Rose (9 page)

And George was his father’s son.

Even before the war, he had known he had the same weaknesses. He swore he wouldn’t make the same mistakes. He knew this meant giving up much he might have enjoyed, but he also knew a man had to be true to himself.

The boys didn’t stand in his way. At least they wouldn’t for long.

It was Rose. That was where the danger lay. That was where he had to keep a watch.

He tried to figure out what it was about her that made her so appealing. How could a woman look absolutely delicious with her hair up, her brow moist with perspiration, and her body shrouded in a loose brown dress that covered everything from her chin to the tips of her toes and her fingers? It didn’t even have the advantage of being pretty or of fitting her body suggestively.

She had her back to him, her attention centered on the meal she was preparing. Yet he wanted to stay with her so much he offered to set the table. He didn’t know how to set a table. He’d never done anything more than pour a glass of milk.

“Zac deserved a chance to play a little while. I’ve worked him hard all day.”

That was just an excuse to be alone with her.

“Turn the plates over,” Rose told him. “I don’t want flies getting on them.”

George discovered a woman’s back could be a very sensual part of her body, even when shrouded in an old brown dress.

The lace-trimmed collar reached almost to the hair on the nape of her neck. The tiny area of white skin dusted by a fine mist of hairs that would not remain in her bun made him want to see more.

He didn’t know why he had failed to notice it that morning in Austin, but she had a very tidy figure. Not even the dress could hide that. And she was pretty. Well, more than pretty. He couldn’t find the exact word he wanted, but then he wasn’t used to expressing himself about women.

“Turn the glasses and the cups over, too.”

“What do I do with all these forks and knives?”

“You need the napkins first.”

She reached into the drawer of one of the cabinets and pulled out napkins, washed, ironed, and folded.

“The boys won’t know what to do with these. I doubt Zac’s ever seen one.”

“Then it’s time he did.”

Piquant. That was the word he wanted. Pretty, too, but piquant. There was a liveliness about her, a kind of charm which had a greater impact than mere beauty. Not that George was about to spurn beauty. But he had found that beauty needed spice to make it come alive. He had met too many debutantes before the war who had been taught that being beautiful was
primarily the art of
being.
Tables, chairs, and hearth rugs could
be
just as well as women, but you never found men tripping over themselves to get a second look at them. But piquant, that caused people to take a second look, ask questions, remember.

“Maybe you don’t think a housekeeper should concern herself with manners and napkins,” Rose said.

“I guess it’s a good idea. The boys need to learn how to behave. Their wives will thank you someday.”

“I don’t expect to be here long enough to meet their wives.”

Much to George’s astonishment, her words jolted him. Five days ago he’d never heard of her. Now he was surprised to find he hadn’t thought of her job coming to an end.

“If you mean to turn Zac and Tyler into perfect gentlemen, you’ll be here forever.”

“Zac will do just fine,” Rose said. She opened the oven to check the turkeys. “That boy is clever enough to do anything. And charming enough to get away with it, too. I don’t know about Tyler. He stays as far away from me as he can, but I don’t think he much cares about people, or what they think about him.”

“You’ve reached a pretty fair estimation of the boys’ characters. What about Jeff or the twins?”

She had just broken her own promise.

“I’ve said enough for the time being,” Rose replied. She tried to remove the turkeys from the oven, but it wasn’t as easy to handle a hot pan as a cold one.

“Here, let me help you,” George said. But when he tried to take the pan from Rose, there wasn’t enough room on the handles for both their hands. His hands covered hers.

George doubted he would have felt the pain if the handles had burned him. The jolt he received from touching Rose was more powerful than a mere burn.

“I can’t let go,” Rose said.

Neither can I,
George thought. His muscles refused to respond to any message he sent them. But common sense warned
him he had to do something before they dropped the turkey and spilled the boiling juices over themselves and the floor.

George forced himself to concentrate on the pan rather than Rose. He loosened his grip. “I’ve got it. Slip your hands out.”

“You can’t put it on the table in that pan,” Rose cried when he turned toward the table. “Set it on the stove. I’ve got to put it on a serving platter.”

George helped her lift the turkey and set it on the platter. They stood shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow, hip to hip. It was all he could do to keep from dropping the bird and taking Rose into his arms. Never in his life had he experienced anything so powerful, so overwhelming, so completely beyond his control. It was like a physical force, one much stronger than he, forcing him to do what it willed. He was only just able to control himself long enough to take the second turkey out and transfer it to a platter.

