Chapter 9

 

The woman waiting on the ranch house porch definitely wasn't Mary Lassiter. Jake already had his dun tied to a hitching rail, and he approached the buggy to assist Sunny to the ground. Teddy scrambled out on her own, looking around eagerly, but Sunny didn't see a sign of Mary's daughter, either.

Jake swung her down and released her a little too quickly for her to have gained her balance. She stumbled a step, then swatted away his hand when he held it out to her. Darn the man, anyway. Didn't he even know how to help a lady down from a buggy? Grimacing at him, she turned her back and walked to the porch.

"I am Theresa," the beautiful Spanish woman on the porch said when Sunny approached. Her deep brown eyes flickered past Sunny to Jake for just an instant. "I am Miss Mary's housekeeper, and she and the children are in the barn with a new colt. Shall I go get her?"

"I'll go," Teddy said earnestly. "Can I, Miss Sunny?"

"Why don't we all go?" Sunny responded. "I'd like to see the colt, too."

"I will prepare some cool drinks for when you return." Theresa turned and entered the house.

A bright red structure, the barn was set off quite a ways from the house and shone in the sun. Sunny joined Jake and Teddy as they started for it. Split-rail-fence corrals, painted white, circled both sides, and a spirited horse with a shining black coat pranced around in one of them, while the other one was empty.

"I've never seen a red barn before," Sunny mused. "But isn't it pretty?"

"Pretty?" Jake replied. "Guess you could call it that. Only a woman like Mary would paint her barn red."

"Spoken like a true bigot," Sunny muttered, shooting him a disgruntled look. "I understand from the other women in town that Mary Lassiter has had to run this ranch for alone for five years, ever since her husband died. And the ranch has prospered a lot more than it ever did with him in charge. I would think she has a right to dress as she wishes and paint her barn any darned color she wants!"

"Whoa." Jake raised his hands. "I meant that in an admiring way."

"That's not how it came out."

"Or maybe that's just the way you took it."

"Perhaps if I saw in you a little admiration for what women can accomplish — for instance, like what we're getting done in town — I might revise my opinion of your character."

Before Jake could hurl a defense they entered the barn, and Sunny hurried away from him into the dimness. The shaded interior was a relief from the heat outside, and as soon as her eyes adjusted, she saw Mary motioning to them from outside a stall door a few steps away. She once again wore her britches, although she had worn a pretty gray dress to church last Sunday.

"Shhhh," Mary whispered as they reached her. "The colt's only an hour or so old, and the mare had a rough time. This was her first birth, and she foaled a few days early. My foreman, Chuck, knows more about helping in difficult births than I do, but he's out on the far range, checking fences. I wouldn't have sent him out if I'd had any idea the mare was ready to foal."

As Mary spoke, Sunny looked into the stall, where a chestnut mare stood with head hanging wearily. However, the spotted colt at her flank nursed enthusiastically, its coat still wet in places from the birth fluids.

"It's beautiful," Sunny said in awe. "And so active and hungry for only being an hour old."

The colt wobbled and fell, then scurried back to its feet, sticking its head again beneath the mare's flank and butting against her. The noisy slurps hung in the air, the only sound other than the muffled giggles of the women and Teddy as they watched. When Sunny glanced behind her to see what Jake's reaction was, since he was so quiet, she slam-banged straight into his whiskey gaze.

"I'll wait up at the house," he said, abruptly turning away.

"I need to mix a pail of mash for the mare," Mary said, ignoring Jake's sudden exit. "If you'd like to wait up at the house, I'll be along shortly. I usually don't entertain guests in my barn."

"Oh, this is fine," Sunny said. "And very interesting. If you don't mind, Teddy and I would like to stay."

"Of course. But maybe Teddy would like to see the new kittens in the loft. That's where Suzie and Chester are." She pointed to a ladder across the way. Teddy bobbed her head and took off, hiking her skirts to climb the ladder and pigtails bouncing on her back.

Lowering her voice for just Sunny's ears as she walked away from the stall, Mary continued, "Suzie would have been perfectly happy staying with me during the birth, but Chester got green around the gills. They came down to see the colt after it was born, then went back up to the loft. At eight year's old, Suzie's quite the little tomboy, but of course Chester's two years younger so I'm sure he'll come around."

