A Taste of Heaven (16 page)

He straightened and dragged his arm across
his sweating forehead. “'Bout five years, I guess,” he said.

“Five years! Goodness, you were really young
when you came to the ranch.”

He shrugged and sank the shovel blade into
the dirt again. “Joe was fifteen when he went to work for Tyler's
pa. Kansas Bob came to the Lodestar when he was fourteen.”

“But you were ten! Did you run away? Lose
your family?”

“Naw, my old man knows where I am.” It wasn't
longing or regret she heard in his answer, but rather a weary
bitterness that momentarily aged the very timbre of his young
voice. “Anyway, Tyler says there ain't no such thing as an old
cowboy. He says this is a young man's job.”

Libby smiled. She could understand
that—ranching was hard work. “No old cowboys? What happens to
them?”

“No one's sure, Miss Libby.” He looked at her
from under the brim of his hat and gave her a big grin. “Sometimes
they become cranky old cooks.”

She laughed and put her biscuits into the
bottom of a Dutch oven. “Maybe because they have cranky
bosses.”

*~*~*

By the time the crew arrived at the night
camp, the sun was low in the sky, and the coffeepot was on the
fire. Given her rough working conditions, Libby thought she had put
together a reasonable meal.

The men ate in two shifts, and between
serving big portions of beans, pork, and biscuits, she watched for
Tyler to come in. But he didn't. She spotted him on the western
range, just beyond the perimeter of camp, riding against the
yellow-orange sunset like a sentinel. What drove Tyler Hollins? she
wondered as she slapped a scoop of beans onto a plate. What
substitute had he found for friendship that made him such a remote,
solitary man?

She was still watching the chestnut-haired
rider—and she could well imagine his hair though it was hidden by
his hat—when Charlie Ryerson came to her for his supper. He'd
lagged behind, waiting until the rest were busy with their own
meals to get his plate.

He glanced at the group gathered around the
campfire, obviously hoping for a measure of privacy. “Evenin', Miss
Libby. Did you fare all right today?” It sounded like polite
conversation but he spoke gravely, as if the words hid a greater
meaning.

Libby tightened her plaid shawl against the
late afternoon coolness. “It's a little harder than I thought it
would be,” she admitted, pulling out a dish and coffee mug.
Soreness was beginning to settle into her arms and shoulders from
her daylong struggle with the reins. “I'd always thought that
‘stubborn as a mule’ was just a saying. But they really are
stubborn.”

He laughed, and his big mustache stretched
across his face. “Yes, ma'am, they can be. I reckon that's why mule
skinners learn to cuss so good.”

Libby laughed, too.

His expression grew serious then. “But
drivin' a chuck wagon ain't a job for a lady. It ain't right that
you should have to be out here trailin' cattle. I-I s'pose I got no
right to say so, but you ought to be livin' on a nice little spread
with some young'uns to look after and a man to come home to you at
night.”

Libby felt a twinge in her heart. That was
what she'd believed waited in Montana when Ben had sent for her.
She curbed a sigh, then smiled into Charlie's sincere face. “Things
don't always work out the way we hope, I guess. But I'm only
driving this wagon to Miles City. Then I'm catching the train for
Chicago.”

“I know, Joe told me.” He glanced around
again, then leaned forward, suddenly earnest. “Miss Libby—” He
swallowed. “Miss Libby . . . I-I've got a little money put by. It
ain't much, but it would give us a start. That is, if you—” He left
the sentence unfinished and turned a vivid shade of red.

Libby gaped at him. “A start?”

He pulled in a deep breath and went on, his
words urgent. “I've got my eye on a piece of land up by Mosby. It's
in a real pretty little spot, with a creek and lots of pines. It
would be a good place to grow cattle and kids—y'know, make a life.”
He shifted and looked down at his boots, then up at her again.
“I've had some wild ways in my past . . . uh, I
s'pose you probably figured that out. And I know this ain't the
courtship you deserve, but our time is short. I want to give you a
few days to think about—well, bein' my wife.” He reached out as if
to touch her arm, then let his hand fall. Instead, he whipped off
his hat and withdrew a blush pink flower. He laid it gently on the
worktable. “Miss Libby, ma'am, I'd be honored if you'd think it
over.”

