WESTERN CHRISTMAS PROPOSALS Page 4

  Mr. Avery pretended to sleep as she gathered up the empty dishes, and tucked the ketchup bottle under her arm. Back in the kitchen she busied herself with the bread dough, then cleaned through layers of debris and ranch clutter while the loaves rose to impressive height. What was the use of ropes she could not have guessed, but there were enough partly used liniment bottles stuck here and there to make her wonder just how troublesome the cow business could be.

  The fragrance of baked bread filled the little ranch house. When it came from the oven still hot and not entirely set, she cut off a generous slice, lathered it with butter, put it on a plate and carried it down to the last bedroom, where Mr. Avery immediately pretended he slept. She left the bread on the table and washed her hands of that much stubbornness.

  She slathered her own slice and propped her feet up on another of the kitchen chairs to enjoy it. The wind blew and beat against the one small kitchen window. She eyed the window, and wondered where she could find material for curtains.

  Sitting there in the kitchen, wind roaring outside, she felt herself relax. The whine and clank of the industrial looms that had been her salvation from mistreatment, but the author of headaches, had never seemed farther away. No matter what she decided in the spring, she never had to go back.

  If only Daniel Avery, rail-thin and suffering, would agree to a truce. She glanced at the calendar, the one with a naked woman peeking around a for sale sign—where did Ned get these calendars?—and resolved to find better calendars, and while she was at it, a better job for Pete and comfort for Mr. Avery. What she would do for Ned escaped her, but she had time.

  Chapter Seven

  Not in years had Ned Avery come home to a house fragrant with the twin odors of fresh bread and cinnamon. Ma had been dead so long he could not remember much about her, except her lovely eyes. Katie had eyes like that—brown and appealing.

  Pete decided to sulk in the barn, so Ned shut the kitchen door and breathed in the pleasant fragrance, aware that this might mean something delicious to eat, but just savoring an unexpected, simple pleasure.

  He watched Kate Peck come down the hall from her father’s room, carrying an empty plate. She smiled her greeting—another unexpected pleasure—and put the plate in the sink. Without a word, she cut off a slab of bread, slathered it with butter and handed it to him.

  “Your father pretends to be asleep, but he ate a lot of bread and butter,” she said. “Your turn.”

  He ate the bread, embarrassed to be uttering little cries of pleasure, but nearly overcome with something as simple as warm bread and butter. “Best thing I ever ate,” he said, and meant it.

  “You’re an easy mark,” she teased, which made him smile. “I have something even better.”

  What he couldn’t imagine, unless it was to strip and stand there naked in the kitchen. That thought earned him a mental slap. “Hard to imagine anything better,” he told her, grateful people couldn’t read each other’s thoughts.

  In answer, she opened the warming oven and took out a cinnamon roll the size of a dinner plate. “Sit down.”

  He sat. Without a word, he plunged in, wondering how lucky a man could be, to find out that he had inadvertently hired a cook, along with a chore girl.

  “Words fail me,” he said finally. “I didn’t know we had any cinnamon.”

  “It’s a little weak. I found it stuffed in the back of that cupboard, along with a stack of napkins, a hacksaw and a rope with dried blood.”

  “That’s where it went!” Ned said. “I use that rope for pulling calves.”

  He could tell she had no idea what he was talking about. “When Mama Cow has trouble, a little noose slipped around her calf, plus a mighty tug, finishes the job.”

  Kate pointed to the rope, hanging from a nail near the door. “Keep it in the barn, the hacksaw, too.”

  “You’re a bit of a martinet,” Ned replied.

  She gave him a startled look that settled into a thoughtful expression. “Two days ago, I wouldn’t have imagined such a thing.”

  He started for the barn, when she surprised him by walking along beside him. She stopped and he stopped, too, waiting for her to speak.

  “Your father may have a bad heart, but he needs something to do,” she said. “I didn’t want him to hear me talking about him.”

  Eyes troubled, she looked back at the house, which suddenly looked too small and shabby to him. Couldn’t they afford something better now?

  “He’s lying there waiting to die,” Katie said. “How is that better than death?”

  It felt like one accusation too many. “Do you have some bit of wisdom to change things? You think you’re telling me something I don’t know?” He didn’t mean to shout. He regretted the look in her eyes. “Sorry. That was unkind.”

  “He still needs something to do,” she repeated softly, and left him there.

  Ned Avery watched the sway of her skirt, wishing—not for the first time—that someone else was in charge of his life.

  He stayed in the barn until the cold started to seep through his coat, watching his horse eat. Pete, still unhappy with his day spent riding fence, pointedly turned away from him, much as a cat with a gripe would.

  I am satisfying nobody, Ned thought. “Pete, what would you really like to do?” he asked.

  “Work someplace warm,” Pete said with no hesitation, as though he had been considering the question for years. Perhaps he had been.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Ned told his brother. He patted Pete’s shoulder. “Come inside. Katie has made cinnamon rolls.”

  “Will I like them?” Pete asked, as they walked toward the ranch house.

  “Yeah, you will. If you don’t, I’ll eat yours, too.” He stopped. “Ride with me tomorrow to check the fence in the other direction, and then I really will see what I can do.”

