Orange-red as flame. Or her too-vibrant hair. Lily had never seen a sky like this, set afire by sunset. Wispy streaks of coral and pink clouds stretched from the vermilion horizon, casting a golden glow over the prairie past and the whitewashed outbuildings to the east. Jackson Bridge, who owned everything she could see except for the sky itself, was more blessed than he knew.
She shook out the damp towel she’d used to dry supper dishes and positioned it over the veranda banister. It shouldn’t take long to air out in the warm wind stirring the grasses and rustling the leaves of live oaks near the house. How different from Boston this was. No elms or sugar maples, but multitrunked sandpaper trees, cactus, spiky yucca, and a yellow-blooming tree Fred called huisache dotted the grassy landscape. Beautiful, but foreign.
And so quiet, with naught but birdcalls, cattle lowing, and the occasional word of a ranch hand breaking the stillness of the evening.
Lily leaned against the veranda, breathing in the sage-scented air. Jackson Bridge had done well for himself. Fred had talked the whole ride here from town, sharing details of Jackson’s purchase of the vast rancho and accumulation of feral cattle and horses left behind by the Spanish. Now Bridge Ranch bustled with activity, employing hands and a bunkhouse cook named Ol’ Bill. It was a community. And, yes, a home.
Not that a house made a home, of course. Their cramped rooms above Uncle Uriah’s store could have felt like home. But they hadn’t, not with his resentfulness and foul temper. So she’d decided she didn’t want a home, if it meant suffering.
Standing here, though, fingers pink from washing and drying a sink full of dishes while the others’ laughter carried through the open windows, brought back memories of home before her parents died. It ached and pleased all at once.
How foolish, thinking of such things. Lily blinked and forced thoughts of the future. She’d be sleeping in fancy hotels soon enough. She just had to get out of Wildrye.
She turned back to the kitchen door, but voices carrying through the open windows forestalled her. It wouldn’t do to be caught eavesdropping. Still, Mrs. Phipps’s loud volume couldn’t go unnoticed.
“Shall we put the kettle on? You have decent tea here?”
“Yes’m, we have fine tea.” A trace of amusement flavored Jackson’s reply. Lily smiled.
“I wasn’t certain, what with your inability to reimburse me for the girls’ fees.”
Lily gripped the banister. She shouldn’t be hearing this. But if she descended the porch steps to the yard, they’d see her and know she’d overheard.
“I can pay you back.” His tone was patient, as if he’d explained already. “I just don’t have cash on hand. I’ve got a buyer for fifty horses, fifteen dollars a head. Once I finish breaking them, I’ll have funds.”
Seven hundred and fifty dollars. Lily’s stomach swooped. Maybe she should learn to break horses.
“I wouldn’t have brought the Kimballs had I suspected you owned that sort of saloon. Do you think they thought they were coming to work in such a ribald establishment? Was I deceived by their decorum?”
Lily cocked her head, straining to hear. His reply, however, was lost with their retreating footsteps.
It didn’t matter. Jackson Bridge’s opinion was nothing to her. She slipped back inside the house, retrieved her mending bag from her trunk, and joined the others in the salon. Mrs. Phipps occupied the rocking chair before the hearth. Georgie teased a black-and-white cat with a tangle of sky-blue yarn, and Fred and Delia sat at a small table, a chessboard between them, Fred regaling her with the schematics of his half-built house a mile yonder. The last available seat was next to Jackson on the red velvet sofa, facing an empty bird cage—a stark reminder of the mess they were all in. They wanted birds and got us. Females of questionable decency.
Jackson peeked up from an almanac, his polite smile so winsome that Lily looked down in a hurry. The situation was awkward and he didn’t want her here, yet her veins thrummed when the man offered a civil greeting. She sat and hid her sure-to-be flushing face by bending over her sewing box. The buttons on one of Delia’s gloves had come loose.
“Have you a slate, Jackson?” Mrs. Phipps’s tone held a decisive, schoolmarm quality. “Georgia should start her ABCs.”
Nodding, Georgie hopped up and ran out of the room, leaving the cat to its yarn.
Jackson scratched his ear. “She’s but four, so she doesn’t know much.”
Mrs. Phipps greeted Georgie’s return with strict instructions on forming a proper A. “Pitched like a roof, there you go. A satisfactory attempt. Attempt starts with A. As does apple.”
Lily leaned forward. Delia’s glove was far less interesting than Georgie, who scrawled a substantial A. Lily chuckled. Jackson did, too. Their eyes met, but this time he looked away, somewhere in the direction of his almanac’s spine.
“Thank you for supper,” he said. Polite and awkward.
It hadn’t been hard to fry beef and potatoes. “Thank you for letting us stay the night in your beautiful home,” she said, just as polite and awkward.