"I'm looking forward to meeting your Suzie and Chester," Sunny said as Mary pushed open the door on a room that held tools and supplies. "I was so busy with all the other ladies at church Sunday that I didn't missed your children. I . . ."

A muffled scream cut off Sunny's words, and Mary turned suddenly. At first Mary glanced at the loft, but they both realized at the same instant the scream had come from the direction of the house. When a curly-mopped little girl peeked over the edge of the loft, Mary ordered, "You young'uns stay up there until we tell you to come down!" Grabbing a pitchfork from inside the storage area, she took off in a dead run. Sunny lifted her skirts and raced after her.

Mary headed toward the back of her house, and Sunny pulled her skirts even higher, trying to keep up with her. By the time she rounded the corner of the house, Mary was standing to one side, watching Jake pound the daylights out of a man Sunny didn't recognize — a man who probably outweighed Jake by at least fifty pounds. Theresa huddled on the back step with her hands over her face.

Jake's fist thudded into the other man's face and he crumbled to the ground. Reaching down, Jake dragged him to his feet again, then drew his fist back and drove it deep into the man's stomach. The man flew backward several feet, landing again on the ground. Jake walked toward him, flexing his shoulders and clenching his fists at his sides. The man groaned and rolled away, shakily regaining his feet and backing away from Jake, his hands outspread in defeat.

"Get out, Miller," Mary snarled, raising the pitchfork to emphasize her demand. "You're fired! You've got exactly one minute to get your gear and clear my property. If I see you even close to my land again, I'll shoot you the same as I would a fox raiding my hen house!"

"She's been askin' for it . . ." Miller started to whine. When Jake took a step toward him, he flinched and shut his mouth.

"You can press charges against him," Jake told Mary. "Or at least, Theresa can."

"Please just make him leave," Theresa spoke up from the steps. "I do not wish to have the whole town know he attacked me."

Jake glanced at Mary, and Mary nodded. "Get going, Miller," she snarled. "And remember what I said."

Stumbling and holding his stomach in pain, Miller grabbed the reins of a sorrel horse nearby and heaved himself into the saddle. He rode over to a building Sunny assumed was the bunkhouse, dismounted and went inside. No one spoke again as Miller returned and remounted his sorrel, reining it toward the front of the house. As he rode a wide swathe around the group watching him, Sunny noticed that Jake had his hand on the butt of the gun sticking up from his right holster.

Her staunchly held opinion of Jake Cameron's laziness started pulverizing into the same dry dust littering the Texas landscape. No man could handle himself as Jake had with muscles grown lax from inactivity. The coiled power she'd witnessed in his shoulders and fists had her swallowing back a stab of fear, given all the times she'd unwittingly baited that depth of fury with her own wayward tongue.

His face still bore the residue of his anger, clearly visible since his hat was laying on the ground near his feet. Normally whiskey colored eyes were darkened to walnut and narrowed to bare slits. His jaw was clenched, and his lips thinned in a straight line.

Catching a glimpse of movement, Sunny's eyes fell once again to the right holster on his tense thigh. His forefinger and thumb rubbed together next to the gun butt, twitching back and forth as though any second he would pull the gun and fill the air with a blaze of bullets.

All at once she knew explicitly what Mary, Ruth and her aunt had meant about not under-estimating Jake Cameron, the Texas Ranger in Liberty Flats. Gulping against the apprehensive lump in her throat, she cautiously edged toward Mary and her pitchfork.

As soon as Miller disappeared, Jake turned to where Theresa sat. The young Spanish woman looked at him, then surged from the steps and ran into his arms. Jake's face changed instantly as he gathered her close and stroked her back, murmuring soothingly to her. Unexpectedly, a violent stab of jealousy swam through Sunny, but she quickly chastised herself. Theresa had just had to fight off a man's attack, and she had a right to their comfort and concern. However, when Jake laid his cheek against Theresa's silky black hair, Sunny abruptly turned her back.

