As he drew closer to the sound of the sheep, Peter picked out two distinct men’s voices, neither of which he could identify. A scrap of wool on a dead branch at the edge of the trail solidified his determination to retrieve his property.
What would he find when he reached the rustlers? How many men were involved? Could he and Colley handle them? And how were his sheep? He wasn’t as worried about the ones that had been rustled the night before, but rather the ones that were taken a while earlier. Had they been fed and watered properly? They were ready for shearing. Had their fleeces been damaged?
At his side, Colley grunted.
Peter glanced at his ranch manager. Colley pressed a finger to tightly compressed lips then jabbed a sharp chin toward the right branch of the slight fork in the trail ahead. Peter had never gone this far up the mountain, so he wasn’t familiar with the path. He hoped they wouldn’t have much farther to go. He wanted his sheep back, safe and sound, pasturing in their meadow. He needed Colley and Wade busy helping him shear the flock’s full coats and caring for the crop of newborn lambs.
Then he heard something he hadn’t expected. A puppy barked.
“Rustlers use puppies?” he asked Colley.
Grizzled brows drew close. “I never rustled nothing, so I can’t say. Like I toldja time and time again, I don’t figure any of this as a good idea, though. It’s not too late yet. Now we know where they are, we can head back on down the mountain and fetch Marshal Blair.”
“That’s crazy. It would take us much too long. We’re going in.”
“Not before we figure out what’s happening up ahead.”
“I’ll go slow, and you’ll figure it out fast.”
Colley glared at him but said no more. Peter edged his horse forward, glad the animal had a calm, even temperament and responded to his slightest touch.
Moments later, the trees thinned a bit as they rounded the trail. A rocky shelf jutted out over the curving path, looking much like a roof above the darkened, overgrown area. Just beyond the wooded end of the trail extended a small meadow. From where they paused, Peter could see the animals that more than likely belonged with the rest of his flock. At least the rustlers had brought them to where pasture was plentiful.
“Does that look like all the ones we’ve lost?” he asked Colley.
His manager cast an experienced look over the small flock. “Looks about right. They didn’t take even half overall, so I’d say that’s likely all of ’em. Don’t look like they hit any of the other ranchers yet, either. But it’s early spring. Plenty of time for them to keep it up.”
As they surveyed the site, they heard the angry complaints of a sheep, and noticed toward the right edge of the trail, under the rocky ledge, a rough-looking stranger. He strained hard against the large ram he’d leaned against his chest, while he held the animal’s legs in a firm clasp. With clumsy, clearly inexperienced motions, another fellow jabbed away, shearing the coat in ragged strips.
The ram slithered out of the first man’s clutches.
The man hollered. “Don’t jist stand there!”
The sad excuse for a shearer dropped the shears and ran after the animal. His compatriot chased after him.
The ram ran in circles.
The rustlers chased. In circles.
The ram cut back, leading the two men in a silly parade.
Peter shut his eyes, hoping he’d merely awoken from a bad dream. When he opened them again, he realized his eyes hadn’t deceived him. It was all too true. The two fools had stolen his sheep, and now they’d driven a superb ram to distraction.
He ground his teeth, seething deep inside. Nothing had better happen to the animal due to their ignorance.
“That fool better not hurt that animal.” Furious, Colley echoed Peter’s thoughts. “I’ll not stand for nothing like—”
“Thought you were ready to head for Bountiful.” Peter couldn’t stop the touch of humor in spite of the situation. His immediate move to action had now been validated. “Are you ready to agree with me? That coming after the flock was the right thing to do?”
Eyes rolling, Colley kneed Sultan, a fiery although remarkably responsive stallion, forward.
“Wait!” Peter called in a loud whisper. “What’s our plan?”
“Plan? To get the sheep back where they belong, that’s the plan. What else is there to do?”
It looked to Peter as though they’d traded instincts in the blink of an eye. They’d seen the truth right before them, and now Colley’s earlier concern warred against the instinctive outrage of the ludicrous scene. In the end, though, the situation did call for a healthy measure of caution.
“Hold on,” Peter said. “Let’s watch for a short bit, get some idea of what they’re up to—other than shearing my sheep. We don’t even know how many of them are part of the scheme.”
Colley scoffed. “You didn’t seem to think that mattered much back at the camp, now did you? Besides, it don’t look like there’s more’n the two of them fools butchering that wool coat. Let’s go before they ruin any more of it.”