It was a fine frame house with black shutters. Not extravagant, although, like the land, it testified to Bridge Ranch’s success. He’d mentioned how his wife had decorated the salon in dark woods and red accents. The woman had created a comfortable space.
The master bedchamber, likewise, was well furnished. She and Delia would be sharing the bed tonight. “I apologize for taking your room. It doesn’t seem right.”
“Neither does leaving you out on the street.” He seemed more relaxed now. “Georgie’s been begging to sleep in the barn, anyway.”
“I’m happy we could give her an excuse, then.”
Instead of laughing, he scrutinized her hair as if a spider crawled over it. “Aunt Martha was right about one thing. Your hair is red.”
Maybe it was the tension of the day. Maybe it was because that was the last thing she expected to hear, but laughter overtook her. “So I’ve been told.”
His earlobes pinked, but he grinned. “Just in case you forgot, I thought I’d remind you.”
“After the day I’ve had, I might need assistance with my own name.”
“Now, B,” Mrs. Phipps instructed Georgie. “Barn starts with B. So does biscuit.”
“And bird.” Georgie traced the letter. “I want two of ’em, but they didn’t come today.”
Lily chewed her lip. Mr. Bridge’s lips twitched. “Working on it, Georgie.”
“I’m sorry about the mistake.” Lily’s voice was quiet, for him only. Georgie moved on to C and informed Mrs. Phipps her cat’s name was Cat. Delia and Fred giggled over their game. No one overheard, allowing Lily and Mr. Bridge a moment to speak—if he’d take it.
He did, resting the almanac on his thighs. “Things happen. And I appreciate you keeping Aunt Martha company on the journey. She thinks she’s here for a visit, but I’m hoping she’ll stay. She’s alone, and I could use someone to care for Georgie. Who better than family?”
That’s what her father had thought, naming Uncle Uriah as her and Delia’s guardian. What a disaster that had been. But Mrs. Phipps was not at all like Uncle Uriah. She was kind, if somewhat stern. Lily tied off a knot in the thread. “Who watches Georgie now?”
It had been almost a year since Jackson’s wife died, according to what Fred had told Delia while they bounced along in the back of the buckboard.
Jackson’s gaze fixed on his daughter, and a smile twitched at his lips. “Some of the married hands’ wives help some, but I’d prefer a more consistent arrangement. In the meantime, I try to keep her with me.”
Georgie dropped the slate to pat Mrs. Phipps’s furrowed cheek. “How old are you?”
A question Lily had entertained numerous times but would never have dared ask.
Mrs. Phipps glared at Jackson. “You did not exaggerate the need for women’s refining hands in Wildrye. Including your own home.”
“Sorry, ma’am.” But his lips twitched. “Georgie, ladies don’t like to be asked their ages.”
“I like it. I’m four, and Pa is nine-an’-twenty.” She spun to Lily with chalky fingers aloft. “How old are you?”
Jackson leaned forward. “What did I just say?”
Lily pinched her palm so she wouldn’t laugh. “I don’t mind telling, just this once. I’m twenty-three.”
“Marriageable age,” Mrs. Phipps said. “Perhaps you should consider husbands instead of singing careers, girls. Now, Georgie, the letter D.”
Lily’s face was no doubt as red as her hair. “Speaking of careers,” she said to fill the uncomfortable silence, “I will reimburse you that hundred and fifty dollars.”
His work-coarse hand waved in dismissal. “It’ll all work out, Red. God will provide.”
“I heard that about God all my life, but it seems, well…” Her hands fretted Delia’s glove. “It seems like He didn’t pay much note to us. Neither did folks who claimed to follow Him. If He provided, I didn’t see it.”
Why had she said that? Oh, how embarrassing. She must be more fatigued than she realized.
He watched her but didn’t say anything, which was somehow more comforting than words. As if he didn’t judge her but wanted to know more. So she decided to tell him. To prove that she wasn’t quite the saloon girl he thought she was.
“After Ma died nine years ago, my father soothed his grief in drink. Ma’s church friends disapproved and disappeared. When Pa passed, we went to Uncle Uriah. It was—” Cold and frightening. But Mr. Bridge didn’t need to know that. “It was hard. Soon as I could, I taught music at a girls’ seminary, but I couldn’t leave Delia alone with him.” She glanced up to make sure he understood.
When he nodded, she looked at her lap again. “That’s why Delia and I took the job here. Uncle Uriah didn’t give us much choice, true, and he knew we’d be singing in a liquor hall. But when he saw dollar signs, we saw freedom. Don’t misunderstand. Delia and I want no part of saloons. But taking this job?” She looked him square in the eye. “We’d be together, and the job would be temporary. Just until we could go to a bigger city and audition for something decent.”
“And sing for your supper?” His eyes were soft.
