The Cactus Creek Challenge (8 page)

“But, sir, isn’t that part of what you are paying me for?” She didn’t want to take their money for nothing.

He winked. “It’s no trouble, ma’am. Some of those saddles weigh more than you do.”

In no time, saddles draped the fence, and their mounts were nose-deep in a pile of hay. The man in charge dismissed his men who took off for the saloon like thirsty cattle to a watering hole, but he hung back.

“Ma’am?” He cocked his head, studying her. No doubt about it, this man was a charmer. “Is there anything else you’d like me to help you with? If you don’t mind me saying so, you look a little … out of your territory?”

The one item that had been preying on her mind for several hours leapt to her tongue. “That’s kind of you, Mr … I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

“Name’s Hawkins, Brady Hawkins, ma’am, but the boys mostly just call me Hawk. I’m the ramrod out at the Clover Leaf Ranch.”

“Hawk. I’m Jenny Hart. You’d have my undying gratitude if you’d show me how to hitch up a wagon. There’s some feed down at the depot that I’m supposed to get moved before five, and I fear it will take me the rest of the day.”

He raised his fingers to his lips and let out a piercing whistle. Before she could catch her breath, his crew came running back, skidding to a halt.

“What is it, boss? Indians?” one asked.

“Naw, we’re just going to do the lady here a favor. Slippy, you harness a team. Breaker, you and the boys head to the depot. There’s a shipment of grain we’re going to tote down here.”

Jenny put her hand on his arm. “Mr … I mean, Hawk, I can’t ask you to do that.”

Swiftly, he covered her hand with his own, smiling down into her eyes. “Why not? You said it would take you all day by yourself. It won’t take us more than half an hour.”

She eased her hand free, stepping back and lacing her fingers. “Are you sure?”

When a couple of the men grumbled, Hawk quelled them with a glare. “Boys, what would your mamas say if they knew you ran off from a woman who needed your help, just so you could soak in a skinful of rotgut?”

They had the grace to look embarrassed, ducking their heads and tipping their hats before hustling toward the train station. The wagon was hitched with an ease Jenny envied as she tried to observe the procedure so she could duplicate it.

In a short amount of time, the first load, half the bags, were on the wagon and headed back to the livery. Her heart lightened. She hadn’t realized how much the task had been weighing on her mind. She rode high on the seat next to Mr. Hawkins. “I can’t thank you enough. I think I’d have perished under those grain bags.”

He slapped the reins, shrugging. “No trouble, ma’am. Like I said, it goes against how I was raised to leave a lady in the lurch.”

On the second and final trip, they passed the bakery, and Carl Gustafson emerged onto the boardwalk, hands on his hips.

Jenny suppressed a smile and averted her gaze until she had herself under control.

His reddish beard seemed to reflect the sunlight, and she couldn’t read his expression. Did he think she was cheating on the Challenge by accepting the help of Mr. Hawkins and his friends?

Mr. Hawkins pulled the wagon up. “Afternoon, Carl. Nice day, isn’t it?”

“Afternoon, Hawkins. You out for a drive, Mrs. Hart?”

Something flashed in his eyes, and heat pooled in her cheeks, but she decided to brave her way through it.

“Mr. Lewis from the feed store came by this morning to tell me that a shipment of feed had arrived. Mr. Hawkins and his men were kind enough to help me transport it.”

He smacked his thigh. “I forgot that was coming today. You should’ve left it for me to take care of tonight.”

“I might’ve been tempted, but Mr. Lewis said it had to be off the train platform before five. It’s no problem. Mr. Hawkins has been very helpful. As a thank you, I’d like to treat him and his men to whatever they’d like from the bakery. When they come by, give them whatever they ask for, no charge.”

As they rolled back toward the livery stable, Jenny wondered how long it would take Carl to realize he was wearing one of her frilly aprons.

Carl watched his biggest wagon roll down the street, hardly able to believe what he’d just seen. Jenny Hart—she of the touch-me-not demeanor—riding down Main Street with Brady Hawkins, bold as fresh-polished brass. And wasn’t Hawk soaking it up?

