dark glare once again went from her head to her toes, leaving her quivering, but then he grasped the saddle horn, swung onto his big gray horse with one easy movement, and touched the brim of his black hat with one hand as he turned the horse about.
Relief oozed out of every pore of her body as she watched him ride away. She sighed. Heavily. She’d just seen a true-to-life cowboy. Maggie said this country was full of them. That was what the other girls had said. Mary didn’t believe a cowboy was any better than any other man and was glad to see this one riding further and further away from her. A man had never made her entire being tremble before, and she certainly didn’t want that to happen again.
As he became little more than a speck on the horizon, she frowned. She had no idea what she’d hoped to see, but this wasn’t it.
Town was on the other side of the tracks, but other than a couple houses, this side was barren. “Good Lord, the harder I look, the less I see.” Twisting her neck, she scanned the area from her left shoulder to her right. “There’s nothing. Not a tree or bush. Nothing.”
Well, there was a building. A feed store by the name on the front. There was also a closed sign hanging on the door.
Fearing someone else may round the train at any moment, she picked up her bag and grabbed one trunk handle. Careful to not jostle the trunk too much and fighting the wind the entire way, she dragged the trunk around the backside of the feed store. Spying a lean-to on the side, she dragged the trunk inside it and then sat down on top of it to catch her breath.
Oak Grove sure didn’t have any groves. Could there be a more barren land in all of the world? The grass wasn’t even real grass. It was barely summer and it was already brown and had crunched beneath her feet as she’d walked. Good thing she had made a batch of tonic mixture before leaving Ohio. Finding a way to burp the crock along the way hadn’t been easy, but she’d managed, and soon could bottle it up.
The music had stopped, but she could still hear people talking. Mainly one person. The conductor had said the mayor would provide a welcoming speech, and from how he went on and on, it appeared the mayor liked hearing himself talk.
Oh, well, the mayor wasn’t any of her concern—neither was the image of that dark-haired cowboy that kept flashing in the back of her mind. Finding a place for her tonic to finish brewing was what she needed to focus on. She’d been hoping to find a grove of trees on the edge of town to hide it in, but that obviously wasn’t going to happen.
A loud cheer echoed against the building behind her, as did the whistle of the train, and a couple of loud blasts that made her nearly jump out of her skin. Gun shots! Good heavens, what kind of place was this?
The cheering that sounded again gave her a touch of relief. She’d heard men did that, fired guns for just the heck of it. Cowboys. Uncouth beings!
The idea of Maggie encountering a man much like the one who’d ridden away on his big gray horse rattled Mary slightly. She couldn’t remember being this upset with her sister, at least not for a long time, but she wasn’t going to give in. Being the older sister, if only by a few minutes, she was always the one to give in. Not this time.
Perhaps by the time she’d bottled up the tonic and sold it, Maggie would come to her senses and be ready to head out with her. She’d tried to tell herself she couldn’t care less if Maggie stayed here and married some uncouth man or not, but that wasn’t true. She did care, but Maggie had to learn sometime. And this appeared to be the time. Until that happened—when Maggie discovered the older and wiser sister was always right, Mary figured she’d stay well-hidden. Teach Maggie a lesson she’d never forget.
No longer winded, Mary stood and then crouched down beside the trunk to carefully lift the lid. Happy to see everything still safely packed amongst the straw, she eased the cork toward the top of the crock—just enough to let air out, but none in. When the hissing stopped, she pushed the cork down tight and closed the trunk lid before the bitter scent of fermentation could fill the air.
Now to find a place to hide. Her and the tonic.
Focused on surveying the lean-to, she jumped to her feet when an elongated shadow covered the ground near the wide opening. Fearing the cowboy had returned, she tried to come up with yet another excuse.
As a man appeared, she concluded the shadow hadn’t been elongated. He was that tall, and big, and clearly following the marks she’d left in the dirt by dragging her trunk.
Dang it. Why hadn’t she thought of that?
A tinge of relief that this wasn’t the cowboy had her drawing in a deep breath. She didn’t have an excuse for being in the lean-to but did have her wits.
Hurrying forward, she held out her hand. “Hello. I’m Mary, Mary McCary. Goodness, it is so hot I had to find some shade.” That wasn’t a lie. Sweat trickled down the back of her neck, making her wish she’d pinned her hair up. However the weight of it pinned up often gave her a headache. The same was true for Maggie. “I hope you don’t mind,” she continued when the man didn’t shake her hand. “I’ll be on my way shortly. I just needed to rest a moment.”
“Vhere you come from?”
“Where did I come from? The train. I just arrived.”
“The train? You a bride?”
The cowboy had been tall, but this one was a giant, making her half wish it was the cowboy again. “No, no, I’m—I’m a...” She pointed toward her trunk and said the first thing she could think of. “A cook.” That was true. She’d need a place to cook up the syrup to thicken the tonic. “I have all my supplies right there. The trunk is heavy so I dragged it in here, out of the sun.” Her insides quivered slightly. She’d never told so many lies in her life. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave now.”
“No. You stay.”
“I can’t stay,” she shouted over the train whistle. “I—I—I’m looking for—” Her brain wasn’t working as fast as she wished it would. Furthermore, the ground was shaking, which said the train was pulling out of the station.
His thick black brows met as he frowned. “The Circle P? You looking for the Circle P Ranch? To cook for Rex?”
“The Circle P Ranch? Rex?” A ranch had to be out in the country, a place she could mix up her tonic, and hide in case someone started looking for her, which was likely to happen. The conductor had kept a guarded eye on both her and Maggie. Thanks to Sheriff Freiday. Which was another reason she was so upset with Maggie. The way her sister kept feeding the other girls their tonic—in order to calm their nerves—could have easily have made the conductor wonder where it had come from and search her trunk. Thank goodness that hadn’t happened. At least not yet. It still could. “Yes. Yes, the Circle P Ranch. To cook for Rex. Is it far? Can you tell me how to get there?”
“Steve Putnam left. I vill take you,” he said. “If you don’t like it, you come cook for me, ya?”
Focused, she asked, “Right now? You will take me there right now?”
“Ya. I get my wagon.”
Mary wanted to jump for joy. She’d never been on a ranch, but surely it would provide a place for her to thicken and bottle the tonic and acquire a ride back to town in order to sell enough bottles to get her and Maggie on a train. An eastbound one. She’d already seen enough brown grass to last a lifetime. Although she hadn’t realized it before, there was a lot to be