With the element of surprise on their side, and Colley’s pistol as well as Peter’s shotgun aimed at the clumsy shearers, Peter and the ranch manager rode forward into clear view.
Which only made the situation worse. One of the bumbling fools ran toward the woods, while the other sped toward the sheep.
As Peter took off after the one headed for his animals, he thought he heard a woman scream, “Get him, get him, get him!”
He cast a brief glance over his shoulder, but saw nothing and no one. He resumed his chase at a full gallop. The outlaw, shorter than Colley and heavier than Peter, didn’t run as fast as his pursuer on horseback. Peter caught up to him in no time. The man stumbled, and Peter drew his horse to a halt and quietly dismounted. As he grasped the man’s shirt collar with one fist, he dropped his shotgun and pulled his arm back to take a swing.
“No, no!” He heard the high-pitched voice again, as his captive struggled in his clasp. “Don’t drop the gun. He’s got one, too.”
He’d never been prone to wild imaginations or fanciful notions before. He supposed the challenge of the moment could affect him in an unexpected and unwelcome way.
The rustler caught Peter with a kick to the shin. He turned his attention back to the man, and aimed his fist square at the thief’s nose.
The high-pitched voice again rang out. “Oh, good! Hit him hard…”
Peter paused. Again.
He tightened his grasp so his prisoner couldn’t slip away, and found and took the gun at his hip. In the distance, he heard Colley’s shouts and the other outlaw’s muffled responses. It sounded as though the ranch manager had things under control on that end.
His captive shook himself, but Peter hung on.
“Let’s go.” He swooped down and picked up his shotgun before the man could respond to his abrupt movement. He shook his prisoner and pointed him toward the cave. “Don’t know what I’m going to do about all this, but I reckon I’ll think about it on the way. I have to get those animals back where they belong.”
The man let out yet another stream of curses, as he’d done from the moment he’d realized he and his partner in crime were no longer alone.
In moments, he and Colley had the two thieves subdued, hands tied at their backs. The stream of foul words that continued to pour from the older outlaw’s mouth singed the cool, spring evening air.
As Peter and Colley mounted their horses and went to herd the flock toward the trail, the younger of their two captives came to a full stop. “Wait!” he called. “We cain’t be leaving just yet. We’re not… ah… all of us together.”
“What are you talking about?”
The younger man glanced toward the darkened area under the rocky overhang, a worried expression on his face, but he didn’t speak. Peter followed his gaze, and when he didn’t see anything of particular interest, he urged his horse a step toward what, on closer study, appeared to be a cave.
A dog barked inside.
True, it was the least impressive bark Peter had heard in a long time, and well muffled, too, but he had no doubt. There was a dog inside the cave. He turned to the rustler.
“I’m glad you mentioned your dog,” he said as he swung down from the saddle. “I would hate to leave the poor thing out here all alone. It wouldn’t live long on its own.”
Still, a dog didn’t explain the voice he’d heard, or thought he’d heard.
Worry pleated the young outlaw’s forehead, while the older thief stopped his curses long enough to laugh out loud. When Peter spared the two crooks a final glare as he ducked into the cave, however, neither spoke. He shook his head. Why had he bothered to look back? Livestock thieves were the lowest sorts. Who knew what mattered to them besides their unlawful gains?
Moving slowly, Peter went deeper into the cave. His eyes took a bit to adjust to the lack of light. As he went, he clicked his tongue and began to call out to the dog. “Hey, there. Where are you? I won’t hurt you. Come on out with us. We’ll take care of you.”
The dog whined, but to Peter’s ears, it didn’t sound like much of a herding dog, certainly no good working dog’s deep bark. This one’s sounded thin, spindly… maybe the animal was hurt?
He drew a deep breath, bracing for what he might find, and dropped to his knees, clicking his tongue again. If those two thieves had hurt a dog, on top of stealing his flock, why—
A small ball of white fluff tore out of the dark and ran up onto his lap.
“Oh, no!” a child cried.
A child? No… not quite a child’s voice.
What had he heard? No, no. Who had he heard?
Had he found whoever he’d heard before?
The ball of fluff on Peter’s lap stood on its hind paws, its small body stretched up so it could sniff his chest and chin. If he wasn’t mistaken, thinking back to when he lived in Ohio, this was a rich lady’s kind of pet—some fancy, French dog, playful but useless. And still a puppy, for that matter, only months old. Still, what was it doing in a cave on a mountain in Oregon with a pair of sheep rustlers? Had they stolen it, too?