“Like Jenny Lind.” The Swedish Nightingale. It felt foolish to speak of her dream aloud, but she’d already blurted out her life story, so why not? “Did you hear her when P. T. Barnum brought her to America?”
He shook his head. “I was running a ferry on the Rio Grande, but I read she was something.”
“She was.” A smile pulled her lips at the memory. “She sang at the train station in Boston. People wept at her voice, including me. And you know, she made over three hundred thousand dollars touring America.” When his brows lifted, she leaned toward him an inch. “That’s when I knew my voice could save me and Delia.”
Mr. Bridge’s gaze seemed to penetrate to her soul. “God did provide for you. He gave you your voice.”
“I never thought of it that way. But since I heard Jenny Lind sing, I’ve kept this to remind me what I need to do.”
She withdrew her token from her pocket and handed it to him. He weighed it in his callused palm, scrutinizing Jenny Lind’s face on the obverse and the lute on the reverse.
Georgie scuttled from the floor and leaned on his legs. “I know what I need, too, Pa. More of Miss Lily’s cookies.”
Clever girl. But Mrs. Phipps was right. Good manners required constant reinforcement. Lily leaned forward, as if about to impart a secret. “Perhaps Pa will say yes if you ask and say please.”
“Please, Pa, I want a cookie?”
“Just one.” He hadn’t finished speaking when she bolted from the salon.
“Hmph. I suppose the letter E will have to wait.” Mrs. Phipps bent to scoop the slate from the floor, where Cat sniffed at it.
“Tomorrow,” Lily began. It was hard to know how to phrase it. “Tomorrow Delia and I will figure something out.”
He handed her the token. It was warm from his hand. “Not to worry.”
After slipping the coin back in her pocket, Lily plunked her needle into the glove. Stopped. An acrid odor stung her nose. Her gaze flew to the low flames crackling in the hearth. And then she heard the soft cry.
The mending fell from Lily’s hands. “Fire!”
A cloud of smoke, thick and pungent, obscured the kitchen ceiling. Jackson hauled Georgie into his arms and passed her to Miss Red Kimball. “Get outside.”
She bent to grab a bucket before she dashed out. Water. Smart. He reached under the dry sink for the pail of sand, keeping his gaze fixed on the skillet of smoking char atop the range. He’d smothered the mess before Fred arrived, heavy towels in hand.
“No flames to beat out, but thanks.” A grating cough fought its way out Jackson’s chest. He reached into the dry sink where he’d noticed the kettle, but it was empty. He’d have to wait for a drink to wash the smoke out of his mouth. “Let’s air this place out.”
“Agreed.” Fred dropped the towels on the table. Within seconds the sounds of his heavy boot steps and windows scritching open carried down to the kitchen.
Miss Red returned with a sloshing bucket, but at seeing his inactivity, her shoulders relaxed. “Looks like you took care of it. What was it?”
“Something on the stove. I should get it outside.” But the cast-iron skillet was too hot to handle without padding, like a towel. He turned to the drying peg and found it empty. “Where’s the dish towel?”
“Drying on the veranda.” Her round cheeks pinked, but maybe it was the heat and smoke. “I found a clean one in the cupboard and hung it on the peg, though. Pretty bird embroidery on the hem in blues and greens.”
The bird towel was the last one Paloma embroidered before the illness that took her. But he didn’t see any bits of blue in the towels Fred dumped on the table. He did, however, see a thread of azure on the less-burned half of the skillet. “You sure you hung it on the peg?”
“Yes.” Then her widening eyes fixed on the skillet.
He wrapped the handle in one of the bath towels and hauled the offending pan out the kitchen door. Georgie clutched Miss Yellow’s leg, but at the sight of him and Miss Red, she ran toward him, only to grip Red’s skirt. “Is the house burning?”
“No, dear. We’re safe.” Miss Red’s voice soothed Georgie, but it needled Jackson.
It had been a year since Georgie had gone to anyone but him for comfort, and it felt jarring. But he supposed it was a healthy sign, because his daughter needed more than him in her life, didn’t she? Unsettled, he dropped the skillet on the rocks under the pump. Water hit the hot pan with an angry hiss that echoed his jangled nerves.
Miss Red looked to the veranda, where Aunt Martha sat in one of the Windsor chairs. “Are you well, Mrs. Phipps?”
“It smells awful.” She waved her hand over her nose. A lone dish towel flapped on the banister before her. Dread pooled in Jackson’s gullet.
“Georgie.” He kept his voice as calm and sweet as honeyed tea. “Did you put something on the stove when you went in for a cookie?”
“No.” Georgie patted the mud under the pump.
Red leaned into him, smelling like smoke and flowers. “She can’t reach the towel peg.”
“I know. I had to ask.” He took a long, deep breath. “Aunt Martha said she put the kettle on. Except the kettle was empty and in the dry sink just now.”
