Читать книгу Rocky Mountain Homecoming - Pamela Nissen - Страница 8

“Make way! Big load comin’ through,” Pete O’Leary, the local grave digger, announced as he plastered his tall lanky form against a row of mercantile shelves. “Zach, you must be half ox, with the way you’re lugging those heavy crates.”

“Ahh … they’re not all that heavy. I’ll be fine.” Adjusting his grip on the two jam-packed crates, the ranch foreman ducked under a display of bridles that had been hung like moss from a tree.

“I think Conroy here’s scairt of ya, Zach.” Pete dragged his pet ferret, its long-whiskered nose twitching, from his shoulder and held out the critter to Zach. “Feel how the little guy’s jest shakin’ up a storm.”

Pausing, Zach eyed the lanky critter, a purchase Pete had made from a traveling salesman a year ago. The cute weasel-like animal was Pete’s constant companion, except at church, which Pete had often mourned, saying that attending might do the ferret’s thieving soul some good. Zach was pretty sure that if he didn’t take the time to alleviate Conroy’s apparent fear, he’d wound Pete’s feelings.

Easing the crates to the floor, he took the ferret from Pete, chuckling at the way the animal draped over his arms like a wet cloth, peering up at him with those mischievous marble-like eyes of his. “Well, aren’t you a cute little guy,” Zach said, if for no other reason than to placate Pete. “See, I’m as harmless as a newborn pup. I wouldn’t hurt a soul.”

“I don’ know ‘bout that,” Pete contradicted. Blowing out a big breath, he stirred up tiny particles of dust on a nearby shelf that sashayed on his hot air to some other shelf. “Conroy and me … we wouldn’t want to cross you—that’s for sure.”

“I’m slow to rile,” Zach reasoned, recognizing that with the long hours of hard physical labor he worked on the Harris ranch, he’d come by his size honestly. “But when it comes to defending what’s right and looking out for loved ones, I don’t back down.” Zach wore the trait proudly.

“Yer jest like yer brothers,” Pete stated with a tight wink. “Every last one of you Drake boys is cut’a the same sturdy, God-fearin’ cloth.”

“I count myself a blessed man to have them.”

His brothers meant the world to him. He’d do anything to help them out, and they’d do the same—that is, if he let them.

Zach swallowed a generous gulp of pride as he recalled just how often his brothers had said that he needed to stop taking on the world by himself. And more than anything … that he needed to find his way to trusting God again instead of trying to be the Almighty for himself.

He was trying. He’d even felt God’s gentle tugging, but time and again, it seemed Zach was better off carving out his own path. He had too much to prove after living in his brothers’ long successful shadows. Now, he was determined to forge his own way in life. Or die trying.

The rhythmic jangling sound of a wagon rolling down the street filtered into his hearing like some patent reminder to get a move on. The way his boss, Mr. Harris, had seemed under the weather recently, Zach had stepped up his duties a notch.

“I’ve got to get going, Pete.” He returned Conroy to Pete’s arms and hefted the crates again. “See you around.”

“See ya later, Zach,” Pete said, observing Zach as though he was carrying a big old pine tree down the aisle.

Craning his neck around the bulky load, Zach headed toward the door, the bolts of colorful calico to his right. Turning, he nudged the unlatched door with his backside. When it stuck, he gave it a hard shove.

“Get off!” a female voice yelped from the mercantile platform outside.

He whipped his head around just in time to see a flourish of hands flailing, skirts ruffling and wings flapping.

“Go!” she hollered, waving her hands madly.

A barn swallow bolted from the woman’s fancy feathered hat into the crisp September air. She spun around and backpeddled, stumbling toward the edge of the four-foot boardwalk.

Dropping the crates with a clank and clatter, Zach bolted into the late afternoon sun. Snaked out a hand to grab her. Missed.

As she tumbled to the mud-slopped ground with a delicate splat, he shot off the platform, landing on his feet beside the woman. He hunkered down at her side. “Are you all right, ma’am?” He touched her shoulder.

“I’m fine. Just dandy,” she sputtered, her mouth a resolute line and barely visible from beneath her wide-brimmed, dirt-splattered hat that had been knocked askew. She struggled to lever herself from the mud’s sloppy grasp.

“Here, let me help you.” He pulled the woman up to a sitting position then retrieved her small handbag, and after wiping the mud from it onto his breeches, held it out to her. “Here’s your bag, ma’am.”

She hunkered down and whispered, “Where’s that horrible bird? Is he still here?” A heavy thread of desperation flashed through her words even as a wavy lock of rich auburn hair tumbled from beneath her hat.