Of course, the two prisoners weren’t the only ones there.
“Who are you?” he called. “Come out, or I’m coming after you.”
Silence.
With one arm, Peter scooped up the pup, who continued to nuzzle and lick his chin, quite happy to be held by a stranger. Jaw set, he stepped deeper into the dark. Someone hid back there and he meant to find whoever it was. He’d see all three of them brought to justice.
He tried again. “I said, you’d best come out now.”
A heartbeat went by.
Another.
Finally, with a slow, measured rustle of motion, a body took shape no more than six feet to his left. He fixed his gaze on the figure… then blinked. And blinked again.
He shook his head. Stared straight ahead, squinting to try and focus more clearly, certain the darkness was playing tricks with his eyes—or maybe his mind. He couldn’t be seeing what he thought he was seeing. It was impossible.
This surely had to be the single most outlandish find a body could make in a cave on a forest-covered mountain.
A lady stood before him, outfitted in tired ruffles of lacy stuff down her front, a fancy fitted orangey-buff-colored jacket with a droopy black bow over one shoulder and matching black trim down the lapels, a big full skirt made of the same stuff, and a large flood of some other dark fabric draped over an arm.
Impossible, of course. He blinked again.
Nothing changed. Again.
“He-hello,” the impossible apparition said.
Peter nearly dropped the dog.
The lady’s dog.
Because, as unlikely as it might be, a fancy society lady did indeed stand before him at the rear of a mountainside cave.
He drew a deep breath. He was the only man he knew who had had something like this happen to him. But he would do what he had to do, the only thing he could do.
He would take them all to his summer camp.
And he would pray.
All the way there.
Emma would never forget the first time she set eyes on Peter Lowery. Not that she’d known the sheep rancher’s name at that point. She learned it a short while later.
At first, when she heard the commotion outside the cave, her heart had leaped at the thought that help had come. But, cautious and unsure of what might await her outside, she remained frozen at the rear of the cave, her hand clutched around Pippa’s muzzle. She hoped the little dog didn’t betray their hiding place, at least, not until Emma was sure the newcomers weren’t the infamous Dwight and Tobias. If there was one thing she knew, it was that Sawyer and Ned, rough as they were, feared the other two.
She had enough wisdom to fear them, herself.
Before long, however, she realized the newcomers were strangers to her captors. She crept to the mouth of the cave, only to watch Mr. Lowery catch Sawyer and Colley chase after Ned. As soon as the newcomers had subdued the crooks, she scurried back to her spot in the back. From the hubbub taking place a few feet beyond the opening, she understood that Ned and Sawyer had suffered the same fate as she had. Since her captors had now become captives themselves, she had no idea how she might fare.
Not long afterward, Mr. Lowery’s tall, powerful frame had blocked what light came into the cave. His torso appeared as broad as the chest of Sawyer’s hefty horse, and although caution undergirded his movements, he strode with ease and a sense of command. Right away, he caught and held her attention. This wasn’t a man to ignore.
His wide-brimmed western hat obscured his features, but the rest of his clothes spoke volumes about him. While Sawyer’s and Ned’s garments had worn through at the knees and gathered abundant quantities of soil elsewhere, this man wore clean if faded denim dungarees, a blue cambric shirt open at the neck, and what looked like some kind of undergarment in a bright shade of red beneath the rest. He’d topped everything with a brown leather vest, while on his feet he wore the narrow-toed boots with the considerable heel many western men favored, since they spent so much time in the saddle.
If this fellow came with ill intent, Emma knew herself sunk. She had nowhere to go, and he had the air of someone who meant business. There was no naive youthfulness like Ned’s to him, nor did she suspect the lack of smarts she’d identified in Sawyer. This man struck her as serious, determined, someone who knew his mind and would stick to his principles. From what she’d overheard, he’d come after the sheep her captors had stolen from him. He wasn’t one to be trifled with.
She hoped to learn he also had a conscience. From the look of things, she had nowhere to go but with him.
Pippa seemed to like something about the sheep rancher. She’d slipped from Emma’s grasp and scrambled up to greet him—the little traitor. Dread filled her gut. She had no alternative but to place herself at his mercy. She prayed for a good measure of virtue in the heart that resided somewhere within that powerful chest.
She stood, shoulders squared, when his serious tone took on a hint of threat as he called for her to come out.
