Mail Order Cowboy (Love Inspired Historical) (10 page)

T
he next five days passed in a flurry of preparation for the barn raising. The men spent the time outside completing the clearing of the old barn's remains and scything the yard in addition to the usual chores of caring for the livestock and providing meat for the table.

Milly and Sarah were fully occupied inside, cleaning the house from one end to the other. The barn raising and party afterward would take place outside, but the women would put last-minute touches on the food in the kitchen and nurse babies and lay small children down to nap in the bedrooms away from the heat of the day. Even if the critical Mrs. Detwiler didn't come, they wanted their home to be at its best for the rest of the women to see, a place they could be proud of.

In the evenings, Milly sewed new dresses for her and her sister, using their mother's beloved old Singer sewing machine and bolts of sprigged muslin they had found among their mother's possessions. Clearly she had set them aside to make dresses for her daughters, for pinned to the primrose yellow one with peach colored flowers was a scrap of paper with “Sarah” inscribed
on it, while the vivid green one with cream colored flowers was labeled “Milly.” Next to the bolts, they'd found yards of satin, wide grosgrain ribbon, buttons, lace and a couple of yards of sheer white lawn which she'd apparently bought at the same time.

Milly had sketched designs for the dresses when she'd first organized the Society for the Promotion of Marriage, thinking she'd have advance notice before they met anyone, and had gotten as far as cutting out the pattern pieces. Then Nick had appeared without warning and the Comanches attacked the same day. She'd had no time for sewing until now.

After consulting Sarah, Milly made her sister's dress a demure one with a ruffled yoke trimmed in lace and a matching ruffle at the hem. She used the grosgrain ribbon to fashion a sash at the waist and part of the lawn to make a ruffled apron with a band of the yellow muslin to form the ties.

After finishing Sarah's dress Wednesday night, she hung it from a peg on the wall and threw herself into the construction of her own, ever aware that Nick would see her in it. Her dress would have ruffles at the hem and the sleeves, as well as a lawn insert over the top of the bodice trimmed with lace, a sash of the wide grosgrain ribbon and a green-trimmed ruffled lawn apron.

“Ohh, Milly, it's beautiful,” cooed Sarah, coming into the room, but she was staring at her own dress hanging on the wall. “I love it! You're so talented. But you didn't have to make my dress first,” she added worriedly, seeing that Milly had only begun to stitch her own dress. “It doesn't matter what
I
wear—there won't be any beau there for me.”

“Pooh, I have plenty of time to finish my dress, especially if you'll let me off the pie-making detail Friday if it's not done yet.”

“It's a deal,” Sarah said with a laugh. “I know you hate rolling out pie crust anyway.”

“You've got that right,” Milly said, relieved. “And who says there won't be a beau there for you, Sarah? What if Caroline and Emily and those two new men who are coming don't take a shine to one another, but one of them turns out to be perfect for you? You'll want to look your best.”

Sarah shrugged. “I don't think there's much chance of that, but I do love parties and wearing something new.”

“Well, you better try it on,” Milly said, nodding to ward the dress, “just in case it needs alterations.”

“It fits perfectly,” Sarah said a couple of minutes later, when Milly had helped her button up the back of the dress. “Don't change a thing. Oh, I nearly forgot what I came to tell you—Nick's sitting out on the porch. Josh is with him and talking his ear off, but I think he's looking for you, Milly. He looked up when I came out to bring them coffee, and he looked
so
disappointed when he saw it was only me. You've been working so hard on your sewing in the evenings, you haven't been out there at all after supper this week, you know.”

The information made Milly warm inside. “You think he's looking for me? Hmm…” Would she have time to finish the dress if she went out to sit with him now, or was it better to keep sewing and make him miss her all the more?

No, she wasn't into playing coy games. She
wanted
to spend time in Nick's company, to listen to that exotic English accent, to drown in the depths of those blue eyes when their gazes met.

“I think I have time to take a little break from my labors,” she told Sarah with a wink. She could always come back after Nick bid her good-night and sew by the light of the lamp until she got too sleepy to thread the needle.

 

It rained at dawn on the day of the barn raising, right after the men had lowered the sides of beef onto the hot coals in the barbecue pit they had dug, but it stopped by the time they were gathered around the breakfast table.

“I don't think that rain'll hurt none,” Josh opined. “It's washed away the dust, and that ain't a bad thing.”

