WESTERN CHRISTMAS PROPOSALS Page 6

  “Ayuh,” she said. He grinned because she only said that now when she felt playful. “I can two-step and waltz and do something Mainers call a quadrille. I doubt you’ll need that.”

  “Would you mind teaching me?”

  “Not at all.” She cleared her throat. “Your father thinks you should find a wife, and it’ll never happen playing solitaire in the kitchen.”

  “Not many ladies in Wyoming,” he said. Her pointed look wouldn’t allow excuses. “All right! Maybe I’ll find a wife at the dance. I’ll get married and next year you can go to the dance while we watch Pa, and find yourself a husband.” He laughed at her skeptical look. “Stranger things have happened, Katie.”

  He picked up his work and she fetched the milk pail. They walked together to the house, neither in a hurry.

  “Does my father talk a lot?” he asked.

  “Mostly he listens as I read,” she said, and gave a satisfactory sound between a sigh and an exclamation. “We’ve come a considerable distance in the past few weeks.”

  Ned helped her with the milk, even though she didn’t really need his help anymore. When he finished, he picked up the wood frame and she held up her hand to stop him.

  “Ned, he wants to eat at the table and not in bed,” she said.

  “The doctor said he shouldn’t exert himself,” he told her, wondering why he had to even mention the obvious.

  “I know, but that’s no fun,” she replied.

  “It’s not a matter of fun,” he said, maybe a little sharper than he meant to, because the subservient look came back into her eyes. He took her arm, but gently. “Katie, I want him to live longer.”

  “Maybe it’s not living,” she said, her voice gentle. “He needs some say in what he wants.”

  “I’m not convinced.” He released her arm. “Help me get this frame in the window?”

  She nodded. He snuck another look at her, and didn’t see a woman convinced. Something told him the discussion wasn’t over, and that he might not win this one. The idea pained him less than he thought it would.

  Pa insisted on watching, so they bundled him up and Ned carried him to his bedroom, over his protests that he was capable of walking. He glowered at them both, then resigned himself to sitting silent as Ned planed down the rough logs, then set in the frame for the window glass.

  At his request, Kate brought in more kerosene lamps to counterbalance the full dark. The room was cold and she shivered until he went into his room, found an old sweater of his and draped it around her shoulders.

  “I’ll fit in the glass now, and glaze and putty it tomorrow,” he said.

  It took little time, which was good, since Pa had started to fade. He offered no objection to being carried back to Katie’s bedroom.

  Ned went back to his father’s room, where Katie was wiping more sawdust off the new window ledge.

  “Looks good,” she told him. “He’ll see the trees and that little rise with sagebrush.”

  “Maine and Massachusetts are prettier, aren’t they?”

  “Different, but maybe not prettier,” she said, and he admired her diplomacy.

  “Tell me something, Katie. Would you marry a rancher around here?”

  She gave it more thought than he believed the matter needed. But that was Katie. She thought things through.

  “I guess not,” he said, which made her laugh, something she didn’t do too often, so it charmed him.

  “I haven’t decided!” she said in humorous protest. “P’raps if I was raised here I might be tempted.”

  “I mean, you were going to marry...uh...”

  “Saul Coffin,” she supplied.

  “And he came out here.” He stopped, noting her dismay. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have reminded you of Mr. Coffin.”

  “That’s not it,” she said.

  “What is it?” Good God, Ned thought. I am turning into a nosey person.

  “I have to be honest. Some days I’m sorry he’s gone, and other days, I wonder if he is alive.”

  “The sheriff in Cheyenne knows where I live, Katie. If he’s alive, we’ll hear.”

  She shook out the sawdust onto the floor and started to sweep, then stopped, giving him the clear-eyed look of a realist. “I could live here in Wyoming.” She sighed. “Saul thought he could, too. You should have heard him talk about Wyoming.”

  “Like it was the Garden of Eden?”

  “Sort of,” she agreed. “It’s not, but I still like it.” She leaned the broom against the wall. “That’s it, Ned. You’ll meet a nice lady at the dance.”

  He wondered just how much store to put into one holiday dance at the Odd Fellows Hall. “Better teach me to waltz, Katie. This could be a long ordeal.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Since Katie had forgotten all about purchasing material for curtains in the excitement of Pete’s job, the next day Ned had found a length of blue-and-white gingham, in a box of Ma’s old things in the barn. No one had sewn anything since Ma, so he had to help her look for the flatirons, once she had cut and hemmed and trimmed the curtains and declared they had to be ironed.

  He had no trouble finding the time to help Katie search for the flatirons because she was starting to interest him. He wanted to ask her if she ever wasted a motion or even an hour, but he thought he already knew the answer.

  “I vow everything is in this odd little room,” she said, as they both squeezed themselves into the storeroom off the stalls.

  He heard her exclamation of delight when she found a copy of A Tale of Two Cities on a shelf with liniment bottles, a gallon or two of vinegar and unidentifiable bits and pieces of ranch life. “I wondered where that book went,” he said.

