Ruby came around the corner of the barn, and her feet stopped, her mouth opened, and her breath seized in her throat. She stared in heated fascination as Deke swung an ax, chopping wood, naked from the waist up. The muscles in his back and chest rippled with strength with each swing of the ax. His skin was tanned, his muscles taut, and she wanted to run her fingers down his smooth skin. She wanted to know how a man felt without his shirt on. How he smelled after working hard.
“Good morning,” Deke said, his emerald eyes staring at her, his breathing labored.
She licked her lips, her mouth suddenly dryer than a hot Texas summer day even though it was only March.
“Good morning,” she said cheerfully, her heart racing, her mind slowing, and her eyes unable to move from the sight of his half naked body.
“Why are you doing that?” she asked, not really caring, but enjoying the view. Not wanting him to stop.
“I thought I would fill up your wood box for you before I left today, since your papa won’t be able to chop for a while. How is he this morning?” He swung the ax.
At the crack of the wood splitting, Ruby felt her insides flutter. Good grief, this man was supple and strong as an ox. Yet, the mention of her Papa filled her with sadness. He looked so bad. “About the same. He keeps asking for my ma.”
“When a man’s hurting, sometimes his mind plays tricks on him. I know your mother’s been dead for a while,” he said.
“Yes, since I was eight,” Ruby replied, wanting to keep him talking, yet wishing he would swing the ax again. She loved watching his muscles ripple across his back.
She smiled at him and batted her eyelashes, like she did the boys at school. “You said you’re leaving today? Why?”
He leaned on the ax and studied her. “I need to get back to chasing down the criminal your pa and I were following. There’s money on his head.”
It wasn’t working. Most boys were eating out of her hand when she smiled and batted her eyelashes at them, but Deke just looked at her. He was a man, not an addle-brained schoolboy.
“Do you have something in your eye?” he asked.
Good grief. The man was oblivious. “Why can’t you wait until Papa can go with you? You should stay here with us until he gets well.”
Deke sighed and shook his head. “Can’t. Someone else could catch him by then.”
The wind blew his hair across his forehead. He shivered. “I best get back to this. It’s not exactly warm out here.”
“Okay,” she said just standing there ready to watch him.
“Don’t you have some chores you need to do?” he asked.
The crunch of footsteps alerted Ruby that someone approached.
Annabelle walked up behind her. “Yes, the eggs need to be gathered. Go,” she said, giving Ruby a little push.
Ruby knew exactly what her sister was doing. She was trying to get her away from this handsome cowboy. She’d laid eyes on Deke Culver first. He was her man. Maybe even her husband. “I’m going.”
She hurried into the chicken coop and shoved the old hen out of the nest. She was going to get the eggs, and hopefully by the time she’d finished, Annabelle would have moved on, and then Ruby could talk to Deke some more. He was a man, not a boy, and she wanted to know what a man’s kisses were like. Were they better than a boy’s?
So far she was not too thrilled with the kisses she’d experienced from the schoolboys. They’d done nothing for her. She wondered what was the big deal about kissing? It was two sets of lips moving around. She’d felt nothing. No love. No lust. Mainly she’d felt disgust.
But a man… A grown man could definitely show her how kisses should feel and what all the poetry and excitement was about.
Finishing her chore, she walked out of the hen house and came to a stop. The wood was neatly stacked, and Deke was nowhere to be seen. She ran to the house, careful not to drop the eggs. He couldn’t have left yet. He just couldn’t have.
When she walked in the door, he was at the table eating breakfast. Annabelle stood beside him filling his coffee cup. “Anything else, Mr. Culver?”
“Thanks, you ladies have fed me very well.”
“It’s the least we could do for you after bringing our father home,” Annabelle said.
“Ruby, go relieve Meg with Papa and let her come eat some breakfast.”
She glared at Annabelle. She knew exactly what she was doing. She was keeping Ruby from Deke. She was trying not to let her get close to him, but Annabelle couldn’t stop her. Deke was hers.
“All right, but I’ll be back,” she said and flounced away to the bedroom.
Softly, she opened the door and peered inside at Meg sitting beside her papa.
