Loe raamatut: «Dance with the Rancher»

Chapter One

Eastern Colorado, 1879

Old Chester Franks, stomping one foot against the wagon bed as he drew the bow across the strings of his fiddle, filled Grady Campbell’s barn with a tune that had folks tapping toes and clapping hands.

Garret McCoy tipped back the brim of his hat, taking in the women dressed in ruffles and bows and men in suit coats and string ties. He had on a string tie, too, though he’d rather not have. He’d have much preferred to be home, spending the evening in the bunkhouse listening to Art and Sam reminisce about the old days and playing cards.

Being the dutiful son didn’t allow such luxuries. Ma needed him, so he’d sent his younger brothers, Toby and Jeb, to drive the herd to the rail station in Dodge. He’d be here until the wee hours of the morning, when he’d pull out the wagon being used as a stage, clean up the party debris and help Grady get his critters back in their stalls.

There was no sense regretting it, but he sure didn’t have to enjoy it.

“Hey, McCoy!”

Garret turned toward the speaker in no rush. Craig DeLong always had something to say, and most of it wasn’t worth listening to.

“You want in on the bet?” DeLong asked.

Letting the question settle as his gaze wandered the inside of the barn again, Garret pushed off the frame of the open doorway and meandered his way toward the hay bundles someone had fashioned into a table and benches—complete with a red-checkered tablecloth to keep the cards from getting stuck in the hay—beside the barn. “What’s the game?” he asked, nodding toward Ray Ray Jepson.

Shuffling the deck as if he was on one of the paddleboats he bragged about gambling on before losing one eye when a game got out of hand, Jepson said, “We ain’t started playing cards yet. We’re betting on who can get Rory Boyle on the dance floor.”

Garret did his best to hide the sudden chill that stabbed his spine like a sharpened spur. “Why?”

“Uh?” DeLong looked utterly confused, as did several others sitting on the bundles.

“Why would anyone want to get Rory Boyle on the dance floor?” Garret asked.

“‘Cause she’s the prettiest gal at the dance,” DeLong answered. “Mayhap, the county.”

“All that yellow hair and those blue eyes—I’ve only seen a few prettier in all my years of riverboat gambling,” Ray Ray said, nodding as if that bit of information was of high importance.

It wasn’t. What was important, to Garret, was the fact Rory Boyle was the reason he was at Grady Campbell’s barn dance instead of on a profit-making cattle drive. She’d convinced his mother he should be the one to stay home this time. That Toby and Jeb needed to learn to handle the drives by themselves. His brothers could handle the drives, all right; there wasn’t a McCoy who couldn’t handle anything thrown at them, and it wasn’t Rory Boyle’s place to stick her nose in and say boo about any of it. Every day that went by, she got more uppity, waiting on Jim Houston to return. Half the town had figured out it wasn’t going to happen—Jim coming back, that is. He’d always been a scalawag, a blowhard not worth the time of day.

The thought of another girl waiting for her beau to return filtered into the back of Garret’s mind, but he slammed that door shut. He was not Jim Houston, and Emily Rosengren was not Rory Boyle.

“You all turning suicidal?” Garret asked the group. “Rory Boyle is none too fond of men.”

“We know that,” Ray Ray said. “That’s what makes it a challenge. You in?”

Garret tried to tell himself he wasn’t the least bit interested, but damn if he wasn’t. He’d be at this blasted party until it ended, and entering the bet would give him something to do. Irritate Rory. The opportunity to bend that snooty little nose out of shape may not come up again. “How much is the ante?” he asked, digging in his pocket.

“Ten dollars,” DeLong said.

“Ten dollars?” Garret repeated. “That’s awfully steep.”

“The high ante means only serious bidders will play,” Ray Ray said. “Of course, if no one wins, everyone will get their money back, minus my holding fee.”

“Holding fee?” Garret asked, more to himself in simple disbelief. It never failed to amaze him how some men made money.

