Love on the Range: A Looking Glass Lake Prequel (7 page)

For the next plate, Marlee tried her best to avoid dishing up the blackest parts. She prayed the burnt flavor hadn’t bled into the entire dish.

But when she finally sat down with her plate, she tasted the awful truth.

Not only had the dumplings burnt, but ash permeated the entire stew. Her stomach churned, threatening mutiny at the next bite.

Everyone else had their heads down, not looking at her or at each other.

No one spoke.

They all ate. And they ate with mournful faces.

And no one lined up for seconds.

But at least they ate without complaint.

One of the cowboy mumbled something about a full belly, and Marlee’s ears burned.

She wanted to take the shovel they’d used for the fire pit, and go dig a hole to crawl into.

Jett loped to the chuck wagon and pulled out a batch of cornbread Cassie must have baked in preparation for the trip.

Marlee’s face went hot, all the way up through her scalp. She was such a bad cook, she hadn’t even been able to locate the cornbread.

She tossed the last two charred hunks of beef from her stew into the campfire. The meat was so dry, the flames barely hissed.

By the time she drug herself into her kitchen tent to clean up after dinner, she was feeling beaten, tired and desperate.

Outside, everyone sat around the campfire telling stories. Talking about rustlers.

But in the privacy of the kitchen tent, tears stung Marlee’s throat as she faced down a huge stack of dishes.

“Get it together, Marlee,” she scolded.

What was wrong with her?

Despite the tears, she nearly giggled at her own ludicrous question. Everything was wrong. She deserved a good cry. Her body ached, she’d flopped majorly on her first day, and now she had a towering stack of dishes to wash.

With freezing cold water.

Oh. And after that, she had a freezing cold night to look forward to, sleeping on the ground. And then another whole day of a torturous chuck wagon ride.

Marlee poured a pail of cold water into a dishpan, rolled up her sleeves and started scrubbing.

Fall had dazzled so lovely that afternoon, casting the mountain skies in deep blue, and tinging the air with the smells of wet earth and leaves. But now, the cold was anything but lovely. Marlee shivered, her fingers nearly frozen in frigid dishwater.

This was by far the most miserable day of her career as a chef. This was even worse than the day she’d forgotten to take her knives home after class, and someone had stolen them. That had earned her an automatic failing grade, and she’d had to re-take the class.

Washing this particular batch of dishes with the stuck-on burnt stuff was the worst part of the worst day ever.

Could she really make it out here for a whole month?

A hot tear rolled down her cheek and splashed in the water. Maybe if she let herself cry, she’d feel better. Maybe if she cried enough, she could warm up the water a bit.

She heard the soft flick of tent canvas. Marlee sniffed and ducked her head, trying to dry her tears on her shoulder.

She’d been embarrassed enough today. The last thing she needed was some mouthy cowboy catching her blubbering into her dishpan.

Somebody patted her awkwardly on the back, and Marlee looked up.

Jett stood there, one hand on her back, and the other carrying a steel bucket of steaming water.

“Stand back,” he said.

She did, and he poured a little hot water into her dish pan.

She slipped her hands back under the water.

“Ahhh.” She breathed a sigh of joy as warm water soothed her cold fingers. “Thank you.”

In that moment, she forgot all about being mad at him.

How could a girl be mad at a man who had just transformed her dishwater into a nearly spa-like experience?

He grunted, and a small smile turned up the edge of his mouth.

She bent down, scrubbing harder now. Hot water made all the difference. She had six heavy cast-iron Dutch ovens full of gunk. They needed lots of scraping. If she kept on task, she could power right through them, and then finally collapse in her sleeping bag.

Jett set out another dishpan beside her.

Marlee stopped and watched him pour in hot and cold water. He rolled up his sleeves and took the first Dutch oven off the stack.

Marlee’s shoulders relaxed, warmth spreading through her. He was actually going to help her with the dishes. Fresh tears sprang to her eyes.

Who knew such a rough man could be so thoughtful?

“I set up a tent for you,” he said. “With a bedroll and a pillow.”

“Thank you,” Marlee said. She blinked the tears away and cleared her throat. She was too tired to care that she hadn’t done it herself. She’d pitch her own tent tomorrow.

And do the dishes on her own.

And not burn dinner.

She went back to washing the dishes. Now that she had help and warm water, the task seemed lighter. She snuck a sidelong glance at Jett.

His hat shadowed his face as he bent over a pot. “I made sure you got the warm blanket.”

Marlee laughed weakly. “There’s only one warm blanket?”

His teeth flashed in the dim light, and a dimple appeared on his cheek. This was the first time she’d seen him smile fully. Maybe he wasn’t the tough and grumpy cowboy all the time. He had a soft side in there somewhere.

“Mom made it for me,” he said. “First cattle drive I ever went on. One time I let Austin Paycoach use it.” His low chuckle filled the entire tent with warmth. “The men have been trying to steal it from me ever since.”

For a little while, they washed dishes in silence. It was a comfortable kind of silence.

Maybe it was the way orange and golden light flickered against the tent canvas from the fire outside. Or the fact he’d pitched a tent for her and had come to help with the dishes. Whatever the reason, Marlee suddenly wanted the dishes to last longer.

“Crazy Hoss told me you’re the only one holding this ranch together,” Marlee said, her voice soft.

Jett shrugged. “They’re my family.” He looked at her, dark shards of pain in his eyes. “Silas was more of a dad to me than….” His voice thickened.