“He’s gone.” Zach scanned the rooflines. “Flew the coop. At least for now, anyway.”

“You mean he’s likely to return?” she yelped. She ducked her head between her shoulders as though she was about to be swooped down on by an entire flock. “Because I’m scared to death of birds.”

He didn’t believe he knew this woman, hadn’t even gotten a good look at her with that pretentious hat draping over her face, but the fact that she was so obviously unsettled by a harmless bird struck a chord of compassion in his heart.

He settled a protective arm around her shoulder and angled a glance at the mercantile overhang where the barest makings of a nest had been wedged onto a strut. “I hate to break the news to you, but with that nest he has started up there, he’ll likely be back.”

She gave a muffled screech, and with muddy hands, shielded her hat-draped head as if she was being pelted by egg-size hailstones.

“It’s all right. Don’t be afraid.” He gently grasped her arm. “I’ll protect you if he returns.”

With the wagons clattering by and horses plodding through the streets, he almost missed the long breath she inhaled right then. But he couldn’t miss the way she stiffened, her spine growing straight and unyielding, as though she’d been jarred to her senses.

She pulled away from him and with mud-caked fingers, primped the ruffled white shirtwaist beneath her fashionable silken wrap. “I can manage just fine by myself.”

He shook his head at her show of stubbornness. Something about this woman was vaguely familiar. Her voice … with its rich lilting tone, and her slender fingers … the way they tapered to a delicate end, and then there was the almost prideful way she’d diverted his concern.

Angling his head down, he tried unsuccessfully to peek at her from beneath the mud-wilted brim. When he took in the bedraggled state of this spritely stranger, and her seemingly unconcerned attitude about her condition, he couldn’t help but be slightly amused. The hat she wore, big and looking more like a small garden of frippery than a head covering, dwarfed her petite frame.

The sound of wildly flapping wings broke through his musings. She must have heard it too, because the woman balled herself up tight as the bird braved another approach.

“Go on, bird. Shoo!” He waved off the curious winged creature with one arm and folded the other around the trembling woman. His heart skipped several beats as she burrowed against his chest, her warm breath seeping clear through his shirt.

He could’ve stayed right here with this little lady in his arms for the next hour. Maybe more. Even in spite of the noticeable way a gaggle of older women had gathered outside the hotel, their lips tight disapproving lines as they stared in his direction.

He’d never quite felt like this before. He’d never gotten close enough to know what this felt like. In years past, his annoying stutter would crop up, unbidden, chasing him away from the very idea of love. And once he’d been made foreman, he’d been too focused on doing the best job he could to spend any kind of thought on a woman.

Scooping her into his arms, he lifted her from the mud and crossed over to the walkway, giving little notice to the dark slime that now caked his arms, hands and down the front of his shirt.

But the soft gasp that came from her lips just now … he definitely couldn’t ignore that.

She scrambled to free herself from his arms, jerking him from his temporary lapse of wits. “What in the world?” she sputtered, irritation sharply framing her words.

“I said I’d protect you if he returned, and that’s what I was doing,” he defended, a little put out by her abruptness.

“Please … put me down!” she demanded, breathless.

He grinned at her endearing grasp for control, and held on. “You might want to take that thing off your head if you’re planning on protecting yourself.” He settled her feet on the boardwalk. “With all those feathers and leaves and whatnot, I’d say it’s a little too tempting for that nesting bird. He probably thinks he’s discovered a perfect fall and winter home.”

Stomping mud from her fancy buttoned boots, she tugged the brim of her hat down all the more, hiding her face nearly completely. “I’ll leave it on, thank you.”

“Suit yourself.” With unabashed curiosity, he looked on while she brushed at her skirt. With the delicate way she was going about it, she may as well have been trying to remove a smudge of innocent dust, not a thick layer of reddish-colored mud. He could hardly blame the spirited woman for being so on edge. After all, her entire backside was coated in a slimy layer of mud. She was probably mortified. Humiliated. Downright mad.

With that silent acknowledgment, he drew his neatly folded handkerchief from his back pocket and held it out like an olive branch. “Here. Take this.”

Clutching the front edge of her hat, she lifted it into place with more dignity than he’d expect, given her filthy condition.

“This might help a litt—” His words died on his tongue as she tipped up her face and met his gaze.

His breath whooshed from his lungs. He stared, wide-eyed, his vision pulsing black. White. Then splotching in an array of colors as he took in the woman standing before him.

Ivy. Grace. Harris.

He blinked hard in the hopes of producing some other image than her.

The one and only love of his childhood heart.

His boss’s daughter.

And the sole reason he’d suffered years of humiliation.

She stared at him for a long and lingering moment. Her lips parted and then fell open as wide as her sparkling eyes.

