One Heart to Win (14 page)

While she’d thought her day dresses would suffice for her role as a housekeeper, they wouldn’t really do in her role as a cook and dishwasher. She would have to look for a seamstress today. What if Nashart didn’t have one! But she definitely needed more serviceable dresses, ones she could don without a maid’s assistance.

She found a blue ribbon for her hair and simply tied it back again. Maybe she could ask Anna to show her how to pin it up today when she visited her. If there was time. Her list of errands for town today was getting pretty long.

She debated whether to knock on Mary Callahan’s door before she went downstairs. She should introduce herself to the lady of the house before she was summoned to do so. But that wasn’t going to be an easy meeting, especially if Tiffany had to tell the woman who was worried about impressing her, the
real
her, that the new cook didn’t know how to cook. She decided to put off that meeting until later in the day. Her only hope was to find help in town today. Someone there had to have a cookbook, and she’d be willing to pay a fortune to borrow it!

Last night at dinner Tiffany had told Zachary she needed to go to town this morning, and Cole had said he would take her. So she was unpleasantly surprised to see Degan waiting on the porch for her instead of Cole, the borrowed wagon hitched out front.

“Zachary wants me to accompany you,” Degan informed her. “He’s worried you’ll run into a Warren or two and they’ll figure out who you are and try to steal you back.”

Sound reasoning, she supposed, but she didn’t want to be alone with him again! She didn’t budge. Being alone with him in the kitchen yesterday had been nerve-racking enough. She did
not
want to experience it again. “What happened to Cole?”

“I told him I’d take you,” Hunter said from behind her as he stepped out of the house. “My brothers might fight amongst themselves, but they tend to defer to the eldest without question.”

She turned to catch his grin—no, it was a definite smirk.
He enjoyed his role as oldest brother and the advantages that gave him. She wouldn’t know how that felt. She’d grown up without her siblings. But she was relieved that he was taking her. With Degan she would have been nervous the whole trip. With Hunter, she just had to worry about getting into another shouting match.

“Then Mr. Grant doesn’t need to—”

“Degan tags along,” Hunter cut in. “Didn’t I mention I can’t go anywhere without the guard dog?”

Such a derogatory term, and said with the same disgust she’d heard in his voice when he’d used it last night. She glanced quickly at the gunslinger to see if he was insulted. He didn’t appear to be. Without expression, he sauntered down the steps and mounted a palomino horse with a flaxen mane and tail, a color not often seen in the East. It had been tied to the hitching post in front of the porch.

The one horse hitched to the wagon had a distinctive coloring. She’d only seen it once before, in a painting her mother owned of a herd of Western horses. Rose had called it a pinto, a two-colored horse with large patches of brown and white that Tiffany found quite beautiful. But with just one horse, she wondered how she was supposed to get back to the ranch.

She could rent a horse just for today. She’d noticed at least one stable in town yesterday. But then the horse would need to be returned to Nashart, too. She could have bought one or rented one for her entire stay if she weren’t pretending to be a woman who was pinching every penny so she could get married. She enjoyed riding, had learned in Central Park before it had even been completed, though as big as that project had been, the huge park had been opened to pedestrians and riders long before the extensive landscaping was finally completed.
She sighed to herself. In her guise of servant, she probably wouldn’t find time to ride anyway.

Holding a folded parasol and a reticule containing her letter to her mother, Tiffany went down to the wagon to climb aboard. The step leading to the long wooden seat was rather high, though, designed for a man’s long legs, but she could reach it if she stretched a little. She’d just got one foot on it when she felt hands reach through her bustle to her arse and push. She gasped, “Mr. Callahan!”

“Be quiet, Red. How else did you think you were getting up there?”

She was standing on the step now and maneuvered herself onto the wooden perch. Hot-cheeked and her posture stiff, she gazed straight ahead, ignoring Hunter.

“You need to unbend a little,” he said as he climbed up and sat next to her. “You’re in Montana now.”

Oh, God, one more reason why she didn’t want to remain here. Had the hardy settlers who’d moved West left all propriety behind? Little had survived as far as she could see. Kidnapping housekeepers—very well,
possible
kidnapping—banditry, private wars, ruthless mine owners.

“Why exactly are you returning to town so soon? Our pantry is well stocked.”

He wanted to converse after what he’d just done? He’d already cracked the reins to get them moving, and now she felt his light-blue eyes on her. Lovely eyes, though she couldn’t seem to keep from getting annoyed with him long enough to gaze into them for any length of time. Nor did she try now.

Stiffly she answered, “For a number of reasons. I have a letter to post. I need to see a seamstress since my wardrobe isn’t suited for dishwashing. I need to buy some other essentials I
seem to be missing. Your father mentioned that the person who previously helped your cook quit when Ed did, so I’m going to hire a replacement if I can find one. Oh, and I’m going to have a decent meal while I’m there, breakfast or lunch, which is why we’re leaving early. I shudder to think of what Jakes served up this morning. And I’m going to visit a friend I made on the train.”

He was looking at her incredulously. She didn’t know that until she heard, “Hellfire, woman, that’s going to take all day!”

She turned a frown on him and tsked. “No, it won’t. I’m very efficient.”

He snorted at her confidence. “I can take one thing off that long list. The only people looking for jobs around here are cowboys, miners, and drifters. Women tend to get snatched up real fast.”

“You mean hired for work?”

“Work, wife, amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it?”

She disagreed, “Out here, possibly, but not where I come from.”

“Now that simply ain’t true, unless you’re talking about rich folks.”

Although she was gazing straight ahead at the dirt road, she could feel his eyes on her again. That was a blunder she shouldn’t have walked into. “Yes, of course,” she agreed. “I’ve known several cooks who told me their husbands married them for their skills in the kitchen.” Which wasn’t true either, but he wouldn’t know that.