All she managed to eke out was a weak, “He—hello.”
Why? Why did her voice have to crack at just such a time? At the very moment when she most needed to appear strong and confident? Instead, she must be giving him the impression of a silly girl.
His attention unwavering, he shook his head a couple of times then cleared his throat. The whole time, he held on to her dog. Perhaps she should start there.
“Could I please have my dog back?”
Clearly, it was the wrong question to ask. He stumbled back, and then spun on his heel to head outside, his strides long, firm, determined. In the interest of precision, she’d have to say he had stalked out of the cave.
Oh, dear. What now?
She didn’t have to wait long. At the end of yet another hushed conversation nearby, another person, this one older and squatter but garbed like Mr. Lowery, entered the cave. “Never woulda thought it possible, ma’am,” he said in a raspy voice, as he rubbed a tanned cheek. “A lady like you with a coupla bums like these.”
Emma decided it might be the better part of valor to keep her response to herself. He didn’t seem to notice her discretion, though, since he went ahead with what he clearly had been sent to say. “We’re about to get along out of here, and you can’t be staying behind alone. Dunno how long it’ll take us to get the sheep back to the pasture where we summer the boss’s flock, but you’re gonna have to make the best of it. So are we.”
“Oh, dear!” She glanced down at her once-lovely calf leather boots. “More walking…”
The man shook his head and gestured for her to precede him out of the cave. “Not for you. Boss says you’ll be riding his horse, even if it might could be some uncomfortable with that there”—he waved toward her clothes—“with them fussy things you’re wearing. No proper riding clothes, those.”
Emma shrugged and tried to catch a glimpse of the crusty cowboy’s face, but the hat shielded his features remarkably well. It seemed to be the common fashion up here. “They were perfectly suitable for my trip to Portland by carriage. I never did plan to be left behind in the woods during a holdup.”
“A holdup, you say?” He sounded bemused. “And the driver left after that without you? Left you at the mercy of those two out there?”
She tipped up her nose and followed him to a tree where two horses stood, their reins looped over a low branch. “Indeed.”
The younger men turned away, affording her a measure of modesty, and Colley, as the older cowboy told her to call him, helped her settle onto a tall mare’s back. When she was ready, Mr. Lowery took Ned’s horse, while Colley and Sawyer, hands tied at the wrist, mounted their own. Ned, as eager to please the newcomers as he’d been her, had offered to help herd the sheep, promising he’d give his captors no trouble at all.
“Don’t you go forgetting,” Colley told him, jaw squaring into an uncompromising rocky ledge, “I have my gun. You try something on us, and I promise you’ll wear the memory of your fool choice on a leg the rest of your life. You already stole from the boss here more’n once. You give me a third reason, and my gun goes off.”
“Don’t you go worrying, Colley. I’m not ’bout to do nothing that foolish. I sure do fancy my legs a whole lot stayin’ right as they are. Anyway, you can trust me. I promise you.”
Ned’s eager expression made Emma glance down at Pippa. Mr. Lowery had returned her dog, who now sat comfortably in a puddle of crushed velvet traveling-suit skirt. Slowly, with three of the men working the sheep—two on horseback, Ned trotting on foot—Sawyer complaining, and Emma, who put up a valiant fight to stay upright on the horse, they traveled down a narrow trail, rutted, twisty, and scattered at frequent intervals with substantial broken branches.
Later, much, much later, when the sparkling stars dotted the inky fabric of the sky and the moon lent its silver gleam to illuminate the path for their odd troupe, they arrived at a large meadow where more sheep milled about. Emma sighed in relief as her horse came to a stop. She looked forward to a hot bath and a good night’s sleep. As she anticipated curling up for the much-needed slumber, a breeze picked up the tumbled curls on her forehead. She shivered. A thick and heavy wool blanket on a fluffy feather bed would be an absolute necessity. Even though spring had come, they remained partway up the Blue Mountains, and night air still bore the bite of cold.
As she waited for Colley to come and help her dismount, Emma looked around, trying to orient herself.
An awful sense of dismay poured onto her, drip by drip, until it saturated her. The stark reality of her circumstances overwhelmed her. She saw… nothing. Nothing but trees and sheep. No kind of shelter anywhere. At least the cave had provided that much.
Surely this wasn’t where they’d been headed.
This was… well, nothing. She realized she couldn’t even see the men she had ridden in with.
Where had they gone?