“Yes, and it's already clearing to the west,” Nick said, looking out the kitchen window. “Ah, there's Mr. Dayton now with the lumber,” he added as the creak of a wagon axle confirmed his words. “It appears he's brought his family with him.”

Milly could already hear the six Dayton children clamoring to get down, and groaned. “Oh, dear, we're not even dressed for the party yet,” she said, with a gesture at her own everyday shirt and waist. She'd thought she'd have time after breakfast to don her beautiful new green dress—completed at midnight the night before—before the first wagons started rolling in. But there would be no leisure to dress once Alice Ann Dayton crossed their threshold. Probably because of her husband's tyranny, the woman attended social events so rarely that she never stopped talking once she arrived
at one, following her unfortunate listener around reciting a never-ending litany of her ailments and her noisy brood's misbehavior. They should have figured Dayton wouldn't make a second trip from town to get his family, but they hadn't expected him quite so early.

“Scoot,” Sarah told her quickly, motioning Milly to ward her bedroom. “I'll keep Mrs. Dayton and the children occupied while you get ready, then you can do the same for me.”

“And Bobby and I'll go out and help Dayton unload his lumber,” Nick said, rising.

Milly blew a kiss to her sister and made good her escape.

 

The wagons started arriving thick and fast about an hour later, for the men were eager to get a good start on the barn before the sun rose too high. Nick was glad they'd set up the tables and chairs under the trees the night before, for he and Bobby were kept busy assisting the drivers, unhitching the teams and turning them out in the corral. Men brought their tools—hammers, saws, shovels, brace and bits and more chairs. Their women flocked toward the ranch house, laden with picnic baskets, covered dishes and pitchers, most accompanied by excited offspring yelling at the top of their lungs. Nick kept an uneasy eye on the children lest one of them dart in front of the dancing, nervous horses he led toward the corral.

The ladies of the Society for the Promotion of Marriage arrived in one big buckboard driven by Caroline Wallace, all chattering like magpies and eyeing
the clumps of men as if to see if any strangers had arrived.

Nick would have thought that Dayton, as the lumberman, would take charge of the building, but he seemed content to sit and rock on the porch and watch the women bringing dishes into the house. Instead, Mr. Patterson from the mercantile and Mr. Wallace from the post office began organizing the building of the frames.

“I've never built anything, but I'll be happy to do whatever's needed,” Nick told Patterson as soon as he had unhitched the team of the last wagon to arrive.

Patterson grinned. “You reckon you're better at sawin' or hammerin'?”

Nick shrugged. “I've never done either, but let me try my hand at sawing.” Another man was already sawing planks laid atop a pair of sawhorses and he figured he could watch and learn.

“Well, pick up a saw from that pile a' tools over yonder and Andy'll tell you how long to cut 'em,” Patterson said, nodding toward the livery owner with the saw. As Nick walked away, Patterson cupped his hands and yelled toward the porch, “Hey, Dayton, you gonna do any work today or are you only supervisin'?”

“Seems like I done enough by loadin' up this lumber and bringin' it out here,” Dayton grumbled, keeping his seat.

“St. Paul said those who do not work should not eat,” Reverend Chadwick, who'd been swinging a hammer like a much younger man, retorted, with a meaningful nod at the tables under the trees. “I caught a glimpse of
the bounty that we have to look forward to at midday, Hank, and I don't think you'd want to miss that.”

With a put-upon air, Dayton trudged out and grudgingly picked up a hammer. But every time Nick looked up from his work, it seemed Dayton was drinking water under a tree, and once Bill Waters arrived at mid-morning, the two seemed to spend more time talking in low tones to each other than accomplishing any actual work.

After a bit of instruction from Andy Calhoun, he learned how long the planks needed to be and how to saw them most efficiently and pass them over to where the frames for the sides, front and back were taking shape. Soon the whistle of his saw joined the sounds of the shovels digging holes into which the new upright beams would be lowered. Moments later the pounding of hammers rang out as men joined boards together with wooden pegs and the precious nails that had been salvaged from the wreckage of the old barn.

Nick found himself actually enjoying the physical labor and camaraderie of working as one with the men of Simpson Creek. He'd done a lot of hard work since coming to the Matthews ranch and by morning he knew his shoulders and back would ache, but he thought he had never been so content.