Zach’s blood thickened in his veins as he met that beautiful, memorable spring-green gaze of hers. He’d never forget it—with just one glance his knees used to grow as flimsy as a blade of grass bent by the wind—just like they did now. Nor had he forgotten the adorable way her pert little nose turned up ever-so-slightly. Or the way her full lips formed the most perfect Cupid’s bow, begging to be kissed.

He worked a swallow past the lump that had knotted his throat. Battled back that familiar, thick, tongue-tied feeling that strangled him even now. Struggled to keep all six feet of his work-hardened body from trembling.

For over a year now he’d been foreman on John Harris’s

ranch, and for the first time since childhood he’d felt secure. Confident.

But now …

Now with this girl—this woman’s—appearance, he was catapulted back to nearly twelve years ago all over again.

He blinked back the apprehension she was sure to find in his gaze. Swerved his focus a block down the street where he spotted Beatrice Duncan beelining toward them, her short legs eating up the walkway with surprising swiftness as she aimed an overly eager, almost giddy look in his direction. He clenched his jaw at the woman’s clear intent. But it was the woman in front of him that gave him pause.

“Zachariah Drake?” Ivy worked her gaze from his head all the way down to his toes and then back again in a slow, silent and wholly discomforting perusal. “Is it you?”

He stared at her, struggling to find his voice.

“Is it really you?” The buoyant sound of her voice disconcerted him all the more.

“Yes,” he managed to force out. “It’s me.”

“What a surprise,” she breathed, swiping a muddy hand across the front of her lavender-colored skirt. Her long eyelashes whispered down over those eyes of hers like tender branches bending to kiss the fresh green of a beautiful spring landscape. “I barely recognized you. It’s been—”

“S-s-six years.” Clearing his throat, his stomach convulsed at the way he could’ve rattled off the months, the days … maybe the hours since he’d last seen her.

But he was more disgusted with the way the one syllable had suddenly become three.

The sound of his broken speech raked over his hearing like a hundred pricking barbs. Surely it was a mishap. A blunder. There was no way, after all the labor, sweat and fortitude he’d poured into overcoming his stutter that it’d descend on him again like some dark and stormy day.

No way.

“It has been, hasn’t it?” She lifted her chin in that stately way of hers. Fingered the wilting blue fringe dangling from the navy wrap that was now plastered by mud to her back.

He nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets as he hauled in a deep, deep breath, something he’d learned to do when he’d faced his stutter head-on. Dragging his hands out of his pockets, he unfurled his tight fists one finger at a time. “What are you d-d-doing here?”

What in the name of all that was true!

There it was again.

He’d defeated this thing. Hadn’t tripped up more than once over the past couple years. He could speak clearly. Wasn’t given to stumbling. Or even pausing overly long.

He was fine. Just fine.

She tipped her head slightly. Furrowed her graceful brow.

Zach held his ground, even when part of him wanted to flee from her presence and from the haunting impediment. But he’d come too far over the past six years to let her shake his confidence, even if it was quite a shock to see her again.

His boss hadn’t said a word about Ivy coming for a visit. In fact, Zach had only heard the man speak of his daughter once since he’d been working at the Harris ranch.

She lifted her hat from her head, exposing those silken auburn curls he’d stared at for hours on end when he was in school. “As you can see, I was stopping by the mercantile. That is until that bird—”

“What I mean is … why are you in B-B-B-Boulder?” His face muscles tensed.

She set a quivering hand to her neck. “I was stopping by to see if I could find someone who might be able to drive me to the ranch,” she measured out as though he had a miniscule understanding of the English language.

Her placating tone grated his nerves. In school, he’d been ridiculed. Teased without mercy. Treated as though he couldn’t read, write or add two plus two.

He hadn’t been able to speak one sentence without stumbling over the words. And all because of this beautiful woman standing in front of him now.

She glanced around as though there might be a fancy carriage waiting to do her bidding. “My visit … it’s unexpected.”

He’d rather flinch beneath that stubborn stance of hers that he’d glimpsed just moments ago than to writhe in the obvious pity seen in her gaze at this moment. He sure as shootin’ wasn’t going to allow her to strip away all the confidence he’d worked for. No matter how beautiful she was—even more stunning than she’d been six years ago. No matter how often her perfect face had sneaked into his dreams.

He thought he’d overcome the strange hold Ivy once had on him, but one look at her and his traitorous heart had begun beating a wild-stallion rhythm.

And the sight of Beatrice Duncan invading his peripheral vision didn’t help matters one bit. The woman, as benevolent as she was at times, seemed to glory in drama.