“But we don't know each—Montana isn't—I—”

“Hush, now.” He spoke to her in the same
soothing tone she'd heard him use on skittish horses. “Just ponder
it a spell.” He turned and hurried away with his plate and cup
before she could find her voice to say anything.

Her hand at her throat, Libby stood in the
gathering dusk and stared at his retreating back, then at the bloom
in front of her. Had Charlie Ryerson just asked to marry her? That
was what it had sounded like, but she could hardly believe it.
After he'd brought her wildflowers that afternoon in the kitchen,
she suspected he might be smitten with her. But she'd had no idea
that he was truly serious. She picked up the blossom by its slender
stem and held it to her nose, then flexed her aching shoulders.

Maybe she shouldn't find it so strange. After
all, she was in Montana because she had answered a newspaper
advertisement for a wife. Maybe out here a proposal, coming from a
man she'd met barely a month earlier, and hardly knew, wasn't
unusual at all. The difference was that being a mail-order
bride—marrying a total stranger as soon as she'd stepped off the
stage—had been mainly a business arrangement.

In Charlie's honest offer, she sensed
something much more substantial. Yet only a little more
appealing.

“How was your first day?”

Startled out of her thoughts, Libby turned
and saw Tyler walking toward her. An electric jolt shot through
her, and to her utter dismay, she realized that surprise had very
little to do with her reaction.

His height gave him long strides and her eyes
were drawn to the chaps covering his jeans. His shirtsleeves were
rolled up to his elbows, and his gloves were cuffed at his wrists.
The lantern hanging from the side of the wagon picked up blue-green
glints in his eyes, and he wore the faint, troubled frown that
she'd grown accustomed to seeing at the Lodestar. He smelled of
horses and the coming night air, and he brought with hint the same
palpable physical intensity that she always felt in his
presence.

“Fine! Uh, just fine. I didn't have a bit of
trouble,” she lied, and put down the flower. “I've never done this
before, but I've always worked. I'm used to it. Where I grew up, if
we didn't work, we didn't eat.”

Picking up a tin plate, she put two big
spoonfuls of beans on it, but when she stretched for a biscuit she
pulled up short with a wince. The muscles in her arms and shoulders
were stiffening like leather left in the rain.

Tyler looked at her and lifted one brow
knowingly. He took off his gloves and tucked them into the waist of
his chaps, then reached for the biscuit himself. He knew she was
lying about the way she felt. He could see fatigue in her face, and
her hobbled movements weren't lost on him.

Neither had been Charlie's proposal. God, Joe
had been right—Charlie was serious. Tyler hadn't meant to
eavesdrop. But he'd reached the front end of the wagon in time to
hear the last words of the cowboy's plainspoken request for Libby's
hand. And he'd lurked there like a thief, waiting for her reply,
wondering why his stomach was in knots.

“Where did you grow up that you had to work
so hard?” Tyler took a bite of the tender biscuit. The evening
breeze carried Libby's faint scent of flowers and vanilla.

A scent that now sometimes made him think of
warmth and home.

No matter that he impatiently rejected the
idea as soon as it would occur, it kept returning. Wispy tendrils
of hair blew across her eyes and she brushed them back, then turned
away and busied herself with searching for a fork. She was slow to
reply, and then her words were barely audible.

“Erie Foundling Home.”

A foundling home. Tyler clenched his jaw. No,
no, damn it, no. He wouldn't ask anything else. Her response
created more questions than he wanted answers to. She'd be on her
way back to Chicago in a few more days. Then the Lodestar would
return to normal, he could go back to his Saturday nights at the
Big Dipper, and everyone's thoughts—including his own—would return
to the business of work and responsibility.

Libby tensed, wishing she'd kept her mouth
shut about the orphanage. Talking about it brought back painful
memories. Of a young, dying mother who, she now realized, had been
little more than a child herself when she'd left behind
four-year-old Liberty. Of the years of aching loneliness that had
followed. Tyler gave her a long, searching look, and she braced
herself for the inevitable questions that surely hovered in his
mind.

