Carla Kelly (10 page)

Julia took a deep breath, decided that a last appeal to the Almighty about coffee was quite out of order, and poured the brew into her employer's cup.
If it comes out cloudy, with shells and slimy strings of egg, I will tear up my diploma,
she told herself,
if Mr. Otto doesn't do it for me.

The rancher sniffed the coffee, and then took a cautious snip. And another. “Heavens,” he said, his voice almost reverent. He sipped some more, holding it in his mouth for a lingering moment like the wine taster who lectured one morning in Miss Farmer's fancy cooking class.

Wordlessly he drank slowly, pausing to blow on the coffee but not stopping until he drained the cup and held it out for more. Just as silent, she filled it again. Max Marlowe snatched up two cups from the table. Her heart full, and not knowing whether to thank Miss Farmer or the Almighty, Julia filled the cups. Marlowe handed the other to his wife, and the three of them drank silently, reverently.

When his cup was empty, Mr. Otto raised it to her in a salute. “Level measures, eh?” he asked. “Just so much water? No guessing?”

She shook her head. “It's the scientific way, Mr. Otto.”

Her employer looked at the Marlowes and then back at his cup. “This is our little secret,” he said. “Marlowe, if word gets out that my cook makes the best coffee on both sides of the Divide, we can just forget the niceties of courtship among my neighbors. I'll be killed and dumped into a borrow pit, and she will be abducted.”

Alice laughed and took the oatmeal from the stove. “Your little secret!” she scoffed, and then glanced out the front room window. “Too late, Paul. In fact, I think it was too late when you took her into that dining room in Gun Barrel. You know how news travels. What were you thinking?” She gestured toward the window.

Mystified, Julia joined her employer and Mrs. Marlowe at the window. Alice was shaking her head. “I never imagined Charlie McLemore owned a suit,” she mused, her voice full of wonder. “Where do you suppose he got those flowers?” She sucked in her breath. “Paul, do you suppose he has—”

“—come to propose?” Mr. Otto finished sourly. “I don't doubt it.” He glared out the window.

“Julia, I'll get out the cinnamon rolls, and you get another cup,” Alice said, putting her hand to her mouth to hide her smile. “I hope you are prepared with a lot of small talk, my dear.”

“No!” Mr. Otto said, not leaving his spot by the window. “Don't encourage him!”

“This is my house, Paul,” Alice reminded him. “He already has sufficient encouragement, anyway. Max, do be quiet or go in the bedroom.”

His eyes merry, Marlowe gave Julia a sympathetic look and bolted for the bedroom. Julia looked at her employer. “Mr. Otto, he cannot possibly be coming here to propose to me! Can he?” she added, when he was silent. “I don't even know him.”

“Doesn't matter,” he muttered.

Mrs. Marlowe was in the kitchen, separating the cinnamon rolls. “He's probably only the man on the fastest horse. From that direction, it looks like he's come from the Double Tipi. Paul, can you imagine what your hands must be thinking? And James?”

Julia jumped when Mr. Otto banged his hand against the door frame. “If you couldn't be mature, Darling, couldn't you have had the foresight to be more than usually
plain?”

“Mr. Otto, I have no intention of marrying
anyone
in Wyoming,” she told him, her words distinct. “It is the farthest thing from my mind. Please believe me!” she added, opening the door when McLemore knocked.

She stepped back, bumping into Mr. Otto, as Charlie leaped into the room, holding out the flowers. They looked like goldenrod.

“How … sweet,” she managed, wishing that her employer would back up. He seemed disinclined to budge, however.

“Charles McLemore, we went through all this yesterday. This is my cook,” Mr. Otto said in terrible tones. To her amazement, he put his arm around her. “My cook.”

He might have been speaking to a post. McLemore flung himself down on one leg. “Miss Darling, I am a man of temperate habits—” Mrs. Marlowe coughed suddenly. “—No diseases that I know of, and I would be honored if you would make me the happiest man in Wyoming and marry me!” he concluded in a rush. “My kitchen is much nicer,” he added, pleading with her now.

“No,” said Mr. Otto.

“I'm not asking you,” McLemore said, getting up off his knee. “Besides, Otto, you had a chance before and—”

Mrs. Marlowe took his arm and tugged him toward the kitchen. “Have a cinnamon roll and some coffee,” she said hastily, her eyes on Mr. Otto.

“I'll overlook that because you're my neighbor,” Mr. Otto said in the same voice Julia remembered from the restaurant.

She extricated herself from her employer's grasp and took McLemore's other arm. “Mr. McLemore, you are extremely kind to make me such an offer, but I must decline. Coffee, sir?” She put the cup in his hand and pushed him toward the kitchen. Mrs. Marlowe whisked him around the corner and out of sight.

Julia held her breath, alarmed at the bleak look on her employer's face. In another moment, he shouted into the kitchen. “McLemore, I hope you have no further plans to marry, court, befriend, or in any way harass my cook!”

McLemore was silent. In a moment, Alice Marlowe led him to the table, coffee cup in his right hand and a plate of cinnamon rolls in the left, but a broken man, anyway.

“Take a sip,” Alice urged.

His lower lip out like a small child's, McLemore drew it in finally and did as she said. Another sip and another, and the frown left his face, only to return as he must have considered what would never be his if Mr. Otto had breath in his body.

