Miss Murray on the Cattle Trail(40)
Oh, hell and damn. He tossed the last pitchfork of dry grass into the horse feed bin and stood studying the four prize animals he’d acquired. He’d done well, he acknowledged. He was working his butt off building this place, and his new spread was slowly taking shape.
But if he was honest with himself, he was split right down the middle. Half of him loved his new ranch. Half of him felt his life was over.
He gazed around at the corrals he’d constructed of peeled pine poles and then lifted his gaze to the grassy meadow beyond, still green even though it was almost November. He had everything he’d ever wanted, his own ranch, plenty of water, good stock, four hundred acres of good grass and a capable crew of ranch hands headed by Juan Tapia, the top hand he’d wooed away from Charlie Kingman.
But he didn’t have Dusty. He’d never have Dusty. He gritted his teeth, turned his back on the ranch house foundation he’d been digging and bowed his head over the spade. Dammit, why did it matter so much?
He knew why. He loved her. He loved every freckle on her nose, the way she laughed when she was trying not to, every inch of her skin and her soft, responsive body. The ache in his heart was like a hunger that never went away.
The first Saturday in November he rode into Smoke River and paid a visit to the dressmaker, Verena Forester. Kind of a funny thing to do, he guessed. And it sure raised Verena’s thin eyebrows. But he’d been thinking about it every day since the cattle drive.
On Sunday, Alice and Charlie Kingman expected him for dinner, as they had every Sunday since he’d bought his own place. He looked forward to it, not only for the ranch news and Consuelo’s cooking, but because the cowhands always brought copies of Dusty’s latest Chicago Times newspaper columns to the dinner table, and they insisted on reading every one of them out loud.
Today was no different. Curly could hardly wait to brag about being featured in last week’s write-up.
“Lissen to this, fellas,” he announced. “‘One of the most intrepid of cowboys on the cattle drive was the point rider, Curly Garner.’ That’s me!” he crowed. “Uh...what’s ‘intrepid’ mean?”
“Brave,” Alice supplied. “Courageous. Unstoppable.”
“Yeah?” Curly puffed out his clean Sunday shirt.
“Read what she says about Roberto,” Alice said with a smile.
“Ay,” Consuelo remarked from behind a huge platter of fried chicken. “My brother, he gets the big head.”
Roberto grinned but said nothing.
“Well, let’s hear what she says about Roberto,” Zach prompted.
“‘On the cattle drive, the chuck wagon cook, Roberto Sandoval, created delicious meals and made the most succulent pies and fruit cobblers from the bounty he gathered along the way. Such a man is a rare find for any cattle crew.’”
A blushing Roberto ducked his head, then shot a sly look at Charlie. “Good for raise, eh, señor?” Charlie just grinned.
“Hey, Zach,” Curly called. “How come Miss Alex never says anything in her newspaper about you?”
“Yeah,” the hands around the dining table clamored. “How come?”
“Guess she didn’t like me as much as you fellas,” Zach said.
Oh, God, he missed her. No one would ever know how empty his life felt without Dusty. Even with the ranch he’d hankered after all his life, he still wanted... He couldn’t stand to think about it.
He shook his thoughts and his longing back into his brain and turned his attention to Consuelo’s cherry pie.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Alex stared at the icy sidewalk ahead of her, concentrating on avoiding the slippery patches. Icy-cold flakes swirled over the streets, the lawns and front porches, even into her hair in spite of her knitted red wool fascinator. If it didn’t stop snowing soon, she could build an igloo right in front of the Chicago Times office.
She plowed on down the sidewalk, fighting off an ever-present longing for the hot, dry desert of Oregon.
She missed it. Despite everything she’d endured during the cattle drive, the dust and the thirst and the blinding glare of the sun, she still missed it. Never in a million years did she think she ever would, but she did.
Her heart double thudded. Deep down, she knew it wasn’t the cattle drive she missed so much. It was the man she had ridden with over the long, arduous miles to Winnemucca. The man who had left her at the railway station with her heart in his pocket. Zachariah Strickland.
She gingerly planted her black leather high-button shoes on the slippery stone stairway of the Chicago Times building and marched up the seven steps to the entrance. In the foyer she brushed the snow off her heavy gray coat and shook out her damp fascinator.