His eyes scanned Rose’s face and he knew immediately she had felt the force of their nearness just as strongly as he. She looked stunned, maybe even slightly scared. She stood still, seemingly unable to move.

Like a man hypnotized, George reached out and touched her cheek. It felt soft and warm, just as he knew it would. He wanted to touch more of her, to absorb her through his fingertips, but his hand wouldn’t move. It just stayed there, cupping her cheek like something precious.

“I think I hear the boys riding up,” Rose said, her voice more breath than tone. But she didn’t move. Her gaze remained locked with George’s.

The sound of hooves brought George out of his trance as quickly as if a hypnotist had snapped his fingers.

“You’d better get ready. Monty can unsaddle a horse quicker than you can shuck an ear of corn.”

“He still has to wash and change his clothes,” Rose said, struggling to pull herself out of her dazed state.

But George had hardly set the second turkey on the table before Monty burst into the kitchen. He had neither washed nor changed. Considering his haste, George was surprised he hadn’t ridden his horse right into the kitchen.

“I swear I could smell those turkeys a mile down the trail,” he said, going straight to the closest platter.

“Wash up, and you can have all you can eat.” It seemed odd to Rose to be saying words that had nothing to do with the feelings that engulfed her body or with the thoughts that whirled about in her mind with the speed of a hurricane.

“You expect me to walk back out that door with the smell of turkey pulling at me harder than a rope on a calf?”

“I expect you to wash and change before you put a leg under this table.” How could George have recovered so rapidly? She still felt numb.

“And I imagine your horse would like you to unsaddle him and put him in the corral,” George added.

“Just this once?”

“No.”

Maybe she was the only one genuinely affected. Maybe he did this every time he found himself alone with a woman. She couldn’t imagine too many of them objecting.

“But I can’t move.”

“I told your brother a lie when I said Zac had the charm of a dozen cats,” Rose said. “You’re twice as bad.”

I told you not to place any reliance in that foolish dream of yours. It meant nothing to him. The moment was just that to him, a moment.

She tried not to let her disappointment show as she took a large, sharp knife and cut a slice from the golden brown breast. The juices dripped down her fingers.

“Here,” she said, handing the steaming meat to Monty. “But you don’t get another bite until you wash and change.”

Monty had barely strode away with his prize when Zac burst in the kitchen.

“You gave Monty a piece of turkey. That’s not fair.”

She couldn’t remain mired in her own cheerless thoughts, not with this dynamic, vividly alive family about to wash her away on the tide of its exuberant energy.

“Probably not,” Rose confessed, a smile announcing the return of her self-control and her good humor, “but it’s Monty’s turkey. He shot it.”

“But I found the eggs for the dressing,” Zac insisted.

“So you did. And you shall have the first serving. Here, I’ll set the bowl in front of your place.”

Zac plopped down in his chair.

“Are you washed?”

“Yep. Hen said he hardly recognized me this clean.”

“How about pouring the milk?”

Zac groaned and got up. “A little kid has to do everything. I sure ain’t doing it when I get to New Orleans.”

“Am not,”
George said, “and you won’t be going to New Orleans for some time yet.”

“George can pour the milk,” Zac said. “He knows what everybody wants.”

“George has to carve the turkey before Monty tears it apart,” Rose replied sternly. “The milk.”

Zac made a face, but he poured the milk double speed so he could be back in his chair before anybody else entered the room.

The Randolph men poured through the door like miners from a tunnel at the sound of the closing whistle, but Rose’s calm “Good evening” slowed their rush to the table. The sight of napkins at their plates slowed them even more. Jeff stared at Rose, looked at George, and back at Rose.

“You’re supposed to put them in your laps,” Zac said, unable to resist imparting his newly-acquired knowledge. “It keeps the food from messing up your clothes when you drop it.”

“
If
you drop it,” Rose corrected.

“They will,” said the irrepressible Zac.

“Hurry up and pass the turkey,” Monty said. “I can taste it already.”

“The turkey’s too big to pass,” Rose said. “Tell George what you want, and he’ll carve it for you.”

“I shot three of them. That’s enough so that every two of us can have one.”

“George will carve,” Rose repeated. “We’ll pass everything else.”