He enjoyed still more the occasional glimpses of Milly as it grew closer to noon. Wearing a becoming green dress he'd never seen before, she was a whirlwind, bustling to and fro from the kitchen to the tables carrying out dishes, directing other ladies and placing the additional chairs around the tables. He caught her eye
once and she smiled and waved. He hoped she'd stop and talk, but she only dashed back into the kitchen. At least he could look forward to sitting with her when they stopped for the noon meal.

 

“Miss Milly, this is a good time to break for dinner, I think,” Patterson said, coming to the porch just as Milly left the kitchen, carrying a cloth-covered bowl of biscuits fresh from the oven. “The upright beams are in place, and we've got the four frames all ready to be pegged into them this afternoon.”

“Excellent,” she approved. “Y'all have worked hard this morning.” Milly yanked the rope connected to the cast-iron bell hanging from a post by the step and the clanging soon had men laying down their tools all across the grounds. Her eyes found Nick, who'd rolled his shirtsleeves up his arms and was now wiping his face under the floppy-brimmed hat with his handkerchief. He looked up at her then and grinned.

As the bell's clamor died away it was replaced with the sound of hoofbeats as around the bend, two men rode up on horseback.

“Sorry to be so late,” announced one of them, a stocky man with graying dark hair. “We meant to make it here last night, only we took a wrong turn outta Austin, which lost us some time, then we couldn't hardly find anyone in town to direct us here.” He took a look around. “I guess that's 'cause most everyone is here.”

“We finally asked the saloon keeper,” the other man put in, dismounting from his horse. He was a younger man, with tow-colored hair and a ready smile. “Pete
Collier's my name, from Galveston, and that there's Ed Markison, from Buffalo Bayou. We're here to meet the single ladies.”

“W
el—” began Milly, stepping down off the porch, but she didn't even get to finish the word before Caroline Wallace dashed past her and went forward to the two men.

“Welcome, gentlemen, I'm Caroline Wallace, and my brother Dan will take your horses…
won't you, Dan?
” she called to the boy, who'd already begun ambling toward the food-laden tables. “This is Milly Matthews and her sister, Sarah, and this is their ranch—”

“Ah, so it's your barn we've come to build, ladies?” Ed Markison, the older man, said gesturing toward the beginnings of the new building.

Milly, amused at the way Caroline had made sure hers was the first face Pete Collier laid eyes on, nodded. “Yes, and we're very grateful for your coming to help. We're just about to sit down and eat, and—”

“So you've come at just the right time,” Caroline finished, then looked over her shoulder at the other ladies of the Society who were hovering uncertainly on the porch. “These are the rest of the ladies of the Society for the Promotion of Marriage,” she said. “This is Emily
Thompson—she's a widow, just as you are a widower, Mr. Markison…” she said, and identifying each lady in turn, including Sarah, who smiled shyly and excused herself to go back into the kitchen to get another platter of food.

Nick had arrived at Milly's side in time to witness Caroline's maneuvering, and he winked at Milly. There was something in his eyes that seemed to say,
Isn't it nice that we've already found one another?
Oh, she hoped she was right about that!

“Figures these yahoos managed to get here just in time to eat,” Milly heard Hank Dayton mumble to Bill Waters. She winced, fearing the newcomers had heard his churlish remark, but they seemed fully occupied gazing at the ladies.

“We're mighty pleased to make your acquaintance, ladies,” Pete Collier said, bowing to all of them, but his gaze returned to Caroline. “Might it be possible to sit together while we eat, so we can begin to get to know you?”

Milly guessed Caroline wanted that, too, but to her credit, she didn't try to secure any extra privileges for herself. “Oh, but we ladies will serve while the menfolk eat. Then we'll eat while y'all get back to work.”

Collier and Markison looked disappointed, and so did Nick. “I'd hoped you could sit with me,” he whispered, and his voice made her all tingly inside.

“But we'll all be sitting down together at supper, when all the work is done,” she said, raising her voice to include the two newcomers. “And afterward, there's to be dancing.”

“I reckon we'll just have to wait for the pleasure,” Markison said good-naturedly.

Reverend Chadwick stepped forward. “If the wonderful smell is any indication, the ladies have made sure dinner will be delicious,” he said. “Why don't I say the blessing?”