Her editor, Nigel Greene, his thick white hair standing on end as if he never combed it, greeted her with his ever-present grin. “Good morning, Alexandra. Do you have another column ready for me today?”
“Good morning, Nigel. Yes, I’m just going to finish it now. Could you wait five minutes? I have a stack of unfinished pages waiting on my desk.”
The older man nodded. “I guess I’ll have to, Alex. One of your stories is worth waiting for, I assure you. Our circulation is way up.”
She hung her wool coat on the carved oak rack in the hallway and headed through the glass door to her desk. It had been freshly polished, she noted, sniffing the air. Apparently the errand boy was still nursing a crush on her. He was only twelve years old, but ever since she had returned from Nevada, Tommy was the only male she could stand to smile at. Except for Nigel, of course. But of course she had to be nice to her editor.
But smiling at Tommy, or even Nigel, wasn’t the same as smiling into the fern-colored green eyes of Zachariah Strickland. Nothing was like smiling at Zachariah Strickland. Or looking at him. Or talking with him. Or... She sighed. Doing other things with him.
She sank down onto her oak desk chair, surveyed the pile of notebooks and proof pages that faced her and gave herself a good shake. Concentrate. You have a newspaper column to write.
She unfolded the proof page with her feature story, the ink scarcely dry, and scanned yesterday’s column. In it she had described how the herd of a thousand steers had splashed into a wide river and swum across to the other side.
She closed her eyes and envisioned it all again, the muddy bank, the lazy blue-green river, the whoops and shouts of the mounted cowhands. She remembered every detail as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. The afternoon sun had been scorching, and the smell of grass and willow trees had been sharp in her nostrils. She could still hear a thousand cicadas rasping their song in the hot air.
She would always remember the worried looks Zach had sent her after that first river crossing, when she’d been swept off her horse and had nearly drowned. If not for him and the lasso he’d dropped over her shoulders, she probably would have drowned.
She remembered that worried look he sometimes got, his fine mouth pressed into a tense line and his eyes shadowed under his battered gray Stetson.
A knife blade sliced into her chest. She couldn’t forget hearing him shout. Or laugh. Or... Well, she just couldn’t forget him.
There’s no two ways about it, Alex, you miss him.
“’Scuse me, Miss Murray?”
The office boy, Tommy, stood in front of her desk, his face as red as his hair. “I brought you a package,” he puffed. “From the mail room. Just arrived by special messenger, an’ I thought it might be important, bein’ as it’s Christmas an’ everything.”
Christmas! Was it Christmas already? She’d been so busy at the newspaper she had barely noticed. Only at night, in her chaste bedroom at Mrs. Beekin’s boardinghouse, when she lay awake hour after hour thinking of Zach, was she aware of the slow turning of the seasons from summer to fall and now to winter.
Last night she had jerked awake in the wee hours of the morning, asking herself question after question. Is this what I really want? Am I wasting my life?
“You gonna open it, huh?” Tommy danced from one scuffed shoe to the other and then hung over her shoulder. “It’s from some funny-sounding place in Oregon.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “Of course I’m going to open it.” She stood up, grabbed her scissors and snipped the heavy twine. Tommy helped her peel back the brown wrapping paper and expose the cardboard box underneath.
“What is it, miss?”
Alex slowly unwrapped the package and stared dumbfounded at the contents. Nestled in layers of tissue paper lay a pink gingham apron with a deep ruffle around the edge and two big pockets in front.
“Aw, gosh, miss, how come you’re cryin’? Don’t you like it?”
Alex blinked rapidly. “I—I’m not crying, Tommy. I’m just...surprised.”
“How come? It’s kinda pretty, even if it is pink.”
“I think it’s beautiful,” she said in an uneven voice. “It’s the most beautiful present I’ve ever received.” Impulsively she snatched the apron up and buried her face in the folds.
Something clunked against her knuckles. She fished in one of the pockets, withdrew a hinged daguerreotype case and unfolded it with fingers that trembled.
Oh, my. Cradled in her palm was the photograph of Zach and herself taken at Henslee’s Photography Studio that night in Winnemucca. She studied the sepia image through a wash of tears. Zach was sitting straight and unsmiling and she was standing at his side, one hand resting on his shoulder.