all night like that would have killed her."

Rachel started at Ruth's voice, guiltily wondering how long she'd been staring at the latest name written in the account book. Instead of commenting on Ruth's twisted logic, she stood and began putting dirty breakfast dishes on the tray Ruth had brought in.

It didn't appease Ruth. Arms akimbo she studied Rachel.

"Look at you. What your mama would say to see you in such a costume..."

That seemed a bit unfair to Rachel, since Ruth herself had fashioned this and two other wide-legged split skirts from heavy tan canvas twill. Although Ruth had done it only after Rachel threatened to wear a pair of Pa's old trousers, since her skills with a needle didn't stretch to such a garment. She'd learned the rudiments of sewing from Mama, as she had the basics of cooking and running a house, but her education in such matters had ended abruptly with her mother's death. From then on her education had come from Pa, and had covered a much different sphere—cattle, horsemanship and the land.

"And don't you be rolling up your sleeves every minute or you'll be brown as a berry."

Surreptitiously, Rachel eased a horn button through a hole in the front panel Ruth insisted on adding to the split skirts. With front and back panels buttoned, the skirt looked as respectable as any other. Unbuttoned, Rachel had the freedom to ride astride.

"Don't bother yourself with buttoning up for my sake,” Ruth said crossly. “I suppose next you'll go galloping into town looking like this."

That struck Rachel as highly unfair. She made a real effort to keep a neat appearance when she went into town or otherwise out among society. “You know I won't do that"

"I suppose I should be grateful,” said Ruth, sounding anything but. “Though with the way hands talk and with you going like this to roundups and all, I don't suppose it matters, since every soul in the territory likely has heard about wild Mrs. Terhune up Jasper Creek. How on earth you think you'll ever find a man—"

"I don't want a man.” Her stock response to Ruth's laments came out without thinking and with the conviction of habit. Then an image of a bronzed, wet body rising out of a pond flashed across her mind.

"That's as may be, but you won't have any choice if you don't take heed, young lady. If only you'd use a proper saddle. I could stitch you a new costume from that melton cloak of your mama's."

"I couldn't rope sidesaddle, and I couldn't cut cattle worth anything. Not to mention I couldn't even get in the thing by myself. A lot of good I'd be on the range using one of those."

"Riding and roping, my sweet saints!” What Ruth knew about Rachel's activities on the range and what she could successfully ignore as long as she wasn't reminded, were two different matters. “I shudder to think what your mother would say about her daughter behaving so."

"Mama would be proud of me.” Fearing the ground under that statement might sink like an alkali bog, Rachel hurried on. “Pa would be proud of me for roping and riding and—” Ruth interrupted with a sniff eloquent in its low opinion of Oren Phillips's suitability for determining proper behavior for a young woman.

"I will act and dress as I must in order to run this ranch best I can. It was Pa's dream to have a ranch here, and Mama understood that. Now it's up to me to make it happen, any way I can."

Nick squinted into the brightness beyond the kitchen porch and surveyed his temporary base.

Widow woman.

He hadn't worked up any particular imaginings when the bartender used the phrase. He'd been thinking mostly that working through the season at the Circle T would suit his purposes. And if serving his needs happened to help a widow woman ... Well, that padre at the mission used to say a grain of sand could outweigh a mountain come Judgment Day, and this had seemed an easy way to pick up a grain of good.

His mouth twisted in derision that such a naive notion remained anywhere in him.

And look where it got him.

Widows could be gentle, gray-haired ladies or steely-eyed harridans or anything in between. Anything except a slim young woman who looked hardly old enough to be married, with wheat-colored hair and direct, hazel eyes so soft they cut to a man's gut. Especially when they studied him with equal amounts of shock and heat in a look that had made him harder than any whore's practiced touch.

Anything except that.

Maybe if her outfit hadn't so sorely needed help, he'd have taken his misguided expectations about widow ladies and ridden off toward whatever turn of the compass appealed.

But riding in, he'd seen gaps between the barn's cottonwood logs big enough to put a fist through. The lodgepole pine of the main house and bunkhouse looked in better shape. The house, with rooms attached like a crazy quilt, was clean, but the office curtains were faded and the chair worn. The bunkhouse's stove might or might not offset breezes from a pair of loose-fitted windows, trio of doors and uncountable cracks.