Lily’s mouth set in a grim line.
His mouth probably looked the same, through the cleaning of the kitchen until dark, when he, Fred, and Georgie set up beds in the hayloft. Within a minute, Georgie fell asleep between Jackson and the wall, her thumb securely in her mouth.
Jackson blew out his lantern and flopped atop his blanket—the loft was too warm to get under it. “I need Aunt Martha to help with Georgie, Fred. I can’t keep doing this by myself.”
“No, you can’t.” Fred shook out a quilt. “But maybe she isn’t the one to do it. The Kimball sisters are good with Georgie. And they owe you a heap of money. Seems like you could employ them until the coach comes.”
“Whoa, there. Paloma wouldn’t want me leaving Georgie with saloon gals.”
“Aw, you know they didn’t want to sing at a saloon. Sounds like that uncle of theirs was a harsh fellow, withholding food and blankets and such. Miss Delia told me.”
Jackson’s jaw tensed. The uncle sounded unloving and greedy, sending his nieces to work in a saloon. But starving them, too? If he ever met the fellow—
“Besides, Paloma would’ve been the first to welcome them into her home,” Fred added.
She would’ve. Jackson’s jaw relaxed. Fred was right about another thing: the Kimball sisters weren’t quite what he’d judged them to be. Talking to Red tonight, he’d realized she and her sister had gumption. He couldn’t help but admire it, even if he wasn’t so sure about them flaunting themselves for cowpokes.
Not that it was his business. “If Paloma were here, I wouldn’t be in the barn. I’d be in my own bed in the house.”
“I don’t know ’bout that, because the house would’ve burned down if not for Miss Lily’s sniffer. She and Miss Delia cooked a fine meal, too. Can’t argue with eatin’ somethin’ other than Ol’ Bill’s snake stew. ’Sides, Miss Delia was pleasant company. I wouldn’t mind someone like her sharin’ my house, once it’s finished.” Fred blew out his lantern, but not fast enough to hide the blotch of color pinking his cheeks.
Fred might be taken in, but Jackson wouldn’t be. Still, as he listened to the snuffles of his daughter, he couldn’t ignore the prickles of both the hay and his conscience irritating him. “I’ll think about it.”
“You do that. ’Cause I bet breakfast will be even better than supper.”
A hint of acrid smoke still pervaded the kitchen when Jackson sat at the table, but it was shooed away by tantalizing aromas when Red, pretty in a modest green dress, set the platter of bacon and fried eggs before him. Before he could blink she was at his side again with the coffeepot.
Fred wiggled his brows. See? I told you so.
After saying grace, Jackson cleared his throat. “Miss Kimball?”
Red looked up from pouring Aunt Martha’s coffee. “There are two Miss Kimballs, so you might as well call me Lily.”
It’d be hard not to call her Red, even in his mind. “Lily. Since you’re in town for two weeks with nowhere else to go, well, you can stay in the house for the duration. And if you still feel you’ve got to pay me back, I have an idea how.”
“That’s mighty kind of you, Mr. Bridge.” She sat in Paloma’s old chair. “How do you propose I find a hundred and fifty dollars in two weeks? Is there a gold mine on your property?”
A chuckle escaped his throat. Her joke made this a bit easier. “My name’s Jackson. And I have something more precious than gold. Georgie. Could you watch her? Cook, too, if you’d be so kind?”
Maybe in two weeks, God would have straightened everything out. Aunt Martha would be settled enough to take charge of Georgie. Or maybe someone else of high moral character would become available to watch his daughter.
Aunt Martha dabbed her thin lips with her napkin. “With me as chaperone, the arrangement sounds suitable.”
Delia’s tiny nod and eager eyes seemed to settle the deal for Lily, whose shoulders squared with determination and, no doubt, pride. “Thank you, Jackson. But I don’t think two weeks of housekeeping and childcare is equal to a hundred and fifty dollars. Room and board, perhaps—”
“Plus a stipend.” Please don’t refuse.
“I owe you more than I’d earn, and I will reimburse you, even if I must wire you the money at a future date. But for now, I’d be honored to watch Georgie in exchange for room and board. And a small stipend put toward my debt. For now.”
Relief filled his stomach, warmer than the coffee and eggs. A mighty strange feeling, considering he didn’t want the gals here in the first place. But Fred was right. The Kimballs were good with Georgie, and despite their intention to work in a saloon, they seemed to be decent womenfolk.
More than that, though, he’d prayed, and this seemed to be the best solution. For now, as Lily had said.
He ruffled Georgie’s hair, which one of the Kimball gals had curled with Paloma’s old tongs. “That suit you, pumpkin?”
Georgie shook her head.
“No?” He and Lily said at the same time.
Georgie’s arms folded. “I don’t think Miss Lily should be my watcher. I think she should be my mama.”