Deborah Camp (5 page)

He was sprawled in Fayne’s old chair fashioned from long horns and rawhide. His eyes were closed, his legs stuck out straight and crossed at the ankles. He didn’t move an eyelash when she let the screened door slam behind her. She cleared her throat. Still he didn’t move.

“Mr. Adams, I—”

“Grandy,” he said, his head coming up with great effort and his eyes opening to slits. “My name is Grandy.”

“Very well.” She removed the hat and turned sideways to hang it on a peg jutting from a cherrywood hall tree, unintentionally giving Grandville Adams a fine profile of her breasts as she lifted her arms to reach the peg. “Would you like something to eat?”

“Yes, but I’d like to wash first.” His gaze swept oyer the living room to the arch giving access to the dining room. “Do you have a tub?”

“Yes, in the kitchen.” She laid her gloves and purse on the hall table and glanced in its oval mirror. “I’ll heat water for you, then I’ll leave you to your own devices.” She swallowed hard, her throat moving in a long flexing of creamy white skin. “Unless you need assistance …”

“No, I’ve been bathing myself for years.” He forced himself up as she hurried from the room, red-faced and flustered. He chuckled to himself, thinking she wasn’t too hard to bluff. Maybe living here wouldn’t be so bad. If he could intimidate her easily, then he could rule the roost.

Hearing her clanging pots and pans, he followed the noise. A bath was his first objective, then hot food, and then a long nap. Once he felt more himself, he’d deal with the little woman.

The sound of water sloshing in the tin tub made Zanna jump. She placed a hand to her racing heart and closed her eyes for a moment, chiding herself for being as nervous as a new filly. She surmised from the noise floating from the kitchen into the living room that Grandville was finished with his bath. She cleared her throat and went closer to the archway giving access to the other part of the house.

“Mr. Ad—” She cleared her throat and started again, recalling his insistence that she use his Christian name. “Grandville Adams?”

“Yes, Suzanna Hathaway?” he replied, his voice strongly colored by sarcasm.

“I’ve left clothes for you here. I’m going outside until you’re dressed. The cowhands have offered you their leftovers from supper, and the food is on the dining room table.”

“Many thanks.”

She nodded, nearly overjoyed to have completed the instructions. Was it going to be like this for long? she wondered, tiptoeing across the floor toward the outside door. Why was she acting like a frightened mouse in her own home? A man was bathing in her kitchen, but that was nothing new. This awkwardness would pass, she comforted herself. In a few days, she and Grandville Adams would be conversing easily, and hopefully, infrequently.

Zanna sat in the rocker on the front porch, her ears straining for every sound inside the house. Her house, she thought with a slight frown. She hadn’t bargained on sharing it with him. She liked living alone. Sheriff Warwick had instructed that her new husband shouldn’t be put out in the barn at night, so where could she put him? Zanna’s green eyes tracked the area and came to rest on the bunkhouse. Gould she put him up in there?

No! What was she thinking of? She couldn’t put him in with her cowhands because then they’d know for certain that her marriage was a sham. Part of her plan had been to keep the conditions of her marriage private. It was nobody’s business and she meant to keep it that way. The less outsiders knew of her private life, the better. Not only should she not allow Grandville Adams to stay in the bunkhouse, she should keep him away from the hired hands as much as possible. Ranch gossip was as common as weeds and cultivating it was pure folly.

Best to keep him in the house, she thought, or in the barn. Away from the hands and away from her. She’d find work for him in those places. She’d keep him so busy he wouldn’t have time to make friends or bother her. Keep him on a tight rein, she told herself. Make him understand who’s boss at Primrose.

She heard him moving around in the dining room. The scrape of a chair, the clatter of dishes. He was eating. She hoped he was fully dressed. One thing she wouldn’t abide was a man who spent his leisure in long underwear. Disgusting habit, she thought with a flash of revulsion. Fayne had paraded around in his red underwear like a proud peacock.

Zanna rocked with agitation, making the wooden chair creak and groan. She removed her handkerchief from the pocket of her dress and balled it in her hands as she watched shadows creep over the steps. It was past noon, she guessed. Maybe even as late as two. The sun usually
left the porch in shadow by one, then slipped off the steps before three.