On the other hand, a pair of good-sized corrals and the fences around a barnyard where chickens pecked and a couple pigs rooted showed recent attention.

Priorities on the Circle T were clear, even though Doyle Shagwell said they were so shorthanded they'd trailed cattle home from spring roundup in two trips. It took fewer men to hold a herd than to trail it, so they'd divided the herd, left a few hands to hold the second half and brought the first to Circle T range. Then they turned around to do it again—while other outfits had returned to their home ranches.

The Circle T surely did need him. Him and a dozen more.

He cursed under his breath.

Hell, he should have kept riding. He didn't need the job, not really. Riding away might add to his mountain of sins, but what did it matter? No grains of good deeds could outweigh a mountain.

"Nick, come get your string,” Shag shouted from the corral.

He stepped off the porch, heading that way, still chewing on whether to saddle Brujo and head out

"Just getting Davis and Henry here to saddle up, so I can show ‘em round a bit,” the gray-haired foreman said as Nick neared the fence. “That lot over there's yours."

Nick followed Shag's nod toward five horses watching warily from a far corner of the corral. The horses had witnessed their fellows being roped—a sure sign of work to come—and they were on the lookout to avoid the same fate. One, a wiry gray, promised to be good for spelling Brujo. A buckskin Nick rated as better than most. The other three he'd examine more closely later. No outright crow bait, but nothing to match the stock in the barn.

"Why don't you saddle up old Miner, Davis,” Shag suggested to the fair-haired youngster also hired on.

Nick considered the horses allotted to the other new hands. When a foreman divvied up mounts there was no appeal. Getting a string of broomtails told a hand he wasn't much valued by the outfit. Also that his job would be a damned sight harder. From what Nick saw Shag made even selections, with Davis and Henry each getting one real likely-looking mount.

The one called Miner, though, caught Nick's eye. As did the reaction of the two hands introduced as Joe-Max and Tommy, who'd assisted in the roping and now lingered on the outside of the corral fence as if expecting a show.

A greenhorn show.

Nick swung his regard to the big, deep-chested sorrel horse named Miner.

He was fat and rested, with that edgy energy of a horse not ridden lately. Nick moved in, running a hand down his flank as if to gauge the animal. What he really wanted was to get near enough for a low-voiced question to gauge the human.

"Done much riding, Andresson?"

The youngster continued strapping the saddle on the apparently docile horse. “I've ridden."

"Farm horses?"

"So what. That don't—"

Nick cut across the defensive answer. “Ever ridden a bucking horse?"

That stilled the long-fingered hands and brought Andresson's head around. Blue eyes regarded him with surprise, abruptly replaced by understanding. And worry mixed with determination.

Nick sighed.

"Keep your feet firm in the stirrups, try to sit straight as you can and use your arm to balance. If you hold on to the horn, they'll rib you for pulling leather, but if it's a choice of grabbing hold or getting thrown, hold on like hell."

Davis Andresson stared at him a second longer. “Okay,” he said gruffly. “Thanks."

He fastened the final buckle before letting down the stirrups to accommodate his long, gangly legs. He took hold of the saddle horn, preparing to mount.

Nick went to Miner's head, fiddling with the headstall to mask another low-voiced murmur. “If you get thrown, don't fight it. Roll. Get to your feet soon as you hit Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

The youngster swung a long leg over Miner's back and signaled to release the horse's head. Nick stepped free, and waited.

Miner held absolutely still an instant, followed by a rolling ripple of muscles under his hide. Then the animal leaped straight into the air like a jack-in-the-box. He came to earth in a splash of dust with legs ramrod stiff, sending a shudder through the ground that Nick felt through the soles of his boots up to his knees, and a shudder through Davis Andresson that snapped his head forward then back like a whip.

Right about now the boy had to feel as if his spine had come unjointed. But he held on.