“You’ve got to pay…” A coughing spell took control of her father. Ruby watched as his face grimaced in pain. He gasped for air, his lungs wheezing. Blood gurgled from his lips, and Meg quickly wiped it away. “The bank. The mortgage is due in a month.”
Ruby felt a pang of sadness overwhelm her. He looked so aged, his body badly bruised, his lips swollen.
Meg wiped a tear away from her eye, and Ruby felt her chest tighten. She’d never seen Meg cry.
“Do we have enough money in the bank?” she asked, and suddenly Ruby realized the perilous position they were in. Without Papa’s income, their life could become very difficult.
“No. Somehow you’re going to have to earn more. That’s why I was chasing Rivera. We needed the money for the mortgage.”
Meg sighed. “Oh, Papa.”
“I…know…I’m sorry,” he said. “Ask Mr. Clark at the bank for an extension. Tell him to give you thirty more days.” His lids kept drifting down over his eyes, like he wanted to sleep.
“Papa, you can’t die on me. We need you.”
He smiled, his lids almost closed. “I know, baby. I know. I’m trying.”
“Stay with me, Papa.” She patted him on the arm.
His eyes closed completely. She reached over and checked his pulse.
Ruby stepped into the room, fear holding her in its grip, her heart no longer beating. “Is he…?”
Meg turned and looked at her. “No. Talking wears him out.”
“Oh, thank goodness. You scared me for a moment.” Ruby went and stood right beside the bed. “Annabelle said for me to relieve you and let you eat some breakfast.”
“Thanks,” Meg said slowly rising and stretching.
“Don’t let Deke leave without me telling him goodbye,” she said to her sister.
Meg frowned at her. “Why?”
“Just because I want to tell him goodbye and thank him for bringing Papa home.”
Her sister studied her and then laid a hand on her shoulder. “You’re not fooling anyone, Ruby. You’re still playing with fire.”
“I am not.”
“I’m not arguing with you while our papa is lying in that bed. But you are not to be alone with Mr. Culver. Do you understand me?”
Why did they all treat her like she was a child? She was a woman. A fully-grown woman and she’d found herself a man. Mr. Culver would do very nicely compared to all those riff-raff boys from school. But he just had to wait until her Papa was doing better. “Oh, good grief. Go eat your breakfast.”
Then Mr. Culver could court her and ask her papa’s permission to marry her. She wasn’t going to be stuck here on this farm for the rest of her life. But before anything could happen, her papa had to get well.
“Thank you, I will. But if I find you alone with Mr. Culver, you will be cleaning the chicken coop for the rest of your life.”
Ruby felt her anger rise up in her like a volcano ready to spew, but she knew now was not the time to be fighting with her older sister. Meg thought she was the boss of everything. And if Papa died, she would be. A chill trickled down Ruby’s spine at the idea of her oldest sister being in charge of everything and her Papa being gone. No, it couldn’t happen. It just couldn’t.
“All right. I promise not to be alone with him. Now, go eat,” Ruby said, staring at her father’s closed eyes, willing strength to him.
Ruby turned her back on her sister, sat in the chair next to her father, and said a quick prayer. She needed her papa. She needed him now more than ever.
“Come on, Papa. Don’t die on me,” she whispered.
A
nnabelle watched as Deke rose from their breakfast table, the muscles in his arms flexing as he stood to leave. Dang, he was a handsome man and would make some woman a great husband. Could he be the man she dreamed of every night? Could he be the man who would sweep her off her feet and out of this place?
“Ladies, I hate to leave, but I should get on the road. This guy’s already got a head start on me, and I want to find him.”
Annabelle handed him a cloth sack. “I made you some hard tack for your journey and to say thank you for bringing Papa home.”
Why didn’t she feel something for this man? Ruby obviously felt some kind of attraction, and she was younger than Annabelle. Was there something wrong with Annabelle not to desire this handsome cowboy? She was lonely. She wanted a husband and a family of her own, not to live out her spinster years in this farmhouse.
“Thanks, Annabelle, I appreciate that.” Deke took the sack from her hand, his lips curved up in a smile that didn’t have her sighing with longing or blood rushing to her head. Was she not normal or had she not found the right man yet?
“When you catch the bastard, kill him,” she said quietly. “Or at least make him suffer the way our father is hurting.”