“I'm sorry, Mr. McLemore,” Julia said. “I've already promised to cook for Mr. Otto.”

“Indeed she has,” Mr. Otto said, unable to resist a glance at Julia. “I doubt even Darling knows how good her coffee is.”

I deserved that,
she thought.

She could tell this was not a good moment in Mr. McLemore's life.
I believe I have broken his heart,
she thought, with some regret. She watched the rancher, slumped in his chair, made more pathetic by the goldenrod pollen all over the suit that must have been new the first time Cleveland was president.
Will I be treading on broken hearts before my tenure is up, cry uncle, and return to Salt Lake? There ought to be some way to prevent all this needless pain in Wyoming,
Julia thought.

She considered the matter and then turned her attention to her employer as a solution came to mind. It was so simple that she almost laughed out loud. Mr. Otto was still watching her over the rim of his cup, the expression in his eyes inscrutable again.

“I have an idea, Mr. Otto. What would you think if I signed a contract stating that I was under legal obligation to remain in your employ for an entire year without marrying?”

“You mean it?”

“Most certainly.”

Max had returned to the kitchen for more coffee. “You could print the thing in local newspapers.”

Heavens, just don't let it show up in the Deseret News, or Papa will be on the next train east,
Julia thought.

“Maybe even the Billings
Gazette”
Marlowe threw in. “Pretty women are scarce, and news does travel.”

Mr. Otto turned his attention to her again. “Darling, are you willing?”

“It was my idea, wasn't it?” she countered, glancing at Mrs. Marlowe for support.

“Julia, it's a wonderful idea! Max, get some paper and my pen.”

With a sound suspiciously close to a sob, McLemore stood up. “I can't stay here and watch such goings-on!” he declared. He went to the door and flung it open dramatically. “Think what could have been yours, Miss Darling!”

Mr. Otto shook his head in disbelief as the door slammed shut. “Darling, any idea how much trouble you're going to be to me?”

She drew herself up to her full five feet two inches. “Mr. Otto, let us write a contract!”

t only took a half hour to create the contract. Max handed her the page. “Do the honors and read it out loud, Julia.”

She studied the page and cleared her throat. “ ‘Whereas it is already well-known in the County of Platte that Julia Amanda Darling (party of the first part, hereinafter referred to as Darling) is a real dilly…’ Mr. Marlowe,
why
did you insist upon that?” she exclaimed in exasperation. The Marlowes chuckled; Mr. Otto did not. She continued. “Oh, never mind! ‘ … and a bona fide graduate of Miss Fannie Farmer's School of Cookery, Boston, Class of 1909; that Paul…’ ” she squinted at the page, “Hixon…’ ” She put down the document. “Have we spelled that right, Mr. Otto? Should it be H-I-C-K-S-O-N?”

It was his turn to look uncomfortable. “Not sure,” he mumbled.

“Your own name?” Max said with a grin.

“It's in the Bible at the ranch. I think it's H-I-X-O-N, Marlowe,” he replied. “Keep going, Darling.”

“ ‘ … Paul Hixon Otto (party of the second part, hereinafter referred to as Mr. Otto) has engaged her services as cook and general housekeeper at the Double Tipi…’ ” She looked up. “ ‘General housekeeper'?” she asked. “Very well. I will allow that. ‘ … and feels the necessity of protecting his investment…’ ”

His investment. I am chattel!
Julia thought, chagrined. She turned over the paper. “ ‘Whereas it is equally well-known that the population of the aforementioned Platte County, as well as Albany and Laramie counties, are seriously lacking in ladies, both parties do hereby agree to contract the following, to whit…’ “

” ‘To whit,’ “ Marlowe repeated. ” Nice. Sounds like birds.”

She frowned at Mr. Marlowe. “ ‘ … to whit: that both parties agree by their signatures affixed to this document that Darling will continue her employment with Mr. Otto for the period of not less than twelve months without contracting any engagement of marriage, further explained as a period from September 15, 1909, to September 14, 1910…’ ”

“Suppose before a whole year is up that you meet some Wyoming gent you just can't resist?” Marlowe asked.

“I most certainly will not,” she answered firmly and kept reading. “ ‘ … that there are no mitigating circumstances which will allow for this contract to be broken, excepting only death or terminal disease.’ Mr. Otto, is that necessary?”

“It's what counties seriously lacking in ladies will understand, Darling,” Mr. Otto said. He looked at the Marlowes. “I
know
these men! Besides, I might as well put all those rumors to good use, eh?”

With a glance at her employer, Julia hurried on. “ ‘That no stockman, surveyor, attorney, military man, or any man—employed or otherwise—will in any way seek to coerce, harass, importune, tempt, intimidate, or plead with Miss Darling to enter into a matrimonial agreement, on threat of painful ejection from the boundaries of the Double Tipi by the party of the second part…’ “ She frowned at her employer. ” ‘Painful ejection,’ Mr. Otto?”

He shrugged. “Don't think I can't.”

“ ‘ … that the party of the first part will have the option to renew this contract on September 15, 1910, if she so desires.’ ”
Pigs will fly first,
she thought. “ ‘Because this is Darling's choice alone, the party of the second part cannot exercise any franchise in the renewal of said contract without her express permission.’ Any changes?” she asked, looking around.