"I'll go check on the children," she said to Mary. "They're probably worried about what's happening."

Mary nodded agreement, then moved toward Jake and Theresa. As she walked away, Sunny could hear Mary's voice added to Jake's, offering her own consolations to her housekeeper. She hurried her steps, but turned before she lost sight of the back of the house. Mary and Jake were leading a still-sobbing Theresa into the house.

In the barn she found all three children waiting at the foot of the loft ladder, worried expressions on their little faces. The curly-headed moppet who was Mary's daughter, Suzie, spoke first. "Is my mama all right?"

"She's fine, Suzie," Sunny assured her. "There was a problem with one of the hired hands, but your mother fired him and sent him away."

"Must have been that Miller," Suzie replied. "He's a no good if I ever saw one."

"Yeah," the little boy whined. "But what if he comes back and tries to hurt us?"

"Oh, shut up, Chester!" Suzie exclaimed. "Mama will take care of us, and Chuck will be back soon. Miller won't mess with Chuck, and I'll bet Miller's as sorry as the flea-bitten hound he is that he messed with Mama and got his sorry rear end fired."

Sunny's mouth dropped open further and further as Suzie's colorful language spewed from her cute, bow-shaped lips. She and her brother were dressed almost identically, both in denims and checkered shirts, but Suzie's tousled curls and piquant face left no doubt as to her feminine gender. Her language, though . . .

"What did that dirty dog do to make Mama finally fire him?" Suzie asked her.

"Uh . . . he . . . uh . . . I'll let your mother explain that," Sunny stammered, glancing at Teddy to see a look of total admiration on her face as she listened to her new friend. Already Teddy's dress skirt sported a long rip, and Sunny shook her head. Instead of it bothering her, though, she made up her mind right then and there to buy Teddy a couple pair of denims to wear when she visited Suzie. And wouldn't pants be much easier to work in while the Cultural Center was undergoing repairs? That, however, might be going just a tad too far, she admitted with a reluctant sigh.

"Would you children like to come on up to the house now?" she asked.

"I promised Teddy she could ride my pony," Suzie replied. "If that's all right with you, that is, Miss Fannin. I can have him saddled in a jiffy shake, and we'll only ride around the corral this time."

Feeling certain Teddy would be in capable hands with the self-assured Suzie, Sunny gave her permission. Though Suzie tried to insist that Chester go on to the house, the little boy stuck out his lower lip stubbornly and refused. A smile curving her lips, Sunny left the barn, allowing the children to work out their own differences.

 

A beautiful Texas sunset lit the western sky as the buggy horse trotted back toward Liberty Flats in the cooler evening air. Fiery streaks of vermilion shaded to deep purple on the horizon when the sun sank out of sight, and Sunny couldn't ever remember seeing such a wondrous sunset. Perhaps her appreciation of the magnificence came partially from her own contented feelings, she admitted to herself.

Teddy curled at Sunny's side, and from the sounds of stifled yawns she heard, Sunny figured Teddy would be sound asleep by the time they reached town. They'd lingered at Mary's even after Teddy had her first riding lesson, then agreed to share a meal of stew and Theresa's fresh baked bread before undertaking the trip back. Despite Theresa's reddened eyes, she had insisted she was perfectly able to serve the meal, and had sat with the family at the table. Sunny's praise at how delicious everything was had been sincere, and she'd left with a recipe for Theresa's bread in her pocket.

Teddy shifted sideways and laid her head on Sunny's leg. A moment later, her even breathing told Sunny the tiny girl slept.

Jake kneed his stallion closer to the buggy. "If you want," he said quietly, "I can tie Dusty to the back of the buggy and drive for you. Then you can rest, too."

Sunny mentally measured the width of the buggy seat and knew instantly how crowded it would be with Jake's large body sharing the space. "Oh, no. No, that's not necessary," she hastily hedged. "Uh . . . Teddy's sleeping on the seat, and I don't want to disturb her. And I'm not tired at all. It was a wonderful day."

She caught herself frowning. "Well, most of it anyway, after that horrible man left the ranch. Mary's son was worried that Miller might come back. You don't think he will, do you, Jake?"

