The Hired Man

A home for the drifter

Cordell Winterman is haunted by his mistakes—and the years spent paying for them. Broke and hungry, he takes a job as a hired man on Eleanor Malloy’s farm.

Eleanor needs help. Desperately. Her kids are running wild and the place is held up by spit and rust. But as Cord helps her set her home to rights, Eleanor realizes she doesn’t just need this enigmatic drifter with hunger in his eyes...she wants him, too!

“I’m sorry, Cord. Really sorry.”

“For what?”

“For everything. I’m sorry about Tom, and for being so weak after the pneumonia, and I’m sorry about your wife. I’m sorry you saw my apple trees in bloom on your way to California. I’m sorry you stopped.”

He sucked in a breath and held it, eyeing the daisy things he’d laid on the quilt beside her. Then he exhaled in one long, slow stream.

“Eleanor, I’m sorry about Tom, and about you being sick. But I’m not sorry about your apple trees, and I’m sure as hell not sorry I stopped at your farm.”

Author Note

My mother was raised on a ranch in Oregon, and she always spoke fondly of the hired men who came to help out. She remembered them as kindly, usually unmarried men, who moved from ranch to ranch in the summertime. She recalled one hired man in particular, by the name of Frank, who came every summer; he shared his cookies with her after supper and made her corncob dolls to play with.

The Hired Man

Lynna Banning

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LYNNA BANNING combines her lifelong love of history and literature in a satisfying career as a writer. Born in Oregon, she graduated from Scripps College and embarked on a career as an editor and technical writer, and later as a high school English teacher. She enjoys hearing from her readers. You may write to her directly at PO Box 324, Felton, CA 95018, USA, email her at [e-mail] or visit Lynna’s website at lynnabanning.net.

Books by Lynna Banning

Mills & Boon Historical Romance

One Starry Christmas

‘Hark the Harried Angels’

The Scout

High Country Hero

Smoke River Bride

Templar Knight, Forbidden Bride

The Lone Sheriff

Wild West Christmas

‘Christmas in Smoke River’

Dreaming of a Western Christmas

‘His Christmas Belle’

Smoke River Family

Western Spring Weddings

‘The City Girl and the Rancher’

Printer in Petticoats

Her Sheriff Bodyguard

Baby on the Oregon Trail

The Hired Man

Visit the Author Profile page

at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

For hired men everywhere. And women.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Author Note

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Smoke River, Oregon

Cord dismounted and reached to open the iron gate, then shook his head in disbelief and patted his horse’s neck. “Just take a look at that, Sally-girl. Only thing holding that gate up is rust.” He laid his palm against the top and gave a little push. The decrepit gate swung partway open, hung there for a few seconds and toppled onto the ground.

He narrowed his eyes and studied it more closely. The split-rail fence looked like it was held together with spit, and there was no cattle guard. Man, this place needed more than a hired man. It needed a whole battalion of them.

A rickety-looking barn that had once been painted red stood off to one side of the dingy farmhouse, and the front yard was full of busily scratching chickens.

“Come on, Sally.” He grasped the bridle and tugged his mare forward. The only thing that looked even half-alive was the apple orchard he’d seen when he rode in, the frothy white blossoms clinging to the branches like soft puffs of new snow. Even from here he could hear the buzzing of thousands of bees.

But that was the only sign of life. He tied the bay mare to a spindly lilac bush and stepped up onto the porch. His boot punched clear through the rotting middle step. The front door stood open, but he couldn’t see through the dirty, spiderwebby screen. He rapped on the frame and watched flakes of rust sift onto his bare wrist.

“Just a moment,” a voice called. A long minute passed, during which the only sound was the hum of bees and Sally’s whicker. Finally a blurry shape appeared behind the screen.

“Yes?” The voice sounded suspicious.

“Name’s Cordell Winterman, ma’am. I understand you’re looking for a hired man?”

“Oh. Well, yes, I guess I am.”

“You don’t sound too sure about it.” He dug the scrap of newsprint out of his shirt pocket. “You put this ad in the newspaper, didn’t you? ‘Wanted—hired man for farm and apple orchard.’” He pressed it up against the screen.

“Ah,” she said after a pause. “Yes, I did advertise for a hired man. Are you interested?”

Cord swallowed hard. Hell, yes, he was interested! He hadn’t eaten in three days, and he was out of money and out of sorts. “Sure, I’m interested, ma’am.”

“Why?” she asked bluntly.

Cord blinked. “Why? Well, I could give you a lot of palaver about wanting to help out because I like farming, but that’d be just fancy words. The truth is I’m broke and I’m hungry.”

“Oh,” she said again. And then nothing more.

“Ma’am?” he prompted.

The door latch snapped and the screen swung open. “You’d better come in, Mr. Winterman.”