 

If the good-natured groans as the men left the table were anything to go by, dinner had been a resounding success. Milly suspected many of them would have preferred to stretch out in the shade of the pecan trees and nap, but much remained to be done before a new barn would stand where the old barn had been.

“I can't remember when I've been this full. You Simpson Creek ladies are the best cooks ever gathered in one place,” Nick said to her as he rose from his place at the table, where he'd been sitting between Reverend Chadwick and Mr. Patterson. “I don't believe I shall need to eat more for a week.”

“Ah, but then you'll miss Josh's barbecue for supper, and that would be a shame,” she said, nodding toward the barbecue pit, where sides of beef another rancher had donated were already sending their savory aroma wafting into the air. Josh, fretting at his inability to take a more active role in constructing the barn, had declared he would take charge of roasting the meat while the rest of the men worked.

“Try not to let him overdo, will you?” Nick urged softly, glancing toward the wiry old cowboy, who was getting stiffly to his feet at the moment from another table. “When he's not tending the roasting meat, he's
been walking around all morning, making suggestions. I'm afraid he's tiring himself out.”

“Sarah said she'd try to get him to go take a rest inside this afternoon and let her take over, but you know how stubborn he can be,” she whispered back. “He hates being on the sidelines. It was either let him tend the barbecue or we'd find him up on a ladder trying to hammer the new roof.”

His smile was sympathetic. “Very well, then, I'll see you later,” he said, and rejoined the other men for the afternoon's work. Milly's gaze followed him, watching him help several men lift one of the frames to fasten it to the upright beams.

“The new gentlemen seem like nice fellows,” Sarah said, as she gathered up a load of dirty plates to wash. She nodded toward Markison and Collier, who were taking up hammers.

“Yes, and they already seem smitten with Caroline and Emily,” Milly observed, grinning as they watched the two ladies staring at the newcomers and giggling together.

“Who'd have thought Caroline was such a flirt?” Sarah remarked, laughing. “She really swooped in and took charge of that Collier fellow, didn't she?”

“Not that he minded,” Milly said. “He can't take his eyes off her.”

“And the widower seems very pleased with Emily, too.”

Milly thought she heard a note of wistfulness in her sister's voice, and studied Sarah more closely. “Dearest, you don't…that is, you and the other ladies—Prissy,
Maude, Ada, Jane—y'all aren't feeling left out, are you?”

“Oh, no,” Sarah insisted, a little too quickly. “I can't speak for them, but as for me, I—I'm very content to wait for my turn—
if
it comes. Help me get the rest of these dishes and silverware back to the kitchen, so we'll have enough for us.”

Milly joined the others who were picking up stacks of dishes and covering platters of food to keep the flies off. They had to work around Waters and Dayton and three other men, who had remained at the table, talking with lowered voices, their heads all close together. They stopped talking and sat back to allow Milly and the others to pick up their dirty dishes, making Milly feel almost like she was intruding.

“We're just takin' our time digestin' that fine meal, ladies,” Bill Waters said. “You don't mind, do you?”

“No,” Prissy Gilmore said in her outspoken way, with a pointed look at the other men who were already hard at work. “As long as you don't mind us ladies taking over the table in a few minutes.”

“Those pies were mighty fine, Miss Sarah,” Bill Waters said, balancing his chair on the back two legs, his hand joined over his rounded abdomen. He pointedly ignored Milly. “Yessir, Miss Sarah would make some lucky man a fine wife. Can you imagine enjoyin' pie like this every evening?”

There were chuckles from the other men, and one of the others murmured, “Too bad I'm already hitched.”

Milly could tell Sarah hated their attention by the dull flush of color. “Oh, I wouldn't bake pies for my husband every day, Mr. Waters. I wouldn't want him to
get fat.” She didn't look at his belly, but her meaning had been plain enough, so the other men guffawed as if she had said it.

“Guess she told you, Waters.”

Milly and Sarah took their armloads of dishes and walked off without saying another word until they reached the sanctuary of the kitchen. For the moment, they were alone, but the other ladies would soon be joining them there.

“The
nerve
of those men,” Milly fumed. “If I wasn't a lady, I'd tell them to go home. They came only to eat, after all. They've hardly lifted a finger to help the other men. Why, Josh has done more, keeping the spits turning, than all of them combined.”