Something clawed up his gut and took residence in his chest. Something he quickly tried to squash and evict.
He was just being nice, and what do you care? She needed help, and he provided it. You’re the idiot for not thinking about that delivery and how she would get it from the station
.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have slammed the door so hard. One of the little vases teetered on the table, and he grabbed for it, catching it just before it fell. The parakeets squawked and flapped, chastising him for being so loud.

He entered the now-clean kitchen. One full bowl remained on the center worktable. She’d left it there, so he should probably do something with it. Giving it an experimental stir, he sniffed. It smelled like … cinnamon? Maybe it was cookie dough. That must be it. He grabbed a clean baking sheet off the shelf and stoked the fire.

Spooning up a glob of the sticky stuff, he dropped it onto the pan where it promptly spread out and made a run for all four corners.

“What? Stop that.” He scraped it into a cookie-sized mound, but no matter how he tried, it continued to lose form and flatten out.

Maybe it wasn’t cookie dough after all. Dabbing his finger into it and tasting didn’t enlighten him, though whatever the concoction was, it was mighty tasty. He did a mental gallop around the shelves in the front room trying to match the taste and texture to anything in the display cases.

The back screen door squeaked, and two bright blue eyes peeped around the corner. Mrs. Hart’s little girl. She eased inside but stood within a step of the door, every muscle stretched taut, her little bow of a mouth slightly open.

She was the spitting image of her mama and reminded him of a skittish filly, ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble.

For once, he wished he wasn’t such a big man. If he were a more normal size, she most likely wouldn’t be so guarded.

Maybe he should pretend he didn’t see her. Go about his business and let her get used to him, just like he would a scared horse.

“Well, it ain’t cookies.” He kept his voice low, talking to himself. “Maybe it’s supposed to be a cake.” Scraping the stuff off the pan and back into the bowl, he went to the dishpan and washed the cookie sheet, then dried it and replaced it on the shelf. “If I was a cake pan, where would I be?” He stroked his beard, eyeing the assortment of pans and sheets and molds.

From the corner of his eye, he could tell she hadn’t moved a muscle. Careful not to rattle the metalware, he slid down a round pan. “Guess this will work.”

When he closed the oven door on the now-full pan, she’d eased onto a little stool in the corner, her lunch pail and books on her lap.

“Now, I suppose I’d best tend to this bread dough.” Removing the tea towels, he sucked in a breath. The dough, which had looked like perfectly formed loaves just a few of hours ago, now ballooned and mushroomed over the sides of the pans and flowed onto the counter. “Oh, great. Now what do I do?”

He clearly couldn’t bake it like this. Maybe if he wadded it up and stuffed it back in the pans?

The instant he touched it, it deflated and began to subside. Relief trickled through him. If he could just get it back where it belonged, he could bake it up and Jenny Hart would never know he left it too long. Except once it started losing size, it didn’t seem to stop. He quit poking at it, puzzled. What had been an enormous amount of dough just moments before was now barely enough to fill even half of each bread pan.

Hoping the little girl wasn’t watching, he flipped the pans one onto the other and reduced four loaves to two. That should do it. Maybe Jenny would think he’d sold two others. Quickly, he shoved them into the oven next to the cake.

How long did one bake a cake, anyway? Or bread, for that matter. He had a pretty good idea that it wouldn’t help to keep opening the door to check on them, so he busied himself wiping down the counter where the bread dough had sat and sweeping the floor again. It seemed flour sifted out of every crack and crevice of the room and dusted the floor when he wasn’t looking.

The bell on the front door jangled, and he went to wait on customers. Hawkins and his crew filled the small room, looking as out of place as Carl felt.

“Thanks for helping Mrs. Hart out. I appreciate it.” He decided to take the high road, though it still rankled him that he’d left her in that position—and that she’d chosen Brady Hawkins to help her out of it.