The minute he stepped into the threadbare parlor an enticing smell hit him and his belly rumbled. Roast chicken, he guessed. Right about now it didn’t matter; he’d eat roast anything. He hung his battered hat on the hook by the door and followed her to the kitchen, where he watched her shove a pan of biscuits into the oven, then turn to face him.

For a moment he forgot to breathe. A pair of wide gray eyes surveyed him from under dark brows. Soft-looking eyes, and tired. Her thick chestnut hair was caught at her nape in a scraggly-looking bun. A blue-checked apron cinched the waist of her faded green dress, and from under the hem peeked ten perfect bare toes.

But the most surprising thing wasn’t those bare toes. It was her face, heart-shaped and chalk white. She’d be beautiful if she wasn’t so pale. Jumping jenny, she was beautiful anyway. He couldn’t take his eyes off those pale cheeks; you’d think out here on a farm in the middle of Oregon she’d at least be a bit sunburned. Or freckled. Instead, her skin looked smooth as cream.

She gestured at the round wooden table in the kitchen and pointed to a straight-backed chair, then walked to the staircase. “Daniel? Molly?”

Even her raised voice was soft somehow. Refined.

Feet thumped down the stairs and she turned back to the stove while he pulled out the chair she indicated as a shaggy-haired boy of about nine and a small blonde girl some years younger clattered into the kitchen.

“Have you washed up?” the woman asked.

“Aw, Ma,” the boy whined, “do I hafta?”

She pointed to the sink, and both children groaned. “Quickly, now. We have a guest. This is Mr. Winterman.”

They edged past him to pump water into the sink.

“Hullo,” the boy said over his shoulder.

“H’lo,” his sister echoed. “I betcha you haven’t washed up.”

Cord chuckled. “Well, no, I haven’t.” He rose and accepted the bar of yellow soap from Molly’s small fingers and pumped water over his calloused hands.

“Set the table, children,” their mother ordered. All of a sudden he realized he didn’t know her name.

The boy, Daniel, slapped four blue china plates onto the table, followed by Molly, who pushed forks and spoons into place. Then four blue gingham napkins appeared.

Cord settled into his chair and watched the children scramble into their seats, fold their hands and sit at attention while their mother brought a platter of fried chicken and a bowl of biscuits. Finally, she set a mason jar of apple blossoms in the center of the table.

Cord’s stomach rumbled and Molly giggled. “You must be hungry, huh, mister?”

“Yeah, I sure am.”

“Molly,” her mother admonished. “That is not a polite question.”

“I don’t mind, Mrs....?”

“Malloy,” she supplied. She perched on the edge of the empty chair and pushed the platter of chicken toward him. “Eleanor Malloy.”

She didn’t say another word until supper was over and Daniel and Molly had splashed through the dishwashing and racketed off upstairs. Then she set a china cup before him.

“Coffee?” she asked. He noticed that her hand was shaking.

“Thanks.”

“And then we will discuss my newspaper advertisement.”

They drank their coffee in complete silence, and after a while he wondered if he’d said something to offend her. He sure hoped not. He’d do almost anything for another chicken dinner. Or any dinner.

“Where are your people, Mr. Winterman?”

His people? “I’m da—Darned if I know, ma’am.”

“But surely you have some family living? A mother? Father?”

“I don’t think so, Mrs. Malloy. I was raised in the South.” He cleared his throat. “When I went back after it was all over there was nothing left standing.”

“So you came north?”

“Uh, yeah.” He saw no need to explain everything that had happened next. Or explain why he’d been in Kansas when the War broke out.

“I see,” she said primly. “I need a hired man to help out here on the farm. I can offer meals and lodging in the barn, but I cannot offer any pay. Would that suit?”

“Yes, ma’am, it would. I can see that you need help around here. You need a new front gate for one thing, maybe a new barn roof, a new front fence, a new porch step, and...” He shot a look at the open front door. “A new screen door.”

“I will also need help with the apples when they come on in the fall. I cannot... Well, I can no longer lift the heavy bushel baskets.”

“Some reason?” She couldn’t be expecting, could she? She looked slim as a birch rod. And, since there was no sign of a man around, he figured she was a widow.

“The doctor says I will regain my strength in time, but right now...” Her voice trailed off. She took a sip of her coffee and set the cup on its saucer with a sharp click. “I asked if the arrangement I offered would suit,” she reminded him.

“Oh, sure it will, Miz Malloy. Thanks.” He resisted an impulse to lean over the table and hug the heck out of her.

Eleanor studied her empty coffee cup, then flicked a glance at the man’s face. He looked tanned and weather-beaten, but his eyes were kind. Very blue, she noted, but kind. He handled himself well. His body was lithe and muscular, and he had nice manners. She would not want Molly or Danny to pick up bad habits. Her instincts told her Mr. Winterman was trustworthy and well-behaved, and he was willing to work for just room and board. Until the apple harvest, that was all she could afford.