“We'll just pretend they don't exist,” her sister said, laying a comforting hand on her shoulder. “But, Milly, what do you suppose they're up to? Whenever I'd bring a new platter to their part of the table, they were talking about ‘the circle' and ‘ridding Simpson Creek of the trash the Yankees sent us.'”

Milly stared at her, startled. Wanting to be near Nick, she'd made sure to be the one to take and refill platters and cups at his table, and hadn't heard any of this.

“I don't know what this ‘circle' is, but I've heard them say nasty things about the homeless former slaves I've occasionally seen wandering the roads.”

“Those men said they were going to make sure they didn't ‘roost here,'” Sarah said. “And they were saying nasty things about Nick and the two new men, too—about not letting Simpson Creek be taken over by foreigners and ‘Johnny-come-latelies,' and making sure they knew their place.”

Milly felt a shaft of anger stab through her. “Well, they're the
only
ones who don't like Nick, then. Did you see the way the other men were talking to Nick like they'd known him all their lives? Those are the men who really represent Simpson Creek, I think. And they seemed to be making Mr. Markison and Mr. Collier welcome, too.” She'd enjoyed the way the men of the town seemed to have made Nick one of their own. She'd heard them talking about plans to make the town safer in case of Indian attack, and had looked forward to asking him about it.

When they went back outside to bring in another load, their tormentors were saddling their horses.

“Good riddance,” she muttered under her breath, then immediately asked forgiveness for her lack of charity and patience.

No sooner had the men disappeared, however, it seemed heaven was giving her another chance to display these virtues, for a pair of horses pulling a buckboard came lumbering around the bend and pulled to a creaking stop. It was driven by George Detwiler, Junior, who tended bar at the local saloon, and the old lady he helped down from it was none other than his mother, Mrs. Detwiler.

Lord, I said I was sorry,
she protested inwardly. She'd been secretly glad this morning when her critic had failed to show up when the other ladies had arrived, and assumed this was Mrs. Detwiler's way of tacitly emphasizing her disapproval of Milly. But now here she was, and being handed down a covered dish that looked suspiciously like a cake.

Smoothing her features to hide her dismay, Milly
went forward to welcome the older woman. Where was Sarah when she needed her sister's diplomacy?

“Hello, Mrs. Detwiler,” she said. “How nice of you to come. When we didn't see you this morning, we feared you might be ill—”

“You didn't care enough to send someone to check, though, did you?” the older woman retorted. “No, I couldn't very well come until my son could take an hour away from the saloon to drive me, could I? Since no one else offered to bring me,” she added, with a resentful glance at the rows of parked buggies and wagons.

Milly didn't suppose she asked anyone for a ride, just waited for someone to read her mind. “I'm sorry, you're right, of course. We
should
have thought to send Nick or Bobby to fetch you.” Which would have required pulling one of them away from their tasks here. “I'll see that one of them takes you home, though, whenever you're ready.”

Mrs. Detwiler sniffed. “As if I'd let that young rapscallion Bobby drive me anywhere. We'd probably end up overturned in a ditch. And as for that Britisher, you called him
‘Nick'
? Not ‘Mr. Brookfield,' as is proper? My girl, if you behave in this fast, loose way, how do you expect to gain the favor of a real gentleman?”

Too late, Milly saw the trap she'd fallen into. “Mr. Brookfield is an employee of the ranch now, and as such, he asked that I call him by his Christian name. He calls me ‘Miss Milly,' of course.”
Please, God, help me keep my temper!
“But I'm glad you managed to get here, in spite of the difficulties, and how nice of you to bring…what is it, cake?”

Mrs. Detwiler sniffed. “Of course. Everyone clamors
for my chocolate cake at social events. And even if the town's duty to its widows has been forgotten, I believe I know
my
duty to support the community. I could hardly stay home at my ease when all of Simpson Creek has gathered to help you. George, dear, you may pick me up whenever you are able tonight, if I have not come home already,” she told her son, who was turning the wagon in a wide circle to return back the way he had come. “My son, of course, cannot stay—not everyone is able to just drop their usual tasks for a daylong party.”

Milly glanced back at where the men were muscling yet another frame to the upright beams, a strenuous job requiring teamwork. Hardly a party game.

“Come and eat,” Milly said, gesturing at the food-laden table. “We ladies are about to have our dinner, now that the men have eaten and gone back to work.”