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“And you wouldn’t have a problem living at the ranch?”
She glanced at the child as she pushed the spectacles up the bridge of her nose. “No.”
The baby jabbered something he couldn’t understand, trying to lunge out of his arms. “Whoa, there. You’re a slippery one.”
The woman stepped around the sofa and closed the distance between her and him, moving so quietly, with such still grace that the air didn’t seem to stir. Even her skirts didn’t make a sound against the floor. She held out her arms. “May I try?”
Jake didn’t need any urging. He did little more than lean toward the woman and Molly went willingly, looping her chubby arms around the lady’s neck and burying her face there. That kid hadn’t taken to anyone in his family like that. After a couple of gulping sobs, she drew in a deep shuddering breath then hiccuped. The sudden silence was startling.
“What the— How did you do that?” he asked.
“I’m not sure.” She hugged the baby close, speaking to her in a low voice and looking…relieved? “What’s her name?”
“Molly.” Jake glanced over his shoulder at Georgia, who nodded. Yes. “Name your price.”
“Wh-What?”
He stepped forward. “You’re hired, Miz York.”
“But…you don’t even know if I can cook.” As the baby grabbed for her spectacles, the woman shifted the little girl to her other hip.
“I guess we don’t. So, can you cook?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re interested in the job? Caring for the kid, the house and cooking in exchange for room and board and a decent wage.” He named an amount he thought was fair.Judging by the flash of surprise in her eyes, so did she.
“That’s very generous.”
“I would ask if you have experience, but it’s plain that you do.”
She looked at him then at his cousin. “Are you just going to take my word that I can cook?”
“Yes,” Jake said, thinking how soft her hair looked. “You don’t strike me as someone who would misrepresent herself. Besides, I’m sure we’ll like your grub.”
Georgia murmured agreement. “And it will be nice to have another woman around.”
Miz York rubbed the baby’s back and he noted that her fingernails were short and ragged. “How many will I be cooking for?”
“Sometimes a couple of the hands might eat here at the house, but usually it’s just Georgia, my uncle Ike, my brother Bram and myself.”
After a moment, she nodded. “All right.”
He realized she hadn’t smiled once since she’d arrived. And, still, she was more pleasant than Miz Halvorson. “We need you to start pretty quick.”
“Now?” she asked hopefully.
“Yes, good.” The relief he felt was mixed with an unidentifiable emotion. But the baby liked her and so did Georgia, whose spells of tiredness were getting more frequent. “Did you bring your luggage?” he asked.
“Yes. I don’t have much.”
“I’ll fetch your things and Georgia can show you to your room.”
“Thank you.” Her gaze moved to his cousin.
“We’re glad to have you.” Georgia motioned for her to follow as she crossed the big room toward the dining area.
As Jake moved toward the front door, Emma asked, “Where will the baby sleep? With me?”
He stopped, frowning. “We hadn’t much considered that, but, if it’s okay with you, that would probably be best.”
“Oh, yes.” The tightness in her voice eased for the first time since her arrival. “That would be fine.”
Jake nodded, struck by the solemn look on her face. He watched her follow Georgia past one long side of the heavy dining table and stop in the doorway on the right.
“This is Louisa’s old room,” Georgia said. “You’ll be directly across from the kitchen.”
Miz York glanced over her shoulder, looking past the table and chairs to the room beyond.
“We sleep upstairs,” his cousin said. “You’ll want to take a look in the larder to see what you need.”
“Shall I cook tonight?”
“We’d be obliged.”
She nodded, stepping inside the room.
Jake noticed again how carefully she moved. Almost as if she could make herself become part of her surroundings.
That baby was quiet now and still stuck to the brunette like a cocklebur, her little eyes closing occasionally.
Jake’s gaze traveled slowly over the nurse, from her hair down the delicate line of her spine and gentle flare of her hips.
Impatient with himself, he turned for the door. He didn’t want to notice Emma York. All he wanted was to hire someone to care for the baby and he had.