On the other hand, her instincts had been wrong before.

Mr. Winterman unfolded his tall frame from the chair and stood up, strode to the door and snagged his worn gray hat off the hook. As he went to push the screen open he caught sight of the revolver she kept above the door.

“This your gun?”

“It is, yes. I keep it for protection.”

He sent her a look. “Can you fire a revolver?”

“Y-yes, if I have to.”

“I mean cock it and fire it like you mean to hit something. On short notice?”

“Probably not,” she admitted.

“Got any ammunition?”

“Yes, I think so. Somewhere.”

He said nothing for a long moment. Then he turned to face her. “It’s dangerous to keep a gun you can’t fire in plain sight. Also dangerous for your boy. He might figure he wants to try it out one of these days.”

“Oh, I don’t think—”

“Trust me, ma’am. He’s a boy, isn’t he?”

She stared past him at the velvet-covered settee, then let her gaze drift to the lilac bush out the parlor front window. “I know my son, Mr. Winterman.”

He snorted. “All mothers think that, Miz Malloy.”

An overwhelming urge to weep swept over her and her chest tightened into a sharp ache. She did not like this man, she decided. He was too sure of himself. Too knowledgeable. She remembered his eyes when they looked into hers. Hungry.

But she needed a hired man.

Chapter Two

Cord unsaddled Sally, walked her into an empty stall in the barn and fed her a double handful of oats. Now, where should he bed down? He eyed the ladder up to the loft overhead and smiled. He liked straw, and he liked being up high; it gave him a hawk’s-eye view of whatever was going on. Which wouldn’t be much on a farm this run-down, he figured, but you never knew. Experience, most of it bad, had taught him that the unexpected could be damn dangerous.

He washed up at the pump in the yard. The cool water felt so good after days in the saddle he stripped off his shirt and did it again, then tossed his saddlebags and a single wool blanket up into the loft and let out a long breath. He’d always loved the smell of a barn—horses, leather, animal droppings, clean straw. This barn had two animals in roomy stalls, a sturdy gray gelding with a white star on its forehead and a milk cow contentedly chewing her cud and rolling a disinterested brown eye at him. A dusty saddle hung on one wall, and a broken-down buggy sat in one corner. It didn’t look sturdy enough to get to town and back, and the cracked leather seat looked mighty uncomfortable.

He wondered how the woman, Mrs. Malloy, fetched supplies. The boy looked too young to ride into town alone, and she didn’t look strong enough to make the trip. If she was a widow, as he figured, she must have had some kind of help. Then again, the place looked so run-down it was plain it hadn’t been cared for in some time.

He crawled up into the loft, spread out the worn wool blanket he’d slept in ever since leaving Missouri and folded his arms under his head. This place would do until he could get his feet under him. At least he could eat regular meals and sleep with both eyes shut instead of with his Colt under his pillow and one finger on the trigger.

He wondered if he’d ever get back to feeling like a normal human being again, someone who didn’t flinch at every loud noise and wonder where his next meal was coming from. Someone who could learn to trust his fellow man again. The War had shaken his faith in the human race, and his years in Missouri had taken care of the rest.

Stop thinking about it. He should count himself lucky; just about the time he was thinking about giving up, he’d come up over that hill and smelled those apple blossoms.

* * *

Breakfast the next morning made him smile. When he walked into the kitchen, little Molly was standing on a chair at the stove, poking an oversize fork into a pan full of sizzling bacon. Daniel was cracking fresh eggs into a china bowl. “Plop!” He chortled after the first one. “Plop!” he said again.

His mother laid slices of bread on the oven rack, moved the speckleware coffeepot off the heat and dumped in a cup of cold water to settle the grounds. The kitchen smelled so good it made Cord’s mouth water.

She motioned him to a chair. “Coffee?”

“Please.” He pushed his cup across the table toward her.

“There is no cream, I’m afraid. Bessie hasn’t been milked yet.”

“Black’s fine.”

She turned back to the stove. “Molly, lift those bacon slices onto the platter now. And no snitching!”

The girl clunked down a china platter of bacon in front of him. “No snitching,” she whispered, then twirled back to the frying pan.

“Wouldn’t dream of snitching,” he murmured. That brought a giggle from Molly and a sharp look from Mrs. Malloy.

“Daniel, pour those eggs into Molly’s pan and stir them around.”

“Aw, Ma, let Molly stir them around. I’m gettin’ too old for this cooking stuff. Besides, she’s a girl.”

“You are most certainly not too old for ‘this cooking stuff.’ In this household everyone does their share.”