  Dinner was another unimaginable feast, nothing more than beef stew, but much more because of spices or whatever sort of alchemy seemed to be coming from a kitchen he knew too well.

  “Tucked beside the cinnamon, I found some thyme. And do you know, there is bush after bush of sagebrush right outside your door,” Katie said.

  He could tell she was teasing him, and it felt good, reminding him how long it had been since he had laughed about something, anything.

  There was no humor in the last bedroom, where his father lay, staring at the ceiling. Ned helped him sit up to eat, but Pa said nothing about the wonderful stew. Pa seemed determined not to have anything good to say about Katie.

  Stubborn old man, Ned thought. He imagined himself condemned to lie in bed until death finally nosed around and found him. He had to admit Kate was right—this was not living.

  After helping his father through slow and painful bedtime rituals, Ned said good-night and wandered back through the house. In the next room, Pete was already asleep. He kept going, passing through the small sitting room now, and by the room he had built for Kate, who just wanted to feel safe.

  She was drying the last of the dishes. He eyed the remaining cinnamon roll, which she pushed toward him, along with a just-dry fork. “I can make more tomorrow.”

  She sat down, and he found himself enjoying the novelty of someone sitting with him. Before Pa got so weak, they sat at this table together and he missed that.

  “I have to find something for Peter to do,” he said, halfway through the roll.

  “You’ll think of something,” she said.

  “I wish there was someone else around here who could think,” he said, ashamed to whine.

  “The whole burden is yours, isn’t it?” she said, her voice soft. “That’s hard.”

  She surprised him then. “Tomorrow, I’m going to start reading to your father.” She chuckled. “He’ll just pretend to sleep and ignore me.”

  “Sorry a
bout that,” Ned murmured, embarrassed at such stubbornness.

  “No need. I’ll sit by the arch into his room, and read just loud enough to hear, but not easily. Maybe he’ll invite me into his room to read.”

  “Could be a while,” Ned said. “He’s damned stubborn.”

  “So am I.”

  Chapter Eight

  Katie began her campaign after a breakfast of baked oatmeal, helped out with a tin of peaches. If she fed the fire in the range carefully, the roast Ned had sliced off from the steer hanging in the smokehouse would be done in late afternoon, when he and Pete rode in again.

  She had taken Mr. Avery’s breakfast to him instead of Ned, tightening her lips when the old man pretended to sleep. She said a cheerful “Good morning,” before she retreated to the kitchen.

  An hour later, she went to Ned and Pete’s room and picked up Ned’s copy of Roughing It he had been reading on the train. He had left it on the bed, as she had asked him to, when she explained her campaign.

  “Good luck,” he had said, and she heard all his doubt.

  She positioned the chair right by the archway that led into Mr. Avery’s room. She made herself comfortable and started to read aloud.

  “‘Chapter One. My brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory—an office of such majesty...’”

  The chapters were short, which obviously suited Mark Twain, and suited Katie, too. She found herself laughing out loud after a very few pages, even when her captive audience began to snore, or pretend to. Stubborn man, she thought, but with sympathy. He was in a bad situation and they both knew it. She kept reading, and found her enjoyment growing at Twain’s depiction of the West in which she now lived.

  The snoring stopped by Chapter Five and Twain’s description of a coyote as “‘...always hungry. He is always poor, out of luck, and friendless.’” Katie took that as a good sign and kept reading.

  She hardly knew how long she read, but her stomach growled around noon. She turned down a tiny corner of the page and said, “‘The city lies in the edge of a level plain.’ Remember that, Mr. Avery, for it is where I shall begin again. I’m hungry. Are you?”

  Silence. At least he wasn’t pretending to snore. She fixed herself a beef sandwich, ate it and made one for Mr. Avery. She set it on the little table close to his bed, and watched him for a moment as he pretended to sleep.

  The book lay on her chair. She picked it up and turned a few pages. “Let’s see...did we finish? I’m certain we did. Must be here on Chapter Six,” Kate said. She ran her finger down the page. “Chapter Six it is. ‘Our new conductor (just shipped) had been without sleep for twenty hours...’”

  “No! Start with, ‘The city lies in the edge of a level plain,’” Mr. Avery said from his bedroom. “And for the Lord’s sake, come a little closer.”

  Kate smiled so huge that she felt her dry lips crack. She tugged the chair into Mr. Avery’s bedroom, pulling it close enough to the stove for warmth, since the day had turned cold.

  “Very well,” she said. “‘...the edge of a level plain.’ Here we are.”

  She read until the shadows of late fall stretched across the page she was reading and at the same time the aromatic roast in the kitchen made itself known. She stood up and put the book in the chair.

  “Thank you for letting me read to you,” she told the quiet man, who lay on his back now, deeply veined hands clasped together. “You know, Mr. Avery, if you have trouble understanding my accent, I can read slower.”

  “I understand you,” he growled. “Silly of you to think I wouldn’t.”

  “I have to prepare supper.” She was tying on her apron when the brothers came indoors, bringing with them October and geese calling to each other, and a rush of sage before the door closed.

  “One more day will finish up the near fences,” Ned told her.