“Um… Colley?” she called out. “How soon before we set out on our way again?”
“Huh?” The cowboy emerged from among nearby trees. “On our way to where?”
“Well, to… um… Mr. Lowery’s sheep… place? Farm? Ranch?”
For a moment, the older cowboy didn’t answer. Then he drew his felt hat off, slapped it against his thigh, and laughed. “You sure don’t hail from these parts, now do you, Miss Emma? We’re here. This is it, ma’am. This camp here is home for the summer months.”
“Here?” Her voice went up to a shrill pitch. “What do you mean, here? Why, there’s nothing here. Just sheep. And trees.”
It was more than obvious to any sane soul. She couldn’t stay here. Of course not. Surely, they couldn’t either. There was no house anywhere to be seen. Cowboy or city woman, both needed a roof over his or her head.
“Yup, ma’am,” Colley said, still chuckling. “This is it. Home for the rest of May, June, July, August, and likely a bit of September, too. And there ain’t much in these parts, I’ll give you that, but there’s enough. Plenty pasture for the sheep, clean water for all, and the boss has himself a nice little cabin here. He built the hands a fair bunkhouse not too far, neither. You’ll see.”
“Colley!” Mr. Lowery bellowed.
“On my way, boss,” the cowboy answered then scurried away.
Emma’s words died off as Colley made his way across the clearing to the shadows on the other side again. That’s when it dawned on her. At the very top of Colley’s head, where it had hidden under the straw hat, sat a large, tight silver-gray bun. Colley was no cowboy.
Colley was a woman!
The realization stole her breath, made her thoughts spin, and started up a horrid humming at her ears. It all conspired to leave her quite lightheaded.
Emma clutched the saddle horn, hoping to keep herself upright. She didn’t relish a fall off and the rough landing that would follow. Thank goodness she’d ridden a western-style saddle. English saddles lacked that prominent feature at the very front.
“A woman… Colley is a woman.” Emma’s thoughts spun back to when she’d first heard him… well, her speak. That raspy voice hadn’t sounded right. Now she knew why. Sure, it had a low and growly quality to it, but it didn’t sound anything like a man should. It made sense now.
She watched the older woman disappear into the darkness of the trees. Who would have thought? What would make a woman turn herself into… well, that? Emma couldn’t comprehend it.
From her end of the clearing, she heard Colley chase a lamb out of the woods and toward the larger cluster she could just make out in a spill of moonlight. The nearness of that many animals disturbed her, but not nearly as much as did finding herself all alone.
In the dark.
And cold.
“Hello?” she called out after a few minutes’ wait. “I’m back here!”
No response came her way, as she remained on her perch atop the horse. With a dog on her lap. And she needed… um… her own “constitutional.”
Since none of the men came to her rescue, even after she’d given them a handful of minutes to do so, Emma decided they’d left her to her own devices. She would have to get herself off the mountain of horse. Oh, goodness. She did not like the prospect.
While she had gone riding any number of times, in London as well as in Denver, these men—and even Colley—hadn’t and wouldn’t be able to provide her with a proper lady’s sidesaddle. Her dilemma was immediate. Nothing nearby provided the opportunity for her to step down from this great height with any measure of feminine grace and dignity. At least the animal seemed placid enough. She hoped it wouldn’t skitter away when she slid down its side.
First, however, she had to figure out what she ought to do with Pippa… ah, yes! She’d button the puppy inside her jacket. After all, the garment was ruined through and through. It didn’t matter if Pippa’s modest bulk stretched the velvet past its original shape. It would prevent her pet from falling, being trampled, and keep her snuggled close to Emma, should the horse shy away.
Moments later, with Pippa inside the jacket, Emma wriggled over onto her belly, legs flailing in the air, and began a controlled slither down the horse’s side, bemoaning her petite stature the whole way. No sooner had she started, however, than her plan failed. She plummeted in one fast swoosh to the ground.
“Ooooof!”
She somehow managed to land with her feet squarely under her, but her knees buckled from the momentum and gave under her weight. She landed in a crumpled heap of ballooned skirt and twisted legs on a carpet of soft, damp grass. A moment later, her green wool cloak oozed down the back of her head and a shoulder to pool off to a side.
Tears of misery stung her eyes, but she refused to give in. She had to stay strong.
Pippa yelped her objection to such disgraceful treatment.
Emma scrambled upright and swiped at her damp eyes with the back of a hand. She stomped in the direction where Colley had vanished, but saw nothing of note. Where had the woman gone?
