Wild At Heart (9 page)

Anna finally set his bowl in front of him, the scrumptious odors making his mouth water. He fiddled with the spoon with his left hand, trying to hold it correctly. Using a fork was one thing, but eating soup with his left hand was another. He awkwardly fished out a dumpling and brought the spoon to his mouth. He slurped up the dough ball but dribbled broth onto his clean sling. Adam smacked the spoon back on the table, receiving a glare from Anna. Mariah jumped and gawked at him. He snagged up his bread and shoved it into his mouth. How was a man supposed to get his strength back when he couldn’t eat?

Anna slapped her spoon on the table, making Mariah jump again. “Really, Adam. Stop being such a baby.” His sister took his napkin and covered his chest and the sling with it, making him a bib. Embarrassed, he darted a glance at Mariah, who was studying her soup.

Leyna tsked and snatched up his bowl, carrying it into the kitchen.

Great! He wasn’t ready to call it quits, just because he’d bobbled his first spoonful.

Mariah stared at her food then ladled a spoon of soup like a queen and took a bite with feminine finesse. Had he stooped so low that he was jealous of a woman eating soup?

Leyna marched back into the room, carrying a large, steaming mug. She set it in front of him, smiling. “I fix it so you can eat my knoephle.”

He picked up the mug and took a sip then held it up as a thank-you to his cook. Suddenly, shame and embarrassment flooded him as he considered the spectacle he’d just made.

Yep, he was definitely right. This was no time to be having company.

This was going to be a long week.

Anna stormed into the parlor and flopped into a chair. “I can’t believe how grouchy Adam is. He’s never liked being sick, but he’s much grumpier this time.”

Mariah laid aside the book she’d been reading. “Maybe it’s because he’s not actually sick and thinks he should be out laboring with the other men.” Or perhaps he didn’t like having a stranger witness his difficulties like at lunch.

Anna leaned her head back against the chair and stroked one of her braids. “You’re probably right. He keeps saying he should be doing something. He’s the hardest worker on the ranch but never seems to think he’s done enough. I don’t understand what drives him.”

“Perhaps it’s simply a male thing. Most of the men I know are driven to work hard.”
Not Silas.
Even though he had a very nice job in his uncle’s publishing company, he much preferred socializing to working hard. Mariah shook her head. Silas was the last thing she wanted to be thinking about right now.

“I have a yearling I need to be training, but someone has to watch over Adam and make sure he doesn’t do too much. I have the feeling if I don’t keep an eye on him, he’ll slip out back and chop wood or try to break a mustang or something else just as foolish.”

“You work with the horses?” Mariah studied the woman, who was close to her in age. Anna’s thick, golden braids hung down clear to her waist. Her brown eyes were so dark that Mariah couldn’t make out her pupils, even from such close range. The girl had a gentle wildness about her, an unabashed freedom to be herself that Mariah envied.

Suddenly, Anna leaned forward, eyes glistening. She snapped her fingers. “I know, you could watch over Adam. He won’t argue with you like he does me and Quinn.”

Mariah blinked. “It wouldn’t be proper for me to um… enter a gentleman’s private quarters.”

Anna brushed her hand through the air. “Oh, pshaw. Adam’s dressed. There’s no reason you can’t sit and talk with him.”

Mariah considered how much she owed the McFarland family. Surely she could do this one thing—but she wouldn’t dare tell anyone back home about it. “All right. If it will help you, I’ll keep an eye on him.”

“Oh, thank you.” Anna smiled and leaped to her feet. She hugged Mariah’s shoulders. “I’ve got a few hours before dinner, so I’m going out to the barn. If Adam gives you too much trouble, get Leyna, and tell her to bring her biggest wooden spoon.”

From a peg near the front entrance, Anna grabbed a Western hat much like her brothers’. She hurried out the door, leaving it open behind her, and jumped off the porch. Someone needed to teach that girl how a proper lady behaved herself.

Perhaps Mariah could somehow help in that area while she was here.

