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“I can do it,” Maeve offered. After her years working in Boston, there wasn’t much she didn’t know about caring for expensive furniture. “You want to keep it nice for—”
Her voice trailed off. She wasn’t exactly sure she wanted to say the words indicating he was saving the furniture for when his wife returned, but she had no other theory to offer.
Maeve looked down. Her daughter was lying on the bench, with her head in Maeve’s lap.
She could feel the man looking at her so she glanced up.
“You must like European furniture,” she finished. “It’s beautiful.”
“Neither,” Noah said with a smile. “I bought it to show myself I could.”
Maeve wondered how much money the man had.
A dozen men had marched back and forth to the kitchen carrying things past the doorway. Most of the supplies were still coming, but she saw a couple of big bags carried to the back of the house. From the sounds of the steps, two men carried her trunk to the end of the hall. She suspected they had taken it to the bedroom, but the warmth from the fire was making her toes tingle and she didn’t want to walk down the hall to see.
She looked around. Back East, she’d rented the smallest room she could find. It had had a bed, two chairs and a stove for heating. She’d barely been able to afford that. This parlor alone was three times the size of her room. She’d brought some of her doilies with her, the ones she’d crocheted for her first wedding. They’d faded over the years and she would be ashamed to even put them out in this house.
She watched as Noah walked out of the room.
He turned and said, “The downstairs bedroom is at the end of the hall. The men are finished unpacking. They’ll be leaving in a minute. Don’t worry about waking up early. Dakota will be cooking for the men.”
Maeve said nothing, but she vowed to be up early enough to make breakfast. She didn’t have much time to show Noah how useful she could be and she planned to make the ranch hands the best food they’d ever eaten.
He might not want another wife, she told herself, but he had never wavered on wanting a cook for his men.
* * *
The night was black as Noah braced himself against the growing wind and walked as fast as the storm permitted toward the light in the bunkhouse window, thinking about Maeve. She had pursed her lips when he even looked at her inquisitively. She had secrets she still hadn’t told him, but he didn’t want to press her. He didn’t like going to bed with these kinds of mysteries on his mind, though. If he didn’t know the problem, he couldn’t fix it.
All of the buildings on his ranch were built firm. He’d used milled wood. The planks were measured and cut to fit. That’s why there was no dip in the roof of the bunkhouse and there were no gaps in the corners of the side room he’d added to the bunkhouse.
He turned a knob and the door opened. He could see the fire burning in the rock fireplace on the far wall. He stepped inside and stomped the snow off his boots. The group of men sitting by the fire turned in unison to look at him.
He nodded in greeting, wondering how to tell them Reverend Olson might be asking them about him and his sleeping habits.
But the men looked as if they had something on their minds, too.
“Yes?” he asked.
They were silent for a minute and then, Bobby, the youngest ranch hand, let loose.
“We worked hard to get a new cook. And here you are, sending her back. She came for us, too, you know. We wrote the ad.”
“Ah,” Noah said as he took off his coat and rubbed the snow off the back of his neck. “But it’s me she came to marry.”
“Well, she says she’s willing,” Bobby said in frustration. “The rest is up to you.”
Noah walked over to the straight-back chairs gathered around a table and pulled one of them closer to where the men sat. “It doesn’t matter whether she’s my wife or my cook,” Noah said as he settled himself into the chair. “I won’t have a woman go back on her agreement with me again. So I want her to be sure she wants to stay here.”
The men sat in silence as they considered this.
“You’re thinking about that divorce, aren’t you?” Dakota finally said from where he sat by the window. “We all know that wasn’t your fault. You did everything you could for Allison.”
“Did I?” Noah asked them. “Sometimes I wonder. I brought her out here to the ranch and then I left her alone too much. Everyone within a hundred miles of here knew she was unhappy and I didn’t take her to town more than once every few months.”
“You were busy,” Bobby said.
“That’s no excuse.” Noah gave him a smile. “Someday, when you’re married, you’ll understand. Marriage is a commitment that isn’t always easy.”
“Have you been talking to Mrs. Barker?” Dakota asked as he walked over to Noah and peered at him as if he was trying to determine the state of his soul.
Noah squirmed. The older woman was the biggest gossip in the area. “She was at the church this morning, but that’s all. Why?”
The men looked at Dakota and he looked back at them.
Finally, the other man shrugged. “She told me her husband saw your Allison down in Denver last week when he was there on railroad business. She goes by Alice now, but it was her all right. Mr. Barker told her you were getting yourself a new bride. Mrs. Barker said it didn’t sound like Allison—or Alice, I guess — was too happy about that.”
“I’m sure she was only making some polite response. You know how Mrs. Barker likes to add to the truth to make the telling of something more dramatic.”
“I don’t know,” Dakota muttered. “I can still hear Allison complaining. The table was too rough. The sun was too hot. No one came to visit. The cows had flies. The flowers didn’t grow.”
“She hoped for more out of life than me,” Noah said ruefully. “She knew how much land I owned and she pictured herself entertaining governors and other important people. The only one who ever came out to see us was Mrs. Barker and I am grateful to her for that.”
“Ranch women know what to expect,” Dakota said firmly.
Noah nodded. “That’s just it. Maeve lived in Boston for most of her life, except for a few years in Ireland when she was young. She hasn’t even had a chance to think of what life here would be like.”
It was quiet again as the men considered that.
“I’d sure hate to lose her,” Bobby said.
“We don’t even know for sure that she can cook,” another ranch hand said philosophically.
“With hair like that, I’m not worried,” a different cowboy said. “Irish women are born cooking.”
“I know she can do better than Dakota,” Bobby said with a look at Dakota.
“I’d like to see you make a flapjack worth eating,” the older ranch hand retorted with no rancor in his voice.
Noah knew a lot of bickering went on in the bunkhouse and he usually turned a deaf ear to it. He’d had a long day himself and was looking forward to slipping into bed and sleeping.
“The Reverend Olson might be talking to some of you.” Noah didn’t have to look around to know he’d caught their full attention. The reverend was respected around here. “He says you’re to be my chaperones. Make sure I sleep in the room off the bunkhouse and don’t go to the house at night.”
Bobby grinned. “So the preacher is worried you might want to be more married than you think.”
Noah felt the tension shoot through his jaw. “He’s not meaning me particularly. He just knows the value of a woman’s reputation in these parts. For that matter, I should make sure none of you leave the bunkhouse for long periods of time at night, either.”
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