  Katie’s search for flatirons stopped with the discovery of something new to read, now that she had finished Roughing It, and Pa was getting tired of her Ladies’ Home Journal stories. Hardly aware of Ned, she took the book into the kitchen and sat down at the table, where she carefully wiped away the dust. He sat down next to her with the flatirons and held them out. He clapped them together and made her laugh.

  She set down the book with some reluctance, and nodded at the flatirons. In another minute, she had them warming on the stove. Back he went to the storeroom for the ironing board.

  “When I iron these, we can string them on that dowel, and your Pa will have curtains,” she said. “Since I have this ironing board up, I can press a white shirt for the dance.”

  “We have to go to that much trouble? I’ll be wearing a vest. Who’ll see my shirt?” he asked.

  “Who will ever marry you if you don’t look presentable?” she asked. “And please tell me you have a collar and cravat somewhere.”

  While she ironed, he found a pathetic collar and a cravat in even worse shape. She frowned at the collar, but she shook her head at the cravat. “I’ll make you one,” she told him.

  “Out of what?”

  “I have some fabric,” she said. He knew he heard something wistful in her voice, and thought perhaps he shouldn’t ask.

  When she finished ironing, they each took a panel of fabric to Pa’s room and strung them on a dowel Ned had cut and sanded. Katie clapped her hands in approval and Pa smiled from his bed.

  Katie had crocheted ties to hold back the fabric, giving the curtains a certain elegance he never thought to see in their jury-rigged, add-on-as-needed cabin. Ma, you would have liked this, he thought, then smiled at Katie who held her hands together in delight. You’d have liked Katie, too.

  “After you find me a shirt, sit with your father,” she said.

  He did as she asked, then perched on the edge of his father’s bed.

  “You have a view,” he said. “Look there.”

  He had seen cows all his life, but there was something nice about looking at the
m through a window. Here they were now, just nosing in what little snow there was, searching for nourishing grass that made this hard land cow country.

  Pa patted the spot beside him on the bed. He pulled out the extra pillow behind his head, doubled over his own, and left a place for Ned beside him.

  Ned tugged off his boots and did as his father asked, wondering when he had become too busy to do this. Never mind. He sprawled out beside his father, savoring the moment.

  “You built a good ranch, Pa,” he said. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Maybe he shouldn’t have said that. Tears came into Pa’s eyes.

  Ned started to apologize, but changed his mind when Pa took his hand and kissed the back of it. He felt the years slip away, and some of the cares. All that he lacked now was to see Ma come into the room, put her hands on her hips and in her soft drawl, declare them useless layabouts, which was acres away from the truth.

  He heard footsteps coming closer and looked up in anticipation, thinking of Ma, but it was just Katie. She had folded his ironed shirt so carefully. He watched her put the shirt on the top apple crate in his room, smoothing out what by now had to be imaginary wrinkles.

  “We’ll have steak and potatoes in a few minutes,” she told them. “Ned, help your father to the kitchen.”

  “I don’t think...”

  “Mr. Avery, would you like to eat with us?” she asked, ignoring Ned.

  “More’n anything.”

  “Give yourself plenty of time,” she admonished, but kindly. He knew she was right. An old rancher with a new window and a view of the valley ought to have some say in where he ate supper.

  It took Pa three pauses to get to the kitchen. To Ned, his look of triumph when he finally sat in the kitchen was close kin to his expression when he won a cow penning at the local rodeo a few years back. Maybe it was more than a few years. Time had crept up on them all. Ned couldn’t remember the last time Pa had sat at the table with him, and he wondered why it had taken the gentle insistence of a chore girl to give him enough courage to let Pa do what he wanted.

  “Pa, I’ve been treating you like a China doll,” he said finally, pushing away his plate. He nodded to Katie, who took the plates to the sink. “I owe you a debt, Miss Peck,” he said.

  She sat down again. The way Pa looked at her suggested that they had planned it this way. He knew better than to question whatever it was that had turned them into confederates. What is it about you, Katie Peck, Ned wanted to ask.

  After the dishes, Katie told Pa to settle in. “Ned, we’re going to waltz,” she told him. “One two three, one two three. It’s simple.”

  She came close and put her hand on his shoulder with no hesitation. “Put that hand on my waist, and I’ll take the other one,” she directed. “I’ll lead, until you figure it out. Mr. Avery, you may do the one two three.”

  Pa did, waving his hand, as Katie Peck directed Ned around the kitchen. She told him not to look at his feet and he tried to do as she said. Her waist was small. His hands were large, and he felt like he was encroaching a bit on the pleasant swell that began her bosom. She made no objection, which relieved him, because she felt so good.

  They banged knees a couple of times, and he stepped on her feet, but at least he had taken off his boots and wore only his stockings.

  When Katie said, “You’re supposed to carry on pleasant conversation,” he stopped dancing.

  “Like what?” he asked.

  “The weather, the price of two-year heifers,” Pa teased.

  Katie sighed, but there was no overlooking the fun in her eyes, and the soft way she looked at Dan Avery. “Mr. Avery! Instead of that, Ned, ask your partner what book she’s read lately, or maybe inquire about her family.”

  “I’m supposed to do that and dance at the same time?” Ned protested.