She’d failed to notice little about Primrose since she and her father had made it their home. She knew the land as well as she knew the territory of her own heart. The flat, rich plains of north Texas exuded strength and endurance, qualities Zanna admired.

Ever since she was a child, she’d sat on horseback and imagined that she was not merely a resident, but owner of all she surveyed. Now that it was true, she sometimes had to pinch herself to believe it. Did she own Primrose or did the land own her? she wondered as she had so often. Perhaps it was the closest thing she’d ever known to a marriage in its purest sense—of the heart, the mind, and the soul. For she was wedded to Primrose. Wedded until death.

Somewhere inside the house a chair was pushed along the wide planked floor. Zanna sprang up from the rocker. She looked down at her somber dress and wanted to be out of it and in her usual work clothes, but she had been reluctant to undress in the house as long as
he
was in it. Being a modest woman, she had dreaded the invasion of a stranger in her home, but she’d deemed it necessary. The advantages far outweighed the disadvantages, she’d decided after spending weeks carefully studying her options. She told herself she was fortunate to have found such a strong young man the first time out. Many widows and unmarried women had left the jail empty-handed or with dried-up prunes on their arms. Agatha Daryrimple’s objections had been warranted, Zanna knew. Fine young specimens like Grandville Adams rarely landed in the Scyene jail.

Securing such a man was a sign to her that her decision had been correct. Zanna squared her shoulders and brought up her chin in an unconscious effort to appear taller and bolder, a habit she had acquired during her marriage. She waited for Grandville to come to her as she knew he would,
but she held her breath momentarily, nonetheless, when he came into view.

He stood just inside the doorway for a brief time, looking out at the land, then stepped onto the porch. Zanna was struck dumb by the improvement a bath, shave, and clean clothes had rendered.

The clothes weren’t the best fit, but they weren’t too far off, Zanna surmised as she cast a discerning eye across his shoulders where the faded red shirt was a mite snug. The shirt was double-breasted with white buttons. At one time, no doubt, it had been a fancy “town” shirt, but the wrangler who had left it behind had worn it so often that it was frayed at the collar and cuffs and faded by the sun and frequent washings in rivers and creeks. His trousers were buff-colored and could have been an inch longer. His brown suede boots were scarred and square-toed, discarded by the wrangler although they still had some wear left in them.

But the man inside the clothes was vastly different from the one Zanna had seen in the stinking jail cell. The stranger standing before her had light brown hair bordering on blond and tamed into a side part. His hair was short, but long enough to show a touch of curl at the ends. His forelock was creeping down, determined to break out of the forced styling and hang in a thick comma above his right eye.

His eyes were still bloodshot, but Zanna could see now that they were a gray-green with a starburst of gold around the darker gray irises. Beautiful eyes, she thought, admiring his thick, short lashes and animated brows that arched and quirked and lowered and knitted in a constant change of expressions. She’d noticed that about him during the ride to the ranch. He had a most expressive face. Long, but with a short chin. A lined brow; a prominent, manly nose; wide lips, the lower lip being fuller and giving his mouth a sensuality Zanna had rarely seen in men. He had small ears that lay flat against the sides of his head, and a
thick neck. Her father had warned her that a man with a thick neck usually had a thick head to go along with it.

Now that he was clean-shaven, Zanna saw that there was a hint of a cleft in the underside of his chin. The scar below his mouth was less visible, but it was a clear reminder that this man was far from perfect.

She realized with a start that while she’d been sizing him up, he’d been returning the attention. Zanna felt color warm her face. She laced her fingers together tightly and backed one step away from him. His eyebrows were telegraphing his feelings, slanting up in quizzical humor.

“You wear black all the time? Even out here on the range?” he asked, his voice still a little raspy, dry with world-weariness.

“No, not on the range. I haven’t changed into my work clothes because …” She shrugged off her reticence. “Because you’ve been in my house and I didn’t want to disrobe while you were in here with me.”

One side of his mouth inched up into a crooked grin. “Afraid I might try something funny?”