Miner jumped crow-legged in a line giving Andresson a chance to straighten in the saddle and tighten his legs’ grip. Nose in the dirt, the horse tucked his head between his front legs and kicked out with the rear. Andresson adjusted his balance. For a rocky moment Miner abruptly returned to his first strategy of leaps followed by ground-shuddering landings, complicated by spinning. Nick could see how Miner had earned his name—he seemed set on boring to the center of the earth.

While the leather straps of the saddle groaned dismay, Andresson gamely clung to the animal amid rising spurts of dust. And damned if he wasn't murmuring soft words to the horse, even if they did come through clenched teeth.

The jolts subsided, and in another minute, the whole thing was over. Miner standing still, a sheen of perspiration gilding his coat and his muscles twitching, but his ears flicking attentively to the words spoken by the boy on his back.

"Nice riding!” shouted Shag. Henry and the two spectator hands added praise, though they didn't linger with the entertainment ending so tamely.

Andresson guided Miner to where Nick stood by the fence.

"Thanks.” A shy smile lifted Davis's mouth.

"You're the one who held on."

"I might not have without the warning, so I say thanks.” His stubbornness was at odds with his mild manner.

Nick shrugged, turned away—and came face-to-face with the Widow Terhune, who stood outside the fence.

Their eyes locked. Hers were warm and shrewd. He didn't know how long she'd watched, but he'd swear she had the situation figured.

And there was more in her eyes. A kind of speculation, and a faintly begrudging approval.

He tried to build irritation at that. He didn't need her approval, and he sure didn't need some widow woman ranch owner assessing him the way he had the stock. He could ride off right now.

But when she gave him a nod of acknowledgment that carried some more of that approval, he simply looked at her as she walked away.

Rachel escaped the supper table quickly, holing up behind the desk and the ever-present task of keeping the books. Supper lay heavy in the pit of her stomach. A result of eating in the presence of a sphinx, she supposed.

Nick Dusaq hadn't said a word to her since he'd walked out of this room this morning. He hadn't gotten in her way. He hadn't sent his eyes her way at meals. And she couldn't stop wondering about him.

What was he thinking? What did he remember? What if he said something? What would he say?

"Well, what do you think, Chell?"

Shag's question cut across her own. She hadn't even heard the door open.

"About what?” she asked warily.

"About the new hands, ‘specially that Nick Dusaq."

Did Shag know something? Had Dusaq talked about the encounter at the pond?

She felt her cheeks heating and she barely had the breath to ask, “What do you mean?"

He pinned her with a look from under bushy brows, but said mildly enough, “It's only been a day, but I'm sorta looking forward to all the days that'll follow and how we can pat ourselves on the back. Looks to me like we made ourselves a good hire. A real good hire. And you struck one sharp bargain on his wages."

"Oh...” Movement beyond the window caught her eye—a figure crossed the yard from the bunkhouse to the outer corral. She recognized Dusaq in the waning light by the lean outline and loose-jointed assurance of his walk. “As you said, it's one day."

"Yeah. But so far it sure looks like a good day's work.” Shag stretched. “Think I'll turn in. I'll leave first light to check that north camp. I'll take a couple boys with me now that we've got ‘em. I thought Nick and Davis. Okay with you?"

"Sure. Good night. Shag."

"Night, Chell."

Alone, she stared out the window.

It's only been a day ... and all the days to follow.

Shag might look forward to them; she didn't. Wondering if, when, what Nick Dusaq might say. Those questions had driven her to the corral this morning. She'd seen him tell Andresson something before the cowhand got up on that old reprobate Miner. And after Andresson handled the rough ride creditably, she'd heard his thanks.

So,
he'd helped out a greenhorn. That didn't make him any saint. And it sure didn't guarantee he wouldn't enjoy regaling the bunkhouse with how he'd had the owner of the Circle T gawking at him like a silly schoolgirl.

Even with the good men they had now, it was hard to keep their respect for a woman owner. Nick Dusaq could make it impossible.

That had fretted her all day. Even as she'd helped Henry set up a makeshift blacksmithing shed. Even as she organized a crew to get the wood Henry said he'd use for charcoal since they had no blacksmithing coal. Even as she showed Henry what needed mending. Even as she tended Warrior and the other horses in the barn. Even as she answered the questions and gave the orders that peppered her every day at the Circle T.