The Rancher's Wife

“Did you?” he asked in a cool tone.

“Mr. Graham, I feel we must be honest with each other if we are to live under the same roof. I’m married and I came here only for the job and for the sake of the baby. You and I don’t have to like each other. Although I only saw Celia once, I considered her to be my friend and I’m loyal to her memory. No other relationship between us is possible.”

“You’re assuming a great deal. It takes more than one visit to make a friendship. And, I assure you, Mary Kate’s well-being is my top priority.”

“Celia was the first woman I had seen in months. I must insist you treat her memory with respect, at least in my presence.”

“I knew her better than you did and you have no right to call me to task.”

“I see.” Elizabeth stood and picked up her plate. “I think the less contact we have, the better it will be.”

“I think you’re right.”

She swept past him and finished her meal alone in the kitchen. It wasn’t the way she had intended the first meal to turn out, but she felt it was better to get everything out in the open from the beginning. Otherwise she might make a fool of herself.

That night Brice awoke to hear Mary Kate fretting in her bed. Automatically he swung his feet out from under the cover. He had pulled on his pants and was halfway to the door before he was really awake. With a yawn he went out into the hall and down to the nursery door.

At the doorway he stopped.

Elizabeth was already there. The baby was in her arms and she had started to sing to her softly. She opened the window to get the bottle she had left there to stay cool. Her hair was loose and flowed down her back in thick waves to below her waist. Her gown was white and loose but the lamp light showed him tantalizing glimpses of her silhouette beneath the concealing fabric. She looked younger and more vulnerable than she had during the day.

She turned to take the baby to the rocker, and Brice stepped back into the dark hallway before she could see him. He was wearing no shirt or shoes and he didn’t want to alarm or embarrass her. When he heard the sound of the rocker moving in pace to her song, he looked back around.

Elizabeth was rocking and feeding the bottle to Mary Kate while she sang softly and smiled down at her. They made such a scene of domestic tranquillity that Brice felt emotion tighten his throat. As Elizabeth’s hair swayed with the rocker and undulated about her, he wondered if it could possibly be as soft as it looked. Certainly it was longer and thicker than he had guessed. Mary Kate reached up a pudgy arm and gathered a fistful of it and held on. Elizabeth smiled at her.

Quietly Brice backed away from the room and retreated down the hall without making a sound. Once in his room, he closed the door and sat on the side of the bed. Maybe it had been a mistake to ask her to come here.

At the time it had seemed only logical. He needed a woman to take care of the baby and the house; she needed a decent place to live. But it wasn’t working out so simply. She had made it plain at dinner that she didn’t like him and would prefer not to be around him. The unfairness of it hurt him, because he had offered her room and board as well as a salary. Why did she dislike him so? At least, he consoled himself, there was no chance of him forming an attachment with another woman who disliked his ranch. When she left, there would be no regrets.

Although her song was too soft for him to hear from his bed, Brice listened to it in his heart. It was a tune any mother might sing to a child, but Elizabeth’s voice was beautiful, and the loving way she had looked down at the baby had touched him deeply. He would never be able to ignore her presence in the house the way he had done Consuela’s. He would have to be very careful with his feelings toward Elizabeth.

Brice got to his feet, strode to the veranda door and stepped out into the night. The air was much too cold for comfort but he welcomed it.

He stayed there trying not to think those thoughts that had driven him out into the cold until he heard the quiet sound of Elizabeth’s bedroom door closing and the rustle of her bedclothes. The walls were too thin at times. Listening to Celia move about in that room and knowing he would never be welcome there had been galling but not so tempting as to hear Elizabeth settling into the same feather bed. Drawing a deep breath, Brice went back into his room and closed the door against the night air.

He gazed for a long moment at the door that connected his room to hers. Celia had blocked that passage with a heavy armoire. Unless Elizabeth had looked closely, she probably hadn’t noticed the door was there at all. Celia’s gesture had been purely antagonistic; she had known he would never force himself on her. And once she was with child, she had made it clear that he would never be welcome in her bed again. The baby had fulfilled her duty as she saw it. To prove she meant it, she moved permanently into the other bedroom. He had spent a lot of sleepless nights after that.