Monty looked like he was going to protest, but since George cut off a huge slice of breast and passed it to him first, he didn’t complain.

“I want a drumstick,” Zac reminded his brother.

“Why did you cook all three turkeys?” Jeff asked.

“They won’t keep,” Rose said, faintly irritated that Jeff would question her.

“What will we do with them?”

“Eat them. We’ll have sliced turkey, turkey and gravy over rice, or turkey hash until it’s gone.”

“Then I’ll kill three more, and we’ll start over again,” Monty said.

“I don’t like turkey that much,” Jeff said.

“Then I’ll feed it to the dogs,” Rose answered so sharply George looked up from his carving.

The younger boys may have missed the look George gave Jeff, but Rose didn’t. Neither did Jeff. He turned his attention to his food.

“We have to send to town for supplies,” George announced. “Anybody in particular want to go?”

“Rose ought to go,” Hen said. “She’s the only one who knows what she needs.”

“I have too much to do to spend several days going into town,” Rose said. “I’ll make a list.” She didn’t mean to tell them she had no intention of going back to Austin until she had to. She was even considering asking George to take her to San Antonio when her quarterly trip came due.

“We need lumber and nails for the chicken coop as well as a month’s supplies,” George said.

“We’ll need a smokehouse if you mean to cure your own meat,” Rose reminded him.

“And seeds,” Zac said, his mouth full. “Rose wants a garden full of everything.”

“You ought to send Tyler if it’s building you want done,” Hen said. “He’s a terrible cook, but he’s the best builder we got.”

“Okay, but he can’t go alone.”

“Don’t look at me,” Monty said. “I haven’t lost anything in Austin.”

“Same here,” said Hen.

“That leaves you, Jeff.”

“Is driving a wagon all you think I’m good for?” he demanded.

Rose didn’t know what got into her. Maybe the encounter with George rattled her nerves so much she forgot her promise to herself. Maybe Jeff’s question about the turkey had irritated her more than she thought.

“Are you going to force George to send the wrong person just because of your sensitivity about your arm?”

There was an audible gasp, and everyone in the room seemed to freeze in place. George looked at her, shocked.

“Even I can tell you’re the obvious choice,” she went on. The look in George’s eyes scared her, but it was too late to stop now. “Monty doesn’t know how to talk to anything but cows, and Hen is bound to find somebody to shoot. That leaves George, and you know he’s the only person who can get this cantankerous, pigheaded, stubborn bunch to work together.”

Monty’s face split with a roguish grin. “You like us a lot, don’t you?”

“It has nothing to do with liking you. It’s just the way things are. Just as your arm is the way things are,” she said turning back to Jeff. “If you keep seeing what everybody says as having to do with your arm, your whole life is going to be upside down. And if you can’t give George credit for thinking of you
rather than your arm, how are you going to believe anyone else can?”

Okay, so Jeff would never like her, but she wasn’t worried about Jeff. George was looking at her like he wanted to strangle her. She knew it wasn’t her business to tell Jeff to stop striking out at everyone, but even Hen and Monty, who if looks could kill would have slain their brother days ago, walked around him like they were walking on eggshells.

“I wasn’t telling you to do anything,” George said to Jeff. His quiet tone as much as his manner eased the tension in the room. “I just asked you if you wanted to go.”

Jeff ignored Rose. “You ought to go,” he said to George.

“I thought you might like a chance to get away, see some people, maybe even buy a few things for yourself.”

“Do we have enough money?”

“For the time being. While you’re there,” George continued, deciding it would be easier just to assume Jeff was going, “ask about bloodstock. The bull will make a big difference in our herd in a few years, but we could improve our stock a lot faster if we had twenty or thirty good heifers.”

“Are you looking for breeding stock?” Rose asked.

Jeff looked at her as though she were intruding in family business, but George answered readily. “We’ve been talking about it.”

“I’ve heard Richard King is doing exactly what you want to do. I don’t know if he’ll sell you any breeding stock, but if he won’t, maybe he’ll know somebody who will.”

“Where does he live?”

“Somewhere south of Corpus Christi.”

“How do you know so much?” Jeff asked. His tone implied he doubted that her information could be trusted.

“People in restaurants never pay any attention to who’s serving them. They’ll say anything.”

“See if you can find out anything about King when you’re in town,” George told Jeff. “We can sell some of our steers to get the money.”