One Heart to Win (29 page)

He should have gone the other way. Zachary leaned over the railing to say as Hunter passed by, “Maybe the Warren girl don’t want to marry you either. Did you think of that? Maybe you’re getting all riled up over nothing. But you two can figure that out when she gets here.”

Hunter kept on going without replying. He didn’t like arguing with his father. He
knew
the choice would still be his in the end. Zachary had made that clear. Hunter shouldn’t even be trying to settle the matter before he met the Warren daughter. It would just have been nice to have peace without a time limit on it, so their neighbors didn’t get up in arms when he did finally end that dumb betrothal.

He didn’t find Jennifer in the kitchen when he got back to
the house. One look at her and this annoyance would go away, he was sure. It did when he entered the dining room and found her just setting the roast on the table and the rest of his family already seated. She passed him to head back to the kitchen. With Zachary raising a brow at him, he managed not to follow her with his eyes and took a seat instead.

So he was surprised to hear Zachary tell him as he stood up to cut the roast, “Fetch her back. Smells like she did good tonight. She can start sharing meals with us like Ed did. And she might teach you boys some table manners you’ve forgotten since your ma got laid up.”

That was a concession on his father’s part—for Hunter. He nodded before heading back into the kitchen. Jennifer was standing by the sink, her back to the room.

She heard his step and glanced over her shoulder. “I forgot to mention, save some for the rest of us. I didn’t want to ruin the presentation by cutting into it yet.”

He grinned. “I guess that
Don’t touch
note was for yourself, then?”

She laughed. “No, I just . . . what?”

She’d rooted him to the spot with the merry sound she’d just made. Had he never heard her laugh before? If he had, it certainly hadn’t affected him like this. How was it possible for her to get even more beautiful?

He found his voice. “Makes you sparkle, when you laugh. Lights you up like a candle. Give me a frown, Jenny, so I can move again.”

She gave him another laugh instead, apparently thinking he was teasing. He wasn’t sure he was. But she’d turned her back on him and was facing the sink as she said, “Go eat while it’s hot.”

He cleared his throat. “Well, then, you need to return to the dining room for that to happen. Come on, Red. Pa won’t eat until you’re seated.”

She turned, even took a few steps before she stopped to point out, “It isn’t appropriate for hired help to sit with the family. Do the maids eat with you?”

“No, but you’re not exactly a maid. And Old Ed ate with us, so does Degan. ’Sides, Pa thinks you might teach us boys some table manners. So no arguing.”

He returned to his seat, leaving the choice to follow up to her. Actually, he didn’t trust himself to touch her right now, not even her hand. But she entered a moment later, not the least bit embarrassed as most servants would be to be included in the family dinner. She carried herself as if she owned the room. Come to think of it, there wasn’t a subservient bone in that girl and had never been. He wasn’t really surprised by that. Jennifer Fleming was aware of her own worth.

She stopped behind the empty chair directly across the table from Hunter. She didn’t touch it. Lesson number one. Hunter started laughing, he simply couldn’t help it. It got worse when Cole, Degan, even John, all started to get up to help seat her. But Cole was the quickest and the closest and pulled the chair out for her.

She gave him a brilliant smile of thanks, which started Cole blushing. Zachary was still cutting the roast, and taking so long at it, Hunter had a feeling his father was wary of messing it up, which would disappoint the cook. They started passing their plates down his way.

“Don’t everyone talk at once,” Zachary said.

A few nervous laughs and throat clearings ensued. Jennifer introduced a topic to put them at ease with her presence. She
was
causing their nervousness. It was her dress. She simply didn’t look like a servant in her fancy duds, and with her sitting there so properlike, it was as if they had some rich lady at the table. None of them were used to that! Not even their father.

“Perhaps someone can tell me a little more about Nashart? Mrs. Callahan said the town didn’t exist when your family moved here. It was merely a trading post?”

Zachary answered, “Yeah, that was all. For a long time, too.”

“But didn’t being so far from markets for your cattle make business difficult?”

“That actually wasn’t a deciding factor, since we expected it would take quite a few years to build the herd back up. We only brought a hundred head of cattle with us and lost a quarter of them on the trip.”

“The trip was that difficult?”

“Not really. We came most of the way by river, first on the Mississippi, then the Missouri to Fort Union. That’s a ways northeast of here, but while the Missouri continues west and steamboats travel that route now, they didn’t back then.”

“Why didn’t you settle near Fort Union?”

Zachary chuckled. “My pa wanted more isolation than that. We’d already made our fortune ranching in Florida, where some of the oldest ranches in the country are located. Truth is, cattle rustling got really out of hand down there. Too many ranches too close to each other. We aimed to get away from that—among other things. So we weren’t looking for a well-settled area, just the opposite. Yet we couldn’t go too far from water, either, so we followed the Yellowstone River. Couldn’t raft it since it flowed north into the Missouri, but we never strayed too far from it or its spouts. The creek that flows by here almost year-round and feeds the lake is why we put down
roots here, that and finding the trappers trail to the trading post in the area.”

“Almost year-round?” she asked.

John answered as Zachary began to hand the plates back, “It dries up some late in the year; one year, it dried up all the way.”

“It would freeze here in winter, wouldn’t it?” she questioned. “How do your cattle get water then?”

Cole piped up, “We crack the ice at the edges of the lake for the cows that are too dumb to lick snow for their water.”

Jennifer nodded. “So when did the town of Nashart actually come into being?”

“My boys can answer that. I’m going to share this fine dinner with Mary,” Zachary said as he picked up two filled plates and started out of the room.