She turned, scanning the meadow, but of course, saw only sheep. As she continued to turn, her angle changed, and she spotted the mellow gleam of golden lamplight within a cluster of trees at the farthest edge of the clearing.
So that was where they’d all vanished.
A house… food, even.
Perhaps.
That morning, she’d been sure she had left her appetite behind ages ago. The chunk of greasy bacon Ned had offered had been inedible, and no amount of hunger made it possible to choke it down. The biscuit next to it had been hard as rock. But her stomach gave off a good grumble, as though to remind her of its empty condition. Aside from that, she was exhausted, and being left out in the cold and dark didn’t sit well with her. Shoulders squared and head high, she marched toward the light, good and ready to give those scoundrels a piece of her mind.
When she drew close, she saw the outline of the cabin Colley had mentioned. Just outside the modest building, she took a deep breath, and then yanked open the door. “I do not appreciate being abandoned while you all have meandered inside to warm yourselves…”
Her scolding dried up. Instead of her companions from the trail, in the structure she found a young man she’d never seen before and a child. A sleepy boy, who sat up in a bunk and rubbed his eyes.
“Who are you?” he asked.
Pippa yipped and popped her head out the top of Emma’s jacket.
The young man gaped.
The boy chortled.
Something broke loose inside Emma, and a tear finally rolled down her cheek. Would her nightmare never end?
The next morning, Emma awoke in the bunk where she’d first seen Robert—Robby, as he’d said to call him—Mr. Lowery’s son. When the rancher and Colley returned after they’d marched Sawyer and Ned to the bunkhouse, they moved the boy up to what clearly had been his father’s bed, built into the wall above Robby’s bunk, and Emma was offered the one the boy previously had occupied.
Robby was thrilled; Emma horrified.
They expected her to sleep out in the open? In an area where everyone seemed to come and go all the time? The cabin was nothing more than one large room with two or three doors to the outside. Anyone could walk in at any time. Besides, the child could gape down at her whenever he awoke. Not that she imagined he would do her any harm, but she’d never had to sleep with another person in the same room.
And yet, she hadn’t had the heart to object. From what she came to understand, the only other structure at the summer camp was the bunkhouse Mr. Lowery had built to house his ranch hands. It would now house Wade, the young man who’d cared for Robby, Sawyer, Ned, and Mr. Lowery, himself. He was moving there to afford Emma the relative privacy of the cabin. Colley had her own tiny room in the lean-to attached to the right side of the cabin. One of the doors led to it.
The rancher was doing what he could.
When her bottom lip quivered again, she bit down hard on it. She hadn’t even been able to remove her dirty, dusty, sticky, and much too uncomfortable suit. As much as she hated to climb into Robby Lowery’s bed in her disgracefully dirty outfit, she didn’t feel she had a choice. Colley had offered some of her shirts and denim trousers. But since she was a head and more taller than Emma, and outweighed her by a good amount of muscle, none of it would fit. And while the offer was quite generous, she must also have left her wits out in the woods. Emma couldn’t envision the time or pressure that might compel her to wear men’s clothes.
Unlike Colley. Evidently, that was all she ever wore.
In view of all that, Emma had, at the very least, removed her jacket.
Oh, how Emma wanted a long, hot, luxurious bath, fragrant with the French lavender extract Aunt Sophia knew she favored, and a thick, fluffy cotton towel for drying off afterward. Instead, she’d washed hands and face in a wide bowl filled with water Colley ladled from the large kettle that hung from an iron rod over the hearth. Somehow, they managed to cook meals there, but she couldn’t imagine how. There was no proper cookstove anywhere in sight, like those Aunt Sophia’s and Ophelia’s kitchens boasted. Just a fireplace and a rod.
So much for the civilization she hoped to find. This certainly wasn’t it.
Fully awake, and in the light of day, she took a good look at her surroundings, only to have her dismay grow greater still. The structure was rough and consisted of scarcely more than four walls with some grayish-white… stuff crammed in between the logs, a roof, and a plank floor. Two chairs and three stools surrounded a table that looked as though someone had thrown it together from leftover floorboards and a handful of nails. More of those additional flat planks had been pressed into use as shelves on the walls. They held cooking pans, plates, cups, and a variety of other items Emma couldn’t begin to identify.