She tiptoed toward Adam’s room, unsure if she had the nerve to cross the threshold or not. She couldn’t help wondering how Leyna’s stirring spoon would help keep Mr. McFarland in bed.

“Anna!”

Mariah jumped at the loud shout and stepped to the bedroom doorway. Mr. McFarland scowled.

“Where’s Anna?”

She moistened her lips. “Outside. She said she had a horse to work with.”

He looked out his window, even though the barn was on the other side of the house.

Mariah ached for him, knowing how miserable he was. “Is your arm hurting, Mr. McFarland? I could ask Leyna to make some more of her tea, or perhaps you need another dose of laudanum?”

He shook his head. “I don’t want tea. And that medicine makes me sleepy. I’m just bored. You might as well call me Adam, since you’re staying awhile.”

She liked his name. It was a strong moniker that suited the commanding man on the train, but not so much the malcontent in bed. Still, if not for her big mouth, he wouldn’t be here now. “Would you like me to read to you?”

“No, thanks. There’s nothing wrong with my eyes.” As if to prove his point, he glanced toward her hand. “What’s that you’ve got?”

Ignoring his brusqueness, she held up the book she’d been skimming through. “
Ivanhoe
.”

He shook his head and ran his hand through his hair, mussing it even more than it had been. It gave him a roguish appearance that she found appealing. “I’ve read it three times. Read all our books, in fact. Too bad there isn’t something new to read.”

She thought for a moment, excused herself, and then hurried to the guest room that Leyna had so graciously made up for her. In the bottom of her satchel, she found what she was looking for. A copy of her April release,
The Red-Headed Rustler
, and one of her competitor’s novels that she’d read a few days ago. Without thinking, she snatched up the pen off the desk and signed “Drew Dixon” on the title page of her book.

At her doorway, she paused. There were two details she needed to take care of—and now was as good a time as any.

First, she needed to return Adam’s belongings. She pulled the loot bag from the drawer she’d stuck it in and returned to his room. At the threshold, she halted. The second detail was more difficult. She had to tell him who she was.

Mariah wrestled with the improprieties of entering a man’s bedchamber. She shouldn’t even be standing at his door. Perhaps she could talk him into moving into the parlor.

His lovely blue eyes perked up. “What’s that you’ve got there?” He sat up straighter on the bed.

She held out the loot bag.

“Is that what I think it is?”

Mariah nodded. “I made sure to collect your watch and money since you were, um… unable to at the time. I’m sorry I didn’t return it sooner, but with your injuries and all, I forgot about having it. I hope all your money is there.” She already knew his watch was, because she’d looked at it once.

“Let me see.”

She wavered a moment, stepped a foot into the small room, and tossed the bag onto the bed. Just as quickly, she scurried back to the hall.

Adam chuckled at her. He opened the bag and pulled out the pocket watch and money. He glanced at the wad of dollars as if mentally assessing if it was all there then turned his attention to the watch. Lovingly, he stroked the gold cover then opened it and studied the face of the timepiece. “This belonged to my pa. I’m sure glad to have it back again. Thank you.”

His warm smile gladdened her heart. Seeing him happy for the first time in days made her realize how badly she wanted him to get well. He was much more handsome when he smiled, and a man so robust shouldn’t be stuck in bed.

“What else do you have there?”

She held up the dime novels.

“Hey, that’s new. Haven’t seen that one before.” He struggled to sit up straighter and winced. “Let me see it.”

Mariah glanced at the threshold. She simply couldn’t cross it again.

“It’s all right for you to come in. We don’t hold much on propriety way out here. Besides, I’m a perfect gentleman.” His roguish grin made her question his words.

Her hand trembled. He had no idea that entering a man’s room went against all she’d ever learned, but she knew if she didn’t enter then he’d probably get up and hurt himself again. Taking a breath, she rushed to his bedside, shoved the dime novels into his hand and hurried back outside the door again.