Marlee reached out and touched his arm. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

Outside, men laughed and Fern’s voice trilled to a high point. It must be Fern’s turn to tell the story.

Jett cleared his throat. “Why a ranch chef, Marlee?”

She let her hands swirl slowly in the dishwater.

Because I was tired of living somebody else’s life.

Because I was fired from my last four jobs as an accountant because I wasn’t detailed and fast enough.

Because I wasn’t good at anything else.

She shrugged, and tried to smile. “Why not?”

His eyes darkened, intensifying to a rich purple-black. They pierced through her, sifting, weighing and measuring her words.

He was silent, but she knew. She could feel he didn’t buy her flippant response.

“I was an accountant before,” she said.

His eyes showed no surprise. So she took a deep breath and went on.

“Let’s just say I’m a better cook than an accountant.”

Weird. Since she’d told Dad she was changing careers, she hadn’t allowed herself to think about the many times she’d been fired as an accountant. Why dwell on the past, when she had to put every ounce of energy into her new future?

But now, in the fire-glow of this tent, in the middle of the wild, talking to this cowboy about it seemed as natural as getting hungry.

She pinched her lips into a brave smile as his eyes did their thing…sifting, weighing and measuring her words again.

“You burned the stew,” he finally said.

A tiny gasp slipped through her lips.

Rude.

Except his voice was soft and his gaze held no judgment. And there was an odd tenderness in the set of his mouth.

Marlee took a quick breath and raised her chin. “Yeah,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I will next time.”

For a moment, they stood there, looking at each other.

Something in his face softened. “Good,” he said.

Good?
That was all?

Tension dissolved in the air between them, and the murmurs of voices by the campfire mingled with the chirp of a lone cricket somewhere outside the tent.

It was like she’d passed some kind of un-written test.

She smiled. That was okay by her. Unwritten tests were the kind she could ace.

“Are there really rustlers?” she asked. “I mean, how can you know it’s rustlers and not hunters in the area?”

That loosened his mouth, and to her surprise, he told her stories about rustlers from a hundred years ago. And then stories about rustlers from that year.

He told her about how dangerous it was getting, and about how Sheriff Mack had responded to a distress call near Perry Creek and had found a Brand Inspector seriously injured. Rustlers had taken his gun, shot him in the leg, and rolled him into a gully to die.

“And then they shot at Ben Rockspur a few weeks ago, when he caught them stealing his cattle,” he said. “That’s where Austin, Silas and Cassie were flying.” He stopped, his mouth hardening. He looked like a man circling something he’d rather ride away from, but then he forged on. “They were flying over Ben’s ranch, where the rustlers were last seen, trying to locate their base camp.”

Marlee shivered.

“In a lot of ways, the wild west hasn’t changed much,” Jett said.

She finished drying the last dish, and put it in the wooden chuck box built into the side of the wagon.

Behind her, Jett was busy with something at the table.

She stood there for a moment, watching him.

The way his body moved, a person would think he was easy-going. His movements were easy. Efficient, but fluid somehow. It was only his eyes that were tense. And his mouth.

Well, maybe not tense. Maybe firm.

Jett turned around then, and pressed a tin mug of something hot into her hands. “Careful. It’s got a kick to it.”

He wasn’t kidding, and Marlee nearly spit it out. It was dark chocolate, with a little cayenne. At first, it tickled her throat and stung her eyes. But in the next minute, the heat moved down, spreading out in her belly, warming her in a way regular hot chocolate wouldn’t have done. Surprising. She normally didn’t like spicy stuff, but this hot chocolate was great.

Maybe it was because things taste different when they were cooked and enjoyed outside.

Maybe it was because the air was so cold, the stars themselves glistened like a frozen blanket of glitter.

She followed Jett outside, and they settled down by the fire again.

“You said you saw something on the way up here, Jett,” Buck said.

“A plane.”

Marlee smiled into her hot chocolate. In the tent when it had only been the two of them, Jett had no problem talking. Out here, he’d gone back to his two-word responses.

For a minute, nobody said anything. Everyone stared into the campfire, faces tense.

“Cain’t be no hunters,” Crazy Hoss said.

“Not on private land,” Jett agreed.

“The only men out here is us cowboys,” Buck said.

Ty sat back in his chair, and twirled a rope lazily. “Yup,” he said. “If we come across them rustlers, us old cowboys would take ‘em down in eight seconds flat.”

That led to talk of old cowboy legends.

Jett’s serious eyes sparkled black as the starry night in the reflection of the flames.

His gaze caught hers once in a while. It might have been the shadows, but there was almost a smile on his face when he looked at her.

Marlee nearly nodded off to sleep while they told tall tales.

Finally, she pushed herself up and stretched. “I’d better hit the sack,” she said. “See y’all at breakfast.”

She walked toward her tent, and pulled her sweatshirt tighter. Only five steps from the fire, and the cold pierced through to the bone.

“Marlee.”

She turned.

Jett stood there, shadowed in the night.

“You always sleep with your knives?”

She hitched her knife roll up. “A good chef always brings her own knives,” she said stiffly.

“You can leave them in the kitchen.” He took a step closer. “I wouldn’t let the bears eat you.” The gleam of his eyes told her he was holding back a laugh.

Marlee clenched her fist around the strap of her knife roll. Normally, she’d cook up a smart reply, but she was too tired. Besides, she didn’t know how much good it would do to explain the world of a professional chef to a cowboy.

“Here.” He took her hand and pressed something into her palm.

A small jar.