“Ivy Harris? Is that you?” Mrs. Duncan’s shrill voice pierced the noise of clattering wagons. “What in the world happened to you? You look a sight.”

Ivy glanced at him, that heart-stopping gaze of hers undermining the core of his resolve as Mrs. Duncan tramped over the last few feet and came to a sudden stop.

“Don’t tell me you knocked this poor girl off that platform there, Zachariah Drake,” she scolded, a stiff gust of wind blowing wisps of bright orange hair into the woman’s round face.

Scrambling to gain control over his slipping confidence, he drew in a deep breath as the memory of Ivy fearfully ducking for cover from a harmless bird flashed through his mind.

Ivy sighed, perching her hat on her head again. “He didn’t—”

“It was my fault,” Zach confessed, meeting Mrs. Duncan’s scorn, face-first. He gulped back his pride, knowing that the woman would pick the situation apart until Ivy would have to admit to being terrified of a harmless bird, and he just couldn’t allow that to happen.

He set his back teeth, annoyed that he somehow felt it was his responsibility to leap to her rescue. He’d learned the hard way—the long, painful, life-altering way—that following his heart like he had twelve years ago, was a very bad idea. At least where Ivy Harris was concerned.

“I had my hands full c-carrying those crates.” He nodded up at the platform, where the crates lay on their sides, the contents having spilled out like some bountiful cornucopia. “I wasn’t looking where I was g-g-going and startled—”

“It was an accident, ma’am.” Ivy sliced him an admonishing look, mortifying Zach by refusing to let him take the blame.

Beatrice Duncan slid a doubtful gaze from the front edge of the platform then down to the patch of mud created by the recent rains and constant run of horse hooves and wagon wheels. She jammed her fists on her doughy waist. “I don’t know how many times I’ve said to my Horace, ‘Horace, you need to get out there and fasten a railing to the front of this platform before some soul or another gets hurt!’“ She gave her round head a decided shake, huffing and puffing in a gratuitous show of frustration. “But that mule-headed man of mine insists that it stay like it is. Says it makes loading wagons easier.”

The corners of Ivy’s mouth tipped up the slightest bit. “The platform is just fine the way it is, Mrs. Duncan. I was—”

“Oh, never you mind the platform. You come here, girl, and give me a big ole hug.” She started for Ivy, flinging her arms wide open and then shutting them up just as suddenly, as if realizing she’d soil her go-to-meeting dress. “Oops, that won’t do at all now, will it? How about a friendly nod for now? Land sakes, you were just a girl when you up and left Boulder, but now look at you.” She slid an approving look all the way from Ivy’s toes to her head. “If a body sees past the mud, I’d say she’s turned into quite a beautiful young woman. Hasn’t she, Zach?”

He met Ivy’s stunned expression, unwilling to appear pathetic or indecisive in front of her, as he had when he was younger. “Yes,” he confirmed, struggling to drag himself over to some distantly objective viewpoint. “Yes, she has.”

“What brings you back to these parts, anyway, Ivy?” Mrs. Duncan folded her hands in front of her. “Why, I just saw your daddy the other day and he didn’t mention one thing about you journeying out here for a visit.”

“Violet sent for me.” The momentary look of bravery crossing Ivy’s face pricked Zach’s heart. “My father doesn’t know I’m coming.”

“Well, why in the world not, child?” the woman challenged. “He’d be happy to know of your visit. He’d probably roll out the red carpet for you, if he knew you were here.”

When Ivy’s focus drifted down the road where her father’s ranch stretched across the foothills, Zach had to wonder just how long she planned on staying. Three weeks? Two? Maybe one … if he was lucky?

She met the older woman’s intense stare, a certain sadness dimming her bright eyes. “As ill as he is, I didn’t want to cause him any undo worry. It wouldn’t be good for him in his condition.”

“What do you mean?” Confusion furrowed Mrs. Duncan’s ruddy brow. “What condition are you talking about?”

Had Zach not worked closely enough with Mr. Harris to notice otherwise, he would’ve echoed the woman’s query. But maybe there was even more cause for alarm than what he’d observed. Mr. Harris’s housekeeper, Violet Stoddard, had worried many a path in the kitchen floor. Was there a new path, deeper than just a little under the weather?

Distress flitted featherlight across Ivy’s fair features. She tugged her wrap together at her chest, worrying her bottom lip.

“When I saw him the other day, he looked fit as a fine-tuned instrument. Why, he dismounted his horse with almost as much vim and vigor as Zach, here,” Mrs. Duncan announced, poking Zach in the arm. “But that daddy of yours is a proud man. He’d probably prefer going to his grave without a soul knowing he was sick than to show weakness.”