“Fifteen percent,” Ray Ray said. “Someone needs to assure the hundred and fifty dollars remains safe.”

“A hundred and fifty dollars?” Garret asked. No doubt there were a few men in town who’d ante up ten bucks to be the one to lead Rory Boyle across the dance floor. DeLong had been right calling her the prettiest thing in the county. There might not be another woman in the state as cute as her, especially when her dimples showed. He’d admit that. It was her demeanor that got to him. “You already have fifteen men striving to get Rory on the dance floor?”

“You’d be the fifteenth one,” DeLong said. “But the Rose brothers haven’t arrived yet.”

“We believe the kitty will be two hundred,” Ray Ray said.

“Two hundred bucks and all I have to do is make Rory Boyle dance with me?” Garret asked for clarification.

“Yeah,” DeLong answered.

“Well, you can’t hold a gun to her head or anything like that, Garret,” Ray Ray added seriously.

Garret slapped his money on the table, but as Ray Ray reached for it, he flatted his hand over the bills. “You’ll be here after the dance, to pay me.”

“Right here.” The man patted the red-checked tablecloth. “I don’t plan on leaving all evening.”

“And I don’t plan on it taking me long,” Garret said. Dang if life didn’t seem a whole lot brighter than it had just moments ago. This was going to be the easiest 200 bucks he ever made. Well, 170 once Ray Ray took out his 15 percent.

* * *

Any words she might have hoped to say dried up in Rory Boyle’s throat as a sudden burst of perspiration left her skin clammy. Drawing a breath through her nose, she finished filling the cup in her hand with fruit punch and then set it on the table with several others.

It would help if Garret McCoy didn’t look as if he could charm a baby bird out of its nest, standing there in his bleached white shirt and shiny black string tie, grinning. Too good-looking for his own good, that was what he was and that, too, frazzled her in ways she’d never been frazzled before.

Rory took another breath, held it deep in her lungs in order to say as evenly as possible, “Hello, Mr. McCoy. Would you care for some punch?”

“Nope.”

That didn’t surprise her. Garret was not a punch-drinking kind of man. Taking swigs off the bottles being passed behind Grady Campbell’s barn was more his style.

Through gritted teeth—trying to uphold her preacher’s daughter’s persona—Rory suggested, “Perhaps you’d care for some pie, then.” She waved to the table next to the punch one she was in charge of. “There are several flavors.”

“Nope,” he said again.

His green eyes held a touch of silver, like the undersides of oak leaves when they curl up to signal a rainstorm, and his dark hair always made her think of fresh-ground coffee beans with all its different shades of brown. Snapping her chin up, Rory told herself he was simply a man. Yet she couldn’t help but admit he was the man that made what happened with Jim Houston all the more infuriating. Your past never goes away, and always impacts the future. That was what her mother had said. Until some months ago, Rory had hoped that wouldn’t be true for her. She knew better now.

The smile she forced to remain on her lips hurt. “Well, then, would you mind moving? There are people behind you who would like punch and pie.”

He took a single step, taking himself out of the line, but how he leaned with one hand on the edge of her table showed he had no intent of leaving. The chill those green eyes cast over her skin also told her he was still furious with her. Which wasn’t new. Garret McCoy had been mad at her for most of the past year. Ever since his mother had hired her to assist with personal things. Rory didn’t believe it was necessarily the assistance Garret minded or the money his mother paid her but the suggestions she continuously voiced. Sons or not, the three McCoys, Garret, Jeb and Toby, were grown men and needed to accept their mother, Abigail, couldn’t do everything she used to do.

Of course, none of the boys had witnessed what she had last summer at the church picnic, and she’d promised Abigail McCoy she’d never tell anyone—other than Dr. Richardson—about the episode. The man kept a close eye on Abigail, as well.

“Here you go.” Rory handed Francis McMillan a cup of punch. “Please return the cup so I can wash and refill it.”