Emma could barely keep from sinking to the floor in relief. She’d done it. She’d gotten the job.
The slightly plump older woman stepped aside so Emma could go into her new room.
“Take a minute to settle in and let us know if we can get you anything.” Her brown eyes were kind. “When you’re ready, you can have a look at the kitchen.”
“All right.”
“Would you like me to take the baby while you unpack?”
Emma could tell the other woman was tired and that had to affect the strength in her good arm. “That’s all right. We’ll need to start getting used to each other.”
Muted red light filtered into the room as the sun sank lower in the sky. This room had two glass-paned windows, one looking north and the other looking west. A large wardrobe covered the length of the west wall from the window to the corner. A wash stand with a cream pitcher and bowl sat on the opposite wall, a rocking chair between it and the north window. A blue, yellow and white quilt covered the bed that looked almost as fluffy as the one Emma had back home.
Jake Ross appeared in the doorway, holding her valise and small satchel, which he set just inside the door. “Is this all you have?”
She nodded.
“I’ll take care of your horse.”
“Thank you.” If either he or his cousin thought it odd that Emma had ridden rather than driven a buggy, they didn’t let on.
During the interview, she’d been too anxious to notice much more than Mr. Ross’s size, but it hit her now that he was handsome. He was the size of a mountain with pure black hair and eyes that were just as dark.
He pulled a piece of paper out of his trouser pocket. “Here’s the note that came with the baby. It says how old she is and what she can eat. And some things about her ma.”
“There were some flannels for changing her and a couple of dresses,” Georgia added.
Mr. Ross muttered something under his breath that sounded like a curse. Did he not like the baby or was his dislike over the fact that someone had abandoned the child?
The little girl looked well and fit. Still balancing Molly on her left hip, Emma took the note with an unsteady hand and glanced at it.
Jake gestured toward the heavy bureau with two deep drawers along the bottom and a pair of doors that closed to conceal hanging clothes and shoes. “If you want, we can make one of those bottom drawers into a bed until the kid’s arrives. One of them would be plenty big enough for her.”
“You ordered her a bed?”
At the surprise in her voice, his gaze shot to hers. “Yes, in town today.”
The town he referred to was Whirlwind, a small community several miles west of Abilene where the stage had brought her. “She needs a place to sleep, after all.”
“Yes,” she murmured. How sweet.
“It was Georgia’s idea.”
Oh. “The drawer will do just fine. I can make a little pallet in there.”
“Looks like you’re set, then,” he said brusquely. He walked away and Georgia followed, smiling at Emma as she left.
Still holding the child, Emma shut the door then backed up against it, closing her eyes.
The baby gurgled, tugging on Emma’s lower lip. She opened her eyes and smiled. After shaking out the little girl’s blanket, she spread it on the floor and sat Molly there so she could watch Emma unpack.
The weight of the derringer in her skirt pocket provided a small sense of security. For the first time in the two weeks since she’d fled Kansas, Emma thought she might be able to escape the hell of home.
With the uncertainty of getting the job—this job—behind her, she suddenly felt light-headed. Clutching the night rail she’d just pulled from her valise, she sank down on the edge of the bed, her legs shaking.
Intending to be the only applicant, she’d gathered up every flyer Jake Ross and another man had posted in Whirlwind. Or thought she had. Finding that other woman here had nearly caused her to faint. If Miss Halvorson had gotten this job, Emma’s plan would’ve been ruined.
You don’t strike me as someone who would misrepresent herself.
Jake Ross’s words echoed in her head.
Misrepresent herself? Emma had flat-out lied. She wasn’t a widow. She’d never been married. Her last name wasn’t York; it was Douglas. And she wasn’t a baby nurse.
She was Molly’s half sister and she was the one who had left the baby at the rancher’s door.
Chapter Two
The next morning, Emma stood just inside the kitchen door and tried not to bite her nails. It was a bad habit she had thought broken long ago, but she’d had to stop herself more than once last night, too. And during the days before she’d been hired and fretted about what Jake Ross would do with Molly; about what she herself had done with the baby.
