Texas Blue (5 page)

The thought of marriage frightened her, something she had never told anyone. If her mother knew the scars Em bore, it would break her heart. But Em had learned her lesson early, before they came to Whispering Mountain.

No man would ever touch her. She’d make sure of it.

She stared at the three men on the porch, glad that she’d talked her friend into pretending to be her for the week. Em had her hands full running the ranch. She didn’t need to play hostess. She and Tamela looked alike. Teachers in school had often gotten them mixed up. Now, for one week, Tamela had agreed to play her.

The big front doors of the main house opened and women rushed out, all carrying lanterns. With Rose in the lead, lanterns circled the guests and welcomed them in. The two girls from town helping out took some of the luggage. All the men except the peacock, who’d reached the porch first, carried bags as they headed inside.

When all the guests were in, Em McMurray stood alone in the loft, staring at the house with its brightly lit windows closed tight against the wind. She wanted to be inside. She wanted to feel safe. She wanted that wonderful feeling of being home, but tonight she was an outsider. Her papa, if he were standing beside her, would probably say she picked the game, so she had no right to complain.

Only Em wasn’t used to playing games, and she hated the idea that she had to lie and pretend to be someone else . . . or more precisely, have someone else pretend to be her. She hated lies and manipulation almost as much as she hated her cousin trying to marry her off. Why couldn’t everyone be happy with the fact that she liked spending her days alone?

She’d been seven when her real father died and her mother ran from Chicago, fearing that her three daughters would be taken from her. They’d headed to Texas and a rancher who’d written her mother for years. Teagen McMurray started as only a customer at their family bookstore, but her mother and Teagen had ended up friends. When she showed up on his doorstep with three little ones, he’d taken them into his life and heart. For Em, she’d only had one man she thought of as her father, and that was her papa, Teagen McMurray. He’d taught her to ride and handle a gun. He’d also taught her to love the ranch. More than any of the children raised here, Em belonged to this place. She planned to live her life here and, when she died, she would be buried on Whispering Mountain.

Slowly, she collected her lantern and moved down the stairs. Sumner was unhitching the buggy when she reached the ground. As always, he simply nodded to her. He’d been on the ranch for ten years, and the last few, when she’d taken over more for her papa so he and her mother could travel to doctors up north with her little brother, Sumner had followed orders from her, but he’d never been very friendly. He might do his job, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. She had a feeling that if she asked, he’d tell her a woman’s place was in the kitchen, not trying to run a ranch.

She’d once thought of asking her papa to fire him, but in truth she preferred Sumner and his cold polite manner to the cowhands who tried to be overly friendly, paying her compliments she knew they didn’t believe, or worse, acting like they would court her if she gave them half a chance. Em knew they wanted the ranch, not her, even if not one of them would ever admit such a thing.

“Miss?” Sumner stopped her before she reached the door.

“Yes?” She turned to face him.

“There’s a man who came in with the gentleman’s horses. He says he’s to be the only one who touches or feeds the animals and he’s to sleep near them. Is that the way it’s going to be, miss? I’m not so sure Mr. McMurray would want some stranger sleeping in the barn.”

“You’re right,” she answered, “but the gentleman and his wrangler are our guests. If he wants to sleep next to his horses, have the stall next to the animals cleaned out. It might not say much of the way his employer treats his groom, but it says volumes of what he thinks of his horses.”

“Yes, miss.” Sumner turned away.

“I’ll ask one of the girls from town to see that he gets his meals if he doesn’t want to leave the barn to eat.”

“Fair enough,” Sumner said. Like everyone else on the ranch, he knew the game she and Tamela were playing by switching places. A few thought it was a lark, but Sumner hadn’t said a word. She guessed in his old Texas Ranger mind a person should be what they are and nothing more or less.

“Miss,” he added before she could leave. “The fellow didn’t seem all that friendly when he passed by.”

“Fair enough,” she answered. In truth she didn’t plan on being friendly at all. “They’ll all be gone in a week. Don’t worry about it.”

Em walked across the yard, her light making a small circle at her feet. When she entered the house from the back, she could hear the two girls hired to help talking in the kitchen. They seemed to be arguing over which of the three bachelors was the best looking. One liked the tall man in black. He had a nice smile. The other one liked the horseman in his leathers and high boots. Then Mrs. Watson, the chaperone they had to invite for the week, said she liked the young one because he was not only by far the most handsome, he was kind to his mother and everyone knows that’s the one trait every girl should look for in a husband. If he doesn’t love his mother, he’s not worth worn shoe leather on a hot day.

Em giggled as she removed her gun belt and hung it on a high peg in the mudroom.

Rose ended the discussion by popping her head into the kitchen and telling everyone to hurry up with the food. When she spotted Em by the back door, she closed the distance between them. “We’ve got an extra guest. One brought his mother.”

Em smiled. If there were a crown for the perfect hostess, Rose would be wearing it. She was an organizer and a planner who worried about every detail. “I noticed a woman get out of the wagon. There’s room in the barn if you want to put her there.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Rose was two years younger than Em but considered herself far wiser. “We have a major crisis on our hands.”

“She can sleep down here in Jamie’s bed where I was going to sleep. I’ll bunk in with Tamela. She won’t mind.” Tamela had agreed to make Rose and Beth a few new dresses while she was playing her part as Emily McMurray. In exchange, Em promised to buy several dresses from her friend’s little shop. As a two-time widow, Tamela needed the money. She had no interest in the men coming to court, however. She’d already told the girls she had her eye on the new blacksmith in town for Christmas.

Rose shook her head. “We can’t have two Emilys wandering the same hall, and you know anyone who sleeps in the room off the kitchen can hear whenever anyone takes the stairs. Little Mrs. Allender strikes me as the nosy type. She’ll be watching to see who is coming and going.” Rose looked long-suffering. “To top it all, she brought a bird. We’ll be lucky if we make the week without one of Bethie’s cats eating it.”

