Carla Kelly (20 page)

“No shortage of men,” she said, her voice tight. “I got the pick of the litter in at least two states. Maybe Montana, too.”

She shrieked when Paul pulled her into his arms, gave her a great kiss, picked her up, and carried her through the open door of her new home on the Double Tipi.

Paul set her down gently. They all stood crowded into a hallway that ran the length of the house, with a stairway. Everything smelled of paint and new wood. Julia took a deep breath.

Paul looked around, a dazed smile on his face. “Will someone tell us how this astonishing bit of skullduggery came about?”

“No,” Julia said emphatically. “I want a tour of every room and
then
they can tell us.”

“I'll go with the brains of the outfit,” Paul said. “Who gives the tour?”

President Gillespie pointed to Doc and ushered him forward. “It should be the man whose idea it was—Dr. McKeel here.”

“Doc, you really
were
sick of Paul in the bunkhouse,” Julia said with a laugh. “Was he so awful that you didn't even want him as close as the tack room?”

Everyone laughed, cutting the tension of tears and unshed tears.

“Julia, you'll never know,” Doc said. He glanced at Paul. “Boss, with your permission or not, I'm going to give your wife a kiss and a hug.”

“Just this once,” Paul said, a slight smile on his face, but only a slight one.

Doc kissed her cheek. “You're as pretty as I remember, my dear. We knew Paul wanted the best for you.” He looked around the front room. “First, some explanation, Julia. After all, you're going to be living here for years and years, and the tour can hold off a moment.”

Years and years. Maybe that was when it hit home. She glanced at Paul, who seemed to have the same thought, if the look on his face was any indication. “Years and years,” she said softly. “Oh, Paul.”

A chorus of groans rose up. “Darling, this is not a sentimental group,” Paul reminded her. He looked around. “Years and years, men. I'm the lucky one.”

“And it's high time,” Cuddy said.

Doc cleared his throat loudly. “We're going to be awash in sentiment any moment. It wasn't just my idea, Boss. About a month before you left for Salt Lake, when I think you were out, I rifled through your ranch papers…”

“… not a hard task now, with most of'um burned,” Paul interjected.

“Made my job easy. I found the name of your lawyer here and wrote to him. Told him I wanted to organize some people to at least get your house started before you returned. I mean, even
one
room would have been better than the tack room.” Doc gestured to Heber. “Mr. Gillespie took it from there.”

“Everyone in the Sunday School class pitched in,” Heber said. “It's what we do.”

“Maybe you Mormons do, but I've never seen anything like it,” Doc said. “Mr. Gillespie and I decided we needed a few real builders, though, and I thought of Karl Rudiger.”

“Ja. I brought along
my
helpers,” Karl Rudiger said with quiet pride. “Mr. Otto, I have my own business now in Fort Collins.”

“So I've heard,” Paul said. He put his arm around Julia. “Actually, Darling, last fall, I had arranged with Rudiger to build cabinets for the kitchen. That is the only thing I knew would be here.” He laughed. “Stashed in the horse barn with the Queen Atlantic.”

“I am eager to see Mr. Rudiger's kitchen cabinets, but let's start with the parlor.”

With a grand gesture, Doc opened the first door and ushered Julia through.
I just can't cry
, she thought as she looked around her in delight at the two large windows, a stove just for warmth in the corner, and all the furniture she and Mama bought in Salt Lake City. The rug was just the right size.

“I have some lace curtains in a trunk in Gun Barrel,” she said.

“Lace curtains!” Charlie McLemore snorted in disgust. “Paul, she's going to ruin you!”

Paul laughed. “Too late. I surrendered two weeks ago without a whimper. Will it do, sport?”

Julia nodded. She thought of quiet evenings, rocking in her chair and knitting, with Paul sitting there. She chuckled. And probably asleep, worn out from the bovine business, as he called it.

“Let's go across the hall,” Doc said, and they followed him through another door into the dining room, with its long table and many chairs. “I'm already anticipating the food here,” he said. “Is it big enough, Julia?”