The Ross family sat at the large dining table, Jake on the end closest to her, his brother opposite him. His uncle sat between them with his back to her and Georgia sat across the table. Behind Jake, the pink of early morning light filtered through the large glass-paned window that looked into the dining room and front room to the staircase beyond.
The men wolfed down the eggs, biscuits and ham Emma had set out so she took that to mean they liked the food all right. But they ate breakfast as fast as they had eaten supper. The meal could’ve been boots and gravy, and she doubted they would’ve noticed.
Last night she had dreamed that Jake Ross had changed his mind about hiring her. That he’d found out nearly everything she’d told him was a lie.
Just because he acted as if things were fine this morning, she’d lived long enough with her stepfather to know that a man’s temper was as unpredictable as a twister and could come up just as fast.
So she watched her new employer carefully, looking for a sign, a change in his temperament that so far seemed quiet and even. If she had to leave in order to protect Molly, she would. While it would be inconvenient, it wouldn’t pain her. Certainly not like what had happened two weeks ago when she had found their mother dead. Murdered.
Emma had no proof, had witnessed nothing, but she knew it was murder. And she knew who’d done it. Her stepfather had abused her mother since their marriage two years ago, especially when Nola had put herself between his fists and Emma. When Nola became pregnant with Molly, she knew she had to get the baby and Emma away from Orson. Despite endless threats from Orson to use any means necessary to stop his wife from leaving him, Emma’s mother had prepared, anyway.
After Molly turned six months old, Emma and her mother began to carefully make plans to leave Topeka and Emma’s stepfather. A month ago, he found a stash of money and assumed, rightly, that his wife intended to use it for her and her daughters’ escape.
Orson Douglas didn’t take any action at the time. Probably due to the risk that, just before an election, he might have to answer questions about what had happened to his wife and eight-month-old baby. Most people admired the politician, looked up to him. But not his stepdaughter. Senator Orson Douglas scared Emma witless.
And one afternoon two weeks later, she returned from the seamstress in Topeka and found her mother dead. Mama lay in her bed with Orson standing over her crying that it must have happened because Nola had taken too much of the laudanum she used for relief from a back injury due to a recent fall. A fall caused by her husband.
Horrified and frightened, Emma’d managed to give away nothing, but she knew Orson Douglas had killed his wife. And she knew what Nola would want her to do. Two days later, as people filled their grand house after the funeral, Emma had used the excuse of putting her half sister down for a nap, then had slipped out with the child.
Jake Ross turned his head then, his black gaze locking on her. She straightened, her fingers curling in the hem of the worn white apron she’d found.
His uncle Ike, as tall as Jake and lanky, picked up his cup of coffee as he looked over his shoulder. “We sure lucked out when Jake found you, Miz York.”
She doubted he would think so if he knew she’d found them. After reaching Abilene by train, she had seen Jake Ross there. Emma would’ve noticed him, anyway, because of his size and rugged good looks, but what had her deciding he was right for Molly was the patience and kindness he’d shown a lost little boy. No one else had paid a whit of attention to the child except to order him out of the way, but Jake had helped him find his mother.
Emma had included that in the note, hoping the mention of it would make the rancher less inclined to send Molly somewhere else. “So everything’s to your liking?”
“Everything’s wonderful.” Ike nodded.
“Yes, ma’am,” Bram declared.
“Especially the coffee.” Georgia smiled.
The older woman had told Emma that Bram and Jake had been raised by their uncle. Though both were dark haired and strapping, Bram’s eyes were blue rather than black like Jake’s.
Jake glanced over, making her stomach flutter the way it had when she’d first seen him last evening.
“Yeah, the coffee’s real good,” he said gruffly.
Bram took another biscuit, split it and slathered butter on it. “These biscuits are better than Pearl’s.”
At her frown, Jake explained, “She’s a lady in Whirlwind who owns the Pearl Restaurant.”