“How about putting the bird in with Reverend and Mrs. Watson? The way she drinks and he snores, they won’t notice a bird.”

“No, that won’t work. We’ve got to think of her and the safety of that bird. If she’s downstairs, she’s bound to leave her door open and it will be an invitation for the cats to murder.”

“Well, I don’t care what you do with the bird, but I’m not bunking in the barn.” Em wished she’d followed her instinct and really burned the bridge.

“What about the little room next to Papa’s study? It used to be a bedroom before Mama turned it into a sewing room. You could sleep there with the bird. That door is always kept closed, and we’ll cover the cage at night. You won’t even know it’s there. The men will be upstairs. All you have to do is wait until they go to bed, then slip in from the kitchen. No one will notice you.”

“I’ll feel like a burglar in my own house.”

“It’s only for a week. Six nights really.”

Em knew the only other choices were the bunkhouse or the barn, and she couldn’t go to either. Uncle Travis’s place down by the river would have been fine, but she wasn’t sure she could stay down there all alone. She almost wanted to laugh. She was running one of the biggest ranches in Texas and she was not only afraid of the dark, she was afraid of being alone. “All right. I’ll take the sewing room. Where are the men?”

“Everyone’s in the dining room. Reverend Watson insisted on making a toast with the only two bottles of wine we have in the house. Everyone may all be asleep before he finishes talking, so I slipped out, claiming I had to check on the food. You could go around to the front and slip in the sewing room now if you like. I’m sure the reverend will want to pray for a while after the toast. I’ll bring you a plate when no one is looking.”

“Fair enough, but tap lightly, I’ll keep the door locked.”

Rose nodded and was gone before Em had a chance to change her mind. She circled through the mudroom, where all the family who worked the ranch cleaned up before entering the house. Years ago when her papa and his brothers were boys, they stripped in the yard and washed by the well, but now the mudroom had been enlarged and offered a curtain for privacy if needed and a huge bathtub if desired.

There, with cold water, she washed, then collected clean clothes and a nightgown. She walked around to the front door, careful to avoid the windows off the dining room.

Once in the sewing room between her father’s study and the dining room, Emily closed all the shutters and drapes, lit a lamp, pulled off her clothes, and slipped into a white nightgown. It was the only time during the day that she felt like a woman. Soft lace brushed her chin and toes.

Rose tapped on her door a moment later, bringing her food. When she entered, she whispered, “Are you sure you’ll be all right in here? There’s not even a fireplace.”

“I’m fine. I’ll keep the door locked and be gone at first light. There are a half dozen quilts in the corner to keep me warm. I doubt anyone will be up before I leave. If they see me in the house, I’ll simply say I was hired to work with the horses and I came to talk to you or Emily about ranch business. Everyone knows to keep quiet and not give me away.”

“Of course”—Rose nodded—“but try to be invisible as much as possible and keep that hair tucked under your hat. With luck no one will even notice you’re not a boy.”

Em frowned at the insult. True, she wasn’t as rounded as either of her sisters, but she didn’t think she looked like a boy, not if anyone took the time to look.

Setting her plate down on the sewing table, she asked, “How are the men? Don’t tell me they’re as bad as the last batch Duck brought home or I’ll have to shoot the lot of them to save you a week of torture.”

“No. They’re fine,” Rose answered. “Very good in fact. The horseman named Boyd Sinclair only talks about himself, but I think that’s because he’s nervous. I thought that you might like him until his comment that McMurray horses were almost as fine as his stock.”

Em took a bite of potatoes to keep from swearing.

Rose continued, “The younger one, Davis Allender, is very polite, and his mother seems sweet. The tall one, Lewton Paterson, is quiet.”

“Shy?” Em asked, surprised.

“No,” Rose corrected. “Not shy, more of a watcher. I get the feeling he’s taking measure of everything around him. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d turned over the plate to check the markings. I’m not sure I like him. Maybe he’s unsure of himself or maybe he’s just trying too hard. I feel like he weighs every word before he speaks.”

“You’ve always been a good judge of people, Rose. Trust that judgment now.”

“I will.” She moved to the door. “Hope you can get some sleep. If I remember right, Mama could pretty much hear everything going on in the old part of the house from this room. Maybe that’s why she made it her sewing room.”

“Maybe so.” Em locked the door behind her sister and settled down to her meal. She could hear voices from the dining room and it didn’t take long to distinguish every person.

The air in the room was still, but grew colder. Em collected three quilts from a corner and curled up in her mother’s soft chair. This was the room the girls would come to at night when the house was quiet. Their mother would be working late if Papa wasn’t home. They’d each grab a quilt and sit around her chair. She’d read to them, or, better yet, tell one of the stories from her favorite books.

Em loved growing up here. The warm memories almost erased her early days when they’d lived in Chicago. The days before Mama came to Papa. Em pulled up the footstool and decided this would make a fine bed for tonight.

“Good night, bird,” she whispered.

The bird didn’t answer.

Within minutes, the voices from the other room lulled her to sleep. With luck the week would pass without the strangers even noticing her. They’d be gone and she’d have peace once more.

L
EWT PRETENDED TO DRINK HIS WINE, BUT HE WANTED to be stone-cold sober at all times. Too much was riding on the outcome of this one week. He set his glass down and took in each person around the table. He supposed Duncan had hurt his pride when he’d said Lewt was the last man in Texas that he’d introduce to his cousins. At the end of this week, the ranger would eat those words. Lewt would fit in. He would. He’d play the part of a gentleman. He’d watch the family. He’d learn about ranching.