  “Pete’s more agreeable?” she asked.

  Ned shrugged. “Well enough. I promised him I would think of something else for him to do.” He started toward the back of the house, but stopped. “You think, too,” he said and gave her a little salute with his finger to his forehead.

  Kate couldn’t help feeling pleased to be included in likely what was a hopeless task. She sliced potatoes for frying on the stovetop, and found enough good apples in the nearly empty barrel to make applesauce. She looked into the window and gave her reflection a little salute, too.

  She already knew the evening routine. Ned kept a pile of old newspapers by the stove. Once his father was taken care of, he retreated to his room with a newspaper and read the articles, no matter how old they were.

  Pete sometimes stayed in the kitchen with a bucket of blocks. He created towering buildings carefully, losing himself in the simple task. After a few days of wondering what to do, Kate took an old newspaper, too, and read it in her room. Sometimes Ned took a deck of cards to the kitchen and played solitaire.

  And then in the morning another day began and became much like the one before, a day of riding fence for the Avery brothers, and her reading to Mr. Avery, who at least didn’t pretend to sleep anymore, even if he never spoke.

  Ned surprised her two days later by inviting her to come to town with him. “Didn’t I hear you say something about material for kitchen curtains? I’ll leave Pete here with Dad. We won’t be gone much more than half a day.”

  She had her doubts, but agreed. While he hitched the horse to the wagon, Katie peered into Ned’s shaving mirror. There wasn’t much she could do for her straight hair, but she was pleased to see that the bloom wasn’t entirely gone from her reflection.

  “May I get you anything in town?” she asked Mr. Avery, who lay on his bed, turned to the side facing the wall. He ignored her and her heart dropped, wondering if he was back to his silent hostility.

  “I’ll read twice as long tomorrow to make up,” she cajoled. Nothing. It was as if she had never read to him, as if they had never started even the simplest of conversations.

  “You are a stubborn man,” she said finally, when she heard Ned calling her name from the kitchen.

  “I want to go, too,” he said, softly.

  Katie heard his disappointment. “I wish you could. I truly do.”

  Silence. Ned called for her again, but she moved closer to his father instead. She sat on his bed. “Is there something else I can do for you, besides what you really want?”

  She looked over her shoulder to see Ned approaching. She put her finger to her lips and he said nothing.

  “I want a window,” Mr. Avery told her finally. “If I have to lie here, may I look out at...at...something?” He opened his eyes, and Kate saw all the torment. “Can you do that? Can you?”

  Kate glanced back at Ned and saw a serious face with no anger in it. He nodded. His look changed to a thoughtful one, as though he was already planning how he would do it. He turned quietly and went back through the house.

  “I believe we can,” she told Mr. Avery.

  She heard his enormous sigh. “Make it a big window and make it low enough for me to see out of, just as I am now.”

  “Done,” Kate said as she stood up. “Call Pete if you need anything.”

  “I can’t imagine he wants to stay here,” Mr. Avery said, a touch of humor in his voice.

  “No,” Kate said, “but it’s my turn to go to town.”

  She hurried toward the kitchen. Ned stood there, something in his hand. He held it out to her. “I found this in the box of oddments you wanted me to go through. Mama used to stick it in her hair. You take it.”

  “I shouldn’t,” she said, coming closer to look at the tortoiseshell comb.

  “I think you should. Mama was never one to waste things. Here. I’ll do it.”

  He stepped into her private space, and she felt no automatic need to step back. “Where shoul
d I put it?” he asked.

  She touched the side of her head where strays seemed to come from. “Right here.”

  With no hesitation, he slid the comb right above her ear, slanting it up a little and then more, until he was satisfied. She held her breath at his nearness, thinking of times when her stepfather had yanked her around, or even when Saul Coffin leaned in for a kiss. She felt no urge to step back or dodge Ned Avery.

  I trust you, she thought, and the feeling was warmer than late autumn.

  “That’ll do, Katie,” he said, nodding his approval. “I didn’t know you had freckles on your nose.”

  “And I didn’t know you did, too,” she told him.

  “I’m not exactly full of surprises,” he said as he opened the door.

  I’m surprising myself, Katie thought, pleased in a way she had never been pleased before.

  Chapter Nine

  Both of them were silent on the ride to Medicine Bow, but it was a comforting silence to Katie, the kind of quiet when you share space with a friend, or so she thought.

  Ned stopped the wagon in front of Bradley’s Mercantile and helped her out onto the board sidewalk. “Go inside and look around,” he said. “They may or may not have anything resembling what you think we might need, but that’s Medicine Bow.” He straightened his Stetson. “I’m going to the Watering Hole for a drink.”

  “Don’t you get likkered,” she teased.

  “My mother used to say that,” he replied, and she saw good humor in his eyes. “Haven’t heard it in years.” He tipped his hat to her. “Thanks for the reminder.”

  She nodded and went into the mercantile. The odor of dried fish, leather and coffee, with a hint of molasses drifting in from some dark corner made her wrinkle her nose.

  “Can I help you, miss?” the man behind the counter said.

  “Ayuh,” she said, which made him smile. “I mean, yes.” She handed him the list Ned had given her.