The Bride Wore Spurs (The Inconvenient Bride Series, Book 1) (10 page)

"Faith, and I would consider that a grand honor!"

"You helped bring the filly safely into the world. It's the least I can do."

"Irish." Lacey repeated the name, then laughed. "I do not know if that be such a good idea after all—the lass is black as the devil's heart. It might be bad luck to name a black horse after my homeland,
Erin
."

Her gentle laughter was as lyrical as the song she'd sung to Taffy, and the sound warmed him far more than Hawke would admit to himself. Hardening himself against that feeling, he said, "She won't be black for long. She'll start to dapple out like her father in less than a year."

"Dapple out? I do not know the meaning of this."

"She'll begin to turn gray with white spots—dapples, I guess—and her mane and tail will turn silver. The older she gets, the lighter gray she'll turn. I'll introduce you to her sire later and you'll see what I mean. I named him Phantom, because he's so hard to see on a foggy morning."

"Aye, and I think I'm already understandin' what you're sayin." Lacey paused, picturing the little filly all grown up. "I like the name, I do. It means she'll soon be resembling a fine Irish mist."

Hawke raised his coffee cup to her. "That sounds even better. Irish Mist it is then, in your honor."

* * *

For the next couple of hours, Lacey stuck close to Hawke helping him in any way she could. As most of his business was conducted in the barn around the new mother and her babe, the work was neither difficult nor beyond her limited capabilities. Hawke drove her back to Three Elk Ranch after that, and an exhausted Lacey barely kept her eyes open long enough to help Kate prepare another batch of biscuits.

The following morning when Hawke came back to retrieve her, again Lacey carried her basket of rags and towels, and as before they concealed the previously baked batch of biscuits. This time, the plan worked beautifully. Hawke, who'd been sullen since their discussion about his heritage, was mightily impressed with her talents in the kitchen and breakfast was a complete success. She spent that day trying to make the living room and kitchen of Hawke's home a little more presentable, mainly by using most of her time cleaning the mud and dirt off the floor. If she hadn't learned another thing during her life at the hospital, she had learned how to scrub floors.

The next morning when she awakened, every muscle in Lacey's body ached, and it was all she could do just to crawl off of her lumpy excuse for a bed. But, armed again with her basket of goodies, she managed the trip back to Winterhawke Ranch, and even began to feel a little better by the time they arrived.

As they stepped into the kitchen, Lacey set her basket on the counter and asked, "Will you be wantin' ham with your biscuits again, then?" She was already headed for the back door and the porch where the icebox was kept, when Hawke's answer stopped her in her tracks.

"Not today." He rubbed his belly. "I ate so many of your biscuits yesterday—every last one of them by the time I turned in last night, in fact—that I can't face them again this morning."

She whirled around and stared at him in shock. "Oh, but they do not cause me a moment's trouble. I do not mind making them, really."

"Thanks for the offer, but I churned butter last night and have some nice fresh buttermilk out in the icebox. I'd love some flapjacks made out of it."

"Flapjacks?" she repeated, her heart in her throat. "I ne'er heard of such things."

Hawke took the coffeepot from its warming burner and poured himself a cup. "Maybe you know them as pancakes."

"Aye, pancakes, I do know," she said without thinking.

Donning his hat, Hawke started for the door. "Let me know when they're ready. I'll be doing chores in the barn."

She couldn't think fast enough to come up with a reason to stop him, or an excuse as to why she couldn't prepare the breakfast he wanted. Lacey just stood there in terrible shock as Hawke strode on out to the porch, then banged his way through the screen door.

Pancakes!
How was she to work her way out of this one? What in all that's holy did a person mix together to come up with the skinny little cakes? Once the shock of what she must do left her system, Lacey took a large mixing bowl down off the shelf and made her first real attempt ever at the art of cooking.

An hour and several aborted recipes later, she settled on a blend of flour, milk, and salt, then, remembering how much she liked the sweet flavor of the pancakes at the hospital, added a cup of sugar and a good measure of molasses. Lacey whipped and whipped the batter, smoothing it until the muscles in her arms cried out with pain before she decided it was silky enough to be the right consistency.

After thoroughly coating her hands with flour to keep the dough from sticking to her fingers, she arranged six little globs of the thick, gooey batter in the skillet, then set to mashing them into nice little cake-like shapes. They weren't the perfect small rounds turned out by the staff at St. Josephine's, she decided when she'd finally finished shaping them, but she thought they would most certainly do. Hefting the heavy iron skillet and its even heavier burden, Lacey set the pan on the stove near the hottest burner. Then she began cleaning up the dreadful mess she'd made of the kitchen.

Sometime later, she noticed that smoke had begun to rise from beneath the little cakes. Lacey raced to the stove, grabbed the handle of the skillet, then released it in the next second. The iron handle was as hot as the stove, and she'd burned the palm of her good hand! Smarting, she raced to the table, cut off a small block of butter, then spread it across the burn and wrapped her hand with the only clean cloth left in the kitchen. By now, the smoke curling up from the stove was black, and the smell of charred flour hung over the room like the cloak of the devil himself.

"Damn the bit and the luck, too!" she cursed as she flew back to the stove. This time putting a soiled cloth between herself and the iron handle, she dragged the skillet away from the heat. After pushing her hair out of her eyes—a good deal of her bun had come loose during her frantic exertions—Lacey used a fork to try and lift the pancakes so she could turn them over. The dough was fused to the bottom of the pan.