“No,” she said, folding her arms primly at her waist. “I
assumed
you’d try something funny.”

“Oh-ho!” He lifted his brows and surprise glinted in his eyes. “You did, did you?”

“Yes, I did. I was simply afraid I’d have to shoot you before I got any work out of you. That would be a pity, not to mention a waste of my time.”

“That so?” He stroked his chin, regarding her with interest. “You’re a wild thing, aren’t you?”

“Hardly.” She pinned him with a cool stare. “Please remain here on the porch while I change, then I’ll show you the barn and where you’ll be doing most of your chores.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He gave a military salute.

Zanna swept past him into the house, then closed the front door. Through the oval glass she saw him smirk at her theatrics, shake his head in a belittling manner, then
stuff his large hands into his trouser pockets and amble to the end of the porch.

She went into her bedroom and closed that door behind her as well. She changed clothes swiftly, listening for any sound that might signal the approach of her new husband. She pulled on buckskin breeches and a blue print blouse with long sleeves and a ruffle around the neck. She wouldn’t be caught dead wearing pants in town, but the ranch was different. She couldn’t run a ranch in skirts. She’d tried and failed. Her skirts had hung on every bramble bush, every cactus, every thorn in the prairie. It hadn’t taken long for her to surrender her love of fine fabrics and pleated skirts for buckskin and coarse fabric.

She replaced the pins in her hair, keeping it up off her neck, then fitted her straw bonnet over the russet waves. As she expected, he stared at her long and hard when she joined him outside again.

“Pants,” he said, then grinned. “I think I’ll call you ‘sweet britches.’”

“I think you shan’t,” she said, sending him a smoldering glare. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll acquaint you with the ranch and your chores.”

“You’ve already spelled out my chores in that damned agreement you made me sign.” He fell into step beside her. Following wasn’t his style.

“No one made you sign anything,” she reminded him, then embarked on her recital. “Most of your work will be in the barn and stable. The other hands will feed the cattle in the range, but you’ll need to feed the ones in this pen,” she said, pointing to the corral in front of the barn. “We keep cows ready to calf here and those that are under the weather or under weight. After you’ve fed and watered them, then you’ll clean the stables which are right behind the barn.”

“And then it will be time to call it a day,” he said, yawning noisily and stretching his long arms above his head.

“Hardly,” she said, scoffing.

“Hardly,” he mimicked, sticking his nose in the air.

“You’re not funny.” She quickened her pace, but so did he. His shoulder bumped against her and she shied away. “You should ready the harness before breakfast.”

“And I get a half hour for breakfast. I remember.”

He hung back to let her enter the barn first, then advanced into the structure as if he were entering the jaws of death. As he studied the area, it seemed to Zanna that his face became drawn. The corners of his eyes and mouth dipped down and a sadness permeated him. His feelings were so intense that she experienced them as if they were her own. How could the sight of a barn bring such depression on a man? she wondered. Why did he despise this life she loved so dearly?

“I never thought I’d step inside another one of these.” His tone had changed from light and teasing to dark and doleful.

The barn was vast, the ground strewn liberally with fresh, sweet-smelling hay. Blinking owl eyes glowed in the rafters. Bats rustled their wings in the far corners. Dust motes floated on streams of buttery sunlight. Hay was piled from the loft to the roof. Farm implements hung on pegs. Harnesses were arranged at the back, ready for sunrise. A rat ran from one side of the barn to the other, its fat body stirring the straw and making the owls test their wings in a moment of interest.

Grandy stared at the square toes of his hand-me-down boots and wished he was anywhere on earth but in another damned barn. “Do you plow with mules or horses?” he asked.

“Mules.”

He nodded. If he had his preference, it would be mules, but he didn’t want to get within ten feet of either.

“Have you any experience with carpentry?” she asked.

“A little.” He looked at her, hating the superior tilt of
her chin. He’d traded one warden for another, he thought, and grew more melancholy by the minute.

“Good. Tomorrow I want you to build me a covered back porch, connecting the main house with the henhouse. My grandmother had such an arrangement in Wyoming and it was quite useful.”