A couple of fairly attractive gray, blue, and brown braided rugs lay strewn around the floor. Their rustic charm contrasted nicely with the simple rocking chair at one side of the hearth, and made it appear delicate and elegant and lovely, indeed. Clearly, the chair belonged to a woman, but Emma had yet to see any sign of female habitation besides Colley. The chair did not bring Colley to mind. There was, of course, nowhere for another woman to hide. One worth her salt would run from the place screaming. As Emma meant to do. Straight away.
Then again, since this was Mr. Lowery’s place, and Emma would only stay here until the men helped her return to Bountiful—immediately—she didn’t let herself dwell on the missing owner of the rocker for long. A huge yawn struck her and she stretched. At her side, Pippa rolled over, wiggling her paws in the air. Emma scratched her pet’s belly and wondered when someone, Colley probably, would come and prepare a meal. She’d been offered, and had accepted, a hunk of decent bread and a thick slice of cold mutton the night before. She’d been so hungry it had tasted almost as exquisite as the finest, juiciest filet mignon she’d enjoyed in London.
It made sense to take Pippa out for her constitutional before Colley—or worse, the stern Mr. Lowery—walked in and found her lazing in the bed. She wasn’t a child like Robby to sleep till all hours. Glad she’d stuffed Pippa’s rope in her skirt pocket before she dropped off to sleep the night before, Emma now attached it to the dog, then stepped down from the bunk.
And straight into a cold puddle, undoubtedly courtesy of her pet. “Oh, dear, Pippa! You naughty girl. You’ve done so well this far, going outside all the time. Why would you ever do this now, inside Mr. Lowery’s house… er… cabin?”
Pippa yawned.
“What’s that?” Robby asked in a sleepy voice, head hanging upside down from his bunk, precisely as Emma had imagined when she first saw the bunks’ setup the night before.
She looked in every direction, seeking something with which to clean up her dog’s mess. “She’s my dog.”
“Not the dog. I can see that. I meant what you spilled there on the floor. Papa doesn’t like it when I spill things. Too much lamb’s wool comes in on his clothes, he says, and it can stick to the floor. Is your spill sticky?”
Sticky? “No, no.” And she would clean it before Mr. Lowery or his wool were to come close, so stickiness wouldn’t matter. What could she use?
Aha! Over there by the hearth. A length of plain muslin hung from a nail stuck in the wall. Emma ran across the cold floor, snagged the cloth, and hurried back to mop up the mess. Just as she finished, the cabin door opened and Colley, Wade, and Mr. Lowery walked in. They found her on her knees in the most undignified pose, swabbing away at her dog’s—
“Miss Emma!” Colley cried. “Is something wrong? Did you fall?”
Her cheeks burned, and she wished she might simply melt down through the rough planks of the floor. She scrambled up and clutched the sodden fabric at her back. “No, no! I’m fine—”
“Something dripped, Papa,” Robby offered.
She almost groaned, and had to fight the powerful urge to muzzle the boy, since he really hadn’t done anything wrong. It was Pippa who’d erred, so Emma kept her peace.
Robby went on. “Miss Emma was just cleaning it up. I told her how you don’t like sticky stuff on the floor. She says it weren’t sticky or nothing—”
“Wasn’t, anything,” Emma murmured automatically.
Robby said, “Huh?”
The men stared.
Emma blushed hotter than before. “I’m sorry. I just meant that the correct way to say it would be ‘wasn’t sticky or anything.’ Mrs. Carrington, one of my teachers, came to mind. Don’t ask me why.”
“You had teachers?” Robby asked, his eyes wide as saucers.
“You don’t?” she countered, her eyes likely as wide.
Mr. Lowery cleared his throat. “Robert lives on a sheep ranch, Miss Crowell. In the summers, he’s here at the camp. You don’t see a schoolhouse anywhere, do you?”
She stared down, noting her bare toes, which she curled to hide them under the filthy hem of her skirt. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about that—I didn’t think at all. I just… just—oh, never mind. I’m sorry, Robby. Truly, I am. I didn’t mean anything by my words.”
The silence lengthened, and Emma felt worse by the second. She hadn’t meant to make anyone feel less worthy, certainly not by a bit of grammatical correction. It had just burst out, a memory from her childhood. In any case, she wouldn’t be here long enough for that kind of mistake to happen again.
She donned a brilliant smile. “So, then, gentlemen. How soon do we leave for Bountiful?”
As though they’d practiced the maneuver a dozen times, every one of the three men opened his mouth and gaped.