“Annabelle McKenzie! That’s…” Meg’s voice trailed off as Annabelle stared at her.
Their father was lying in the bedroom hurting, possibly dying, which would leave them without a man, without a decent way to make a living, without their beloved papa. Did Meg want Annabelle to wish him a nice trip to jail?
Deke touched her on the arm. “I won’t make this easy on him.”
“Thank you,” Annabelle said, her hands twisting nervously.
This cowboy was well built and nice looking. She couldn’t help but be envious of the way Ruby was able to openly express her desire for the man.
No man had ever courted Annabelle. Normally, she was the peacemaker between Meg and Ruby. Watching over their younger sister while Meg worked the fields and handled the animals, Annabelle had helped Meg run the family farm since their mother had died.
But for the last few weeks, Annabelle had felt a longing for more than just living here with her sisters, taking care of the farm and Ruby. A restlessness in her soul cried out and desired adventure.
She wanted anything besides remaining here in this house placating Meg and Ruby. She wanted a life of her own—the chance to meet a nice man, to be courted, to marry and raise a family.
“Leave a message with the sheriff about your father. Usually, I stop in several times a month to look at the wanted posters,” Deke said, glancing at Meg.
“Will do,” she said.
Now, the idea of slipping a ring on Deke’s left hand and giving him a gaggle of children sounded like every young woman’s dream—a farm and family of her own, a man to chase the loneliness away. But Annabelle felt nothing for Deke. Wasn’t she supposed to know immediately he was the man for her?
If she was supposed to know at first meet, then none of the men in town were the one for her either. She didn’t feel the urge to share her life with a single one of them. And absolutely none of them filled her with a longing of a physical kind. If anything, she felt revulsion for the men who walked the streets of Zenith.
Deke checked his gun holster, making sure it was tight, and picked up his hat. “Goodbye, ladies, I hope your father gets better.”
Annabelle and Meg walked him to the door. “Goodbye, Deke.”
Striding outside, he untied the reins of his saddled horse and stepped into the stirrups.
Ruby came running from the back. “Is he leaving?”
“Yes,” Annabelle replied, wanting to stop her flirtatious sister as she grabbed a small tin off the table and hurried out the door after the handsome man.
“Deke, stop!” Ruby called.
He halted his horse and looked back at her. She ran up to him. “Here are some cookies I baked for you to eat on your journey. They’re really good.”
Annabelle stared at her younger sister as she smiled up at the handsome cowboy, her big blue eyes all doe-like and innocent. Why couldn’t Annabelle be more like Ruby? Why couldn’t she throw herself at a young man or flirt outlandishly? Instead, she hung back, waiting for her true love to find her.
Somehow, her true love must have gotten lost. She was almost eighteen, and he’d yet to show up.
“Thank you, Ruby.” He took the tin of cookies and put them in his saddlebags. Once they were stored inside, he glanced down at her. “See you around, kid.”
“Bye,” she said, her voice a sweet sugary sound that made Annabelle want to gag.
She wanted to grab her younger sister and tell her not to be so flirtatious, so obvious. Annabelle was the middle one, the one most forgotten, and she wanted a man in her life just like the others.
Well, maybe Meg didn’t want to marry. She never really said what she wanted in life.
Ruby turned around and strolled back to her sisters, a big smile on her young face. She glanced at them. “What? You’re both staring at me like I was doing something wrong.”
Meg shook her head at Ruby.
Annabelle turned toward the door. “He’s too old for you.”
“I’m fifteen.”
“I’m seventeen,” Annabelle said, walking back into the house. “I’m closer to his age.”
“I saw him first,” Ruby stated, hurrying up to Annabelle. “If anyone in this family is taking him, it’s me!”
“And what would you do with him once you had him? Charge him a dime to kiss you?” Annabelle taunted, not sure why she felt the need to aggravate Ruby, but still feeling this urge to make her sister suffer. Ruby had no qualms about flirting outrageously with every man she met, and Annabelle wished she could be so blatant. Wished her one true love would come and rescue her.
“Enough,” Meg suddenly commanded, clearly irritated with both of them. “Our father is lying in there gravely ill and you two are arguing over a man. Stop it this moment. We have to help Papa, not think about our own wants and needs.”