Her frustrations mounting, she looked around the kitchen for something else to use as a wedge, anything, and spotted a large curved knife like the one Hawke wore at his waist. It was hanging from a wooden rack above the sink along with several other instruments. Taking the knife and the small wooden mallet dangling next to it, she jabbed the tip of the blade beneath one of the pancakes, then used the mallet like a hammer against the grip of the knife.

Chiseling away at her creations in this manner, after a time, Lacey managed to get all six of the little flapjacks turned. Her weary muscles nearly spent, she dragged the skillet back to the heat; then collapsed in a chair at the table. A moment later, Hawke burst into the kitchen.

The acrid aroma hit him first. "What in hell are you burning in here?" he said as he walked into the room. "And why haven't you come after me for breakfast yet? I'm—" He'd been about to say, starving, until he glanced at the stove and saw the crusty black lumps sizzling in the skillet.

Stalking over to the burner, he stared down into the pan. Breakfast, if that's what this was supposed to be, looked an awful lot like the buffalo chips he'd once collected for the evening campfire—after they'd been burned: "What is this supposed to be?"

He turned to Lacey, who was still sitting at the table. Her head was in her hands, but what he could see of her face was covered with flour. Her hair was disheveled and her clothes were splotchy with flour and sticky dough. She looked like hell, but then the kitchen hadn't fared any better what with dough, flour, and molasses smeared on every counter and not a clean rag to be found anywhere. Taking care of the most immediate problem, Hawke folded his glove around the handle of the skillet, then shook his head in wonder as he lifted the pan from the heat and moved it to the counter. He was all set to join Lacey at the table to commiserate with her over the meal gone wrong, when he noticed his favorite bowie knife lying in the sink. This too wore a coat of gluey dough—and worse, the tip of the blade had been snapped clean off.

"You broke my knife!" he blurted out. "You've gone and ruined my best skinning knife."

Lacey didn't even lift her head as his accusations rang in her ears. She was sinking, falling deeper and deeper into one of her spells. Soon, if she couldn't find a way to get hold of herself and stop the slide, she wouldn't be aware of anything except a great dark emptiness inside. If that happened, she'd be exposing parts of herself to Hawke she'd thought gone and buried.

No, no, not now! Not after all I've been through to bring me this far!
Although Lacey fought against the inviting sensations, the pull of the slippery, effortless path into the mindless abyss was great, the promise of oblivion so strong, that it was almost like a warm caress. How she longed to hide there in that comforting lap of nothingness where she could escape responsibility for the mess she'd made of things, but from somewhere deep inside, she found the strength to barely hang on.

"Why won't you answer me," Hawke demanded. "What the hell has been going on in here?"

Lacey forced herself to stand, but when she tried to answer the charges, she still couldn't quite make herself form words. Glancing down into her hand, she noticed that she'd rolled a ball of dough up from the table as she'd sat there in her near stupor.
Speak to the man, tell him what he wants to know
, she begged of herself, bin before she could begin, again Hawke prodded her.

"Lacey? What's wrong with you?"

Had he guessed? "I—'tis... because of your breakfast," shot out of her mouth followed by an equally impulsive statement. "Tis the fault of your bloody pancakes...
sir
!"

Then, because she couldn't think what else to do, Lacey threw the sticky glob of dough at Hawke and bolted out the back door. Tears spilled down her cheeks as she ran and the urge to slip under the protection of one of her spells grew strong again, so strong, she knew she had to find a place to hide herself way until she could calm down. If Hawke confronted her now, Lacey knew she'd never have the strength to face him again. She'd be lost within herself for hours or maybe even days. What she needed was a good cry and a short nap. Solitude, above all. Thinking of the barn and the harness room with its thick pile of blankets, she dashed through the big double doors.

Once her eyes adjusted to the dimmer lighting, Lacey hurried down the center aisle without even stopping for a quick peek at Taffy and the newly christened "Irish." When she reached the harness room, she flung the door open and jumped inside.

There, a full measure of sunlight streaming in through the window to highlight its features, stood a thing more horrifying than even the banshees of her nightmares.

Lacey and the creature opened their mouths at the precise same moment. Then each cut loose with a bloodcurdling scream.

When your hand is in the dog's mouth, draw it out carefully.

—A common Irish saying

Chapter 6

Surely her poor confused mind was playing some kind of new trick on her! Wishing with all her might for that to be true, Lacey squeezed her eyes shut, then quickly blinked them open. The banshee was still there, still staring at her in the same mute horror. It glanced behind her to the door, but Lacey had blocked the only escape route from the room. And she was far too frightened to move out of its way.

"W-would you—" She paused to clear her throat. "Would you be a banshee or leprechaun?" she asked the thing.

The creature had a wild look about it, its dusty black hair matted and sticking out in every direction, its skin dark, smeared with streaks of dirt. At the sound of her voice, its huge onyx eyes flared, making it look even wilder. Then it flattened itself against the back wall of the room.

"I-I mean you no harm," she said, recognizing a certain insanity in speaking to what had to have been a figment of her imagination. Imaginary or not, the thing was the approximate size described in Irish fairy tales, its wiry body a little shorter than her own five feet five inches. The oddest thing was the fact that it was dressed in a most peculiar way, certainly not in a manner reminiscent of a leprechaun or an elf.