Jennifer looked around her, waiting for an answer, though Hunter noticed she was doing a good job of not looking at him. He spoke up anyway. “With our ranch springing up near the trading post, it didn’t take long at all for a saloon to be built. Still, I hear it was just those two buildings for a few more years. There just wasn’t enough traffic through here to warrant more—heck, none at all other than trappers and Indians back then.”

“What changed that?”

“Gold. Before it was discovered in the western part of the territory, Nashart barely had a handful of buildings. Folks struck with gold fever came from all over the country and from all walks of life, most of them too late, with news traveling so slowly back then. Some from the East passed through here on their way to get rich because by then we’d delivered cows a few times to Fort Union, so there was a pretty good trail between
here and there. And they came back through here on their way home when it didn’t pan out for them.”

“And stayed?”

“Some, yes. They’d see construction going on here. The trading post was already being converted to a general store to take advantage of the new traffic passing through. And progress, it can be as infectious as gold fever. Tiny shops went up fast, those that didn’t take much to get going—barber, laundry, carpenter, to name a few.”

“So that’s when Nashart became a real town?”

“Yeah, but it was still not even a quarter the size it is now. It continued to grow, though, just more slowly until a stage line went in. Wasn’t surprised to see that happen despite the rush being over. Butte, Helena, even Virginia City, they got so big, they were drawing in new businesses instead of new prospectors.”

Hunter had talked so much, he was surprised to find only himself and Jennifer left at the table. He was about to turn the conversation in a more personal direction, now that they were alone, but she became aware of that, too, and stood up to leave.

She did so politely, though, ending their conversation with the thought “I wonder if this territory will ever see statehood, or be nothing but ghost towns after the ore runs out.”

“You underestimate the power of the railroad. There are towns now that aren’t mining towns, and more and more will spring up along the lines.” He stood up to follow her. He felt a powerful urge not to lose her company just yet. “Let me help you clean up.”

“No!” she said a little too quickly, amending, “I mean, Andrew is waiting to do that. And we have bread to get started for tomorrow. You’d just be in the way.”

He raised a brow. “Help is help.”

“Not when it’s a distraction.” Her tone was starting to turn annoyed. “I don’t want to spend all night in the kitchen, thank you.” She blushed as soon as she said it. She was obviously remembering last night. He’d barely been able to think of anything else today. “But if you want to be helpful, you could arrange for me to have a horse to use tomorrow.”

He smiled. She considered him a distraction! “So you’re ready for a ride with me?”

“No, I just need to go to town to pick up the clothes I ordered. Andrew can accompany—”

“I think we had this talk about you not going anywhere without me.”

“Fine!” she huffed, and flounced off.

He started laughing to himself. Jennifer definitely had a problem with not getting her way. Life with her would never be simple. Life with her . . . was he really thinking that far ahead?

Chapter Thirty-Eight

T
IFFANY WAS AMUSED THAT
Hunter didn’t get his way any more than she did about her outing to Nashart. He seemed quite disgruntled when Degan insisted on tagging along yet again. She enjoyed being back on a horse though, and she was dressed appropriately for the occasion in her one remaining riding habit. Made of emerald-green velvet, it was a bit warm for the weather and missing the splendid hat that went with it, but none of her hats had survived the train trip. This time she had no intention of staying in town any longer than she had to, so she wasn’t even going to risk stopping to visit Anna. In and out, before she ran into any more of her brothers, was her plan today.

“Only two stops,” she assured the men on either side of her as the three of them rode down the main street into town. “I have a letter to post first, but that will only take a moment.”

“Another letter?” Degan said.

“To my fiancé,” Tiffany lied.

“Figures,” Hunter said, and did an about-face, heading in the other direction.

Degan sighed as he turned to gaze at Hunter. “You could have lied.”

She did lie! And did again when she replied, “No, I couldn’t.
He
needs to be reminded that I have one.”

“Point taken.”

She posted the letter to her mother and was back on the horse as quickly as she’d said she would be. And back off it just as quickly when she spotted her brother Roy across the street. Had he been looking directly at her? God, she hoped not. Hiding on the other side of the animal, head ducked low, she walked with it that way, trying to make it far enough up the street to an alley between two of the buildings so she could dash between them and skirt around the back way to Mrs. Martin’s house.

“What are you doing?” Degan asked as he followed her, still mounted.

“Working off a cramp in my leg.”

“I would have guessed the cramp was in your neck. Are you hiding from someone?”

“Of course not. I’m just watching where I’m walking.”

She made the dash without incident, quickly remounted, and rode behind the buildings on the main street to reach Mrs. Martin’s house. Her heart was still pounding, though. She was going to have to stop coming to town, she realized. It was too risky.

Degan waited out front with the horses. Agnes already had Tiffany’s order bundled and ready to go, she just had to fetch it from the back. Tiffany paced, waiting for the seamstress to
return. Roy obviously hadn’t seen her, but that had been too close. And then she froze. It wasn’t Agnes coming back down the hall toward her. Roy had noticed her after all, and he looked livid. And, oh, my, had he grown!

“I can explain!”

He wasn’t interested. Roy grabbed her by the hand and dragged her out of the house the back way. He was almost her age, just ten and a half months younger, but he was already as tall as their older brother Sam, which was at least six feet. And he was strong. It was a wonder he hadn’t won that fight with Cole. Maybe he had and had gotten a black eye to show for it. He was too strong! She had no chance of getting her hand back from him.

“You’re hurting me,” she said as they reached the backyard.

That actually worked. He let go, swung around, and demanded, “What the hell are you doing with that gunfighter? He works for the Callahans!”