He was only fooling himself to think he could live with Elizabeth in the same house without her presence having an impact on him. Something deep in his soul had come to life the first time their eyes met. It was a measure of his desperation over Mary Kate’s welfare that he had thought they could live tranquilly under the same roof. There was only one decent thing to do. Tomarrow he would send Cal in to Glory to look for Robert. He should have done so right away.

He took off his pants and tossed them over the arm of the chair beside his bed. The sheets felt uncomfortably cold when he slid between them. Brice hated to sleep alone, and he had never been able to sleep in a nightshirt. That was one of the first matters he and Celia had argued about—if you could call it an argument when her side consisted of crying and pouting and making him guess what was wrong for days before unloading her grievances on him at the top of her lungs.

Elizabeth would never be that indirect. She had proved that at dinner. Elizabeth would tell him straight out and in no uncertain terms what he had done that displeased her. He found himself smiling in the dark. Such honesty would be refreshing. As much as he hated to argue, he wouldn’t mind so much if he could be certain what the subjects were from the beginning.

But she didn’t like him for reasons he didn’t understand, and her primary goal was to leave the Oklahoma Territory and return to her people in Missouri. It was for the best that her stay at the ranch was temporary, given the way she disliked him and how he didn’t dislike her at all. Yes, he had to find Robert for Elizabeth and another woman for Mary Kate. And he needed to do it soon, before emotions exploded between them.

Chapter Four

By the time Elizabeth had been at the ranch for two months, she found herself actually enjoying living there. Brice had sent Cal into Glory to look for Robert, but he had been unable to find him. A few people remembered seeing him months before yet no one had any idea where he might have gone. Elizabeth had taken the news with an outward show of calm but Robert’s disappearance only cemented her inner conclusion that he had deserted her and never intended to return at all.

Mary Kate now knew Elizabeth well and considered her to be her own personal possession. Her small face would light up as soon as Elizabeth came into the room and she’d hold up her hands with an angelic smile on her face to signal that she wanted to be picked up and carried. Elizabeth loved the baby as much as she would have if Mary Kate had been her own child.

Brice was a larger part of Elizabeth’s life than she would have preferred. Because she considered it part of her job, she planned her day around those times when he would appear for meals, and centered the menus around his likes and dislikes. He still had shown no sign of cruelty, but Elizabeth was certain he was capable of it. As were all the men she had known well. She had to remind herself constantly that Celia had had no reason to lie about it and that she mustn’t read more into his kindnesses than might be true.

After supper Brice liked to sit in the library and go over the ranch’s accounts or read. Elizabeth had been drawn to that room since her first glimpse of it. When Brice was gone during the day, she often went into the library and stroked the leather spines of the books and read the titles. To do more seemed like an invasion of his privacy. But eventually her desire to read overcame her reticence.

After putting Mary Kate down for the night, she went to the library door and paused. Brice sat at his mahogany desk, the lamp making a puddle of yellow light on the polished surface. He was bent over several papers, adding numbers and making notations beside the columns. He must have sensed her presence because he looked up. “Yes?”

Her mouth went dry. What if he refused to let her read his books? Her father had always discouraged her from reading. “I was wondering...” She hesitated, not sure how to go on.

He put down his pen. “Yes?” he repeated.

She went to the nearest shelves and touched the books lightly. “Have you read all these?”

“Yes, I have. I like to read.”

“So do I. I was wondering if, well, if I might borrow a book from time to time. I would be careful with it and be certain to bring it back when I’m finished.” She looked at him beseechingly.

“You like to read?”

The hint of amazement in his tone rankled her. “I told you I can read. My mother taught me even before I started school.” She was trying not to sound defensive but was doing poorly. “Forget I asked.” She turned to leave the room.

“Wait.” He leaned back in his leather chair. “I never said I wouldn’t let you read my books. I’d be glad to share them with you.”

Elizabeth turned back to him, embarrassed and feeling more defensive than ever. “Are you making fun of me? You may have found me living in a sod hut, but I do have an education. If I’m here that long, I’m quite capable of tutoring Mary Kate.”

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