“I will, Miss Boyle,” the young man with continually smudged glasses said. “Thank you.”

A grunt from Garret said he’d noticed Francis’s bright cheeks as much as she had, but Rory chose to ignore him as she continued to hand out punch.

When the long line ended—momentarily since the music had started up again—Garret asked, “Isn’t there anyone to relieve you? Or wash those cups that keep piling up?”

“No.”

“What if you want to dance?”

She cast him a look that clearly stated how she felt about dancing before spinning to dip four used cups in soapy water, then rinsing them in a second tub. A part of her wished she wasn’t stuck behind the punch bowl, but it was better for the town to believe she was pining for Jim Houston. It would help if Garret McCoy wasn’t as pesky as a mouse in the pantry: no matter how much they were ignored, neither would go away on his own.

Lifting a brow, Garret asked, “Why don’t you have any help?”

“Because I don’t need any help.” Pretending his presence didn’t bother her, Rory went right on washing, rinsing and drying cups. Once that was done, she refilled the punch bowl, preparing for the dancers that would descend upon her table as soon as Chester Franks set down his fiddle. The Virginia reel he was playing had her feet aching to slide across the dance floor. Even before Jim, she’d never been able to dance, enjoy such events wholeheartedly. A preacher’s daughter wouldn’t; therefore, she didn’t. What she wouldn’t give, though, for Garret McCoy to sashay her across the floor.

Regret, shame and a few other deep-set emotions threatened to rise up. Garret would never dance with her, and the only person she could completely blame—besides Jim—was herself.

The music ended and thirsty dancers arrived. Rory became so busy making small talk, smiling and pretending the world was a wonderful place, she nearly tipped the punch bowl when someone reached around her from behind and set down four clean cups.

Keeping her composure wasn’t easy or fun, but she did so, even managed to thank Garret as he kept her supplied with clean cups until the mad rush was over. Then she used a few more minutes to calm her nerves by lifting several jars from the basket beneath the table.

Garret picked one up, opened the lid and handed it to her to pour into the bowl. “What’s in these?”

“Fruit juices,” she answered, accepting another jar he’d opened. “I use the pulp for jam and save the juice for punch. I mixed it with sugar and apple cider at home.”

There wasn’t much space between the makeshift shelf holding her washing tubs and the table of punch and cups, and he filled a good three quarters of that area, leaving her little room and even less air to breath.

All three of the McCoy men were hard workers, gone from the house when she arrived and not home until long after she’d left, taking care of their cattle, plowing or planting fields and rounding up the wild mustangs. Although Garret had gone to law school, he much preferred rounding up and selling mustangs.

Their mother was proud of all three of her sons, told Rory that all the time, but it was the oldest, Garret, who Abigail depended on the most. Had done ever since their father had died a few years ago, and that was why he was the one Rory insisted stay behind rather than joining his brothers on the cattle drive to Dodge. The brothers wouldn’t be gone long, only a few weeks, but Rory didn’t feel it was safe for Abigail to be alone even that length of time.

“You’ve been assigned to stand guard,” he whispered, “make sure no one adds anything else, haven’t you?”

His teasing grin was almost her breaking point. He knew the townsfolk well. The women who insisted someone was in charge of just such a thing and the men who continuously tried to catch the punch bowl unattended. She knew the townsfolk, and she knew him. As well as his past, something no one dared mention, and his egg-stealing charm wouldn’t work on her.

“Thank you,” Rory said after she’d emptied the last jar he’d handed her, “for all of your help, but I’m fine by myself. You can leave now.” Becoming more nervous by the second, afraid he wouldn’t leave, she filled a cup and handed it to him. “Here, take this to your mother. I’m sure she’s thirsty.”

His gaze lingered on the cup before coming up to meet hers, at which point her hand started to shake. He took the cup and skirted his way around the table. Rory wanted to collapse at his departure. If only her past had remained buried on the other side of the state line.