“Only until they start filling it with highchairs!” someone shouted from the hallway, and everyone laughed. Julia turned her face into Paul's shoulder.

She admired the new china cabinet and the bare sideboard opposite. “Paul, we can put all our wedding gifts there.” She couldn't help laughing. “And never think of them again!”

“Oh, no. I
insist
on the cut glass knife rest on full display,” he joked and looked around at incredulous faces. “That's right, gents. I have married up and into the gentry in Salt Lake City. I know you don't believe that, but it's the truth.”

The door was open to the kitchen. Julia walked through and stood in stupefied amazement. “My stars,” she said softly. “Mr. Rudiger, I think I love you.”

The German laughed. “Ah, Frau, don't say that. Herr Otto will shoot me. You like them?”

Julia stood in the center of the kitchen, taking in the handcrafted cabinets that lined two of the walls from floor to ceiling. She ran her hand across the light wood, then opened one cabinet and then another, to see the dishes, pans, and cutlery she had bought in Salt Lake. She traced the grain of the light wood.

“Maple, Frau Otto,” Mr. Rudiger said. “He wanted for you the best.” He bowed in that courtly way she remembered.

Julia turned around to look at the new Queen Atlantic, impressive in its sheer bulk. A large pot simmered on the back burner. She lifted the lid, breathing deep of the stew inside. “Who gets the credit for this?” she asked, looking at the Indian girl standing next to Matt Malloy.

“Charlotte,” Matt said and gave her a little push forward. “She's been keeping us fed, since you ruined us forever for bully beef and Vienna sausages.”

“I hope you're planning to stay,” Julia said.

Charlotte glanced at Paul. “My cousin wants you to have some help.”

“I need it,” she said. “My doctor told me no heavy lifting because of my shoulder.”

Charlotte looked at Paul again. “My cousin also said you would teach me how to make biscuits and rolls.”

“Your cousin's right. Where do you stay?”

Charlotte opened one of the three doors, and Julia looked into a neat little room with bed, dresser, closet, and one window, with a washstand. She stood a moment in the doorway, hands clasped in front of her, remembering with painful clarity her little room off the kitchen.

Reduced to ashes, it had been the room where she finished reading the Book of Mormon, and where she stayed so long on her knees last summer, praying for Paul and the men of the Double Tipi. She thought of the time Paul knelt here with her and cried, during that terrible summer. Staring at Charlotte's neat room brought back a gush of memories, as the loss of the ramshackle house punched her with a blow she wasn't prepared for. She felt her breath coming quickly again as she remembered her terror watching the log building burst into flames. She sagged against the doorframe.

Paul's arm went around her waist. “Hey now, sport, what's the…”

She turned her face into his shoulder, horrified to have such an audience for her pain. “I was remembering when the house exploded, and the flames started down the hill,” she whispered.

She heard a few words softly spoken as she burrowed into his shoulder, her nightmare haunting her, toying with her, in her new home, the last thing she wanted. In a moment, the room was empty, except for Paul, Doc, and Brother Gillespie. She raised her head from Paul's shoulder, mortified. “Forgive me. I didn't think that would happen. Paul, I'm sorry. Everyone is so kind and here I am…”

“No fears, Darling.” He held her close. “It's been quite a day for both of us. How about I take you upstairs, where I am assuming there is a brass bed with sheets on it.”

“There is,” Doc said, his voice kind. “Julia, I can give you some sleeping powders…”

She shook her head decisively. “I don't need that.” She looked at her husband shyly. “What I really want—Paul understands—is just to stay in this wonderful kitchen and make some biscuits. They'll go so well with Charlotte's stew. Is there any butter?”

“Alice Marlowe brought some,” Doc said, assessing her as the physician he was and not a ranch hand. “Take a look in that pantry. I think you'll be amazed.”

Not letting go of Paul, Julia did as Doc said, admiring the shelves and all the foodstuffs neatly in place. And cookbooks. She sighed to see a row of them.

