A Widow Offered To Cook For Shelter — The Cowboy Said: Only If You Season With Laughter Too…

Chapter 2

The kitchen was a battlefield waiting to happen. A massive black iron stove squatted against one wall like a sleeping beast, its firebox nearly empty. A long scarred table filled the middle of the room. The shelves held supplies; the pantry held flour and beans and, in the cold corner, a quarter of beef. Everything was clean and utterly without warmth, as if the room itself had given up on being loved.

Eleanor pinned up an apron she found on a peg and went to war.

The matches were where a sensible woman would put them; the stove was not sensible. It guttered, then roared, then guttered again. The stew pot was far too heavy to lift when full, so she ladled water into it cup by cup. The knives were dull. By the third hour her palms were blistered and her eyes burned, and the pot’s contents were alternating between a sad simmer and a furious boil.

“You look like you’re wrestling a bear, ma’am.”

She whirled. A young cowboy stood in the doorway, hat in hand — no more than twenty, with straw-pale hair and a face of freckles. “I’m Jesse Burke. Mr. Cole sent me to ask if you needed wood hauled in.”

“Please, yes.”

He carried armloads while she stirred, and on impulse she asked, “Jesse — the cook before me. What made their stew good?”