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

Chapter 4

The weeks folded into one another like the seams of her good dress giving way, and then the dress itself fit better than it ever had in Philadelphia.

Checkered curtains appeared at the kitchen window, sewn from a tablecloth Eleanor had found in the storeroom. A jar of wildflowers stood on the table. She discovered mint growing wild behind the smokehouse and hung bunches to dry from the rafters, and the whole room began to smell like a home instead of a tool shed.

The cowboys noticed. They lingered after meals now, trading stories instead of fleeing. They brought her gifts with shy, sideways pride: a plump chicken for the pot, a pot of wild honey, a handful of pecans. Jesse, his arm healing by slow degrees, had taken to arriving early and sitting at the table while she worked, narrating ranch gossip like a one-man newspaper.

“You’ve gone and made this place feel happy, ma’am,” he said one morning, and the observation warmed her more than the stove ever had.

“Is that so?”

“Hard fact. The boys were saying the boss stares at this kitchen window half the day when he thinks nobody’s watching.” Jesse leaned in. “Like he’s seeing a ghost. But not a scary one — a good memory he’d forgot he had.”

Before she could answer, Garrett filled the doorway. “Burke. If that arm’s hale enough for gossip, it’s hale enough for work. The horses need moving.”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

When the boy had gone, Garrett lingered. “He talks too much.”

“The young always do.” Eleanor kept her eyes on her dough. “Though sometimes talking keeps the silence from getting heavy.”

“Mm.” He poured himself coffee and stood at the window, and she’d come to treasure these morning visits, brief as they were. “My wife loved to sing while she cooked. Martha. She’d been gone two years before I came out here, and there are still mornings I think I hear her voice in the wind.”

Eleanor’s hands went still on the dough. “Your wife.”

“Cholera took her, and our little girl too, while I was in Austin haggling over cattle prices.” His voice was flat, deliberate. “I thought I was out building something that mattered. Came home to two graves in a house that echoed.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s history now.” He set down his cup. “But Jesse’s right, and it costs me to admit it. You’ve brought something back to this place, Mrs. Vance. Something I’d convinced myself was gone for good.” He paused at the door. “There’s a dance in town next Saturday. Harvest dance. The men are all going.”

“How lovely for them.”

“You could come.”

Her heart gave a startled flutter. “Mr. Cole — that would hardly be proper. I’m your employee.”

“And you haven’t left this ranch in six weeks. You need supplies, don’t you? Fabric. Proper dishes, since you’re always muttering about the tin plates.”

She looked at him in surprise. She’d said those things only in passing, usually to Jesse. She hadn’t imagined Garrett listened. “Well. Supplies would help.”

“Then it’s settled. We leave at noon Saturday.” He paused, hunting for words. “And if you happen to pass by the dance hall — and the musicians happen to play something worth dancing to —”

“Inspite of herself, she smiled. “That’s a great many happenstances, Mr. Cole.”

“Garrett,” he said. “In the evenings, when it’s just conversation — call me Garrett.”

He was gone before she could answer, but she was still standing there, heart hammering, when there came a soft knock on the door and she opened it to find a brown-paper package on the steps. Inside, a dress of deep blue wool, beautifully made, faintly worn, waiting to be taken in at the waist.

A rancher’s wife’s dress. She held it up to the lamplight and it smelled of cedar and lavender, and her reflection in the window was suddenly that of a woman she’d almost stopped recognizing.

A dance. She hadn’t danced since before Reuben died.