Instead, he took his plate from her
outstretched hand and turned to go. But then he stopped and reached
for the flower on the worktable. “I've never known these to bloom
this early in the year.” His voice had a pensive edge, as though he
were remembering another time and place himself.

“Do you know what kind of flower it is?” she
asked, grateful for the change of subject.

He looked up at her and a smile pulled at the
corners of his mouth. "Yeah. They grow along the porch back at the
ranch house." He pressed the bloom back into her hand. His touch
was warm, vital. “It's a wild prairie rose.”

Libby watched him upend a keg, away from the
rest of the men, to sit and eat his supper. Seeing him like that,
with the last of the day's sun streaking his hair with auburn and
copper threads, more than anything she wanted to go sit by him. But
that was ridiculous, it was out of the question.

As soon as she'd eaten her own supper and
washed the dishes, in exhaustion Libby struggled to climb into the
wagon. But over the last few hours, her cramping shoulder muscles
had almost locked, and pulling herself up to the wagon bed proved
to be futile. She stepped on the wheel hub and reached for the side
of the wagon box, but had trouble getting any farther. After
several unsuccessful attempts, frustrated and weary, she stood by
the front wheel and looked up at the seat that seemed as high as a
mountain. Gingerly, she moved her shoulders.

“Having a little trouble?” Tyler asked.
Carrying an empty cup, he was apparently on his way to the
coffeepot. Light from a nearby lantern accented the fine-boned
structure of his handsome face and cast shadows on his chest where
the collar of his shirt gaped open.

“Trouble? No, no. I was just going to settle
in for the night.” Why did she get that funny, restless feeling
inside whenever he came near her? “Did you need something?”

He considered her for a few seconds. “No, but
I think you do.”

He put down his coffee cup, and with an
effortless agility that she admired, he sprang up to the wagon box.
“All right, step on the wheel hub.”

With dubious hope for success, she scrabbled
for a grip on the side and stepped up. Just as she felt her
strength slipping, Tyler reached out and grabbed her by the waist.
He lifted her up to the seat as though she weighed no more than a
child.

He pushed back his hat. “You're as stiff as
an old rawhide rope, aren't you?” he said.

It was hard to deny. “A little, maybe,” she
admitted, flexing her shoulders again.

He pointed over his shoulder. “I have
something for that. I'll be right back.”

With the same nimble grace, he jumped down
and disappeared around the corner of the wagon. She couldn't
imagine what he had that would fix her twitching, throbbing
muscles, but she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Tired though she was, she knew she'd have trouble sleeping with
this discomfort, and she had to get some rest. Out here their days
would begin even earlier than at the ranch.

Tyler reemerged from the darkness carrying a
bottle. He handed it to her and climbed back up and sat down next
to her. “Okay, in you go,” he said, indicating the interior of the
wagon.

She looked at the bottle label. “Four-H
Horse Liniment? You're giving me
horse
liniment
?”

“Sure, why not? Aches are aches. Hell, I knew
one old-timer who used it to stretch his whiskey.”

“You mean he drank it?”

A chuckle got away from him. “Yeah, but I
wouldn't recommend that. It's mostly for external use, and anyway,
I thinned it down a little.”

She looked at the label again. “But don't you
have anything for people that I can use?”

“It doesn't matter if it's for a horse or a
human. Besides, you're not going to put it on. I am.”

She gaped at him. Either she'd misunderstood
him, or he'd lost his mind. She wasn't about to allow him that kind
of intimate access. “You certainly will not! I can manage very
well, thank you.”

“Liniment only works if it's rubbed in. You
can't reach your own shoulders to do that.”

“I can reach them well enough,” she
reiterated, her face so hot—and probably so red—she was grateful
that the lantern was behind her. She tried to scoot away from him
on the seat, but there was no place to go.

Tyler frowned at her. “If you don't let me do
something about it now, by morning you won't be able to move at
all.”

“I simply don't think this is proper—”

“You're arguing again, Libby,” he said in a
louder voice.

She lapsed into indignant silence, gripping
the bottle in tight hands.

He continued more quietly. “When
problems come up, it's my job either to see that they get fixed, or
to fix them myself. That's what I'm doing.” He stared at her. “And
that's
all
I'm doing. Now,
please—get into the wagon. Unless you don't care about
privacy.”