Ivy’s wide gaze grew even more troubled. “Probably.”

“I suppose you didn’t want to cause him any worry with you traveling all the way out here, and it’s good of you to be concerned, mind you.” Mrs. Duncan primped the white ruffles meandering down the front of Ivy’s shirt. “But honestly … the careless way you young’uns go gallivanting all over the country, these days, us parent-folk are bound to fall face-first into an early grave.”

Zach clenched his jaw. With Ivy’s mother dying shortly before Ivy had headed east, Mrs. Duncan’s poor choice of words was downright irritating. “Ivy is exhausted, Mrs. Duncan. She probably j-j-just wants to get home and settle in. I’d better g-g-get her loaded up.”

“What in the world is wrong with you, Zachariah Drake?” the older woman demanded, pivoting to face him. “Are you tripping over your words again?” Despite the generous serving of concern coating Mrs. Duncan’s inquiry, Zach squirmed.

“It’s nothing.” He clamped his lips tightly together.

“I thought you had that thing licked,” she persisted.

“I did.”

The woman gave a halfhearted harrumph and squared her shoulders. “Well, if you’re headin’ that way, Zach, then you may as well take this poor girl home with you before she catches her death of a cold.”

“With you?” Ivy’s petite features creased as she peered at Zach. “I’m not sure I understand.”

He wasn’t about to let her opinion of him strip away his hard-earned confidence. He’d tripped all over himself one too many times for her. Never, never again would he be so weak, so vulnerable. He’d just steer clear of her. Keep busy until she went back to where she belonged.

“Why, girl, don’t you know?” Mrs. Duncan blurted, obviously way too eager to bear the untold information she’d stumbled upon. “A year ago your daddy up and promoted Zach here to—”

“Foreman,” Zach interrupted, the news taking Ivy by complete surprise.

“Foreman?” she echoed, struggling to swallow her shock. Violet hadn’t mentioned a thing in her letters.

She peered at him. Maybe she shouldn’t be so surprised. He was nothing like she remembered from school. Nothing. That Zachariah Drake had been skinny and lanky and awkward. But this Zachariah Drake was tall and powerfully built, strikingly handsome with his crystal-blue eyes and strong jawline. This Zachariah Drake was …

Her father’s foreman?

“What happened to Cliff?” she finally managed to say, her mind racing with a plethora of questions. “He’s been foreman as long as I’ve been alive.”

“Cliff passed on last year,” Mrs. Duncan commented. “Poor soul. That man was as trusted as your daddy, himself.”

“I had no idea,” Ivy breathed, clutching her handbag tight.

It wasn’t as if she’d had a close relationship with the man, but he’d always been a fixture on the ranch. Always. He was honest and solid and had years of wisdom in that silvery head of his.

Being the stubborn man of detail that her father was, he’d often driven home the fact that time-earned experience was a priceless commodity on the ranch. That there was no substitute for the strong lines on a cowboy’s face carved by years of sun and hard work.

Zach was young. Twenty-three. Twenty-four in two short weeks. From the monthly church dinners and collective birthday celebrations she fondly recalled from her childhood, she couldn’t forget how his birthday fell two days before hers.

Still, as she peered at him, all six feet, work-hardened muscle of him, she knew she would not soon forget the warm and comforting feel of his arms cradling her as he’d carried her to the boardwalk mere moments ago, either. He’d grown up. But had he grown up enough to handle the grueling responsibilities that come with running a ranch? And for that matter, when had Zach grown from the scrawny fence post of a boy she recalled from school, to this inarguably strapping man? And why did she suddenly find that so attractive?

Back in New York she’d mostly encountered men in suits, cravats and handsome boots that shined. She certainly hadn’t forgotten her ranch-style roots here in the west, but perhaps, standing at the precipice of womanhood six years ago, she’d been too young to take notice of a man who’d been chiseled by hard work, fresh air and physical labor.

A man like Zach.

All good sense had seemingly left her the moment he’d wrapped her in his strong arms, shielding her from that wayward bird—and she’d never felt that before. But just as soon as he’d taken it upon himself to pick her up and cart her like a sack of potatoes to the boardwalk as though she was a helpless newborn babe, she’d been jerked out of her silent reverie.

When their gazes had finally met she’d scrambled to hide her shock. She’d been caught completely off guard, especially by the news of his position as foreman. For six years, she’d clung to her well-ordered world as a matter of survival, and she’d flourished. Change—especially change that involved an exceedingly handsome young man who now managed her father’s greatest interest—

was not something she navigated through with much confidence. She’d expected to come home and tend to her father and his ranch.

How was she ever going to maneuver through the next few weeks?