“We tried to think of everything in here, Julia,” Brother Gillespie said. “Emma had fun.”

Julia nodded, unable to speak. Brother Gillespie hugged her briefly. “Did we do all right?” he asked.

She nodded again.

“We'll just leave you here with Paul,” Brother Gillespie said. “I know there are a few more things to finish up, and we'll do that before supper.”

“Thank you,” she said simply. “I need to cook and…” She took a deep breath. “I need Paul.”

When the two men left the kitchen, Julia sat down at the kitchen table. “I didn't mean for that to happen,” she said. “I thought I would be fine with the Double Tipi, but this is painful.”

He nodded. “We shouldn't have left you alone that afternoon. Don't think I haven't rolled that around in my mind for months.”

“You had to do what you did.” She sobbed out loud. “I don't want to ruin this for everyone!” She was in his lap then, her arms tight around him, her refuge far more reliable than a cut bank. “It's so hard,” she whispered. “Please tell them I'm fine, but this was a jolt.”

“You'll be all right if I go outside?”

“I will. Here's how I know: I want to make biscuits.”

“Do it, sport. I'll grain and curry our horses, and then I'll come back in here and sit with you, whether or not you want me to.”

“Oh, I do.” It was easier to smile then. “When was the last time I told you I loved you?”

He thought a moment, and she watched the fun in him that probably no one else in Wyoming would ever have suspected. By the time he spoke, she was smiling. “I believe it was around midnight in the Plainsman Hotel. As I recall, you said it several times. Quite emphatic.” He helped her onto her feet. “Of course I may be confusing that with the night before, or was that the morning before? Any day now, I'll probably go blind or lose my hair, with all this love. Remember our deal? I bear your burdens, and you bear mine. See you in a bit.”

She knew that only another cook would understand the peace of standing in a beautiful kitchen and doing her best work, even if it was just baking powder biscuits. When she opened the cookbook, a note from Emma fell out. “‘My dear Julia Otto,’ ” she read out loud. “‘Our Relief Society really gave this kitchen some thought. Our prayers are with you. Love, your sister Emma.’ ”

She was giving the biscuits their quick knead, when she thought about her conversation last fall with Uncle Albert.
Julia Otto, didn't you learn anything
? she chided herself as she rolled out the dough and reached for a floured glass to cut the biscuits.

Julia stood there with the glass in her hand, remembering Uncle Albert's anguish at bearing the fifty-year burden of his prank that went so disastrously awry on the bleak plains.
Julia, you told him to give that anguish away to the Lord
, she reminded herself.
The same remedy is yours too. That's what you assured him
.
Do you believe it or not?

Deftly and carefully, she cut the biscuits and placed them on the cookie sheets like little soldiers in rank and file, finding peace in the simple task.
You might as well take this burden, dear Savior
, she thought, as the last biscuit went on the sheet.
I don't want it, and you don't mind
it. Another perfect division of labor
.

She found a pastry brush and spread each little biscuit top with butter. She smiled to see the butter soak into the moist goodness of the flour. By the time the last round was soaking up butter, her heart was calm.

Julia hummed to herself as she slid the pan into the Queen Atlantic, then laughed out loud when she realized it was “Dear Evalina.” When she looked up, Paul was standing in the side door, watching her. He knew her too well to be wary. It struck her that he watched her the way she watched the biscuit dough soak up butter.

“Better?”

“You know what cooking does to me. Cowboy, how about you call in Charlotte and have her set the table in the dining room?”

“I will. Doc said there's a tin of Nabisco Vanilla Wafers that my sweethearts have been saving for a special occasion. Now, don't get all snobby! I know you'll make something better, when you have time.”

She tried to look penitent. “Am I a kitchen tyrant?”

“Worst one I know.”

The sun had long since left the sky when they all sat down for supper. Julia looked around the table, pleased to see every chair filled. Some of the men watched her shyly, and others, more wary, kept their eyes on their plates.