Jo and Birdie had started to clear the table, and Buck gave the nod to Van to light the torches on the porch posts. Gabe and Van followed the routine they’d perfected over the years. Gabe slipped inside, gathered up two of the oil lamps from the dining room sideboard, lit them, and set them on the table on the porch.
“Would anyone care for a cup of tea or coffee?” Birdie asked from the doorway of the kitchen. Behind her, the sounds of water and the tinkle and thunk of cookware being cleaned teased the imagination as Jo efficiently washed the supper dishes.
In unison, Doreen and Adella chose tea. Edditha agreed, tea would be wonderful. Birdie nodded. “Right, tea for the ladies.”
She waved her hand over her head on her way back inside. “I don’t have to ask you, Daddy, I know what you men want. I’ll fetch the cigars and the whiskey glasses.”
Buck leaned back in his chair and patted his full stomach. “This time of year, you’re lucky to get a cabin all to yourself, Norquist. Dave Thurman, you know Dave? He and his wife Gloria made their reservation last year to celebrate their fortieth wedding anniversary here with us.”
Gabe shook his head, refusing the offered cigar from the box of Havanas Buck started to pass around. But Corney, Buck discerned, intended to get his money’s worth. Taking full advantage of Hot Spring’s hospitality, he greedily accepted the treat, taking it and rolling it between his fingers first before putting it to his nose to savor the enticing aroma of tobacco.
Buck continued his theme. “Yeah, they’d planned on a big get-together here with all their kith and kin. But they canceled at the last minute. Then we got a letter from the Calveras. They’d planned a family reunion the end of this month.”
Buck struck a match and put it to the end of his cigar. He sucked in the flame, drew the smoke into his mouth and then slowly released it, expelling the smoke up to the stars. “We had a lot of reservations. But we always have room in the house for Gabe and a couple of guests. But if everything panned out, with all those guests here, somebody like you, dropping by like you did, might’ve ended up bunking in the barn with the livestock.”
He rested his cigar on the charger plate Birdie used to serve the shot glasses. He began to pour the whiskey and pass the glasses around one by one. After everyone was served, he leaned back, took a long, thoughtful draw on his cigar and pulled it out of his mouth to study it for a second or two. “Funny thing about those reservations,” he said to the glowing end of his cigar. “The Calveras made their reservation a year ago. Here, all at once, we received an avalanche of cancellations. Now we’ve no reservations for the summer at all.”
His eyes boring a hole in Cornell’s head, Buck stated, “That’s never happened before. Seems kind of odd, don’t you think? Make’s a fella suspicious something or someone got to our guests. Somehow, somebody, some low-life skunk, convinced them they shouldn’t come to the hot spring this year. But who’d want to do a thing like that, is what we have to ask ourselves. Why? Why would anyone want to do a thing like that?”
Buck missed Cornell’s mumbled response. He was distracted when Birdie, standing in the kitchen doorway, waggled her fingers above her curly head to catch Doreen’s attention.
Buck was familiar with the signal. The ladies were planning to slip off to enjoy the hot spring. He kept his mouth shut and let Van take charge of the discussion while he enjoyed watching the ladies try to make good their escape without disrupting the conversation.
Doreen rose, leaned down, and planted a kiss on Rafe’s cheek. Buck heard her murmured excuse. “I think I’ll go soothe away the cares of the day in the hot spring.”
“Edditha, Adella,” Doreen said to the young woman across from her then to her mother, “I hope you both will join us. I believe the girls are done with the supper dishes. They’re waiting for us to join them.”
Adella rose to her feet. “Gentlemen, you’ll have to excuse me. I, for one, have been waiting to partake of the hot spring ever since I read your brochure, Buck, and I intend to take advantage of your lovely pool every chance I can get.”
Buck grinned at her and nodded. “Nice to know someone read my brochure. Van thought them a waste of money.”
“Not at all,” she said, her hand sliding from his arm to his back and then to his shoulder as she walked around his chair. “So far you’ve lived up to all my expectations. The scenery—breathtaking, the food—sublime, the accommodations—charming, and the host and hostesses make one feel right at home just as your brochure promised.”
Van barely waited for the ladies to disappear into the kitchen before he took up where Buck left off. “We had thirty-two reservations. They all canceled,” he said, directing his statement at Cornell. “They all canceled within a few days of one another. Just lousy coincidence you think, like seven head of cattle dying all at once for no reason at all. Sure, a run of bad luck, and then, a miracle, you and your Pa come along with this deal to take rock out of the canyon and wave a wad of cash in front of our faces. You come along, giving us hope we might be able to stay afloat for a while longer, until the next run of bad luck, that is. Seems almost providential how your pa’s deal saved us from going under. And today you accidentally blast the wrong side of the canyon—one more coincidence, one more accident? I think we have to wonder what the hell is going on around here. How do you and your Pa figure into all of this happenstance—the cancellations, the cattle dying, everything, you blasting accidentally right where you were specifically instructed not to blast?”