“It was our pleasure.” Hawk squatted and all but pressed his nose to the glass, peering at the lower shelves of baked goods. “I believe I’d like that pie right there.” He pointed to a cherry pie with fancy lattice on top. “Boys, point out what you want. It’s on the house.”

They took their sweet time, and every last man wore a smirk, winking and elbowing each other, whispering behind their hands as they checked out every goodie in the place. Carl was ready to toss the bunch of them out on their duffs, but he gritted his teeth and waited.

By the time he’d served all eight men and they’d trooped out with their purchases, the bakery case looked like a horde of locusts had descended. How on earth was he supposed to fill it up again?

As Hawk, the last to leave, opened the door, he turned and grinned. “I gotta say, Carl, you sure look fetching in that apron.” He laughed and scooted out the door like his tail was on fire.

Carl looked down and groaned. He’d put the ridiculous garment on while he washed the dishes to keep his pants dry and promptly forgot about it. Smacking his forehead, he sank onto the stool behind the counter.

No wonder Jenny—Mrs. Hart—had been laughing at him, standing like an idiot in ruffled calico right there on Main Street for all the world to see. He whipped off the apron, wadded it up, and as he was winding up to throw it across the room, something tugged at his pant leg.

He looked down at the little girl who pointed toward the kitchen door. He sniffed, his heart dropping.

“My cake.” Plunging into the kitchen, he gasped, inhaling a lungful of smoke, his eyes stinging. Wrenching open the oven door, he reached for a towel to shield his hand and yanked out the smoldering cake. The molten pan quickly heated through the tea towel and scorched his fingers. Yelping, he flung the pan at the dishwater where it sent up a gout of steam. Smoke continued to pour from the stove where the cake had overflowed the pan and charred in great dollops on the bottom of the oven.

Sucking on his hand, he backed away, bumping into the shelf where he’d piled the muffin tins. They promptly clattered to the floor, scaring him into leaping away and barking his hip on the corner of the table.

“Oh, my sainted aunt Jemima!” He roared out his pain and frustration. “Lord, give me strength!”

The little girl gave a wide-eyed little squeak and bolted for the door.

M
ortified and angry at herself for handling the brawl so poorly, Cassie gathered her pride and her skirts and threaded her way through the crowd now disbursing in front of the saloon. Her cheek and her tailbone stung after being knocked in the dirt, but her pride hurt the worst. Some of the dirty water had splashed her skirts, not that anyone would be able to tell, since the garment was damp and filthy from scrubbing the jail all day. Humiliation trickled through her. She’d been bounced on her behind, and made a complete fool of by a couple of morons. And in front of Ben.

Boots thumped on the boardwalk behind her, and she knew who it was without having to turn around. She braced herself for Ben’s censure as she wrestled with the door to the jail. If he was going to laugh at her or chew her out, it was best done where the rest of the town couldn’t see.

“Cassie, wait.”

“I’m busy.” She put her shoulder into the door, but since she’d scrubbed both the floor and the door, the wood had swollen and stuck harder than ever. Humiliation burned her eyes. Couldn’t even get into her own jail.

A large hand pressed into the wood just over her head and shoved. Giving way with an ease that disgusted her, it fell open, skidding along the groove in the floor.

“Thank you.” She hurried inside before he could notice how wet her eyes were becoming. The strong smells of lye and carbolic greeted her, much better than the musty, hasn’t-been-cleaned-since-the-Lincoln-Administration miasma of earlier.

Expecting him to follow her inside, she turned at the desk. Ben remained in the doorway, his hands on his hips. He blinked once, then again. She clasped her fingers at her waist and waited.

“What did you do to my jail?” He eased into the office, doing a slow turn.

“I cleaned it. And not any too soon? A hog would’ve backed out of this place and run.”

He tipped his hat back and scratched his forelock. “Are those curtains?”

“I was going to buy some calico and sew up a set, but then I remembered Mother had these from the old house. They didn’t work in the new place, and she didn’t mind if I brought them here. Honestly, I don’t know how you stood it before. If it wasn’t for the grime coating the windows, I’d have felt I was sitting in a fishbowl. Anyone could look in.”