“Sure can’t wait ’til I’m growed up,” he muttered.

“Even ‘growed-ups’ help out!” his mother replied.

All through the meal Cord tried to catch Mrs. Malloy’s eye, but she steadfastly refused to look at him. Daniel, on the other hand, gazed at him with intelligent blue eyes and peppered him with questions in between bites of scrambled eggs.

“What’s your horse’s name?”

“Sally.”

“How old is she?”

“About three years. Got her when she was just a filly.”

“Can I ride her?”

“No. She’s too much horse for a boy your age.”

“Do you like venison jerky?”

“Yes, I do.”

“What about chocolate cake?”

“Well, sure, son, everybody likes chocolate cake. You gonna bake one?”

“Nah. But I keep hopin’ my mama will bake one someday.”

Mrs. Malloy said nothing at all. When the last slice of toast disappeared, Daniel and Molly scooped the dishes off the table into the dishpan in the sink, and Cord waited for orders from his employer.

Five minutes went by while Mrs. Malloy sipped her coffee. Finally he cleared his throat and she looked up. She looked paler than ever this morning.

“You want me to milk your cow, ma’am?”

“No.”

“How ’bout I fix your front gate?”

“What?”

“Your gate. Yesterday I accidentally knocked it down.”

“Oh. Yes, do repair it.”

“And the fence? Wood looks half-rotten, and—”

“Of course.”

“I’ll need to get lumber from the sawmill in town. You have a wagon?”

She didn’t answer.

“Then there’s the barn roof and the corral and the front porch step and the rusted door screen and...” Hell, she wasn’t even listening.

“Yes, fix it all, please. I have accounts with the merchants in town if you need...nails or...things.”

“Kin I help him, Ma?” Daniel called from the sink.

Molly splashed soapy water at her brother. “An’ me, too?”

“We’ll see,” said Mrs. Malloy quietly.

Cord picked up his hat from the hook near the back door. “Guess I’ll be going on into town, then. You want anything from the mercantile, ma’am?”

“A newspaper. And some flour and a bag of coffee beans. Maybe one of chicken mash, too.”

He studied her hands, cradling the china coffee cup. The knuckles were reddened. Daniel and Molly were making plenty of noise having a soapsuds-splashing contest, so he risked a question for her ears alone.

“Miz Malloy, how long have you been on your own out here?”

She glanced up at him, then quickly refocused on her coffee. “Seven years.”

“Uh, is there a Mr. Malloy?”

Her shoulders stiffened under the faded green calico. “There is. Or rather there was.”

“What happened to him? The War?”

“I assume so. He went off to fight and he never came home.”

Cord’s first thought blazed through his mind like a fire arrow. What a damn fool. “If it’s not being too nosy, how have you managed all these years?”

Her laugh surprised him. “Believe it or not, until six months ago I had a hired man.”

It was his turn to laugh. “Sure hope you didn’t pay him much.”

“No, I—Why do you ask?”

He stuffed back a snort. “I can’t see that your hired man did a da—Darn thing around the place.”

She set her cup down with a snick. “Most assuredly he did not,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “But I trusted him around my children.”

He stared at her. “Ma’am, you don’t know me from Adam. How come you trust me around your children?”

She met his gaze with calm gray eyes. “I don’t really know why, Mr. Winterman. I just do. Only once before have my instincts been wrong, and that had nothing to do with my children.”

Eleanor rose and moved into the kitchen. “Children, stop that!” She rescued the suds-soaked dish towel, and when they rattled past her out the back door, she wrung it out and hung it on the rack by the stove. When she turned back, Mr. Winterman’s chair was empty.

She bit her lip and watched her new hired man push carefully through the screen and walk out the front door with a slow, easy grace. She couldn’t tell him everything. She just couldn’t.

Chapter Three

The two kids tumbled down the porch steps after him. “Watch out for that loose board,” he cautioned.

“What loose bo—?” Daniel’s shoe snagged on the rotted step and just as he was about to take a tumble Cord scooped him up under one arm.

“That loose board.” He set the scrawny form on the ground. “Watch where you put your feet.”

Cord headed for the barn, Molly tagging at his heels. “Where ya’ goin’, mister?”

“Town.”

“How come?”

“Need some coffee and flour and chicken mash for your mother and some lumber to repair the porch step.” And the fence and the gate and the barn and...

“Kin I come?” Daniel asked.

“Maybe. If you tell me where your ma keeps your wagon and ask her permission.” The boy danced off, leaped over the loose porch step and slammed the screen door.

Molly tugged his sleeve. “I’ll tell you where the wagon is. It’s out behind the barn. But I don’t wanna go to town,” she added.

“You don’t? Why’s that?”

“Cuz everybody there’s bigger’n me and...and Mr. Ness yells at me.”