He chuckled. “A common motivator for a man. How are you at those skills?”

She tensed. Talking about wives and cooking in the same breath, was he suddenly viewing her as a prospective wife?
When he had a fiancée? Was he too impatient to wait for his fiancée to arrive? Or totally opposed to the marriage as she was? She wished she could discuss that with him, but she couldn’t until someone actually told her that Hunter was engaged.

But he was waiting for her to answer his question. Briefly she repeated what she’d told Degan last night about his father refusing to believe she couldn’t cook. All Hunter did was laugh.

Gritting her teeth, she returned to the subject of finding help for the kitchen. “So what you’re saying is, there is a shortage of women in the territory?”

“You got that right. Always has been. And if you keep sashaying around town, we’re going to end up with an army of wife-hunting men beating down our door. You’re about as prime a catch as it gets.”

Compliments didn’t usually make her blush. She wasn’t sure why that one did, unless it was because his tone got a little sharp as he said it, as if she should apologize for being pretty. But she didn’t like the damper he was putting on her finding help when she’d been counting on it. Then it occurred to her that Hunter might be basing his negative opinion on the likelihood that a woman out here would probably opt to marry rather than work for the low wages of a kitchen maid. And no doubt he was right. He just didn’t know that she would pay whatever it took to get that help. Nor could he know. Tiffany had deep pockets, Jennifer didn’t.

But to prepare him ahead of time for her success, she drew on Jennifer’s probable experience, telling him, “I have been tasked with hiring before. I can be very persuasive.”

“I bet you can. You could probably talk me into anything—if you tried.” Then he leaned closer to whisper, “Want to try?”

Shivers ran down her back because of his warm breath on
her neck. It wasn’t because of what he’d said to her, of course it wasn’t. But why wasn’t she outraged over what he was implying? She should be!

She responded much more primly and properly than she guessed Jennifer would have. “I will assume that you are accustomed to indulging in meaningless flirtation. I am not. Please keep in mind that I have a fiancé.”

“But he’s in Chicago, which might as well be on the other side of the world, while I’m here. And what sort of man would let you get away from him like this?”

“You make it sound as if I’ve escaped him, when that isn’t the case at all. We thoroughly discussed my coming here. It was a mutual decision. We both want to save up a nest egg before we marry.”

“You didn’t answer my question. What’s he like?”

Jennifer hadn’t told her anything about the man she was going to marry! All Tiffany could think to do was to describe the sort of man she hoped to marry one day. “He’s noble-hearted. Kind and sensitive. Brave and very loyal. He’s been devoted to me since the day we first met.
He
wouldn’t think of being unfaithful.”

Hunter raised a brow at her. Well, she shouldn’t have mentioned that last part or made it sound like a reference—to him. But he wasn’t done criticizing her choice in men.

“His first mistake was wanting to wait to marry you, no matter the reason. His second mistake was letting you come here alone. I’d never let my fiancée leave me. In fact, I’d marry any woman I want to stake my claim on right away, not come up with excuses to wait.”

She was a little indignant—on Jennifer’s behalf. Hunter’s family was rich, even if they didn’t exactly live like it. He didn’t
know what it was like to be of the servant class that worried constantly about money. Neither did she, but he’d finally given her an opening to ask about his own engagement, and she wasn’t passing that up to point out his opinion was biased.

“You’re talking as if you have a fiancée. Do you?”

Hunter mumbled something under his breath before he said, “I’ve had enough conversation for this morning. Let’s get to town. Hold on to your hat, Red.”

He cracked the reins so hard that the horse and wagon suddenly sped up. Tiffany gritted her teeth.
Why
wouldn’t he admit he was engaged to her?

Chapter Seventeen

J
UMPING DOWN FROM THE
wagon the very moment he stopped it behind the freight company in town, Hunter snarled at Degan, “I need a drink. You stick to her like glue. Well, not that close, but make sure no one bothers her.”

Then Hunter just walked off and disappeared around the corner of the building. Tiffany sighed, but managed to get down from the wagon on her own before Degan could dismount to help her. If she hadn’t gotten Hunter angry, she wouldn’t be stuck with Degan again. It was her own fault.

But she wasn’t sure why Hunter was angry. Because she didn’t agree with his point of view about her fiancé? Or because he had one and hated it so much he refused to talk about it at all? She didn’t know him well enough to guess. She realized too late that she never would if she kept being offended by his brand of friendliness. And disturbed by his husky whispers. She had to get better control of her reactions to him. She didn’t
want
to like him. She wanted to go home to New York. And
she didn’t want to be excited by words he shouldn’t even have said to her!

Degan fell into step beside her as she walked in the direction Hunter had gone to reach the main street. Degan led the two horses and tied them to the first hitching rail they passed.

“I’d like to post my letter first,” she said when he joined her on the long, boarded walkway that fronted all the buildings along the street.

“This way.”

She followed him past a few businesses, but stopped at the one where delicious aromas were wafting out its open door. Without telling Degan, she entered the small bakery. The single-room kitchen had ovens lining the back wall and a few tables in the front laden with long loaves of bread and pastries.

The owner closed one oven and smiled at her. “What I help you with, eh?”

She didn’t really expect the businesses in Nashart to provide the services she was accustomed to in the city, but she still had to ask, “Do you deliver?”

“No.”

“I’ll pay you handsomely.”

“No, no time to deliver. You want bread, you come here to buy it.”

Disappointed that she couldn’t get what she wanted even if she paid extra for it, she said, “Then can you at least give me a recipe to make bread? I’ll pay you for that.”