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“Why?” she asked bluntly.
Cord blinked. “Why? Well, I could give you a lot of palaver about wanting to help out because I like farming, but that’d be just fancy words. The truth is I’m broke and I’m hungry.”
“Oh,” she said again. And then nothing more.
“Ma’am?” he prompted.
The door latch snapped and the screen swung open. “You’d better come in, Mr. Winterman.”
The minute he stepped into the threadbare parlor an enticing smell hit him and his belly rumbled. Roast chicken, he guessed. Right about now it didn’t matter; he’d eat roast anything. He hung his battered hat on the hook by the door and followed her to the kitchen, where he watched her shove a pan of biscuits into the oven, then turn to face him.
For a moment he forgot to breathe. A pair of wide gray eyes surveyed him from under dark brows. Soft-looking eyes, and tired. Her thick chestnut hair was caught at her nape in a scraggly-looking bun. A blue-checked apron cinched the waist of her faded green dress, and from under the hem peeked ten perfect bare toes.
But the most surprising thing wasn’t those bare toes. It was her face, heart-shaped and chalk white. She’d be beautiful if she wasn’t so pale. Jumping jenny, she was beautiful anyway. He couldn’t take his eyes off those pale cheeks; you’d think out here on a farm in the middle of Oregon she’d at least be a bit sunburned. Or freckled. Instead, her skin looked smooth as cream.
She gestured at the round wooden table in the kitchen and pointed to a straight-backed chair, then walked to the staircase. “Daniel? Molly?”
Even her raised voice was soft somehow. Refined.
Feet thumped down the stairs and she turned back to the stove while he pulled out the chair she indicated as a shaggy-haired boy of about nine and a small blonde girl some years younger clattered into the kitchen.
“Have you washed up?” the woman asked.
“Aw, Ma,” the boy whined, “do I hafta?”
She pointed to the sink, and both children groaned. “Quickly, now. We have a guest. This is Mr. Winterman.”
They edged past him to pump water into the sink.
“Hullo,” the boy said over his shoulder.
“H’lo,” his sister echoed. “I betcha you haven’t washed up.”
Cord chuckled. “Well, no, I haven’t.” He rose and accepted the bar of yellow soap from Molly’s small fingers and pumped water over his calloused hands.
“Set the table, children,” their mother ordered. All of a sudden he realized he didn’t know her name.
The boy, Daniel, slapped four blue china plates onto the table, followed by Molly, who pushed forks and spoons into place. Then four blue gingham napkins appeared.
Cord settled into his chair and watched the children scramble into their seats, fold their hands and sit at attention while their mother brought a platter of fried chicken and a bowl of biscuits. Finally, she set a mason jar of apple blossoms in the center of the table.
Cord’s stomach rumbled and Molly giggled. “You must be hungry, huh, mister?”
“Yeah, I sure am.”
“Molly,” her mother admonished. “That is not a polite question.”
“I don’t mind, Mrs....?”
“Malloy,” she supplied. She perched on the edge of the empty chair and pushed the platter of chicken toward him. “Eleanor Malloy.”
She didn’t say another word until supper was over and Daniel and Molly had splashed through the dishwashing and racketed off upstairs. Then she set a china cup before him.
“Coffee?” she asked. He noticed that her hand was shaking.
“Thanks.”
“And then we will discuss my newspaper advertisement.”
They drank their coffee in complete silence, and after a while he wondered if he’d said something to offend her. He sure hoped not. He’d do almost anything for another chicken dinner. Or any dinner.
“Where are your people, Mr. Winterman?”
His people? “I’m da—Darned if I know, ma’am.”
“But surely you have some family living? A mother? Father?”
“I don’t think so, Mrs. Malloy. I was raised in the South.” He cleared his throat. “When I went back after it was all over there was nothing left standing.”
“So you came north?”
“Uh, yeah.” He saw no need to explain everything that had happened next. Or explain why he’d been in Kansas when the War broke out.
“I see,” she said primly. “I need a hired man to help out here on the farm. I can offer meals and lodging in the barn, but I cannot offer any pay. Would that suit?”
“Yes, ma’am, it would. I can see that you need help around here. You need a new front gate for one thing, maybe a new barn roof, a new front fence, a new porch step, and...” He shot a look at the open front door. “A new screen door.”
“I will also need help with the apples when they come on in the fall. I cannot... Well, I can no longer lift the heavy bushel baskets.”
“Some reason?” She couldn’t be expecting, could she? She looked slim as a birch rod. And, since there was no sign of a man around, he figured she was a widow.
“The doctor says I will regain my strength in time, but right now...” Her voice trailed off. She took a sip of her coffee and set the cup on its saucer with a sharp click. “I asked if the arrangement I offered would suit,” she reminded him.
“Oh, sure it will, Miz Malloy. Thanks.” He resisted an impulse to lean over the table and hug the heck out of her.
Eleanor studied her empty coffee cup, then flicked a glance at the man’s face. He looked tanned and weather-beaten, but his eyes were kind. Very blue, she noted, but kind. He handled himself well. His body was lithe and muscular, and he had nice manners. She would not want Molly or Danny to pick up bad habits. Her instincts told her Mr. Winterman was trustworthy and well-behaved, and he was willing to work for just room and board. Until the apple harvest, that was all she could afford.
On the other hand, her instincts had been wrong before.
Mr. Winterman unfolded his tall frame from the chair and stood up, strode to the door and snagged his worn gray hat off the hook. As he went to push the screen open he caught sight of the revolver she kept above the door.
“This your gun?”