  She nodded, and put her hand on his shoulder again. “That’s why we’re going to practice the waltz every day until the dance. When is it, by the way?” she asked, standing there poised and ready to push off.

  “A week from Friday.” He whispered in her ear. “Pa’s getting tired.”

  “I know,” she whispered back. “Mr. Avery, Ned’s going to lead now. He can think one two three.”

  He towed her around the floor to his silent one two three. They narrowly avoided the cooking range, but he kept one hand firmly on her waist, and the other clasped in hers. Around again, without stepping on her, and once more.

  “I’m ending this dance,” he said. “How do I stop?”

  “When the music stops, you give a little bow, and thank her,” Katie said. She turned to his father. “What do you think, Mr. Avery?”

  “I think he might find a wife yet,” Pa said. “Do the two-step now.”

  “It had better be simpler,” Ned told her.

  “It is. And it’s fast. Hand on my waist again—oh, you never took it off—and take my hand again. It’s just one and two and.”

  Off they went. It was simpler, Katie nimble and smiling the whole time. Third time around the room, he picked her up and she laughed.

  “I hope...you’re not...expecting...conversation,” he managed to gasp.

  “Only...if the building...catches on fire,” she said, which made him give a shout of laughter and grab her up.

  He held her that way, so they were on equal eye level, breathing hard. She put both hands on his shoulders, not to ward him off, but to remind him. He let her down, and she stepped away, her face red from exertion, but her eyes bright.

  They both looked at Pa, who nodded. “That’ll for sure find him a wife, unless he’s dancing with another man’s missus.” He laughed. “Then we’ll have a shoot-out and a hanging!”

  “We’ll practice every night,” Katie assured Ned. She started sticking hairpins back in place, but gave it up for a bad business and shook the rest of her hair down.

  Ned hadn’t realized how long it was, almost to her waist, and the prettiest shade of just ordinary brown, with little bits of red glimmering in the light of the lamp.

  He looked at Pa, whose eyes were closing. “No objections from you, Pa,” he said, as he carried his father back to his room. Katie trailed along behind, watchful, and Ned began to realize the strength of her attachment to his father.

  “I’ll help him from here,” he told her. She went into her room and closed the door. He listened for her to lock it, then realized with a start that she had never locked her door, not even the first night when he handed her the key.

  We’re doing something right, he thought.

  Chapter Thirteen

  They danced every night, and soon Katie had no fears for her toes. Ned’s conversation still suffered, but she knew him as a reticent man. A dancing partner would have to appreciate taciturnity, Katie decided. She knew she didn’t mind his silences. He had a lot on his mind.

  “Did you mill girls have dances?” he asked one night.

  “Ned, you’re wonderful!” she exclaimed. “You asked me that and didn’t look down at your feet.”

  “Did Saul Coffin dance with you?”

  “Now and then, but he was mostly all business around the looms.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t bring him up,” he said after another turn.

  “Doesn’t matter,” she replied. “We may never know what happened.”

  She didn’t mind the silence that followed, because she had a moment to reflect on how seldom she thought about Saul Coffin, the man who had partly paid her way to Wyoming Territory. She knew the truth, though: hard life had taught her not to expect anything. When Saul Coffin had been notable by his absence in Cheyenne, she quietly set about forgetting him.

  She looked up at Ned, struck by the knowledge that she would miss him, when he didn’t need her any longer. Ned made another turn, and she glanced at Mr. Avery, s
itting at the table and looking healthier. She decided that lying alone all day in a back bedroom wasn’t designed to cure any ailment, even if a bad heart is a fragile thing.

  It struck her that a good heart was a fragile thing, too, and she hoped that Ned Avery found someone to share his life with. Maybe a wife, the right one, would ease his way in this hard land.

  The day of the dance, she took the piece of forest-green brocade from her traveling case to make Ned a cravat. The matter gave her less of a pang than she thought, considering that the fabric was the only item remaining from her real father, a sailor lost at sea during the China run. Besides a pittance so small that Mama was forced to remarry, the skipper had given her a length of green brocade. She had no use for it, except to parcel it among her four children as their only legacy from their father.

  After morning chores, Katie picked apart his old cravat, ironed the pieces and angled them here and there on the brocade to be her pattern. She hesitated only a moment before cutting.

  “That’s mighty elegant,” Ned said, as he came into the kitchen, prepared for a day in the saddle. “You didn’t find that in Wyoming.”

  Without thinking, she told where it came from and noted the dismay on his face. “You needed a new cravat, and I have the material,” she pointed out.

  “It’s a treasure,” he protested. She had already cut into the fabric, so a man as practical as Ned knew the argument was over.

  She continued cutting. The long strip remaining to her could easily be hemmed and turned into a bookmark for her Bible. That would do. As it was, she barely remembered her father.

  That day, Kate skimped on reading from A Tale of Two Cities, which raised a protest from Mr. Avery. “Bad as he is, we cannot leave St. Evrémonde with a knife through his heart,” he reminded her.

  “I fear we must,” she said. “If I am to finish the cravat, we’ll have to leave the marquis weltering in his gore.”

  “You sound remarkably like Dickens,” he told her, but gave her no more argument.