"I very much doubt he wants to tangle with me again," Jake assured her. "That's part of what my presence is for around here — an attempt to keep the crime down. And despite what I'll admit were a couple blots on Ranger history, it's not just me personally who scares the sh . . . uh . . . who scares the outlaw element in the area into giving Liberty Flats a wide berth. It's the fact they know if they harm a Ranger, they'll have every other Ranger in Texas after their law-breaking hides until they're caught and punished."

"I see," Sunny mused.

And she did for a change, although she didn't completely agree with his assessment of it not being him personally who installed the fear of reprisal in the bad guys — not after seeing him at work today. She'd sure as heck hate to be the bad guy a Texas Ranger was after, if the rest of them were anything like Jake. She shivered just a little as she recalled his furious face and tensed, ready-for-action stance as he watched Miller ride away from Mary's ranch.

But she still didn't understand why he couldn't at least help a little with the repair work. After all, he would be visible to practically everyone in town if he would join in. In fact, he'd be about the most visible man there, given his height and the breadth of his shoulders. He certainly had the muscles for the hard labor it took to saw the timbers into the right lengths and lift them into place — hold them until they were secured. He'd had no trouble punching the devil out of a man who outweighed him by as much as Miller did.

That funny little sensation she noticed once in a while when she was near him tickled in her belly, and she unconsciously pressed one palm against the stirring. She only realized what she'd done when the sensation trickled downward — and upward, into her breasts. Suppressing a gasp of dismay, she jerked her hand back to the reins . . . where you should have stayed to begin with, she silently admonished her errant appendage.

Lights shown in some of the town's buildings as they approached the house she shared with her aunt. She couldn't quite call it home yet, because she was continuing to contemplate whether she should return to St. Louis — taking Teddy with her, of course. She still hadn't uncovered the solution to the other mystery, either — the identity of her father. She was about ready to start making some more pointed inquiries, since her vague attempts at questioning some of the other townspeople hadn't borne fruit.

Most of the stores on the main street should have been closed by now, except for the saloons, but Sunny saw a light in the doctor's office and even Ruth's store appeared to be open yet. Perhaps Ruth had a late customer. She couldn't see any of the other few residences in town from here, since they were scattered here and there behind the businesses. During the week, she'd come to realize the few townspeople who hadn't built living quarters into their stores, as Ruth had, maintained houses elsewhere. She'd visited a couple of the houses this past week, once to have tea with the twittery banker's wife, Cathy Percival. For some reason Sunny had been designated the spokesperson to talk some sense into Cathy, who was horrified that the other women in town had accepted Ginny McAllister into their newly-formed Women for Cultural Advancement group.

Sunny chuckled when she recalled Cathy's haughty dignity crumbling when Sunny shrugged her shoulders and told her that she truly hoped Cathy didn't pine away with loneliness while the other women in town were so busy. Now, although Cathy and Ginny would never be bosom friends, Cathy was an avid supporter of their plans. She'd even ordered her husband to subscribe to several of the weekly newspapers from Dallas and further East, so they could scan them for mention of performers they might entice to Liberty Flats.

Twilight lingered yet as she pulled the buggy horse to a halt at her house, and Jake dismounted. Leaving his own stallion's reins trailing, he tied the buggy horse's lead rope to the fence around the front yard. Approaching the side of the buggy, he held up his arms. Sunny lifted Teddy and placed her in his hold.

"If you'll carry her in, I'll be right behind you," she told him.

Jake regarded her for an instant, one corner of his mouth uptilted, but he shrugged and carried the sleeping Teddy toward the house. Sunny wrapped her skirts to the side and managed to get one leg on the buggy step. Then she made the mistake of glancing after Jake. His powerful thighs flexed in his close-fitting denims, and the material tightened across his rump as he climbed the steps to the porch. Her foot slipped, and Sunny tumbled from the buggy, cursing in a very unlady-like manner under her breath and thankful Jake didn't hear her skirt rip on something. Sprawled on the ground, she saw he'd gone on into the house.

Why the hell couldn't that man wear looser clothing?

 

 

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