“It is, yes. I keep it for protection.”
He sent her a look. “Can you fire a revolver?”
“Y-yes, if I have to.”
“I mean cock it and fire it like you mean to hit something. On short notice?”
“Probably not,” she admitted.
“Got any ammunition?”
“Yes, I think so. Somewhere.”
He said nothing for a long moment. Then he turned to face her. “It’s dangerous to keep a gun you can’t fire in plain sight. Also dangerous for your boy. He might figure he wants to try it out one of these days.”
“Oh, I don’t think—”
“Trust me, ma’am. He’s a boy, isn’t he?”
She stared past him at the velvet-covered settee, then let her gaze drift to the lilac bush out the parlor front window. “I know my son, Mr. Winterman.”
He snorted. “All mothers think that, Miz Malloy.”
An overwhelming urge to weep swept over her and her chest tightened into a sharp ache. She did not like this man, she decided. He was too sure of himself. Too knowledgeable. She remembered his eyes when they looked into hers. Hungry.
But she needed a hired man.
Chapter Two (#ub3a4fbdf-f875-5b82-a0cf-8c3bd12de7ef)
Cord unsaddled Sally, walked her into an empty stall in the barn and fed her a double handful of oats. Now, where should he bed down? He eyed the ladder up to the loft overhead and smiled. He liked straw, and he liked being up high; it gave him a hawk’s-eye view of whatever was going on. Which wouldn’t be much on a farm this run-down, he figured, but you never knew. Experience, most of it bad, had taught him that the unexpected could be damn dangerous.
He washed up at the pump in the yard. The cool water felt so good after days in the saddle he stripped off his shirt and did it again, then tossed his saddlebags and a single wool blanket up into the loft and let out a long breath. He’d always loved the smell of a barn—horses, leather, animal droppings, clean straw. This barn had two animals in roomy stalls, a sturdy gray gelding with a white star on its forehead and a milk cow contentedly chewing her cud and rolling a disinterested brown eye at him. A dusty saddle hung on one wall, and a broken-down buggy sat in one corner. It didn’t look sturdy enough to get to town and back, and the cracked leather seat looked mighty uncomfortable.
He wondered how the woman, Mrs. Malloy, fetched supplies. The boy looked too young to ride into town alone, and she didn’t look strong enough to make the trip. If she was a widow, as he figured, she must have had some kind of help. Then again, the place looked so run-down it was plain it hadn’t been cared for in some time.
He crawled up into the loft, spread out the worn wool blanket he’d slept in ever since leaving Missouri and folded his arms under his head. This place would do until he could get his feet under him. At least he could eat regular meals and sleep with both eyes shut instead of with his Colt under his pillow and one finger on the trigger.
He wondered if he’d ever get back to feeling like a normal human being again, someone who didn’t flinch at every loud noise and wonder where his next meal was coming from. Someone who could learn to trust his fellow man again. The War had shaken his faith in the human race, and his years in Missouri had taken care of the rest.
Stop thinking about it. He should count himself lucky; just about the time he was thinking about giving up, he’d come up over that hill and smelled those apple blossoms.
* * *
Breakfast the next morning made him smile. When he walked into the kitchen, little Molly was standing on a chair at the stove, poking an oversize fork into a pan full of sizzling bacon. Daniel was cracking fresh eggs into a china bowl. “Plop!” He chortled after the first one. “Plop!” he said again.
His mother laid slices of bread on the oven rack, moved the speckleware coffeepot off the heat and dumped in a cup of cold water to settle the grounds. The kitchen smelled so good it made Cord’s mouth water.
She motioned him to a chair. “Coffee?”
“Please.” He pushed his cup across the table toward her.
“There is no cream, I’m afraid. Bessie hasn’t been milked yet.”
“Black’s fine.”
She turned back to the stove. “Molly, lift those bacon slices onto the platter now. And no snitching!”
The girl clunked down a china platter of bacon in front of him. “No snitching,” she whispered, then twirled back to the frying pan.
“Wouldn’t dream of snitching,” he murmured. That brought a giggle from Molly and a sharp look from Mrs. Malloy.
“Daniel, pour those eggs into Molly’s pan and stir them around.”
“Aw, Ma, let Molly stir them around. I’m gettin’ too old for this cooking stuff. Besides, she’s a girl.”
“You are most certainly not too old for ‘this cooking stuff.’ In this household everyone does their share.”
“Sure can’t wait ’til I’m growed up,” he muttered.
“Even ‘growed-ups’ help out!” his mother replied.
All through the meal Cord tried to catch Mrs. Malloy’s eye, but she steadfastly refused to look at him. Daniel, on the other hand, gazed at him with intelligent blue eyes and peppered him with questions in between bites of scrambled eggs.
“What’s your horse’s name?”
“Sally.”
“How old is she?”
“About three years. Got her when she was just a filly.”
“Can I ride her?”
“No. She’s too much horse for a boy your age.”
“Do you like venison jerky?”
“Yes, I do.”
“What about chocolate cake?”
“Well, sure, son, everybody likes chocolate cake. You gonna bake one?”
“Nah. But I keep hopin’ my mama will bake one someday.”
Mrs. Malloy said nothing at all. When the last slice of toast disappeared, Daniel and Molly scooped the dishes off the table into the dishpan in the sink, and Cord waited for orders from his employer.
Five minutes went by while Mrs. Malloy sipped her coffee. Finally he cleared his throat and she looked up. She looked paler than ever this morning.
“You want me to milk your cow, ma’am?”
“No.”
“How ’bout I fix your front gate?”