“I don’t bite.” Laughing, he looked at the booklets then held up the competitor’s dime novel.

Gathering up her nerve, Mariah opened her mouth to confess her identity. “There’s something I need to—”

“I’ve read that one.” Scowling, he tossed her novel onto the bedside table. “Even wrote the author and told him he needed to get his ranching facts straight. I invited him to visit the Rocking M, but he hasn’t shown up.”

The confession lodged in Mariah’s throat like a hard biscuit. “J–Just what was it the author got wrong?”

Adam shook his head. “For one thing, he gave a steer a calf.” He chuckled. “That’d be interesting to see.”

The blood rushed out of Mariah’s cheeks, making her skin feel tight. She didn’t understand the nature of her error, but it was clear that she’d made one.

“And besides that”—Adam flipped over her competitor’s novel and looked at the back cover—“he made a woman the hero of his story.”

Mariah narrowed her eyes, irritation rising at his know-it-all attitude. “What’s so wrong about that?” Hadn’t she saved Adam’s very life by distracting the train robber who meant to kill him?

“Whoever heard of a lady rustler rescuing a rancher and saving his cattle? It’s too far-fetched to be believable.”

“It’s fiction.”

He glanced up. “Yeah, well, it still needs to be realistic. No steer is ever gonna have a calf. Just proves the author doesn’t know beans about life out here.”

Mariah hiked her chin. “I—uh—need to go do something.”

She hurried from his room toward her own, embarrassed that she’d obviously made a grievous error in her research. How could she dare tell him who she was now that he’d shoved her mistakes in her face?

Adam slanted his face toward the warm sun, grateful to be outside again. His days of inactivity left him restless and anxious to be back at work. Stretching, he watched Cody exercising a green broke mustang in the corral. Every lap or two, the mare bucked as if she weren’t quite ready to give up her freedom.

“She’s really pretty.”

Adam glanced sideways at Mariah. He wasn’t sure why he’d agreed to give her a tour of the ranch, probably just to have a legitimate excuse to get out of the house. She looked pretty in her blue dress and small, tidy hat, much less of a threat than her big floppy one with the feathers.

Since yesterday, he’d had the feeling she was perturbed at him. As much as he’d wanted her gone at first, she was growing on him.

He’d never been around women much except for his mother, Anna, Leyna, and the women he saw in town or at church, but most of those were married. And then there were the city gals that his grandma had invited to dinner when he was in Bismarck, but most of those thought of him as a country bumpkin. Mariah was the first woman with whom he could let down his guard. That made him want to get to know her better, but at the same time he wanted to shove her away.

“So, what is that man doing? Is that a freshly broken horse?”

He swallowed back a sigh. Since she’d decided to be his nursemaid, she’d pelted him with one ranch question after another. He’d never met a woman so interested in ranching.

If she hadn’t been easy to talk to, he probably would have been more tight-lipped. But she had a way of getting under his skin and making him want to share more than he had in ages.

“We call it a
green broke horse.
She’s a three-year-old mustang that we recently caught in Wyoming.”

“How long will it take to train her? Will you use her to herd your cattle?”

Adam shrugged. “Depends.”

“On what?”

“On the horse—how stubborn or willing she is. On how much time we have to work with her.”

The warm breeze cooled his sweaty neck and swirled dust into a little dust devil off in the distance. A sweet, floral scent drifted from Mariah’s direction. The womenfolk he knew rarely smelled that nice.

“What’s that funny bridle on that horse?”

“It’s called a hackamore. It doesn’t have a bit. We find that some horses respond better to them.”

“It seems to me you wouldn’t have as much control without a bit.” She stepped up onto the lowest rail of the corral and leaned her head through the bars, her eyes dancing with delight.

“Careful.”

The mare approached, watching her warily. As the horse neared, it stretched out its head and nipped at Mariah’s bonnet.

“Oh my!” Fancy Feathers gasped and jumped backward, arms flailing as she fell off the rail. Adam caught her and helped her to regain her balance.