Rose(26)

“Ordering us around like she was a general and we were the recruits.”

“I don’t suppose she will when she feels she can ask and get our cooperation,” George answered.

“You shouldn’t encourage her to give orders. You should do that.”

“Dammit, that’s what I hired her for,” George snapped, dropping his bucket in the well. When he heard it splash bottom, he started hauling it up. “I don’t want to have to worry about the cooking and cleaning and what needs doing next.”

“Okay, but she’s getting above herself.”

“If she does, we can fire her and hire someone else.” George handed the first bucket to Jeff and dropped the second in the well. The bucket splashed and he hauled it up. “This is our place, Jeff, and we decide what happens. But when you hire someone to do a job, you can’t crowd them too hard and expect them to be happy.”

“I’m not interested in whether she’s happy.”

“Then you’re making a big mistake.” George hefted his bucket out of the well. “Come on. The sooner we fill up the wash pot, the sooner we eat.”

“It’s going to take another couple of trips to fill up the pot,” Monty said after they had emptied their buckets into the pot. He still stood where they’d left him, glaring at Rose.

“Then you’d better get a bucket and help.”

“You think she’s got breakfast ready, just keeping it warm, while she gets all this work out of us?” Monty asked as they walked back to the well together.

“Yes.”

“Damn. That’s what Hen said.”

“Don’t imagine you’d want to wait twenty more minutes, would you?” George asked.

“Hell, no, but having it just sitting there, waiting, while she keeps us hopping about like a bunch of Chinese coolies galls my butt.”





Rose watched as George and his brothers emptied the last buckets of water into the wash pot. Hen was helping Zac lay the fire so the heat would be distributed all the way around the pot. Tyler had taken to finding dirty clothes with a vengeance. He probably thought by finding more work for her, he could force her to go back to Austin.

Rose didn’t care. They were going about it with pretty good humor, much more than she expected. She knew she owed that to George.

She wondered what he thought of her. She had noticed the sharp, angry look he cast her way when she issued her command. He had supported her, but it was clear his devotion to his family was unchanged.

Rose loved to watch him with his brothers. It reminded her so much of the Robinsons.

She had lived with them until she was seventeen, long enough for their family to grow from three to eight children. They never had much money, but all they needed to be happy was to be gathered around Mr. Robinson, all talking, laughing, and competing for his attention.

“They crawl over him like puppies over a brood bitch,” Mrs. Robinson would say.

Rose used to think wistfully of the family she wanted when she grew up. Three boys and three girls. The boys first so they could help their father and the girls last so she could spoil them. She didn’t want them too far apart. They ought to have companions as they grew up. The loneliness of her childhood still hurt.

And of course they would all be strong-minded, each struggling with the others for his place in the sun, each depending on their father to be there to sort things out when they got too complicated.

And he would. Always. Because his family was more important to him than anything else in the world.

George would do that. Only when he was sorting out his brothers’ problems did he seem to forget his own demons. He didn’t know it, but his family might be his salvation.

Rose didn’t know how to tell him that. Even if she did, she doubted he would believe it.

She wondered if the boys had any idea how much they meant to him. Probably not. They all seemed to be too busy with their own anger. Only George could put his own interests aside to concentrate on those of someone else.

I wish he would concentrate on me.

She had tried to avoid letting that thought cross her mind. It was a waste of time. She was bound to this family by their mutual need. She mustn’t make the mistake of thinking she could remain here on any other basis.

But it hurt to know he was interested in her only as long as she worked for him.

If you can’t stand it, ask him to take you back to Austin. But before you do, remember that no matter how badly they behave, it’s not half as bad as Austin.

But she wanted more. She wondered if anyone would ever look at her with the love and concern she saw in George’s eyes when he looked at his brothers. She wondered if anyone would ever give up something they wanted, or even a little of it, for her.