Cornell set his empty shot glass on the table and tapped the ashes from his cigar over the railing of the porch into the dust. “I don’t see what the cancellations of your guests or a few head of cattle have to do with our contract for the rock in the canyon. The railroad needs rock. Pa means to supply rock. The orders I got gave specific instructions where to set those charges. I followed orders to the letter. It’s what I do.”
Van jumped on his statement, asking, “And your pa gave you those instructions?”
“Yeah, he gave me the instructions,” Cornell said, his lips curling up into a snarl.
“So, that proves it,” Van said, his voice rising as he lunged forward in his chair.
Gabe turned a little sideways to speak to Cornell. He made eye contact with him. “You say you got your instructions from your pa? Did you see the contract where Dad outlined where the markers were going to be set? Did your pa actually outline the instructions for you, I mean personally?”
Cornell pulled in a deep breath, held it, and then released it. “Well, no, I didn’t see the contract. I leave that end of things to Pa. And no, he didn’t read them out loud to me, if that’s what you’re asking. I got the instructions like I always do. Pa lines out the jobs and sends them over to me by one of the boys the night before the job. That’s how Pa and I work. Usually, his assistant writes them up, Pa dictates. He just hired a new man, come to think about it. I haven’t met him. I don’t even know his name.”
The ladies emerged from the kitchen doorway, Adella and Doreen arm in arm and Edditha between Jo and Birdie. They were giggling about something. Buck figured men didn’t need to know what, but it sure was a pretty sight, the ladies all rosy cheeked and merry. It gave his sore heart a lift. He really needed this distraction, a way out of his grief, if only for a little while.
As the flock of females stepped off the porch, they all heard Birdie assure Edditha, “You don’t need a bathing costume. Jo and I usually jump in buck-naked, but with guests, we keep on our drawers and chemises. It’s just us ladies, no men allowed in the pool or even in the shelter. We’ll have all the privacy we need for as long as we want.”
Cornell busted out laughing and choked on his cigar smoke.
Over her shoulder, Birdie yelled back, “Mind your own beeswax, Corney Norquist. If we catch you peeking, we’ll toss your sorry butt in the rushes with the frogs and mosquitoes. And you know we can.”
Buck grinned. Gabe turned red as a poppy. Even in the dark, the boy practically glowed. When he groaned and put his head in his hands, Buck speculated as to the cause. It could be the vision of all those beauties down there in the water swimming around in their underwear had him discombobulated, or it could be Birdie’s candid recommendation or her advice to Cornell. Could be all of it. Everything Birdie did and said, even what she didn’t say, Buck suspected, had the boy all mixed up. Not a bad thing. Nope, it was about time.
Covertly, he’d watched them during the meal. They’d sat there quietly, trying to ignore each other, while anyone could see the sparks zapping between their bodies when either one of them twitched or spoke or sighed. He didn’t know if they’d ever manage to turn those sparks of passion into deep, abiding love.
Gabe hated upheaval and turbulence, and Birdie-Alice caused turbulence wherever she went. She thrived on it. If ever they did decide to take each other on, Buck had no doubt it would be a fiery match, but a good one.
He admitted he’d felt a spark or two himself tonight, and he wasn’t real comfortable with the feeling. The problem was the sensation didn’t instantly disgust him. On the contrary, he found it quite pleasant. Who could resist Adella’s infectious smile? Her optimistic and cheerful demeanor captivated and intrigued him.
Immediately, he saw in his mind’s eye an image of Adella, her plump, white bosoms bobbing in the water and her pink nipples erect. It set a flame to burning within his breast, bringing to life the heart he’d allowed to grow cold, dark, and lonely. Thoughts of another woman besides Petra had him feeling defensive.
His grief upon losing Petra banished all desire from his body, or so he’d thought. Adella awakened something, the dormant stirrings of passion. He hadn’t realized how much he missed having a happy woman around. The sound of a woman’s giggle, the spark of interest when he spoke, the warm touch of a feminine hand lightly resting on his shoulder—he’d missed that.
And she was a widow, too. He’d made note of it right off the bat. Shamefully, she really did intrigue him. The thought of taking another wife skittered across his mind, and he promptly pronounced himself a treasonous bastard. He told himself such thoughts were disloyal to Petra’s memory. Then the guilt set in because he didn’t want to stop flirting with the lovely, lively Adella.
She’d set his blood to pumping the second she’d introduced herself. Recognition and memories hit him like a landslide. The Adella of twenty-seven years ago, the one in his memory, remained a scared fifteen-year-old kid trying to get her brother out of the middle of the street all by herself after the thugs beat the crap out of him. Buck helped her get her brother up to their little barrack above the apothecary shop. And he’d given her some cash to buy food. At the time, he’d been nosing around, trying to get information he could use to help protect Petra against Gabe’s father, Beau, and his brother Kurt Laski.
Adella Ridenhour, the scared little girl, had given him a useful clue that night. To have her pop back into his life after all these years, a woman grown, gave Buck a sense of serendipity. Surely her arrival at this point in time had a purpose, a reason.